Going With The "Flu", I Mean "Flow"

Sunny yellow flowers in a wet July Sydney - I wonder if my aunt can remember her garden

My breath is noisy and my breathing is heavy.  A dry, deep cough erupts from time to time and I need extra breaths to recover from the coughing.  OMG.  Just ten days away. How on earth am I going to recover in ten days.  I've done nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Issy comes  home from Melbourne tomorrow night.  So really, only eight days until we leave for Europe.  I feel so unprepared. Heck. I am unprepared.

My time in Sydney was awful.  Their wettest July period for more than sixty years and there I was.  Driving around from nursing home to hospital to shop to library and  back again.  Not sure where I caught this awful bug, but it sure latched onto me.  I can't remember the last time I had such a bad case of the flu.  Worse still  - I passed it onto a VERY busy Hubby and an only just returned to university boy.  I was not the most popular person about - that's for sure.  Still, I didn't have to face them very much as three days straight in bed helped me to avoid their own battle with this damn flu.

Two Days Later:   I hadn't quite finished the above paragraph, when I received a phone call from my son.  He decided to drive to his old school, a river nearby, and collect some river weeds for the fish in our pond.  Unfortunately his 'old' car didn't seem to like the fuel he had just put in and it literally coughed it's way to a standstill on a very busy road.  Another OMG.  With only me at home, off I went with a large jerry can and smaller jerry can, tubes and a funnel.  We ended up having to drive to a local shopping centre to look for a siphon and another funnel.  No good. Off to the motor store.  Found something.  Back to the hospital carpark and then walk to the bridge where the car had died.  It took hours.  And after finally getting all the fuel out and  refilling with a premium fuel, she still wouldn't start.  With my 'flu' weakness beginning to set in,  I couldn't stand this any longer; so I dragged a reluctant Mitch home.  A phone call to Hubby and an hour later the trusty four wheel drive went down to tow back the boy's car.  In the dark.  Home and safe again.

So now Larissa is home.  The weekend flew.  A little too busy.  Not the best outcome for my condition - should of rested more.  The countdown is on now.  We talked last night and my plan of how we would do this trip went out the window.  Flights from Venice to Dubrovnik were ridiculously expensive.  So the plans have changed.  Issy found flights to Dubrovnik from Milan much more reasonable.  So we'll do that.  Stay in and around Milan for three days and then fly to Dubrovnik.  Bus our way down to Montenegro like I did that time with Mitch.  It was sooo stunning - can't wait to see the girls faces when we get to the Bay of Kotor.   Meet our rels and stay in Montenegro for about three weeks.

Then I thought instead of bussing our way back up to Dubrovnik, I will check out the bus options to Sarajevo in Bosnia and do that instead.  I've heard it's a beautiful part of the world, very hilly and forested, so that may be the way to go.  After that train or bus to Dubrovnik and start the trip up the Adriatic Coast.  Split will be a major stopover.  A day or two there and then some island hopping and ferrying and scooting about will definitely be called for.  I'm excited for the girls with this leg of the trip.

On to Zadar for a day and then perhaps another stop before Pula; not sure where though.  In Pula for a couple of days, maybe a trip to Bruny Island.  Visits to Rovinj (can't wait - I just love Rovinj) and then the beautiful Porec from where we shall catch a ferry and make our way across the Adriatic to Venice.  Spend however long there before I bid the girls farewell.  Back to Milan for me to catch a plane home - six weeks should be up by now.  The girls will bus onto Slovenia together, and there is talk of trips to Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Warsaw.  That will be their's to work out.

Issy only has another month after me; she should be back late October.  And Nicole.  She will turn twenty one in September, so the three of us will do something special that day!  She is due to return home late November so we will see if that happens.  Her travelling has been so successful to date that if it continues and she still has some dough left, she may extend her stay and be back at Christmas.  Who knows! She has certainly turned into a world beater and she is doing it very well.  You are brave Nicka - I could never have travelled alone like that at your age.  Heck.  I hate travelling alone now!

So there's the plan.  Now off to begin some very overdue preparations.  Cross finger's for me.  I so desperately want to fully recover from this cold.  One week to go.  A summer/autumn Europe.  Sounds good.

Rovinj - can't wait!