Jill and Gerard's Seachange

Last night

Close your eyes and picture this!! Oh hang on you will have to open them to read the rest sorry. Just use your imagination..

I went to bed about 1.30am. the rain started about 6pm, but just a light constant pitter patter by 10pm it was bucketing down and did not stop.

I put the dogs out in the verandah coz there was no thunder fair enough. they will be nice and dry. The heater had been off for two hours so their body temps had cooled down to accommodate for the extreme cool temp out there! Left the curtains shut and went to bed, one hour later it is still pouring and I hear a "yap". Oh shut up Millie there is no thunder just go to sleep. My little bed companion has been making a regular thing of cuddling up to me in the bed. Yes I know that is disgusting, but she is only little and oh so warm.. Have a look at my previous post of pictures.

It seemed like another hour had gone by, but probably only about fifteen minutes, but there it is again, another "yap". No don't go out there they will expect to come inside all the time... Well they have been in a lot during the day, but sleeping in at night, no thank you! I start to finally doze off knowing I will have to get up at 8a.m. and no later as I have an osteo appt first thing. Oh golly I hope the phone battery does not run out before the alarm goes off. I never set the clock alarm beside the bed and don't want to start fiddling with it at this hour. Oh well I cannot sleep now, so when the battery is low it is going to make a noise anyway.. so put up with it and go to sleep.....

Hmm is that Millie again? Oh yes it is, it is still very dark, so I will ignore her. Um I hope that is not her banging beside the house near the kayak! probably getting all worked up coz I have not gone out there to her. TRY AND GET SOME SLEEP!!!!!

O.k. I have been asleep for a while I reckon, nup, still dark. Listen to that rain and the wind. Oh goodness what is it going to be like when I eventually get up in the morning. Will I have my feet under water? will I be able to see any ground? Goodness please don't let the lake rise up, my Palace is not high enough. Did not think of that at the time did we? eh? Well it wasn't going to be the Palace in the first place when the concrete was being poured! Oh shit!!! stop it Jill and go to sleep.

O.k. O.k. I can't sleep now, my head is playing games with me... What would I take with me if I had to leave???? What??? What??? Panic is setting in..... I just cannot think straight. all I can think of is all those boxes in the garage sitting on pallets, they are not that high either and I cannot get to them in a hurry coz the bloody old Harry Holden is packed tightly in there too! Oh boy he will get all flooded out too.

UGH.. A huge gust of wind... and it is still pouring. Thank goodness when David was here doing the renovations, he found out our drains needed extending to the main drain!! Otherwise we would be flooded out the front there yet again.

Allright it is 7am as I lean over to look at the time on the clock, still dark though. The paper will be lying on the drive, soaking wet!! but it can stay there.

I try to keep my eyes open, my bed buddy must have left me during the night or have I rolled over and squashed her!! That is all I need at the moment. Imagine trying to dig a hole in this weather to bury her, it would fill up with water before I had a chance to dig it!! Yeah o.k. me out in the pouring rain?? is one thing... digging a hole is another..

Oh where was I?? Yep I stagger down the hall trying to keep my eyes open and can hear the dogs out on the verandah, oh no what are they up to?

I open the curtain to see two dark figures at the door, It is all dark and foggy looking. Is that a car out there in the car park? Yep it sure is. OMG there is someone out on the rather waterlogged grass with their white dog and it has a coat on and it is pissing down with rain!!??? Gotta have a problem, there is a limit. It is the dog that walks like it has a stick up it's bum. It is the testicular cancer dog. The car drives up, the person picks up the dog puts it in the car and they drive up the side..

Oh bugger, two soaking wet dogs... How wonderful.. and all I want to do is go back to bed...

Grab some towels and dry the two over excited dogs off. The two seater couch is all ruffled, yep I have let them on it... Well Millie won't let Missy sleep on the bed with her, so I thought buggar it go on Missy.. The doona cover on it is all wet. Yep they have been running around all night out in the rain and then sleeping on the couch. what a way to go... shame it is not the big old couch... would never get it inside again. lol..

O.k. in you guys come and I grab the blanket and soft bedding on the floor in the lounge. come on up you come I stagger back to the bedroom, put on my lekkie blanket, plug in the lap top and now my bum is rather hot..

The dogs have settled down on the floor, Millie has just had a snarling session to Missy as she got too close to me.

