Over and out

Well, the time has finally arrived - our first holiday in two years. I'm not sure taking Emily to a work conference in Ireland for 3 days last year counts as a holiday, even though she did enjoy the pool down in the spa! This is going to be a proper unplugged holiday, spending time with the family and hopefully having time to made reasonable headway in my summer reading of choice, Stephen King's Under The Dome. Better be good, it's taken up half the case. The other half's nappies.

Packing will be sooo much easier once Emily's a bit older - taking a cot sheet, 2 sleeping bags, a booster seat, nappies, baby milk and various food stuffs has taken up a lot of space which, frankly, I could have easily used for more books or pedicure products! I admit to being a slightly neurotic packer, at least on Emily's behalf, and I've put in 2 cans of baked beans and some Weetabix, just so that I know she'll be able to eat something for the first few days at least. Pathetic. Her eating patterns are really most irritating - yesterday we went to Ask, and she not only ate the mush food which I'd brought for her, but also quite a lot of garlic bread, some of Isabel's pasta, a large portion of raspberries and a scoop of chocolate ice cream. And then today she turned her nose up at my roast chicken Sunday dinner, and would only eat it if I pureed it. Grrrrr! I was very tempted to pack the hand blender but didn't in the end, let's hope I don't live to regret it.

So, since this is an unplugged holiday the laptop's staying home. Farewell laptop, I wish I could say I'll miss you, but that would be a lie. But I may miss my faithful readers - back with photos and tales of various escapades in a couple of weeks.....

Down with the kids

OK, I confess, I am not and have never been down with the kids. Even as a child I used to listen to Capital Gold (a now defunct golden oldies radio station), so sometimes it feels as if I grew up in the 1960s rather than the 1980s - I'm much better on 60s music than 80s! Husbandio will attest that I have terrible taste in music (Chicago, anyone, or a bit of Foreigner?) but I've got to the point of not caring. I like what I like, and I'm not that bothered if other people do or don't.

And one of the things I like is country music. My mum used to play Johnny Cash and others when I was a kid, and it's always stuck with me. One of her other favourites was Kris Kristofferson, and we went to see him play live last night at Cadogan Hall in London. It's the third time we've seen him, and this was without a doubt the best of the bunch. The concert really showcased the man's talent - it was just him, a guitar and a harmonica on stage for two hours, with a short interval. At times you could tell he was 74, but his voice hasn't really changed, like Johnny Cash's did as he got older. The only sign of age was when he occasionally struggled with the lyrics or with someone's name.

I think it's the the sheer poetry of his work which I like. The lyrics are just beautiful in many cases - how about "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free"? And I like the humour as well - The Silver Tongued Devil and I is a clever song, and a funny one, but also one with a real message - people do change when they drink, and we all have more than one side to us. And I always loved the lines "Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic food. He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes. Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends. Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again."

I felt sad when we left though since it seems unlikely that we'll see him play again - I wanted to freeze the whole thing in time, so that I could re-visit it whenever I want to. Guess I'll just have to keep listening to the new album to remind me of how much I enjoyed the evening. Thanks Mum, for introducing me to Kris, and taking me to see him one more time!

Two sides to every coin

Many bad things happened today:

1. I took Emily to nursery, but she threw up half way through the afternoon and had to be collected early.
2. I put my phone down on the garden table unaware that I'd put it into a puddle of water, and it then stopped working.
3. I blew up 30 balloons for Isabel's party and now my fingers hurt from tying knots in the tops of them.
4. I spent 2 hours weeding the front and back gardens so that the house looks nice and tidy for the party, and none of those blinkin' kids is going to appreciate my efforts. Plus I got stung through my gardening gloves by a stinging nettle and it still hurts some 6 hours later. If only some of the weeds had been dock leaves.
5. I read Isabel a long chapter from the Pippi Longstocking book which was illustrated by Lauren Child, and that amount of reading out loud made my unfeasibly large mouth ulcer really hurt.
   

But then again:

1. Emily spent at least some of the day at nursery, enabling me to get on with some jobs like making party bags and wrapping pass the parcel with Isabel, and generally getting ourselves into the party mood.
2. My phone recovered after a few hours in the airing cupboard.
3. At least I blew the balloons up with a pump and not by breathing, thereby avoiding hyperventilation.
4. The garden does look very nice and tidy, and some of the mums and dads might notice, even if the kids don't. And it gave me some exercise, and some time outdoors.
5. The Pippi Longstocking book is marvellous, and the chapter was so long that Isabel fell asleep reading her own book afterwards, so I could creep in, turn her light out, and give her a sneaky soppy Mummy kiss and an I Love You.

