Well, the horror of a week was just that, but for a completely different reason than that which we first thought. A reprieve of a day at camp was a sweet bonus, but the milk of euphoria soon soured as Cass became more and more unwell as Monday night wore on and Tuesday threatened. In the morning, despite her worsening condition, we dragged all her gear onto the scooter and got her into school. Mercifully however, shortly after seeing her pallid complexion and unusual lethargy, the camp director, recognising she was very ill, sent her back home. Luckily my classes hadn't started yet, so I was able to usher her home and get her packed off to bed without delay.
Cassy's reputation as a stoic worker meant there wasn't a hint of a problem in this decision, and her subsequent decisions to stay home for the next four days. There was the possibility that she could take the train up to Fulong if her condiition improved: it didn't and she stayed put at home, barely puttering around the place in her weakened condition. She was diagnosed by the doctor as having a severe attack of bronchitis when she eventually made it over there and he gave her various medications for same. This meant, of course, that I was spared the daily chore of getting some food for myself as well as ministrating to the needs of Virg n Mary and I was grateful for this as well as having the company during the week!
The big social day of the year, the AFL grand final didn't go off without a hitch or two. The evening before, Australia Network was cut off air 24 hours prior to its advertised cutoff: seems that the feed into Taiwan was cut from the Australian end. After some panicked emails, texts and calls between a few of us, the owner down at Patio 84 managed to get the stream through a satellite dish and even subscribed to the AFL.com feed as a back-up.....legend! Subsequently, the game went off without a hiccough all afternoon.
The half-time entertainment is always when I issue the prizes for the annual tipping comp. This year I was able to present myself with first place after holding off a hard-charging crew of four near the end of the season. It was greeted with much hilarity and calls of "Rigged!" but I calmed the crowd when I, as has become traditional, put half the prize-money behind the bar for continued imbibing through the afternoon for all! Of course, as is also tradition, we massively overstayed our welcome well into the night, which meant that my scooter needed to be picked up the next day.
I Youbiked from Lanxing Park across to the Youbike station at the P.E. College whereupon I was able to just stroll round the corner to where I had left the motor-bike. I went back to pick up Cassy on the scooter and we went down to the Sogo to source some late lunch as well as pick up some "Fit Flops" for her to use to walk to school. Her regimen of wearing her fancy French and Italian heels to school might be drawing to a close, as she has struggled of late with a quite swollen ball of one foot. I'm not surprised, as I even get sore feet from our 15 minute each way "commute" on occasions, especially in this feet-swelling Taiwanese swelter.
The Fit Flop purchase was successful but we baulked at the 35 minute wait to get into Din Tai Fung before deciding to patronize the very tasty "Very Thai" restaurant on the 8th floor. After a delicious meal of green and red curries we strolled around Uniqlo for a while. I spotted some bargain bins and managed to score a premium linen black long-sleeved shirt for just $190NT (about $7 Australian)....crazy!
I'm delighted to report that my darling slowly recovers, back at school today, but we scootered up just to save the walk. She went back to the doctor at lunchtime and he seems reasonably satisfied with her progress. Photos: a spectacular view of Taiwan from the ISS, Confucius Day breakfast at school being serenaded and fed by the kids, those bananas up the road get ever weirder, Fit Flops and the famous "Paul" now has a tiny branch at our local Sogo!