JANUARY - Saw us all sick here in Rurutu, with the dreaded chikunguniya (if only spelling it were the worst thing about it). Even my poor old dad, who was here on holiday, went down with it. This mosquito-born disease spread across Tahiti over the Christmas holidays, arriving in Rurutu after the New Year, it literally paralyzes you with joint pain and high fever for a short while, and leaves you with arthritic pains for weeks afterwards. Fortunately, we're all finally recovered from that.
FEBRUARY - We did our usual Tahiti hop for the salon du tourisme, leaving the grandparents with the girls in Rurutu, quite a handful for them. We took the little one, who was quite a handful for us too! And even made a quick dash over to Moorea on the ferry, to find our little hut in Pihaena under 2m of brush!!!!!
MARCH - Had its ups and downs, with a heap of guests, but Viriamu wrote off our old rusty blue Mitsubishi at the end of the month - fortunately no-one was badly hurt! And maybe it was a blessing in disguise, as we have now replaced it with a rather flashy, used Toyota Hilux, the kids approve!APRIL - The guests continued, as did our problems, poor Viriamu was struck down with kidney-stones, extremely painful, but fortunately not life-threatening. He was sent to Tahiti for treatment, leaving me holding the fort! Trying times....
MAY - Saw us homebodies. My passport expired, so I had to get it renewed and sent courrier to Rurutu. But it meant I missed another family trip, following the traces of Viriamu's ancestors in NZ.
JUNE - Saw more problems, this time it was my laptop that exploded, taking with it a fair few documents and the most recent version of our guesthouse calendar, yikes. Fortunately Viriamu was in Tahiti for a first aid course and able to save the day with a new computer, but reconstructing the calendar was a bit of a business, resulting in unannounced guests showing up at the airport - what's next! The summer holidays that's what...
JULY - Heiva was here, and what fun. The cold weather was really here along with lots of anglophone guests - it was really fun sharing our célébrations with everyone, july is getting to be one of my favourite months. Heimana turned six, our horse association put on a show for the opening ceremony, and our village won the dance competition, hurrah for july.
AUGUST - La rentrée, and everyone is happy to be back. Amaiterai has started STP (the very small childrens class!), he's already two and a half so totally ready for it - but some of his younger classmates were a little less convinced. There was still bawling to be heard 3 weeks into the new term. Me, for one, I am just high on my 'new-found' freedom. It's so nice to have some quiet time at home, aaaah, bliss! I'm ready to appreciate them even more by 4 o'clock.
SEPTEMBER - Viriamu and I headed to Tahiti for the september salon en amoureux, that is without the kids, what a luxury break! I also had a couple of extra days in Tahiti to see the optician, because, yep, I need glasses, and boy does the world look clearer with them on. Oh well, we don't get younger do we! Here I am eating lasagne at an italian resto in Papeete, a rare luxury in Rurutu, and the girls favourite dish (maybe second only to pizza).
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