An operation, bush turkeys and the farm

Last week I went into hospital to have a hemorrhoidectomy.  It involved an initial overnight stay which turned into 2 nights, partly because the new Northern Beaches Hospital is very comfortable and luxurious but also because I started reacting really badly to some of the drugs I was given.  I have been putting off this operation for about 10 years and I'm still at the stage where I wish I hadn't gone ahead with it because it's a, fairly literal, pain in the arse.  Apparently if I had had the operation when I needed to (as soon as possible after I'd finished having children - the cause of course!) it wouldn't have been so bad.  I got home on Sunday evening, Jules worked from home on Monday, Lisa ran around getting me new drugs and food on Tuesday and on Wednesday I made Tess stay home from school to look after me.  I gave her a long list of housework and she diligently worked her way through the lot - she was the most amazing help.  

 The view from my hospital window

I mentioned Tom's damaged toe nail in the last post which was threatening his weekend away on surf camp with QBC.  He managed to be really sensible during the week and after a practice surf with a toe sock we agreed that he could go on the camp.  It was up at Pacific Palms with 15 groms and 3 coaches and the kids had an absolute blast.  

 Theo, Billy and Tom - it was cold that weekend! 

Tom with a friendly local - apparently you can tell it's a dolphin by the curve in the dorsal fin

We were supposed to all head up to the farm this Friday but I can't be more than a few metres from a bath and am definitely not capable of sitting in a car for 4 hours so the boys went on their own and I am very jealous!  Craig, Hunter and Fletcher also went up for the weekend and there was lots of bike riding and fire building.  Tom for the first time rode the orange postie bike which has always been too big and heavy for him - a sign of how he's growing up.  

On Thursday Tom took Ted for a walk around the block.  About 15 minutes later he came running into the house visibly shaken.  Apparently Ted had slipped his collar, spied a bush turkey, taken the bush turkey by surprise and damaged his wing so he couldn't fly, chased said bush turkey and got it between his jaws.  Tom chased Ted and the bush turkey and  forcibly parted Ted's jaws to remove the bush turkey and then kicked the, now defunct, bush turkey under some bushes and dragged Ted home.  Tom was still talking about it the next day and declared himself traumatised!