Not just Valentine's Day

Twenty-one years ago today, my second daughter was born. Named after her great-grandmother and my mother, Hannah Barbara also gave a nod to the world of cartoons, which turned out to be appropriate as she has the looks of a cartoon princess. Here she is as a toddler.

But, inevitably, time moves on and so today I drove down to Manchester, where she's at university, to meet her for breakfast. We went to The Deaf Institute, which is our favourite place to go to eat together, and then the plan was that we'd go shopping. I'd brought a few little things down with me, plus this lovely homemade card from her grandmother, featuring a giraffe, which has always been Hannah's favourite animal.

We drank coffee, chatted, ate, chatted some more and in the end Hannah said that, actually, she wasn't bothered about shopping and why didn't we just stay there, in Deaf, which I have to say suited me down to the ground. It's such a wonderful space and the staff are friendly and easygoing. More coffee, then, and some kind of fruit smoothie for HB, plus more chat.

Eventually, though, we had to go to pick up some of her friends and then take them all up to Hannah's mum's house, where her birthday party was taking place, this evening.

Having reluctantly said goodbye, I headed over to the office to have a quick catch up with a couple of colleagues and then I hung around to wrap the Minx's presents because although it's not just Valentine's day, today, it still *is*. Presents wrapped - and after a quick diversion home to pick up one I'd forgotten - I headed south for a little romance.

We had a lovely evening: entertaining and thoughtful presents, an excellent takeaway, Prosecco and Fruit & Nut. Hooray!