The Easter weekend started off with me abandoning les deux filles (et demie) for a final solo cross-channel flight of the season for football obsession feeding purposes. And it was an entirely relaxed trip for a change. Smooth outward flight, chauffeur-driven ride from airport to pub, pre-match pint or three in the pub with le grand gooner and the surrogate barrel-maker number 2, comfortable victory against the doomed Royals, delicious post-match dinner back in Cambridge with le grand chef et la petite beaucoup, and finally uneventful trip home the following day.
Meanwhile the girls apparently had a good time without me, barring one half-hour Saturday evening tantrum. And so it was en famille that we headed to the park on Easter Monday morning. After a pleasant stroll in cool, hazy sunshine we headed to the nearby garden centre café for lunch. And there the weekend almost came to a distinctly unpleasant end. La petite gourmande was tucking into a fruit salad when she suddenly started choking. Not an unusual situation in itself, as when she was younger she often stuffed too much into her mouth at once. However in the past she's always managed to cough it up and out straightaway. This time the offending object was well and truly stuck, and the way our little treasure was desperately and vainly trying to suck in air with a look of panic in her eyes suggested this was no ordinary choking episode. Her parents were also somewhat panic-struck, but after a scary moment that could have lasted anywhere between 20 and 60 seconds, papa's rather tentative attempt at the Heimlich manoeuvre at last dislodged a large chunk of pineapple.
Fortunately there were no discernible after-effects, though it was mildly worrying to see her uncharacteristically almost fall asleep on her push-along tricycle on the way home. Pineapple remains off the menu for the moment though…
The gestation of her future little sister apparently progresses well, though la bienheureuse's last appointment at the hospital produced an 'arrêt pathologique', a sort of maternity sick-leave (in her case due to the gestational diabetes) which extends the prenatal maternity leave by two weeks. La mère travailleuse thus stops work on Monday. No excuse for a holiday though - as it is a type of sick leave, she is constrained to be at home between 9-11am and 2-4pm every day of the two weeks. And the social security apparently can call round to check...
