January 4th 2021

Today was a day of two very different halves. The morning was lazy and domesticated, food centred and dry. The afternoon was busy walking, talking, opening presents and getting very, very wet.

What you can’t see is the river of rain running down my nose.

We got up at a relatively normal time today. We’re still technically on “holiday” time. Even without the new lockdown starting tomorrow, Wee Daftie would have been off nursery today and we didn’t have any plans til after lunch so I just let her be my alarm clock this morning.

In general, she just lies in bed and hollars for me when she wakes up. It took her roughly four years to realise that she could leave her bed in the morning. I’ve never told her that she couldn’t get up but I’ve never really encouraged it either. Trouble was, the first time she worked out she could leave her bed was about 3am, when she climbed into my bed and I was woken up by her face staring at me.

It was a miracle I didn’t shreik. Thankfully, she doesn’t sneak through very often. Not because she isn’t welcome, but more because I’m not sure my nerves could take the fright on a regular basis.

I wanted cereal for brekkie this morning. Wee Daftie told me I should have toast. I think we all know what happened.

After breakfast, we did some washing, played with her Hotwheels car collection, did a couple of games on my tablet, did lots of drawing and read loads of books.

We did a lot of things sitting down in preparation for using our legs for good in the afternoon. Which we certainly did.

We had leftovers from lunch so we left it for Daddy Daftie, complete with thoughtful note.

After lunch, we hopped on a bus and went to meet one of Wee Daftie’s official unofficial Aunties. As blessed as I have been with my new Mammy Mates, I am so grateful for the friendships I have from pre-Daftie days. The Auntie we met today is one of my oldest (in every sense of the word) friends in Edinburgh and had Christmas presents to exchange so decided that a huge walk along the Water of Leith would be a great plan.

Dafties on a bus! Wearing our masks with pride

We met at the Shore and made our way along to Inverleith Park, where we found a suitable bench to sit on and exchange gifts.

We had clocked up and impressive 8,000 steps by the time we stopped, my girl and I, so I knew we would smash it by the time we made it home. And smash the target we did.

We had a glorious day, soggy, chatty and full of fun. After we said to goodbye to Auntie Numbnuts (my nickname for her, not Daftie’s), we finished our walk by singing our way through the rain. We were thoroughly soaked, again, when we got home. Soaked but stoked. Really proud of my girl and what we achieved today. She is really getting into our fundraising. She doesn’t know exactly what it’s for, but she knows it helps. And every step we take, every donation we get helps Refuge to help others every day.