So much to tell you.....

... that I am not really sure where to start.  Well, as Julie Andrews would sing,  

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..."

I think that I had told you on my post before last, that TraderVic and I were off to Kangaroo Island with some very dear friends for a week's holiday.

Well, we set off on Sunday morning with high hopes for a great week together (which were largely fulfilled).  We were road tripping it to Kangaroo Island, planning a big drive on Sunday and then a shorter leg on Monday to catch the afternoon ferry to the Island.

Now, I would have to say that this holiday turned out to be the most paradoxical holiday that I have every been on. It was both incredibly relaxing and incredibly stressful at the same time!!!!  How can that be, I hear you ask?  Well, sit back and I will fill you in.

You may remember that two week's ago, I posted that I thought that I had broken the little toe on my right foot and so I spent the next two weeks hobbling around with that.  Well, that is nothing compared to what I did to my left foot!  Just prior to leaving, I whacked my left foot into the skirting board on the wall at the top of our spiral stair case and did a lot of damage to my middle toe and foot.  

At the time, I just went ow! ow! ow! and thought oh, it will be okay, "Keep calm and keep packing!"

Boy, was I wrong, as the day wore on, I could barely walk each time we got out of the car for a break.  By the next day, my foot looked like this.....

.... and I have been in a lot of pain with it ever since.  You can imagine that it made looking at the sights of Kangaroo Island a bit difficult!  I also had a lot of trouble sleeping as even the weight of a sheet on the toe was agony.  

I have not bothered going to the doctor about it as I know that there is nothing that they can do for a broken toe, although the bottom of my foot, under the middle toe and the one to its left is still very tender, too.  

So, that is Disaster #1, Disaster #2 was/is even more upsetting.

I am sure that I have told you about my dear Dad before.  Here he is at the local RSL club, at his 97th birthday lunch.

He looks really good, doesn't he?  This was on the 21st August.  I am sorry to say that since this date he has deteriorated, not his health so much but his ability to cope with daily life - he is legally blind, has early stages of Alzheimer's and is going deaf.  As my dear younger sister says, "At 97 every day is like a month going by in terms of health and wellbeing for him."

So, anyway, two hours out of Melbourne, I receive a phone call from DSister1, Dad had had a funny turn in the night and was in hospital.  Now, I need to remind you that my Dear Dad was a POW in WWII, he spent three and a half years in the infamous Japanese Changi POW camp in Singapore.  Apparently, sometime in the middle of the night, Dad had some sort of flashback or nightmare about his wartime experiences, we think, and hid himself UNDER his bed!  The next morning the nurse who comes to administer his morning tablets, couldn't find him anywhere but eventually located him under the bed, in the far corner, curled up, cold and soiled.  The paramedics were called and three burly guys had to lift the bed vertically off him.  How on earth, a 97 year old man managed to get himself under the bed like that is anyone's guess.

My sisters assured me that Dad was okay in hospital and that I didn't need to come back - his obs were good but he was just a bit confused.

The upshot is that Dad is still in hospital and the doctors have said that he needs 24 hour care and needs to go into a nursing home as his next step.  Now, the idea of a nursing home has been a huge issue up until now as some family members have been adamantly against the idea and have not wanted to really see the situation as it is.  But now, there is no choice, so, luckily in a way, Dad can now get the full care that he needs.  But this caused a lot of stress over the week's holiday as there were numerous phone calls with my sisters and lots of discussions and tears and so on.  Luckily, TraderVic and my dear friends were very, very supportive.  

This coming week is filled with hospital visits to Dad and nursing home visits, as we try to find the right one for Dad.  Wish me luck as I hobble around them.

Now, onto near Disaster #3.  As we can all appreciate, you have to be very careful when driving and especially on long road trips.  As you drive along there are lots of billboards about driver fatigue and not speeding and not using your mobile phone and so on.  Anyway, we were driving along the Western Highway and suddenly the car in front of us drifted across to the other side of the road, onto the verge, into a fence, corrected itself and went back across both sides of the road before finally pulling over.  We were very lucky that there was no oncoming traffic and that we always drive well back from other cars.  Naturally, we pulled over to see if the driver was okay.  She was very shaken, driving on her own (with her dog strapped into the front seat) and she had fallen asleep at the wheel. Her car sustained some damage.  TraderVic managed to pull the front bumper bar away from the tire so that she could drive to the nearest town to get her car fixed (luckily only a few kilometres away).

So, phew!  What a start to the holiday!

Anyway, if you have kept reading this far, let me finally show you a couple of road trip pics!

This is the sun setting over the Mighty Murray River at Tailem Bend, where we stopped in a motel overnight.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Well, this post is long enough. More news tomorrow.

hugs,