18 minus 1

18 years minus 1 day. We’re off! Not long to go now......

In fact if truth be told, last night went fine (largely thanks to Sandie). We were up about 3 times in the night although I have to say that it felt much less of an adventure than when we did it for the first time with Maxime two year ago. Even Capucine’s best efforts to dirty the whole bathroom at 4AM didn’t raise my interest levels much above “basic trance”.

In fact it was only on waking this morning did I realise the magnitude of the situation when Maxime fell out of bed around 8AM and we had precisely 1 hour to clean, feed and clothe 3 children (I certainly didn’t have time to shave, and even now I can’t even remember if I had a shower). Thankfully Maxime was delivered to crèche on time and I only joined my 9AM conference call two minutes late. That has to count as a success.

I was also delighted to see our home help turn up for the first time. Raymonde was fantastic and after 3 hours of her help, the house was so clean you wouldn’t have thought we had any children at all! With a bit of luck she’ll be back three times a week for the duration of Sandie’s maternity leave.

Another sub 10PM bedtime now.....we’ll see how tomorrow pans out. It’s a real shame I am not able to make my godson Reuben’s christening tomorrow in the UK, but it’s now quite clear that if two’s company then three is most definitely a crowd. On the upside, Sandie no longer seems to be talking about a fourth......