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It's been a long time diary!  Thus how long the subject is.  I've been writing this entry over a number of days, so I've just gone back to trying to date the days so I can remember what/when.

So time to wind back to Saturday the 10th.  Took the kids swimming, as usual.  Beth's dives are getting so good, I'm really proud of her.  Her new teacher this term is great at encouraging her to try things she's not that confident in doing, and it really shows.  Once we got home I then wrote down all the things I'd need for the traditional Guiness cake, given that it was Sarah's birthday the next day!  Went to the supermarket, collected all the bits I didn't have and came home and baked the cake.  Sarah had been at "Hair Big" that morning too, so I couldn't go to Parkrun. Holly came and got the kids about 5pm on Saturday which was very nice of her.  Saturday night we went to Sarah's workmate's (Amber's) 21st birthday.  They live up a really steep hill so at the bottom waiting for us (well, for everyone) was a little golf cart type vechile.  And it drove people up and down all night, including being driven by a slightly drunk birthday girl.  At 7:40pm we left to go and have dinner at Winnifreds, dinner was actually really amazingly lovely, it's just a shame the kitchen closes ON A SATURDAY at 8pm.  A lovely waterfront setting, cocktails, the works, but no food past about 8:!5pm.  We were lucky because we'd booked so they were expecting us, but we didn't hang around for dinner instead we went back to the party where we'd oh-so-sadly missed all the speeches and had some of their amazing cake and merigines instead.  We left about 10pm and took Lucy, Sarah's other workmate who was there as well home.  She was threatening to drive but she was in no state to do so!

Sunday morning I slept in until 10am, mental!  I've not slept in like that since, well, I can't rememnber.  I did wake up at 7am or so and I thought I'll just sleep in for a few more minutes, next thing the phone is ringing and it was Holly asking if it was OK to drop the kids off back home.  Oh dear.  So I dragged myself out of bed and Holly dropped them off.  Then Sarah came downstairs and we gave her the Birthday presents we had for her, some new iPod Apple Earpods and some new Earrings (that she ordered).  And of course I cooked the required bacon rolls/sandwiches.  I was feeling totally zoned out though, sleeping in that late really messed with my brain!

Sunday night everyone came over for Sarah's birthday dinner, the kids had a great time running around the property, cutting up bamboo and making lot of stakes with it, playing on the crazy cart etc.  We got takeaways (of course), the kids had pizza and we had Aroy Thai.  Really lovey food.  We did the birthday cake thing and then everyone went home and we got ready for another week of fun.  Only problem being during the night Beth came upstairs saying she wasn't feeling well, she hadn't been quite right that night and she was very hot and unwell.  She kept saying how cold she was even though she had a temp.  The thing was at 3am when she talked to me again about how unwell she felt, she said her neck was sniff.  Well fuck me if that didn't FREAK ME OUT because of course that's one of the signs of meningitis, which is what Carol's daughter had just died from.  So of course I made her show me her arms and legs and checked for rashes etc, she said that it felt fine now actually and she'd just twisted it funny.  But I didn't sleep much after that, being worried about her, I kept checking her every hour to make sure I could rouse her etc.  She was OK though, but in the morning I called off work sick, I myself wasn't really sick but I was looking after Beth who obviously still was.

So Monday (12th Feb) morning I booked her off school.  I dropped Theo off at school, then I took Beth and myself into the Dr's.  Not as you probably think to get Beth checked, but to get my nose looked at.  All weekend it had been getting redder and sorer.  I'd rung heathline on Sunday and they'd said if gets worse/sorer to go to the Dr.  So off to the A&E we went.  Only had to wait about an hour too which wasn't too bad given the state of the public health system in Napier.  The Dr I got as well was a bit hairy man who said to me "THAT HAPPENS TO ME ALL THE TIME" and gave me a prescription for antibitoics to help.  As I write this now my nose is still infected in one little bit, I think probably I have an internal nose hair that's gone errant and is growing off out to freedom.  Utterly disgusting.  Anyway once we'd finished there I got my pills and we (me and Beth) went back home and got some more sleep/rest and tried to convince her to do the same.

