Snow, a birthday boy and a sick boy

We woke up to a white garden this morning. I was expecting it as the forecast said it would start snowing from about 3am, and when we got up it had covered the garden. It snowed again later this morning but now it has almost all melted.

Today is Thomas' birthday - I cannot believe he is 15 years old, the years have flown by so quickly. Here he is about to tuck into one of his cup cakes that I made for him. I also have a photo of him as a baby in the extras. We had a lovely dinner last night at a Thai restaurant which offers a huge variety of dishes -  I ordered a papaya salad and it nearly blew my head off it was so hot and spicy! The meal was delicious and we will go there again.

The sick boy is Luke - we are now convinced he has glandular fever. The doctor did not take a blood test last week because if he has it, the blood test would have been academic as there is nothing you can do to treat glandular fever. He is displaying all the symptoms that Adam had, he is feeling ghastly and yesterday he could barely eat. He was due to go back to Durham today but I decided he should stay home for another week - he is too ill to travel as he is feeling weak, has headaches and a fever and can barely swallow water. The journey back involved changing trains and a bus as there are engineering works on the line up north and it's not easy to carry heavy suitcases when you are feeling rotten. He is also staying in temporary halls of residence which involve a 15 minute walk to meals and when you are feeling sick that is not very convenient. So he will stay home this week and rest and recover. What are the chances of both him and Adam getting glandular fever at two different universities - the doctor said he could not have got it from Adam as there was no contact during the infectious period. It is a very common sickness amongst the students, Luke says many people had it at his university.