And I moan about my hours!

Rob worked an 18-hour day yesterday, came home, had about 4h30 sleep, and went back to work.

The only person not exhausted in this family is Linnea. She's the only person who doesn't have a nasty cold, too.

Today I need to clean the kitchen, including the floor where the tin of tuna exploded (we're out of catfood). And wash nappies. And hang laundry to dry, and bring in the was-dry-now-wet laundry from the line, and hang it indoors where it doesn't rain. And figure something out for dinner. And maybe have a shower and wash the tuna out of my hair, but I don't want to push my luck.

Cider vinegar and bicarbonate of soda

I tried a few different solid shampoos from not-Unilever-etc suppliers, and none of them rinsed out of my hair properly. Not even the Lush one. The Lush one with conditioner was ok, but it refused to rinse out fully, always left a residue that I could detect.

So I gave up and, rather than going back to Dove, went to baking soda wash with a vinegar rinse. And from the first wash, my hair was not sticky, easy to comb, and clean-feeling.

I meant to look up how I ought to be doing it somewhere, but in the end I just made up a random paste of baking soda and water, and a random solution of vinegar and water, and rubbed the former into my hair and rinsed it out with the latter.

It's great. The only possible downside is that washing my hair takes a little longer than it used to with regular shampoo, but it's quicker than rinsing out the solid shampoos, so that's ok. I shower fast anyway. Oh, and it may be contributing to the dry skin on my scalp and hands, but I'm not sure about that, that could just be pregnancy.

I was a bit worried that massaging the paste into my very fine, very thick hair would be Too Hard, but it wasn't. And the bicarb makes a nice facial exfoliant too; my face is softer and smoother and not drying out, where before it was rough and spotty. That's pregnancy too.

I'll need some convincing to go back to using shampoo, I think. I'm a happy hippie sometimes :)

Linnea, itsa 'Nea

Two days after I returned from Ireland with a sick toddler, we were visited by the original holder of the name, Rob's first cousin. I'm too tired to write about it properly, so here's the highlights:

She's an ethical consumerism freak just like me! I brought her to the RISC shop and the Global Cafe and she loved it. We talked for hours about ethical consumption. We stayed up way too late. She's lovely and fabulous.

My Linnea loved her to pieces; they painted together, and played at Going To Sleep (with special snoring sound effects).

My Linnea did not believe that there could be someone else with the same name. She wasn't upset, she just didn't believe it. So she called her Mum, because there are loads of people called Mum and Dad. I don't think my Linnea has met any two people with the same name yet, except Baby Orla and Auntie Orla, and they're not the same name at all, really.

We made pancakes and ate Swedish Glace soya icecream. I gave her a copy of my book, since she's given me two of her CDs, and we sent her home with CDs full of photos for distribution to relatives.

The cover of my book (same image as this icon) is my Linnea in the other Linnea's bed in Sweden.