Well, the Historian's family all came for early Christmas lunch on the weekend and things have been mega-hectic leading up to that! The good news is that our outdoor deck has been well and truly stress tested with 24 adults sitting on it and not a creak!
While the lunch was in full swing I got the news that my brother had been bitten by a Dugite!
He's just fine, thank goodness, and we're all extremely glad. He spent the night in hospital under constant observation but it appears that he was extraordinarily lucky and didn't get enough venom in him to have any ill effects. In fact, I suspect the 30 minute observations and lying on a skinny, hard emergency bed all night had a worse affect on him, poor thing.
There is however a sort of amusing side to this (now that it's all OK of course).
Australia has a bit of a reputation internationally as a dangerous place where deadly creatures abound. It's true that there are deadly spiders, highly venomous snakes and jellyfish, crocodiles and sharks but in reality the risk of encountering these things is extremely rare, unless you're a drunk trying to ride a crocodile (idiot!).
We have recently had my cousin and his friend living with my parents (Hej Jonas and Tomas) and they were very concerned about this reputation. We allayed their fears with the fact that we know no-one that has been bitten by any of these creatures. In fact, even the people we know and the people they know and the people they know (and so on), know no-one that has had a run in with dangerous Australian wildlife.
Now this happens to someone so close to us . . . while they have now returned to Sweden, they can now say with conviction that they were living in the constant real threat of DEATH from creepy crawly while here!
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I'll post our Christmas decorations and such in a little while. In the meantime check out this Moomin gingerbread house! I am DEFINITELY making this for next Christmas.
Holy crap! That totally freaks me out! I have a bit of a snake phobia, though. I'm glad he's okay. At least he's got an awesome story to tell people.
ReplyDeleteI'm still wondering where on earth he was when he encountered it. The school at which I had my encounter was sufficiently out of the way in 'the sticks' but he doesn't live that far away!
ReplyDeleteSo glad he's okay, but yikes! Have to say, I'm glad I live where there aren't many dangerous creepy-crawlies. Instead I have things like ice storms and blizzard with which to contend.
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