Thursday 16 October 2008

Back in Houston

I'm back in Houston, although my curse nearly struck again for bringing bad weather with me, there was a huge storm over Houston last night, and it nearly meant my plane was diverted to Austin, but apparently some clever routing work from Houston Approach Centre got us down just before the thunder and lightening struck. It was that close that the thunder started when I was still in the immigration queue at the airport!
Anyway, my presentation seemed to go OK this morning with the client, and I'm kind of at a loose end for an hour or two this afternoon before my MD and I attend an awards dinner at a hotel in Houston where Geotrace is in the running for a prize... we'll see, but I'm hoping the bosses don't pick on the youngster (me!) to give the speech if we win!

Sunday 12 October 2008

What a weekend!

It's such a lovely weekend here, misty and atmospheric in the mornings for Mishka's walk, then sunny and warm in the afternoon. I really should give the lawn a mow (and finish the job I started 2 weeks ago!) but yesterday I had to finish some work before I go back to Houston on Wednesday (cue another hurricane, I'm sure!) so I went to the office, and today it's Olga's turn to get some work done in peace and quiet, so Lara and I should really go out for a walk in Marlow while Mum works, but instead we're in the office, at least while Lara sleeps. She did wake for a while and needed some cheering up, but putting her in one of our office chairs didn't really work:

Maybe we'll go out now and do a little bit of shopping; we'll be getting some fresh air later this afternoon when Chris & Cara come round for a few games of table-tennis!

One crawl forward, two steps back

Poor Lara! She seemed to be getting better at the start of last week, her runny nose had pretty much stopped, and whilst she still had a cough, it didn't seem as bad as it had been. There were still broken nights, but we were putting this down to teething, there definitely seems to be 2, if not 4, upper teeth on the way through now.
On Thursday Olga took her to London, as Lara's Russian Citizenship has arrived, and we can therefore apply for her Russian passport. By the time they got home, Lara wasn't a happy bunny, and since then she's been having periods of high temperature, over 39 degrees, which we've been treating - successfully - with calpol, but she's certainly not been well. Whether this is because of another bug she's picked up, or the result of a little bang on the head when she tumbled over while sitting on the floor, or just from teething, we're not sure. It might be a combination of those things; it's upsetting for us to see her when she's clearly upset herself, there are times when she doesn't cry, but she looks at us in such a way that says "Mum, Dad, I'm not well, help!!" and she looks so sorry for herself. However, there are moments when she seems fine, and that reassures us that there's nothing seriously wrong we should be worried about, like here, when she enjoyed crawling around in the hall and kitchen on the nice floor Mum had just cleaned for her:




We've not given her any calpol today of course, as she's been on it for three days already, and her temperature has actually been more stable and not over 38 degrees (famuos last words) and when she has been getting noticely hotter, just taking a top off her and letting her cool down naturally seems to be working, and all this up-and-down in temperature is wearing her out, she's actually sleeping more during the day, which is a silver lining to this cloud!