On balance, I think we're even!

A letter to myself

(with credit to Dooce, who also has a birthday around now, and wrote a post which inspired me to write this one)

Dear me,

Happy birthday! Since I'm not working in an office I've had many telephonic and e-mail and FB birthday greetings, but few in person, so I'm going to count this as one. It's funny, working from home on your birthday. I should have taken the day off I suppose, but instead I managed to arrange a meeting with the bank manager. How? Why?! Mystery to me. Anyhow, I do have a pedicure booked for later on, that's something to look forward to, and then a birthday tea with my nearest and dearest this evening, so perhaps for now I should enjoy the peace, and get some work done so as to be able to properly enjoy my evening.

Which brings me to my main point (and excuse the caps, but sometimes I need to shout at myself to make myself heard above the other voices, the ones which say"don't forget to order that repeat prescription" or "do you have enough hayfever tablets to take away on holiday with you?") - STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES!

Not literally, we don't have roses, and sunflowers aren't renowned for their aroma. No, the metaphorical roses. I need to pause, relax, stop rushing from one task to the next, and just enjoy my lovely children and gorgeous husband. Even my mother's started doing this (not enjoying my gorgeous husband, but counting her blessings!) - if she can learn to at the age of 66 then I can at the age of 38. In fact, if I'm doing it already, then I must be winning. Oh god, I'm competitive even when it comes to relaxing.

The busy dancer

I've been trying to work out how to reduce the number of things Isabel does after school, but she seems to like them all and it's tough working out what to drop. She currently does ballet and tap on Saturday morning, disco and drama on Monday evening, swimming on Wednesday and tennis on Fridays. I think we'll drop tennis, but I'm thinking of taking her to Beavers instead on Fridays, it sounds really fun. It's like a precursor to Cubs and Scouts, and several of her friends do it already. Trouble is, she also wants to do trampolining on Sunday mornings. It's making me knackered just thinking about it!

I'd pretty much decided to let her drop the ballet and disco, but then she had her annual show in our local theatre on Saturday, and it was so good that I think I've changed my mind. She really seemed to enjoy it, and even though she was exhausted by the end it was definitely worth it. It's been a great confidence builder for her - she always skips into her ballet lessons while she's often reluctant to go into school. I think we'll just let the summer go by and see what happens, no real need to decide now. Only two more days of school and then she's off until September - yay! Mind you, we already have lots of plans with a trip to Canada and a couple of weeks going to Supercamps. Wish I had 6 weeks off too.....!

The Green Belt

It won't be called the Green Belt for much longer, it'll soon be the Grey Belt if housing developments go on elsewhere like they do here. Since we moved in there's been a house built in the garden of the house which backs onto our garden , and now there's another one proposed for the garden on the other side of that. Now, granted they were big gardens, but now they're filled with such great big galumphing houses that both houses have tiny gardens.

We protested against the building of the first one but it went ahead anyway, and it's not actually too bad for us. You don't notice it unless you're in the corner of the garden by the veg patch, and you can also see it from our bedroom window. It's worse for our neighbours, who can see it every time they go up and down their stairs - that would drive me potty.

Granted, I suppose building in people's gardens is better than wiping out a few more fields, but one of the things I like about living out here is the sense of space, and that's going to disappear if this keeps on going. Someone told me that there might also be a problem with flooding - it won't affect us, since we're at the top of the hill, but if there's a lot of rain that can't soak into the ground (since the ground's covered in houses!) then it'll flow down the hill and flood the town. Not good. I'd like to say "Well, that's what planning laws are for, I'm sure they've taken account of this", but the cynic in me fears that isn't the case....

Fete Accompli

There's nothing quite like a local fete for gathering both tat and bargains. We double-feted today, attending first Isabel's school fete, and then my dad's local village fete. Got some real bargains - lovely kids books at the school fete at 20p a pop (and adults' books for £1) = I spent a fiver and we're set for weeks to come. Also some excellent samosas and other Asian food, thanks to the large Asian community at the school, plus delish cakes, and an ice cream van. Who could ask for more?

