Social whirl or what

Thank you for all your lovely, warm, vomit-related comments on the last post. (That's warm comments, not warm vomit. Although come to think of it....). I might have known I couldn't outgross my readers, veterans of the puke wars all of you!

FB recovered in 24 hours flat and has been fine since. The rest of the week was uneventful and the weekend even more so. Oh, apart from the blizzard which appeared out of nowhere on Saturday morning and swamped the daffodils bravely struggling to surface in my front garden. (Snow? Out of nowhere? I'm looking at you Mary G!) In true Scottish form the snow lasted for an hour or so and then melted to slush and general squishiness.

The highlight of my weekend was going shopping on my own to buy slippers and a disposable camera for SB who is off on his first overnight, away from home school trip. This explains why three sleep deprived members of the Loth clan could be seen this morning at 7am in Waverley Station, watching a pack of identically dressed schoolboys, including our own hyper 8 year old, ricocheting off the walls and frightening the pigeons (and Edinburgh pigeons take some scaring, believe me.)

So SB is in York tonight and, I have no doubt, having a whale of a time. FB is actually kind of worried about being on his own without his brother so we decided to all go out for dinner. I arranged in advance with a pizza restaurant that we would take our own dairy-free cheese for FB, due to his milk allergy, and they confirmed there was no dairy lurking elsewhere in their pizzas. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, people do look at you slightly oddly when you hand your own block of cheese and a grater to the waiter in an Italian restaurant. You're welcome.

The pizzas looked fab when they arrived. Mine looked especially good as the chef had got confused half way throught and forgotten what pizza he was making. This led to him putting on the toppings I had ordered followed by another set of toppings I hadn't (rocket and fresh parmesan. Yum.) The waiter was profusely apologetic and inordinately grateful to learn that I would not make a fuss and would, very graciously, agree to getting twice as much topping as normal on my pizza. I pride myself on being very forgiving in such matters.

Sadly, although the whole bringing-our-own-cheese thing worked, FB had an allergic reaction to something anyway (we suspect it was the ham - cooked ham very often contains milk. You are all learning so much tonight!). It was bad enough that we had to cut the meal short and bring him home. I did nip out to try to buy some Piriton for him, but with no success. I therefore settled for repeatedly kicking myself for not having brought some with me. I'm getting lax - there was a time I wouldn't go anywhere without anti-histamine for FB just in case. Clearly I can't let my guard down yet.

Back home, FB was quickly mollified with buttered toast and a mug of milk (all dairy free, naturally) and an episode of Red Dwarf we deem slightly too "adult" in theme for his younger brother. (Now that FB has had sex education at school, he is very matter of fact about such issues). So basically he got a bit of pampering to pander to the kid and make up for the allergic reaction thing, and at the same time he got to feel like a grown-up. In other words, he was very happy. We then put him to bed, both Husband and I chatting to him for a while before leaving him alone. As I said, tonight is the first night that FB will have slept on his own since SB was born and he is actually kind of worried about it - he really doesn't like being alone at all, and not just because there is no-one to talk at to. Hopefully he will not feel the need to come into our room at 3am for a chat about the finer points of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (another recent discovery of his).

And you Ottowa bloggers - eggs and beer for breakfast? Seriously? That sounds excellent! You are however clearly lacking in worthwhile topics of conversation! At your next meeting, the topic should be: "How to rig the lottery/rob a bank/organise an internet scam so that Loth miraculously comes into a couple of million pounds and can buy that Canadian bolt-hole she has been lusting after." I am expecting great things from you. Go to it.