Gail Dickson .. my blog from Down Under

At the request of Catriona, here is the recipe for hokey pokey that Kyle had to make for homework the other day. Very yummy and for my family, one of my mum’s favourites! She introduced me to the kiwi delicacy a long time ago :o)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
4 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda

1) Grease a baking tray with butter
2) Put the golden syrup and sugar into a saucepan together and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.
3)Once the mixture is bubbling, let it bubble away for seven minutes (important, or it won’t set nice and crunchy)
4) Take it off the heat, stir in the baking soda and then (very speedily) spread it onto the greased tray
5) Let it sit - it should start to set immediately.

You can either eat it as is, or crunch it up into small pieces and add to vanilla ice cream … either way it’s yum.

:o) enjoy :o)

Hi all, just a quick update to let you know that Bobby still has a job. He got offered a position in the new structure the other day so all good.

I’ll start off with my good news! I’ve got a new job :o) Not moving from Sovereign, just moving roles. I’ve mentioned before that I’m doing a part-time sustainability role …. Well, they’ve just asked if I’ll go full time! I obviously jumped at the chance!!! It’s awesome … thirteen years after getting my degree in Environmental Science, I finally get to use it. I’ve always regretted not getting a job in that field so to do so now is just amazing for me. As you can tell, I’m really happy and excited about this.

I obviously need to hand over my PM role so I don’t go full time until after the Xmas holidays but they’re going to free me up gradually. One of my projects just went live so that’s one down … just need to hand over the other two.

I’ve actually had two bunches of flowers and a ticket to the bronze final of the Rugby World Cup as thank yous in the last couple of weeks too. Don’t think I’ve ever had flowers just to say thank you for doing my job before so to get two in such a short space of time was lovely. Have to admit to handing the RWC tickets back though as the thought of watching a whole rugby game was too much for me. Even the prospect of hospitality wasn’t enough to convince me. The kiwis love rugby so much that I’d much rather the ticket went to someone who would enjoy it.

The PSI (sustainability) conference I talked about in the last blog went really well and I got to meet up with lots of different people from both the insurance and sustainability industries.

Unfortunately, while everything is going well on the job front for me … the same cannot be said for Bobby. The company he works for are going through a restructure and he’s in a pool. Actually almost all of the technology department are. The employment laws are obviously a lot slacker here as what they are doing would definitely not be allowed in the UK. Anyway, he was supposed to find out what was happening on Friday and didn’t, so not a happy person this weekend. The waiting is terrible … why do companies always handle these things so badly? The company I used to work for in Edinburgh and VF down here were the same … this is a terrible time for people, why can’t they just put a bit more feeling into it?

To take his mind off it, he’s started building the new kitchen. We’ve finally made a decision on what to do with it and have made a start. For anyone who’s visited, we’re extending the kitchen out into what was the dining room so it’ll be much longer. The units got delivered today and Bobby has been building away :o). We do need to shorten a window before we can fit it all (this is much easier in NZ due to the fact that we live in a hut!) so it won’t be finished for a few weeks yet but at least we can get the majority of it built.

For a change, we have two children in the house on a Saturday night … this is not usual these days as Kyle is never here anymore! :o( He’s got a couple of really good friends and they tend to want to spend weekends together as well as all week. It’s great that he’s made such good friends but just wish I could spend some weekend time with my son! ;o) We’ve got a couple of them coming over tomorrow to play … didn’t think this one through though re playdate and new kitchen!!!

We were swimming earlier … his swimming is great and so is Regan’s … she’s been moved up to the next group and can now swim front crawl really well and is learning to use her arms with back stroke too. Jeez, don’t think I could swim at all at four and a half and she’s doing front AND back crawl!

The weather has been very changeable recently - we’ve had a couple of really cold periods with a beautiful spring period in the middle. The bad weather has meant that Kyle’s marathon training has not being going that well. He’s supposed to train twice a week at lunch times at school and both sessions were cancelled this week due to the weather. We’ll have to get him on the treadmill this weekend to make up for it. We did make it out last weekend and him and I did a 5km route (very hilly) and I was amazed at how well he’s come on since the last time we did it, so the school training is obviously making a difference.

Auckland is very much in Rugby World Cup mode at the moment. Everywhere you look it’s rugby .. it’s great that the whole nation is backing the All Blacks … just wish I understood what they were on about a bit more!

