A lovely long holiday break for all the family - first of all in London visiting Grandma Rachel and various other relatives, then at a cottage in deepest Perthshire with the massed Warranders and Marshalls, then back in Aberdeen for Hogmanay and a week of sub-zero temperatures and too much chocolate. Scott had his first proper encounter with Father Christmas, for whom he generously left out a piece of cheese and a glass of water. In return Santa brought him (among many other things) a toy taxi, a packet of Post-it notes and a Bob the Builder watch. See the photos <here>.

Having got all his teeth (and having also fully got the hang of presents), Scott's second birthday went off a bit more smoothly than the first, and the cake even had sugar in it this time! Mum and Dad were still too cowardly to have a proper kids' party, so it was a family gathering again, with the addition of cousin Ellie. See some pictures <here>.

In an attempt to teach Scott some social graces (ie sitting at the table while he eats) and to give Mum some time to update this web page, Mum and Dad have decided to abandon Scott to the tender mercies of William Hulme's Day Nursery (or "mursery" as Scott calls it) for one day a week. After being fooled for the first two weeks by the lavish provision of cars to ride in and potato Smiley Faces to eat, he wised up and started complaining about being left, but he seems to have settled in now and even says "See you next week!" when he leaves.

Scott's first holiday in the sun - a week in Portugal, in a villa in Carvoeiro on the Algarve, with Mum and Dad and Grandma Wilma and Great-Auntie Chrissie. After a fairly traumatic check-in procedure, a good time was had by all - Scott wasn't too keen on the sea (he'll never make a surfer at this rate), but he definitely took to the sand, the swimming pool and all the waiters making a fuss of him. Among the highlights of the holiday were the mini-car at the "Zoomarine" theme park and the banana split with a sparkler in, but Scott also particularly enjoyed getting biscuits every morning from Grandma and Great-Auntie's bedside table. Click <here> for the photos.

Scott went to visit his great-great-aunt Helen in Glascwm for the second time, and (apart from a minor incident involving his scooter, his bottom lip and some hard tarmac) had a lovely time. He got lots of fresh air and exercise, even though he abandoned walking in favour of his back carrier, and of course lots of biscuits and icecream at Margaret and Hugh's. Click <here> to see photos of Scott in Glascwm.

Scott's very first cousin was born today. Ellie Joy Marshall was born at 1:40 pm in a Glasgow, weighing in at 7 pounds 15 ounces. Mother and baby are doing fine (dad hasn't managed to pick his chin off the floor yet). Scott has mastered saying "baby Ellie", which he will be using to full effect when he visits soon. You can see some pictures of baby Ellie <here>.

Another year, another Wayward reunion. Scott's second (see his Scotland visit from August 2000 for last years adventure). The Wayward 2001 reunion took place in Copenhagen, home to Anette, who did all the organising. Scott would have liked to have spent the whole week in Copenhagen, especially in the park where there was a great sand filled play area. Unfortunately, he had to make do with just a weekend. This was the first time that Scott really took notice of the fact he was going on an aeroplane ("Scott's plane") and he seemed to quite like it, which meant a fairly stress free journey for mum and dad. He also abandoned the idea of going to bed early with a babysitter and instead stayed out late (2230!). Another big highlight of Copenhagen for Scott was getting to have chicken and chips from the kiddies' menu at a Mexican restaurant. The man who brought Scott his chips was a hero. Scott was very nice asking for his meal too - "man chips, man chips". <Here> are some pictures of the trip.

Scott went to a kiddies' fun day at Bolsover Castle near Chesterfield today. He went with dad and Ramesh and Zak - who is nearly five. When he got to Bolsover he met Ramesh's brother's son Ben who kindly made Scott an orange crown to wear, which Scott is very attached to. The day was fantastic and Scott loved everything, especially the African drummers. He also loved to roll around in the grass and push dad over quite a lot.

Scott was left alone without any parental guidance for the very first time today. He was left at the Manley Park Play Centre creche for a couple of hours while mum was doing some voluntary work. He seemed pretty unperturbed by the experience and the following week when dad sat with him for a while, he wandered off and rejected his dad's company in favour of a grass cutting machine!