The village fete also had its attractions - a Puma helicopter which we watched take off and fly away (very cool!) and Isabel managed to get my dad to buy her a doll in its own rocking cot with blankets. For a bargainous £7! The doll's a bit scary to my mind, but Isabel seems to like her. And Husbandio bought me a necklace, how kind - for 10p! We do love a bargain.

The only other thing I managed to get, unfortunately, was a touch of sunburn, so I think I'm off to relax with one of my new books - adieu!

A shocking statistic

I spent the day at a meeting of educational publishers, much to Isabel's excitement - she made me promise to tell the woman from OUP how much she liked her Oxford Reading Tree books! More than I do, I could cheerfully chuck them out the window after two or three readings - thank goodness I don't have to listen to 30 children stumbling over Biff, Chip and Kipper's adventures!

Anyway, at the meeting we were presented with a range of statistics about the size of the UK educational content market, and one stat really hit home. I don't know why I hadn't really grasped it before, but it was to do with the percentage of school budgets which are spent on educational content each year in the UK. Hold onto your hats - it's less than 1%. LESS THAN 1%!!

The vast bulk of the budget, 85-90%, goes on staff, which I could have guessed, but I was shocked at the low level of spending on content resources. I think spending on staff's gone up recently because of the vast numbers of teaching assistants - we never had those in my day, and teachers had to make their own classroom displays. Just think of it! How put upon they must have felt. Anyway, from what I heard today, the days of the teaching assistant may be numbered given the level of budget cuts being demanded by the government - so if you're a teacher who relies on one, you might want to rethink this strategy!

Family, innit

A grand annual event took place today - our family picnic. No, I don't mean just the four of us, since only allowing the children out for one picnic every year would be cruel - it was instead the annual gathering of my dad's side of the family, in which about 35 of us all descend on my aunt's house, bring our own picnics, and then the boys play football all afternoon until someone gets injured or they've all lost at least 2lb in sweat, whichever comes first. Cousin James was first blood this year, scalp wound, but apart from that everyone survived. We caught up with all the news - marriages, surgeries, bike crashes, trips to Glastonbury - it's been all go over the last year.

It's such lovely day every year, marred this year only by the loss of Husbandio's camera - it turned up in someone's car, where it had been put to keep it out of the rain under the misapprehension that it was someone else's camera. Still, we knew it had to be somewhere, since family doesn't pinch your stuff! Isabel had a great time, disappeared for hours on end exploring with my cousin's little boy who is a year older, and playing with the tortoises. Emily learnt a new word ("tortus!" she shouted with glee) and ate her own weight in cake, making her way through half a punnet of strawberries, a scone, a jaffa cake and two cup cakes during the course of the afternoon.

Only downside is the length of the drive, it's 100-odd miles each way - we ended up stopping in McD's for tea on the way home. It was the tudor effect McD's in Oxford, which I've driven past a million times and never been in before - disappointingly, it's significantly less Tudor on the inside than the outside. Hey ho.

So tonight I am feeling very thankful for a lovely friendly non-arguing family where we all love and support each other. Can't wait til next year!

A secret benefactor

It's a mystery, but quite a nice one for the time being.

This evening, I quickly logged on to check my e-mail before putting two small girls in the bath. And soon wished I hadn't, since one e-mail was from Halifax, which always means I've accidentally gone overdrawn. And sure enough, when I checked, the letter said there hadn't been enough funds in my account, and so they'd elected not to pay my mortgage. Panic!

First things first though - I checked my statement because while I'm usually strapped for cash at the end of the month, I'm generally still fairly flush this early on, and able to pay important bills like the mortgage. My statement showed there had been plenty of money, quite enough to pay all of my regular debits. So I got on the phone to Halifax and they looked into it, apologised, blamed a system error, and said that they kindly wouldn't charge me for the letter. That nearly elicited a very sarcastic comment from me!

So, Halifax said they'd send the payment over to Nationwide, our mortgage provider, straight away if I could give them the right account number and sort code. So, I hung up and phoned Nationwide, and got the details. And then just asked them to check that they weren't charging me for failing to pay on time, since if they had charged me I wanted to get Halifax to pay it. The kind Nationwide lady checked the account, and said "but you have paid". "No, no", says I, "the money's still in my account". Still, the Nationwide lady remained adamant that I've paid, and yet the Halifax statement says I haven't. I was beginning to wish I'd never opened my mouth.

Now the question is, do I have a secret benefactor, or are Halifax just idiots? I think we all know the answer to that one. Perhaps a more important question is whether I decide to follow up next week with Halifax, or do I just enjoy having a very cash rich month? I think we all know the answer to that one too, but I will enjoy a cash rich weekend nonetheless!

