Growing

Esther is growing! She now sports a shiny new tooth...

She is also now quite capable of being elsewhere to the place in which she was put. I left her on her changing mat for about a minute, and found her here...

More treating

Lydia has now also got a button jar. Here she is the first time it was filled - very exciting! The treat was a snack with Mummy just before Jumping Beans. Very good indeed.

McTreat

We have given in! Naomi and Miriam have had their first trip to a certain clown-sponsored fast food chain. Over the past two weekends they filled their button jars, and first Naomi volunteered that she'd like to go. Then Miriam.

I can report that Happy Meals are much the same as they've always been - though the ordering process is a bit more technological than I remember.

Naomi genuinely described this as a "dream come true".
Even better for her, within a few days she got to experience it again with one of her friends!

Miriam was so captivated by EVERYTHING in the place that eating a small packet of McNuggets and fries took nearly an hour!

Back in the 'Boro

This past week I went on another visit to Loughborough, but not at all connected with my past there. I was at the OR59 conference, which is all about Operational Research (arguably another name for the kind of things I do). A different mixture of people to my normal conference crowd and very interesting.

Conference accommodation was the student halls, which are actually pretty nice:

In one of the social events there was a pub quiz, and I ended up on the winning team. I didn't contribute much beyond several bonus points for the connections between answers in each round, but somehow I ended up with the remainder of the team prize, which has obviously been polished off very quickly in our house:

I also had an excuse to get another umbrella, and was able to combine it with my first bit of Loughborough merchandise!

Of course, I also had a quick visit to Civil Engineering for a chat there, and a nice walk through the ever- pretty campus.

In other news, this week I also was in the honouring position of delivering the first proper (that is, with technical content) lecture to the undergraduate CS students. They all looked so keen! I think it went well: it was certainly fun from my end.

Bikes

Also learning (after giving it a go a while ago) is Naomi. She's getting the hang of it too...

Worth a little celebration...