Had lovely dinner with our neighbours, good time had by all! kids played all day.....

I managed to get through the day unscathed...

Ouch... I bet that smarts.

Only one today, then a bit of tulip viewing.

hmm - well I did the typical mother thing of saying "oh get up" "can you move it? " "yes good lets carry on!!"

was ony when the first aid man said really we should get it looked at I thought oh ok then - went to hospital - they said he has stretched his growth plates in his wrist - wtf are growth plates I thought? - well having googled them - the ends of the bone that havent quite got bony yet in kids!! so if it wwas me or Oh we would have well and truly fractured wrist - but with kids they then treat as a fracture and cast is so they keep it still and it bones up ok!

he's not in much pain actually - more chuffed that he got a cast!!

ooh nice - where's that?

Skagit Co. WA.

Down the I5 to Burlington. Go west on Hwy 20 towards Anacortes at junction 230. The tulip fields are south of the highway. Afterwards you can go for lunch in La Conner - a pretty little tourist town that is worth the drive. The tulip fields are in bloom for most of April.

oooh - my best girlfriends are coming over on 1st May for a week - we were thinking if a little road trip to the States - may just catch a few blooms!

I hope they last. You can get more info here http://www.tulipfestival.org/

It is about an hour drive from the border.

Hope he is ok Carrie, reminds me of my boys, little brother came running in to get a cushion, ( didn't think much of it ) they were playing in the park backed onto a house we lived in, in they both walk covered in mud little brother (7 ) holding the cushion with big brother ( 10 ) resting both arms on it crying, so i think he has sprayned or bruised at this point , put him in the bath, then after a while im thinking something not right here, especially when i found out he fell out of the conquer tree took him to the hospital 5 fractures in one arm 7 in the other ( imagine both arms in plaster for 8 weeks ) at 10 that was tough for both of us then he did it again when he was 17 lucky for me eh

Since then he has broken or fractured his wrists or arms at least 3 more times ( usually playing Rugby )

back at work today, but had a lovely three day weekend. Gardening (well, nailing chicken wire to the bottom of the fence in a vain attempt to keep the rabbits from eating all the plants again this year, at least) for most of Friday and much of Sunday. Doing an oil change and general shake down for the new season of open-top motoring - and a great excuse for a decent run on some favourite local roads on Saturday afternoon.

The cooking duties in our household seem to have fallen into a pattern where SWMBO does everything where accuracy and timing are important - she is an excellent baker and pastry chef - while I do the throw-it-all-in-the-oven-for-an-hour-or-two kind of cooking. I must say, though, that the lamb I produced yesterday exceeded my meagre expectations by a long, long way. A boned leg, stuffed with a mushroom, garlic and leek concoction, glazed with a port and redcurrant jelly. Mmmmmmm. With roast potatoes, honey caramelised carrots, peas, and a rich gravy from the juices and a good extra slug of port. I was hoping to have some left to curry, but everyone (even the three-year-old who is normally a pretty picky eater) came back for seconds and polished off the lot.

We had been down to visit the outlaws in Montreal. That went out the window when Souvette was diagnosed (finally) with zona. For the same reason, the outlaws were told not to come here. Her son did come down, though. He, like me, has had chicken pox.

He'd made a vice for me, from scratch, in machine shop. I've given him more commissions.

Friday was spent in 29 degree heat, swapping the contents of the shed and garage and summerising the yard. Saturday was the same. Yesterday was also an outside day. All very pleasant.

Today I'm playing truant. It's not a holiday here but London won't notice.

Healthcare in this neck of the woods sucks and sucks badly.

I went a-googling for zona. French for shingles?? Google led me to a website that seems to be for girdle fetishists, I didn't go to far into that site

Zona, shingles is not pleasant at all, hope she feels better soon.

as did I, with the same result - including a link to the girdle fetish site. Thought I'd better not hit that from teh company network....

Shingles sounds crappy. I was under the (mistaken) impression that having had chicken pox as a child pretty much gave you immunity. It seems not.

I thought that you can't get shingles unless you have had chickenpox but you can get shingles again. I had shingles when I was about 13, and had chickenpox twice when I was a child. The best thing about having chickenpox was that mum let us sit in the bath and eat sandwiches. We were in the bath as it stopped us itching, and eating sandwiches as it was tea time. Ham and pease pudding in stotty. Very yummy. I think we listened to the Quatermass and the Pit on the radio too. Hey ho.

Yep, shingles stinks.

The seriously nasty bit is that it is on her head. There are not too many obvious signs but it has got into one of her eyes. There is a risk she may lose the sight in that eye.

She'd been sick for close to two weeks before a doctor finally came up with the right diagnosis.