A business trip to Barcelona last week. We’d always heard it was a great place, but it turned out to be even better than I had imagined. It was a hard working few day - honestly.
But the little time we had to go out in the evenings, to restaurants, gave us a glimpse of magic city: the architecture, food, beach, and general style…. I hope we’ll be able to organise a family trip one day, soon.
So - having planned to take a very cautious approach to changing Calum’s diet, last weekend it was all change in one go.
To recap, we’re hoping that Calum can change from a Gluten Free / Casein Free diet to a normal diet, by using dietary enzymes to break down those problem proteins.
At Jenny & Emma’s party last weekend, we just let him try a number of the items on offer. He tasted goats cheese for the first time ever, cup-cakes and more. Cheesecake was another revelation, and he hid one in the fridge for another day!
We carefully checked him- no obvious problems. And so it has been for over a week now: a week that has included pizza, doughnuts…. Of course, we are going to need to be careful: with this radical a change, weight gain could be a problem.
As for Calum’s mental state - if anything, it seems to be improved. He seems sharper then usual: I think this change may have given him confidence. We are so looking forward to our trip to France - unencumbered by a car full of special foods (let’s hope).
When Jenny & Emma announced a couple of months ago that they were formalising their relationship through a Civil Partnership, we were delighted. They’ve been together for so long. Individually, they are both caring and fun, but with an ability to deal with the tough parts of life. Together, they are a great couple who seem to cast a warm glow of love around them.
Now, to make things complicated, they decided to have the partnership ceremony at an office in the Isles of Scilly, at the end of May. As it happens, it is the closest registry office to the sea, in the UK; and very hard to get to! So, to allow both families to celebrate this event, along with Emma’s recent 50th birthday, it was agreed to hold a garden party on July 2nd at our house.
I won’t pretend that we did not spend a lot of the intervening weekends getting our garden into shape. Jan was inspired, and between us we created some new planting arrangements, along with general tidying and maintenance, including the pond.
On the weekend of the party, the planning all clicked into place. The marquee, to be set up over the decking at the back of the house, arrived a day earlier than expected, but that turned out to be a bonus. Jenny and Emma came over the day before the party to help with the decorations and final arrangements, and all was set for the party day.
There were a some final arrangements on the Saturday 2nd morning: food, flowers, balloons, drink. But we were all set for when people started to arrive promptly at 12:30.
I think the party went well: the weather was warm and dry but not too hot. The marquee held all 30 of us in style. One interlude was for Connor to perform a few numbers on his saxophone (”Mack the Knife” etc.). Some of the lunch was courtesy of Waitrose, some from a traituer, local to Emma and Jenny, and most of the desserts were courtesy of members of the le Fleming family. And, of course, most of the wine was from the Domaine Michaud (near to the family’s holiday home in the Val du Cher).
An enthusiastic game of boules brought young and old together. Following the departure of the more senior members of the family, those that were left undertook a climb up Martinsell Hill in the evening light, to release some balloons. Then it was back to the Paddock for a barbecue and a fireside huddle late into the night.
All in all - a wonderful day.
So there I was musing about summer rock concerts of my youth at Knebworth, when the drum and bass DJ Pretty Lights here pulls out a mix over Dark Side of the Moon. But looking round the audience, I’m probably the only one who saw the Floyd performing it too.
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Initially, Calum had some problems with the enzyme capsules: they are not large, but he is not used to swallowing pills. He also reported some indigestion. But we are now on to 2 a day, with meals (GFCF). All seems OK, but we’re continuing to monitor for reactions.
Shortly after Calum was diagnosed with Asperger’s (high functioning autism), we moved him to a Gluten Free, Casein Free (GCFC) diet. The theory is about the effect of these proteins, and the so-called “leaky gut” (more to be added later). It worked really well for Calum; his emotions were calmer and his ability to focus much better.
But it is a difficult diet to keep up. It reached its zenith a couple of years ago, with a wider range of alternative foods being available, that Calum liked. But one by one, his favourites are disappearing off the shelves.
Recently, I did some reading up, which confirmed my thinking that an alternative could lie in using enzymes to break down these proteins. And so, today, we will start that process, very gradually. This first step is to try one of the enzyme capsules with his regular diet, to see if there are any side effects. We’ll give that 24 hours. Fingers crossed!
“Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices and let me rest.”
Amazing: within less than a minute of going live on Facebook, Calum had 2 “friends”. By the end of the night - 46. It’s a tricky area for him, so I am so happy that so many people want to link up with him.
I have stopped blogging for a while. There were 3 main reasons; like most people, I found Facebook and Twitter much easier and more connected. Blogging was so retro, so 2007 ;-) Then, there was so much turbulence in our lives that it was hard to find the words.
Finally, there was a technical glitch. My blog was hosted on our sparklingit.com domain, using WordPress. When I changed our contract, the server details changed, and the blog data files vanished. I realised, too late, that the WordPress blog was more than just a bunch of web pages.
But Facebook and Twitter are just not enough: a blog gives you the opportunity to write a bit more, to express an opinion, an emotion, or share some detailed information; and, hopefully, with some more permenance. I wondered about a new WordPress blog, but instead I started to look at Apple iWeb, because I can integrate it better with a more complete web site, it looks pretty, and I can keep a local copy.
But then I remembered - Apple is replacing MobilMe with iCloud over the next year - and it is unclear what the future is for iWeb with MobileMe. I’m sure Apple won’t just leave people with no option: but I can see that iCloud has some much bigger things in its agenda than just hosting web pages. So, at the last minute, it’s back to WordPress, which to be fair does have more features, such as tagging.
Anyway - that’s the mechanics; time to get blogging for real, again.
Footnote - for now, I have managed to find a fragment of the original blog on the excellent Wayback Machine . Interestingly, this snapshot wa, to express an opinion, an emotion, or share some detailed information; and, hopefully, with some more permenance. I wondered about a new WordPress blog, but instead I started to look at Apple iWeb, because I can integrate it better with a more complete web site, it looks pretty, and I can keep a local copy.
But then I remembered - Apple is replacing MobilMe with iCloud over the next year - and it is unclear what the future is for iWeb with MobileMe. I’m sure Apple won’t just leave people with no option: but I can see that iCloud has some much bigger things in its agenda than just hosting web pages. So, at the last minute,