The Long and Winding Sippy Bip of Life

On the weekend I went for a long run on the beach. Not sure if I was running towards, or away from myself ... but either way it felt good. Winter pretended it was gone for a while, but it's back again now, to give us one long icy blast as it says goodbye.

Then spring will come. I notice seasons more and more every year .... it's amazing how all the green buds have been hiding in the bare sticks all along! Trickers! Can't believe that I'm 37 and only just realised this for the first time.

Also on the weekend, Dave and I fought like a pair of wild alley cats. It was mainly my fault .... poor Dave. Two days of stupid, pointless arguing around the same old circles. I wondered how other people fight. Surely not as messy as us? A lady walked past me in the shopping centre mid-fight with her husband, and I just felt so much better. We are not the only ones fucked up, I thought.

We each spiralled and fell down, separately. We were at his mums, where it's very difficult to ever have a good time anyway .. but on the last day, she confided in me about something so big and scary for her that I was humbled and ashamed of myself. Told her we may have had our differences over the years but I was there if she ever needed.

Dave having a quiet lie down at Nana's -

I forced Dave to come with me to the movies, we NEVER get the chance together anymore. I knew it would shake us out of our reality and it did - Inglourious Basterds was dark, violent, and twisted. Exactly like Dave and I. We fucking loved it, got back in at 12.30am and made sexy love time.

We drove home and I made a baked dinner to welcome my brother back from overseas. Tim's friend stayed over too ... six guys and me, sitting together around the dinner table. I wondered why I was the only girl in this house, and what that teaches me. Tim and Max were arguing over who had done a fart. "You done that fart" ... "No, YOU done that fart!!" I said, "GUYS!" And they both waited to get into trouble. "It's who DID that fart, not done."

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In the paper yesterday I read that half of people who get diagnosed with cancer are dead within five years. It freaked me out ... especially since Dave had to see his oncologist today. He got a blood test, had a chat. We've been concerned ("concerned" meaning TERRIFIED) about his recent bouts of reflux and indigestion. I was thinking it could be all of his tumours back again, badder than before ... the doctor advised Dave to stop drinking coffee for a while, which really makes sense, considering he drinks four double-shots a day. FOUR.

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I went to Max's reading circle at his school yesterday, for Book Week. I bought him a brand new Enchanted Woods book, which was my all-time favourite series as a kid. Max was happy, but pulls out his Simpsons comic. "Ummm, can we actually read this, mum?" We lay together on the pebblecrete, sharing a cushion, holding the magazine up to block the sun from our eyes. The other children were reading Roald Dahl, Green Eggs and Ham, and Mr Men books to their parents.

I lay there with my son and we both pissed ourselves laughing at Monty Burns bossing Smithers around.

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Last Sunday, Dave stood at the local fair, watching Max slide down the huge slide. Max loves slippery dips, one of his first words was "sippy bip." He kept saying "Come on, dad! COME ON!" But he didn't feel like it and kept saying no. I walked over and bought them both a ticket, saying well, you have to go now. He took his morose butt over, grabbed a sack, wearily climbed the stairs. They went whooshing down together.

Dave came over to me munching my corn on a stick, waiting by the pram, Rocco asleep and the strains of "I was working as a waitress in a cocktail ba-ar .. when I met you."

Dave had a half-smile, we were still re-connecting. I said, "See? You just needed a big slide. All better now?"

As if one slide could take away all the pain and fear of last year and all the damage it caused. I looked him in the eyes, the same crinkly, wonderful eyes I've been looking in for the past ten years.

And we laughed and laughed.