My week off work

Tess was very sick during the week and I ended up taking the entire week off work which has never happened before.  If she hadn't been so sick I would have really enjoyed myself, as it was I loved walking Tom to school and back, hearing all his excited stories about his day (which he's forgotten by the time I normally see him at 6pm), talking more with some of the other mothers in Tom's class and feeling like I was part of a community.  We still don't know what was wrong with Tess - she kept getting very high temperatures and all she wanted to do was lie in bed.  We ruled out whooping cough and pneumonia and after 5 days of the same symptoms not responding to any medication my doctor suggested I take her to hospital.  I decided not to as in my experience you get stuck there for ages before they'll discharge you and I wondered whether, with all the running around going to the doctor and having various tests etc, Tess wasn't getting the rest her body clearly needed.  On Friday morning Tess begged me to let her go to school but I refused and she ended up having a 3 hour afternoon nap.  Since then she's got progressively better although still not 100%.  If I didn't work I would probably make her stay home on Monday as well but she's desperate to get back to school and I ought to get back to work.  


When I took her to doctor for the first time on Monday I also booked her in to get her eyes tested as she has been complaining of "smudgy" eyes and I've noticed that often when she's trying to read something she covers one eye.  I thought it was just a little game of hers so I was horrified to discover that she is incredibly long sighted.  The optician was amazed that she's been getting on so well at school given she's not been able to read her books or the blackboard clearly.  When he put some trial lenses on her she immediately went "Wow!" and I burst into tears for having been such a dreadful mother and making her life so hard by not realising she couldn't see clearly!!!  She is so excited about her new glasses (I think part of the reason she wants to go back to school) and I, in my slightly biased opinion, think they look fabulous on her!  

I made the most exciting discovery this week which I just have to share with you.  I've been saying for ages that I wish someone would write a programme that catalogues all cook books and their recipes so that you can nominate which books you have and easily search them when seeking inspiration on what to cook.  Well, someone has finally done it and it's brilliant!  It's called eatyourbooks.com and is even better than my original idea(!).  You can tag any of the books or the recipes and can create your own meaningful tags and all of the key ingredients in each recipe are listed so if, for example, you happen to have some chicken, ginger and shallots in your fridge that need finishing up, you can search on those 3 ingredients and it will bring up all the recipes in your cook books using those ingredients - brilliant!  They are also currently developing an app for your phone which works in the same way - even better in my opinion because I often find myself in the supermarket wanting to make one of my recipes but not able to remember exactly what's in it.  Check it out!!!

The rest of the weekend has been spent doing some calming DIY.  I love the photo of the kids doing some measuring with Tom writing the details in his notebook!  Jules had an exciting sail on Brindabella with a few of the regulars from St Jude.  The maxi yacht was racing the offshore passage race held as part of the Audi Sydney Harbour regatta.  They were a few miles offshore coming up to the top mark when a decent rain and wind squall hit the fleet and Ginger, a 60 foot competitor lost her bowman and spinnaker pole overboard.  Brindabella pulled her sails down and went to help.  As the sails came down the guys noticed a rip in the mainsail so their race was over.  A shame to have to pull out but at least they got a bit of a blast around and more importantly Ginger's bowman was safely recovered still clinging to the is spinnaker pole.  On Sunday Jules oiled the swimming pool deck with the help of the kids and it looks fantastic.