It was the five year anniversary of when my mum died the other week. Pamela went up to Loch Tummel with flowers and posted a photo on Facebook which was lovely so just wanted to say thank you to her for that, as it meant a lot. Although it’s obviously easier five years on, I still have days when I just want to call her and tell her what’s going on. When I got asked to go full time on sustainability, all I wanted to do was call her and tell her all about it, as I knew she’d be really happy about it. :’(

It’s been a busy time since I blogged last … we had my birthday, a trip to Oz and work has been getting busier and busier, so little time to sit and type this up.

In my last blog, I was talking about Kyle’s cross country and his lack of enjoyment of running. Well, he decided to ignore that and has signed up to run in the kids Auckland marathon in October. Now before you all think I’m making my son run 26 miles … the kids marathon is only a couple of kilometres and I guess it’s there to start them thinking about running and training. His training programme is due to start on Monday … at school and at home, so mum has agreed to do it with him … both the training and the marathon (kids).

For the first time since we arrived in NZ, I had to work on my birthday :o( this year. VF always gave you a day off for your birthday which was great … not so with Sovereign unfortunately. Turned out to be not too bad although I did arrive to find my desk decorated with balloons, sparkles etc which isn’t really me! Since it was a school night, we just went for a nice meal at a local Italian.

School holidays have just finished and Kyle is now back at school. We decided a while back to go back to the Cairns area since we hadn’t managed to do everything we wanted to at Xmas due to the floods. We had pre-booked a trip to the Barrier Reef and also one to Cape Tribulation/Daintree which we’d never done because you need an off roader to get there so were all really looking forward to it.

We were staying at a beach resort north of Cairns (Trinity Beach) which was lovely .. nothing much there apart from the beach, some restaurants and some hotels … what more do you need? :o)

On the Monday, we were picked up bright and early for the trip to the Daintree/Cape Trib. Travel was via a strange 4WD bus thing … we were quite high up so the kids had a great view out of the windows which was good. The initial trip up to Mossman is via a road that clings to the coastline so Kyle spent the time scanning the sea for dolphins .. unfortunately we didn’t see any. The day was spent wandering around the tropical rainforest (great for mum with camera! :o) ), swimming in a billabong (I watched for crocs!), going to Cape Tribulation beach which has to be one of the most stunning beaches I’ve ever seen and then going on a river cruise, where we encountered (wild) crocs swimming around the water and sunning themselves on the bank. Very interesting so long as you never think about what would happen if the boat sank! Eek! It was a really good day and the guide that was with us was really good.

Next day, we went into Cairns for a look around .. it’s changed a lot since we were there in 1993 and we’d seen the changes very quickly back at Xmas so went for a better look. The promenade area has been completely redeveloped (probably a while ago!), it’s now got a nice pool (for anyone who hasn’t been to Cairns before .. it’s mud flats!), a great kids area and a fitness area. They have Zumba and yoga on the esplanade in the mornings … awesome setting for your workout! I used to love outdoor workouts with my personal trainer in Victoria Park in Auckland as the sun was coming up … this would be even better!

It was a hot day so by mid afternoon, the kids were getting tired and grouchy so we took them to the kids area. One rule … don’t get wet as we had to drive back to Trinity Beach in the hire car. Not sure where that instruction went wrong but if you’ve seen the pictures on Flickr then you’ll know they failed that one big time! :o) Luckily, Bobby had some spare t-shirts in the car so they ended up going home in them.

Wednesday was a bit cloudy but still around 27 degrees so we headed off to Kuranda in the hills. There are three ways to get to Kuranda … road, rail and skyrail. The rail is a tourist railway and they do a deal where you can go up on the train and back on the skyrail (or vice versa) so we opted for that.

Kuranda Scenic Railway heads up into the rainforest and stops off at the Barron Gorge Falls on the way … if you’re into trees and scenery (which I obviously am) then it’s a really good trip. Takes over an hour to get to Kuranda and when you get there, it’s a small town which is full of really nice shops, restaurants and lots of touristy stuff to do like a wildlife park, a bird sanctuary and a butterfly sanctuary … among others. We did the three mentioned … you can’t go to Oz and not see the koalas and kangaroos can you? :o) The bird sanctuary was really good to .. the birds were quite friendly so Kyle got to feed some of the beautifully coloured parrots and they’ve even got a couple of the infamous cassowary which I’ve heard all about but never seen before. Butterfly world had some awesome vivid blue and green butterflies which are seen in the wild up there but you obviously get to see them much closer in the sanctuary. Kyle managed to get a couple of different butterflies to land on him but none on Regan, which made for a very sad girl :o(. Finally managed to get one to land on her head though which cheered her up immensely!

