Oh, Well That's Ok Then...

What a busy, busy week. Sometimes life seems to speed up to the point where you're just hanging on by your fingernails, then slows down so quickly you're left broken and bent in a pile of rubble trying to get back to normal.
Last week I had a business trip to Paris to interview the CEO of a company for my magazine, Focus on Nuclear Power Generation. And while business travel is usually far from glamourous, there is a lot to be said for popping off to Paris for a day or so. Even the journey there is an experience, ensconsed in the plush seats of the Thalys (ta-lease) hi-speed train. We whizzed from Rotterdam to Paris in about two and a half hours; in fact on the return trip we were scheduled to arrive at 18:01 and we arrived at......18:01! How's that for punctuality? The trip from Rotterdam to Zutphen actually took longer. Paris was lovely as always although I was there and back in 24 hours, having dined at two excellent restaurants on the Rue de St Honore; the Coup d'etat for dinner (lovely canard confit), and the apparently famous Le Petit Machon for lunch the next day where I dined with the marketing manager for the company I was visiting on brioche stuffed with a pork sausage studded with pistachio nuts. Heavenly!
Back in Holland on Wednesday, hubby was shipping out to Singapore on Thursday (lucky bugger) for which I helpfully provided a very long and detailed shopping list. The boys also had a list which necessitated him making a quick trip to Sentosa Island to visit the gift shop located inside Fort Siloso (they have very specific wishes - Niels even knew which SHELF Daddy had to look on for just the right plane!), then he was onto an FPSO and off to China. Saturday saw the beginning of Carl's overnight scout camp, the Kids & Science Spectacular.

It was a lot of fun, with the kids being kept busy with science experiments for two days. They were well fuelled on bizarrely coloured food like blue pancakes (see above) and bright green spaghetti sauce (which unfortunatley looked like cow shit), which no doubt contributed to the two hours of hyperactive pillow fights and matress-diving before they finally passed out. Ah, what a week of culinary contrasts this has been! The 12 or so parents also got to sleep on the floor in the Scout Hut, and while it was very roomy and well heated I'm such a light sleeper that this is a situtation in which there is zero chance of me ever falling asleep. So I got to watch the hours tick by until finally 6:30 rolled around, the kid started stirring and I figured I could go and have a shower to freshen up. Needless to say we were all pretty tired.
On Monday night Carl must have sneaked into my bed in the middle of the night and then passed out into a deep, deep sleep. I was woken by him stirring next to me and opened my eyes blurrily to see him looking at me.
With less than the optimal measure of grace I snarled: "What are you doing in my bed?"
He looked a bit shame-faced and replied: "I peed in the night"
Feeing a bit sorry for him - this hasn't happened in a very long time - I said: "Well I hope you put on a clean pyjama before you climbed in here."
At which point he brightened up considerably and announced: "Oh that's ok, it was your bed that I peed in!"