but I wanted to keep that money...!

Took the car for it's annual rego check today. It's quite handy - the shopping centre down the road has an Ultra-Tune which does the e-checks (and then emails your pink slip to the RTA, so you can do all the rest online. Hooray!). So I took the car in, thinking it would cost me $35, plus a little more for new headlight globe.

Hah!

Put a one on the front and a zero on the back and you'd be a bit closer to the truth. Needed new front shocks, shock capping thingies, two new tyres and about six globes, and then $35 for the rego check. Bugger. Still, the car is seven years old and has done over 100 000kms, and I really haven't had to spend a lot of serious money on it yet. Compare this with the Hyundai Excel that I bought mumblemumbletwentymumble years ago, that needed a new clutch at 3 years and all of the gearbox bearings replaced at 60 000kms (it had a 3 year/60 000km warranty, but you could see that coming, couldn't you?), both of which were quite pricey. It was nine years old when I sold it, and in much, much worse condition than the Astra, even taking another two years into consideration.

So, in summaary, I spend 1300 bucks today, and didn't even get something shiny for it (the car doesn't count - currently, it's really not so much with the shiny...)

Pout.

Of fail and win

So, it seems that I suck at Hollandaise sauce. Tried a couple of times - fairly epic fail. Poo.

However, I did manage to poach a couple of nice googies to perfection*, with lots of oozy egg yolk. Nom. Just a pity they didn't have lovely home-made Hollandaise on them...

* You may be wondering why this is blog worthy - I haven't actually poached an egg in more years than I can remember, so it is an achievement, albeit a smallish one.

I'm having trouble with my digestive processes - again. Hoo-bloody-ray. Some biting stomach pains and last night a bout of rapid expulsion of everything that wasn't nailed down. (sorry - TMI I know).

So, fast forward to this morning - a reasonable nights sleep and not having whatever it was that was poisoning me in my system any more putting me mostly to rights - and I am feeling a lot better. I was sitting here on the 'puter looking up times for the days activities, (and watching R wrestling with the cat, who seems determined to "help" R play Warcrack), and I got one of my tummy hurts.

"Are your pains hurting you" himself asks with concern...

Yes honey, that's what pains do best. We had a good giggle over it though.

Ugh. Bit over the heat. Over 40 degrees is boring. I was interested to note, however, that according to the BOM , at ~3pm this arvo the temp in Sydney City was 41 deg, and the temp in Penriff was 41.7 deg. That is actually quite unusual - poor old far western Sydney is usually 3 or 4 degrees hotter (on a hot day). Nice to see that the suffering is being a bit more evenly distributed today!

Still, bring on the cool change!

*In case you haven't noticed, I am really not a hot weather person. The higher the temp, the more whinging. It's a hard life being a cold climate girl in Sydney. Really need to move back to England...

I want to move now please...

I am starting to get really tired of hearing the Bogan Queen across the street screaming "Fucken fuck fark, fucken fucken wanker fucken" at her kids all the bloody time. It's really, really distasteful, and I just don't want to hear it. I'm not a prude about "fruity" language, and goodness knows I can turn the air blue at times, but there is a time and a place, and the whole street doesn't have to listen to me swearing.

I think we are going to have to move. I wish we could do it now, but I think we are still going to have to wait a couple of years.

All I want is a quiet neighbourhood, is that too much to ask?

The week that wasn't

This has not been a good week for me. In fact, I would be so inclined to say it was one of the most god-awful weeks I have endured in a long time.

Why? Simple answer: stomach flu.

I woke up on Tuesday morning not feeling myself at all - nauseous, grumbly tummy, feverish. I had a very small, plain breaky to see if that would calm things down a bit, and debated long and hard as to whether I should go to work. In the end, I did, and part of me is glad that I went, because everyone got a good look at how well I wasn't, before I proceeded to take the rest of the week off.

So I came home and crawled into bed. I know I had a fever by this time, because I was freezing, even though it was hitting the high twenties outside. I think I slept most of the rest of the day. At about 8pm I realised I was burning with fever, and asked R to take me to the doctor. Over an hour later (and $75 - my Medicare card had expired, and I hadn't realised this.Bugger.) I finally got to see the doctor. Money not well spent, I am sorry to say. He talked over the top of me, asked the same questions 3 times, really didn't listen to what I was saying. My symptoms were pretty simple - temperature, nausea and vomiting and ... er ... other gastric symptoms. He looked at my throat (no inflamation) and took my temperature. It was 39.4, which is pretty high, but not alarming. He basically gave up on me then and there - high temperature is out of his league, and he would write me a referral to Westmead Hospital. Oh, after he told me it might be Swine Flu. WTF? Since when are gastric symptoms part of H1N1, huh? And I had a distinct lack of a sore throat, (which is a SF symptom). It's a good thing I am not a panic merchant or hypochondriac. What a moron. So, we tootle off to Westmead, where the triage nurse takes my temperature again (39.3) gives me two Neurofen, and tells me to see her again in an hour. So we went home. And came back in an hour. She took my temp again (38.7) and told me to wait for the doctor. After another hour, I overhear someone else being told that there is a minimum FOUR HOUR WAIT. Again with the WTF. So we went home. And stayed there. I wasn't going to sit for 4 hours (it was nearly midnight by now, and R had work the next day) to be told it is a stomach virus, go home and keep my fluids up, which is all that they could have told me, and what I did anyway.

So Tuesday was bad, but I think Wednesday was worse.

My fever waxed and waned, but never came down far enough to give me any real relief. And now was when the really heavy duty nausea and vomiting kicked in. All day, and well into the evening. I have a ring around my midsection where my diaphram joins my trunk, which HURTS! Like fire. Ow. But far worse is the misery of feeling constantly like being sick. I don't know how women who get morning sickness that lasts all day cope - I would go mad in a millisecond. Also by this stage I am starting to get thoroughly sick of rice crackers, even though I have only eaten about nine - but that is all I have eaten. Make it stop, Mummy!

Thursday - my temp came down! Hooray! So not feeling like a miserable, sweaty space cadet any more. Now about those stomach cramps...and the continuing vomiting and diarrhoea. Can stop any time. Any time, now. Aaaaaany time...

Friday - almost feeling like a human being. Almost. REALLY sick of crackers. I went down to Parramatta to go to the Medicare office and renew my card. There were a couple of moments where I thought I was going to crash into people, fall over or pass out. Or perhaps crash into people, fall over and pass out. Not out of the woods yet. I ate my first food at 3.30pm (and that was only a couple of mouthfuls). I have completely lost interest in it. I really only ate because I know that I have to. You know I'm really sick when I have so little interest in food...

Saturday - I ate real food! A whole cheese sandwich and a couple of peaches. And one piece of pizza.

Today - almost back to normal. Almost. Still eating bland food, and not a lot of it. But getting better.

The silver lining to all this (cos there's got to be one, or I would be VERY CRANKY) -  I have lost 6 kilos! It's not all fluid - I never actually got all that dehydrated, but i will have to be careful to not pile it back on again.

So, that was my week. Hope the next one doesn't suck so badly...