The skyrail on the way back down skips over the top of the rainforest so it’s a pretty amazing view. There are a couple of stops on the way down … one at the falls and another so you can wander around the rainforest. On the second, we were waiting for the car back down when the woman who works there pointed out a spider up in the eaves … OMG it was humungous! Thankfully it was way up high and nowhere near me … otherwise I would have freaked! Although saying that, it’s the small ones you have to worry about in Oz not the big ones! Regan still asks me to check for redbacks under the toilet seat before she’ll get on! I’ve tried to explain that we don’t have them in NZ but she’s not for it. Haha.

Thursday was our adventure out to the Outer Barrier Reef. Bobby and I had been to Green Island back in 1993, we all went to the Low Isles back at Xmas so we’d never been out to the pontoons on the Outer Barrier Reef … wasn’t sure what to expect. Wasn’t a good start when they told us it was very bumpy once we got passed the mainland … oh dear! Journey took about an hour with no major seasickness incidents which was good. You arrive to this platform in the middle of nowhere which is postioned next to a bit of reef very near the surface. Kyle was raring to go so he and Bobby got their snorkelling gear and headed off the water while I tried to persuade Regan to go in the water. They had a little cordoned off area where you could stand in a cage thing over the water for little kids so got her in there, with her goggles swimming around but she wasn’t for stepping off the side into the sea.

Bobby came back and took over while Kyle showed me the reef …. Awesome! They have a friendly parrot fish who lets you get your picture taken with it … see Flickr! They are huge fish and having something that big swimming beside you is a bit weird unless you’re used to it. Kyle had a fab time swimming with Wally the parrot fish and we’ve got lots of photos to prove it.

In the afternoon after lunch, Bobby and Kyle went off on an adventure snorkel tour with the marine biologists while I stayed in the little pool with Regan. She’d progressed on to snorkelling in the pool so next time we should get her in the sea! Watching the snorkel tour, I was a bit worried about Kyle as they were quite far out and were swimming loads but he managed really well and really enjoyed it. He’s an awesome snorkeller.

The rest of the time we just travelled around and went swimming/walking etc. We got some really good photos on the final day at Palm Cove and Ellis Beach.

So came back and got back into school, nursery and work again :o( My work is super busy at the moment, my CRM project is taking up 100% of my time and I’ve still got another two IT projects that I’m running … so when am I supposed to do my 50% sustainability work? Oh yeah that would be at night! I’m exhausted already and I’ve only been back a week! Next week Sovereign are hosting a UN Sustainability conference so I’m going to be attending that Thursday/Friday … should be interesting hanging out with Oceania Insurance CEOs! Will let you know how that one goes in the next blog post.

My secondment is due to finish end August so will give you an update on how that goes in the next blog too.

It was Kyle’s 8th birthday at the end of May, unfortunately for him it was a school day and worse than that it turned out to be cross country day too!!! Kyle does not like running … he comes out with me sometimes when I go for a run and complains the whole way … so was very upset at the prospect of having to do cross country on his birthday.

In NZ, they have one day a year where the whole school does the cross country course one class after another … it’s not like in Scotland where you used to get cross country for PE over winter … they don’t really go running to practice, they just do it on this day … strange practice.

Anyhoo, I was working from home that day for a number of reasons so popped up to watch him and he did really well. He looked like he was in the top third(ish) of his year so all that practice with mum obviously did him good! :o) He was quite happy with himself afterwards too as I think he’d been a bit worried about it.

We’d already opened his presents in the morning – he wanted a remote control helicopter – so that night we just had a nice tea because he was having a sleepover birthday party at the weekend with five of his friends so we didn’t go out.

