January

January. Oh January. What a disappointment you've been to me. Here's a quick summary:

Week 1: April and Alexander contract the winter vomiting virus. It snows a lot.
Week 2: Me and Simon contract the winter vomiting virus and the kids get coughs. It is very cold.
Week 3: The lift breaks and it takes ten days to fix - and we live on the 4th floor. It is very, very cold.
Week 4: It snows again and I am just too cold. How is one supposed to keep the spark going in a marriage when it's necessary to wear socks in bed to retain body heat?

I'll be glad to see the back of January. (Though I am pleased to have found that having to wear a hat outside the house has put paid to 'bad hair days'.)

Today I took some photos of the snow when out buying the groceries. Here's a photo taken of our local Zülpicher Platz church.

Schneemann

Today April and I built a happy snowman. It has eyes made out of cake candle holders, a toy carrot nose, chopsticks for arms and a button mouth.

It's been very cold here - I don't think it's got above freezing all week.

Queasy

We've been away in England for Christmas and it's been pleasant, as it always is. We arrived back in Cologne about 3 hours ago and are enjoying being back on our sofa and surrounded by all of our things.

We split the journey back to Cologne over two days, with a break in a Dover hotel last night, prior to our Channel crossing. That was meant to make the journey more pleasant. Hmm.

Precisely 6 minutes before we got to the hotel April was violently sick. Poor little thing. When we arrived at the hotel I had to get her out of the car and shake her down. Bits of part-digested tangerine, orange squash and all - making a nice fruit cocktail for the urban rats. This was not stylish travel.

She was ill again when we were in our hotel room; a room all four of us were sharing. With vomit-covered sheets and clothes the room soon became a bio-hazard and I was worried that we'd all be ill by dawn.

Luckily Simon, Alexander and I were okay this morning, but April threw up her breakfast. Of course, it occurred to us that a nauseous child and a cross-channel ferry in winter seas might not be good. We boarded with some anxiety.

In the end, the worst thing that happened on the ferry was that April had a very loud tantrum about not wanting to put her boots on. It was public mortification for me, but not as bad as her being sick again.

Now we're home April is fully recovered but I am mentally scarred!

Travelling with children? Just DON'T.