Shaping up to be a fine man

Sometime over the weekend I got a tummy bug. Nothing bad enough to warrant staying in bed, but enough to feel a bit unwell most of the time, punctuated by excruciating stomach cramps and many trips to the loo.

And even if it was bad enough to justify a lie down, well, school holidays and an absent husband for two nights this week quickly made that impossible. As did a necessary trip into town today to pick up Lukan's new passport so that we can leave tomorrow for C's sister's wedding in Munich (I'm fearing the 5-hour train trip a little...)

So I've been planning outings around toilet stops, entertaining the kids (who are still requesting songs every 5 minutes) and making meals and washing dishes and doing laundry and arbitrating disputes and brushing teeth as usual, if a bit more slowly, and only stopping to grit my teeth and quietly moan for the worst of the cramps.

So when Téo, who had previously been bouncing around very happily, and in 2 minutes would be bouncing around again, without any evidence of any diarrhea whatsoever, pulled a very tragic face and groaned you know mummy, I've got a bad tummy ache, actually it's really much worser than yours, I found myself saying what countless women have said - and if Téo is any indication of the next generation, will continue to say - to their poor, ill men-folk.

Yes dear.

New converts

So the thing about Romania is, it's quite large. And even though we limited ourselves to one little part, the sights are not that close together, and the roads are not that good. Meaning we spent many hours in the car.

We had brought some CDs along to keep the kids happy, but the car only had a tape deck. A tape deck!! In a new car! Though I guess since a lot of people in Romania get around on a horse and cart, a tape deck is pretty modern. Anyhoo, the lack of a CD player meant I ended up being the kids' personal juke box. For many hours. On many days.

The house we stayed in had the Sound of Music on DVD, which the kids were not so keen to watch. But one day, after having run through my usual repertoire ad nauseum, I started on a few Sound of Music songs, trying to convince the kids that this was a movie worth watching.

The result? This:

And this:

And for the diehards (or severe procrastinators) amongst you, I present the new von Trapp family singers:

(Very thankfully with only two children. Also very thankfully without the father singing.) (And sorry about the so. Ouch)

Still alive!

Sorry for disappearing like that, we've been away... visiting the homeland of:

Yes, Dracula!

We got out with our necks unbitten, to the relief of the kids, who were a bit nervous prior to our departure. (Note to self: it's probably better not to tell children about vampires just before a trip to Transylvania.)

More photos soon...

Changes

My new working conditions.

All of a sudden, it's autumn.

(Actually, it was all of a sudden autumn about 10 days ago, it just took me a while to take any photos.)

Reality check

So tonight I made baked beans. As in, I baked beans. From scratch.

Using organic dried beans! And home-made tomato sauce from home-grown tomatoes! And home-grown carrots! And accidentally home-grown corriander seeds!

Verily did my heart swell at the thought of the nutritious, low-impact meal I was preparing for my family. (It conveniently ignored the most likely glasshouse-grown capsicums, and the cancer-inducing (but organic!) bacon.)

And then:

- What are we having for dinner?

- Baked beans.

- Yuck. Can I have fish fingers instead?

- Me as well, I like fish fingers too.

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(I recently met someone who, for about an hour, only talked about her fabulous kids' wonderful eating habits. It was pretty tedious. And very hard not to engage in one-up-mum-ship because, you know, my kids have pretty good eating habits too. And I cook healthy, tasty food too. And anyway, I think that what your kids will and will not eat is kind of luck, rather than any perfectly enacted plan of the parents.

So anyway, maybe you are all better people than me, which is very likely, but I got to thinking that my food preparation post may have had you rolling your eyes at me. If so, I hope this post will have them sitting back properly in their sockets.) 

Crossroads

 (looking west)

Sometimes the sky above us is streaked with contrails.

The whole sky.

(looking east)

In every direction.

And it makes me wonder whether, if all of Europe had the same weather conditions, would the sky everywhere look like this? Or are we uniquely right under a huge number of flight paths?

(The contrails were not even lasting that long, which makes their sheer number even more astonishing.)