Well - it happened. I had my first day back at work. Oddly enough, it felt surprisingly normal, even though I'd been away for thirteen months. Once I was in my work environment again it felt a little as though no time had passed, just like the way you feel when you come back to normal life after being on holiday. And the weirdest thing was that if almost felt like Bridget didn't exist, because my life at work is something that happens before Bridget was born. I should have taken a photo in to remind me that she was around.

We left Bridget at Stepping Stones at about ten to eight in the morning, having arrived before the first member of staff. She wasn't convinced about being sat down on the floor with a toy, but we managed to extricate ourselves before she started screaming. We left with some trepidation about how the day would go, because she had some snuffles yesterday and we were worried about the onset of a cold. I thought about her from time to time during the day, but not as much as I'd expected, and mostly I was kept too busy.

It was another matter on the drive home, when my mind was free to rove again. How had it gone? Was she alright? Had she screamed for hours? We walked into the nursery not knowing quite what to expect. What we really didn't expect was a Bridget fast asleep in the arms of one of the staff. Apparently, she'd nodded off ten minutes before, having not slept since sometime in the morning. No wonder she was tired. Being handed over to me woke her up again, which she wasn't pleased about so she howled for a couple of minutes before being settled by a game of Peekaboo. We had some brief notes left by her main carer, who said that Bridget had eaten most of the lunch provided, had slept in the morning and had been 'really happy' all day.

Feeling a good deal more at ease, we drove home. Bridget was smiley and happy on the way home, through her evening meal, while playing and having her bath, and while being put to bed. My only complaint was not having enough time with her in the evening. I don't know how Mike copes.

So all seems to be well. I wish I didn't have to do it again tomorrow, but at least that will be the last time until next Wednesday.

We have discovered a new phenomenon. It is the discovery and exploration of the unsuspected riches of one's surroundings brought on by the need to do manageable walks with pushchair and baby-rucksack. We christen it 'Paedogeognosis'.

We knew about the moor, of course, and the wonderful large-scale walks to be had in that direction. And we did know the walk up the Taw River to the Tarka footbridge. But we had not discovered the path past the Wesley flagpole towards Skaigh; we had not discovered the blackberry farm-track north of the village; we had not explored the spread of crumbling lanes past the A30; we had not found the path-hatched woodlands North of Okehampton; we had not discovered the deep-shaded and magical park that hides behind that town's municipal gardens; we had not discovered the beautiful valley of the East Okement, nor its looming Viaduct... Thanks to Bridget, our mental maps of the place where we live are stretching out: she provides the weights that stops them curling up at the edges.

The first lunchtime visit to Stepping Stones went down well, with Bridget coping much better with the noise of the end of the morning session, and amazing the staff by how quickly she wolfed down her (brought from home) food. Last week we had a three-hour session over lunch, again with general success but problems over getting Bridget to take a nap in a cot. So, on Friday, I took Bridget down at 9 o'clock, armed with the toys that she mostly ignores in her cot and a copy of her Wiggles lullaby CD. The stay this time lasted for four and a half hours and was very successful apart from the idea of sleeping in a cot. Bridget apparently had a nap in a push-chair in the end (a lot of the children seem to sleep like that - the staff are very accommodating about trying various alternative strategies). She also enjoyed her time playing, and was happy to eat the whole of the lunch provided by the nursery. Everything seems to be going very well indeed.

Tomorrow is the big test. I have my first day back at work - about which I seem to have thought not at all, as far as it concerns work - and Bridget will be at Stepping Stones from 7.45 to 5.45. It seems like an awful long time to me, but we have to allow ourselves time to get in and out of Exeter. I know that I'll probably find it much harder than she will, but I think we'll both be happy about the reunion at the end of the day. A report will be on your screens tomorrow, I hope.

The other day, I was drinking a glass of water, which always fascinates Bridget and tends to lead to demands for the glass. Once I'd finished, I lifted it up for her to pretend to drink out of it. She did so, and then pushed it back to me for me to drink. We repeated the process several times, much to her amusement, and it seemed pretty much like Bridget was indulging in her first bits of make-believe, since she knew after the first go that there was no water in the glass.

About two and a half months ago (I can't believe it's been that long) we wrote that Bridget would take a loaded spoon from a parental hand and move it to her mouth, sometimes via her hair, the chair, etc. Since then, most of her self-feeding has been accomplished with her fingers. However, in the last couple of weeks she has demanded a spoon, to the extent of refusing food being offered her by a parent if she doesn't have her own cutlery. Once the spoon is in her hand she will consent to be fed again, but will also make attempts to get stuff out of the bowl and into her mouth. This works fine with things like yoghurt and stodgy cereal, but is less effective with sloppy sauces... She also hasn't worked out entirely that it matters which end of the spoon goes in the bowl, and that it also matters which way up the spoon is. But then, she still hasn't sussed that her beaker has to be the right way up for her to drink out of it.

Not a huge amount of development on the words front. 'A' has now been confirmed beyond doubt as the word for 'Cat' (although it also covers dogs and other small furry quadrupeds) - but it has not been joined by anything else recognisable, unless we're right in identifying an attempted 'Hello' accompanying some fits of waving. Non-verbal communication is coming on, with Bridget regularly using head-shaking to mean 'No', or at least 'Not just at the moment.' Trouble is, it can also mean 'I want to shake my head'.

Bridget clearly recognizes the words 'shake' and 'wave', by the way. Very regularly, 'shake' will produce head-shaking and 'wave' hand-waving. I'm quite pleased about this, because it fits my understanding of language development and linguistic philosophy for words accompanying regular actions to come earlier than normal noun use. 'A'-for-cat was a bit of a disappointment, philosophically speaking...

Bridget can consistently post the white cylinder into the proper hole on her wooden drum, but gets instantly bored with the other shapes if they happen not to be in the perfect orientation. She can put one of her plastic cups inside another cup, then hold both of these and place them inside a third - and so on up to about five and occasionally more; but she makes no discriminations of size, and has to be presented with the cups in the correct order. Her manipulation skills are definitely improving, but her favourite sedentary game at the moment is still waving - preferably to a person who waves back, but, in the absence of volunteers, just waving is fine.

Having said all this, it's noticeable that she is actually playing all such games rather less at the moment: racing around crawling and climbing the stairs are much more interesting.

Bridget is getting more and more mobile. She crawls around at very high speed; she climbs the stairs several times a day (at full stretch doing a step in about five seconds); she pulls herself up to a standing position on anything available - including walls; she climbs over parents; she has on one occasion pulled herself up onto the seat of the futon in her room; and she has now stood up in the bath. In the train on the way back from London, the main thing that calmed the one brief howling outburst was the chance to crawl up Daddy's chest to reach the seatback behind him, and pull the reservation cards from the slots at the top.

She's not yet 'cruising' more than a step or two - it is still far, far more efficient to get down, crawl, and pull up again. And she's not yet showing any signs of caution: she will happily crawl off the edge of the bed, to be caught by a speeding parent just before she crashes into the floor. And, most upsettingly of all, she is not showing any signs of consideration for the effect of her scrambling and climbing on bits of parental anatomy that get in her way...