THE dank weather of late has grounded us chez Kat. The halycon days of running through cow fields like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music with the dogs frolicking and flinging themselves on every cowpat are momentarily over, well at least until the next bout of dry weather.

We have found ourselves battening down the hatches in Chipping Norton and spending more time together as a family.

Not a bad thing you understand, in fact we quite like each other’s company.

We’ve had our first fire of the year this side of summer thanks to a hideous chest of drawers that needed cremating – possibly the most useless, unfit for purpose piece of furniture I have ever put my smalls in.

Another positive outcome is that the house has never been so clean and tidy. Not a speck of dust nor a dirty skirt in any room. I have reacquainted myself with a duster and the furniture polish and home smells like a summer meadow despite the cold and wet. My dearly beloved has been meaning to sort out our family room since we moved; it has housed everything we didn’t know what to do with since we moved in last June.

The door has been kept firmly shut to any visitors, out of shame, but finally, after a Sunday afternoon of sorting it can now accommodate the entire family at the same time Our daughter Betsy seems to be hotfooting it through the baby benchmarks – at eight months she tucked her legs under her tummy and propelled herself forward like she was wearing a jetpack, circumnavigating around every room of the house, as if she were on an adventure.

She has also developed a firm affection for the television remote control. Such is her constant penchant to choose the family viewing and change the channel every few seconds we now remove the batteries. She hasn’t cottoned on quite yet... And it’s not just crawling that she has mastered recently; there now isn’t a piece of furniture that she doesn’t pull herself up on with a cheeky smile and a look of accomplishment like she has reached the top of a mountain.

The stage one car seat is now obsolete too. The days of staring into the back of the car and facing the dog guard is a thing of the past.

It was quite a momentous occasion when she realised that she could actually see mummy grappling with a gear stick .

There are several prerequisites though for the next car seat.

Not only are babies required to sit up unaided but there is also a minimum weight requirement.

Being slightly unsure about the exact weight of our daughter, this problem was solved in the supermarket during the family food shop.

After weighing the Cox’s apples my husband thrust Betsy on to the scales for an unconventional method of baby weighing.

The equivalent of 32 monetary pounds of fairtrade bananas later and we were happy that she was ripe for the next stage up.