Christmas meet ups

Lots of family meet ups took place for our little family over the festive period. This involved us zipping all over the place to far flung exotic places such as Kingston upon Thames, Tamworth, Stratford Upon Avon and Calne. It was genuinely ace to catch up with everyone, it really doesn’t happen often enough. The Olephant comported himself with his customary class and dignity throughout all of these encounters.

We went on our annual trip to Kingston with Dad where we met with one of my God parents and some of my Mum and Dad’s friends from when they lived in London. Ollie got a solid 9/10 for this encounter as he was charming before and during dinner but then went on a Rhinoceros-esque rampage all over the restaurant. Rosie and I took it in turns to police him whilst he explored, at top toddler speed, a circular route around the three storey pub we were in.

In Stratford we had the traditional BellMillerBendleWimperisElKashoryWebberWagstaff family meet up where an eatery is bought to it’s knees for a lunch time. Ollie got a highly commended 9/10 for this encounter. I’m not sure this high score was due to any excellence on his part (thus the dropped mark) but more due to his aunts, uncle, grandparents, niece and nephew who acted as guards and entertainers all in one.

In Calne we had a lovely meal and playdate for the Olephant with Grandad and Granny Miller. He got a rather super 9.5/10 for his performance this time around. Ollie ate his way through the afternoon in a happy food induced haze. As a note and explanation as to why he dropped 0.5 points – during this gorging experience he did horrible, despicable things to a poor defenceless apple. He eats it from top to bottom leaving nothing behind…hundreds of little slurpy bites.

Finally in Tamworth we got to catch up with Grauntie Joyce, Amber and Matt for Joyce’s ace ‘Roast’ and a rather fun parcel related game*. He got a 9/10 for this performance, he missed out on a 10 here due to his unfortunate habit of literally pushing fistfuls of food in his mouth whilst trying to talk. The only reason he stayed above a 7 is due to his goonish smile whilst doing so. It makes up for a lot.

*Rules for present game can be found here: Present game All in all pretty successful set of family get togethers! No one disgraced themselves and Ollie managed to act as though he was a reasonable and mildly loveable little human being.