Star Ship Ahoy

Sadly all here at Chez Seal have fallen into the clutches of a foul and vicious lurgy. Poor Chris got so bad that he headed home early on Friday, after a workmate's funeral. Naturally, like sharks scenting blood in the water, the boys pounced on our combined weakness. Valiantly rising above their own hacking coughs and Niagra like noses they have exhibited a range of behaviour last seen only in the most violent and depraved days of the Roman Empire. On Wednesday I took Cameron round the local playground on his trike. He really enjoyed it, especially as his feet now touch the pedals. He still can't steer for toffee though which made it rather...exciting :) On Friday, given that the forecast was for a sunny day with patches of cloud, we went to Parrs Park.... with the bikes. Kieran is an odd little chick at times. I don't know what goes on in that boys head. He ignores his bike for most of summer, says he doesn't like bikeriding, then exhibits an unholy desire to go bike riding in wet, cold, rainy winter. Truly, men are a mystery. Naturally we got rained out after an hour and a half, and I found myself jogging back along the path to the car, cursing my desire to have a walk that led me to park on the opposite end of the rugby field. Kieran happily pedalled along in front of me and Cameron lolled in my arms so I was the only one puffing at the end of our little scamper. That night I made pumpkin soup for Playcentre to sell at the stall at the market. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. At nine o'clock the house began to tremble with the snores of three congested males. There's only so much fun to be extracted from mirowaving pumpkin pieces so I amused myself with a website which captions comics with a WTF factor. (http://www.lileks.com/institute/comicsins/covers/DCheroes/5.html) I also began creating Kieran's Letters from Space. I came up with an idea to write a letter to Kieran from an Alien. Kieran will get 10 letters in total starting with the Kuiper belt and Pluto, then a letter per planet. I am wondering about making personalised stamps. Should I go for a more generic solar system pic, or have a pic of the appropriate planet for each letter??? Decisions, decisions. Having costed the personalised stamps I think we'll go for the normal kind! I managed to finish A Letter from Mars (Just Earth, Venus, Mercury and the Sun/Farewell to go!) before the soup was cooked. It was delicious! Just buttercup pumpkin, with sauteed leek and onion, cooked with some chicken stock and a splash of coconut cream. This afternoon we head to the StarDome for our journey to Earth. Despite feeling so ill I am really looking forward to it.