2.1.13 Rarotonga

Pretty tired this morning after a pretty disturbed sleep, poor old Ben is still under the weather, and Pen looks a bit pale as well. Sophie woke me at 8 for the promised morning run, I fended her off and convinced her I needed another half hour of sleep. Eventually I couldn’t play dead any longer, and Sophie and I went for a run. Within 100m I was literally a human inferno. Sweat was squirting from every pour, creating a force field of mist around my entire body, and I must have looked like I was melting. Sophie bounced along as if she was weightless and slowly disappeared into the distance. I thought to boost her “self esteem” I would let her run off, as if I couldn’t keep up. Fathers are good like that.

The heavens were kind and a refreshing rain started, but not long after this my bowels started to give me some very strong messages and I was reduced to a lemon faced walk, and was looking for a public toilet, with a degree of urgency. Couldn’t find one and out of desperation went into a mini-supermarket (is there such a word?) and asked to use there facilities. It was with great relief that I took a break here however with distress I discovered that the toilet didn’t flush. Not to worry, after a bit of rummaging around in the staff cleaning area, I found an old washing powder bin that served as a small bucket and a nearby tap. Several trips had the place presentable again and I wandered back into the mini-supermarket. Sophie seemed worried that something terrible had happened and the old lady preparing vegetables laughed and asked if I was alright? (with a knowing twinkle in her eye I might add).

We continued home, this time I was the one that was running like I was weightless and managed to keep up with Sophie this time. She is pretty confident, so I thought “to hell with her self esteem, I’ll show her who’s boss” and powered into my stride. Sadly, the advantage I have of 30 odd years of beer and sausage consumption is of little benefit, and I still followed her home.

Breakfast of the Pawpaw, that Danielle picked after scaling the tree in the garden was complemented by the coconut that the kids managed to smash open on the driveway. All of those Bear Grylls shows have lead to one proud and full father. Sadly Pen started vomiting too. She hates to make a fuss and said she was “fine” between reaches into the garden. Di started to look a bit pale and lost her spark as well. A quiet time at home was the order of the day with three members down, literally lying in bed and not having much fun at all.

I took the well ones out to lower the volume of singing and tomfoolery, to get some supplies for lunch and sign up for the vehicle, that we had not yet filled out any paperwork for. Went for a drive and eventually returned to the mini-supermarket as I felt we needed to spend some money there.

Home for a light lunch, which Pen refused and Ben regretted. After a bit more lying around everyone felt up to a trip to the beach again and off we went for another swim. We drove around the back road passed the prison, which led to an interesting discussion about what would a prison be needed for here?

Very refreshing water and the kids were all into it today. No hesitation from Olivia and she was even refusing any assistance from me as we swam out into the lagoon, and couldn’t understand why Di was sitting on the beach initially (still feeling less than 100%) I made sure we were by a public toilet this time, so there was no limitation and it was through feeling cold that we eventually left with spirits much higher from all. Had an interesting conversation in the middle of the lagoon, with an expat Cook Islander, Nick, who has lived in Kansas for 25 years and lamented the change in Raro since when he grew up here. I reassured him that everywhere has changed (I think anyway. Perhaps it is us that change to a greater degree?)

Cruised home at the break neck speed of 40 – 50km/hr, the local speed limit. This is a very soporific speed for someone who has been up a fair bit of the night going “there ,there…” and patting son on the back as he spewed. Thankfully a witty dialogue kept me awake, just. My mind did wander to the Isle on Mann that also has a slow speed limit, then once per year a death defying (mostly) motorbike race happens around the Island. Not sure that the roads here would handle 300km/hr superbikes going flat out, but this could be an interesting addition to the island if they wanted to up the profile. They may want to up the ante on supporting Stu Gowland’s cruise ship radiology and diagnostic service with emergency surgery facility if they did go with a race like this. Not so many stone walls to tango with at speed, but coconut trees would be equally unforgiving to the high speed motorcyclist who has unintentionally dismounted.

Cooked up a feed, low on volume as the frozen peas that we purchased had suffered from a failure in the cold chain at some stage (they were rotten). Di was in bed by 7pm feeling rotten herself (hopefully not just my cooking). Watched TV for a bit with the kids and saw the News, something that I rarely achieve for a couple of reasons, one being that it is all bad news. Floods, snow, fire, economic decay, murder…. On and on it went. Would drive anyone to drink. There must have been a baby born, or someone won lotto and did good, a successful business venture, an act of bravery or dareing do, come on News lighten up!

Eventually kids were asleep and I was driven to the bottle of Canadian Club, and the keyboard. Emma may have kick started a bad habit, very nice.