Relaxing and socialising

We’re all continuing to have a lovely time catching up with family and friends. In addition to general lazing about and the occasional standing on one foot….




…… we’ve also been up to country Victoria to see friends Duncan, Kellie, Maggie (in Ballarat), Misty, Dave, Tilly (in Buninyong), Justine, Mark, Angus, Abby and Miranda (in Elphinstone). It is great to get to chat with so many friends – I’m really enjoying it. The kids quite like having a whole new set of toys to play with every day, although when William is tired, he does request to 'go home to Grannie and Grandpa’s'. The holiday is an understandably big change in their normal routine. Sophie is a huge fan of all the pet animals we've met, getting very excited by any cats, dogs and horses our hosts had. She shows no fear, cuddling spaniels, Alsatians, and ridgebacks. She’d point and jig up and down for a cat, try kissing all dogs and was inspired to say her first word: cat. Or, more accurately, caaaaaaaat, as she says it. See below:


Her other recent milestone was tooth number eight.


There has also been some tricky climbing done by William, feeding apples to Henry the horse, strawberry hunting by many kids, and the odd drink out of a boot (by William) on a picnic in the park last week.

Doing lots of normal things in Melbourne

It is WONDERFUL to be home visiting my family. We're doing all the normal things, like taking Toby the dog for a walk each day, playing in the park (three local playgrounds have been checked out so far), having a croissant and coffee at the local cafes and visiting my sister, brother in law and nephew, to see their new house for the first time. Sophie has been practicing walking more than ever before and now regularly walks 3 metres without plopping onto her bottom.





Sophie celebrated her first birthday the day we landed. William helped her blow out the candle. How lovely to celebrate it with Grannie, Grandpa, Aunty Alice and Toby the dog. She really loves Toby, and keeps pointing at him, saying "Duh, duh, duh" then just as you think she might be trying to say 'dog' she'll say "Bah, bah, bah". She keeps her beady eyes on him, wherever he is in the room, and likes chewing his toys. Bound to be good for her immune system!




We've also been for a swim in the local pool which was enjoyed by all. Today we met up with Melbourne friends (most of whom have 1-3 kids by now) at a restaurant by Albert Park Lake for lunch. We saw some black swans which are pretty with red eyes and beaks. Andrew quite enjoyed driving through the chicanes of the Formula 1 race track, which still remains as it was raced here last week. You can imagine how we really hoooned through them, in a family car with two kids in the back seat. :)

Sophie met a large, young Alsatian (called Walker) showing now fear, and whom she tried to kiss. William has a healthy level of caution, but did give Walker a couple of pats.

Hot children

They both melted a bit in the 34 oC, 75 % humidity weather in Ho Chi Minh City.

We are tourists!

William often requests to wear the same clothes as either mummy or daddy. So, we gave in and bought a matching outfit at the market. We also had a fun ride on a "cyclo" during which Sophie clapped her hands alot in happiness. We visited the Jade Temple which had lots of turtles and incense.




William has been wonderful at helping look after Sophie, as Andrew and I take turns to meet scientists and medics at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit here. I had a great meeting with them today - they were most helpful and full of info on the work they do as well as what it is like to bring up kids in HCMC. I'm so glad that we made this stop over here - I feel that we are no longer just a naive and idealistic couple dreaming of taking their young family to live in a tropical location. We have a much better idea of what the reality of life here would be like, and I still think we are pretty keen!



PS William also has a fever now - 39oC this evening. I had better go to bed now, as though we all slept very well the first night, I've been awake since 2.30am this morning, so feeling very jet lagged.

Update from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

We all survived the flights without too much stress, even though Sophie had a fever. At least being second time parents we were all prepared for such an event and had everything with us that we needed to help her. We found a nice place for dinner last night - kid friendly, both local and more Western food (I had goat, but they also had deer and boar on the menu) which they barbequed on a hot plate in the middle of the table. You can imagine which young man liked that! We also found a great park nearby with sand and lots of good things to play on. Here, the kids generated more attention - both adults and kids came up to them to stroke their cheeks, say hello, stare, and pick up William (eg. to help us negotiate some steps). When I took S to the nearby market, at least 50 people pinched her checks as she slept in the pram, "how cute, how many month?". It must be pretty foreign to W and S, who are coping fine with it so far - they seem to take it in their stride, while looking pretty stunned by the heat anyway. I should add that Andrew's beard is also generating a lot of attention, which he seems to be coping with well!

Spring in the back the garden

In the garden of our new house this Spring, we are discovering all the bulbs that lay hidden underground during the Winter. Andrew took this lovely photo of some crocuses at the base of the apple tree. There are more throughout the lawn, and they look very pretty.

March update

It was sunny here yesterday so people were wearing shorts and flip flops about on the streets. I even wore a t-shirt. That’s what happens when it is a balmy 10oC in Oxford.

Andrew is off work this week, and so doing a very good job at looking after the kids and knowing what is going on with them, as he does the pick up and drop off to nursery. He took Sophie to the GP on Mon as she keeps getting fevers (possible ear or chest infection) with the results that she has started her third lots of antibiotics for the month. She seems to be doing ok though. She's had a fever a few evenings this week, but not tonight.....yet. Andrew even cooked their dinner tonight, and I went to Magdalen College for evensong, to hear the boys singing Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus - lucky me!

I'm enjoying my new job as a research assistant very much. I've been doing new techniques, and got to play with hepatitis C virus too. It may all be in my mind, but I feel a lot more relaxed and as if the pressure is off me a bit. Placebo affect or no, it is a good thing.


Another of Williams' entertaining 3.5 year old sentences:
I ate some crust, look how curly my hair is!

I wanted to record some of William’s talking progress. In December he seemed to have discovered the suffix –ment. He was using it is all sorts of contexts as he works out what it is really for:
This ramp is very slippy, it has lots of slipment.
What is this blockment?


He has also told us some of his dreams. Things like: “I dreamed of ice cream”. Or, he might wake up and come to us in our bedroom saying “something is biting me”, and when we ask what, he replied “dinosaurs”, which we find very cute. One night as he was sleeping in a sleeping bag, he woke up saying “there is something snappy in my bed”. It is hard to turn him away, so his originally rather random appearances in our room in the middle of the night have somehow developed into a regular event. He comes into our bed almost every night now, arriving between 2-5am. Hmmmm, might need to do something about this at some stage.