Today's surreal moment

Picture the scene: I'm parked on a double yellow line outside a train station with 2 kids in the car. It's the end of a hot day, and from the look on my face most people would assume that bothering me might not be the best idea. I'm clearly waiting for someone to come in on a train, so while I'm theoretically stationary on the double yellow, it's clear that I'm not going to be there long.

Enter stage right: a community support police officer. Smiling.

My instant reaction is to assume he's smiling because he's about to give me a ticket. He leans close to the open window, and says "would you like a pen and a pencil?"

"Is that slang for parking ticket?", thinks I.

But no, he really means it. He gives me a pen and a pencil bearing a British Transport Police logo. Then, he moves to the back window of the car and gives Isabel two packs of colouring pencils (suitably logo-ed).

He waves, gives us all a friendly smile, and goes on to foist his wares on the car parked behind me.

Bizarre......

Tapas

Nothing very exciting to report about today, so I'm going for a bullet point list:

• I was jealous of Isabel since after school she went round to some friends of my dad's, and they have a private pool.....
• I had to go to a meeting in Chiswick which involved 5 trains and 3 tube lines - the journey was so complicated that I had to write the details down in my notebook for fear of making a mistake and ending up in Uxbridge (heaven forbid)
• I had a very nice tapas lunch with a colleague. We ordered so many tapases (is that right?!) that we needed to ask the waitress to bring up an extra table. Now that's what I call a meal!
• Husbandio and I have been debating how many of Isabel's class to invite to the party. We decided to invite 20 out of 30 but then Isabel made a plea for 2 others, and inviting 22 out of 30 seemed very unfair to the 8 rejects, so I think we'll have to go for a full house. Gawd help us...
• I've been looking for a nice new Boden skirt but everything on the Boden site which I like is only ever available in an 8 or a 22. But I found a lovely Dorothy Perkins skirt today in the local British Heart Foundation charity shop. Total cost@ £3.30. Yay!
• Isabel's got a cough, and tonight she coughed so hard she retched, and also made her nose bleed. Niiiiice. And Emily's nappy was put on wonky by someone at the nursery, leading to an escape of poo into her babygro and down her trousers. Again, niiiiiice. The joys of small children. Sigh....
  

And that's been the day so far. With luck, nothing else will happen other than some tooth brushing and a few minutes with my book. I need a calm end to the day!

Another working from home benefit

You can actually enjoy the summer, instead of sweating away on the Tube, and then shivering in air conditioning all day. I moved out into the garden today, thanks to the judicious use of an extension cable, and the miracle of hands free phones. After a while (don't read this if you did get all hot and sweaty on the Tube today!) I even got a bit chilly because even though it was hot, it was breezy, so I ended up fetching a cardie and my crocs. My circulation isn't what it once was, clearly!

Isabel had her school trip today, to a local "environmental centre" - I think that means it's a shed in the middle of some woods and meadows. Anyway, it's only about 3 miles away, and the trip cost £16 each, which I thought was really expensive, considering they had to bring a packed lunch. She seemed to have a good day though, despite tripping over on the path on the way to the coach! Still, another child got stung on the neck by a bee so Isabel got away quite lightly, all things considered.

She also had a tricky moment when being dropped off at school. Apparently she missed me after I'd dropped her and burst into tears, so one of the teachers ran out to find me. I was out the gate by that point, and kind of wished she hadn't found me since I don't want Isabel thinking that I can be called back at her whim - she got kissed and dropped off as per usual, and had no reason for being upset, other than her own inner demons. Anyway, I calmed her down a little, and she went back to her classroom. Poor little thing - it happens quite often, and I have no idea what to do about it. Emily cries when being dropped off at nursery far less often than Isabel does at school. Sigh. Any ideas gratefully received.....

What's six weeks off between friends?

I've had a small handful (OK, three) people in the last week comment that they've noticed I've stopped blogging. And I have. Or had, since here I am, tapping away. See, flattery will get you everywhere - all I needed was a little recognition, and some ego massage. How pathetic.

So, what's happened in the last six weeks? England are out of the World Cup for one thing, which got me to wondering why anyone is surprised. We've played badly in almost every match, and finally got what we deserved. IMHO. And to be honest, I'm glad it's all over - the desperate expectation which you know will remain unfulfilled becomes just too painful to watch after a while.

