Manny Manny Manny

Leaving Ol' Blighty

Can't believe it. We are only 4 days away from being back in Australia. I am pretty excited, but also a bit sad. London is just so nice in the Summer, it seems a shame to leave when everything and everyone is at their best. Shame that England lost out in the whole World Cup - it would have been really nice for everyone had they won.

Matt is doing one last job - flying to Greece on Sunday to pick up some sick person. Meanwhile, I keep finding things we haven't packed and have no room for. We have four ENORMOUS bags, one of which weighs a whopping 33 kilos. We are well overweight for the flight, but hoping that we can blame it all on the baby. Hopefully Manny will cry on cue if they go to charge us excess, and if that doesn't work, all three of us will have a crack at it (crying).

Back to Matt, he will probably not thank me for posting this on here, but it's all a bit weird and too funny not to tell you all. Matt's last flying - doctor type job took him to the lovely white shoe brigade paradise of Menorca, Spain, where he went to pick up a 58 year old man with manic depression and take him back to Glasgow. 'Ah-hah', I hear you say, 'a depressed Glasweigan - nothing out of the ordinary there' - and to that I say, yes, you're right, possibly there IS nothing out of the ordinary about a depressed Glasweigan. After all, it's very cold up there, people headbutt you out of nowhere, there are only 15 dentists to every 2000 people and the national dish is fried Marsbar - plenty to be depressed about. But this Scotsman is weirder, and for our hero Matt, much more terrifying.

Matt picked up the Manically Depressed Scottish Man and his wife from hospital. Said patient happened to have a mainc episode where, amongst other things, he prayed in a cave on the beach, had been taken hostage by people (possibly born again christians) who dressed him in a golden cape, and made him run down the aisles of a maternity ward making strange noises. He confessed to Matt that although it sounded a bit weird, that's what had happened. It was also bad for his wife, who had woken up and not known where her husband was for hours. Matt wrote in his notes something like 'patient delusional, but has some sense of normalcy and seems lucid'.

This may have lead our hero to think it was ok for the guy to have a few bevvies and watch the football the next night at the hotel. After all, he seemed pretty normal, what, apart from the manic episode, which was a bit out of character really. So our hero and the Manically Depressed Scottish Man partook in footy and a couple of beers. The man opened up and told Matt (nearly) all his problems - which included another manic episode 12 years earlier involving nudity and a very long swim, and problems with his wife of 15 years - and drank what seemed like a LOT of scotch. Time to go to bed (as they had an early flight to catch) so they go to the elevator. Safely alone together in the lift and Manically Depressed Scottish Man decides it's time to get Real Friendly with our hero. Manically Depressed Scottish Man grabs Matt's bottom and tries to kiss him. Our hero gets out at the next stop and Runs Away Very Fast, to Hide in the fire escape and Call His Wife in a Very Panicky State at 2am. I suggest that Manically Depressed Scottish Man is actually a Manically Depressed Gay Scottish Man, who is in such a state because he has never told anyone about being Gay. The next day at breakfast, this MDGSM does not bat an eyelid, and goes on to annoy our hero all the way back to Glasgow, by sitting next to him on the plane and shaking him awake eveytime something vaguely interesting appears out the window. Matt was very pleased to get home.

Well, only 2 more days today. I am taking myself off to a baby store tomorrow to buy a sling so little Manny will hopefully sleep soundly in the plane and not annoy everyone terribly. He doesn't seem to like sleeping in the moses basket we have for him at the moment, so can't see that a little bed in a plane is going to be any different.



Manny can: bear all his own weight if supported
support his own head
wriggle like a worm
almost turn over - he can turn on to his side
smile at me!


See you all soon! xoxox

Wimbledon

We've been to Wimbledon. Manny and I didn't really see much tennis, but I partook of traditional cream and strawberries and had a Pimms or two in the shade of a big oak tree, while lots of old ladies whispered amongst themselves that 'that baby is too young to be out'. God forbid we should TAKE our child anywhere! But then it WAS a WHOLE 28 degrees, which as we all know is terribly hot for British babies. We had a great day. Check out the security dude behind Matt who obviously thinks Manny is a bomb of some sort.