Dose of motherhood

Hi happy readers! Sorry I haven't blogged for a while but I have been deep in crisis mode (not again) & am only just recovering. Oh, I am such a drama queen. I have been getting a taste of motherhood & now I have much more empathy for parents. My god-daughter Alana flew up from Sydney last Sunday to visit me. However, pretty well as soon as she got here, she was laid low by a severe ear infection which caused her ALOT of pain and then alot of vomiting & misery once she got started on antibiotics. I was a bit beside myself with anxiety about her pain, her vomiting, her hydration status and now, even though she's back home, I'm worrying about her secondary deafness, which seems to be getting worse. She was unable to fly home but ended up hitching a very lucky lift back to Sydney with her cousins who happened to be at Byron Bay in their CAR. Even though it was a stressful, miserable time, Alana and I "enjoyed" our time together! Poor kid... I hope it can all be sorted out for her now very quickly.
On a brighter note, Steve & I spent last weekend at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat where we saw lots of fab birdlife! My favourite was the bright yellow Regent Bowerbird.

The flash of golden wings as they fly by was truly remarkable. The satin bowerbird was also around though we didn't find any bowers. We also saw a tawny frogmouth (owl) when we were on our evening glow worm tour and saw a lyrebird on Saturday, though it was not doing it's macho thing unfortunately. There were many beautiful King Parrots and Crimson Rosellas too. On Saturday Steve & I set off to do the Border Track, a 21km hike from Binna Burra back to O'Reillys's but, at the suggestion of one of the guides, we took a side track to Tooloona Creek, which gave us the chance to see gorgeous waterfalls and cross about seven creeks. It was a bit of a wild and woolly walk & there were a few trees down over the track. We were also on snake patrol, big time, because they like a bit of a sunbake at this time of year. However, the track was so rough that you couldn't take your eyes off it for too long. We ended up hiking about 25kms but it was well worth it! Note to hungry bloggers: for a delicious pie, stop at the Outpost Cafe at Canungra. Yummmmm......Okay, so the pie came before the 25km walk & I'm sure I've dumped any calories that were absorbed! Here is a picture of the tick I pulled out of my chest. As for my running - well, today I ran another 10km and did it 1hr 07secs! Am very pleased as I've shaved 11 secs off my previous time. However, I still haven't cracked that one hour thing & that's eating at me. Needless to say, my entire body aches now & I feel like an old lady. A happy old lady though! Celebrated by going to see Ratatouille at the movies. Oh, it was so great! Just the sort of movie I was in the mood for. I will never look at a rat the same way again - or indeed, a restaurant!