Lost Rambler

Walking to my car yesterday I was on the other side of the road to another person who I didn’t take much notice of. However, it turned out she had a really loud piercing voice, and despite the several meters distance between us I couldn’t help but hear every word of her side of the conversation she was having on her mobile phone. By the time her voice started to fade (I was walking significantly faster than her) I slowed to catch the rest of it:

Is Michelle there?

Well, Chantalle’s been telling everyone that Christine is pregnant, but she isn’t.

Yeah, but now Steve has found out and Christine is really angry. You haven’t seen Chantalle have you? Christine is looking for her and she’s going to kill her. I need to find her first.

Ok, well tell your mum that I’ll be around in a couple of minutes.

Up to the last line I’d assumed she was a 16-year-old girl. I had a surreptitious glance in her direction. She was older than me, and I assume her two friends are too.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Christine eventually does catch up with Chantalle.

I went to London on Wednesday for a meeting. I couldn’t believe the price of a peak time day return. Over £50! The meeting went well. It was at the University of London, and we were almost finished by lunchtime, so decided to work through. I left at around 3pm really, really hungry.

I decided to wander back to the tube in a random direction (you can always find a tube station by walking in a random direction in central London) so as to see a little of the city. Would you believe I stumbled upon the back entrance of the British Museum. A Korean exhibition room was signposted, so I checked it out.

It was full of Korean things. Imagine that, a little bit of Korea in the middle of London.

I decided I had to get home, so I walked through the museum to the front and out to find lunch (a spectaular burger) and a tube station (where I met a colleague by random chance).

My journey from the back of the museum to the front took me from a small door surrounded by small galleries through progressively bigger and grander spaces, until the main entrance hallway was reached. This was one of the biggest and grandest rooms I’d ever been in. Exiting, the front was a huge columned facade that was grander than the entrance hallway. I recommend everyone go through the museum like this. I would imagine going through in the right way would mean every room is slightly less than the previous, which doesn’t seem like as much fun to me.

The experience left me hungry for more as aside from the Korean room, I saw glimpses of the what could be seen.

I have another nephew. This is nephew number five for me. He’s having some minor difficulties in feeding, hence the IV and feeding tube.

His birth-weight was 3.24kg (7lb 2oz), and aside from a little trouble starting to feed, both Mother and baby are doing really well.

It’s really nice to have another baby in the extended family. My mother now has 10 grandchildren!

Well, my household is all healthy again. The son is consistently sleeping through the night, the wife tonsillitis is now all better and the daughter is, as always, a smiling bundle of joy. We though the son was an easy baby, but the daughter has set the new standard. She’s all smiles, and when she cries (which is extremely rare anyway) all it takes is a little cuddle to get her to stop.

She’s also learning to crawl, or at least we think she is. I say that because we’ve never seen her move. When we’re looking at her she lays on the floor quite happily, kicking and waving with great gusto and an absolute absence of locomotion. She will quite happily stay in one place grasping for toys that are just out of our reach all the time our eyes are on her.

If we then watch TV for a minute, pop to the toilet, stir a pot on the stove, get a drink from the fridge or even blink, the next time we look at the daughter, she will be in a completely different part of the room, in a completely different position.

But we’ll never see her move.

The son has a really nasty chest infection for which he is on antibiotics. He’s been ill for over a week, and is not eating. He has shrunk a nappy size. We’re very worried. He coughs all through the night and wakes himself up. He has trouble going to sleep.

The last one I can do something about. I usually sit in his room and do something on my laptop while he falls asleep. Today I thought about clearing up my desktop. I didn’t have time. I did take this picture of it. Would you believe there are 218 icons on my desktop. I really should be more organised.

By the time I had arranged them for the picture (no mean feat), the son was fast asleep.

Mission accomplished.