Saturday arrived and so did the boys … we’d decided to go to a place called Big Ups in Mt Roskill, which has sumo suits, lots of inflatable stuff including the fly wall, bungy run and they also had a couple of Zorb balls which they all love for some reason! They all seemed to really enjoy themselves (other than one incident over a sumo suit! :o) ) and mum was just hoping that they’d tired themselves out! :o)

Headed back to the house for pizza and birthday cake. After dinner, I’d had the idea of buying them all a craft toy which they could make that night. Searched around and found little battery powered cars that they could make so bought them all one so that they could race them after they’d finished building. Turned out to be an awesome idea as they’d started getting a bit hyper after dinner and this activity really calmed them down. They all sat on the living room floor and made their cars then raced them down the kitchen floor. Bobby helped the boys and I made a Princess doll with Regan.

Bed time came and it was looking very unlikely that they were going to calm down enough to sleep … we went upstairs and it only took about an hour before they all fell asleep … 11pm till 6am the next morning!! I would definitely declare that a successful sleepover!!! :o)

The next morning we went to the movies to see Rio … a bit much singing for my liking but it wasn’t bad. As parents came to pick them up, they seemed to have enjoyed themselves and Kyle definitely did so a definite success.

A couple of days before I had volunteered to be a parent helper at the year 3 trip to Howick Village (http://www.fencible.org.nz), which was the first non-Maori settlement in the Auckland area. Some of the original buildings are there and they have organised activities for school groups which makes for a really enjoyable day! The guides in the Village all dress in period costumes and they encourage everyone visiting to do likewise and the school had asked that everyone do so.

Kyle really looked the part once we’d finished with him … not so sure I did! :o) The only long dress I had (other than my best frocks!) was a summer one and with it being late autumn, I was a bit chilly! Thankfully, the ladies of that time always had shawls on so I kept that around me all day and managed okay.

The parent helpers all got allocated six kids each for the afternoon activities and mine were a great bunch .. they asked lots of questions, took part in the activities and were really well behaved! A much nicer experience than when I’d done the parent helper thing in year 1!

Normal life is busy … Bobby is very busy at work, I’m still writing my policies and coming up with environmental targets, kids are doing well and Regan especially is doing really well at swimming! I still marvel at how much progress she makes in the space of a week! One of the kids in her class got moved up this week … comparing the two, I don’t think it’ll be long before Reggie follows her.

Weather is getting colder now that we’re into winter … it’s quite chilly at night now and although we now think it’s really cold, it’s nothing compared to Scotland winter!

We went cycling for the first time in ages last weekend and went back to the place we used to go to .. it’s a bit bumpy so we hadn’t tried Regan on her tagalong there yet. Watching from behind, she was bumping all over the place and I was worried she wouldn’t like it but she was squealing in delight very soon so all good! :o)

Going tree planting next weekend with the Kiwi Conservation Club (Kyle is a member) and Cubs so hope the weather isn’t too bad.

Wow … had no idea it had been so long since my last blog. Lots has happened since then …

We had our four year anniversary at the end of April …one more to go till we get our Kiwi passports!

The weather has been all over the place recently … started with a really bad cyclone which resulted in some of Browns Bay beach migrating into the town. We were driving down the main street when we came across a sand dune in the middle of the road!!

Then around two weeks ago, there was a tornado!! Now if I’m completely honest, tornados scare me more than most things … everyone has something that they are really scared of … this is mine. So when the person who sits behind me at work suddenly said that there had been a tornado in Albany I wasn’t overly happy. Had a look at the news site and discovered it had hit our local shopping mall badly with one man being killed. Problem was that our local shopping mall is only about 0.5km from Regan’s nursery and around 2kms from the house!

Got straight on the mobile to nursery … who didn’t answer …. Panicked a bit … waited and then tried again. This time I got through and they told me everything was okay. Did likewise with Kyle’s school … again, all okay then left work to check on the house. Thankfully (for us) everything and everyone was fine. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the guy who died. :o(

One woman had left her 7 month old and 4 year old in the car while she ran in to pick something up from one of the shops … came back out and her car was gone! The tornado had picked it up and dropped it on the other side of the carpark …. The kids were fine inside … a few cuts … saved by the 5 point seat belts! Can you imagine how you’d feel in her position????? I don’t think she’ll ever leave the kids in the car on their own again, do you?

We went away for Easter … up north to live on an orchard for 5 days. The bach was lovely, the orchard was great for the kids to run around on and big enough that we could even go cycling around it. We did our usual egg hunt on Easter Day, which was a bit trickier than usual due to the size of the garden! :o) The kids loved it ….

We loved the outside space and it confirmed again that we need to live in the country at some point in the future ….

