Level 2 Chi Kung.

The pikkujoulo went well. The tortilla was a big hit and the champagne slammers (made with my own cherries – steeped in brandy for the last 6 months) and mulled wine, were also well received. The new marshmallow recipe I tried didn’t go exactly to plan (tasted good but a bit too chewy) but people ate them anyway. I did have a slight wobble when I realised that I was about to serve blini to an actual Russian. When she asked admiringly how on earth I managed to get them all the same size -and I told her it’s easy when you buy them from M&S – I was reminded of Ann Eade‘s famous recipe for brandy snaps!

While I entertained the mummies, the children ran up and down the stairs, squealing in excitement and generally having a great time. After about an hour of this, Katie brought them all out to the kitchen to raid the freezer for ice creams. I was happy with this and so were most of the mummies but Lena said that Arina couldn’t have one as she has been complaining of a sore throat. Estelle and I both said we thought ice cream would be nice and soothing for a sore throat but Lena wouldn’t be swayed and explained that Russians believe that cold foods are very bad for sore throats and coughs. The children went away – Arina looking a bit disconsolate, the rest munching on their ice creams. A few minutes later, when the mummies’ chatting was once again in full swing, Sophie (the sweet and reserved older sister of Clara) drifted into the kitchen as light and quiet as thistledown, opened the freezer and calmly extracted an ice cream. I said ‘Are you having another one sweetie?’. Sophie murmured ‘It’s not a second one’ and drifted out of the kitchen. I was wondering whether to say anything when there was a break in the conversation and Estelle suddenly pricked up her ears. I said that I wasn’t worried about Sophie having another ice cream, I was just worried that she might be taking it for Arina. Estelle gave chase and, after what sounded like a heated exchange in French, returned with the half unwrapped ice cream in her hand. A few minutes later, all the children came in holding hands and appeared to be silently counting down (like you do when about to play a piece of music) and then sang, in unison and quite tunefully, ‘ARINA NEEDS AN ICE CREAM’. By this time, I think that all the other mummies were praying for Lena to give in. Poor Lena, obviously feeling a bit defensive by this stage, said ‘I let her have chocolate’. I got a cake of chocolate out of the treat cupboard without the children seeing and asked Lena silently if I could give it to Arina. Lena nodded and with some relief I handed Arina a 75g block of Green and Black’s best organic milk chocolate.

Well it turned out that Lena’s nod had meant that I could give Arina a SQUARE of chocolate, not the whole block. But it was too late – Arina and her gallant supporters had run from the kitchen at speed, clutching their new found riches. Lena very sensibly decided to roll with the punches.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Estelle (Clara’s mummy) breezily reminded me this morning that I am hosting the pikkujoulu (small Christmas party) after trampolining tomorrow. With Katie off sick I had completely forgotten about it. So, after taking care of the last of the really really urgent paper war (at last) and finding a company to print the Christmas cards, it was off to the supermarket. Under normal circumstances, catering for a small party like this would be a piece of cake – the complicating factor is that Estelle is dairy-intolerant, which makes everything that bit more complicated. So far I have made a Spanish tortilla (the omelette kind, not the thin crisp thing American’s call tortillas) and remembered not to put any cheese in it, and I have a recipe for a dairy-free chocolate cake. I bought some more gelatine, so tomorrow I will make marshmallows and of course the stuff for the children doesn’t have to be dairy free.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

A dispiriting day – neither productive nor fun. Spent most of the afternoon reading through paperwork on the Civil Service Pensions Options Exercise. Sadly it seems that the options are

1) get screwed over by the government in 2018 and
2) get screwed over by the government in 2015.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Katie home from school again and the second day of work for the new cleaner. It is always stressful having someone new in the house but with this girl it is worse than usual. She is very sweet, so I very much want it to work out, but she is excruciatingly slow. Last week I put it down to her finding her way around, but this week she wasn’t much faster – taking 5 hours to do around 50% of the work that Geni did in 4 and half hours. Worst of all, noticing a terrible smell, I went downstairs and discovered that she was vacuuming with the Dyson so full that it obviously couldn’t fit another speck of dust and was just re-distributing hot dust around the house. One of the things I like about Dysons – as opposed to normal vacuum cleaners – is that they don’t smell, but clearly even Dysons have their limit.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Nick off cycling, so my turn on morning duty.

