You can get pretty close to the tigers at London Zoo, as long as you go on a cold, windy day, 2 hours from closing time! Our annual pass to the zoo is so fab and this was our 4th visit. It is wonderful being able to visit just a couple of animals each time, rather than feel you have to get your otherwise-very-expensive-admission money's worth from one visit. This visit was the lions and tigers, rainforest lookout (cool video here - click on the video if it doesn't automatically begin -capuchin and tamarind and some other monkeys, sloths, and a few bugs and a very large spider), gorillas, giraffes, zebras, and a few other animals along the way. Sophs was so cute running around the lookout making ooo-ooo-aaa-aaa monkey noises, unbelievably excited as only little children can be, leaving a wake of grins and smiles behind her...

It's been a long and tiring few weeks. Sophs is on hard core antibiotics and steroids for her undiagnosed-for-at-least-7-months sinus infection and is quite miserable, teary, and waking quite a lot sobbing in the night. Her recurrent ear infections were actually overflow from her incredibly gunk-filled and painful sinuses. How 5 different GPs missed this I don't know, don't get me started on it. We are on day 8 of antibiotics and the infection is still there, much less, but still there - the 5 day courses of antibiotics we were given for each ear infection would have done precisely sod all.

We had a spectacular several hour session in the early hours of Sunday morning, Sophs was in obvious pain and crying out 'no more no more' as she grabbed her ears. Was not easy for any of us and tears were shed all around. She currently can't equalize the pressure in her ears, so if fluid builds up she has extraordinary pain. We're hoping once the infection is gone, and the inflammation goes away, she will be able to equalize the pressure in her ears again. If she can't, it's going to be impossible to take her on a plane for 22 hours...