My 40th!

To celebrate turning 40, I invited some friends to join me in infiltrating the Russian embassy at Bar Hill... it's a game run by 'SpyMasters' - really good!

21 of us turned up and went in in 4 teams. After a 'helicopter' ride it was straight into the action, hacking into PCs, cracking safes, evading cameras and laser alarms, crawling through heating ducts... exhausting but exhilarating!

Everyone thought it was excellent - they all did it on 'medium' but my team opted for 'hard'... and blimy it was. We didn't get the highest score, but we escaped with the recovered guns with tux intact ;)



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In together

After two weekends away with the boys sleeping in the same room together, I asked Leon if they he wanted to share with Reuben. He said yes!
Now Reuben's room is a play room and his room is their room. After a week, I'd say they are there to stay!

Jan and Maaike

Tob drove us down to Bristol last friday for the weekend. He was off for a Live Role Play Stag Weekend in Wales - yes these things do exist. We had a lovely laid back weekend with Jan and I and 3 children. I say laid back, it was but the days were long having to be up with the boys from 6 plus having Leon come into bed with me in the night. It was lovely to spend time with my Sister and Maaike is coming on a treat. She adores the boys and the feeling is mutual.
Tob came to pick us up and have Sunday lunch with us at Jan's around midday, with stories of gay hairdressing elves and dandy highway women. It was one hell of a weekend they had. Tob really needed something like this to unwind and actually see is friends. This was followed in a good way this last weekend when after Toby's Cousin Sue's 40th birthday party down in Bedford, we left the boys in their pjamas to come back with Ellen and Dan and we got to go to Martin and Soph's BBQ party down in London. We stayed over, had breakfast with Soph in a lovely cafe bistro on a beautiful summers day. The boys had a lovely time with their Nana so it was a good weekend for everyone.

Beach 2009

This Beach lived up to expectations, the weather was fantastic, the people lovely. Each year more and more kids appear and I can't wait for the stage where the sand castle competitions and frisbee games with the kids can start. This year was the one with the diggers :)

Grandma's

This was the beginning of August but I have taken a while to getting round to catching up with the blog. We drove up to Sam and Rowans for the weekend and visited Grandma on the Sunday afternoon, driving straight home from there. The weather wasn't great on the Saturday at Sam's but we had a fab time, the company made up for any short falls in the weather. We went to a Monkey Forest, which was interesting, then in the evening we had a lovely meal, only the best Indian in the area and then got introduced to the delights of their Wii. It was good to have a go, we will probably get one in a few years, I dare say the boys will demand it.
This was the first time for a while the boys and us had to all sleep in the same room. Leon had his pump up ready bed, Reuben, the travel cot and us, Sam's double bed. Surprisingly the boys settled to sleep really quickly and impressed apon me the idea that they might actually prefer sleeping in the same room...
Grandma looked really well despite denials from her :) It was really lovely to see her and introduce her to her new great grandson.

who does this remind you of?

This was taken summer 1973 when Toby was 3, even Leon thought it was him.

Wimpole Hall

We went to Wimpole Hall at the weekend, and discovered it has an adventure playground. Both the boys loved it!

and..he's off!

Reuben's first few steps while Mum's here.

Last Wednesday I ate my first peanut for over 15 years

In my early 20s I was part of a second-stage trial for Beconase, a nose spray that helps with hay fever. To test I was suitable for the trial, ie that I did actually have hay fever, I had a skin prick test. This showed I was indeed allergic to grass.

However, for some reason they also tested peanut, which came up positive. I was handed a pamphlet which warned of the danger of 'anaphylactic shock'. This is a severe reaction to peanut which can kill in minutes.

Of course, I was very worried about this and immediately cut all nuts out of my diet.

Over the years I've had various tests to determine what exactly I'm allergic to, both skin prick tests and blood tests (RAST) but they've all been inconclusive. Finally I decided that the only real test was an 'oral challenge'.

I had yet another skin prick test at Adenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, and convinced them that I needed to do the oral challenge. After a bit of a wait, I found myself back at the allergy clinic last Wednesday, feeling very apprehensive. Obviously they're prepared to treat anaphylactic shock with adrenaline, but I was kinda worried...

I was treated very well at the hospital, everyone was friendly and the doctor explained everything step by step. We did more skin prick tests, a blood pressure test, a 'blow hard down this tube' test and had a chat about my history and the test to come.

First, I had to rub a piece of peanut on my outer lip. If I was severely allergic to peanut, I would have had swelling. After 10 minutes, there was no reaction, so we tried inner lip, then tongue. As I'd not had a reaction at all, they gave me a slither of peanut to eat, then a quarter, then a half, then a whole peanut!

I did feel that my throat and palate were raw and uncomfortable, but the doctor was not convinced this was an 'oral allergy' (see below) as that's rare with peanut. It was more likely that because it's hay fever season and my throat was already sensitive, that the scratchiness of the peanut was irritating.

In fact the doctor said she'd not expected any reaction, looking at my test results/history, but it was as important to prove a negative as it was a positive.

Apparently the understanding of allergies has come a long way in 20 years. It's now clear that there is an 'atopy' or allergy gene. This leads to sensitivity, which is seen as small reactions to skin prick tests (up to 3mm diameter wheal) to various substances. These small wheals are now seen as *negative* results as they do not indicate a full allergy.

