On the meeting of my nieces

If you've read the description of the nature of this blog, you'll know that I reserve myself the right to use this blog to occasionally indulge in my nieces, nephew and mooses. The latter do not feature in this entry though the first is prominent. The middle one is only tangentially mentioned. (Sorry Edward.)

My sister Alice and my new niece Anna arrived in Montreal on Friday. Owing to traffic, Pappy only picked me up after picking up Alice and Anna up at the airport. I barely got a chance to look at her before getting in the front seat, with her behind me. It was a little strange and slightly hard to take to have this little bundle of joy behind me, and not be able to properly see her!
When we got back to North Hatley, Désirée, my first niece, (now three years old) was at my parents' house as my brother Philip and Dominique were off having dinner together. As the senior cousin, she greeted her new cousin with interest as well as bit of refusal to be photographed. (I suspect that she is slightly fed up with being photographed by parents and grandparents.)
Alice said that Anna was reasonably good on the flights from Gander, so Alice wasn't overly exhausted. She therefore agreed to pose for a few photos on the sofa. After a bit, I got Désirée to join in the session.
Anna is about three months old and, as you can see in the photographs, is in a slightly roly-poly stage, with plump "hamster" cheeks. She is a mite fussy, but can be utterly charming. My meeting was at the oldest age of any of my nieces or nephews to date. Edward was three weeks old when I first met him and Désirée was one day old!

On Saturday, Alice put Anna in her complicated wrap thingy, and went to the market along with "Granny", Désirée and your humble correspondent, a.k.a. the doting uncle.
This being North Hatley in summer, we ran into quite number of friends, all of whom were eager to greet the new arrival. Among them were my best friend James, Jenn, his wife and my quasi-niece Isla. We made some arrangements to have lunch with the latter two and the former had to drive into Montreal to pick up a friend at the airport.

After lunch, there was a drift towards the PV for swiming and socialization. Isla and Désirée are of an age (give or take six months) and had a lot of fun playing in the water...
...sometimes by themselves...
...and sometimes with Alice, Dominique and Jenn. Here they are playing ring-around-the-rosie.
Granny, Anna and myself watched from the shore. There was a short-lived and relatively unsuccessful attempt to introduce Anna to Lake Massawippi. Still lots of time.
Anyway, here is me holding Anna in my parents' front hall. (Note the smile on Anna. Of course this may be because her Mummy is behind the camera!)