In other news, Emily is now walking. She looks like a small drunken zombie - arms often stuck straight out in front of her, and with a distinct list to the left. Very cute anyhow. Isabel's only got 3 1/2 weeks left in Year One, which is surreal since I'm sure she only started Reception about a month ago. And she learnt to ride a bike this weekend. Now she just needs to master starting my herself, stopping, and turning!

Anyway, I shall try to be a better blogger. It's tricky to get up motivation some evenings, since all I do is spend all day tapping away at the laptop - sitting down in my free time with the same laptop can be depressing. But since I enjoy reading other people's blogs so much, I'll do my best. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, here's some photos which represent the last six weeks....

We ventured East, and saw the Thames Barrier

Safely back in the west, at Donkey Derby!

We celebrated Fathers Day with some high fives...

One of us moved from babyhood to toddler status
We all enjoyed the hot weather!

A lazy Bank Holiday photo blog

And what a lovely lazy day it was. After lunch, when Emily had gone down for her nap, I decided to have a bath rather than a shower since no-one could possibly disturb me and ask me to do anything in the bath, and it was marvellous! Don't worry, there's no pictures of it. But I did manage to finish my book (Alan Bennett's An Uncommon Reader, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would). Can't ask for much more than that.

In other news, we had a still life class....


...baked some scones (bear in mind that this is the size of the pile of scones after we'd all stuffed our faces - and that includes Emily, who ate a scone and a half!)....

...lazed in the garden under the neighbour's beautiful apple tree...


...and admired all the stuff that's coming up in our vegetable patch.


And now to catch up with Lost - not sure how much Husbandio is enjoying it, but I remain hooked!

Drool

Not a title I thought I'd ever use for a blog post, but there we go.

I took Emily to the doctor's twice this week - once to check out her laryngitis and sore throat, and then again a few days later when she'd been for about 36 hours without doing a wee. Or doing very very small wees, and having extremely dry nappies - bit hard to tell with the quality of modern nappies. The GP was pretty worried and even phoned the on call paediatrician at Stoke Mandeville, but we took the decision to leave her overnight and even though she had a dry nappy the next day, she finally did a reasonable size wee when I changed her nappy. Maybe she just wanted a clean nappy!

She seems back to normal now, but I did have awful visions of kidney failure (looking on the bright side!). I think I've now figured out what happened. First she had a sore throat and was teething, and then a day later she also developed a cold sore - the amount of dribble which these three factors created was beyond belief. She was going through 3 or 4 bibs each day, and soaking her clothes. Each bib plopped into the laundry basket, so no wonder she wasn't weeing, she was probably dehydrated from all that drool - it was like living with one of those really dribbly dogs. And now her throat's better, the tooth's through, and the cold sore is on the way out, so the dribble is reduced and normal wee service is resumed. Thank goodness for that.

Let's hope we can make it through next week without gracing the GP's surgery with our presence!

Putting the squeak back in the squeaker

There is a penguin in Toy Story 2 which loses its squeak - I'm sure you remember it. Well, even though Emily has not yet seen Toy Story 2, she did a cracking impression of that penguin over the course of this weekend.
I got her up on Saturday morning and when she opened her mouth to say "ba ba ba ba" or something equally intellectual, all that came out was a hoarse, high-pitched little croak. "Croak", she said, "croak, croak". She didn't seem desperately fussed but did look a bit confused. Over the course of the weekend her throat got more and more sore so we kept dosing her with ibuprofen - luckily the doctor says it hasn't progressed to the state of a throat infection, and she seems better today.
It didn't help that her second top incisor came through on Sunday, so she was croaky and dribbly. And when I say dribbly, I mean dribbly. She went through 3 or 4 bibs each day, and they were soaked - when I dropped one into the laundry basket it went "plop" - not really the noise I was expecting from a bib! Yuck.
And all this of course means that she's not keen on food. I fooled her into some weetabix and banana this morning but with some difficulty. However, she has discovered the deliciousness that is Angel Delight, so she'll have a diet of Petit Filous and Angel Delight until her appetite returns. I can't tell you how jealous I am.....

The Election Post

I like an election. Mostly because there aren't too many of them, and the run-up isn't too long. I don't like elections enough to want one every day, you understand. And this one's a doozie since it's actually, for once, not apparent who's going to win. Exciting! I've been trying to do a bit of research so as to be able to cast my vote properly. After all, suffragettes and so on.

