Swine flu and car crashes
Originally I had planned to write down a few thoughts about the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. But the events in the Sismey household have taken over and I feel I should share them with you.
Saturday 31st of October. We were just about to settle down and watch the X Factor when we heard an almighty bang just outside our front door. Thinking some trick or treaters had let off a firework outside our house I rushed to open the door to find myself looking at a car which had mounted the pavement and was now sat on the entrance path to our house. I couldn’t quite work out what had happened as there was nobody in the car …. However, I noticed another car right behind it with it’s airbags gone off and a mother and her two children climbing out of it. At the same time our neighbour, who is a police officer, arrived at the scene and took charge (what a relief!). We took the mother and children into our house and rang the ambulance and police. All arrived really quickly and for the next 2 hours there were paramedics and police officers in and out of our house. It turned out that the lady and her 2 children were returning from a fireworks display (where she had been drinking alcohol) when the mother lost control of her car and hit 4(!) stationary vehicles one of them Justin’s Ford Ka. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt, but 3 cars were a write off, the lady ended up being arrested for drink driving and her children had to go to the hospital without her. Justin spent the rest of Saturday night looking for a new used car on ebay - and found one which he picked up on Sunday! At least he was okay getting to the station on Monday morning.
After this eventful weekend we were just getting back to our normal school day routine when on Friday morning Emeline woke early with a high temperature, sore throat and headache. Swine flu (confirmed)! We knew it was likely to happen sooner or later. Our trusted "Flu Friend" Sue got us the anti viral medicine (Tamiflu) and we just got on with nursing the little patient. By now she has started to feel better, but she was quite poorly due to the high temperature. She absolutely hates having to take the medicine - it must taste horrible, she can even taste it through fruit puree, but she is brave and does eventually take it! We are grateful that we live in a country where medicine is so readily available.
Thank you all for your prayers for her and kind messages! We’ve passed them on.
Can you please continue to pray for us as we are waiting to see if anybody else takes ill in our household. We are particulary concerned for Emilia.
And lastly, as I mentioned at the beginning, this week sees the 20th anniversery of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. On the BBC website is a very interesting video diary looking at the the former East Germany 20 years on. It gives a lot of insight in some of the ongoing problems in that region, which of course also affects people who live in Rostock.
Emilia’s birth and development 
