In France Charles developed a couple of new words: "Nanny" for his Granny Louise (he can't yet say Gr so we are persisting in calling her Granny as is her/our preference and will wait to see what he does when he can say Gr), "ow" and a fair shot at "no no no". He got on famously with the 8-month-old puppy Rosie, who is also rather toddler-like at present, all enthusiasm and clumsiness and testing boundaries. He loved playing with his Granny very much, with some real bonding being achieved by the end of the week.

Today he chatted at length about Nanny so eventually I rang her up and he listened to her on the phone, silent but with a huge smile spreading over his face.

We are going to get the webcam and Skype working soon so he can keep up the contact more easily, and also start building better contacts with his other grandparents. Jonny has already supervised his first webcam family contact, with our cousin Lizzy.

I told lots of people this in person because it's so lovely.

On the day we went to Wychwood, I walked through town to the station with Charles in the sling on my back, and after a bit he went to sleep there. I was choosing books in a charity shop when he woke up suddenly and started whimpering and saying "oh dear ... oh no ... oh dear". I assumed this was because he was upset at being woken up and tried to soothe him with chat and gentle rocking while paying and walking on towards the station. After a few minutes of this "oh dear" litany, it was clear it was more than just waking-up grumpiness and was about to take him out of the sling to investigate, when a passing woman stopped me.

"Excuse me," she said. "Did you know your child is only wearing one welly?"

"Ah, no," I replied. "Thanks, I'll go retrace our steps."

So off we went, and just as we got back to the charity shop, another woman came out, holding his missing welly and looking both ways along the street. I hailed her, and thanked her and she said "oh yes, it was on the floor just by the books, I noticed it just now". I slid it back onto Charles's foot, and he stopped saying "oh dear" and sighed happily.

That will teach me to make assumptions about why he's upset.