We always try and take some craft type activities with us when we go away so Regan made a fairy and Kyle made his favourite car of alltime …. A Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera! The boy is completely mad on Lambos for some reason … doesn’t come from either me or Bobby as we’re not really into supercars like that.

Kyle is doing really well and is enjoying DC class. He has been given a couple of certificates in assembly recently for his excellent research skills which has made mum very proud! Last term, they were studying evolution/animal adaptation as their inquiry and he loves nature so much that he obviously kept asking questions etc. The teacher gave him some extra homework because he was so keen so we ended up researching whales and dolphins during his easter break. Must admit, mum learnt a couple of things too!

It’s Kyle’s 8th birthday in a couple of weeks too … where has time gone? He’s advised that 8 year olds must have sleepover birthday parties so we’ve got five of them sleeping over in a couple of weekends time!!! They’ll arrive at lunchtime on the Saturday and then we’re going to take them to a place that does inflatable sumo, bungy runs, the suits that make you stick to the walls etc etc. Hoping that will tire them out as the last sleepover he went to, they didn’t sleep all night. I have warned him that I’m not quite as tolerant as his friends mum! :o) Will probably take them to the movies on the Sunday morning before they head off ….

8 years also means that he has to move up to cubs … so he and dad are doing the transition from keas to cubs over the next couple of weeks too!

Regan has come on so much in the last month or so it’s unbelievable! She woke up one day and decided she could draw, write and swim!!!! It really did happen like that too. She’d never been into drawing before and always just did scribbles then one day she started drawing perfect little people … the girls always have long hair and the boys always have spiky hair …. And everyone always has a huge smile on their face! :o) She also decided she wanted to write … again, she’d never been interested before and I hadn’t pushed it too hard. She’s now at the stage that she remembers how to spell her name, mum, dad, Kyle etc and how to write them. If she wants to write something she doesn’t know then I write it in the air for her and she remembers … it’s a neat trick!

As for swimming … wow! She had been really confident in the water when she’d been in the babies class with Bobby and then she’d lost her confidence for some reason. When she was big enough to go in the pool on her own, she started again and she was doing okay. One day, she obviously lost the confidence issue and started swimming! I was sitting at the side of the pool with tears in my eyes I was so proud of her!! She can now swim the length of her little bit of the pool with no float and arms and everything. Bobby came to watch her for the first time in ages today and even he was gobsmacked at how good she was.

I’m really enjoying my sustainability work and am now preparing the policy and guidelines for the company, as well as trying to set targets and action plans to decrease our environmental footprint. It’s great that I’m finally getting to use my degree!!!!

When I was at University, I was still veggie and the information I was learning turned me into a bit of a greenie … I’ll admit, children and fulltime work have dimmed the green a bit over the last 8 years however this new job is definitely bringing it back. Freaking out about plastic containers, aluminium in deodorant, the amount of waste I’m generating when I don’t need to etc etc etc … so trying to do something about it. Not going completely mad but trying to make some small differences.

Also got elected to Kyle’s school Board of Trustees last week so am going on training over the next couple of months after work and will also be doing some evenings on the Board. The way schools are run down here is very different to the UK as the Board has a lot of power over the running of the school. Will let you know how it goes!

Thought I’d better let everyone know that we’re fine … tsunami from Japanese earthquake has now reached NZ but only 1m so limited damage (if any) expected.   Terrible time though …

I’m a very proud mum this morning … Reggie managed to swim the length (of her little bit) of the pool this morning at swimming … with no float!   And as soon as she realised she could do it, nothing could stop her!   She’s very proud of herself …   :o)

It’s been a very sad time down here over the last couple of weeks. As you’ll no doubt be aware, ChCh had a very big earthquake and with NZ being such a small country and such a close country, it’s really affected the mood of the whole place. We obviously get much more information on the aftermath of the earthquake and it’s horrific.

All workplaces, schools, pre-schools etc have been having red & black mufti days (casual days in kiwi … took me a long time to work that one out and still don’t quite understand why they are called that!) to raise money for ChCh. They’ve raised a lot of money but nowhere near enough to rebuild what’s been lost. ChCh was one of the cities in NZ that had some old architecture … there’s not much of it to be seen in Auckland … and a lot of it has now gone.

I realised how long it had been since I last blogged when I started typing this … so have quite a lot to catch up on.

