Saturday, August 27, 2016

It's a long way to "Aberdeen".....it's a long way to go.....

I really didn't think I would get funding from work to go to my favourite triennial conference in holland this year. So when I did I was surprised and also very nervous about flying all that way with a 15 month old on my own as Aaron couldn't get enough holiday to come with us the whole time. Unfortunately freya is too big for a bassinet on the plane....so we had to buy her a seat.....or I would go insane with a wriggly girl sitting on me the whole way. With very low expectations of how well the trip would go....we set off. Fortunately freya did great and slept more than I thought. Delayed flights meant she didn't get much chance to run around at the airports where we had to change planes...so we did have to run up and down the aisles a few times. Freya turned on the smiles and got lots of attention from surrounding passengers and crew, and only screamed a couple of times and only briefly. I managed to keep it together until Heathrow when I almost lost it, when going through security for the 4th time on the trip, they confiscated the baby paracetamol...then I had to carry all my bags between 2 terminals as trolleys were not allowed to go on the train...and no one offered to help. Anyway we made it from wellington to Aberdeen ...very tired and jet lagged.

We had 6 days in Aberdeen catching up with Freya's cousins...and for Freya to become familiar with her grandparents who had volunteered to look after her the following week during the conference. Unfortunately the trip seemed to coincide with a new clingy phase for Freya....very unlike her normal adventurous and happy self...so this made it a little harder and frustrating. 
 At the playground with her cousins....
Making music together ;)
I shouldn't have been surprised, but the summer weather in Aberdeen was rather disappointing...but Freya had fun playing with her cousins toys and going to the winter gardens at the park, playing in her nagymamas garden, seeing real pigs, cows and sheep at the petting farm...although she was pretty scared of them all except the chickens. 

 Nagymama feeding the sheep....
 Playing in Nagymama's garden
Learning how to be a monkey from her cousins!
 

Great to catch up with the family and over the space of a week we were mostly over the jet lag. 




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