T'was The Night Before Christmas...

...and all through the house, 

Not a creature was moving,

Except for my son who, on Christmas eve, decided that it was time to start walking. There we were, down at the lovely little beach house we'd hired for the week, and suddenly Toby is strolling across the kitchen. Literally like that. One second he's crawling and cruising around the furniture  just like always, and the next he's standing in the middle of the room looking at us all and wondering what all the fuss was about.

And since then, he's been on two feet as often as possible.

So now we have a toddler. For real.

It's really strange - yesterday while tidying my study I was looking at some photos from a year ago, when he was just a tiny little squidglet of a baby, and it's hard to believe that this little fella toddling around and getting into everything is the same person. I've been looking forward to him walking all year - looking forward to the independence and increased interactivity that it brings with it. But now that it's happened, there's also something ineffably sad about it. I hadn't expected that at all.

So... on to other news. We had a lovely week down at the coast. It involved beaches, swimming, lots of reading and sleeping and playing games and eating. Christmas day we cooked a nice lunch, and called families, and just generally had a mellow time. Our internet access was basically non-existent, which was a great excuse not to even think about work. The dog got to go to the beach, which she loved. Toby came to like the beach, although at first he was a little reluctant about the entire experience:

But he soon came around:

Now we're home again, and have another week until work opens again, which I intend to use to get a few outstanding jobs done around the house. I've also got vague plans to do some writing. I've got the first five thousand or so words of something new done, and I'm hoping to make a real dent in it over summer. It's tentatively called 'Orion: The Hunter' and it's a high pace, just a little silly, action adventure mystery - really different to my last couple of books, and is proving a lot of fun to write. I'll post a few more details as it progresses.

Anyway, the boy is awake, so now my day begins in earnest. Hope you all had a lovely festive season.