Leah turns 3 on the Orkneys

St. Magnus Cathedral

June 1 is Leah's birthday, and she turned three today. We spent the day in Kirkwall, visiting the St. Magnus Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace, then had a lunch of cheese toastie and sweet potato cake at a cafe across the street. Since we are just about to pack everything up to leave St. Andrews, we kept the gifts on the small, portable side, but as we walked through Kirkwall we did manage to find her two stuffed Elsa and Anna dolls, and a Gruffalo matching game. We also stopped in at the Kirkwall leisure center for an hour on the indoor toddler play area, and another hour in the leisure pool. This pool was a bit smaller and less well-equipped than the one we usually visit in Dundee...only one small slide here, and no wave pool or current river for the big kids. Also, the water was a bit...cool! Leah didn't mind, though. She was chuffed that there was a big box of rubber duckies available to borrow, and so she and I spent most of the hour lining the duckies up and having them discuss their upcoming birthday parties in turn.

We stopped at the Tesco for a birthday cake and candles, and for Leah's chosen birthday meal: macaroni cheese and cucumbers. We found a cute sparkler candle shaped like a "3" along with party hats. Tesco gives away free bits of fruit to kids who are shopping, so she was thrilled to have a handful of strawberries and blueberries to eat as we shopped, and even more thrilled that when she went back for more, one of the employees gave her a small box of plastic jewelry with a plastic key. That left a huge impression on her, and when we got in the car for the ride home, she quickly put all the jewelry on, then promptly fell asleep.

When she woke up later that evening, she was a bit groggy and grouchy but did come around when she saw her birthday cake all candled up. She was completely shocked when we lit the sparkler, as I don't think she had seen that before, but when she realized that we didn't find it alarming, she started to smile, and even managed to blow out all three candles as well!