Regan had her 4^th birthday party near the end of January in the hope that the majority of her friends were back from summer holidays. She’s completely mad on everything girly and especially fairies so we had her party at the Fairy Cottage nearby (Kyle had his 5^th birthday party there too … as they also do pirate parties). It was a lovely day and the girls all turned up in their pretty dresses so there are some excellent photos from the day. Regan had her Tinkerbell outfit on that she got from her Gran in Livingston and she looked beautiful … she really suits that tone of green .. must buy her some more clothes in that colour.

We had some fairly big storms at the end of January, one especially bad one happened the first night of the Auckland Anniversary weekend. We were heading up to a bach at Buckleton Beach near Matakana and as usual we’d left Auckland after dark to miss the traffic. It was raining hard when we left the house but by the time we got near Matakana, the weather was atrocious … we could hardly see through the windscreen due to the rain and the roads were flooded. Finally found the bach in the dark (no easy feat!) and parked in front of the door …. Stepped out into water up to my knee nearly! Very worried about the state of the house inside but thankfully when we opened the front door, it was dry. Carried the kids inside … and luckily by the morning, the flood outside the front door had gone.

Unusually for NZ, the bach had a swimming pool so the kids had a fab time going in and out the water. Talking of which, Kyle has been moved up to breather 3 at swimming and Regan is now swimming on her own with a float!

Straight after Anniversary weekend, Kyle went back to school …year 3 and as I mentioned before, he’s now in DC so does a lot of his homework online and is learning typing skills etc. He’s so much more into school this year as he thinks it’s fun learning on the computer. Kinda thought he’d react like that hence why we spent the extra money to get him into DC.

So what about me? Well … I applied for a 6 month secondment at work to become a Sustainability Programme Consultant … the role is kind of a mix between my current project management type tasks but also working on building up the environmental and social policies and procedures for my employer. I constantly look back and regret not using my degree … especially since the subject interests me so much. So I couldn’t not apply for the secondment really ….

Anyway, I applied but my current boss wasn’t happy at the prospect of losing me (they weren’t allowed to backfill either ..) so we had to come to a compromise … 50% sustainability, 50% project management of my CRM project. Let’s be honest, any chance of working on sustainability is better than none so of course I took it! Have started working on it already and am researching sustainability reporting and also environmental management systems. Going forward, I’ll also be getting involved in a number of improvement projects throughout the company … the first one being the minimisation of paper usage. At last, I can get some use out of my degree and hopefully, my job will become more fulfilling … maybe I can make a difference at last!

Our fitness regime is not going well at the moment as it’s just so hot!! Decided that we had to get back into it though so bought Regan her tagalong … at first she wasn’t keen at all and would only go out if dad attached a bell to her bike that she could ring when he was going too fast.

A new cycle path was opening up down in Onehunga so we decided to try that out since it looked quite flat and not too bumpy. We set off and I could hear the bell being rung and the little voice saying “Daddy, you’re going too fast!” … Kyle and I got a bit further away and the next thing I knew Regan was shouting “Go faster dad, go faster!”. She loves it! We ended up going quite far and the little soul fell fast asleep on the way home and wouldn’t wake up for ages after we got home! :o)

Last Sunday, Kyle had Founders Day at our local beach with the keas and then we went to a car show to raise funds for a little girl who lost both arms and both legs due to meningitis when she was a baby. She’s now 7 but normal prosthetic legs don’t work for her so the car show was set up to make enough money to take her to the US to get some new legs. Photos from both are on Flickr.

This week has been very tiring … first off, Regan was off pre-school with a high temperature (no other symptoms, just the temperature) and then on Thursday afternoon Kyle got stung in the foot by a bee. We got the ice out and then put some cream on it and although it looked a bit like a mossie bite, it seemed fine. By the time, I picked him up from school on Friday night, his foot was bright red and very swollen. Took him to the docs who said it was either an infection or a bad reaction … he advised treating both and said to keep a close eye on him over night and if the redness got any worse to take him straight to Starship … the kids A&E in the city. Eek! Set my alarm to check on him a couple of times during the night and by morning, although still a bit red it was much less enflamed thankfully.

Just as well really as he is on a sleepover birthday party tonight and was very upset at the thought that he might miss it. Of course, mum is still stressing about him even when he’s not here … is that unusual? Am I paranoid or is that a normal mum reaction?? House feels very empty without him so will be glad when it’s time to go and fetch him tomorrow. :o)