Questions for the afternoon ...

I do not have a large nose - slightly crooked admitedly but certainly not one of your big honkers - so how does something this petite produce such vast quantities of snot? Mmmm? Answer me that! I'm also not a large person nor a very loud one. Well maybe I am a loud one after a few gins but that's another story entirely. Still somehow this little 32b chest can produce a cough so loud as to wake He Who Shall Not Be Named from a beer induced coma (or so he tells me as he grumbles on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night). Yes the dreaded flu has struck the Madcow down (does that mean it's the Cowflu rather than the Birdflu? Or perhaps Bovine-itis? As long as it's not BSE I don't really mind)
Whatever it's called it has made for a very unproductive couple of weeks. The bedside table is littered with tissues, drugs, lemonade & chocolate wrappers, (chocolate really DOES fix everything!), and my bed is no longer my friend. We've spent far too long in each others company and now we're bored with each other. Likewise the tv. When a girl can't even muster up the enthusiasm to watch the latest Chip Foose creation on "Overhaulin" the world is in a very sad state. Actually the world is in a very sad state when I even know who Chip Foose is! But my oh my, that boy is a genius and so lovely with it. Not like that totally disfunctional Boyd Coddington ... eww. No Chip is my man!
OK. So my mind has finally turned to slush. Further evidence is the baby jersey I was knitting. Remarkable isn't it how it looks suspiciously like a pair of mittens now! Despite all my best efforts at creative knitting the bloody thing kept expanding at a rate of knots. Rather than just fit a one year old sumo wrestler it could have covered an entire small town including municipal buildings. It was time to pull the needles and start again. Good old reliable mittens - easy enough to knock out a pair in an evening and in this weather none of the girls at work have turned them down.
Food has been another challenge. Given my culinary skill you would think an absence of tastebuds would be an advantage but instead it makes for some rather nervous meals. Of course by now He Who Shall Not Be Named has aquired a head cold and last night as we picked at our pasta dish, we kept trying to reassure eachother that it really did taste alright. Who knows? Perhaps it did? Nevertheless I have marked the container of leftovers for the freezer "Flu Pasta" so that we remember to taste it before trying to offload it on any unsuspecting visitor. For all we know it could have had the aftertaste of dishwash liquid & dustbunnies, which would be ok because that's what all my cooking tastes like.
To rescue us this evening though Leonie (the best nursey ever) has just brought us "Meals On Wheels" - Shepherds Pie. The handover of the said pie was rather like a hostage handover at a border control - I mean it would have been just too mean to breathe on her and give her this germfest after an act of kindness wouldn't it.
To finish this epic post here are some of my favourite photos of my dear friend "mum" who died last Thursday. Robyn's mum & dad have been a part of my life for as long as Robyn has, and although I tried calling them Joan & Owen it just never stuck. They have been "mum & dad" ever since. I'm not the only one - the majority of the girls the three of us scrapbook with have only ever known her as mum which I think rather tickled her. If you were to go through Robyns family albums you wouldn't find many photos of her parents when they weren't laughing - perhaps the secret to their 53 year joyful marriage, and it will be that laughter I shall miss. Even when Robyn rang that night to say she had finally passed we both had to laugh that of course she would have to go on the same night as "Li Mei" (the character she most loathed on her favourite soap opera Shortland St) snuffed it. I can almost imagine her saying "Oh isn't that typical. That Li Mei woman is just the sort to try and steal my thunder! Hmpph!"
Yes, the silly laughs and looking up from the crop table to see her & Robyn scrapping and bickering away together. Miss you mum.