Sometimes, working in the health service, I have envied the automatic extra credibility extended to those with a clinical background, and wondered why I never even considered studying medicine. Then something happens which reminds me that I am probably the most squeamish person ever to walk the corridors of a hospital and it becomes all too clear. Shortly after Nick had left this morning, I noticed that Jack had somehow lost most of the skin off the last joint of his index finger and it was pretty much raw flesh and looking very nasty indeed. Suppressing the urge to faint and / or vomit, I spent most of the morning trying to persuade Jack to let me bathe and dress it, but no go. By the time Nick got home around 1:30, I was feeling a bit desperate. Nick couldn’t persuade him either, but he did manage to get him to have a bath which, by default, washed the finger a bit. Jack still wouldn’t allow us to put a plaster on so, as soon as poor Nick had had a bit of a ‘lick and a promise’ and changed out of his cycling clothes, he and Jack set off for the nearest minor injuries unit (we had tried our GP after hours service, but they ‘don’t do dressings, love’). They waited for hours and arrived home in the early evening with Jack’s finger plastered and some antibiotics. At which point we embarked on the challenge of trying to get Jack to take the bloody antibiotics…

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Katie didn’t feel up to going to Stagecoach, so a cruisy Saturday morning with only Dash’s guitar lesson to get to. After guitar, I was about to take Dash for his customary jam-sandwich-with-the-crusts-cut-off lunch at the Age Exchange, when I noticed that it was actually SUNNY! I persuaded Dash to forgo lunch and we headed home at speed to take the Christmas photo while the light lasted. Everyone pitched in and very soon the tripod was set up and everyone was washed and brushed and dressed in their new Christmas jumpers. We left Sherlock’s jumper until last, on the grounds that he might be a bit resistant to the idea, but in fact he seemed very pleased to finally be treated the same as the other children. He watched them all getting into their jumpers and clearly felt it completely natural that he should have one too. He then hopped up on the seat, placed one paw affectionately on Katie’s leg and posed beautifully for the duration of the shoot!

Level 2 Chi Kung.

A quiet day at home with Katie off school. Got the boys off to school, then set Katie up, well rugged up, with plenty of craft materials and the computer to watch and, amazingly, she let me sleep for an hour and a half. I was almost thwarted by the builders, who arrived unexpectedly to remove the boxing from the concrete slab and collect all their gear. They padded in and out, making the gate squeak and graunch in a most annoying manner – totally unnecessarily because Tudor had taken Sherlock again. I finally couldn’t stand it any more and went downstairs to tell them that the dog was away and they could just leave the gate open, but of course I got one of the ones who doesn’t speak much English. Luckily they left soon after that and, finally, I got my long-awaited nap. Felt so much better afterwards.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

A productive day. Tudor dropped Sherlock back first thing in the morning as he had a meeting in town, but said he would be happy to collect him again in the afternoon. I was relieved to hear that Sherlock had behaved well and slept through the night. I didn’t like to ask outright whether he had chewed up any socks! I commented to Katie that I suspected that Tudor and his wife had let Sherlock sleep in their bedroom (which he doesn’t get to do at home) and she said they probably let him sleep in the bed!

When Sherlock and I got back from dropping Katie, I decided that I should find downstairs things to do in order to keep Sherlock company during his captivity, and the new freezer had reached temperature, so I started transferring stuff from the ancient chest freezer in the garage and then clearing out various bits. I was delighted to find an ice cream container of Nigella’s Beef in Belgian Beer so I got it out to thaw for dinner. I also found some roast capsicums and tomatoes, and some slices of dense dark pumpernickel-style bread, so I had the veges on the toasted bread for lunch. I got the chest freezer a bit more organised but was thwarted when it got to the point where I simply couldn’t get the lid open – the warm air that had got in had obviously cooled and sucked the lid down tight! What it really needs is to be turned off and completely cleaned out but for that I think we need to first eat our way through some of the supplies until what is left can mostly be accommodated in the inside freezer, with the rest in a chilli bin for a couple of hours. I also need to buy some more of the stacking bins I got to organise it – I bought them on a whim and only bought two because I wasn’t sure about dimensions but I think we need at least another two. Otherwise the chest freezer is just one big space.

