Diary

Sarah has looked at her diary (paper and pen, not digital flashy PDA) and informed me that the next "free" weekend for us as a family is the 2nd weekend in December... What with Mothers (mine), grandmothers and sisters (both Sarah's), the matriarchal visiting will settle November.

Looks like November might curtail my revived footie career. Reborn for two weeks before the episode of "man-flu" and chest infection (which the horse pills seem to have resolved).

I'm so glad we decided to cut down on our travelling to far off regions of the UK! We have promised ourselves a stint in Scotland as Andy and Gwen have invited us to visit in 2006. We shall take advantage of their hospitality and the chance to visit the delightful Dundee again.

Michael's Christening

Elspeth's friend Michael was christened into the Catholic Church today. The priest was very helpful for those members of the small group attending, explaining the ceremony and symbolism, so that the non-Catholics could get some impression of the commitment being made by the family and friends. As a [reasonably] regular church attender, Elspeth was asking when the songs would be as she wanted to do some singing, anyway she was well behaved during the baptism with water, the annointing with oil, the lighting of the candle and the parental/friends responses. Michael looked very smart and didn't appear to object to having water poured on his head. At the moment Elspeth likes to wash her hair on Thursdays only, so I suppose Thursday would be a good day for a baptism...

Something other than hair slides

The girls having fun
This is the first, experimental attempt at adding a picture... Taken about 2 months ago whilst visiting our friends, James, Michelle, Josie and Sophie. Josie is Elspeth's best friend and, although down in St. Albans, Elspeth frequently talks about going to Josie's house.

Chance to catch up

This weekend is an opportunity to catch up. Last weekend I had developed what I thought was "man-flu". Listed amongst the typical symptoms are headaches; fever; lethargy; congestion, etc. Rather than milk the position I self administered some pills bought at Asda [once I had found them in the cavernous hall - another story] and for a week I felt definite improvement. It was only last weekend that the hacking cough started, it kept me awake, it kept Sarah awake. Rather than sympathy, I got moved to the spare room so Sarah could get some sleep [well she is pregnant]. Only after three nights of tossing, turning, and waking through near suffocation did I relent and go to see the practice nurse.

Walking into the surgery for the first time in, well since I joined the practice as a new patient - so since April time, it's now a computerised log-in by gender and date of birth... what happens if twins have appointments on the same day for separate but equally embarrassing conditions? Anyway I digress, the nurse saw me whilst drinking her soup and sucking on her shortcake biscuit. I walked out with a prescription for anti-biotics for the chest infection.

The chemist gave me 500mg pills, I've never had a problem swalloting pills, but these are biggies. CHEST INFECTION, I said, but wanted to shout at the unsympathetic at home, "look at the size of these pills" I said, "would have been the smaller ones if you'd gone last week" was the response!

So I am now starting to feel better and this weekend may well be the perfect weekend to catch up with some sleep.