These small wheals were what had been so confusing over the years.

Now, my reaction to peanut was 6mm, so it was technically a positive, but thinking about it, you only get anaphylactic shock the second time you eat peanut... if you don't get it then, you're not going to, which is why the doctor wasn't too worried about me. Of course I could have had some other reaction, but it was never going to be fatal. Also, I found out that wheals can be up to 30mm, so a 6mm wheal wasn't a large reaction anyway.

Now, my reaction to hazelnut was 8mm. The doctor thought I might get 'oral allergy' reaction to hazel, which is, basically, an itchy mouth. Hazel and apple share common enzymes with Silver Birch, which many people, including me, are allergic to - along with grass, that's what gives me hay fever. When I eat raw apple I get an itchy mouth. This was rather confusing to me and my parents as a child! The good thing is that cooking apples destroys the enzyme, which means I can have apple pies without any problem. However cooking nuts doesn't destroy the enzyme, which is why the doctor thought I might have an oral reaction to hazelnut - I'm going back to Adenbrookes at some point for another oral challenge.

For all other nuts, the advice was that I am unlikely to have any reaction to them, even for those where I get a small wheal on the skin test - it will be safe for me to self-test at home, eg test outer lip etc.

It's been a huge weight all these years, not knowing exactly what I could/couldn't eat. It turns out it was an unnecessary worry. I actually broke down in the hospital because it was such a huge relief. I wish they'd never done the test in the first place, but I can't get too rilled about it.

So, why has it taken me a week to blog about it? Well it's difficult to get too excited about a negative result, even if that's really good. Nothing has changed in my life. I suppose I could now lick my fingers after making a Nutella toast for Leon, but being careful is so ingrained that I don't.

The big change will be when we go to Holland. Christine is going to want Saté sauce on her chips, and I guess I'll try it. Still fills me with fear, even though I know now nothing will happen.

It's a big change which I'll slowly get used to. Can't wait to eat pistachios again, my favorite nut, yum yum!!!

What was I doing 20 years ago today?

It was 1989 and I was 18. To be honest I can only guess bits now. I think I'd just dumped Richard for being a clingy mad person (he sectioned himself a while later), I was probably living between my Dad's and across the road at Wendy's. At some point, this couple turned up, they lived in a big old black bus called the Bluebell bus with bluebells painted up the side. They had two kids, Rowan was 7 and Heather was about 6 months. They were heading off to a festival down in Cornwall, I was fed up with life in Newbury and decided to hitch a ride with them. Over night I became a sort of live in traveller opair. I looked after Heather for Sue and we all slept in this bus. There was a cot, a double bed up the end and Rowan and I slept on mattresses on the floor I think. When we first arrived in Treworgy, we were on the top of a hillside about a fortnight before the festival was due to start. The weather was really hot and dry and we filled most of our days pottering about, playing with the kids, getting stoned and the occasional day trip to some standing stones. Then when the festival started we moved to another field 'the travellers field' as appose to the campers and nothing much changed really. I only ventured on to the festival site a couple of times it was really hot and dusty, I don't think it had rained for about a month. Living next to our bus was another bus, a vintage M orris van that was also converted to live in an the owner was a tatoo artist who did all the festivals over the summer and for some reason was taking this festival offsite as a kind of holiday I suppose. At some point he mentioned he wanted a haircut, a mohecan I think, i offered to cut his hair in return for a tattoo, or he offered I can't remember. Either way he got a haircut to his satisfaction and he gave me a tattoo. The design I came up with was bigger than I think he'd intended and he had run out of the stencils they use to do Celtic bands which at the time were rare and only just being seen out and about. Lucky for me I didn't get a Celtic band as everyone was getting them and they became soooo common. I got my tree tattoo. The only other person I know with a tree tattoo is Justin the singer from New Model Army. When the festival ended I'd got tired of Sue and Steve for numerous reasons - living in someone elses family is enough reason, I tagged along with a group closer to my own age, they ended up arguing and there was much gossip back and forth. In the end I tired of them too and ended up on a site that was effectively a layby just outside Hereford with nothing but a tent and a bag, surrounded by brew crew and finding out that life on the road as a traveller was really pretty rough actually and as I was lucky enough to have family I could return to, that's what I should do. I returned home to Newbury and enrolled in the College to have a 2nd try at A levels, this time, Music, Photography and Theatre Studies. I found a job part time at a health food store, called Sun Store. I think I lasted about a term. By 1990, I'd started temping for Vodafone which to me I might have well been working for the gestapo. The only thing keeping me sane was playing Sax in a Dub Reggae band called Kindred Spirit based just outside Hungerford. I saved enough for a trip over to Holland to visit my mum and decided to have a try at living in Holland. I stayed there for 10 very happy years.

Reuben's first excuse for a bbq party

We had fantastic weather, against all odds. It was the best party yet, a pity about 10 people we'd confirmed but couldn't make it last minute. We have quite alot of cake and fizzy drinks left. I'm working on the cake.
There were no major melt downs, I might get a reputation for people bringing their kids round and they leave in a clothes I've had to lend them because they are soaked and covered in sand. I think they enjoyed it though. I think I was much better prepared than last year, but considering last year, I'd only just had Reuben, that's no surprise. It's nice to have a birthday in the summer so we can have a good excuse for a party.