I'm feeling desperately guilty about this poor neglected blog.

The camping trip way (way, way) back in January was absolutely wonderful. There are some pictures here which you may have seen on Facebook already.

No change to the MS? (apologies to Alexander McCall Smith for this device cribbed from the Peploe? featuring in the first Scotland Street book). Read the book if you haven't. I am constantly tired though, which is one of the main reasons for bloglessness. Stephen still wakes up often at night so things will hopefully improve as the year progresses. He is sort of sitting now in a wobbly kind of way.

When I thought I was having brain surgery last year, I found the cultural habit, upon greeting someone, of persuing the hi! how are you? fine thanks and you? fine thanks greeting, somewhat tricky, and firmly resolved to try not to ask someone the same unless I knew them well enough for them to actually say how they were. What, after all, is wrong with plain old hello? Now, however, when how are you'd by someone who has heard about the MS? via the grapevine, I return with the time-honoured fine thanks and you (relatively true, at least, more true than not) I get an intense seriously searching look, and an are you? or an oh really or something similar, which seems to require prolonging the exchange. Seems the best response in this case is more along the lines of I'm doing well, thanks. This response provides the correct balance of gloom and cheer and exempts the other person and me from more in-depth analysis of the situation.

We are going here for a few days during the next school holidays (at the beginning of April) with some friends. I cannot wait. I hope we have the trailer/tow bar/bike rack sorted out by then. Our friends booked a while ago, and invited us to join them. We've been dragging our feet on the decision as we were unsure whether we could afford it. Finally we decided we clearly couldn't afford it, and proceeded to book forthwith.

My valentine's presents from Peter were chocolate, flowers and an appointment for a pre-vasectomy consult. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haw. Ticket to freedom booked for early March. Snip snip snippety snip. Luckily he never reads my blog.

Word association football and all that leads me to recall that my last bookclub meeting took place here, which certainly did make quite a change from the usual format.

The kids are all enjoying school and doing well except that Daniel's left eye problem is recurring so we have been seeing a neuro-ped, getting blood tests and, this morning, taking him for a MRI. Fortunately for me, Peter took him, though it took a lot longer than expected as either they omitted to tell me beforehand, or I forgot, that he should be sleep-deprived to allow the sedative to work more easily. And there I was congratulating myself that he'd had a good night's sleep before the thing and hence was bound to behave well during a long tricky morning. So, if you ever need an MRI for your child, don't forget the sleep-deprived part. I should mention that the opthalmologist and the neuro-ped both consider these tests just-in-case checks and the eye problem, is in all likelihood, ideopathic, which means we haven't got a damn clue.

Must now haul weary self off to bed.