Icarus & Daedelus

There's not been much of a peep out of us this week in blogland. Our apologies for that but things over-took us to a degree.

fair bit of this

Niall was struck down by a nasty version of the seasonal lurgy but with the added bonus of a cough that would gain him instant admission into any family of gouls! 

and a fair bit of that too!

Meanwhile I have been dealing with a nasty jaw infection. The jury is out whether or not it is the result of something dental or an infected gland. Either way, it  proceded to run riot in the right side of my jaw. Suffice to say that my face swelled up to interesting proportions - as did the pain - and I too could have easily auditioned for a: "scare your local kiddies competition". Pity it wasn't Halloween time. All of the which necessitated visits to A&E for medication -- which didn't work -- and to the local doctor, at a more civilised time, for alternative antibiotics which now are doing the trick. Things are on the mend with both of us.

can you spot Icarus?

However, all this means that we have stayed at home rarely venturing out. Not that the weather has offered us much inducement, it has been uniformly grey and dank out there. Today it is, yet again, misty and the sky is covered with an unrelenting blanket of cloud. 

So we have watched far more TV than normal. While the news headlines have been dominated by the Climate Change Conference in S. Africa and Cameron's bluff being called at the EU summit; we have eaten mush food [in Antoinette's case], taken our respective meds and watched "fluffy" TV. 

Icarus & Daedelus

It reminded us a little bit of Breughel's painting 'Fall of Icarus', which so accurately captures life carrying on while Icarus falls from the heavens. We got on with our own little things while elsewhere bigger things happened. 

We are lucky enough to have our own Icarus & Daedelus. A friend and former teaching colleague, Eppe de Haan sculpted them from driftwood and lead. We bought the statuettes at one of his 1st sculpture exhibitions in the 1990's and they have pride of place on our dower chest. We love his work and are lucky enough to have one or two more pieces; do have a look at his website.

In contrast to the EU summit where Cameron just refused to agree and that was effectively that; they kept talking at the UN Climate Change conference.  Let's hope that the compromise agreed upon helps... even if only a tiny tiny bit. 

Of course now's there's a minor panic chez nous. We are behind on all things Christmassy and at the end of the coming week we're having Antoinette's cousin's daughter to stay. Sarah, a junior at Bryn Mawr, has just finished a semester at Athens University in Greece and visiting us before flying back home to Florida. We're looking forward to showing her the sights of the Loire Valley - she's an Art History major.