Bloody Sandman and Snowmen

What a week. It’s been another hectic one and I think everyone was more than happy to see my parents come back from a short stay in England. I think even my parents were surprised by the welcome party that greeted them at the airport (to discuss babysitting requirements amongst other things).

Work wise I was up in Zurich for a day on Tuesday for a couple of important clients meetings, both of which went well thankfully. I think I hid my sleep deprivation well; I suppose that’s the beauty of adrenalin. By the time I had driven home from Pau it was about midnight on Tuesday. I wasn’t just tired by the time I got home, it was as if the sandman had emptied the contents of the Sahara desert into my little peep holes. I was looking forward to snuggling up in a nice warm bed. Gaston on the other hand had other ideas. Ideas he was particularly keen to share at 1AM, 3AM, 4AM, 5.30AM and 7AM. The sandman only came to visit him about 8AM upon which time he then slept for the rest of the day. If only my work commitments had allowed me to do the same.

I was actually meant to be in London from Wednesday evening through to Friday afternoon but the inclement weather in the UK put paid to that. Whilst I flailed my arms around tut-tutting like a real Frenchmen when I saw the last minute cancellation of the meeting (meaning we’ll have to do it in January now), with hindsight it was actually most fortuitous because we had some less than good news about Capcuine. Capucine has struggled to put as much weight on as Gaston. Over the last few days she’d also developed a worrying tendency to have black outs, especially when she was eating (not typical meal time behaviour for an O’Brien!). The doctors were at a loss to explain this, and when we went to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon they decided to keep her in for observation. And observe they did. Whilst they are still not sure what the problem is, it seems that she has some form of pulmonary infection. They initially feared that a blood transfusion would be necessary because she is so tired by the whole episode, but thankfully that has subsequently been deemed unnecessary. She remains in hospital and we should have some more test results today. She definitely won’t be here for Maxime’s birthday tomorrow, but we really hope that she’ll be home for Christmas. In the meantime we’re rediscovered the 15 minute drive to the hospital 3 times a day and the wonderfully caring and professional nursing staff of Bayonne (who now automatically associate Capucine with a box of top notch Swiss chocolates so that can’t be a bad thing!).

It seems little Gaston is missing his little sister despite now having the whole bed to himself at night. Whereas his mother would kill for the same thing, he seems to be particularly lonely when the lights go out. On Thursday we kept him with us for large parts of the night – something we always said we’d never do; but oh my goodness how wonderful it was to sleep for a whole 6 hours in a row. He seemed quite happy too.

Maxime is two this weekend and I am quite sure that the joy of having his little cousins from Toulouse to play with will outweigh the delight of any new toy. I hope so because we haven’t bought him any. I am obviously only joking – in fact they always say you should give a present that you would like to receive yourself, so I am sure that Maxime is going to be over the moon with his size 8 riding gloves and a renewed subscription to the Economist for 2011. He’s a lucky lad.