Flu in thru the window

I tried out the raw food restaurant a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting in the way that it is astounding that there are so many ways to present salad. I had a, well, salad on a sesame seed biscuit (of the sort found next to the Tunnocks tea-cakes at Hanley market). It was all very tasty, but, like Chinese food, not the sort of thing I want to rush home and try. It may be healthy, but there's far too much chopping and preparation involved to offer it to the family and for them to look down and say "Oh. Salad".

Rather handily, the restaurant also does colonic irrigations (presumably in a room away from the kitchen). Surprisingly, I found the next day that this is completely unnecessary.

Bean fell in the bath again. She gave out an enormous howl of indignation (we'd left it running, and she got rather over-excited at seeing the bubbles). She then immediately sought solace in the kitty litter. Bearing in mind it is design to be super-absorbent, she came out looking as if she had been bread-crumbed.

She was spayed yesterday. She gave me a FURIOUS look when I left her. She is now wearing The Cone of Shame and pinging off the furniture. We are supposed to leave it on for 2 weeks, and I also have to give her a syringe full of medicine twice a day. What japes!

I never pass up an opportunity to make an American to feel slightly inferior, especially T's English teacher whose note home last week had to be sent back corrected. So I was trying to teach T the phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria amori". Unfortunately, she's convinced it's "dolce di latte for Patrick Moore"...so she's not quite ready for the Oxford entrance exams just yet.

She may also not be ready for The Art Academy. I thought it might be nice, instead of sport-y activities, to go to the local art centre and draw, paint, and basically make the sort of mess the mother of a single child can't be doing with in her own home. Except, it's rather more serious than that. Firstly, you have to commit (ie pay) to a year. And then have an interview. And THEN present your portfolio. Yes, even if you are seven. What? Really? Does the portfolio have to have a zip? Does she need to talk about light, perspective and the importance of putting the lids back on the paints afterwards? Or am I being paranoid and it just requires an ability not to poke yourself in the eye with a pencil?

We've also been tackling plurals. In Spanish, for instance, they use the word "Hobby", as in the English, but very sensibly just bung an "s" on the end. Like everything, the rules take some explanation, but I threw in the word "ox" as I was feeling particularly waggish. She looked at me very seriously and said "Mummy, when am I ever go to come across more than one ox?".

We've all had flu. It was nice and mild, but made us feel very tired indeed. As T said "I'm feeling so much better that I think I'll break the speed limit on the road to recovery".