The Midweek Ersatz

"I'm no Heifetz, but I get by."

As a bonus this week, I had a visit from Hanna and Arya to attend a school tour. They arrived on Monday night in time for dinner (chicken risotto) and although we finished late, Arya was out in record time and asleep by 8:30. I rule!

And then she woke up less than forty-five minutes later complaining of pain in her legs. Mummy cuddled her while we gave her some Calpol and then I lay with her while she went back to sleep. Hanna is concerned that Arya may have hypermobile joints and sometimes wake in pain because of that. She's certainly a very flexible girl, although I usually put that down to being three. Anyway, Hanna stayed in with Arya, so I slept on the sofa-bed in the living room.

On Tuesday we were up and at it bright and early. Well, I was, beginning with my discovery at four-thirty that we were far enough from the solstice that if I leave the sitting room windows open the light wakes me up at around, oh, four-thirty. I managed to get back to sleep for the ninety minutes until my alarm went off, then gave Hanna another ninety minutes, which left Not Enough Time(TM) to comfortably get Arya ready for the day; especially when she decided that she wanted to wear her pink tutu with her posh dress(1). In the end she went for the other posh dress, because it's a more generous fit, and accepted that the tutu might not work.

We arrived somewhat late thanks to a tricky bit of satnaving (the school has four sites(2) and gives one postcode.) Once there, Arya clung to our legs for a minute and then went haring off to explore on her own. She was up and down stairs, in and out of rooms and even sat down with the maths booster class. We had tea and they found her some gluten free biscuits, then she ran off to explore and found the library, where she got some books to read with us and then sat at the piano and showed a marvelous awareness of how the instrument is played, if not actually of how to play it. When the head of the nursery was free, she took us to look at that, as Arya may well be starting there soon. We booked a taster morning for her next week and then went to meet my parents for lunch.

This park is even colder than it looks.

We stopped briefly at the park, where it was very, very cold, then went to the Cutter Inn for a very good, very large and very filling lunch. Arya was off around the restaurant quite a bit, including running after Granny and Grandad to give them a goodbye hug, so we figured we'd shop and then head home. At the shop, Arya got into the toy section and found the PAW Patrol goodies, and I had to be tough with her and explain that we can't just buy everything, however much she wants it, but we could add it to the list to consider for birthday. Then we lost Hanna for a bit (she was in the toilet, but my phone didn't have enough signal to pick up her explanatory text,) and Arya got out of my sight around the clothes section and I panicked a little, but all was well that ended well. We shopped and headed home, where I watched Sarah & Duck and My Little Pony with Arya, while Hanna napped and then cooked.

We had beans and sausages on toast, because cooking anything more serious was just not happening.

It would have been nice to settle Arya and have a crack at finishing at least one episode of The 100, but Hanna was pretty wiped, so they headed off early. It was good to see them midweek, although exhausting, and it makes me ponder the future of this blog. Once Hanna and Arya are living with me, I suspect it will shift to moe or less daily posts, but each one significantly shorter than my current standard.

(1) We wanted to make a good impression. I was wearing my best shirt with combats and a cable-knit jumper, so didn't feel too able to criticise.
(2) We managed to avoid the playing fields, I think, but took in the rest.

Under a Blood Red Moon*

King's Ely enforce discipline through
methods including 'the box'.

On Friday, the whole family turned out for a visit, in part because Andrew - like Lord Grantham - had an angina scare. In Andrew's case, it turned out to be a horrible, untreated chest infection, but that was better than the alternative. We also had things to do as a family on Saturday, but more of that later.

We did a bit of shopping in town and went to the park for a kick about, then home to Littleport. Hanna was already pretty frazzled, having taken four hours to make the two hour drive from Woking due to traffic, so we had a fairly quite evening and finished up Downton Season 5 almost in time for Season 6. Then we had an earlyish night - I lie like a dog; it was about 11 o'clock - so we could get up early to go to a school open day.

It's a sobering thought to realise that you're contemplating committing something like £100,000 of your future income on a particular thing, be it a house or - as in this case - your child's education. Now, in theory we are 100% behind state education, but the continuing government programme of destroying state schools with the one-two punch of reduced resources and increased demands means that we're willing to put that aside for Arya's education, and the King's School Ely ticked our boxes in a big way. It has an exciting curriculum, beautiful grounds and facilities, cheerful staff (I played the disgruntled ex-teacher card and basically invited them to bitch; not a nibble) and chickens.

Play therapy by Arya.

It was a pretty comprehensive open day, touring Acremont nursery/reception/infants, followed by a trip across town to the junior school. It was so intensive and busy that Arya lost at least three balloons (one into the sky, one she managed to deflate and one got caught in a high ceiling) during the course. On the other hand, even around the older children acting as guides for the junior school she was so much more confident than I have ever seen her somewhere new and with new people that it gave me a major positive vibe.**

Once we got back, Andrew and I took Arya to the park. We had some stress because she was suffering a little from some sort of diarrhoea and had to be changed in the consulting room of the pharmacy while I got my meds, but mostly she as pretty jolly. All in all this weekend, she was very pro-Daddy Luke, although she clearly enjoyed having all three of us around. When I pointed out that Daddy Andrew was getting a bit tired, however, she immediately leaped into full therapist mode and decided that - far from my silly idea of going home - he should get up and energetically play with her! Adorable, if not necessarily practical, and I'm sure that she meant well.

No Frozen this weekend, but we did watch Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child a lot. Fortunately they are very good***, but it's still the same 90 minutes over and over.

On Sunday, I rolled the family out of bed and we headed off for swimming. It was my turn in the water and Arya was actually pretty good at everything except going on her back or underwater. When I tried to wet her hair she actually said: "No, daddy! I awready wash it."

We went home for breakfast, which was pretty good (although I messed up the timing of the mushrooms so the bacon was a little overcooked) and basically took it easy. Hanna played vets hospital with Arya, which will get its own entry.

Arya was very tired and fussy, but settled nicely after dinner, only to wake up again at about 10 o'clock in floods of tears. She wouldn't be happy with Daddy Andrew, she wanted me. She kept coughing, and even once that was controlled - whether by the children's vaporub or by removing the long-neglected and probably quite dusty cuddly panda I can't say for sure - she was restless and unsettled, possibly with a dicky tummy still, moving into constipation. So we spent the night in sleepless shifts, watched a load of Muppets and got about five hours tops. Today I am blitzed, and I don't think Hanna is any better. Arya will no doubt be a right little Gatling monkey.

On the upside, at least she didn't get imaginary cholera from her hospital.

* Sunday night was the supereclipse. We were awake, but had no view of the moon. 
** Maybe even £10,000 positive.
** And Arya's pronunciation - Fuffaflo - beyond endearing.