Two for one

Thursday April 1st, and the Strada restaurant is almost full. A jolly evening to celebrate my oldest son's birthday. Splendid company, three courses of scrummy food, and a few drinks. As we get ready to leave, embarrassing dad discretely rustles in his bag for his "two for one" voucher, and glancing round, we realise everyone's playing the same game. Tonight's the last night of the current offer. So why bother with all this faffing around on the internet to get the deals, printing out a bit of paper, and having complicated bills? Couldn't we just have cheaper prices?

Whatever, the four of us chatted about what's happening now, and what plans we have. We also reminisced a little about the past, though none of us have reason to dwell there too long; hopefully there's much to look forward too?

And it's a big day for my youngest son too. It's his quarterly check up, to see how we're managing his diabetes. Some of the kit in the hospital is broken, but that's not a problem; we have pencil marks creeping up the kitchen wall to confirm he's growing up. Disappointingly, we can't test his blood for the HBA1C test, which would be an indicator of his overall exposure to the harming effects of hyperglycaemia.

That having been said, we're doing the best we can, striking a fair balance between the invasiveness of more frequent blood testing and injections, and the steady application of his usual three-times a day tests and four insulin shots. Whatever the result would have been, we can't imagine a better regime than what we have, imperfect though any such system is.

Seeing my two lovely boys in one day. I'm proud of them both, and I'm a lucky guy.