I don't think I will go out today, driving would be awful and the roads will be covered in water I would gather. The wind is still blowing madly, so it is going to be a costly day going no where, probably have to pay a cancellation fee for the osteo.. don't want to leave the dogs outside and don't want to leave them inside either, not taking them with me, so will stay home instead.. and watch the large puddles get larger!!!

Hope you have a good day in the warm air conditioning. I am thinking about putting up some curtains in the hall to keep the place warmer. But no curtains, no rods, no nothing so won't be doing that today. However I will be plastering up two big holes I made in the wall trying to put up a simple dragonfly set of hooks to hang my coat on at the front door. Buggar, I lost the wood plugs in the wall cavity, they just fell through!! I now have two HUGE dyna bolts in the holes covering them so nothing crawls out in the night. Went to the local hardware yesterday with one of the bolts, and the lady nearly had a fit.. Conclusion???....... forget trying to do anything around the house any more.. I will now have to make two more smaller holes, like the ones I started with in another area and use these wall toggle thingy's and see what happens this time! Wish me luck.

The frustrations of having the brain that wants to do all this sort of stuff. Not the complete know how and not the body capable of all the physical activity that goes with screwing and banging etc... I have missed my vocation. I should have taken up woodwork at school and be more self sufficient. There are so many things that still need doing around the place.

It is now 9am. I have cancelled the Osteo, they agree the roads are awful today and more rain is expected, so best to stay away from them. I have spoken to Gerard in Pomona, it is his last day in Queensland. It rained all day yesterday and today it is nice and sunny for them. Now I just have to remember to pick him up tomorrow night at 10pm from the train..... hmmm..

Missy is fast asleep, I can hear her breathing heavily down on the floor at the foot of the bed. Milly is on guard on the floor beside me. Oh yuk, she has farted. Ashley has been walking all over me as usual and Rusty?? Have no idea where she is, not seen her yet. Oh she is probably in the wardrobe again, the door is open so that is where she will be!

Talk again soon.

luv Jill

posted by Jill @ 8:43 am 0 comments

Whose been sleeping in my bed???

Last night at about 11pm I put my electric blanket on, came back to the lounge room, sat in my chair and promptly fell asleep. I woke up with a start at 4a.m. Ashley was on my lower legs fast asleep, Millie and Missy were also asleep. I put them outside and staggered half asleep up the hall to the bedroom. I started to feel for my nightie and felt something move in the bed. I rushed to put on the light and there was Rusty curled up in the bed, under the covers taking in the warmth of the electric blanket! see the photos below. The cheeky little Madam!!
L

posted by Jill @ 10:10 pm 0 comments

Here are the dogs!!

This is my latest favourite pic. Double click on the photo to get it bigger. And yes the water did splash up a little. Not that flattering of Missy though! Go to Missy's Blog and see what she has been up to!!

posted by Jill @ 3:47 pm 0 comments

And then the rains came

Well for the moment the dry spell here has gone. We have been on Level 4 water restrictions within days of being on Level 2 because of the fires we had in December some rain had washed all the soot and muck from the fires down into the Mitchell River and affected our water supply, so it had to be sourced elsewhere and they put us on Level 4 as the supply was limited. The Mitchell River was and still is the colour of Cadburys milk chocolate! a real muddy brown... In the past week we have had so much rain, Bairnsdale had over 160mm within 24 hours and I reckon we had just as much here. They were suggesting flood warnings were imminent and so I started to worry as the last flood here was in 1998! Kath was living here then, she was still recovering from her stroke and had to be evacuated from the house at about one in the morning by the fire brigade and taken away in a fire truck! The water was only inches from the floor boards!

I am home alone, well not completely alone, I have two dogs and two cats to keep me company, well Ashley is once again laying awkwardly on my legs below my knees while I have the lap top on the top half of my legs, boy is she nice and warm! I now know how I am getting all these little bruises on my legs as she has such hard feet! Rusty is on the back of one of the chairs in the corner asleep and Millie and Missy are asleep on the floor together. I have the heater on as it is so damn cold. Gerard is in Queensland with Geoff for two weeks staying in Annette and Paul's house while they are in England. So if it floods!!! H.E.L.P.......... ME...... what do I do first. I also got a phone call from the next door neighbours, they are holidaying in the top half of Western Australia and were too worried about any flooding. Could I ring their son if it got into their garage please????

