Mopped brows

Jamie and Danny woke up this morning (Saturday) with their first colds of the winter. I guess it had to happen at some point. They both looked like ghosts all day, and Danny didn't eat more than 3 mouthfuls of food in the last 36 hours (although he was otherwise fine yesterday). Funnily enough Jamie kept her appetite, wolfing down a stack of daddy's American pancakes for breakfast. Danny was whingy all morning, demanding - as usual when he's ill - that Carmen sit with him on the sofa. When I got back from doing the shopping he was asleep in her arms.

We gave them both paracetamol in the afternoon, and within minutes they were up and about. Carmen mentioned that a friend of ours had jokingly said she thought they put a magic ingredient in kid's paracetamol, like amphetamine or something, because the kids seem to suddenly get a huge burst of energy.

This evening as we were getting ready for bed I heard Danny talking. He was wide awake - and burning up. I got him out of bed, took his temperature (39.3, yikes), gave him another dose of paracetamol and put him back to bed. 10 minutes later I heard him crying but heard Carmen going to his room and thought nothing of it. Then a few minutes later I hear someone calling 'Jim'. At first it sounds like Carmen, then like Danny. I walked to the bedroom and there was Danny in bed with Carmen. He was wide awake, with glowing red cheeks and ears, and was talking 19 to the dozen! Stringing sentences together like never before and using words we'd never heard him use. He told me to get my pyjamas on, like Mama and Danny, and when I'd done so and climbed in bed as instructed, he said Papa pyjamas, Danny pyjamas, Mama pyjamas, WE pyjamas on. First time he's said WE.

Then he kept going for 15 minutes, rabbiting away and not letting us get a word in edgeways, and suddenly the amphetamine joke popped into my mind from earlier... I will have to study the list of ingredients in that paracetamol again.

Kids are even more heart-melting when they're ill than when they're not. This stirs up conflicting emotions - you want them better, but... they're so CUTE!

Danny's back in his own bed now, but he cried again a couple of minutes ago; this time he's hungry and wants soup - at 12.50 am. Of course he's hungry, he hasn't eaten for 2 days, but of course my mind makes the drug connection again - he's got the munchies :) I didn't give him the soup, but made him some milk with a couple of spoonfuls of instant pap in it. Let's hope that keeps him quiet, coz I'm off to bed now as well.

Flat site

Please take a look at our website for the flat and tell me what you think. The chap who designed it for me has suggested I put in additional things like directions for getting here, a map and climate details (hey, we don't want to scare anyone off now!) which (seriously) are probably a good idea. Any other suggestions also welcome. I could lose the banner ad at the top of the page by moving the site to webspace at my ISP, although the spain.com address is pretty cool where it is. Plus it has a user-friendly editing interface which is very useful for an HTML ignoramus like me. Does the banner ad intrude excessively / at all?

Feel free to print the ad out and (after carefully cropping off the banner ad!) pin it to noticeboards at work or wherever you think it would be effective. In fact this version is probably better for this than the final one with map, directions, climate, etc.

Shiver me timbers

We're been buffeted by winds, rain, hail and icy temperatures for the past 3 days here. This morning hail settled on the beach, making it a surreal pure white. The road from Torrelavega to Reinosa and Palencia is closed due to deep snow, only about 40 km from here. I braved the elements to rent a DVD, and we closed the shutters and curtains tight, turned up the central heating and watched Kill Bill this evening.

UPDATE FRIDAY 28/1
The south of Spain is now caught up in the freeze, with the Costa Brava and Balearic islands - where in other years they have been firing up the barbecue - getting a thick coat of the white stuff. Even Melilla, on the north coast of Africa, has had snow, for the first time in decades.

Birthday

Jamie's birthday was on Saturday, but it coincided with the birthdays of two of her friends, so she had three parties on three consecutive days last week, each attended by virtually the same guests each time. This made for a few very tiring days for her, and we were glad when it was all over. Her presents included an electronic piano (not the toy variety) and in-line skates, so together with all the Christmas and Reyes presents she did not do badly at all. She's already practiced a few times with her skates and is coming along very well.

D+J 

22/12/04 

xmas card / bookmark 

calendar 

Big 6 

Jamie's birthday party, in La Folia 

our 2 new bikers (CLICK ON PHOTOS TO VIEW LARGER VERSION!) 

Us in Potes (taken by Brenda in Oct 04) 

Procession

After last year's Reyes Magos (Three Kings) procession, Jamie said she really wanted to sit on one of the floats this year, so she was very happy when it turned out that two of her best friends were going to be sitting on one. She was able to join them on the float on Wednesday evening and had a lovely time. We followed alongside the float, with Danny in his buggy or on my shoulders, waving and shouting enthusiastically to Jamie. I got some nice video footage but no digital photos, unfortunately.

Danny's new 'moto baik' 

Danny's new 'bike' 

Jamie, bike & helmet 

Jamie, Dani and Sofia 

Jamie riding her new bike 

NYR

My New Year's Resolution this year is to switch to speaking English with the kids. They both managed really well in England, and Danny spontaneously used words like 'look' with his cousins, so I was pretty positive about them understanding me. The sticking point in the past has been my perseverance - having spent so many years speaking Dutch with Carmen it is just a hard habit to break. When I started on New Year's Day I kept switching back to Dutch to talk with Carmen, but she suggested I switch to English with her as well, to make it easier to stick to it. I did and it's been going really well. Jamie has been asking for translations now and again, but that already seems to be dying down. Danny has coped with it fine, although occasionally I've needed to switch back to Dutch to make things clear. When I do I say the phrase in both languages. This morning I was playing a memory card game with him and he suddenly said 'terug...back'. He wanted me to put the cards back in the box, and had used both Dutch and English words for 'back'. I can't remember using the word 'back' before, certainly not this morning, but obviously some things are sticking!

So after 10 years of speaking Dutch at home (almost exactly - Carmen and I started 'going out together' on 11 January 1995) I am now speaking English. Strange but enjoyable.

Emotional blackmail

This morning Jamie wanted to wear a skirt, but for several reasons this was not practical today so Carmen said no. After asking, pleading and whining again 17 times and receiving 17 noes for answers, she went into her room, tidied it, made her bed perfectly and drew a picture of three faces of girls all with down-turned mouths and placed it on the bed, then put on her most pathetic voice to ask mummy once more if she could wear a skirt, otherwise she'd be like the girls in the picture. We cracked up.

It's an interesting time, she's just about to turn 6 and she's gradually losing some of that wonderful infant innocence. It used to be possible to buy her off or distract her with a lollypop or similar, these days she won't fall for that trick any more! Another one that works less and less these days is 'let's have a race to see who can get dressed (etc.) first'. Sigh! It was good while it lasted.

Mid-winter limbo

I wanted to post a long piece on our very enjoyable trip to England, and haven't got around to it yet. Maybe later ;o)

It's a real limbo time at the moment with work not started up yet and Reyes Magos still to come, and the kids still off school. I'm looking forward to next week when the routine starts up again. On the other hand I'm enjoying the lack of stress. Trouble is there's a pile of things I was supposed to do this week, bookkeeping and tidying up at the top of the list, and I haven't done either yet. The days seem to
be slipping past without me getting anything done. I haven't been jogging or cycling either, typical mid-winter lethargy.

The Reyes have a procession through the village tomorrow evening, and hopefully Jamie
will be joining her friends on one of the floats, helping distribute sweets to us greedy onlookers. I will have my video camera at the ready, of course.