Another anniversary. Another year further from June 30th 2004. Another chunk of time between us and when Marian was alive. And Jen. And Georgia. We’re still here.
Not so long ago I was having one of those days. Ye know. 5am start coz the kids woke up early for some Godforsaken reason. The things went downhill quickly at work – all sorts of sh&t going wrong and basically had people coming in and out of the office all day asking questions. Snotty e-mails dumping into my Inbox and doing everything possible to wait the full hour before responding to them. Coming home there was an accident on the expressway so I was stuck for what felt like forever (looking back it was probably 10 minutes) on the way home. Arrive in to more big bills to be paid. Kids are foul – utter tiredness thanks to them waking so early, and as a result, Alissa’s at her wit’s end. For a moment, I caught myself feeling sorry for myself, but anytime it gets to me, I stop pronto. I just think just how much Marian or Jen would love to be “having a bad day”.
Alissa has had her knee operation and recovered remarkably rapidly. All went well and in the end, she was back doing everything she always did pretty much within a week – except for the running of course. Still a few to go for that, but it’s quite clear she’s chomping at the bit to get going again.
Now Emma has pneumonia. Fully blown. She’s trooping through, but she’s a sick little girl. Quite amazing how it suddenly develops. We had the classic symptoms apparently. Cold like cough for a few days. Tick. A couple of days where she seems like she has completely shaken it. Tick. Sudden redevelopment of dry coughing and temperature. Tick. Hospital. Tick. Big whack of antibiotics and keep it up for several days. Tick. Watch like a hawk. She battled through.
The house. It’s in with council for approval of the plans. Geoff (currently watching the golf from the gallery at St Andrews) worked his butt off to get it all in train before he headed off, so it’s pretty good timing really. 6 weeks turnaround on the planning approval, 6 weeks holiday for Geoff. We’re hoping to ‘break ground’ in early September. Currently going through the hardest part – the costings. Let’s just say even getting everything into planning costs a packet. I’ll put up a couple of pictures of the 3D designs.
The pressure is mounting for a dog. Seriously. Our kids are absolutely obsessed with the idea. Please tell me all kids are? Emma would sleep in a kennel with a dog if she had one. Aibhe has gone from accepting that she needs to be 12 years old before we get one, to asking Santa (nothing to do with us she says, so what’s the problem?). OK so we will have plenty of land where we’re going, but we just know we’ll be stuck with walking, washing, in general looking after the thing after a month. Maybe even a week. But the girls just behave like fruit loops when a dog appears. I know we will lose the battle in the end, it’s a case of how long can we survive.
Am on my way back from Auckland right now. Another quick 2 night visit. Had to be done. New Managing Director in place, so had to show a bit of Finance love. It was bloody cold. But then it is the middle of winter. Had the joys of staying in a bit of an average hotel this time. Noisiest I can remember since the hotel I stayed in while working with Price Waterhouse, Prague, and we spent a week in a place (dump) called Teplice and the hotel was on the main city centre street with a tram stop outside the door. Beds were like rocks I seem to recall. Czech winters. Now they were miserable.
Of course it is winter in Brisbane. The usual. Beautiful. Cold and snappy at night, 22 and blue skies during the day. The fact that it does bring the city down with bouts of flu’s and colds is another matter. Ye just have to accept it.
PS
Friday I got home and Emma was much improved. That night, Aibhe woke up with a dog bark cough. The croup was back....
No comments:
Post a Comment