Dr Mum

We've just gotten back from down south, where we did some snow kiting and skiing, and took part in Becca and Dale's fabulous wedding. It was absolutely perfect and they were both so beautiful, although dale was more on the handsome side of beautiful. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to New Zealand, and gave us an opportunity to drop some boxes of stuff off with Garth's parents for safekeeping. Mostly books that we just couldn't say goodbye to. It's annoying that we had to dump our stuff on them, but nice that we both have the same weakness for a good book.

While we were down there, Dr. Garth's mum sorted out all our first aid needs. Christine went through the giant list of first aid equipment and filled 2 huge boxes with very neatly labelled emergency supplies, all packaged in tidy waterproof bags and sorted according to what they're for. She even colour coded it all and wrote directions on a lot of stuff so we don't have to think when we're panicking about dying. I can't even explain how organized and perfect it all is, and considering how much it all would have cost I can say with certainty that we would be a lot less prepared if we had done it ourselves.

She also sat us down with her lovely nurse Jacquie, who showed us how to break open and administer adrenaline, and how to give people shots. We got married on Jacquie's magnificent property, so it was kind of sweet that she helped us get married and then showed us how to keep each other from dying.

Christine also organized for us to have a million vaccines over 2 days, which saved us a lot of money and should have left us pretty protected against whatever the world wants to throw at us. Although I do feel like a pin cushion - on one day I had 1 in each arm and 1 in each leg.

Dr mum also sat us down with a suturing kit and a blanket and showed us how to do stitches, so we practiced that until she was confident that we could awkwardly stitch each other up. Which is probably the skill we're most likely to need from jumping on sharp coral or for when Garth decides to run around like a mad bull slicing himself up left right and centre. Christine even let us jab her in the leg with empty seringes to see what it was like to stab somebody with a needle. That was freaky. I think it's fair to say I would have been a bad doctor, but at least now we should have enough first aid knowledge to get by.





So now we've got 1 week to get the boat ready and clean out our apartment. I'm not sure how we'll get it all together in time, and I suspect I'll need to enlist the help of quite a few friends.

xxx Monique