We have lately been eating a lot of good food

Rob cooked up a double batch of this soup for the shared lunch after Meeting the other week, and it was very well received. He's made it once more but we haven't finished eating it. Also, for lunches, the children and I have been eating a lot of pitta bread with olives, feta and hummous, and tomato and avocado and things. I'm not sure why. Emer and I had some very successful pittas filled with scrambled egg, one day, too.

Rob made bread at the weekend, so that we'd have something to eat with the soup, and it's good. He very very rarely makes bread, so it was a nice change. No doubt he'd feel the same if I cooked dinner.

We've been eating Quorn, too, which it turns out is sustainably produced within the UK, so that's good. I have been wondering how I could be vegetarian or vegan without dairy or soy, and I can't work out how to manage it without getting ill again yet. But it's probably at least partially a matter of altering habits. Meanwhile, our meat intake is all locally sourced organically reared meat, which is better than nothing.


I don't make many packed lunches any more, but I want an egg-shaper anyway. I will probably cave in and get one in time for spring salads and picnics. SO CUTE. Bet they don't persuade Emer to eat the yellow bit though.

For some reason, cakes and things haven't been happening so much. I wonder why?

On the Wii

We've been playing on the Wii a bit. We have the Wii Fit Plus, because we got the Wii second-hand so it was easy to justify.

Rob is excellent at the Penguin Iceberg Slide. Linnea and Emer love cycling, especially the bit where you can repeatedly crash into walls. I find the way of playing much more congenial than any other computer game I can remember; it's sociable, because there's something for people who aren't playing to watch (Rob is a fabulous flying chicken, by the way) and it doesn't seem to give me RSI or hurt my SPD too much, though I've not risked yoga yet.

Linnea had a go at snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding, and jogging, and turned them all into dangerous sports with a high mortality rate.

The day Rob bought a silicone cover for the balance board was the day a child was too engrossed in a game to go to the bathroom; Wii wee. Emer is terribly confused by the homonym.

Linnea really, really likes making new people - new Miis - and naming them. It's the dullest thing to watch on the Wii that we've found so far, though.

Chicken flying and doing sums with one's bottom are probably the most amusing.

The Lurgy

Also, we've all been ill. I've had a cold on and off since before Christmas, but Emer came down with a Super Cold this past week and shared it around for all of us, including Lucy. She woke screaming in the night form the pain in her throat a few times, and my throat pain kept me awake. Emer's, of course, went straight to her chest and turned into a cough, as all colds do for Emer, and mine is sitting in my sinuses. Rob's is a manageable but uncomfortable sore throat and stuffy nose. Linnea's basically well; she had a cough and a sniffle for a day or so.

Unlike previous illnesses, Emer agreed to take things to make her feel better this time; she drank warm milk and honey, and licked the honey spoon, which she has never actually done before. This made her much more comfortable, because honey is good for sore throats and coughs.

But we spent four nights, I think, or maybe it was five, in a row, with Emer up for periods of three to five hours. One night I didn't get to sleep at all until after six in the morning. Rob slept one night on the floor of the living room while Emer played around him. I don't remember the others; much sitting up and rocking and soothing.

Emer had one night of nightmares and crying in her sleep.

Emer says telly makes her better. Actually, she said telly would "bake be betta," because she had a cold. I was fine with that, because nothing I could do was helping. She won't take much by mouth, so apart from paracetamol suppositories there's very little we can do. And although I wanted to reduce her fever to make me feel better (it's worrying, a slight fever, even when I know it's a good thing) I didn't actually do it, because a fever helps combat illness and she wasn't uncomfortable because of the temperature, only because of the cough. She doesn't like coughing; it wakes her up and makes her cry. "I'm really sad!" she wails. "I can't get happy!"

I've been telling a lot of interminable incoherent stories about Mrs Large the Elephant in the middle of the night. And being corrected when I get the plot or dialogue wrong.

In the middle of it all, Linnea was able (as the noncontagious one) to go play with some well friends, and some of my well friends brought me emergency deliveries of honey and lemon, so that was lovely. Rob arrived home from work with treats every day; one day lemons, another Strepsils and Karvol vaporisers, another day soluble paracetamol.

I've been complaining about my inability to take masses of drugs and wishing homeopathy worked. And having baths. I got some quality sleep in a warm bath in a steamed-up bathroom, one morning.

We're getting better today. We've dried three duvets hanging indoors, and Emer said, when I asked how she was, "I'd fide, Bubby!"

You can tell a household is ill when ordinarily there's enough bedding for a visiting family of four as well as the household but suddenly they have to dig out the emergency backup bedding from storage. It's lurid pink and electric blue and my auntie gave it to me when I was 14. From kindness.