Slough Slough sick sick Slough

Sharon has been down in London this week, living it up (and working hard) at the Pampered Chef Exec Seminar. She even had tea at the Ritz! Although there did seem to be a paucity of filling fare. Where's the pies? One of the meals she proclaimed to be the best Chinese meal she's ever had. And she had a workshop playing with Lego, which was a good preamble for this weekend's activities.

So I was doing the childminding bit, whilst also going to work. This isn't easy: getting all four up and dressed and fed and packed and off to school and nursery and then picked up again, fed and bedded is a challenge. Linda was on hand to help with the logistics around Angus and Rowan but I had to take some afternoons off in order to take the boys swimming and pick them up from school.

Olivia, Edel and Barry arrived on Thursday afternoon much to the boys' delight. Angus is delighted to see his little cousin and Rowan is just up to ninety, like he is whenever visitors arrive. We had to build up the fact that he (and Angus) would have Olivia and Edel and Barry to himself over the weekend, to trade off his disappointment at not joining Finn and Sean on the trip to Legoland.

Sean invited us all into his classroom at Friday lunchtime for a Roman feast. I had made chicken (dormouse) kebabs for him to contribute. It was an opportunity to see the other children and parents in the classroon and let Olivia and Edel compare the inside of a Scottish school compared to what they're used to. We had to rush away though, so that Oliv could drive Sean, Finn and me to the airport.

Finn started fretting about the flight down as soon as we walked into the terminal building, saying he didn't want to go. It's difficult to pinpoint when this fear of flying began, but probably the time Sharon took him over to Ireland and there was a hen party blowing whistles, coupled with him having sore ears, still looms large in his mind. He was very upset as we took off and was subsequently sick. Finn calmed down once we were up in the air but was sick again as we began the descent to Heathrow. I didn't feel too clever myself and wasn't sure if the anxiety of the flight was combining with a tummy bug for Finn.

Once we were on the ground he didn't really perk up much, even once Sharon came to collect us in the hire car. On the drive to Slough he was sick a couple of times and once we were in the hotel he still wasn't right. I didn't feel well either and so Sharon left me and took the boys into Windsor for an Italian meal. Finn was sick in the restaurant. And again back in the hotel. My tummy was all over the place too. So the start to our weekend break was not a great one.