Quarantine

Tom's birthday party thank you cards went a bit like this:

"Thank you so much for the lovely presents and for coming to Tom's party.  As an unexpected parting gift you may find that you have a dose of whooping cough"

By Sunday evening Tess was coughing really quite badly and as I knew that whooping cough was going round at school I decided to take her to the doctor and get her tested.  The doctor was pretty sure that it was just a bad cough so we were all very surprised when the results came through as positive.  Tess cried for about an hour at missing so much school and then cried for a further hour when she discovered that there was a high chance Tom might have it and couldn't go to school either!  Personally I was delighted to have the two of them at home with me for a while.  It's the pointy end of the year and they are both exhausted so a little enforced rest seemed like a blessing.  

Unfortunately for Tom it meant cancelling all of his birthday celebrations this weekend and instead we had a very quiet weekend which again was actually really well timed.  Jules and the kids picked up Oka from the menders on Saturday - we're very relieved that it was possible to fix her - and we spent Sunday moving all the safety gear back on board and giving her hull a good scrub down.  It was amazing how much "sea life" there was attached to the bottom after only 2 weeks in the water.  Don't be fooled by the photo - Tom scrubbed for approximately 2 minutes, declared it boring and went off to play in the rowing boats with Tess.  

Tom was delighted opening all his presents on Sunday morning and he got some seriously cool t-shirts which he was very happy with.  His favourite present was a remote control helicopter and we spent most of the day fighting over who was allowed to fly it (basically only Tom!) although as I type Jules is having a sneaky go whilst the kids are both asleep.  We had a quick trip into Manly in the morning to buy Tom's Heelys (shoes with wheels in the heel) which he has wanted ever since Tess got hers and we had just a few small tantrums as he realised that they're nowhere near as easy to use as they look!  Uncle Robert decided that he was prepared to risk whooping cough and came over in the afternoon for cake and then our traditional dinner out at a restaurant of the birthday boy's choice.  The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that it is a shop-bought cake which is not usually my style however, Tom insisted on a Victoria Sponge and that is the one cake that scares me as it's very easy to get wrong so I decided not to take any chances and I even got it on special!