Bring out your dead!

Our house is full of sick people.  Karl and Mum both suddenly, and unexpectedly, came down with what I think is the flu.  Karl was acting like a bag of broken arseholes at work yesterday (which isn't that unusual but I read the subtleties) so I knew he was stricken by some class of lurgie.  When we arrived home last night we discovered Mum asleep on the couch.  She too had been struck down by a bug of some sort.  Its the first week of school holidays so Jesse is at home and he has a friend staying for a couple of days.  That's a good thing, except when the person (Mum) who had planned to take care of them is suffering from the flu.  This morning Karl and Mum were both much worse but I tottled off to work anyway, then came home after lunch with the intention of taking the kids out to do something so that Mum and Karl could get a little peace and some uninterupted sleep.  That plan turned to custard because the snow decided today was a good day to come - too cold you see to start dragging the boys all over the city.  We did baking and made soothing (yet disgusting) lemon drink for the casualties.  This afternoon I was so concerned about them (especially Mum) that I telephoned the doctor's surgery.  The doctor diagnosed (over the phone) among other things sinusitis for Karl and faxed a prescription of anti-biotics to the pharmacy and ordered paracetomol to bring down the fever and as much water as he could drink but at the least 1 teaspoon every 15 minutes.  One teaspoon!  Is that really enough to sustain life?  Possibly if you are a cactus.  Although Karl can be a bit -- prickly -- when he's under the weather.  The paracetomol and water order was for both of them.  The doctor wants to see Mum at 10.45 tomorrow morning so I think she'll probably get a handful of medication prescribed to her (hopefully some anti-biotics at least).

I was to be going to Christchurch tomorrow to attend a manager's meeting, but in light of the home situation have cancelled my flight.  Jesse is going to stay at the home of the friend he has staying here tomorrow, and he'll stay for a couple of days I think - or at least as long as the parents can cope with having him there.  They have been good together actually, pretty much moving in a constant circle between the Playstation, the TV and the PC.  They would have been playing outside were it not for the bleak weather conditions.  Actually speaking of the cold, we've just installed a heat transfer duct that moves unused heat from the lounge to the three bedrooms.  The lounge is heated by an excellent wood fire but the bedrooms remained cold.  Its been operational for the past week and didn't seem to be doing much, until tonight.  I've just worked out how to use it properly.  It helps to have the bedroom vents open!  They were open but only a little bit, and because of that, forced the air into the rooms at a great rate of knots.  Because of the speed the air cooled down.  By opening the vents up more the heated air enters the room a little slower but remains hot and now all the bedrooms are almost as warm as the lounge.  The only difference between the two is that in the lounge you also get radiant heat from the flames.  Great invention and well worth the $700 we spent on it.

The boys are sitting up in bed watching Oceans 12 we booked on Pay TV, Mum is asleep on the sick bed I made up on the lounge room floor, and Karl has tottled off to bed.  As soon as I post this I think I'll too head off to bed because as soon as I've taken Mum to the doctor, dropped Jesse and his friend off at the friends house, I'll be going back to work, hopefully to catch the last part of my Christchurch meeting by teleconference.

Till next time, Vance.