Day 168 - Sick Days, Flat Surf and Apartment Life in Morocco
Poor Maddie was still sick this morning. She woke up and vomited again and still had a pretty sore stomach, which wasn’t ideal at all. Eventually she started to feel a little bit better and managed to eat a boiled egg and a banana, which thankfully stayed down. She spent the day slowly sipping water and trying to rest.
The rest of us started the day pretty normally. My stomach still isn’t right either. It just feels super sensitive now, even though I’m functioning okay. Kia and I got up, made coffees and breakfast, and I quickly checked my work emails. For some reason my email hadn’t refreshed properly the day before, so once I updated it, a few emails came through that I need to respond to and follow up on. So I’ve got a little bit of work sitting there waiting for me.
Kia had a kinesiology session booked in for the morning, so she got herself ready and headed into the office area while the kids and I cooked breakfast and just hung around the apartment. Eventually I got Maddie to lay down because she really wasn’t feeling great. Emmett was off playing Lego while Maddie and I started going through some of the stories I’d been writing for the website.
That actually turned into a really nice little moment together. I’d read through sections I’d written and Maddie would give feedback and ideas, then we’d sort of work on it together. After a while Emmett came in too and joined us for a bit. Maddie and I had probably been doing it for half an hour before he came in. He tried, but eventually got bored and started becoming a bit disruptive, so we never really finished what we were doing. But Maddie and I had a lot of fun with it while it lasted.
I think Emmett is just getting a bit stir crazy being stuck in the apartment. We’re finding ourselves back in that same situation again where apartment living doesn’t really work that well for us long term. The kids can’t just go outside on their own. We can’t just sit outside on a patio or deck with a coffee and watch the world go by. The apartment itself is actually awesome. It’s spacious, comfortable and gives us plenty of room inside, but we’re still confined unless we all decide to head out somewhere. It’s definitely another reminder that we function better when we have outdoor space and somewhere the kids can roam a little more freely.
By the time Kia finished her session it was getting close to lunchtime. We’d also completely run out of cash, so Kia and Emmett headed into the Medina to use one of the better ATMs while I stayed back with Maddie. While they were gone, I got stuck into working on Kia’s website. She’s wanting to start putting herself out there more and building up some remote clients, so we’re trying to get the site polished and ready to send out properly.
Kia and Emmett were gone for ages. I actually thought they must have grabbed food while they were out and were bringing it back, but eventually they walked back in empty handed and basically said, “Right, let’s go.”
Maddie still wasn’t feeling awesome and needed a bit of convincing to come for a walk, but we figured she probably needed some fresh air. The area around our accommodation isn’t exactly beautiful either. One direction has a bit of a dump area, the other has a petrol station, and then there’s the beach. So you’ve got to walk through some pretty rough looking streets before you get to the nicer parts.
Eventually we found a little local lunch spot. Kia and Emmett got taco wraps, I grabbed a burger and Maddie just ordered plain chips, although she barely touched them. The food was actually really good. We could see everything being cooked fresh right in front of us, which honestly made us feel a lot better. We’re all starting to get a bit nervous about food now with everyone’s stomachs being off at different times. I definitely find myself paying more attention now to how food is being prepared and the hygiene of the places we eat.
The people working there were really friendly though. Service was awesome and they even helped us pack up leftovers to take away afterwards.
There was a pharmacy nearby where Kia tried to buy Hydrolyte for Maddie, but apparently pharmacies here don’t sell it. You need to go to one of the larger shopping centres, which is a pretty decent walk from where we’re staying. So at some point we’ll probably head off on another little adventure to track some down because it’d definitely be handy to have around.
After lunch we headed back to the apartment and I got straight back into working on Kia’s website. That honestly kept me entertained for most of the afternoon. With Maddie resting, the surf being terrible, and Kia doing research and work stuff, we ended up just having a super quiet afternoon.
The kids did some schoolwork with Kia once we got back, then we let them put a movie on and just veg out for a while so Maddie could properly rest and recover while Kia and I kept working away on things we needed to get done.
Later in the afternoon I got Kia to come in and review the website changes I’d made. We tweaked a few small things together. I’ve still got one more page to modify and then I need to add all the SEO stuff to help improve how it performs on Google.
The surf was apparently completely flat today too. Kia confirmed it when they went out earlier to get cash. It was dead flat. It’s supposed to be the same again tomorrow, but we might still head down for a beach day just to get outside and do something different once work’s done.
So yeah, that was Day 168 here in Morocco. A pretty quiet recovery day while Maddie slowly started feeling a little better.