OK, it's wet

I wandered out to the Passat at about 6:20am. I knew I wouldn't have to crawl in through the trunk only because I hadn't bothered locking it. I hadn't bothered to lock it because the car is simply not worth locking and because I had gone to bed convinced of the very real possibility that it might float away anyway.

If anyone hasn't been watching the news, there has been a lot of rain here. So much, in fact, that rivers have shown considerable disregard to the banks that normally confine their movement.

On this morning, the car was there and the car park was wet from rain but there was no standing water. I hoppped in and started off. My drive takes me over the Chilterns, which a tourist sign notes is an "area of outstanding natural beauty." And it is beautiful. Probably beautiful enough that it doesn't need a sign to tell you it is beautiful. Those who have driven through BC will appreciate similar patronising signs that tell you that BC is beautiful as you drive past stunning glaciers, wonderful lakes and panoramic valley views.

The Chilterns are high ground in the south east corner of Oxfordshire and not subject to flooding. I bypass the chaos of the flooded towns of Abingdon and Wallingford and arrive at work. As colleagues disappear home to move furniture to the top floors of their houses, I realise that Ange and I both work on high ground. In both instances, we're at the top of a hill in a lovely old building. In both instances, there is no chance of water lapping at the doors of our place of work.

But our personal circumstances aside, things are really, really bad here. People are in a really bad way. Though I don't mean to minimise the flooding catastrophy in Manitoba (Red River) some years back, the numbers of people affected in Britain dwarf those affected in Manitoba on a shocking scale. Nearly half a million people don't have running water right now... and aren't likely to for another 2 weeks. Thousands of homes are submerged in Oxfordshire, Gloucester, Berkshire and Bedfordshire. Still, the generaly public deals with this with a stoicism that is admirable. Mind you, it might just be a stoicism of people who seem to have to deal with an epic crisis of one sort or another seemingly every year.

What is also incredible is how unaffected we have been while being sat right in the middle of it. If anything, the fact that thousands of people in our area have their cars sat under a few feet of water means that the past few days, the traffic has been incredibly light. My drive into work doesn't involve crossing any rivers and covers high ground, so things are actually moving more efficiently for me. Ange's 1 minute walk to work remains unaffected too. Anna's nursery is at the absolute high point in our town and she is unaffected. We had trouble getting to soft play for Anna last friday, but that is hardly an imposition. Today, however, Reading is meant to get hit by the high water surge. I guess we'll soon discover how close to the flood plain our house sits!

For more on just how flooded things are, check out the BBC

Best Damn Weekend

This past weekend has to rank amongst the best. Certainly for Anna it was, which means that is was for us too. I took Friday off work and we managed to sneak in both swimming and "soft play." Swimming was at the local pool, which includes waves (yes, a wave pool) and a water slide. We enjoyed both. Though rubber duckies (it was toddler hour) were almost as enjoyable to one of us...

"Soft Play", for those without kids, is like a giant warehouse full of padded climbing things. It's like a playground with reduced injury possibility. In addition to 10 padded levels of stairs and steps, there was also a ball pool and many slides. We had a blast but there are some possible hygiene concerns. I won't elaborate but next time I will go armed with Purell.

Saturday was "Fun Day" at the nursery that Anna attends. Summer fairs are an institution over here. It would be fair to say that we don't entirely get it, but I suspect Anna had fun. Next year, when she is able to understand the games a little better, she will have more fun. This year, it was all about the "Decorate your own biscuit" stall where for 20p, one was given a biscuit (digestive cookie) and pots of coloured, liquid sugar to pour all over the biscuit. It was very messy and very, very sweet. It was also quite popular.

We went to London on Saturday night to hang out with cousin Stella as Emily and Armando went out for dinner on Armando's birthday. It was a laugh. But not so much as Sunday, which involved another pool and then the Museum of Childhood. The Museum of Childhood was almost too much fun to comprehend for Anna. Every interactive display was a tantrum to pull her away, only to be replaced by the most glorious laugh of anticipation as a new interactive display was introduced to her. The Doll House display was stunning (and included, incredibly, a large doll house from 1673). Yep, 1673. A 334 year old doll house. I was probably more impressed than Anna, who was as pleased as punch with an interactive doll house (with dolls) on display to play with. It was not from the 17th century. In fact, it looked recent and possibly Scandinavian.

3 hours of traffic made the 45 mile trip home tiresome, but after so much fun, who was to complain? Well, okay, I complained a little. But not too much.

Oh-dirt

It is a good thing that Anna is fed a balanced diet at nursery. There are a couple of home favourites which we find ourselves defaulting to more often than we probably ought to.

First is yogurt. She has a near obsession with yogurt, now known in our house as 'oh-dirt'. It is requested at nearly every meal, though we try to balance how often we actually give it to her. It's tough to deny a kid natural, organic yogurt though. It's not like she's asking for some edible oil product marketed by ruthless ad agencies for maximum profit on food that is high in saturated fats and completely absent of nutritional value. It's natural yogurt. The carton has flowers, sunshine and a cow on it for crying out loud. Still, with the 'everything in moderation' mantra playing in the back of my mind, oh-dirt is only available once a day.

The other is porridge. Like the oh-dirt above, hardly seems a sinful indulgence for a child. Still, we're often able to add fruit to the porridge. Blueberries change the colour of the porridge too. But the girl can eat an astonishing amount of porridge. Breakfast is basically porridge. We can try to offer other things, but that is best done with a partial porridge offering. To make ourselves feel slightly better, we opt now for organic porridge. Luckily, (let's face it) even expensive porridge is pretty damn cheap.

So, another interactive blog (not understanding? see past post here)? Possibly. That certainly generate more interest that anything else we've done since arriving. Keep an eye on this space.