Our friends Jeff and Michelle came to Scotland for a week long open canoe trip on Loch Morar near Mallaig. They did a bit of a detour and stopped at ours for a couple of days prior to the trip to discover the joys of babysitting, enjoy a dry roof and Jenny’s cooking. Carrying the baby came rather naturally to them:
How lovely, don’t you think they’d make nice parents themselves…
A few weeks back, Sarah and I went to Balblair, an amazing mountain bike trail in Sutherland. The trail is mostly on bedrock and it is very different from anything else I have ridden so far. Enjoy the action with a few shots taken by Sarah. There are more in the gallery.
We have not given any news on the blog for a while because we’re just back from a long hospital trip…
Our daughter A. and "Andrew Bear", a gift from the Scottish Ambulance Service
Our daughter A. got very ill with severe breathing difficulties almost 2 weeks ago. After a trip to GP out of hours and then Raigmore hospital in Inverness, she had to be transfered (by helicopter and under sedation and ventilation) to the paediatrics intensive care unit (PICU) at Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis (basically a viral pneumonia) caused by the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) which is common in the winter but extremely rare at that time of the year. Although many children catch RSV and cope OK, she reacted particularly badly to the virus and was in great distress. She had to stay in intensive care under sedation and ventilation for 6 days before being moved to a standard paediatrics ward in Glasgow and then back to Raigmore hospital in Inverness. Luckily A. has now made a good recovery (she definitely has got her voice back!) and we have been told that there should be no lasting consequences.
It has been a very stressful time for all of us and we are very grateful to the people who have helped us along the way. The medical staff both at Raigmore hospital in Inverness and Yorkhill hopsital in Glasgow were top class. We were particularly impressed by the staff and facilities at the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Yorkhill hospital. The staff from the Scottish Ambulance Service were great. The helicopter paramedic gave A. a teddy bear which has now been named “Andrew Bear” after him. Thank you so much.
The Ronald McDonald House in Glasgow.
We are very grateful to the friends who helped at very short notice with our dog Sam, the house and the chickens when we had to leave home. JP’s employer was also very accommodating. Thanks you so much, you know who you are. We also got many messages of support from friends and colleagues. Thanks to you all.
Last but not least, accommodation in Glasgow was provided to us for free by the Ronald MacDonald House in Glasgow. The work done by this charity is amazing: they provide accomodation for parents who have to accompany their sick children to hospital and live afar. We cannot stress enough how relieved we were to be able to stay 5 minutes from the hospital in those stressful times. For all your help many many thanks. If you want to support the work of the Ronald McDonald House, follow this link: http://www.justgiving.com/yorkhillfamilyhouse/Donate
We are delighted to be home but our thoughts are with the families of the children who are still hospitalised at Yorkhill hospital.
Real Nappies drying on the line. From left to right: a home made baby wipe, a plastic outer, two real nappies (Dippy Diaper and FuzzyBunz) and a booster pad . By the way, these two real nappies in newborn size have been lent to us by the Highland Real Nappy Project, thanks!
Jenny and I are using real, washable nappies for our baby daughter. We took our decision quite quickly: it seemed to make complete sense – less waste of course but we had also heard that it is better for the environment overall, and that real nappies are simply cheaper than disposable nappies. (I’ve also seen a flyer showing that my employer, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) supports real nappies in case I needed more convincing.) However, now that I am half-way through “The Skeptical Environmentalist” by Bjørn Lomborg, I thought that instead of relying on hear say, I should really look at what evidence is out there.
My conclusion is that real nappies are better for the environment given the laundering pattern which we use at home. This is something that is not 100% clear on real nappy promotional material: you need to be sensible in using the washing machine and tumble dryer to actually lower the environmental impact below that of disposable nappies. Furthermore, I am not completely convinced that real nappies are cheaper. Running a washing machine is expensive and given that I don’t know for sure the energy consumption associated with one single wash, it is difficult for me to say that I will save much money at this stage.
Experience shows that real/washable nappies are not difficult to use although it is more time consuming than disposables. It requires being more organised too. I suggest new parents give it a go and consider their environmental conscience, their wallet and their timetable before taking a decision. I suspect availability of space to hang/dry the nappies will be key as if the nappies go in the tumble dryer, most environmental benefits are void.
If you are keen on learning more about nappies, here is a lengthy summary of what I have found in a few evenings of Internet (nappy) searching. Please don’t take this as a thoroughly researched article: it isn’t. As you can guess, I spend much more of my time changing nappies rather than researching them. Nonetheless, writing this article helped me getting satisfied with my initial choice.
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