Annie

I had a lovely day yesterday - taking my niece to see Annie at the theatre.  Being school holidays the theatre was packed with little girls.  The performance was great and Min really enjoyed her day.

A new niece

We have a new baby in the family.  Yesterday my youngest brother and his wife had their second baby - a little sister for Declan.  Her name is Edith Johanna (Johanna after our late father who was Johannes).  I don't have a photo because I can't go and see her - I'm still sick.  Hopefully by Sunday I'll be back on track and can go down to Melbourne to meet the new addition. Meanwhile I'll wait for someone to email me a photo.

Congratulations Jeff and Kate!

Christmas news

We have some exciting Christmas news.... my brother and his wife are expecting their second baby.   Looking forward to the middle of the year and being an auntie again.
Congratulations Jeff & Kate!

Congratulations Anthony & Leanne!

My younger brother got married last Saturday! We were so glad they had a lovely day and the weather was just perfect. 

The bride and groom

Mick, me, Leanne, Anthony, Jeff (my youngest brother), Kate (Jeff's wife)

Only my mum.... again!

"What happend to your arm, Mum?"  (nasty looking round sore on her inside fore-arm)
"I'm not telling you."
"C'mon Mum.  What happened?!"
"You'll laugh at me."
"Tell me.  I'll try not to laugh"

She had decided to remove one of the armchairs from the living room - it was too cramped.  She couldn't wait until her partner came home so she pushed and shoved but the chair was wider than the doorway.  She tipped it on an angle to try and fit it through the door.  Somehow, and this is the part that could only happen to my mum, she got it wedged in the doorway with the weight of the chair pinching a chunk of skin on her arm between the chair and the doorway.  So now she was one handed and couldn't find a way to lift the chair up to release her pinched arm.  In the end she had no choice but to pull her arm away - leaving behind the chunk of skin! Ouch!!! 

I tried, I really did.  When she got to the bit about trying to get the chair through the door I was starting to laugh.  Somehow I just knew what would come next.  I couldn't help it!  It seems so mean to laugh about your mum hurting herself but honestly, how many different ways can one woman hurt herself!? 

Hope it's feeling better soon, Mum. xx

Only my mum!

Some people have mothers who are working women, some people have mothers who stay home and wear pink fluffy slippers and bake biscuits..... but me.... I have a mother who has made a career out of being accident prone!

Some of her more memorable moments.....
She stamped on a pizza box and impaled her foot on the little plastic prong that holds the lid of the box off the pizza.
She slipped on the back stairs at our old house and broke both bones in one ankle so her foot was just hanging loose (surgery and metal pins).
She stabbed her foot with a pitchfork while gardening.
She stabbed a large kitchen knife through the bottom of her thumb while trying to open a coconut.
She used the stairs where Mick was working on the new back deck at her old house (after Mick told everyone not to use those stairs) and walked into a sheet of corrugated iron, giving herself a huge gash across the head (emergency department for stitches).
She walked barefoot across the building site while Mick built the house we had before and stood on a galvanized nail - straight through her foot.

There's more... lots more... countless visits to the emergency department at the local hospital where I grew up.... broken toes, cuts to be stitched, back injuries, needle stick injuries and chemical splashes at work, numerous heavy objects dropped on her foot.

Having moved from Melbourne to Bendigo a couple of months ago, Mick and I joked about how long it would take her to make a visit to the emergency department at the Bendigo Hospital.  This week was it!  Her partner called me Wednesday afternoon saying Mum was in the hospital.  She'd swallowed a flat fish bone and it was stuck in her throat well beyond reach.  The whole thing dragged on but the end result was nearly 36 hours of terrible pain and Mum in surgery last night having the fish bone removed.  It was a pretty nasty situation and she now has a very sore throat, a raspy voice and a fish bone in a little plastic container with a lid.

Love you Mum!

Home alone

For the first time in many years I'm home alone.  Mick has a night at home on his own every week when I'm down in Melbourne for work but it must be about 7 years since I've slept alone in the house.

I've quite enjoyed the last couple of days - there's been no trail of stuff left all over the house.  Jackets over the kitchen chairs, work pants hanging on the foot of the bed, toothbrushes beside the bathroom basin, wallet and mobile phone tossed on the kitchen table and most of all sawdust and dirt traipsed through the back door.  But, I have missed him and I've had to do things I only occasionally do like putting out the rubbish, feeding Coco and bringing in firewood.  He'll be home tomorrow and everything will be back to normal.

Mick's mum had a heart scare a couple of weeks ago so he's gone to New Zealand to see her again.  It was only 8 or so weeks ago that we were there but we aren't going to have all that much more time that this is a possibility so we thought he should make the most of it.  There'll be no booking last minute flights for a 3 day visit when we're in the UK and she's 85 years old now.  We're very lucky to have a childhood friend of Mick's who lives not too far from Auckland airport and he kindly lent him a car so he could drive down to Taupo to his mum's.  Thanks Clive and Marie!