Beetles, bugs and butterflies

Lots of them about today as the weather heats up properly.  Today was just hot, but I am told that from tomorrow it will be unbearable for a while.

Up extremely early this morning (after a mosquito-inspired sleepless night) to cook beef and fish for CarbBoy's appointment.  Though normally skin-prick tests for allergies are done with little bottles of liquid, the doctor had asked me to bring in real live samples so she could use those instead.  (With a careful addendum given my nationality that the beef should be 'not well done; red in the middle'.)  I think I managed to cook it all to her liking!

And so we raced to Castres and negotiated the busy city streets (two near misses with cars trying to drive into us - imagine how stressed I'd be if I ever had to drive in London again...)  The doctor was very good with CarbBoy, trying to reassure him, but aside from a lot of grimacing, he dealt with the pain well.  She also rubbed some beef and cod down each side of his mouth, to gauge reaction there.

The results were fairly clear: within about 30 seconds he had a huge lump at the site of the fish skin prick test and a red swollen face with nettle rash lumps on the fish side.  The upshot is that he is to keep avoiding all the things he is avoiding.  Especially fish.  But he is allowed to eat in the canteen at school providing he takes his own food.

With all that activity done before 10am, the rest of the day was some sitting around, some sewing and steak for dinner (though the left over fish from the test went in the bin...)

At the moment CarbBoy is not so bothered by all this - he likes plain bland food and would happily eat pasta for every meal if I allowed it.  But I think when he is older it will be a problem.  Him getting the epipen training from the doctor today was sobering.