developments

The brothers at the pinball machine

Whew! what a crazy time it's been. We went off on holiday to Carvoeira in Portugal (near Faro) and Zack and Calvin had a blast. We were staying in a little holiday cottage spot that had a pool and a pool and an indoor pool. We swam all day, every day. The sun shone all day, every day. Zack's swimming has come on in leaps and bounds – he even leapt into the deep end without me one day (I nearly had a heart attack, and was screaming, "Nooooo!" while running and kicking off my shoes), and paddled to the side nonchalantly. Without wings!
Calvin started out really cautious of the water, as everything was "wet". But he was soon confident enough to climb down into the baby's paddling pool and wander into the middle by himself. We had two or three falling down and not being able to stand up, so Mummy grabbed me out of the water immediately, moments. But they were all done under close supervision. May I just say that mothers have completely over-active imaginations, and we always expect the worst – it gives us the edge I think.

Elly jumps over Zack

Zack made friends with a lovely little lass from Worcestershire, whose name was Elly. They spent all their time together and we were so sad to say goodbye on our last morning.

Our only day on the beach was extraordinarily hot. For some reason Zack decided the best thing to do was to go down on hands and knees and rub your face in the sand. Yuck !

In the last two days of our holiday Calvin decided that he was potty training and has completely caught onto wee'ing in the toilet. He is a genius ! And might I point out that he wasn't even two years old yet. Amazing! It really is so much easier with the second child – he just emulates his brother.

Annoyingly we got home to an ear-infection for Zack – or perhaps I should say, predictably ? So he's been on Amoxycilin for 10 days. Seems to have done the job.
What was possibly worse was that Tina, our housekeeper, was off sick for another two days and the ironing was mounting up and things were getting out of control. Not only that but our temporary Nanny who would have really taken off some of the pressure, was also off unexpectedly for a day. I returned to some enormous work pressure and deadlines, so I admit to feeling quite strung-out within days of returning. You always want the "holiday vibe" to linger, don't you ?!