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So I have made it home, from my leg of the “big adventure”, as my five-year-old niece kept calling it. We actually got into Sydney a day earlier than planned on Saturday evening, with only one stop over in Armidale. The road trip wasn’t so bad. The two older kids had DVDs to watch, and the 10-month-old, who has been sick, the poor little thing, seemed to appreciate the extended chance for sleep. All of them then stayed the night in my flat here, which was some kind of circus, before leaving yesterday afternoon. It was sad to see them go, though I confess to a small amount of relief, because I seem to have caught what the baby had (which the others had all previously had, and is some nasty thing called the “100 day flu” up in Toowoomba) and was starting to feel pretty miserable myself and like taking to my bed.

I’m not so surprised I am sick, even though "I don't get sick", because the first night I was there I went in to go to bed in the room I thought I was just sharing with my niece and discovered that her little friend Chilli the dog had snuck in and was asleep on the end of her bed on the floor. Chilli is a very sweet little dog my sister and brother-in-law inherited off a couple who broke up and needed someone to take it, and she really does have a beautiful nature. My niece loves Chilli and Chilli loves her, and occasionally, only when my brother-in-law is away, Chilli sneaks in to her room for the night and is allowed to stay there. I’m not actually a big fan of dogs inside, but I thought if sweet Chilli stayed where she was all night, it would be fine. But she didn’t did she. She soon ended up on my bed, and shuffled around and walked all over me and interrupted my sleep all night. Then another night my niece woke me up asking for a drink in the middle of the night, then twice she asked me if it was morning yet before 5 am, and some nights I had my nephew in the room too, who still has a bad night cough, and so it went on ... till I was somewhere beyond tired.

So I stayed home from church last night after the travelers left, which is unusual for me, as I wasn’t expecting to make it in the first place and was feeling like rubbish coughing and sneezing and being unable to breathe through my nose. I was looking forward to an unbroken sleep last night, and instead I got up every few hours to blow my nose for five minutes. But I don’t normally get a full-blown flu, so I am hoping I can beat this in a day or two. We shall see!

Now, off to do all those other things I had in mind to do with these days off I have, or maybe I shall just go back to bed ...