A long weekend.. with busy bits! (this is Fridays bit)

On Thursday evening I got a call from my little brother whose babysitter had let him down, and could I please please sit on the kids for the evening? To ensure that Thos and Kt had a good night out, and didnt worry about getting home quickly, I offered to have all three little monsters here for the night :-)

Half an hour later, Thos and Kt arrived with all three kids in their PJs, ready for bed! They were very excited, and I was delighted to have them - after all, they are the major reason we moved here from Bristol in the first place! It was also lovely to have company, since poor old Douglas had been "captured" by the hospital again on Wednesday due to reoccurring infections.

I took this, and sent it to Douglas, to cheer him up a bit!

If you click this and make it bigger, you can see Leos normal crazy grin that he puts on for photos :-) It runs in the family!

On Friday morning I fed all three kids, then rang KT, and arranged to take them all into town and meet up with her, as Martha was due some treatment for her poorly leg at the Childrens Hospital (she has a special infusion of Skele-grow) As with the other hospital, everything takes hours longer than you want it to, so I left Martha with her mum, and took the other two (Leo and Carlo) on into town to keep them occupied for a bit.

In the centre of town, there is a smaller version of the London Eye set up. Leo and I were keen to go on it, but Carlo being a stubborn 5 year old, wouldnt. A little later, we saw some bungee trampolining, and both kids were very enthusastic about that, so I let them have a go. Taking photos of two bouncing kids with a mobile phone camera was challenging.. but here is what I manged!

The wheel.. and top right, part of a nephew!

Leo bouncing with the wheel in the background

Happy Carlo

After the bouncing, and a quick shop, the boys and I went back up to the hospital and through the maze of corridoors to find KT and Martha.

All this time, I had been keeping a careful eye on my mobile, as the Drs had promised that they would let Douglas escape Friday morning, so I was waiting for the good news that his release papers had been signed!

Sadly, with all hospitals, things never seem to happen quickly. When the boys and I eventually got to the right bit of the hospital, Martha was still waiting for treatment to begin. the boys and I sat in what looked like a waiting room, wating for KT to come out so I could hand them over, go home and wait for Douglas to be ready.

As we waited, the Sister of the ward told me that no, it wasnt a waiting room, and that I and the boys couldnt stay there, and the boys could not spend the day in the room with Martha as there wasnt enough space, and having a lot of visitors meant more risk of infection. As we were gently escorted into the most dreary, depressing and bare of waiting rooms (no books, no magazines, nothing to occupy kids or adults there at all) I realised that these rules put KT into a very difficult situation. How could she split herself up into two places.. one to look after Martha and make sure she was ok, and the other two look after Leo and Carlo.

Aunty Anna stepped in to save the day.. I took the boys away with me, and organised to meet up with Kt and Martha at about 5pm when they had finished.

By then it was about midday, and Douglas had phoned to say he had escpaed, so I trammed back to the car with the boys, drove straight up to the hospital, picked up a very happy bouncing Douglas and we all went home for lunch.

The whole family were re-united at about 6.30pm, by which time Douglas had been out shopping, and come back with pizza, so we were able to feed all three kids before dear Douglas drove them all home!

As you can imagine, Douglas and I had a lovely peaceful evening, snuggled up on the sofa happy for him to be home, and us to be together again. Zzzzzzzzzzz