Leafy - but wet

During the week I went to Eltham and visited Susie and her family.

the old Midland Hotel, oposite the railway station

  I left Castlemaine in brilliant sunshine,

Castlemaine Railway station

but on Wednesday it rained,

 and rained,

 and rained some more.
 
Susie is heaps better, but still not allowed to drive, so we stayed inside, and talked, swapped recipes, and played Scrabble. She beat me, too!

 I took the opportunity to take a photo of this quilt, a bit blurry, but you get the idea...

 and couldn't resist this. Susie is well known for her love of purple, and people give her stuff...

One of the recipes we talked about was Savoury Chops, a Good Thing to make when nights are cold...

Savoury chops
brown 6-8 barbecue lamb chops in a little oil, add a finely sliced onion, then pour over the following mixture, mixed in this order -
1tsp salt, 1 tsp dry mustard, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 cup tomato sauce, 1/2 cup water.
Simmer until chops are tender, and serve with mashed potato and a green vegetable.

You'll find Worcestershire sauce in the supermarket near the tomato and barbecue sauces. It keeps for years.

A happy ending

It's been nearly two months since I posted here, and now that we have our happy ending, I'd like to tell you what happened.

On Valentine's day, my youngest daughter Susie developed a life-threatening illness. She had been sick over the previous weekend, with what she assumed was the flu, and on the Monday was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, with heart failure.

On Tuesday (Valentine's Day) her condition worsened, and her heart stopped beating.

She was quickly resuscitated, but later that evening it happened again. She was then placed on life support, and moved by special ambulance to the Alfred Hospital ICU (considered the best in Australia for heart problems.) At the Alfred she was placed into an induced coma, and was connected to an array of life-saving machines.

A heart biopsy showed that she had  lymphocytic myocarditis ( a severe heart infection). She was given large doses of steroids, and we waited to see if she would recover.

Nobody knew if the cardiac arrests had caused damage to her brain and other organs, though her family were pretty sure she was still "in there". We held her hand, and we talked to her.

After about five days, there were some signs of improvement, and in a few more days she was allowed to wake up - a bit - and she clearly knew us, and could wiggle her toes! Finally her heart and breathing improved enough to remove her from life support, and she was transferred to a cardiac ward.

She spent another two weeks in hospital. There is some damage to her heart, and she has had a defibrillator implanted. No apparent damage to her kidneys or other organs. She is still a bit weak - she lost a lot of weight, and will take a while to recover muscle tone. She now has to take a lot of pills, some of them permanently, but the doctors expect she will be able to live a normal life.

Susie's home with her family now, getting better every day, and looking forward to doing normal things, like driving her kids to school, and going shopping. She hopes to go back to work eventually, at least part-time.

Now that's obviously just the short version of what happened, and doesn't really convey the awfulness of those weeks, and the impact on those who love Susie. Her husband, Edi, was wonderful - he spent most waking hours (and quite a few when he should have been sleeping) at the hospital. The rest of the family - parents, three sisters, and several good friends - took turns to visit the hospital, and did our best to support Edi and their three daughters.

I read a lot of trashy novels in those first couple of weeks, to take my mind off the situation - Georgette Heyer, Nora Roberts, and so on. Then, when Susie was out of ICU, I came home and made her a quilt, with a lot of help and encouragement from a couple of quilting friends.

Events like this have a huge impact, more than you realise when you're running on adrenalin and doing your best to get through it all. Even writing this post has taken a long time, and I'll be glad to put it all behind me.

In the last couple of weeks, I've turned to my favourite form of therapy - embroidery. So don't expect any posts about family history for a while; I'm going to show you what I've been making instead...

Learning to drive

At the ripe old age of 21, the Resident Grandson has finally decided to get a driver's licence. He already knew the basics - he used to have a "paddock bomb". What he needs is on-road experience. Although at 21, he doesn't have to prove he's done 120 hours of supervised driving, it's still a great idea, and we take every opportunity. Most days, I've been meeeting him after work, and we get in half an hour or so, mainly just around the town. As he gains confidence, we've been going a bit further afield, and a lesson with a Driving Instructor the other day taught him a lot - he plans to have more lessons with her.
Last weekend, he went to Melbourne with his Mum, and drove all the way there, then home again - at night this time. He was very pleased with himself!
But there's a good few weeks to go before he'll be ready to take the test.

Things were much less complicated when my mother got her driving licence. She simply drove up to the police station, where the copper remarked that he's been expecting her, as he'd seen her driving around, and duly issued the licence. This was in Minyip, in 1926. She was just 18.

Oddly, she never owned a car herself until after Dad died, when she traded in the big Ford sedan for a Mini Minor.

 As far as I know she only had one accident in all her years of driving - one frosty morning, the Mini skidded on a patch of ice, and slid into a deep culvert. Mum was unhurt, though shaken, but the Mini needed repairs. Mum swore that was it - she'd never drive again; but I'm afraid I tricked her. When the Mini was fixed again, I suggested we go to the garage and inspect it. Once we got there, and she was happy with the repairs, I told her she'd have to drive herself home, and left her to it. Looking back, it was a bit cruel, but she did indeed drive for a good few years after that, keeping her independence, so I suppose it was justified.
She finally sold her car when she turned 80, as she was getting deaf, and no longer felt confident driving.

She used to tell some funny stories about driving in the early days. On one occasion some of the family were travelling from Minyip to Ballarat. A few miles out of Beaufort, they got a puncture. Having already used the spare earlier in the trip (it's about 200 km from Miyip to Ballarat) they had a problem.
In those days, care tyres had a rubber inner tube, much as bicycles still do today. If the tube was punctured, it had to be repaired by vulcanizing a new patch on - a process requiring heat and a special kit; not feasible on the side of the road.
But they were resourceful in those days - some items of underclothing were requisitioned from the ladies in the party, rolled up tightly, and stuffed into the tyre. Then they continued on their bumpy way to Beaufort, where a new inner tube was installed. One hopes that when they finally got to Ballarat, the ladies were able to replace their petticoats!

OUCH!

In the bathroom this morning , I stubbed my big toe, and peeled the entire nail (almost) off. Ooer!

Responding to my cries of anguish, The Resident Grandson arrived with tissues. Surveying the spreading pool of blood, he expressed dismay and concern, but on being assured that it probably wasn't life-threatening, said "I have to go to work now" and fled.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed the nail down again, and mopped up, applying a couple of band-aids to hold the whole sorry mess together. I'm not naturally squeamish, thank goodness.
And it was the stuff of farce, really!

My daughter kindly drove me to the doctor's surgery, where it turned out I'd done the right thing. The nail should remain in place to protect the toe until it heals. Disinfected and bandaged (and sore) I returned home.

From this -

to this!

Deciding to take advantage of my disabled state, (did I mention it's SORE?) I've spent the rest of the day sorting out my family history files.





I feel much better now. And the Resident Grandson is cooking tonight!