Bye bye, Blackbird.

So long, farewell, auf weidersehn, Adieu.

I can’t believe we’re nearly in March.  I can’t believe that I haven’t updated the blog for MONTHS.  I can’t believe that Margaret’s been and gone already and I can’t believe that Paul and I have both had our operations!  Where to start……

Christmas (the long, distant memory that it now is) was good.  We cruised on Radiance of the Seas from Sydney up to Cairns and back down again.  It was a lovely holiday, but, if I’m honest, I don’t think any of us enjoyed it as much as last year.   A lot of the entertainment followed the same formula; 70s nights, reindeer racing, pool party, etc.  Whilst it was still enjoyable, the element of excitement wasn’t there – like knowing what’s in your Christmas presents already when they’re wrapped under the tree, I guess.  You’re still really pleased to have them; love what you’ve got, but there’s no ‘SURPRISE’ when you rip the paper off.   That makes me sound really ungrateful, I guess?  

We had two lovely families on our table for dinner; so that was nice.  The excursions that we did were expensive and a bit crap!  Daydream Island was a resort that we were off-loaded to for the day, but it was tired and because the weather was crap, there wasn’t much to do. The buffet lunch provided was crap and we would have been better off staying on the boat.  Never mind; you love and learn (just wish it hadn’t taken us $ 300 to realise this ;).  We also did a ‘sightseeing highlights’ tour of Brisbane that was also less than exciting.  Twice the driver got lost and ended up trying to U-turn a massive coach in a residential street.  Still that one was less than the coach transfer into Brissy and back, so it didn’t begrudge paying for that as much.

The kids got their Chrissy pressies when we returned home.  Sam got a 42” 3D TV, Darcie got an IMac and Adam an iPad Mini; Santa did good.

New Year’s Eve was spent on Rocky Foreshore watching Pseudo Echo and then the fireworks over the ocean.  It was quite nice.   We had a ride on the bumper cars (at $10 per car) and the kids had a go on the Umbrellas (I used to LOVE going on those with my Dad).

Then on the 2^nd January, I went in for my hysterectomy.  Whoop.  The hospital was OK.  The nurses were nice and the pain wasn’t too bad.  I went in on the Wednesday and was let home on Saturday.  I had a morphine clicker for the first 24 hours, but that was more of a pain in the arse as I had to have hourly obs.  I had a catheter, packing in for the first 24 hours (which was removed  the next day), a drain (which SCARILY was actually STITCHED into the side of my WooWoo) and more injections and drugs than you could shake a stick at. The pressure to be back at work, coupled with the kids on school holidays, sat on the sofa (with Margaret) looking at me with HUGE ‘cat from Shrek  eyes’ meant that I was back behind the wheel sooner than advised.

Up and down like a Window Cleaners dog

Good grief, life is stressful.com.

Dear Santa,

For Christmas this year, can I have a stress-busting device that takes all my stress hormones and knits them into jumpers for third world children?  Thanking you in advance.

I know it's our fault though.  Just when you think we have a little normality in our lives, we shake it up and make more shit happen.

Things are plodding along nicely - the kids bumble from one problem to another (but thankfully, nothing too bad).

I'm sorry I haven't put 'pen to paper' in a while and documented things on here - there's just SO much whizzing round at the moment, I don't seem to find the time to commit to anything!   The kids are all fine - rapidly speeding to the end of the school year (AGAIN - OMG!).  Darcie graduated from Year 6 last night in a lovely ceremony in the school auditorium.  It was also (coincidentally) our 7th anniversary of arriving in Australia, so we attended the cermony and then headed out to Spur for dinner (just!) seeing as we phoned them to see what the latest we would be able to access our table would be and were told the kitchen closes at 8.15pm!!!  Gotta love Australia!

Darcie was fab (as always).  She really is a sweetheart.  She attended an orientation day last week for High School and was a little upset to have been placed in the same form as someone she'd had a bit of grief with over the last year.  We spoke to the school though and they have been fab and moved P to another class :) Whoop!  We've got to pick her uniform up at some point $ 400+ and the it's the book lists to be paid for (groan).  She did really well and only got a little bit upset when she wanted to share the experience with my Mum.  It's times like that that it really hits home and you miss her even more than usual :(