Dear Nell

How is the Yorkshire sojourn progressing? Have you done your day-trip to Paris yet? And how was the flight, did the patches work?

We are all pretty well, but Cherub is missing you. Well, both boys are, but 'specially Cherub. Yesterday at tap he was playing out the front with Sophie (ie. unsupervised!! You know what I'm saying here...) and the dropstick on the gate dropped onto his thumb and really hurt him, his poor little thumb was so bruised, and he came in crying while I was in the middle of teaching class. I could only give him a really quick cuddle and Astrid offered to look after him but eventually he just sat in your chair, crying and waiting for me to finish teaching. We iced it later and we think it's okay. Plus he had a "large local reaction" to his immunisation and got a lump 6cm x 6cm on his wee shoulder, (which also required regular ice-ing) so the poor kid has been in the wars.

As for the big brother he's had a scooter mishap and bumped his head on the monkey bars, so I don't know what's going on this weekend - the frozen peas have been in and out of the freezer like never before.

The tap parents have been really good and have remembered to bring the correct money, and the stamp-n-sticker stuff has been mostly manageable. It was Climber's last week of soccer this week (they gave him a trophy and a certificate and a soccer ball), so if you're too jet-lagged to come to tap next week at least I'll have Fixit to help me out.

I went on a blog-meet last night because M from Eastern Max is in Melbourne for the Writer's Festival. We met in a Richmond cafe with Fairlie, H&B, Pea Soup and Frogdancer. We had a really good time, those girls are very funny and made me laugh a lot. They wanted to know about you so I was telling them about how we met through me working with the band and you being good mates with our travel agent. No pictures, sorry, we were too busy talking.

Today we had a family adventure at the Hurstbridge Wattle Festival and got to ride on a steam train. Excellent fun, and you should have seen how many people were waiting by the train tracks, waving as we clickety-clacked past. Climber said he felt like he was going to Hogwarts. There was something a bit fantastic about seeing the clouds of steam outside the carriages, and when the whistle blew it was just .. exciting, you could picture how much kids must have loved those trains in the olden days.

Anyway, we all hope you're having a lovely time but we look forward to your return.

Love from the Stay-at-homes xxxx