Weekend Coffee Share – 2nd June, 2024

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? Hope you are well.

Depending on where you are in the world, you’ve either just crossed the threshold into Summer or Winter. Being just North of Sydney Australia, it’s Winter here although it’s been raining for months, and much of this year feels like a continuous rain season. Indeed, I’m surprised we haven’t floated away. We’re only a few blocks down from the beach.

To be honest, the last week feels like a blur fighting off a chest infection, which didn’t sit well with my acute lung condition. That said, things didn’t get too bad, aside from a couple of nasty coughing attacks during the night where I should’ve called the ambulance. Pump in enough Ventolin, and you can be lucky and suppress the beast and sleep in your own bed. Phew! After that, I ended up on a cocktail of three different antibiotics and relief is in sight. I’ve also added a triple strength Garlic, Vitamin C and Horseradish pill, which sounds strong enough to knock the socks off even the most virulent bug. A friend also put me onto her “witch’s brew” of onion, garlic, ginger and bone broth. That’s a scary mix and I’d much rather scoff her Caramel Slice, but I’ll be a good girl and swallow the “poison” instead.

Ironically, this “fallow” time has been strangely productive, especially making headway through my never-ending book pile. I have finished Wendy Harmer’s novel: Roadside Sisters. While Harmer is legendary for her humorous wit, there’s great depth in her characterization and some truly brilliant life lessons and philosophical insights. Indeed, “fallow” was a term I picked up from the book and have applied throughout the week. I connected with the second half of the definition she provided:

Fallow: “Currently inactive but with the possibility of activity or use in the future.”

To me that sounded rather promising. Moreover, these days I’m more circumspect about launching myself over the next mountain without testing the waters first and knowing that’s where I really want to go.

I’m also reading Richard Glover’s: Love Clancy: A Dog’s Letters Home – a great dog book and rollicking read. That said, I’m only a third of the way in and as you probably know, things can really escalate from here and goodness knows what lies ahead. However, I sure hope there’s a happy ending. There has to be. Darcy the dog is very loveable and I’d much rather have a boring book than for something awful to happen.

Rosie with the Lego Roses

In addition to my reading exploits, last night I finally tackled the Lego Rose kit Geoff gave me for Valentine’s Day and was thrilled with the results. While Geoff and the kids love Lego, my interest has been lukewarm and there haven’t been many kits, which attracted my interest. That said, Geoff gave me a Kombi kit, which I loved. I am such a Kombi fan and being unable to have the real deal, a Lego Kombi was almost as good. I’d seen the flower kits in the shop, but wasn’t sold and then Geoff stepped in. I’m grateful not only for the gift, but also for the challenge and managing to finish it all by myself, and feeling an astonishing level of accomplishment for such a small task. I was transformed from an avoiding procrastinator, into a champion. It also reminded me of all that’s possible through an accumulation of small steps and perseverance.

Meanwhile, the driving lessons with our daughter continue. She had her first lesson with a professional instructor during the week. Before they can sit for their driving license here in NSW, they need to get up 120 hours of driving practice usually mostly with Mum and Dad, and a percentage of that needs to be night driving. Getting these hours up is considered quite an onerous groan, and one of those rights of passage experiences. Moreover, if you live in the city, getting all these hours up can be torture. However, we live outside Sydney and have done a few long drives on holidays. So getting the hours up wasn’t too bad for us. I have mostly enjoyed the time out driving with the kids…going somewhere special, having a bit of a chat, and being together.

However, the next step is how to pass the test itself. This is out of our league and where professional lessons come in. They can deal with the fine-tuning, the specifics of the test, and taking them round the potential route. However, at $80.00 per hour, you want them to catch on quick and you can feel your bank account slipping through your fingertips faster than the infamous sands through the hourglass. Yet, it’s also important to remind yourself about what you really want. That is for your young adult to drive safely and not to become a statistic. So, a few extra lessons is peanuts in the overall scheme of things.

As it turned out, she’s going to need more lessons than expected. The instructor picked up on things we hadn’t considered. She was also quite stressed after her first lesson. It was very different to driving with us and much closer to what the test itself was going to be like. So we booked another lesson, and the instructor said she’d improved a lot. That was a relief. So it looks like a few more lessons, and two weeks until the test.

Then, we’ll need to repeat the whole exercise with her brother. Naturally, a breather would be great between the two, but can’t see that happening. Then again, we have every incentive to push through. It will be a huge relief when they’re both over the line and they’ll not only have their independence. We’ll have ours.

While our daughter was out driving, I was lured into the art shop and another dent was added to the bank account.

So, considering I was under the weather, my week wasn’t too bad. I had some fun!

This was another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena