A bee sting and a lovely day

Poor Anna, continuing her run of health problems, now has a bee sting. Unfortunately she has reacted to it like her Mama does: she has a red, swollen and unbearably itchy foot.

She wasn't at home with us when she got it, or I would have got an antihistamine into her pronto and this wouldn't have been so severe. I give her the only thing I've found that helps a severe itch, and that's icepacks to numb it.

However, it meant she couldn't go to school, and what a day we had together! She drew, and practiced her timestables (her idea not mine), then I taught her how to play chords on a ukulele (she's been picking for a little while now). She tried so hard, forcing her babyish fingers to land where they needed to on the strings. Our lesson took about twenty minutes, and now she knows three chords and she's away, playing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and Little Drummer Boy, and singing along tunefully. Fantastic.

She requested a plait in her hair, and then, after a trip to buy chicken food and pea straw, we found ourselves in the quaint little town of Cambridge. The Cambridge clock tower struck 11.15 am, and Anna couldn't believe it. She didn't know there was such a thing as a clock striking. The things I haven't taught her yet!

We headed for a bookshop full of wonderful books, stationery and art supplies. Her foot was too uncomfortable to limp any longer, so I hoisted up the darling 25 kg body and carried her like a toddler.

Then I noticed something that I really, really liked. As I carried her, she was stroking my forearm, elbow to wrist, elbow to wrist. Lovely.