Friday 26 September 2008

Ice cream van?!

I solved a mystery today.
I've been hearing an ice-cream van in the mornings when I've been walking Mishka, and in the heat of summer I didn't think too much of it, but it's been going on recently and I've wondered who wants a 99 at 8.45am?
It turns out it's not an ice-cream van in the Deeds Grove estate serving kids, it's a sandwich van serving the offices in the trading estate behind Deeds Grove. I was almost tempted to go and get a bacon butty myself.

Wow, a week's past, what's happened?!

It's been a long old week! Firstly, the weather was lovely last weekend, and we enjoyed an impromtu curry and beers and Chris & Cara's last Friday night, trying out their gas heater on the patio, and playing a quiz on their Xbox-thingy.

On Saturday we had a nice lazy day, we went to see Cara sing with her Descant Housewives group in the park in Marlow, then popped into a nice pub on the way home for a drink with Lara (and had a giggle at some of the photos we'd just had developed from those throwaway cameras that we had on the tables at our wedding, only 2 years ago!).

On Sunday morning we went for a lovely walk along the Thames from Marlow to Bourne End and back with Mishka, which made a nice change for him, as we've not had time to take him out for a long walk for some time. It had been his 2nd birthday on Saturday so it seemed only fair to pamper him a little today.

Everyone seemed to be recovering from recent ailments, although Olga was suffering more than the rest of us with a sore throat and being generally bunged up.
Monday was, of course, Olga's XX(st/nd/rd/th) birthday. I could tell when we woke (OK, when Lara woke us) at 6am that she wasn't on top of the world as she turned down the offer of a glass of Bucks Fizz in favour of a cup of tea. I went down to make it, to be greeted by Mishka, who seemed OK, but it became clear soon enough that he'd been sick in the night, probably from the exotic food treat I'd given him on Sunday night (I could say what it was but I won't in case there are people of a sensitive disposition reading this!). So Olga's Birthday cup of tea was delayed while I cleared that up, and it just seemed a shame that Olga and Mishka were both ill on this big day.
Olga was well enough to buy some lovely cakes for her workmates in the office though :-) Yum.

Her main birthday present arrived at lunchtime, just as I popped home to check on Mishka... here it is (not the most normal of presents!):



Yup, a full-size table tennis table! Of course it didn't arrive assembled, that took some time on Tuesday to get it put together. I'd noticed when we were camping in Norfolk how keen Olga was on "TT" and she's pretty good at it too, so it seemed like it would be something that would really make her happy, and as she'd been ill in the run-up to her birthday I'd hoped it would put a smile on her face.
We had hoped to go out on Monday evening for a meal to celebrate, but Olga had worked out that her bad cold had now become a case of sinusitis, and she wouldn't enjoy a nice meal in a restaurant, so we've not gone out officially yet to celebrate her birthday.
Even the weather conspired against us, it rained most of the middle of the week so we couldn't use the TT table.

Olga went to see her GP on Tuesday to confirm she had sinusitis, and had Wednesday off work sick, so I had the pleasure of taking Lara into nursery on my own, which I enjoyed, it seemed nice to be an independent Dad!
Thursday wasn't such a good day, Lara has started to return to having a runny nose, and Olga had started a course of antibiotics for her sinusitis on Wednesday. However, whether this was a coincidence or not, we're not sure, but Lara started being sick again on Thursday. She's only been sick when she's been ill, and it wasn't a pleasant experience after she'd seemed to enjoy a big tea.
Nursery rules state she needs to stay away for 48 hours after being sick, so Olga and Lara were "off sick" on Friday. It was such a lovely morning, I couldn't help but feel lifted when I took Mishka for his morning walk. Olga has decided to postpone taking any more antibiotics for the time being (there's no evidence they help with sinusitis anyway!) so we can see if they are causing Lara problems or not. Lara's not been sick on Friday, but we're not jumping to conclusions yet.
What was nice today was the weather - I made sure I got home by 5.30 so we could actually use the TTtable:



Lara was an interested spectator, for a while at least.
The sleeping arrangments are interesting at the moment, last night and tonight Lara has not wanted to go to sleep in her bed at 7.30-8pm as usual - last night because she'd been sick and tonight because she was just happy, so we're happy to let her sleep in her pram downstairs with us in the evening. Mishka must be confused, we only let him sleep in the lounge on the nights when the milkman's not due the next morning, and now the baby is sleeping in his "bedroom" in the evening!
Anyway she needs to work on her TT technique, although we'll not trust her with a real TT ball yet!