Check me out on the Datablog!

I had a really busy day at work yesterday, most of it spent putting together a few blogposts for the Guardian's Datablog. It's quite exciting writing something directly to the web which you know people are actually going to read.

The first was a list of Patrick Swayze films and the money they made at the box office - hardly cutting edge news I know but interesting anyway. And the second was a post about crop circles, inspired by Google's crop circle doodle. Much more interesting and useful, and the data can definitely be manipulated to create some interesting mapping or diagrams (and not, as one commenter thinks, to run rampant over some poor farmer's field).

The crop circles even makes it to the top of the list on Google's news site, if you search for "crop circles" (well, almost to the top, but I can't begrudge a fellow Guardian post).

I did some work on the department spending post too, so I'm feeling pretty smug workwise.

Very allergic little boy

Logan has food allergies (wheat and egg) and I often find myself apologetically asking about ingredients when we're out (ice cream often contains egg, sausages and burgers are sometimes bulked out with flour, the list goes on!). Kids' menus particularly seem to favour wheat products - burgers, sausages, chicken nuggets, pasta for the healthy ones - so we often end up paying for an adult meal when we know he'll only eat half.

So it's refreshing to read a blog post on the Guardian Word of Mouth site today and see that we're not the only ones. G2 has even taste tested some of the top brands (gluten free is all very well but soggy pasta is a sad trade-off!).

When Logan's allergy first emerged, I felt almost as if I was jumping on the bandwagon - so many babies seem to have allergies these days, and I was wary of being seen as an over-protective mother. But there is no denying the telltale spots that appear whenever he eats wheat or egg, or the breathing problems they caused when he was tiny.

Thankfully food manufacturers seem finally to be recognising that people with allergies don't want to survive on a diet of brown rice. The Free From section at our local supermarket has tripled in size since Logan was first diagnosed, and birthday parties will be a breeze when he's older, with gluten free breadbuns, cupcakes, caramel slices and even jaffa cakes to choose from.

Check out the Allergy UK and Coeliac UK websites for advice and a list of safe gluten-free products.