After that I noticed that the builders had left the hose all covered in cement – which seems to screw the fittings if not cleaned. So I spent half an hour cleaning that off, while making a mental note to leave an old hose out for them next time. Still more time to keep Sherlock company so I vacuumed the fluff out of the innards of the tumble dryer and the crumbs out of the hard to reach part behind the oven door.

We were just about out of fruit, so I shut Sherlock in the house and did a quick shop. About mid-afternoon, I started to feel really dreadful: overwhelming nausea and headache and a general feeling of hardly being able to put one foot in front of the other. I was relieved when Tudor came to collect Sherlock before Dash and I had to leave to get Katie from film club as at least that meant that we could just walk quietly, without the added complication of an excited pooch pulling us along. I had to drag myself out to get Katie and resolved to ask Nick to take her to trampoline instead of me. I was wondering if the veges and bread from the freezer had perhaps been a bit dodgy, however we hadn’t been home long when Katie complained of nausea and then rushed to the downstairs loo to throw up, so it looks like we both have the same thing and my lunch wasn’t to blame.

I started feeling a bit better around 6 pm so I made a pound of butter up into shortbread. It turned out really well so I made sure I got some packed away in the freezer before the vultures could demolish it all. I was careful to do this while Katie was occupied elsewhere. Last year she ran into the kitchen when I was carefully packing shortbread into a pretty tin as a Christmas gift for my nephew, and went pop, pop, pop with her grubby little fingers, snapping a dozen pieces and prompting a stream of most un-Christmassy invective from her mother. Some visitors who had ‘popped in’ for half an hour and stayed for three hours, and who had announced their departure some 90 minutes earlier but were, in fact, still in the entrance hall, very slowly gathering up their possessions and getting their coats on (I had said my farewells and excused myself, explaining that I needed to get on with Christmas preparations), were rather shocked to see me chasing Katie through the house, flailing wildly at her bottom with the damp tea towel which happened to be to hand!

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Having dug out yesterday, the builders returned today to lay the damp-proof membrane and mix and pour the concrete. Having builders around makes me very pleased I bought a percolator a couple of months ago as it makes a large volume of coffee at once and is much easier than waiting for the espresso machine to make 6 big mugs. Sherlock was in his element when they arrived – happy to have his ‘playmates’ back – but about 1030 they rang the doorbelland asked if I could keep him inside for the next couple of days to keep him away from the wet concrete. I called him and a very wet and muddy dog shot up the garden and proceeded to cover me and the kitchen floor with muddy, cementy footprints. At first he was happy enough to be inside with mummy, but when he realised that he couldn’t actually get out he was clearly a bit upset about it. Wondering how we were going to get through two days and nights I hit on the idea of calling Tudor, the man who contacted us through BorrowMyDoggy and borrows Sherlock for walks etc. As soon as he heard our predicament he agreed to collect Sherlock after lunch and keep him overnight. I packed up some food, the lead and Sherlock’s blanket and Sherlock went happily off with his friend.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Really determined to have a nap today, so, as soon as I got home from dropping Katie, I fed the dog, heated a wheatsack, piled an extra quilt on the bed, disconnected the landline and climbed under the duvet. I had been asleep for all of 15 minutes when my mobile rang. I groggily answered, intending to put whoever it was off as quickly as possible and go back to sleep, but it turned out to be Guy, the landscaper who had said yesterday that he would get around to laying the concrete slab in the back garden ‘some time in the next two weeks’. Another job must have fallen through, because he had phoned to ask if he could come around within the hour to discuss the job, with a view to having the guys start digging out this afternoon. I didn’t want to put him off as I had been a bit worried about the two week timescale, as the concrete will take ages to harden off in this damp weather and I didn’t want to end up missing our chance to have the build done for free. No point going back to sleep then!