Noah and floods in general

With today’s weather being rain and thunder, it seemed somehow appropriate that the sermon at church today focused on Noah. The story about Noah, the ark and the flood is so familiar, it brings to mind images of toy arks with cute model animals, and somehow I have become anaesthetised against the part of the story which involves most of the world being wiped out, and the devastation that floods can bring. Hearing on the news about the people of New Orleans being told to leave the city due to Hurricane Gustav made me think a bit more about this.

Barbecues - Brit-style

It has been great to finally have a day that actually feels like summer, and so in true British-style, we seized the moment and decided to have a barbecue this evening. Unfortunately, we invited friends over for 7pm (forgetting that the nights are starting to draw in again) and ended up sitting out in the dark. Still, it has been a great evening, and during a discussion about short people, Michael made us all laugh by talking about “Galliver and the Liverpudlians”. I will never be able to read Gulliver’s Travels again without imaging the Lilliputians with a Scouse accent.

Repeat clients

One of the nicest things about having worked for the same midwifery practice for nearly three years is that I’ve started to look after clients for a second time. It is lovely to be a part of someone’s birth experience once, but being involved in their care for a second time is extra-special. It is lovely to see that the baby you welcomed into the world has now grown into a cheeky toddler and now you are looking forward to welcoming the next addition to the family. It has helped remind me once again of why I love my job.

General grumpiness

The cold has now eased off quite a bit so I’m not feeling quite so lousy, but it is now at the stage where it just leaves me feeling tired and very grumpy. Poor Michael has been a bit on the receiving end of my grumpiness which has taken the form of general grumbling about men. Even watching the lovely Colin Firth in Bridget Jones which was on TV last night failed to raise my opinion of the male race which is never a good sign! Fingers crossed that I’ll be back to being a little ray of sunshine tomorrow…

Warning: may cause drowsinesszzzz...

Michael came back from Germany with a rotten cold, which he has now shared with me. Colds don’t tend to last very long with me – they hit me hard for a couple of days and then go. I was feeling pretty lousy last night so took a couple of Night Nurse before bedtime. They certainly helped me sleep, but left me feeling very drowsy and fuzzy-headed all day which was not ideal as I was driving around doing postnatal visits, feeling like a zombie. I think I will be sticking to plain paracetamol and hot lemon and honey in future!

Unusual dishes

Went out for a Chinese meal to celebrate Michael’s birthday. The food was reasonably good, but the menu had some fairly unusual dishes. I never thought that my first experience of eating frogs’ legs would be in a Chinese restaurant! I was quite disappointed to find that they really did taste just like chicken. Other unusual choices included kangaroo and ostrich (fortunately no dog). Still the prize for most unusual dish should be this dish at our local Chinese restaurant – Lamb with Greeks and Green Pepper in BBQ Sauce. I think perhaps they meant leeks, but I’m not entirely sure…

Yay for Team GB

So Team GB has now arrived back home after doing spectacularly well at the Olympics. 19 gold medals and 47 medals in total is pretty amazing (and best of all, we finished above the Aussies in the medal table!!) I’m not especially into sport (other than keeping up with the results, I didn’t watch very much of the Olympics on television) but it has made a nice change to hear about Britain being successful on the sporting front (and to see football given just a brief mention in the sports news!) Hopefully we’ll manage to do as well in 2012.

More on websites

Today has been mostly spent updating and creating websites. The new church website is now completely up and running, as is the new website for the concerts which are hosted at the church. Hopefully both websites should now be much easier to maintain and best of all, there are no more ads on either of the sites! Overall, I’m quite happy with the redesign, particularly as I’m working on publicity and branding for the church. We have a new logo, a new notice board which is being ordered and now a new website which has a much more contemporary feel.

Michael's birthday

Michael flew back this evening after spending all of last week working at the Leipzig Games Convention. It is his birthday today, so it has been nice to at least see him for some of his birthday (last year the games convention was during his birthday so I didn’t get to see him on the day). I made him a birthday cake yesterday evening (coffee and walnut) – not quite as creative as the last time I made him a birthday cake when I made the “bikini cake”. Surprisingly the cat seemed to enjoy eating the leftover cake on the plate.

Not exactly Mozart

I’ve been sorting through photos this evening and found a couple of photos of my twin sister’s two daughters “playing” the piano with me. Ebony, the four year old, always had to have a book on the stand next to mine and copy me every time I turned a page, and if I was singing, she’d sing too. I have a video clip somewhere of her singing “Milly Molly Mandy” with a very discordant piano accompaniment. Erin, the two year old, tended to sit and bash the keys for a few minutes before being distracted by something else more interesting.