I picked Theo up from school while Mary kindly took Beth to look after her, she usually does that for Cheerleading but as far as we knew Cheer still wasn't on and plus Beth was unwell anyway. When I picked Theo up he was moaning about a headache and moaning about having a sore arm, having jumped out of a tree at school and landed on it funny.  It obviously wasn't causing him massive pain though, so I still made him to go to Karate with his injured arm, we just made sure to tell Shehan before so that he didn't have to do anything to terrible on it.  He still really milked it though, but then again it was actually hurting.  I just didn't want him to miss another Karate, he's already missed a couple due to being sick etc.

Tuesday (13th Feb) Beth was still sick so I stayed and worked from home to look after her.  She seemed OK really, but was still a bit hot/cold and had woken up again during the night so I'd slept the night on the bed next her again.  We weren't that worried about her this time though, no complaints of headaches/stiffness or anything.  Tuesday afternoon I got a call from School saying Theo was really having issues with his arm and just not feeling right... Of course.  So I went up to the school and collected him.  Le Sigh.  By this stage I was really starting to wonder what was going on, if these headaches were real or just a good excuse to get to come home to play on his iPad.  That said, I didn't let him at all have an iPad time until after 5pm, I don't want him thinking "Call in sick, get to go home to iPad fun!" is a thing.

We also got a crabby email from Cheerleading, asking where all the kids were on Monday night and why hadn't they gone to Cheer?  We were a bit taken aback - the poor women's daughter had passed away 7 days earlier, but now she was sending us a crabby email for not attending?  We hadn't even heard if Cheer was back on, the last we'd heard was the gym was closed for a week and that they'd provide another update.  Anyway, so Cheerleading started back, even though as mentioned above Beth was sick that day.  I hope Carol is going to keep running the gym, I guess she is.  Multiple people have told me that the reason she took over the gym was 100% for her daughter, so it's got to be a hard mission to keep going ahead now.  Poor thing.  I mean I kinda understand the crabby email really, but we were all just holding back because we didn't know if gym was on or not. 

Wednesday (14th Feb) morning I took Theo up to the Dr to talk about the headaches.  He asked him lots of questions and determined that nothing Theo had said was cause for alarm, so that's good.  They don't stop him sleeping, he doesn't notice them all the time etc.  He also had a whinge about his arm but hte Dr just asked him a few more questions about that and agreed that he'd be fine.  That night at home I picked the biggest Watermelon from the garden - 9.2kg it was, I thought that it was ripe but turns out it was probably 5 days too early?  It still tasted Ok, but it didn't have that really lovely sweet flavour that they develop.  I mean it was still perfectly edible though, and eat it we did!

Thursday was just a "Normal Day" finally.  I managed to get off my chuff and write some feedback about the Tech Team restructure.  I wrote it out, then rewrote it to make it seem less crabby/angry.  Then I gave it to Sarah who said "my god this is very Crabby and Angry" and she rewrote it again.  So I submitted that.  After school pickup I took the kids up to Taradale Library to pickup the gibbets they'd designed when Granny was here, it was a 3D thing at the library.  They were very cool, Beth's are the Yello and Theo's are the Blue.  I since put Theo's on his crocs, sadly the dot of the "i" on Kermit has broken off since, I did say to them they're quite delicate, Theo was still a bit sad though. Hey they are very cool and I got some photos of them before they went on the shoes.  Oh yes there's also a photo there of Theo in his Art Deco gear, Thursday was Art Deco day at school.  Beth just outright said "I don't want to do that" so no worries, no Art Deco for you Beth!

Saturday (17th Feb) swimming - didn't get off my chuff to go to Parkrun, didn't have an excuse this time.  Just spent the day doing gardening and lawns and that sort of stuff.  Saturday nightwe tried the Indian Cookhouse.  There's heaps of signs for it all around Taradale, it's one of those "Ghost Kitchens".  I'd heard from my old workmate Liviu that it was "The Best Indian in New Zealand" so that was high praise, so I wanted to try it.  So I ordered via phone and then drove up to collect it, you basically walk down a laneway to someone's garage that's been converted into an industrial kitchen.  They were quite slow, they'd told me 45 minutes on the phone but by the time I got it (hot and fresh though) it was more like an hour and 20 minutes.  Still, it was worth the wait, the food WAS amazing.  My only complaint was the rice has peas in it.  But you can't really TASTE the peas (once I've removed them of course) so I got over that pretty quickly.

Sunday (18th Feb) cruisy day, did lots of washing, then went for a family bike ride down to Spew Dairy and the playground.  First time we've all gone on a bike ride together in ages and ages.  Theo and I go all the time, but I haven't seen Beth or Sarah on their bikes in probably a year? Maybe more?  Anyway Beth wasn't too sure she was going to enjoy it but she really had quite a good time, she's the right size for her bike now and she was smiling and laughing there and back, so that was nice.

