Better

Friday:

I slept in this morning and feel a bit more normal today, thank goodness. I didn't do much, just grocery shopping in the morning. One strange thing was that I was physically bumped into by three different people - it was definitely them doing the bumping, not me - and that is unusual because Australians are considered to have very large personal space areas compared to most other cultures, we stay far enough apart that accidental touch is quite unusual. The supermarket wasn't particularly crowded. But three people bumped into the back of me at different times. Was I invisible today? Or is my butt now so big people can't get past it easily?

Jasmine went off to yet another sleepover. I allowed it because it is still school holidays (back to school on Monday) but I'm not really happy that she gets little sleep and eats a lot of junk food. She certainly enjoys them. They don't seem to have any playdates that aren't sleepovers these days! On the other hand, I am happy that after eight months here she has really settled in and made new friends, and she is doing better at school than ever before. Aiden has friends he plays with at school but has never had anyone over or been asked to a birthday party yet, and his recent report card was pretty average. He seems happy, but maybe he isn't as fully settled yet.

Speaking of making new friends, the library doesn't seem to have put aside this month's book club book for me. I only went to one meeting then missed two, but I had intended to go along again. I guess they've given up on me. I'll try to get a hold of the book anyway (Go Set A Watchman) and go along, I'm sure they'd be fine for me to turn up again.

We've talked of getting a swimming pool for a while, I had one contractor come out ages ago but Tim insisted on getting three quotes and the companies I contacted didn't build in this area or there was some other issue. So this week, with Tim home, I put it into his hands. One guy came yesterday and another is visiting tomorrow. They look at the site (solid rock) and the access (too narrow) then sit us down for an hour and talk about how expensive and difficult it will be! But possible. So they tell us about how their product (concrete vs fibreglass, chlorine vs salt vs mineral etc) is so much better than the others and worth the extra money. We can afford to get a pool, but whether we can get our tropical resort dream pool is another matter! An above-ground pool would be much cheaper but isn't really an option because our backyard slopes steeply up - if we perched a pool up there without digging we'd end up looking down over fences into our neighbours' back yards. Getting council approval can take ages so we need to get onto it now if we want a pool for this summer.