Recovering

It is the silly season and when you already live life at a less than sensible pace, it can become quite ludicrous. If you're not careful you may become run down and fall ill. Being a night person I tend to stay up late during the week and catch up on sleep on Saturday and Sunday mornings. One weekend in Sydney for my reunion, the next in Melbourne for the twins' baptism and and the next Saturday at work made for a very tired woman with a nasty cough. After work on that third Saturday I filled a drink bottle with water to try and contain the coughing while Jossie, Toby and I went to see Andrew in The Boy From Oz. It was so good! The music was brilliant, the costumes and dancing fabulous and the young, local lad playing Peter Allen did such a good job. Flash photography is not allowed in the theatre and this is the best shot I took while trying to capture our pre-show excitement.

I stayed home from work for two and a half days last week, nobody being impressed with my coughing all over them, and Toby stayed home one day when we suspected whooping cough (he didn't have it!). I could have posted to the blog then, I suppose, but instead, I made cards and read books to convalesce. When lovely Liz found out that I was ill she brought around a care package of card making paraphernalia. Such fun! Here are the first of six cards that I made.

I finished reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, White Tiger by Kylie Chan and The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (I highly recommend it - set in India, vibrant, full of life and not depressing). How I wish I could read for a living....

I went back to work on Friday (will I ever stop coughing?) just in time for the book club end of year party. George Negus was in town for a literary dinner and The Boy From Oz was still on so we had reduced numbers. This suited us very well as there could be 420 people if everyone in a book club came! We had around 70 people come (only three men) and it was lots of fun and well worth the dramas of running around madly dropping some children at Kids' Club, others at Liz' house and picking them all back up again.

A quiet weekend may have been a good idea but isn't possible at this time of year. I did get a sleep in before making three chocolate Marsala cakes, setting up the church and helping to run our annual Café by Candlelight. We made these tissue paper flower, ball decorations. It took me three goes before I made a decent one but I am now perfectly skilled.

Eighty desserts all ready to go.

We ate dessert, listened to a great talk about the real Jesus and made felt flowers. Jossie was a waitress for the night and really enjoyed the experience.... and the chocolate.

On Sunday afternoon, before the rain came, we walked to the park at the end of our street for the Estella Christmas party. I had a delicious coffee, the kids and Andrew had sausage sandwiches and the kids also had lots of lollies, some from Santa who arrived in a police car. Bethany loved the jumping castle.

It reminded me of when she went on one with Joss last year and was terrified. Click on the photo to best appreciate the expression on her face.

That brings us roughly up to date. Bethany received a merit award for improved listening :) I'm glad she is improving as I get rather tired of repeating myself when she asks a question but doesn't stop talking to hear the answer! The Boy From Oz began on a high and kept it up the whole way through. Now that it is all over we can start to work out the Christmas holidays, though the very thought overwhelms me..... I think I'll go and read a book (I have several on the go - The Red Phoenix, Jasper Jones, The Bell Jar and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas).