Heading to Monterrey

In the past week it was a relief to be able to book more than one night in advance but we have still had quite a few hiccups with arrangements for the hospital in Monterrey. Dr Kirkpatrick has been very helpful and he and Dr Cantu have worked for us to sort out the problems. We are all set to fly out to Monterrey tomorrow morning (Sunday) via Houston. We will meet with Dr Cantu on the 9th and the coma should now start on the 15th. So still a long time to wait but we will meet with hospital staff on Monday so it will all seem a lot more real by then.

We rented a car this week and that made things a lot easier - we could drive to the shops, supermarket etc. Emma continues to struggle with the travel and spends most of her time in the hotel room trying to get comfortable. We have managed a couple of sight-seeing activities - two nights in St Petersburg on the other side of Tampa Bay - highlight was the St Pete's Pier and the lowlight was the grotty hotel. On Thursday we spent the afternoon at the Tampa zoo. Emma was extremely excited by all of the animals but the turtles, manatee's and giraffes were the highlights. Hurricane Earl looked huge next to Florida on the weather-map for most of the week but was never forecast to hit Florida. The storm made Florida much drier than usual and we continued to get hot sunny days. The lower humidity made our afternoon at the zoo much more comfortable but it was still over 34 degrees C. There were three other major storms forming in the Atlantic behind Earl and one which was likely to head in to the gulf of Mexico but these are all weakening now and don't look like they will disrupt our travel plans tomorrow.

We are thinking of our Cantabrian friends and relatives as they deal with the major earthquake there last night. The damage looks significant but it's great that the casualties are so minimal.