Shit their garage is really my last worry. The Purple Palace is on ground level for a start, all my stuff on the lower part of the Palace will not fit on my two tables. My neck, shoulder and hip are buggared from throwing stupid stale bread out to the swans who were too timid to come closer because the dogs also wanted the bread so I had to toss it further out to them!! How hopeless am I?? The garage, which was a carport still has boxes in it on pallettes which are only so high off the floor, bloody heavy and inaccessible because Gerard parked or should I say squeezed his beloved OLD Harry Holden in there too as close to them as possible. The water mounted up a couple of inches because it had no where else to flow seeing the sides had been boarded up! That was just a start. The wind was blowing in all directions so the front door was saturated when I got up in the morning and when I tried to open it I had to tug at it and ended up breaking the beading that was especially ordered in to match the floating floor boards. It was obviously made of that MDF type of stuff and got wet and swelled and so the tugging on the front door broke it into bits!! So then I had to get a screw driver and hammer to ease the rest up so I could then shut the front door! So much fun... to be had...

The verandah????? how did it cope with the rain????? why do I mention this???? well with the wind and rain in all directions the rain blew up the roof of the verandah and then dripped down under the eaves onto the swing, fridge, and other chairs etc to make them wet. At least it was not more black soot when the fires were happening, that was shocking stuff to clean up! Also the water was coming in through the gaps of the wall panelling too. Anyway so far we have survived. Maybe I should struggle with the old lounge suite and put that out there to get wet and then......... hmm it would not come inside again... yoo hoo.. while the cat is away??????? hmm will think about that one for later on.. well it is not comfy to sit on, the couch is only comfy to sleep on.

I was constantly monitoring the puddles that were happening out the back and also how squishy it was getting when taking the dogs for their walks. The lake level has risen, so much so that the sandy area where all the swans usually gather has disappeared and the water is about eight inches from the top of the retaining wall! Where we launch the kayaks has filled up also and where I used to leave the wheels is under water! So you can understand while I am getting worried. The "pond" that completely dried out during the hot weather with no rain has once again filled up and over and is almost over the walking path, parts of the path are under water too. I took the dogs along there and took a couple of photos of them running to me where the water was over the path. Look again at the two pics at the top of this entry to see them! I was trying to get them to run through the water and splash about, but it did not happen so.

Gerard is not due home til Thursday night so hopefully I won't need any help this week. Have another osteo appt for my neck as it is a real pain next week, it is just not letting up. The swans will just have to come closer from now on.

Missy has her own blog of her adventures so you can have a read of how she is doing and what she is up to!!!

Oh yes we are now on Level 3 water restrictions as they have managed to filter some of the water from the Mitchell River. How clever is that?

posted by Jill @ 3:10 pm 0 comments

Where do I start?

Goodness where do I start? It has been many months since I have written and so much has happened since I last wrote.

Let me see.... hmmm oh yes well we did eventually get off on our holiday to Queensland, gosh it has been and gone and now seems like a vague memory!

It took us three days to get up to Pomona where Annette and Paul live and we stayed with them for almost 4 days. So good to catch up with them and to experience their happiness with their gorgeous little baby boy Logan. I am so taken with him. Such a cutie. In those four days you could see the amazing changes in him, it made me think back to when Kate was a baby and appreciate being with her when she was that age.

We did some sight seeing with them and also some by ourselves. I think the highlight during that time was to go to Tin Can Bay, a gorgeous little town where they have managed to have two wild dolphins visiting and being hand fed. It was an awesome experience one I will never forget. Although a very short time with them, it was so good.

We then took our time coming back home. Was glad to get home, only to be out of the car for some time. We did stay a couple of days in a little town called Woolgoolga in New South Wales, which was a nice break.

During our time away we were constantly in touch with Geoff as our older dog Sassy decided to not be well. At first we thought it was because we both were away and usually one of us is there at home while the other goes to Melbourne. Even Milly was off her food for a while. But Sassy did not pick up so Geoff took her to the vet. He reckoned her arthritis was causing her a lot of pain and gave her a needle to relieve it, increase her tablets and see how she goes. She was off her food and Geoff was hand feeding her and making her eat. He was so worried about her as she was not good, but assured us she was o.k. no need to come home.

