Nine.

Hello from the house of vomit......where three of my children, so far, have been riding the porcelain bus with a particularly messy bout of gastro.  Having spent a lot of time in the decidedly unpleasant clean up, I've been pondering why, when I've endured such high levels of exposure,  I've never managed to become immune to vomit or poo. So, as you do, I've been deliberating which is worse....with the jury  still out.

As if a sudden dose of gastro hasn't made life hectic enough, the clock is relentlessly ticking and we are now down to NINE days before we board that plane and bid 'au revoir' to Hobart and 'bonjour' to the South of France. I've also taken another trip to the dentist's chair and had my other two wisdom teeth unceremoniously pulled out.....knowing what to expect I tried every delaying tactic in the book and shamelessly used exhibition openings, children's birthdays and a trip to Brisbane to try and avoid having to go through it all......again. I was scared as had been pre warned that these teeth had curly roots. Oh, the agony. Afterwards, I sought comfort in flicking through a book about Prince Charles' garden and one of my boys dedicated his afternoon to sitting on my bed and patting my hair.....it worked and I managed to hold off on the painkillers.

Anyway, yesterday was our 14th wedding anniversary. My husband came through with flowers just when I was despairing, as only an afternoon of cleaning up poo will do, that maybe I'd made a big mistake setting myself up for domesticity on such a grand scale:

I love Irish Bells.....there's something so unexpected about a lime green flower, don't you think? This is what the five year old dressed me in to wear out to dinner down the road at our favourite haunt, Le Provencal:

The J Brand sparkly coated metallic jeans were on sale at Revolve and I've had the By Malene Birger sequinned top hanging in the cupboard for years. He initially wanted me to wear the jeans and the top without a jacket, however seeing it was 10 degrees outside and the top's a bit big, I managed to talk him into letting me workshop the look with the jacket.....yet only on the promise that I took it off once inside the restaurant where it would be warm.

It may have been warm and looked like the South Of France:

yet I flagrantly disregarded his instructions and kept the jacket on. While compiling the insurmountable list of things still to do over dinner, the thought crossed my mind that it's much easier to pretend to be in France in a French restaurant that we can see from our house......than it is to actually go to France. Too late now.

Over the last week, between loads of vomity washing, I've been hanging out in the hot room like a woman possessed, because the sad fact is that I'm going to have to let my Bikram Yoga addiction slide once I get to France. There's just no way that I'm going to be able to keep up five classes a week. Geography is not on my side.  Like the total tragic that I am, I've been using Google Maps to work out exactly how far it is from where we will be living in Uzes to the Bikram Yoga studio's in Montpellier (1.5 hours)  and Marseilles (2 hours). Here in Hobart, I drive literally from one side of town to the other to feed my addiction and it takes me.....all of 12 minutes. Rationally, I'm thinking that 1.5 - 2 hours in the car on a regular basis might not be feasible, although it makes me upset to admit it out loud. Hopefully, I'll be able to make the commute on a couple of occasions and if I can find a window of opportunity to do a class or two in Paris, then I won't have to go cold turkey.....which is some consolation.

Apart from putting Bikram Yoga classes in the bank, it has also been a great way to tame my monkey mind (for an hour and a half at least) and help with my overwhelming worries about the immediate future.....will our geriatric beagles survive the separation.....when are we going to find a tenant.....is my father in law's health going to rally.....will our property development be finished before we go.....etc etc etc ad infinitum. Most nights I wake up at about 3am and start to think and worry....and think....and then I try to engage my husband in conversation about these particular thoughts....much to his horror as he is holding out until 5.30am when he can get on his bike and go for a ride. You wouldn't want to be getting on a plane next Sunday. I might need to try and schedule two Bikram Yoga classes tomorrow.......

Rx

Challenge.

So in the end all it took was a pep talk by Anna last night while I was rocking my second Bikram Yoga class for the day (to make up for having time off over easter) for everything to be OK. For most of this week I have been a very reluctant starter for class and was beginning to wonder if my peevishness was ever going to evaporate. After all, the 30 day challenge hasn't even reached the half way mark yet (it's still three days away not that I'm counting or anything). Anna reminded us that when Bikram says to 'kill yourself' before class he doesn't only mean physically. He's saying kill yourself with a capital 'S' for self. Kill your Self. You have to remember to leave everything at the door including your ego so that your mind and body can work in harmony. And let me tell you, my mind had been giving it to me big time. Yet, last night in the hot room, Anna's words made sense to me and somehow I managed to defeat my pessimistic voice - miraculously my outlook on the 30 day challenge and on life during the school holidays seems much better.

It also helped that today I initiated events which saw me have an hour and a half all to myself. Oh the decadence. It was exhilarating, and not only because I squandered the time in a cafe drinking strong gunshot green tea which gave me a serious buzz since I have been abstaining from caffeine.

It hasn't all been yoga and school holiday torture, I have been having a bit of fun. We spent easter here:

 There was no tv let alone wi-fi. Our children got back to basics including park equipment challenges:

playing under the sprinkler:

long walks in the countryside:

and by night, serious scrabble competitions:

 Oh, and the easter bunny came:

Luckily he has a predilection for Lindt.

We got back to town in time to celebrate our thirteenth wedding anniversary. Here we were on our wedding day, way back then:

We celebrated by getting a babysitter and went out to dinner a deux at Ethos:

I can't believe we have never been there before. The food was delicious in an unpretentious tapas style way:

My dessert had two of my favourite ingredients in it - rhubarb AND quince, although you can't really tell from this photo. It could be almost anything really:

And seeing that I'm on the subject of food, it was a red letter day today when I opened the post to discover a jar of foie gras sent all the way from the south of France by our fabulously considerate friend Nicole:

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. It's more than just foie gras though, its with armagnac and has toasted fig seeds to sprinkle on top. Can you imagine how delicious it is going to be? But wait, there was more as Nicole also thoughtfully included nougat, chocolate olives and samples from her children's afternoon tea supply:

Australian quarantine had obviously had a lovely time opening it to check that there was no risk. Happily they didn't confiscate anything. So Toby got to eat his individually packaged crepe which he was deliriously excited to discover came ready rolled with Nutella inside:

I wish we could buy those in a packet at the shops here.

R