Monday was a usual work day, then I left early to collect Theo to take him for an eye test.  With the ongoing headaches he's been complaining about, we thought it would be best to rule out any problems with his eyes.  Turns out his eyes are actually pretty good, minor astigmatism in both but not super serious or requring glasses yet.  The Optomistrist did say though given the family history she'd be very surprised if he doesn't need some a bit further down the track!  Good to know that his headaches aren't being caused by his vision though, that's what I thought it would be.

Tueday was Orienteering.  Took the kids there and we ran around teh schoool, did the easy course first and the hard course second.  They were both pretty similar though, just running around the stations at AMS.  It was good fun though, they did the first one in about 12 minutes and really pushed themselves in the second race and did it in about 8pm.

Wednesday night I went to Karate, the first time in ~14 years.  I know this because previously I've never worried about having to take off my wedding ring before.  We did all sorts of stuff, simple running between cones, then sprinting between cones.  Then we went back inside and did skipping rope (I'm farking terrible at skipping rope!), short fast punches into a punching bag, then short fast kicks.  Then we did some jump squats etc.  It was hard work but it was good fun, I was really really exhausted by the end of it.   I can hopefully go both Monday and Wednesday, it's the fitness I need to not be a massive blob.  Man did I sweat a lot though, it was kinda disgusting.  The Meanne hall gets quite warm, and it wasn't even a hot day!

Thursday night I went out in the garden and picked abother big watermelon.  This time it was super tasty!  Oh and Beth's friend Isla came over and the girls had a great time running around the neighbourhood and swimming in the pool.  For a while I couldn't find them and I went around the houses in the neighbourhood trying to find them, turns out I'd just missed the text on my phone from Sarah saying "They're here at home".  10 minutes before I was heading out to go to Private Function (the band), Biscuit hurped all over the place in the lounge.  Disgusting.  So I cleaned that up and headed into the Cabana.  I wanted to see Private Function, this crazy Australian punk band I found about a couple of years ago.  I couldn't believe they were coming to Napier!  I'd bought my ticket a month ago when they were released.  Anyway I rocked up about 8:20 and got myself a (light) beer and found a seat.  Sarah texted me to say she'd found another massive Biscuit hurp behind the curtain, so I had that to look foward to when I got home.  I sat through the warm-up act called Dartz, though I have to to admit Dartz were pretty good.  In fact I think MOST people were there to see Dartz play, because when Private Function took the floor it was pretty slim for attendance, and half the audience was people from the other two bands.  Still, they put on a damn good show, the lead singer is INSANE.  All sorts of crazy stuff, running around with a ladder over his head, screaming at people, playing a mental game of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" for a chance to win $30 that he found in his pocket...  It was a great night, even if it was just me being there by myself.  Pretty sure I was one of the only people in the audience who knew any of the words!  I took a few little photos and videos just to remember the night, glad I did.

Friday we got the annoucement at work that the restructure was going ahead as planned.  This of course was a surprise to noone, the feedback you give never makes a difference.  We all went to the pub to discuss the outcome, though of course it was Pub Lunch Friday so we'd got to the pub anyway.  Friday night Theo had his friend Lauchlan around and they played BugSnax.  My god Theo is obsessed with this game.  Loves it.  Invents games to play at night based on it.  They had a great time playing that though, then they got pizzas delivered, while Sarah and I had Indian Cookhouse again.

Saturday (24th) swimming, then I dropped Beth off at her friend Islas, then I mowed lots of lawns etc.  Sarah took Theo into town to meet Peter to help him choose some new glasses, Theo went to timezone and had a great time and then bought a potato gun.  Saturday night we had a lovely dinner/BBQ around at Peter and Mary's.  Sunday morning I took Theo to a mini Parkrun event, designed to get kids into running.  Beth and Isla were there too, Beth'd had a sleepover at Isla's place and Isla's mum had bought them.  Theo and Beth both did 1km each, they were both keen to do 2km but I think after realising the distance 1km was and the allure of a free chocolate bar at the end, they just wanted to do 1km.

And that's where we'll end this entry... started about a week ago! It's Tuesday afternoon now, so I need to start another story for yesterday today etc etc.

Tim