angharad_gam

The pox has descended on our household - the chickenpox that is. Both Erin and Liam have chicken pox. Poor Erin has it quite badly, although she seems to have turned a bit of a corner today. Liam seems to have been building up to it more slowly, and is just starting to get into the full itchiness today.

In addition to this, Ashwyn spent most of Sunday night coughing and then most of Monday throwing up.

I am co-presenting a seminar on Friday, and both of my other co-presenters have been away for much of the last two weeks.

I am exhausted.

I think I've had my head stuck in the sand about this whole change of government thing. I've been remarkably blasé about it up until now, given how horrified I was at the prospect of a certain person getting in last election. Today it's occurred to me that I've been in denial, somehow hoping that he would have a last minute change of heart about all the horrible things he was planning to do, or that some other obstacles would fling themselves into his path. The sacking of three senior public servants today, and the resignation of a fourth (the head of AusAID has resigned in protest at his agency being absorbed into DFAT) has been rather like a shock of cold water.

And then on top of that I came home to a letter from my doctor with some rather gloomy results from my latest blood tests. The iron is right down again, despite my thinking we'd gotten on top of that now, and also my thyroid levels are dropping. Stay tuned for more tweaking of the biochemistry in the near future.

This has cheered me up somewhat though - this is the best thing I've seen in ages: Acapella Science

No house for us.

:-(

We made an offer on a house today. The situation is a little bit complicated, and there's a good chance it will be turned down. So crossed fingers, toes and other parts would be appreciated...

Wrong I tell you...

It just goes on and on my friends...

In better news, our oven is now fixed.

Sam the Samurai, also known as Sam the Muay Thai to the purists passed away sometime yesterday, or possibly even the night before. Since he tends to get pretty sedentary in cold weather we weren't surprised he'd been a bit quiet lately but this morning when he was lying in the bottom of his bowl in exactly the same position as yesterday we thought 'hmmm'. He's had two years, which is about standard for a Siamese Fighting Fish, especially one kept in a small fishbowl, so I suppose that's not too bad.
The kids don't seem too bothered at least...

For those of you who don't recall what happened last time we tried to do Fringe stuff as a family you can find that account here.

So we thought we'd try to go to the Waymouth St street party last Friday night. Except when we got there it was a lot more crowded than it had been the week before (I guess word got out) and a lot more adult seeming (fewer street performers, and more people just standing around drinking). So we thought we'd go get dinner somewhere else. We went over to Hindley Street and trying to avoid the lure of McD's, thought perhaps we'd just keep going until we got to Rundle St and go to Brunelli's.

Then Andy saw the Pancake Kitchen. And so we went in there. Boy was that a mistake. But we didn't realise it until we were in there and sitting down, and it seemed a bit rude to run away then. Someone had told me the Pancake Kitchen was a shadow of its former self. Or rather, it was exactly the same as its former self, and the years hadn't been kind. It looks like the decor hasn't been changed for about forty years. Well, Liam was upset because he had been promised pasta or pizza, but was placated with a banana split. Ashwyn chucked a wobbly because he wanted chips (believe it or not, these were not on the menu). He would not be placated with promises of pancakes or icecream (he is a single minded monkey sometimes). Although he was happy enough to consume a large portion of the very enormous banana split when it turned up. Andy and I ate some greasy things. Then we went home.

We were also planning to take the kids to the Holden Street Theatres' Shakespeare for Kids series to see a Midsummer Night's Dream  on Sunday, but alas, I was a bit slack about booking and by the time I got around to it, they were sold out. They are doing Hamlet on Saturday, but regardless of them saying their productions are aimed at ages 5-15+ I can't see Ashwyn sitting through Hamlet (at least not until the part where they all get around to slaying each other horribly). And a bored Ashwyn is a dangerous Ashwyn.

So not really what I hoped for, but certainly not as catastrophic as last time. Maybe next year we might actually have a cultural experience.