Everyone's on their travels

There's more travel on the horizon for everyone - I'm going back to Dhaka a week on Saturday for 5 days, then a couple of days later we're all off down to Devon for 5 days of relaxation. Then we'll go up to Radcliffe to see Grandma and Granddad for Christmas.  Then in the second half of January Lara is going on her fourth foreign holiday! Not bad for a two year old... Olga will take her to see her mum in Russia for 10 days, and Lucy is going too. We found some good flights on Finnair via Helsinki to Ekaterinburg, seeing as no UK airline flies there direct anymore :-( It says something about Russian airlines that Russians who have a choice won't fly on them! Aeroflot might just about be OK as a last resort, but the likes of Transaero just worry Olga too much to take Lara on their planes.
I'm excited about Lara going to Russia in winter, and I'm not even going! There are little things I'd not thought of, like Olga's not going to take the pram, as they won't be outside too much in the very cold temperatures of western Siberia in Winter, plus it will be too hard to push the pram through the snow, not too mention that the metal on the pram would be so cold that it would pose a danger to Lara if she touched it without her gloves on!. If they do go out, they'll borrow a sledge and pull Lara along on that (it's how it's done!!).
Somehow another 5 days in Dhaka doesn't seem to compare very favourably :-( !

A Clean House and a Naughty Child

The house is almost spotless now, Olga wants a dust-free environment before she comes home tomorrow with her bionic eyes. I'm on nursing duty, although we're killing two birds with one stone, and I'm having a dental check-up at the same time as Olga's treatment (it's one of those optical / dental places!) so I might be more of a nervous wreck that Olga tomorrow morning.
The staff at Lara's nursery reported today that she had to be "sat out" from some of their activities because she was misbehaving and not responding when asked to stop! The little madam! I can believe it though, we do think she's very independent and confident, we could see this this weekend when we're out and about, she's not afraid to head off on her own. I guess this is normal toddler behaviour, and I'm sure it'll only get worse as we head into the "terrible twos". Also, on Friday last week, and yesterday and today, Lara hasn't had a sleep at lunchtime at nursery. The staff have spent half an hour trying to convince her it's naptime, but she's not agreed with them. We're not bothered about that, it does seem to make her a bit more grumpy at teatime, but it's even easier than usual to get her off to sleep, so I think we're happy for her to drop her daytime nap completely now. She's still sleeping for 12 hours without waking, and although she's stirring when we're moving around in the mornings, she's happy to doze until we come into get her up around 7.15am.

Here she is wrestling her new IKEA crocodile this morning - the croc never stood a chance!

The Boys - an update

I realised I'd not put a photo of the boys up for some time. They are doing fine, we're working on Jackson's training, he has a good "sit", but his excitement just gets the better of him most of the time, he just can't sit still. We did have our first "Marley & Me" moment last week, when I came home at lunchtime to find that Jackson has chewed up a pillow I'd bought at Dubai airport for Lara. It was filled with tiny white polystyrene balls, it would have been a great travel pillow, but now the lounge looked like there had been an avalanche. It was a hell of a test for the hoover, and my patience, but one cute look from Jackson and all was forgiven. I'm a soft touch, really.
Anyway, here they are today...

More on Body Flying

Here are a couple more photos and videos from my "body flying" as it's called.. Lara was all set to have a go!

Nice to see I chose shoes that matched my suit...

My second attempt - Lara was losing interest by now!



This is my instructor showing how it should be done...

Happy Birthday to Me (again)

(16/11 - updated the photo with a better version...)

Here I am enjoying my birthday present from Olga, she got me a voucher for an adventure, and I chose the indoor skydiving at Airkix in Milton Keynes. I might put some video up once I've watched the DVD of my "flights", as the staff called them. I had two, one-minute sessions in the wind tunnel. The first one was more about worrying about my technique, and wondering why wind blowing at 100mph smells of chlorine, but the second one was more about smiling for the camera and looking out for Lara and Olga, in the viewing area outside the wind tunnel. Having said that, this smiley photo was taken during the first flight, and you can see Lara in the background. She was a little surprised when I floated right past her, at eye-level, soon after this photo was taken. I wish I could have taken a photo of her expression!
After a pub lunch to celebrate my safe landings, we went to Ikea. About the only thing on the shopping list was a bean bag for Lara's nursery, but in true Ikea fashion we came home with a dog bed for Jackson, a 4-foot long crocodile soft toy for Lara and a new dining table for ourselves. But no bean bag.
It wasn't all about me this weekend, yesterday Olga went for a check-up at the opticians and came out with an appointment for Wednesday morning to have laser surgery to correct her eyesight. Watch this space... Olga will be able to read this without her glasses from Thursday!

A Walk in the Park

My flights were all on time yesterday, so I landed back at Heathrow at 7am. There was blue sky, no clouds, a lovely fresh autumn morning, and on the walk from the plane to immigration, there was a big poster showing central London from the Thames, and I thought it would be a lovely day to go into London for a walk in the park, and maybe a hot chocolate down by the river. Olga and I think this everytime we go and work in London, that it's so close yet we hardly ever go with as a threesome (or even more if we ever took the boys!). So, in a bid to avert jetlag-induced, all-day dozing, I was home by 8am and we were heading into London on the train at 10.35. We went straight to Regents Park, and had a picnic lunch then let Lara go for a walk and a ride on her trycycle. After an hour or so she was very tired, and was almost relieved to be put in her pram for a nap. We headed towards the river, but only got as far as Oxford Street before she woke up (after an hour's nap, we do like walking London's streets), and we popped into Debenhams to use their baby-changing facilities, and ended up leaving with a bag full of clothes for Lara from their sale. We wanted to be home before it got dark, so we used the new diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus - very handy to have a pram to help cut a swathe through the human traffic in the middle - and took the tube to Marylebone and then the train home. We were home soon after 4.30pm, and it's a day out we'll definitely do again. A treat of fish & chips for tea just rounded off a very nice day, and I managed to stay awake until 10pm, making it a maximum of two hours sleep in 45 hours.



Today's weather of grey and damp made us realise what a good decision we'd made yesterday, and it was just a day of house-cleaning and then vegging-out. We even got Lara off to sleep for her afternoon nap in her cot rather than in her pram, which made a nice change, not least for Lara I imagine. Olga took all three out for a walk after their naps, but before it got dark, so as the boys could be walked before the fireworks started. They don't seem to bother Jackson much, but Mishka does get a bit upset, his tail disappers between his legs when he's out walking, and when he's at home he wants to come and curl up with us on the sofa.
Ahhh, back to work tomorrow. Mondays, eh?