Gate fever

We are having a terribly worried day. Poor Number One Son-In-Law has caught Ritalin Boy’s ghastly poo-and-puke affliction.

They are supposed to be meeting us at the hotel tomorrow but of course if they are all being sick they might not be able to come. Certainly if I was being sick and had explosive poo I would not want to go anywhere except for the bathroom and my bed, and no pantomime in the world would tempt me to go anywhere else. Self-pity is the thing.

Ritalin Boy is not better either. Our day started with a series of pictures kindly sent by Number One Daughter of Ritalin Boy’s overnight poo disaster which quite put me off my breakfast, and of course photographs don’t come with accompanying smell.

So, boys and girls, I want you all to shout very loudly that you want them to get better soon. As loudly as you can, and we’ll see if it helps. Mums and Dads join in as well…

I may have started thinking in pantomime a bit soon.

I am pleased to announce that Oliver has recovered completely. He was a bit shaky this morning, but announced that his headache had gone, and he wasn’t feeling sick or shivery any more. He spent the morning sloping about in his dressing gown eating crisps, and then this afternoon he buzzed off to the cinema to eat popcorn and watch Star Wars with Harry, so all my Oliver-related worries have disappeared like spilled flour into the hoover. So far it seems that our household is going to be all right, I have got my fingers really tightly crossed against last-minute misfortunes.

To make things worse, Mark’s sister, who was going to join us for the whole event, has also had to cry off. They are still coming down for the pantomime but have cancelled their hotel room because of having to do something work related and having a financial moment.

We were really disappointed that they were not going to join us, because of it being nice to do family things together. Also we have had some very joyous giggly times with them when they are relaxed and happy and not worrying about awful rural calamities, and we like being around them. However every cloud has a silver lining and we suggested that if they weren’t going to come then maybe they wouldn’t mind too much if we dumped our dogs on them yet again.

We are not sick or at work and so we have spent today doing the last getting ready things for going away. An awful lot of this involved laundry, and I have almost finished ironing the last of the children’s uniform. I have also resolved a small mystery of what had happened to Oliver’s third pair of school trousers, for which I have been fruitlessly searching for several days.

By good fortune I thought this morning that I would make the Christmas ice cream, which has for ever put me off eating anybody else’s ice cream as an insipid nonentity.

You make this by thoroughly beating four egg yolks with a good splash of vanilla, a carton of double cream and a can of condensed milk. I added nutmeg and ginger as well, because of it being Christmas. It is superb, ordinary ice cream is only ever an echo of its rich loveliness, and at the end when I came to shove it in the freezer I discovered Oliver’s school trousers stuffed in there as well.

I had forgotten that after discovering a several-times-washed-and-ironed blob of blu-tac adhering very firmly to the insides of his trouser pocket I had optimistically put his trousers in the freezer to see if it would become easier to scrape off.

It didn’t. However a good squirt with white vinegar and a quick scrub with washing up liquid did the trick, what handy household hints you can find on these pages.

We finished the tidying up and got ready for work, really it feels as though everything is in its place for morning.

I am so excited, I am sitting on the taxi rank with terrible gate fever. Not long now and we will be there, really there, in Manchester for our Christmas adventure.

We are staying at the Midland. Do come and see us.

Fingers crossed for poor Number One Son-In-Law and Ritalin Boy.

xxxx