not so smug and missing home

Oh, it serves me right. Having been so rude about the ability of males to fight off a poxy flu virus, I only went and came down with it too. And you know what? It isn't very nice. I have a lot more sympathy for them now than I did this time yesterday. High temperatures and hacking coughs are debilitating.

So with all four of us laid low, we have had a pretty sad day. It is the first time that D and I have both been stricken at the same time, which meant that there has been no escaping childcare duties, no matter how awful you feel. I did though pull a bit of a trump card by getting a recurring prolapsing disc to prolapse again which put Dave onto the front line.

And for the first time I am really missing home. Although we have plenty of friends here, there wasn't anyone we felt we could call up to say 'we are having a shocker - please come and help!'. I didn't want to infect anyone else, I didn't want to force anyone else outside into this shocking miserable weather to take Jess for a walk, I didn't feel that I could dump my children onto anyone whilst we recuperated. In other words, I couldn't just ring up my Mum and behave like a 3 year old, whilst she came rushing to my rescue and fed me hot tea with soothing words and a damp flannel on a fevered brow.

So we soldiered on, got through the day and are all looking forward to the end of this bug, if only so we don't have to watch 101 Dalmatians again.

Doctors and antibiotics

All good things have to come to an end. Realistically, our run without having to make a trip to the Doctors was never going to last. The boys (and D so it is obviously a male thing) have been laid low with a stonkingly high temperature and hacking cough. Temperatures were responding to Calpol and Calprufen, but they were too high for me to be comfortable with, so I bundled my poorly males up and we made our first proper trip to the doctor that we had found way back in August.

It was a drop in clinic, we didn't have to make an appointment and we were seen in a few minutes. Quite refreshing after the NHS queues and battles. We did have to pay (still a shock to our fairly spoilt NHS coddled systems) but it was only 15KM (about £7.50) per visit.The Doctor smiled at the kids, took their temps, looked in their ears and throats, diagnosed flu and promptly dished out about 5 different forms of antibiotics. We are more used to a fairly robust NHS doctor who only prescribed antibiotics if you were dying and 'most definitely not for flu which is a virus and therefore unaffected by antibiotics' so we were surprised, but when in Rome/Tuzla...

Still they have sorted out the slight ear infection Adam had, the temps seem to be under control and I'm hopeful that life will be back to normal by Monday.

In the meantime the weather is dreadful so I don't feel too guilty about snuggling up with the boys and a couple of good dvds of an afternoon.

Bosnian rumours

Of interest to the Brits who read this blog and further to my post yesterday (here) - one of the candidates rumoured to be in the running for the job of High Representative is Chris Patten. This is true Bosnian rumour and probably not based in any truth whatsoever, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Taking the English out of England

Yesterday was a truely vile day - the type of day that you expect in England in February. Low low cloud. Drizzle that goes on and on and on. Only sounds being the sounds of cars driving through puddles. No light. Just dank, grey, depressing.

Being Brits we felt right at home and were the only ones to be seen out walking, wellies, coats and rain hats firmly on, wet dog at our side.

Back home we couldn't resist the traditional Sunday lunch. A full on roast beef, roast potatoes, yorkshire pud affair. All that was missing was Ski Sunday or Rugby Special on BBC2, and we'd have had a proper British Sunday.

boring but important

There's a magazine in the UK, The Week, which is a neat summary of all the news, comments, editorials etc. in the UK press. One of their sections is called 'Boring, but Important' and I feel that accurately sums up the gist of this post.

Regular readers (hello Mum!) will know that I try to steer clear of the Bosnian political situation, but occasionally there is an important development that I feel I should point out. On Friday the international community's representative in Bosnia, The High Representative, resigned - leaving his job to become foreign minister in Slovakia.

The High Representative is probably the most powerful person in Bosnia (Brits may remember that Paddy Ashdown held the post for a couple of years a few years back). Unelected, he has the power to force the Bosnian politicians to do all sorts of things that they can't normally agree upon. Opinion is divided on whether having a High Representative is a good thing. Certainly, the office has been able to push through a number of laws that have been unpalatable to the nationalist politicians that dominate the political scene here. Others think that this permits the politicians to hide behind OHR; they have not needed to learn how to take difficult, potentially unpopular decisions.

OHR mandate was due to end in 2009, but many believe the current political stalemate (see Nov 16th post and Economist article here for more details) in Bosnia will mean it will have to be extended. It will be difficult to find anyone to take the job without knowing what their mandate will be. It looks as if the political impasse is unlikely to finish soon.

Playgrounds! In Tuzla!

Although there is a great playground in Sarajevo (see earlier post), the rest of the playgrounds in Bosnia leave a lot to be desired. In addition to the limited, poorly maintained and broken equipment I now have a new gripe - mud. The mud would do a trench in The Somme proud. In Tuzla it is that especially thick, stick to your shoes and make them 3 times heavier type of mud. And it is everywhere. Of course it then goes all over the limited, poorly maintained equipment making any play that might have been possible messy.

But, but but. Someone, somewhere has heard my whinging about the state of playgrounds in Bosnia and has done something about it. Now, near Slana Banja park and the saltwater Panonica Lakes, there is a whole army of bulldozers, diggers and trucks. We've been watching with interest for a while (trucks! diggers! bulldozers! Small boy heaven!). But at our last visit I realised, with a lifting of the heart and a soaring choir of angels, they were building a playground. And what a playground it will be. There are climbing frames with tunnels. There are climbing walls and things to climb all over. Slides. Swings. A load of other stuff that hasn't revealed itself yet, but looks good. It even looks as if it will have that spongy blue stuff on the floor to stop everyone hurting themselves when they inevitably fall down.

I have no idea when it will open, but we are likely to be first in the queue. Just hope they have managed to sort out the mud.

The Legend of Lukey

Luke reached the grand old age of 2 yesterday. Only 2 - it feels like he has been around for much longer (that may be to do with his disincilination to sleep). Full toddlerdom awaits us and I feel he will embrace the terrible twos with enthusiasm. He is a sweet little boy, loud, rumbunctious, stubborn, charming and a real one for an audience. He does exactly what he wants to do. On a walk, he will decide he wants to go back to the car and set off, without looking back or stopping and with or without the rest of us. Luke has taken to Bosnian life with enthusiasm. He likes nursery, he likes the food there and he is loved by the Bosnians who are charmed by his attempts to speak Bosnian and penchant for blowing kisses.

We had a small party for him on Sunday. I made a cake (which tragically collapsed, I have yet to get to grips with the different types of Bosnian flour, and am still trying to work out what might constitute self-raising flour, which most my cake recipes call for). Still the 15 or so people who came round sang Happy Birthday and gamely ate the stodge.

The tradition is that you take a cake to nursery on the day of your child's birthday. I'm quite happy to submit my friends to my baking attempts, but thought better of public humiliation at nursery so I asked Tanja, our lovely cleaner, if she would mind doing the honours. The cake appeared, the biggest cake I have ever seen, resplendent with Bob the Builder on top.

Bosnian cakes are quite different to the British ones, lots of layers and cream and coconut flakes. I have to say, I'm not the biggest fan. But the Bob the Builder cake was greeted with delight at nursery and none of it was left at the end of the day. The nursery did a really great job of making his birthday special - they sang Happy Birthday in English and Bosnian, danced dances and generally had a right old party. He won't remember it, but I do feel he had a pretty decent birthday.