Molly & Helen both pass their 6 week test

Molly is 7 weeks old today and she and Helen had their '6 week' check up. They both passed with flying colours and Helen has been certified as fit to drive, a considerable relief to me.

Helen still has to see a specialist about her wobbly teeth caused by Molly stealing all her calcium to build her bones during pregnancy. Apparently, she may require surgery to keep them intact. It's a funny old game having babies eh ?

The pushchair is back in working order after a series of punctures . It is a Rolls Royce of a puschair but its Achilles heel seems to be the presence of hawthorn twigs on the paths around Beaconsfield. Its wheels seem to attract them and the tyres are not thick enough to withstand their spikes. I did try the boy scout approach by applying patches to the punctured inner tube. Having located the two large holes that seemed to be the problem, I patched them and wrestled the inner tube back into the tyre and the tyre onto the wheel, suffering only one or two blood blisters and engaging in only one short informal walkabout (with hand pressed firmly between my thighs and tears streaming down my cheeks) in doing so. However, it rapidly transpired that there were more holes in the tyre than I had anticipated or had patches to fix, so I took a trip to Halfords. We had bought the pushchair from Halfords, but the recently post-pubescent, educationally-challenged, carbon-based life-form that I asked for assistance, looked at me as though I has asked him to produce a thesis on plate tectonics. His second reaction when I explained the predicament of there only being two wheels on my waggon and a host of pursuing Cherokees which necessitated the immediate repair of the said means of transport as the apparent meanness of their demeanour suggested trouble, was to deny that they sold replacement inner tubes and suggested that I tried puncture repair patches. I then addressed with him, in terms I was sure he would understand (but falling short of actual physical violence), the obvious illogicality of selling puschairs with vulnerable tyres and then not selling the replacement tubes. He seemed to get the point and directed me to the bicycle section where, in due course, a replacement inner tube was found. I bought two and with an air of obvious pessimism, two more packs of self adhesive puncture repair patches. I left 'singing a happy song' with the Cherokees once more (metaphorically at least) in my rear view mirror.