The violinist, the monk and the pig

Woke up at 8.30am - a full 11 hours sleep! I did wake briefly to grunt goodbye to hubby when his alarm went at 4.45am for his paramedic shift. And a grumpier grunt at 5am when he came back in to get his boots 🙄. I hope he took that Hazmat suit!

At 10.30 when I left to do my postnatals my incredibly overworked and stressed out teenagers were obviously so exhausted by all their efforts during lockdown that they were still asleep.

So I haven’t got consent for sharing today’s story. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission 😉. This is my Dad (he made this violin himself!) who plays in a Bluegrass Band, playing Pokarekare Ana for us. He’s been on the Good Sorts programme before for setting kids up with violins and going round the old folks homes to play for them. He can’t do that right now, so it looks like he’s putting on a daily show for us instead. He and my step mum are at home in their bubble in Tauranga, luckily this includes a bit of land, another couple in their outside unit and two ladies who live in a campervan who needed somewhere as a base are living downstairs.

So they have a different type of bubble to most of us, but are following the rules very closely they assure me. This is bound to include a daily round of coffees and a slow whittering away of the whiskey.

When I see my dad like this, looking all clever, mature and responsible it makes me think of the many faces of a person. When he was a kid he didn’t think much of his school bus driver, he used to fill the poor mans gumboots up with water so the unsuspecting fulla would slide his foot in on a winters day. But the most entertaining story for us as kids was dad talking about sneaking round the back of the bus and stuffing the exhaust with potatoes. He blew up the engine! Nowadays he would be classed as a juvenile delinquent. Back then he was ‘cheeky - but loveable’. He got banned from the bus for a couple of months and had to ride his bike to school - he reckons all the kids would give him the fingers out the window while he was busy pulling faces back!

Love ya dad 😉. Can we have some hot fiddle next? Or Wagon Wheel, everyone loves Wagon Wheel!

Oh and No 1 Sons self barbering got worse last night. Now he looks like he has a monk’s tonsure. So many people have asked me why he did it. The only answer I could give is “because he’s a cock” 🤣. There is no explaining the teenage boys mind. He’s happy, he doesn’t have to look at it!

My main issue with it was that he used my bathroom for his shearing, so of course he got nagged to clean up when he was done. An hour later when I went in for a wee I was just pushing the flush button and glanced into the bowl - as you do - and saw what I initially assumed were a handful of pubes disappearing down the loo. More pubes than I own as a matter of fact! I thought something drastic had happened to me until I remembered his haircut!

I saw three new babies on my travels today. It’s normal for a baby to lose weight in the first week. But not these ones. COVID might be scaring them all out of their mum’s vaginas a bit early, but once in our world they are thriving! The isolation in a bubble means there are no interruptions, mums are well supported by their partners at home and are just sitting feeding their baby all day long. It’s lovely to see, as modern life usually means most women can’t spend the first week at home like we recommend. They are usually racing off to the supermarket and running around after their other kids and doing the milking even. So I’ve managed to find an upside to COVID, go me!

Driving around this Sunday through a few rural towns was still odd. Cars are at the supermarkets but that’s about it. There is a broken down car on the side of a country road half an hour from my house. It’s been there at least three days, it hasn’t been torched, it has all its tyres, it just looks lonely! Another one has police cones around it, but obviously towing isn’t essential.

By the time I came home today I felt pretty nauseous, most likely as so tired, but was quickly distracted by a box left on my driveway. Exciting! Initially I thought it looked like a bomb but quickly moved on to “awww someone has left me a cake!“ It was wrapped up in wet newspaper like a gift. But talk about seeing what you want to see - turns out it was a home delivery of food scraps for my pig Ernie 🙄.

He enjoyed it.