Took a few days off!

It's been a really busy 10 days or so for me lately so I decided to spend some time offline again and ended up doing pretty much bugger all for a few days! Jen asked me if I could keep Charlie the other Friday so that she and Jordan (and a few others) could go help her mom set up in the village hall she had rented to celebrate her 60th birthday. She told me in advance that Charlie was "a bit cranky", but I don't think either of us realized just how miserable he was. He would be fine for a while - which was when I took him out to the play area opposite - and then all of a sudden his temperature would soar and he would be miserable as hell. I spent my time trying to cool him down and then otherwise distract him but at one point he was so hot he threw up all over the living room, so I had to hose him down in the shower and then sit with him while he, I and Mickey Mouse looked at pictures and videos of himself on my phone, as that seemed to be the only thing that pacified him! He was still awake at 11.30 pm when Jordan and Jen got home (although I had cleaned up the living room by that time) and it had been hard work all round!

Next evening was the party, which also happened to be Jen's birthday, and I think everyone had a good time, although as Charlie was still cranky I and a few others spent a lot of time trying to distract him, yet again with Mickey Mouse in tow! He finally fell asleep around midnight and I left at 2 am after helping to clean up as much as possible. There were quite a few of us helping, to be fair, so it left very little for Jen's mom and her partner to do the next day! While I am a late bird by nature, I've realized that I can't pull these late night stints outside of my own home very often, but I guess that's what getting older does to most of us doesn't it!

My kids and Jen jammin'!

One thing I did realize that weekend though was one of the best ways to distract Charlie was to have Mickey Mouse "be terrified" all the time! At least it made him laugh and gave me the idea of buying glove puppets for him for Christmas. I think I'm going to buy him Punch and Judy puppets and no, I'm not worried about him turning into a thug even though in every Punch and Judy skit someone always gets bashed over the head with a rolling pin. Well I've never done that anyway, and I'm pretty sure rolling pins will probably be extinct by the time Charlie is older, so problem solved!

Punch and Judy!

Jen surprised her mom by booking a night's stay (23rd December) in one of the tree-top cabins at a safari park not too far from here. She's always wanted to stay somewhere overnight around Christmas so we all pitched in and we're all going (Jen, Jordan, Charlie, her mom and partner and André and me). It gives us entry into the park, dinner, an overnight stay and entry into the park again the next day, so I think she is looking forward to it. So am I actually because it's near a village called Peaugres, which is somewhere I've always wanted to visit and yet somehow never got around to it!

Peaugres!

For Jen's birthday we went in together to buy her a Cookeo - which is something she had also really wanted - so I would say the evening was a great success!

Cookeo

I may or may not have picked something up off Charlie (although I doubt it), but that stupid cough I had about a month ago came back, and while it was nothing serious (I knew it hadn't gone down into my lungs), waking up every hour or so was probably the reason I was so lethargic for a few days. Well that is until I remembered my "miracle cure" of the last time (origano oil), took one drop of that in some hot water and about an hour later it was basically gone. Shame I didn't think of it sooner though! Mind you, I saw that they have opened a little Indian store in town right next to the Indian restaurant and when I spotted that they were selling palak paneer (a kind of spicy Indian spinach and tofu dish), I bought some to give to André as he loves it. I wanted to try it beforehand in case it was dreadful so I heated that up tonight and I reckon if the origano oil hadn't worked that would have because it nearly blew my nose off! In any case I reckon's that's André's Christmas present sorted then - a bowl of spinach (and cheap at half the price)!

And finally, when I turn on my computer Microsoft (I'm guessing) sets a new picture as my opening imagine and the other day I thought this one looked familiar. Turns out it was Llanrwst, a small village in North Wales. Many years ago my grandad left my grandma and bought a small cobbler's shop in Llanrwst. I don't know if they ever divorced to be honest, but there was no other woman involved - he just couldn't stand living with my grandma anymore. In fact he tried to commit suicide one time and it was my poor mom, as a young teenager, that found him and saved his life. He continued to send money to my grandma but couldn't live with her and my mom once told me that while she couldn't accept him leaving at the time, as she got older she absolutely understood why he did it. I guess saying my grandma "wasn't easy" would be an understatement! Anyway, it was in Llanrwst that my brother Phil and his new bride finally found him (finding a specific "Jones" in Wales wouldn't exactly be the easiest thing to do) and that was how he got to meet back up with my mom again (and all of us) after goodness knows how many years. Sadly it wasn't to last long as he died of cancer a few years later, but at least he got to be part of our family for what little time he had left!

Llanrwst
(courtest of Trip Advisor and my computer screen)!

Talking of Llanrwst, many, many years ago, before I moved to Switzerland, my then boyfriend worked at a car factory in Birmingham, and the company sometimes offered to let employees take cars for the week-end so that they could provide feedback on how they handled. Well they must have liked Mark because he got a Lotus Eclat (????) so we headed off to North Wales for the week-end. While the car was a lovely ride it was really low, and I distinctly remember going over that bridge praying that there wouldn't be another car coming in the opposite direction because we would hit it before we saw it. Thankfully there wasn't, but it had to be one of the best week-ends of a young man's life getting to drive that thing for free!

Well it was the 1970s!

And finally, when I worked the 10 months in England before I got my job in Switzerland, the transport manager asked me if I would go to London with him to pick up the Managing Director's new company car which, as it turned out was - you guessed it - a yellow Lotus Eclat and he let me drive it back. I was 20 at the time but looked about 16, and as I was driving round Birmingham city centre in it, the loathing from the older men was palpable - spoilt rich bitch right? Tee hee, if only they knew! But that car was quite a distinctive car and a couple of months later as I was on the bus coming back from an interview in London I spotted it passing us on the motorway. And sure enough, there was our Managing Director and a rather young woman (he would have been in his 50s I'm guessing). So me being me I mentioned to him that I thought I'd seen him coming up the motorway the other day and the frozen look on his face when he asked me exactly what I'd seen told me pretty much all I needed to know. He was apparently quite the (married) player but I guess you can never be too careful when driving a car that distinctive, can you!