Doctor Doctor Beat(tie)

Oscar told me today that he was going to be a Doctor when he was big. After I picked myself up off the floor (did you know two and a half year old's understood the concept of when I am big?), I did what any responsible mother would do, and set him on the path to fulfilling his dreams.

Yes I know, he should be saying good-bye to the pacifier - we are working on it. But in this instance it is actually a colour match ;)

Sealife Centre St Andrews

Oscar seemed fairly contented to spend another day in his PJ's on Sunday, but the truth was, I was going a bit stir crazy.

Where last Sunday had shone bright and and beautiful (post about last Sunday HERE), this Sunday was positively dismal.

Not to be beaten we headed to St Andrews Aquarium, hoping to give Oscar an afternoon of delights, since he has never been before. And, I have to say it was absolutely.....................naf. Don't get me wrong, Oscar enjoyed the fish, but at £8 per adult (Oscar was free), I was expecting more than 10-15 minutes worth of scruffy looking tanks. Strangely for an aquarium they had some merekats which were pretty cute, especially the baby ones, but again, a few minutes is about all you needed.  Oscar seemed to have more fun playing with a bead puzzle in a cafe we went to after we came out. We did go to the Aquarium cafe but it was really grubby, even the hand rail on the stairs to/from the Loo's was sticky (ick ick ick), so we left again without ordering.

So sorry, ST Andrews Aquarium, its a thumbs down from us, we wont be back any time soon.

Incidentally, Oscar slept all the way home and avoided the old puke bag.................hooray.

Grumpy Toddler !

Today was pretty much a blanket day, with neither of us (any of is in fact) feeling much better.  Much of this I assume was down to energy levels since Oscar was awake until just about midnight last night and was up screaming due to congestion at 6.15am. I decided to try and keep him awake during the day today to see if we cant get his sleeping pattern back on track. He has slept every afternoon this week, despite stopping his naps a good few weeks ago now.

By 4pm, both of us were pretty fed up and grumpy so I grabbed a mug of tea and headed into the garden.

After looking at the photo's you would be forgiven for thinking I/we did the right thing. But in actual fact Oscar cried the whole time. He wanted to come down the slide backwards and head first but couldn't manage it (thankfully). He didn't want to sit on the trampoline for juice he wanted at the table. The cat ran away when he charged at her and the sand was too soft for pies or castles.  We scuttled back in for his dinner at about 5 o'clock-ish and of course it tasted 'too horrible'. The bath was 'too hot' and his pyjamas were 'too tight'. I suppose though if I look in on him at 10pm and he is still asleep, it will all be worth it. Wont it?

No Change

We are still all feeling very poorly, and no one has all that much of an appetite either. Its funny when you are ill that you desire both healthy food (fresh juice and plenty vitamin C foods), and unhealthy food, stodge I think we call it, but usually in very small quantities. I have staggered to the kitchen each day this week and cooked up some fresh soup, today's being Pea and mint (with creme fraiche), and yesterdays was squash and carrot. To balance things up I have made brownies, plum cake and apricot slices (recipe HERE for the slices).  Today I managed jam biscuits and chocolate muffins. Oscar delved into the jammy-ness and didn't look at muffins, ah well maybe tomorrow.

And as for my knitting, I had to start again, again. Sniffle.

 Valerie

xxx

Homemade Kite And A Pixie Hat

There is still a lot of this going on around here. Mama has more fevered brows around her than she has cool hands to soothe. Poor Oscar is swinging from hyper activity to complete exhaustion. I have had to rattle down the same 20 rows of knitting over and over and over because my concentration is shot and Duncan came home from work today snuffling like the rest of us.

Oscar managed a quick dash into the garden for a spot of (badly) home made kite flying, but it didn't last long before he was in for some hot orange juice and honey.  The 3 of us are sharing a bed right now because Oscar needs physical contact when he is ill, so we will be heading up to bed now with the communal tissue box and a super-size tub of Karvol. Speak to you all soon.

* Oscar's hat knitted from this pattern HERE sized up

Botanical Gardens

Even though Oscar and I were feeling poorly, we decided to get out of the house on Sunday and have a welcome break from the unpacking and sorting. Plus, the sun was shining and as we all know, there hasn't been a whole lot of that lately. A ten minute walk away from our new house is the botanical gardens, so we spent a lovely few hours there. Here some of the photos, you can see the rest over HERE

We Are Baaaaack

Hello, Bloggy Land, oh how I missed you. 10 days without internet, how totally disgusting, it seems so long. What ever did we do without it. Especially before we had mobile phones, because since the land-line and the internet went in together it was my only media tool. Anyway, here we are, back in the city, back in the west end. Its been 2 years and 3 months since we left the west end and 3 months since we left the city. Its good to be back. We are still figuring out the quirks in the house, like the incredibly squeaky floorboards in our room (one of the only rooms not carpeted), the cutlery drawer which requires you to partly open the oven to get into it (due to the large oven door handle), and the sticky (as in gets stuck) front door. We have painted the lounge already because I figured it was best to quickly brighten it up before unpacking all the knick knacks. It was white before and we only gave it a coat of white to brighten it up, unlike the roof which was green or the cornice which was beige (they took 3 white coats). Who paints their roof green by the way?

Its the newest house we have lived in, being built in the late 60s early 70s and its also the largest. We are still marveling at the space. I suspect I will have things moved around quite a few times over the next few months, not by me though, I still have a broken big toe and dodgy toenail.

Both Oscar and me have developed some sort of lurgy right now and both feel dreadful. Oscar has slept on the sofa for 2 hours and counting so it looks like we will be having a late night. I am sitting with the laptop some herbal tea and the oscillating fan right now. I am blaming you 'C' I know you had it first ;)

I have a few pictures to share from the last week, but none of the house really, I promise to take some when the last of the boxes are cleared away.

Please do say hello in the comments, I have missed you all in Bloggland.