I’ve been having a slightly trying time of late: Tamsin started to be sick last Monday night and hasn’t stopped yet. She waits nearly 24 hours between bouts, just long enough to lull me into thinking she’s stopped…then off she goes again. I finally took her to the (lovely trainee) doctor today who diagnosed viral gastroenteritis and was very reassuring. Which is just what I wanted: I expected them to not really do very much but after a week some reassurance was required. We agreed I should steer clear of having her weighed for some time, though our motives were slightly different: I just don’t want to be mithered by bullying health visitors while the doctor was more concerned I would worry. I’m just glad she’s still breastfed as at least she is absorbing some nutrients from something: it is a bit of a pain that she’s reverted to a near-newborn feeding pattern, but she wants to be on my knee all the time anyway.

Anyway, she hasn’t  been sick since teatime yesterday so fingers crossed she’s on the  mend.

In the meantime, Cameron went to a freezing, snowy Istanbul. He spent a day at what sounds like an entirely health-and-safety-free steel mill but did manage to squeeze in the blue mosque &c, and brought home a photograph of himself with an unusually slim and glamorous belly-dancer. It’s not all work work work.

I zipped south armed with kitchen roll, antibacterial spray and spare clothes aplenty to stay with my parents for a couple of days. We braved the cold to visit the new glasshouse at Wisley which, as seems to be the way of these things, was more impressive from the outside (though I liked the root zone and we coincided with an orchid show, which was gorgeous).

Saturday was a bit of a nightmare all round – we were supposed to rendezvous with Cameron in Harrogate around lunchtime, for Mia’s birthday party. He made it around 7.30 pm having spent the day crossly at Frankfurt airport (though on the bright side his bag unexpectedly accompanied him home). We got there after 3, about 10 minutes before the start of the party, having sat in traffic queue after traffic queue on the M1. And Tamsin was sick on her party dress.

Sunday morning Suzanne and I left the daddies in charge of diarrhoea-Tamsin, vomit-and-diarrhoea Callum (Tamsin kindly shared her bug) and the two falling-out big girls, and spent a pleasant and much deserved couple of hours in the Harrogate turkish bath: what a treat! It’s a very old-fashioned Victorian bath house – all patterned tiles and ancient plumbing – with a steam room, an icy plunge pool, and three rooms heated to different temperatures for lounging in. Atmospheric and wonderful (especially after the estimated 4 hours’ sleep I’d had the previous night) with some very scary attendants.

I’ve been out three times this week! Which from a standing start of not-at-all-after-dark for a whole year, is quite something. Monday, Sara and I went to a carol concert at the cathedral (you surely didn’t imagine I’d been on the razzle), which was lovely if utterly freezing. Proper carols and a bit of John Rutter: just the ticket. Tuesday, I stayed at home for a jolly evening of editing (until quarter to sodding eleven) punctuated by intermittent running up and down stairs to see T, who was most restless and now has a cold. Cameron went out (we are like the weather people). Wednesday I went to Sara’s festive girl’s night – Sara is like a bus too; don’t see her for ages then it is every day for a week – getting a taxi home! See me get the hang of socialising again! And last night Sara babysat while C and I went to see Beowulf. In 3D, which was very cool – we had to wear silly glasses and everything. The film itself…well, Mia’s review sums it up rather well: it is very silly, I giggled at his sahf lahndon “I’ve come ter kill yer monstah”, and the strategically positioned candlesticks are hilarious. I can’t believe it got a 12 rating as it was quite explicit and very gruesome in places, and Grendel was rubbish and just not creepy at all. Fun, though!
In between, I made stollen. Anybody who is anybody is making it this year: Christmas cake is just so 2006. I followed Nigel’s recipe, because I love and trust him, but (apologies to Lisa (whose permalinks are knackered but try the 14th December: she made stollen too but not without a little dig at people who mess with recipes)) I did fiddle it a little. I used dried yeast because that is what I had – surely that is what everybody has – and a sultana catastrophe* meant I had to use cherries/peel/currants/cranberries/almonds as the filling, but that works very well. The cardamom is glorious in it but it is rather more bready/less cakey than stollens I have eaten previously. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
*The jar leapt from the cupboard in eagerness and smashed into a million tiny shards on the floor.

This weekend we have braved Chester and its hordes of shoppers in the rain (me); been to Tumbletots (C and M); ordered some very expensive bespoke furniture for the living room (me and C); had a haircut (C and M); had a lovely chinese takeaway (me and C and C’s parents); had a rotten night mostly awake (T and me and a bit C as well); been to Borders (C and M and C’s parents), the garden centre (everybody but me) and the supermarket (C); been to a very manic 4th birthday party (me, M, T) of 20-odd children; cooked a mammoth not-Christmas roast (me and C’s mum) and been to the cinema (me and C)! Phew.

We saw the golden compass. I was really excited about it coming out: the books are comfortably within my all-time top ten favourites. Then, last week, I had a chat with Mia, who made me a bit nervous by citing all the other loved books that had been spoilt a bit by being filmed. Well, Mia, it hasn’t spoilt anything. The imagery was great; the acting was good: Daniel Craig might not be my Lord Asriel but Nicole Kidman was a far better Mrs Coulter than I had expected and the rest of the casting was lovely. Roger was just gorgeous and I liked the goldy sparklies which showed her interpreting the alethiometer.

I don’t think it will have inspired Cameron to read the books (I so want him to), but I don’t think he hated it either.

It was very rushed: quick, Lyra, run away, then on a boat then oops off we go to the north have a battle quick quick – but the books are so dense I suppose it had to be – particularly as it is, I suppose, meant to be a children’s film (it was 2 hours as it is); equally, it was enormously simplified and none of the characters were given much depth. Hester, who I love so much I nearly named my second baby after her, was merely a pair of (gorgeously long) ears and a couple of lines.

It might have made a better television adaptation – a series, to give time for character development and detail – but I’ll be hare-footing (geddit? ha ha) along to the next one if and when it is released.