Scott has been having another long weekend in London, enjoying the delights of "sunny" Greenwich. Apart from spending lots of time in Greenwich Park; enjoying the wonderful playground and deciding he's scared of pigeons; Scott had visitors on Sunday - Guy and Kate and James, Miriam, Robert and Christopher. A big event in Scott's development was the very first evening where neither mum nor dad were present for Scott's dinner, bath, book and bed. This was due to dad being back at work in Manchester and mum being at her ten-year service Arup's award in central London. Fortunately grandma Rachel coped admirably and the evening went off without a hitch.

Scott's mum whisked him off to Birmingham to visit great-grandmother Janet and grandmother Rachel, while dad stayed at home ill in bed. Scott being a star traveller charmed various other passengers on the train from Manchester to Birmingham and back again. He also spent the day showing off to the three generations of his mum's family by performing some of the songs he now knows, especially "Wind The Bobbin Up", which is currently Scott's favourite and he not only sings but does the actions and loves to shout "Door" and "Knee". One of the side-effects of Scott's love of this song is that any time a door is mentioned Scott now has to run over to a door and point to it. Just so you are aware what a door is.

Scott is a big fan of music and likes nothing better to dance, sing and even knock out a tune on a variety of instruments; kazoo, tambourine, xylophone. To Scott's great delight a fantastic opportunity has presented itself every Wednesday in Chorlton, right on Scott's doorstep. Rhythm and Rhyme is a club for toddlers to dance to music, play music and sing music. First week nerves and a lingering bug meant that Scott didn't really enjoy his first day at Rhythm and Rhyme. The weeks since have gone down a storm and now Wednesday morning is one of the highlights of Scott's week.

Scott visited Edinburgh for the Easter weekend. He had intended going to Glasgow to visit Aunt Tracey and Uncle Chris, however circumstances made this impossible. Basically, Scott has been a bit poorly. When he went to the doctor it transpired that he possibly has had Rubella (apparently the MMR is only successful in 90% of cases and this is one of the best percentages for any immunisation). Since Aunt Tracey is pregnant this made things slightly difficult. At short notice however, mum had found an apartment to rent in Edinburgh and so a Scottish trip was on the cards after all. Scott had a fantastic weekend, visiting another zoo. Lots of relatives were down from Aberdeen (granny Wilma for the weekend with Chrissy, Bev, Karen and Robert coming to the zoo too). Scott got to see some old friends in Edinburgh, mum and dad got to go out for a fantastic meal with Gwen and Derek and Scott even made it across to Glasgow on the Sunday to visit Anne and baby Tommy.

Scott being a commited European, decided he needed a bit of continental flavour in his life, just to make sure he grows up knowing what "Integrated Public Transport System" actually means. He also wanted to sample some real cafe society, where you have a bit of choice and free rein to run around screaming and touching everything. The whole family therefore set off for the joys of Berlin. Even in rather drab, grey weather conditions, there is still a lot of fun to be had in Berlin. Especially for mum and dad since Scott had his very first baby-sitter (grandmothers not counting as real baby-sitters), so mum and dad got to venture out alone for a meal. Scott had a second visit to a zoo. Berlin zoo was fantastic. Scott loved the lions and monkeys and hippos and got very excited, waving his arms about and bouncing up and down with joy. Best of all though were the penguins. Jumping off the rocks and swimming around and shaking their tails dry when they came out of the water. It was fascinating stuff and Scott would have happily watched them for hours. There is however a play-park in Berlin zoo with a sand pit in it so there were other things to do. You can see some pictures of Scott's time in Berlin <here>.

Scott has learned to talk, but only to the animals so far. He knows what a dog, cat, mouse, cow, sheep, horse, owl, bee, rooster, lion, rabbit, and snake say, and the cat sound has an mandatory accompanying hand movement. He doesn't know what a camel says because mum and dad haven't been able to enlighten him. He does know to scream if he sees a crocodile though. More usefully, he can say "ball", "bin", "bowl", "again", "bye-bye", "Dad" and (in a very loud voice) "Mum".