However, it's not as easy as it looks. First of all, until today we'd had no electioneering bumph from anyone through the door. And second of all, once you do get election bumph, you realise it all looks the bloody same - less crime, better health services, improvements in schools etc etc etc. I know there are differences e.g. over immigration, but they seem few and far between sometimes.

So I went to the BBC's election pages which are pretty good because they do at least tell you who the candidates are in your area, and what the results were last time. And in our leafy Bucks constituency, you'll all be shocked to learn that the winner last time was a Tory, with over 50% of the votes. Interestingly, however, the LibDems were in 2nd place, with just over a quarter of the votes. So in our area, it looks like a vote for Labour is the wasted vote, not a vote for the LibDems, as is traditional.

Anyway, I've decided to base my decision this year on the issue which really matters for me personally, at this point in time. Which is Education. I don't think Labour have a great record, but then again I think we're struggling with issues that all developed economies are struggling with - namely, that our education system was designed in and for the industrial age, and we're now deeply embedded in the knowledge economy, which our education system is clearly out of step with. I say clearly because so many employers are complaining that that kids coming out of schools aren't equipped for the workplace - they were, on the other hand, when most of them were going into manual labour.

Is this the right way to decide how to cast my vote? Is there a right way? After all, it's my vote, and I'll make my decision in my own way. I'm looking forward to heading for the polling station on 6 May, once I've finally made up my mind. I have a vision of the four of us, as a family, wandering down the road on a balmy Spring evening, and exercising our constitutional rights - now it'll probably pour with rain, and no-one will turn out, and it'll all be a damp squib. But I hope not!

She's turning one!

Tomorrow is Emily's first birthday, and I can't believe it's here already. It's been one of the fastest years of my life, as opposed to Isabel's first year which was without a doubt the longest year of my life! I think this is partly because Isabel's at school - those terms shoot past awfully quickly.

We've not got Emily much for her birthday - a tunnel for the garden, and a couple of other toys, but we are having a little party as we did with Emily. Lots of other babies coming, about 10 in total, and a few token grown-ups of course. And a cake from Costco - where else do people get cakes for large numbers of people? Costco do a personalised cake which easily serves about 40 people, and it's £12. £12!!!! If you were to order a cake like that from a bakery it'd set you back about £80 - I know, I've investigated the options before.

Thank goodness we're predicted good weather, or I don't know where everyone would end up - today was glorious and tomorrow's meant to be the same, which is amazing for April. Isabel's been scooting around all day in a little summer dress and flip flops, and I've even painted my toenails for the first time this year. But this is what happened last year - April, May and June were nice, lulling us all into a false sense of security, and then the summer itself was a bunch of arse. This year we shall flee the country in search of better weather.

Anyway, here's to you darling Emsy - happy birthday for tomorrow! I hope next year goes a little slower though, so I get the chance to enjoy it as it scoots past.

Why do I put myself through it?

I keep watching medical documentaries at the moment. I'm absolutely glued to them, particularly if they involve children. I inevitably cry at some point, and yet I keep watching. Why?

The first one that sucked me in was One Born Every Minute. I think I kept watching not only because it was just fascinating, but because since I know I won't be having another child I was oddly enjoyable to watch other women in labour, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't be experiencing that again! It reminded me about my experiences, which were both very positive, although Isabel's arrival into the world did drag on a bit, and I did vomit in the birthing pool and then broke the hydraulic hospital bed. That would have made great television!

Then earlier this week Hubs and I watched an episode of Panorama called Spoilt Rotten, which looked at kids with preventable conditions. The programme featured a five year old who was so fat his mother had to wheel him around in a wheelchair when he got too tired, and several kids ages two and up who had to have their baby teeth removed because they were so rotten from eating too many sweets or permanently sucking on a bottle. Worst of all were the kids with glue ear - one of the parents refused to admit that his smoking was a contributory factor, and just blithely continued, while his son complained of deafness. This documentary rebounded on our kids, both of whom had their teeth brushed to within an inch of their lives today!

Finally, I watched Great Ormond Street, which was just amazing. The episode I saw focused on a cardic unit, and featured the discussions amongst the surgeons as they worked out who to treat, and how. Those discussions are usually kept very much behind closed doors, and were very moving. But again, I cried, since not all of the children survived, and even those that did had other problems. Sigh. Makes me very grateful for my two happy and healthy bundles of fun. I'm not tempting fate by rubbernecking, am I...?