February 2012

No lawn mowing today!

Tristan on his travels

Weather report, the month started mild and rapidly went to hell, in a hand basket. We have had some very cold weather recently, which started on Friday 3rd with a hard frost, it froze the pond filter and as a result nearly all the water was pumped out, I had the wonderful task of topping it up using a bucket, I had some help from Liz and we managed to put in about 400 litres of water to fill it to 2/3rds. The following weekend we had a tremendous air frost and loads of snow. The midday temperature was minus 8 Centigrade, and foggy as well. Louise chose this week to have her baby! Louise was told to report to the hospital in Peterborough on Monday night and would probably be induced ( or is it inducted?, ha ha) on Tuesday morning. Liz was having a textathon with her until at least ten pm. We got a call at 3:18 am Tuesday from Louise, she produced Tristan at 1:18 after less than two hours labour, unlike any of her mother's marathon efforts. Our neighbour was also woken up, and he is deaf, Liz was quite excited! We were able to visit Louise and Tristan at 4pm in the afternoon. The hospital is quite fancy, but Louise had to get permission to do anything to the baby, she couldn't even clean it's little eye without the sister being consulted. Matt was quite happy although he had been sent home at midnight and then immediately recalled. Louise was released from hospital at about six and at half seven I took Liz around to help Louise settle in with Tristan. I left her there until Saturday evening, I was in charge of the cats for a few days, peace and quiet. I returned Liz to Louise and Matt after church, on Sunday. We had a roast chicken lunch at Louise's house, prepared by Liz. Robyn and Catriona were around to play with the baby.