6.1.13

A brief window of everyone feeling well was terminated by Sophie starting to vomit overnight. Hmmm. Gastro so far has dominated the holiday. We had planned to go to the Church in town this morning to hear the singing which is truly impressive, but with Sophie being sick these plans were cancelled. Cooked up everyones favourite for breakfast, Pancakes. Di Cleaned up the bathroom that was a bit of a mess as Sophie must have left her run to the loo too late with her vomiting, poor thing (Sophie and Di (I did offer to clean up))

A lazy day at the house, reading, drinking coffee, relaxing and generally taking it easy. The kids spent a bit of time sculpting my hair with hair wax, then Danielle and Pen set up a health spa and Di and I had a long back rub followed by a long foot massage. We went off for a search for iceblocks and found that being Sunday the shops are all shut down, apart from the 24 hour fuel station. Got some bread and ice blocks to try to cool off. Also may have sneaked in some ice cream which Sophie may be able to eat.

Danielle, Ben and I went for a walk to the beach and regretted not taking our togs as we were pretty hot by the time we made it the few hundred metres to the beach. Nice time searching for shells walking along the waterfront. Came back along hospital road and passed some tethered pigs under a group of trees. As we walked passed some long grass an explosion of squealing erupted and three little piglets took of as if their lives depended on it. This was rapidly followed by an explosion of squealing with joy from Danielle and Ben, which probably added to the piglets sense of impending doom. Spent the evening watching some documentaries on various things including Rarotonga and Atiu. Sophie emerged from her bedroom for the first time all day to brave some dinner, hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow.

Di got a fright when she went into her hand bag before going to bed and saw something move inside the bag. To her horror she recognized, in the half light, a large cockroach that was looking for somewhere to lay eggs. Di hates cockroaches, so this discovery lead to a fairly high volume retreat from the vicinity of said cockroach. As instructed, I bravely went into the emotionally charged environment to hunt down and capture the beast, but being pretty quick and not really wanting to be caught the cockroach took off across the floor. This lead to more high volume but helpful instruction on what I should do next, and advice around typical cockroach behavior whilst under pursuit followed by some critical appraisal of my performance at the task of capturing the beast. Impatient for a definitive result Di stepped forward and WHACK! The cockroach was under Celia Lashly’s book about how to raise boys “He’ll be alright”. This book talks fairly extensively about maintaining self esteem in boys and letting men be men, without constant criticism and a rolling dialogue from women, which does not allow men to speak, let alone think. Di gave me further critical appraisal of my reflex time and made some qualitative comments about my performance under pressure, as I cleaned up the mess. The tropical paradise does come with some hooks.