Health Issues

A trip to the local clinic to confirm (by blood test) that what I thought I saw in his ear was indeed worthy of antibiotics informed us that not only does our youngest have a bacterial infection, but also malaria - continuing our run of ill-health.  I can't tell you how grateful I am to our gracious technician for her concern and attention to his slide! 

The Great Fountain Pen Adventure

The kids are very much enjoying their fountain pens, and changing colours is a great motivation to practice writing - you have to use the ink in the pen first.  I am seeing progress in what they can do when they take care, and their enthusiasm is a joy to behold - plus they are keen to add to their ink and pen collections so that takes care of birthdays.

"In praise of Prejudice" by Theodore Dalrymple

The book is nicely bound.  After you have said that, you don't have much left to say in praise of it.  Not only could this book have done with an editor (not something I'm usually in favour of, being a firm believer in authorial proprietorship), but it could have used a proof-reader!  It is a compendium of short essays on the consequences of letting every man do what is right in his own eyes, with some nuggets, but not enough substance to justify a book.  Almost every essay had typographical and grammatical errors (not just misspellings, but missing or added words, sometimes making the meaning extremely difficult to decipher).

Finally Making Progress

It seems that we are finally getting over all the diseases that have plagued us the past few weeks.  Our family no longer sounds like a 6-part chorus (mostly in the lower registers) in coughing harmony!  Brian's back is finally making visible progress, although he still spends most of his non-work hours in home-therapy sessions or lying down.  Fortunately, this has come at a quiet time for him at work - reports are as easy to do lying down as sitting at a desk.

Our pond at the front is slowly drying up again - it is a popular garbage disposal location and I am wondering what will come to light next.  The latest 'find' was the remains of a large teddy bear! 

We were invited (on Friday afternoon) to our neighbour's graduation ceremony yesterday, but were unable to attend due to prior commitments.  The ceremony started at 7.30am, but people were still arriving at 9 and beyond.  The 'stadium' is just around the corner from our house, so there were zillions of traffic police who were not very sympathetic about us reversing into the street rather than navigating the puddle.  Since the ceremony didn't finish until after 1pm, we were glad that we hadn't been able to go - this summer has been cooler than others, but it was still over 40 C in the shade yesterday, and sitting (or standing) in a crowded stadium for hours would not have been pleasant.

Puritan Reading Challenge 2008

I was thinking about joining this in January, but don't have "The Bruised Reed", but, inspired by Richard Baxter and Tim Challies, I've decided to commit myself for the remainder of the course.  Now to catch up!

Hard at work - Study Conditions

Yesterday, we had a power cut from 2.30 to 7.45.  Fortunately, this summer has been the coolest I remember, so although it was unpleasantly warm and steamy it wasn't meltdown weather.  The bigger problem was lack of light, as always.  I thought that Philip's solution to the problem was rather rugged, but here he is busy with his Greek Homer.