Prague zoo

After happy introductions to new family members, we went with the Szabos to the zoo. Kate is an ex-colleague at the Commission and is still working there in Prague. This was the first time we'd met Ruben, and they'd not seen our boys for two years. Gregor met his match in Rebi, who is 6 months older and quite a bit wiser!

Here we are about to have lunch - very typical snack food of hot dogs and chips and broccoli in breadcrumbs. Kate is sorting out her kids, Rebi and Ruben, while Honza is bringing all the grub.

Alastair savouring his first parek v rohliku (hot dog)!

See what pareks do to you!

Rebi and Gregor negotiating the extremely wobbly footbridge.

p.s. and by special request, Gregor and Rebi cooling off in the pool at the children's bit of the zoo.

Troja Palace

One of our days was booked to see Prague's lovely zoo, so we took advantage of arriving there early and walked over the road to the summer palace in Troja. As you do.

Here's Misha showing Alastair one of the lesser fountains, with a sloping vineyard in the background.

The palace, built in the late 1600s for a prominent Bohemian aristocrat, houses Chinese murals, art and costumes and a wonderful fresco in the great hall but we didn't go in.

Alastair about to be zapped off the staircase.

Struggling statues.

A view from the staircase overlooking the landscaped gardens with Prague castle in the background.

Lunch at Šípek's

A visit to Prague would not be the same I didn't meet up with the girls at Šípek's. Bořek Šípek remains my favourite designer of crystal, but is also renowned for his architecture, furniture and silverware design. He also does a bit of landscaping too, I understand. Anyway, a few years ago he went up even further in my estimations by opening a Thai restaurant at the back of his Arzenal gallery shop in Prague. Myself and a few then colleagues soon established this as a regular tradition, one that continues today. Here are most of them.

Máme hlad, kdy jede tramvaj?

Misha in full flow and Hana (a Šípek regular) giving Gregor a cuddle. The Branston pickle is not a Thai condiment, but a gift that always goes down well.

Jana and Alena, also Šípek regulars. Unfortunately Ivana couldn't join us. Next time Ivano!

Here's Jana giving Alastair a cuddle after his feasting. And Jana's daughter, Klara, more glamorous than ever.

Riegrové sady

Our first stop was to meet up with an extremely good friend of ours, Zuzana, in the park just by her flat. Before meeting Alastair enjoyed "chicken pockets" with boiled potatoes and a half decent sauce. Gregor continued to be a good traveller and slept in the buggy all through lunch.

The children's playground - one enormous sandpit - was right next door, so there we headed once Gregor had woken up. Here is Zuzana, enjoying the sight of the boys. The last time she saw them they were half the size, age and trouble!

Zuzana's daughter, Adéla, and granddaughter, Matylda, joined us. Here is Tylda, playing amongst Gregor and Alastair and before going off to sculpt an enormous parrot nest in the sand. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of it.

Catching up on the last two years, with Prague castle in the distance.

Travelling to Prague

After an exhausting fortnight during Alastair's assessment we decided to take a holiday in Prague. As for the assessment, we concluded that we work harder on his speech acquisition (parents learn Makaton sign language) and wait and see what the summer brings. By September we may make a decision about a special nursery but for now we maintain the status quo with regards his playgroup. We are optimistic that he'll start making more and more sounds and we are convinced we heard him say "kiss" tonight. And now to Prague.

This is the first time we've been back to Prague as a family so we were keen to see how the boys would find it all. We got to Stansted in good time to eat a slap up packed lunch before boarding the plane.

The boys were content to watch and wait for the delayed Easyjet plane to offload its passengers and get cleaned and ready for us to board.

Once there, Gregor was the perfect traveller and fell asleep!

First stop in Prague was to see big Brother Bulov to pick up the keys to Roman's flat, and eat pizzas from Grossetto, just round the corner from where "Bu" lives.

Then a bit of haggling over who sleeps where and to bed.

Special Breakfast

What with Alastair's assessment process going on for the past couple of weeks and his continued progress which has Gregor a bit confused and ill at ease when the goalposts shift so often, we felt we should do something just for him - so he doesn't feel left out. As if.

We came to this bakery on the "historic high street" last week and decided to establish this as our new tradition before playgroup since Alastair doesn't go on a Friday.

So, a cooked breakfast for two pounds twenty. Instead of baked beans we chose extra tomatoes, toast instead of fried bread, brown instead of white. No drinks. One plate, two forks, two knives, ten napkins.

We took some time. There are still two gentlemen here at this point....

....but by the time Gregor (and I) had polished it off the place was empty.

Right, playgroup next.

Haircuts

Time to get the Belousov boys' hair cut this morning.
Here is Alastair, innocently enjoying life before the event.

And after....

Gregor before,

During,

And after.

Dad's turn next!

Street sale

Joining the hordes on their way to B&Q this morning we noticed a street sale going on - a bit like a car boot sale where people sell all the junk that's accumulated in the attic and the kids' bedrooms, just with a little more charm. Along two or three streets just off London Road South as you enter Lowestoft lots of stalls were set up in driveways, mostly staffed by kids.

Gregor was asking everyone whether they had any Bob Builder stuff. On this stall he found two videos.

Misha was rather pleased with himself. He got an allium (wild garlic) plant for 1.50p.

The kids were driving a hard bargain at this stall. Alastair spent a while browsing all their books before finally settling on something....

....a rollercoaster for a pound. The boy threw in a couple of his special cars for nothing.

Local Elections

It's been a busy week this week. Fortunately, Alastair's pimples came to nothing, so he was also able to proceed uninterrupted with his assessment. He has settled in quickly in his new environment and hasn't had any of the separation anxieties that Gregor regularly experiences, particularly when he's back at playgroup after the weekend or a holiday. We've been rushing to get a morning nap in, have lunch, then drop Gregor off at his playgroup before continuing on to Alastair's session for 1pm - I've felt like a real "school run mum"! There we watch him from an observation room, unseen and unheard. It's wonderful. Then yesterday I got a call from the playgroup....." could I pick Gregor up immediately please?" "Oh no,"I thought "he's had an accident, he's hurt?" "No, he's covered in spots...we don't know if it's chickenpox, but they're all over his arms and legs and some on his face. We've already sent three other children home this afternoon...." So that was that. A viral infection was the diagnosis from NHS Direct - that could be anything. Anyway, they've gone down today so he came and watched Alastair with us instead.

We were also busy today because we were good citizens in our functioning democracy and went to vote. Taking advantage of his right to vote in local elections as an EU citizen, Misha joined me in the Kirkley ward polling station. First we confused the church with the church hall, and wondered why there were no agitators lining our path. I suppose in our excitement to exercise our vote we overlooked the inappropriateness of canvassing among the gravestones. Anyway the church door was locked and we soon found the church hall.

A quick note on the candidates - Liberal Democrats: the only party to drop information through the door, twice; Conservatives: took out a full page ad in the local rag rebuffing Labour claims, currently hold majority in the council; Labour: incumbent government, at war; Greens: local office 25 miles away; UK Independence Party: timely, dropped off a glossy flyer this morning, calling itself "the real opposition". Funny, no mention of the notorious policy to leave the EU, however.

Cheekily, and probably against the rules, I snapped Misha in the voting booth.

Just as well Belousov junior was distracting the election monitor at the time!