August 2023

There is not much to show for this month’s photo diary. The worst stomach bug I have ever endured tore through our family at the beginning of the month. It hit me first. I lay in bed for two days straight thinking to myself, ‘If I can just get through these first couple of days the worst of it will be over’. Four days in, no improvement. A week in and I was able to eat small bits of dry toast. And just when I was feeling almost human-ish again, Fox started complaining that he ‘didn’t feel well’. However, I took his proclamation with a grain of salt as it was Sunday evening and if you’ve ever had a child that detests school as much as mine, you’ll be familiar with this routine. I humored him by getting a big bowl from the kitchen and putting him to bed next to me. Not half an hour later he groaned, bolted upright and then proceeded to violently expel the contents of his stomach in a scene not too dissimilar to that one in The Exorcist. And did he aim for the bowl I had carefully placed next to him? No, no he didn’t. As a hardcore emetophobe this was about my breaking point, I promptly fled this site of horror so that his father could mop the floor and the walls (yes, the walls!). And so it went, one by one we fell like flies.

The second half of August, however, was a vast improvement on the first.The days slowly shifted as the distinct ambiance of Spring began to permeate the air. I plucked jasmine and wildflowers from the garden and opened up the windows to let in the sweet, warm air. I was even inspired to do some sporadic, low-key Spring cleaning (Note: as far a cleaning goes, ‘low-key’ is my absolute maximum setting). To top it off Lucy, our four month old labradoodle, started to show signs of improvement with her toilet training. It’s fair to say that August taught me to really have faith in the old adage, ‘this too shall pass’. But it also taught me that cleaning up sloppy, smelly dog poop whilst in the depths of a stomach virus is possibly one of the worst forms of torture imaginable.