Over the last couple of weeks Carolyn's Dad, Alan, has had some serious health problems which resulted in him having a hip replacement this week. As you know, Mary, his partner for 60 plus years died in February leaving him lonely and alone. Without Mary beside him to help and support him it is an increasingly difficult and frustrating position he finds himself in.
So, at my urging and her own inclination, Carolyn has left for Perth today and flies to Melbourne tomorrow to go and be with him. Hopefully her presence will encourage and revitalise him and help him to recover his strength. We don't know what the future will look like so at this stage she's gone on a one way ticket and will play it by ear as to how long she stays. Her brothers Charles Trevor and Ray are all doing there part in caring for their Dad as well and I know it is a great comfort to Carolyn to be close to her brothers during this difficult period.
That leaves me holding the fort in Busso with the able assistance of Lieutenant Favourite Daughter and Corporal Spike to manage day to day affairs and the supervision of Private Sport Boy!
I drove my first coach service to Augusta and back yesterday and all went fairly well. The driving is the easy part, managing the paperwork and the timetable is the challenging part. I will end up doing Augusta runs on a weekend every few weeks probably. Organising my time in order to fit them around coaching Sport Boy's soccer team, taxi driving and possibly some football umpiring which I'm interested in taking up again. I used to umpire in Perth before we moved to Busso. A bloke from volleyball was talking to me about his umpiring last week and gave me the number of another bloke to ring about it. Hopefully I'll make it to a training run in Bunbury on Tuesday night and potentially could umpire my first game as early as next week!
Throw in rehearsals twice a week for the up-coming play with Spike, the regular school bus driving and preparing for Country Week at the end of June and life is getting busy.
In the past I would have been more than happy about that and thrived on the hectic activity but I find myslef not quite so excited about being busy all the time. They are all things I have some control over so if it proves too tiring or unpleasant I'll cut back andsimplify life again. The delicate balance of trying to earn a living to pay the bills and support the family and maintain a happy and healthy lifestyle with sufficient time to look after myself and my own well-being is the challenge. Obviously I'm not alone, everyone faces similar challenges, but I'm changing a bit and don't want to fall back into unhealthy patterns of behaviour, thinking or relationships.
Sports Update:
The Cats bounced back as expected this afternoon to thump the hapless Tigers and last night Spurs beat Bolton 1-0 to mainatain their hold on 4th position in the Premier League.
They have another crunch game on Wednesday night against their nearest rivals for the remaining European Champion's League place, Manchester City. It will be a very tense affair.
I had the pleasure of picking up Ian and Carolyn last night in the cab, they being the Hojos from my blogroll and fellow Busselton bloggers. It was the first time I'd seen Ian since Spurs' fantastic victory over Arsenal a couple of weeks ago and I took delight in recounting the game and the wonder goal to Ian who of course has the misfortune of being an Arsenal fan!
1 comment:
I did wonder how much longer it might be before we met you in a professional capacity. Always a pleasure to see you Marcus!
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