First day back at school for Callum and Conrad after the mid year holiday. Yesterday was a pupil free day so they didn’t have to return until today. Last week we spent three days in Kangaroo Valley and were there for the 40 anniversary of the first moon landing. As it was a New Moon the stars were amazing and with no city lights around the starry sky was amazing. Steven even saw a passing satellite and we could identify lots of constellations. We did lots while we were in Kangaroo Valley but I will have to write about that another time.

Steven had last week off and went back to work yesterday. They boys felt a bit funny about having to go to school today, because they had a great time in their two weeks off, but Conrad came home jumping up and down and telling me what a fantastic day he had and when I picked um Callum he also said that he enjoyed his day. He said in the afternoon he did ‘sewing’, which will be taught this term. He is not too excited but I told him that he might like it considering that my grandad was a taylor and my mum and her three sisters were excellent at sewing. It is sad that Mum can’t be here to see all this happening. She would so have loved to be part of the boys lives and experience them growing up. She was always so enthusiastic in everything she did that she could have taught them so much and could have passed on so much of our language, culture and traditions. So when Callum told me about his sewing class I immediately thought of her and how she would have thought of a fun way of showing him sewing.

Conrad has been sick again. He felt unwell Sunday night and his nausea and headache flared up badly when he went to bed. Since then he has been off school and could barely move off the lounge. Panadol helped his head and backache yesterday but at first he was too nauseous and dizzy to take any medication and the light affected him badly. He had to lie under the blanket to protect his eyes and could not get up or walk unaided most of the morning. He is starting to feel dejected and down about being sick again and it coming on so unexpectedly. One minute he is fine and the next his stomach starts feeling strange and then he is dizzy and nauseous. The headache then gets worse and worse and he is virtuallly incapacitated for days on end. The Sandomigran seemed to do the trick for a while but last week and this week he has had such bad episodes again.