Walkers of Upwey: 2008

Owen turned 4 on the 13th of May, my 36th birthday was last week and Patrick turns 10 this weekend. But here's my story.

Karen asked me a couple of months ago what I would like for my birthday. For once, I had an answer. I wanted to go bowling for the weekend! And it just so happened that there was a tournament on in Albury on the weekend leading up to my birthday.

It was a triples tournament so I wrangled Damien Jones and Steve Peisley into forming a team and sent off the entry form and organised accommodation in Albury. I was stoked - couldn't wait. With every week that went by I was getting more and more excited.

Anyway, on the Friday afternoon I picked up Damien and then we headed off to Steve's place to pick him up before trekking up the Hume to Albury. Woo-hoo!

I kept Karen abreast of the progress and called her again once we were in transit.

The one weekend I went away bowling with a couple of mates EVER and what should happen? Well, here goes.

Friday evening, Angus announces he is not feeling well and goes to bed early. This suits Karen as she can also put Owen to bed early. Karen and Patrick stay up watching the footy.

Fast forward a couple of hours and Angus isn't feeling any better. In fact he feels so bad he decides to eject his dinner and lunch all over his bedroom floor. This made his quite upset and gave Karen a job of work to do. Angus is out in the shower and upon exiting, he barf's again. Karen re-makes his bed, dresses him and puts him to bed with a bucket beside his bed. Owen slept through all this mania! Patrick wouldn't sleep in the room because of a curious (barf) odour. He slept with Karen.

Meanwhile, I'm in Albury eating take away pizza, having a couple of beers and kicking back. I was hoping upon hope that that would be the last drama for the weekend. Did I mention that I had taken the family car to Albury and left Karen and the kids without a car? Well I did!

Cue Saturday morning. I called Karen to find out that Angus had woken up and was feeling much better than the previous evening. Owen was now on the decline with his asthma! Damn. The one weekend I go away and hell breaks loose. Karen continues treating Owen's asthma with Ventolin and Tilade as per his treatment plan.

Meanwhile in Albury, the rain delayed the start to the day and our first 2 games were reduced from 12 to 10 ends each. And we only ended playing 3 of the 4 scheduled games. We won 2 of our 3 games on Saturday, and with an early finish to the days proceedings we had a couple of cleansing ales.

Back in Upwey Patrick had played in his first soccer victory for the year, Angus was feeling better and Owen was beginning to show some slight signs of improvement. Friends lent us a car in case Karen had to rush to hospital at short notice. Owen was taking Ventolin onboard like a champion!

At the Boomerang Motel in Albury, Steve suggested we get some dessert (lemon tart) from the motel restaurant to compliment the take away pizza we had consumed. Damien and I laughed, but went to the restaurant just to humour him. Lo and behold - there was three serves of lemon meringue pie left! Not lemon tart, but lemon nonetheless. Damien and I were now laughing on the other side of our faces while we snuck the dessert out of the restaurant and back to our room.

Things were going slowly downhill in Upwey. Owen was taking Ventolin at 1/2 hourly intervals and Karen was not getting much sleep. At about 7am on Sunday morning, Karen called Carla to organise for the big boys to minded and then called an ambulance to transport Owen, Lily and herself to the Angliss as Owen's asthma had deteriorated overnight.

Back in Albury, I'm waking up to face another day on the green and see if we can win 3 from 3 on Sunday to figure in the money! I called home to see how things went overnight as the last I had heard was the Owen's asthma was settling down. What a shock when I found out they were in hospital! 350km away and what have I done?

So, we won our final 3 games to finish with 5 wins and 1 loss. This put us 20th out of 116 and we finished up with $50ea. Prize money went down to 40th place, so we did pretty well. We had a ball and we'll be heading back again.

Anyway, as soon as the presentations were over we hit the road back to Melbourne. I dropped Steve off first, followed by Damien and then went home to put the baby seat back in so Karen could take Lily home. I relieved Karen at the hospital at about 10pm on Sunday night and Owen was sound asleep. Karen picked up Patrick and Angus from Carla's (meanwhile Patrick and Cody had spent some time at Carolyn's place during the day to share the load) and headed home for a "restful evening".

I awoke on Monday in hospital and Owen was rearing to go. Hang on! Today is my birthday! What a weekend.

Owen was discharged later on Monday with a new treatment regime and appearing much better than when he presented.

The boys woke up and were also feeling decidedly second hand after such a long Sunday, They didn't make it to school either. Karen, Patrick, Angus and Lily came and picked up Owen and me from the hospital and we had a lovely birthday lunch at Zagame's. Phew! I made it to 36!

How could I have possibly guessed what an eventful weekend would be had at home on the one weekend I go away? Karen did a truly remarkable job to keep everything together and the help from Carla and Carolyn was much appreciated too. And to Damien and Steve - next year we'll go better than 20th!

We headed up the Hume on the Thursday evening that school wrapped up for Term 1 in Victoria. We stayed the night in Wagga Wagga before arriving in Sydney on Good Friday. It was an action packed visit.

We caught up with family, went to the Easter Show (Lily included), had Lily christened, had a party to mark the occasion of Viv and Brian becoming Australian citizens (finally) and I even got to go bowling twice!

Lily caught up with her new cousin, Tarnie