where oh where have I been? Not london, and not one queen.

Remeber my smelly son? The one that had his teacher bring to my attention the disturbing fact that yes, he really does fart way outside the parameters of anythign even remotely resembling normal?

He has coeliac disease.

This is why I have been absent from the blog. This is why I have spent the last four weeks trawling shops for gluten free products so that we may have a semblance of normalcy  to our new found diets.

This is why, the rest of my time not trawling shops, has been spent in the kitchen, modifying and tweaking and trying desperately to cling fast to familiar and comfrtable food we love and are loathe to give up.

This is why Sue Sheperd and her cookbooks have become my new best friends. The kind I have coffee with everyday and relax with at night.  This is why I am secretly slamming the incompetant (now dead) doctor who misdiagnosed my coeliac disease when I was 5.  because all of this could have been avoided. 

This is why my husband is discovering cullinary delights he otherwise would never have tried in a million years. And why he looks at me with a look of bemusement when we are in SumoSalad and I politely inquire what ingredients are in their salad dressings.  (regular soy sauce is out for coeliacs.)

SumoSalad where only too happy to bring me bottle after bottle of dressings to check the labels. (Which is why they have my loyal patronage)  The pesto chicken is GF, the spicy prawns are GF. My favourite salad, alas, is not. (Thai beef)

But the great thing about sumo salad is that they offer rice paper wraps. Which is GF. And they are moer than happy to bend over backwards to accomodate anyone who asks nicely.

My new favourite thing? the fact that I finally feel better than I have in years. And my boy is finally thriving. AND  is butt funk free.

The Fatality list: 8 fingernails and counting

They’re gone. A slow exhalation, a deep inhalation, coughing and gagging on the smell of stale cigarettes they left behind and normality can once again return. 

 I love these people I really do. They raised my husband, the man I chose to marry and procreate with so they aren’t all bad. In fact they aren’t bad at all, they’re just old and rigid in their thoughts and ways.

I made a point of allowing the children free reign with the childrens channels in a bid to avoid the mix of current affairs and my inlaws. With my husband working 16 hour days he wasn’t around enough to be an effective buffer between them and me. Provided our conversations stuck to the weather, the children and family, we were good. So I shut my mouth stood back and let my MIL do my housework. Which kept the peace. I have to go air my house and spray every room. All I can smell is the odour of cigarettes, beer, coffee and Tabu.

I need to refuel on real coffee (not this instant crap my inlaws insist on drinking) and check my emails. But we all survived. Aside from the loss of 7 and a half fingernails, and some serious teeth grinding, all is well.  

I used to have unbitten fingernails…..

My inlaws arrive today. For five days.

Let the tongue biting, hand sitting and teeth grinding commence.