The manic pants-checker returns

Greetings! Bula vinaka ("welcome" and "thank you", the sum total of the Fijian I learned). Here is the sum total of the most memorable bits:

• We made it unscathed through a week of no tv, no music, just *gulp* our own company. And our singing.
• Possibly THE smoothest flight over that I've ever experienced. Aaaaah!
• Choking up when we took off in the helicopter because it was so breathtaking.... AWESOME!!! (If you ever get the chance to fly in one, take it - and that's coming from a white-knuckle flier, I swear).
• Steve heckling the nightly guitar duo, who played Fijian-style 'mood music', to play Devil Went Down To Georgia.
• A very, very comfortable room with a gorgeous private view.
• A meal plan is a good idea on an island with just the one resort and therefore kitchen/menu.... until morning sickness ruins any plans you had of picking anything off the menu except anything with potatoes in it. Full stop. Potatoes and that is IT. Even the ritual morning fresh fruit continental breakfast was beautiful one day, unbearable the next. Go figure. These crazy babies (did I ever tell you I've been put off fuji and pink lady apples seemingly for good ever since I craved them with my pregnancy last year? Can't even look at them now - for serious!).
• I got RSI from waving any eating utensil I had in my hand over my food to stave off the bugs (whom Steve said were very pleased with their meal plan too).
• Visiting the island where they filmed Cast Away with Tom Hanks (see the photo at right) and learning that the huge reef waves he has to get his raft over are actually not there - and that all the surrounding islands (there are about four quite nearby) were CGI'd out. How very clever!
• Realising the iPod in my head is in serious need of a cleanse. A week on an island with no other form of audient stimuli than Fijian gospel, on a cd that was on repeat like Chinese water torture in the main bure, makes you fall back on random songs that pop into your head. And for mine, I had "I Don't Like Mondays", "2,4,6,8 it's never too late...(pity that I couldn't remember any other words so was forced to just do the Tourrettes-like jerky leg movement while humming the rest of the tune), etc. etc.
• The noise from the insect night life is enough to awake the dead - the lizards, the goddamn lizards. Who knew they make a raucous clicking sound in the middle of the night? On the ceiling? In your room? Precious.
• A brilliant and memorable night of traditional dancing and singing by performers from the village on the island of Yanuca (where most of the gorgeous staff came from as well).
• Wondering how it is that all the women seem to be, erm, generous in size (hey, so am I so I can say it), while the men all bear the most perfect six-packs. Hot damn!
• Photographing amazing sunsets like there was no tomorrow.
• We were kept amused (in a snickering, belligerant school kid kind of way) by the earnest warning in the obligatory room welcome folder to "be vigilant" of falling coconuts - a not too silly request, given the alarming number of people who meet their demise in such a way each year....
• ...which led to the idea of writing a coffee table book of daily inspirations (along the lines of the Blue Day book) called "So You've Been Hit By A Coconut"...
• ...and escalated into Steve wanting to go to the front desk to ask for his coconut fridge magnet, because he believed we should be "alert but not alarmed" while on the island.
• Getting the mother of all doses of "is it or is it not old blood?" spotting on Sunday afternoon that rendered me numb on the couch for about an hour, before I went to the toilet again obsessively to find no more.
• Games of chess on a giant chess board (ok, so it was no Pancake Parlour size chess board, but it was a suitably tropical/oversize one).
• A horizon pool that was as visually appealing and divine as all the photos on their website.
• The start of morning sickness that hit me like a coconut out of the blue on Saturday arvo and has been more present than not ever since (woo hoo!).
• A nightly welcome song and then farewell song for all the guests arriving/leaving the next day that had me tearing up (damn hormones) every evening.
• Missing Jazz and the Pepster about half way through. Doing our usual psychotic pining that sees us resorting to singing songs and changing lyrics to centre around them. Point in case, "Oh Jazzy, you came and you gave without taking", or "Hot town, puppy in the city, back of Pep's neck gettin' dirt and gritty".... you get the sad sorry picture.
• A FREAKING LIZARD dropping on my leg one night during dinner - outdoor dining at its tropical best *shudder*
• Being vigilant in the outdoor (sublime) private shower. Showering at one's own risk was a new one for me.
• Checking my pants and doing an extra wipe each toilet visit in the last half of the holiday.
• Questioning why the HELL the spotting came back with the onset of the debilitating morning sickness???? (Still got the spotting, for those playing at home).
• Snorkelling in crystal clear blue waters off a white sandy beach (as opposed to a white concrete beach, apparently?).
• Freaking out at very nearly being shredded alive by coral on the way back in to the beach. Who knew those little lap waves had the force of Hercules behind them? I felt rejected by the ocean, it was that fast. And I scraped my knee while I just watched the coral and rocks come up alarmingly close in my goggles as the tide just spat me out like a watermelon pip.
• Not believing our luck that the return flight was only 3/4 full so we got a 3-seat centre aisle.
• Our excitement being relatively short-lived once we approached Melbourne airspace and touched down in a massive thunderstorm that dropped 33mm on the city overnight.... and Steve staring at me in open-mouthed disbelief that I had kept my head bent (addictively over the BLOODY patience game I learned and could. Not. Get. Out. It's called Aces Up and doooooooh, patience my arse) during the whole descent - I seriously thought the intermittent white flashes of light outside the window was some sort of light flashing on the plane somewhere. Though now I think of it, what purpose would a haphazard flash serve a plane approaching landing?
• Going weak at the knees once we actually did land and stop (holy moley it was rough), looking out the window at the torrential rain as the captain explained calmly that the lightning and severe weather had caused huge delays to outbound flights and tarmac staff (Doozers, they'll always be doozers to me - I giggle at how their heads nod as they go over bumps in those little whizzy carts just like the doozers did on Fraggle Rock).
• Patting myself on the back that I made it through the week without begging to use their phone to make a call to my Ob's rooms to change my scan appointment to today - "The plane gets in around midnight, meet you at the airport and bring your trusty machine that sees all. Thanks ever so." So we're still on for tomorrow. 10.15am... say a quick prayer for us, won't you?
• Utter disbelief at returning home to discover Headland is still being aired on prime time. No, make that... being aired at all. Feel free to leave this blog of evil if you personally love it, but oh dear me, wouldn't it just have been cheaper to film planks of wood?

*Slumps* And if I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Til then, I'll be on the couch.