Well it’s been a long time since I have written a blog – too long! But life in the shoe has been even more busy then usual and we have been plagued by poor health. First of all I had what appeared to be a nasty virus that just wouldn’t go away. Unfortunately after having lots of tests done, the doctor told me that I have Fibromyalgia, which is a long term condition which causes tiredness, painful swelling in all of my joints and short term memory loss and confusion. So now I have an excuse to be forgetful and senile! It is a battle carrying on with everyday life and I seem to be constantly fighting the urge to sleep.

Next came my daughter’s bad bout of tonsillitis, which was generously shared with her brother. Then came Alf - my little medical enigma. He has glue ear, suffers from recurrent bouts of tonsillitis and is currently on the waiting list to have them removed. He also has a rare chromosomal abnormality which there is very little known about. He has always suffered with sickness and can often be sick up to three times a week. At first the doctors believed that this was due to his tonsils, but after suffering a further medical emergency on Sun eve (which I won’t go into for his dignity) the doctor came to the conclusion that he may well have an intolerance to certain foods. The question is what foods exactly?

We were told to put him on a dairy free diet for a week to eliminate that first. Off we went to Tesco to buy dairy free products. I spent a fortune on dairy free ice cream, yogurts, chocolate and milk. He was immediately interested in the chocolate, so I gave him four small squares. He was violently sick an hour later. Yesterday he came home from school and I gave him a dairy free ice cream. He was doubled over with tummy pains and was sick constantly for two hours afterwards. It turns out that he is not allergic to dairy but quite likely allergic to Soya, which is in all dairy free products. Well, I guess that was one way of finding out, although not a pleasant way for Alf, who was given high doses of a food which makes him poorly. He has now been referred to the hospital for further investigation, but the first appointment that they can offer him is in July.

Amongst all of the illness there have been some amusing moments. This morning our cat caught a bird. Not very amusing for the Mummy and Daddy bird, who squawked at the top of their voices whilst circling the garden in an agitated manner. This caused all of the other birds in the area to come and see what the problem was. So then we had a garden full of birds, squawking and circling. In the meantime, my vegetarian daughter discovered the catch and set about chasing the cat with the bird in its mouth all around the garden. This alerted the other children who also flocked to the garden to find out what all the fuss was about. Then every cat in the neighbourhood turned up to see what was going on… Chaos!