The weekend that was, sort of

Friday: First night home with no socialness planned in what seems forever. Shanta headed off to watch a live footy match with Anna, Steve and teknohippi. I did not join because I have the exact opposite of fascination for our national sport! Instead I was looking forward to an evening of pottering; my room needs a tidy and my cupboards are still full to bursting with the things that were shoved in them prior to my birthday. For the past week my way of selecting outfits has consisted of the question “Can I get at it?”!

However, this whole plan was nixed when I got a severe attack of the dizzies whilst serving dinner. The world continued to spin for the rest of the evening and thus the plans of Nemisis-ing with Shanta later were ditched. zen_cat put me to bed and there I stayed until Shanta and teknohippi arrived home and entertained us with footy tales.

This did make it clear that the jaw/earache I’ve been getting on and off for the last month was definitely ear related rather than teeth related – still keeping my dentist appt later this week though.

Saturday: Still dizzy, so elected to go to the doctor instead of Healesville with Shanta, teknohippi and kitling. Yes, it is an ear infection, apparently brought on by stress – well July wasn’t exactly a walk through the park for me, so no real surprise there, except that I’ve never thought of ear infections as a stress thing!

The afternoon was spent on the couch at zen_cat‘s watching “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”. When suddenly forced to abandon plans and just chill out, it is very nice to have a list of movies we’ve been meaning to watch one day – it makes it seem less like wasted time and more like, well, we’re still getting to do something we wanted to.

That night was a banquet organised by Anna at the Australian restaurant Tjanabi in Fed Square. Shanta’s desire to try Australian food had been the instigator for this dinner, which made it all the more unfortunate that for her taste of Australia, she caught the flu going round, and couldn’t join us 🙁

We feasted on damper, barramundi spring rolls, tempura crocodile, slivers of kangaroo steak on salsa, scallops, oysters, calamari, kangaroo sausages, the most delectable emu ever, hare stew and olives seasoned with native herbs. I’m sure I’m missing some things – it was quite an impressive banquet and the waiters were very good.

We were very lucky because the evening before they had catered for a function, so they had a lot of specially prepared food that we might not have been served otherwise. As it was, we were served samples of nearly everything on the menu. It was all just amazing and I highly recommend this as a place to go.

Sunday: Shanta was awake, but not going anywhere, so after ensuring she had soft toy companions to look after her, ventalin and chicken noodle soup I went to join zen_cat with helping the bbq preps at kitling and nigelw‘s house. The bbq was great, with an impressive spread of traditional salads, and desserts. The house of Bear and Tiggrr do do excellent bbqs, and gatherings in general 🙂

The rest of the afternoon/evening was mooching for zen_cat and I: a walk after the bbq; some time with Shanta, who was looking a bit brighter, but still not going anywhere; laundry and dvd watching at zen_cat‘s; then back to my place to curl up in bed and read. By evening I was coming down with Shanta’s flu, plus some extra dizziness back into the mix.

Now I am at work, feeling crap and vaguely dizzy and wishing that I wasn’t just a casual. Ah well. Just the next week to get through, then I can rest again 🙂

Hopefully Shanta’s doing better today – she was planning on wandering around a bit to get some good ol’ vitamin D. She flies back on Wednesday so we must get her better, or at least her sinuses clear, by then.