IT is with a tinge of regret and embarrassment that I must confess to having had the flu this week, an experience that does not come highly recommended.
As I sat waiting to have my GP confirm that I was in fact ill, I thumbed through the pile of National Geographic magazines that looked the same as last time I was there, only a few years older.
As someone who does not get sick very often, I make a terrible patient, but once the diagnosis was confirmed and all questions about airports and pigs put aside, getting well was the main priority.
I am the best advertisement for why you should accept the company’s offer of a free flu jab.
My bravado and proud claims of never having had the flu and not needing to have a shot, have been shot down in flames.
Being forced to rest is actually a lot harder to deal with than most would expect, but thankfully there’s daytime television, although the undertones of ads for funeral insurance, life insurance and income protection insurance did prompt some concerns.
Did they know something I did not about my flu?
Daytime TV offers up such classics as repeats of Desperate Housewives (note the irony), a New Zealand home-decorating and auction show (great real estate, but the accent can be jarring) and of course, Deal or no Deal.
By Tuesday afternoon, I was almost barracking out loud for the young university student with a dream of winning enough cash to get him and his three mates overseas to a destination of their choice. Thankfully, he took my advice and took the deal and netted himself $17,500.
Lying there feeling sorry for yourself also provides an insight into how hard those around you have to work to run a household. The afternoon session of picking the kids up from school, dropping them at training, at work, at parties or anywhere else for that matter, then going back out again shortly afterwards and retracing your steps to pick everybody up and bring them home to the meal you have prepared in your spare time.
I know this is an everyday occurrence in my household and thousands across Australia, and one that takes place while I and many others are still at work under normal circumstances. Accordingly, I’m no longer sure I have the toughest job in the family.
I returned to work on Wednesday to the unravelling of the federal budget and the tinkering around the edges that have been the unpleasant changes to Youth Allowance, the lifting of the retirement age and a few other subtleties that have proven to be about as popular as a cockroach in the kitchen.
Like most central Victorians, I have watched with more than a tinge of longing for some of the torrent of rain that has drenched northern New South Wales this week to come our way, but to no avail.
I went to school at Lismore more than a quarter of a century ago, and still recall the regular coffee-coloured floods that swept through the valleys after incredible amounts of rainfall, flooding homes, shops and streets in an awesome display of the power of Mother Nature. The Lismore region has had more than 1000mm of rain so far this year. Beautiful Bendigo has had just 53mm, proving the great Australian landscape is indeed a land of powerful contrasts as well as immense beauty.
But what we lack in rainfall we make up for in the wonderful sense of community and the beautiful blue skies that allow us to do so much in the great outdoors, as long as it does not involve a lake or dam. And now that I am well on the path to recovery from the flu, I must commit myself to doing more around the home, when I am there, and to return all those overdue library books about Lance Armstrong, which helped pass the time earlier this week.
Email a friend