The gorgeous babe has been and gone

chaos has ruled and occasionally been overruled (on one occasion causing babe to look up at me from semi reclining position in bath, with hand on hip and a concentrated scowl, to say "I'm really getting very cross with you now").
I had plans for the aftermath of the visit but the merry arrival of Mum and (slightly earlier) grandad ,the one from work and the other from pub, caused chaos to rule again.
The dog and cats added to the general insanity with much weaving in between legs and sometimes leaping onto laps and tables.
Babe was holding court between Mum (who had been missing her) and Grandad (who was making balloon toys). I was trying to do some sort of interwoven cooking thing in between quick cuddles with babe and having a much deserved fag and sneakily feeding the animals without telling babe who believes it is her prerogative to do so but takes a very long time over it. (as she is a tidy babe and has to pick up all the spillages of which there are many)
Finally Babe and Mum left (pausing only for babe to throw up in the hall. This may have been due to an excess of home made cake...cooking is what she and Grandad mainly do when she visits...or to a nasty cough).*

I went shopping yesterday in search of something for babe to do which would give us GPs a brief respite from time to time. I went to Boots first (we needed toothpaste for milk teeeth). Naturally I looked for pink and purple pastel stuff, this being clear labelling for small girl equipment, surely? But no. As I wandered around, peering shortsightedly at patches of pink and purple on the shelves and expecting to find toys, I found baby gear, beauty gear, make up, excercise gear, hair products, oh all kinds of stuff which I would expect female people aged 0 to 30ish at least to be using. Possibly 0 to 50ish.
Not that I have any objection to pink and purple. It's just the labelling system seems to be saying something about women that I thought we didn't say any more.**

I went to the Early learning centre in the end, as the ages of potential users are clearly printed on the packets.

* Not due to us smoking...we all go outside religeously and surreptitiously for our cigs when she's around.
** To be fair the labelling colours for blokes seems to be equally indiscriminate. After a brief wallow in pale blue and yellow, all male persons are clearly expected to be attracted by black/metallic dark blue with splats and stripes in yellow, red or white.