Week 18 at School

This week we got news of a pregnancy, congrats Ness, and both Denise and myself came down with colds.

So much for watching the final day of the Le Tour.  It didn't finish until 10pm local time so I went to a movie night instead.  Just when I thought I had it all.

For those reading the online blog, there is more if you click on the Read more>> button below.

This week I came down with a cold on Tuesday and it was so bad I had Wednesday off work.  Only my 2nd sick day in 7 years.  To ensure I didn't leave Denise out, I shared my cold with her and she had Thursday and Friday off work, but also went to the doctors for a blood test as her symptoms were a little more like malaria than mine.  Luckily, no malaria, but the poor thing was not well.  She even outdid me.  Who says Man flu exists???

My little Red bus has been off the road most of this week getting some mechanical repairs done.  I think it needs a sponsor - any takers?  I will even see if I can get you naming rights, but be warned it will take a lot of money to beat the name Small Red.

As I was writing this, I realised that Big K hasn't made an appearance or even rated a mention for many weeks now.  If you don't know Big K, he was introduced in a February post titled Big K is Coming Too

For the last few months, Big K has been befriending the locals, wowing them with his style and grace and showing them a few moves.  He goes out most nights and some mornings we seem to pass him as we are going off to work.  He tells us he's conquered the peaks and seen all the wildlife there is to see.

The troubling side is he keeps talking in his sleep mumbling something about ASADA and how he will protect Gal.  I even heard him mumble something about Stuart from GreenEDGE just before he woke this evening.  Something must be bothering him as he doesn't want to go back to Oz right now as he says somebody wants to ask him some questions about his sporting career a few years ago.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Anyway, we promised Big K a trip somewhere in the near future so I hope that will take away whatever is on his mind and worrying him.

Another piece of news, some media outlet in Oz is after our story, probably the Financial Review or The Australian doing a centre page spread or liftout section on how a well balanced and adjusted couple cope taking time away from family, friends and work to volunteer abroad, or it could be the local newspaper wanting to do an article on local residents.  I am guessing it's the first one, so when we are famous you will all be able to claim you know some celebrities, and we won't charge too much for luncheon or dinner engagements.  Of course all funds will be donated to The School of St Jude.  What a shameless plug.

Friday saw another farewell function for three lovely ladies and one fine gent from St Jude's with a cameo performance by the world famous Paulski.  It was another good night, but a little too late for us at 11pm.

I was just checking some stuff and realised that we have to do our tax returns, well Brian has to do them for us...Hi Brian.  We did get the email on what the office wanted, but haven't done too much about it at this stage.

I went to basketball on Saturday to assist the referees as I was still recovering from my "man flu" and they were entering the finals series.  The games were due to begin at 3pm so I thought that meant at least 4pm based on previous experience.  At   3.02pm while walking up from town (about 1.5kms) I received an SMS asking where I was.  I arrived at about 10 past with both teams warming up.  What a shock, I was the only referee.  That was great as doing it by myself meant I didn't have to run too much.

When I asked if we were ready to play, I was told to wait.  We finally started about 3.40pm.

Game one was tough and physical, but a great game to referee.  I had one fool of a spectator who while standing right beside one of the teams decided to have a go at me.  The end result, I ejected him from the game.  At the next break here he is back again so I told him to go or the game would be cancelled.  After a little bit of persuading he disappeared, only to reappear at the end of the second game to apologise for his actions.

Game two was a little tamer on court, but the crowd of at least 100-200 was more excited and animated, mostly in good humour, but once again a spectator on one of the team benches decided they wanted a piece of my mind, so I requested the coach remove the spectator.  Well that set him off, so with a 20 point split to the other team, the light non-existent and under a minute to go I called the game off.

Tonight, it's off for Chinese with a few visitors and volunteers.

Until next time.