Congratulations to all those event riders who achieved medals at London. Sadly, this time, there were no medals for Australia … but life goes on and getting back to reality in this blog I thought I would talk about what went on in our lives during the recent school holidays.
Before I get into the story if anyone has ever seen the ‘you tube’ video about ‘man flu’ then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about - if you haven't have a look below ...
The second day of holidays our youngest son Charlie came down with the flu - high temperature that wouldn’t go down, terrible cough that sounded like a grizzly bear barking and a fowl temper. After a three hour wait in our ridiculously hopeless Medical Centre we came home with some antibiotics. Two days later Oscar, our other son, caught the flu and again another trip to the doc as the temps were not coming down and the cough was hideous. And again another three hour wait to see the duty doctor, but at least we got the antibiotics!
Let me just fill you in here, Blair NEVER sees the children during the day and not much more during the night, even in school holidays. But … of course he caught the flu too! And of course he had it MUCH worse than the children. He actually spent three days in bed and took himself off to hospital one night because he had a migraine. They gave him something for that but 12 hours later he thought he was having a heart attack as he had really bad chest pains so off he went again to the hospital (he had to take himself because I had sick kids in bed). They said he had reflux, which was a reaction to the medicine they gave him for the migraine and that he probably has stomach ulcers! When he came home I suggested he just stay in bed and sleep it off … there were just too many things wrong with him to fix!
This is Blair with 'man flu' with our gorgeous new puppy 'Lucy'. I think she was the only one giving him sympathy!
Meanwhile I had caught the flu too but someone had to stay on board and keep the house functioning!
Somewhere amongst the coughing and splattering of that fortnight Blair and I did manage to escape to the Leaping to London Fundraiser, which was a fun night. We were both very keen to support the Aussie team (and Blair too even though he still rides for NZ). It was a well-organised night and the highlight for me was when Julia Gillard (my sister Mandy Bishop) came to join us and give us her thoughts about the Aussie team and a few facts about today’s politics! ‘Julia’, coming from a horsey background herself, really enjoyed the night too.
Blair and I with sister Mandy who was Julia for the night
There were a couple of days also in the holidays when sister Mandy took our two boys to Sydney for a sleepover at Mum and Dad’s beach house with my sister in-law’s three boys. Mandy being an actress had organised for her five nephews to attend a show with David from the Umbilical Brothers (Mandy was Mrs Foil in the Upside Down Show with the Umbilical Brother so knew them). David was the only actor in the showed but played about ten different characters. The children loved it and they had lunch with David afterwards - thanks to Mands.
Oscar, Ollie and Alex (cousins), David the famous one!, Charlie and George (cousin)
Literally two days later Charlie started vomiting then Blair (of course) started vomiting 12 hours after that (again, he had not even seen them for four days! Figure that one out) And just to top it off, Oscar started vomiting 24 hours after that.
I can’t tell you how sick of sick males I was after the school holidays. I have only fed them fruit and vegies since and they are not allowed to leave the house until they have choked down about 10 vitamins each!
Maybe as a congratulations for Blair surviving his 'man flu' it was his 37th birthday a couple of days ago so I printed off this photo of the Lazy Boy (above) and put it in a card saying - ‘only if you're a good boy’ … Harvey Norman delivered it later that day.
That's all for now ~ Nikki
