Celebrity blogger

As mentioned in my last post, I have become the official chorus blogger for Glyndebourne. You can view this new incursion into cyberspace here.

Yet again, this throws this blog into a strange limbo of purpose. I have been specifically encouraged not to write about work in any setting where editorial control cannot be exercised - which is fair enough - and even William has let me down in my last attempt to write a post that remained even vaguely relevant to my blog title. He is not, it now transpires, going to have his Botox injections. His consultant has decided that nothing should be done that might in any way deflect Birmingham Children's hospital from putting him on the transplant list for his bowel. Everybody is now getting very serious about this possibility. In matters of life and death, walking can, apparently, wait. Rather throws my woes of the last couple of years into relief. William remains on top form, however. Given the attempts of the last few years to find a 'best-fit' diagnosis based on his various eccentricities, the medics must surely include his inability to ever stop talking as a key symptom.

Just as when I couldn't walk, I dreamed of strolling through the countryside, William is now obsessing about food. His favourite book is currently a cookbook, and he is rarely seen without a biscuit shoved to his nostrils. He is such a connoisseur of things olfactory that he can now tell what biscuit you may have eaten just before you bent down to talk to him. Perhaps a career as a master of wine beckons: 'Chateau Cheval Blanc 2005. A complex vintage, where a background of brambly fruits is complimented by overtones of Garibaldi. A soft first mouthful is followed by a lingering taste of custard cream with slight overtones of rich tea. A huge jammy dodger of a wine.' Robert Parker needs to look to his laurels.



William is not only developing his palate, but he is getting quite literate. The attached video shows him in a bookshop. (He 'wants to look at one more Mr Man' - thirty minutes later he was still using the 'just one more' line) He is already cracking through the 'Oxford Reading Tree'. An early title that Sarah kindly chose has a picture of 'Dad' on the front cover with his leg in a huge bandage. Not only can I provide assistance in his intellectual development through my past as an English teacher, it seems I can educate through illustration too. Ever the consummate professional. Unfortunately, I have managed to educate him in less impressive ways too. As his nurse approached him tonight with yet another device to take his vital signs, William responded with the obvious borrowing - 'Bugger that!". I'm not sure that the widespread hilarity that followed did anything to persuade him that he was in the wrong. Fortunately, work is about to get very busy indeed. Maybe William needs some time off from Daddy's contributions to his intellectual 'hothousing'.