By the time we got home, Sassy had picked up and seemed reasonable. We had seen her go down in the past but not as bad as she was this time. Geoff went back home and Sassy started to deteriorate. By Easter Saturday she would not eat, could not be bothered to get up even for a walk. It was awful to see her like this, she could not even walk properly as her back legs were giving way. I had made up my mind that morning to insist to Gerard it was time for her to leave us and realised this would be very hard for him. He worked the morning shift and would not be home til 11am. When he got home I mentioned Sassy was not good and thought we should take her to the vets, and he agreed and said he thought it was time to say goodbye to her.

I rang the vet, made an appointment and Gerard had to carry her to the car. The vet was very nice about it all and agreed it was time. He could have given her another injection to relieve the pain but said she would be back again within a couple of days and she would not get better. So the time had come. It was a very traumatic experience for Gerard and I thought he was going to have another anxiety attack as he was losing it. He managed to pull himself together and the vet carried Sass out to the car. The drive home seemed like an eternity. Unfortunately we took the "Old Harry Holden" and so Gerard had to drive home. I wish we had taken my car even though it would have been covered in Sassy's hair and it is so hard to vacuum out.

Gerard decided to bury her in her favourite sitting spot which was beside the verandah by the back gate. She used to spend ages sitting there watching the world go by. At first Milly seemed o.k. we let her see and sniff Sassy before burying her as we have been told it is good for them to realise they are gone..... I don't know about that, but Milly was enjoying being Queen Bee and having all the attention. Letting her sleep inside as she did not really like sleeping outside by herself. Gerard was not too happy with this, but I managed to overcome that problem with him. As the days passed Millie started to change and was getting paranoid, looking for Sassy I am sure, she was jumpy, would not leave my side even more so, starting to have funny turns and just completely odd..

Not even two weeks had passed and I went to the vet to pay the bill for Sassy and noticed a note on their message board that a 9 year old golden lab needed a good home. Her owners had had so many changes over the last months and her male owner had passed away. She spent most of her time with him and he took her to their farm often with him. After he died her "mum" had to leave her at home a lot while she worked and she got terribly bored even though she had a little dog for company during the day. Her "Mum" had to tie her up during the day otherwise she got up too much mischief, digging up everything, chewing everything and just being a real vandal. It was such a hard decision for her "Mum" to post the ad, but felt it was the best thing for the dog. When I got home I mentioned to Gerard the ad reluctantly as he said he needed some time before thinking about another dog. He did not say much but later in the day asked me what the ad said again and would I ring the person and see what the situation was. I had to ring the vet first for the number and then no one answered the phone. I rang again in the evening but no answer still. I finally rang the mobile number and got in touch with the owner who was in Tasmania for another week having a long needed holiday. When she got back the following Sunday she rang me and we made arrangements for her to bring "Missy" down on the following Monday morning.

Monday morning came and when Kayleen pulled up and opened the car door, there bounded out a younger, slimmer version of Sassy! She was full of energy and so friendly. We brought her inside and introduced her to Milly, she was fine, protective of me as usual and not much more of a reaction! We agreed to keep her til the Friday and assess the situation then as to how she was going.

Well I think that night she decided she was not going anywhere and so did we! She had mainly been an outdoor dog so we wondered how she would go being indoors at times. The first thing we were not used to was the fact that we had a bigger dog wandering around the house. Sassy did not like walking on the floating floor so she would only go into the loungeroom. We put a blanket down on the lounge floor and made Missy sit on it and that was to be where she would sit when she came in at night. Milly had her little spot also. She responded to this demand pretty well after a few times of telling her inbetween getting up and wandering around a bit and being reassured she was o.k. Not to mention it was her first night away from home.

She was rather smelly bearing in mind Kayleen did not have any time to bath her after being away for two weeks and she had had the run of her backyard unsupervised for that time. Smell put aside she managed the evening pretty well. She was so tired and did not want to go to sleep while inside but you could see her eyes getting very droopy on her.

She also has a little expression on her face when she is unsure of what is happening. At first I thought she was snarling with no sound, but it is quite a harmless facial expression but oh so cute!

The evening went well she settled down and when it was time to go to bed, she followed Milly out to the verandah and the two of them curled up on the trampoline bed together as if it was the usual every day thing to do! It is amazing how well she and Milly have got on, Milly has improved immensely and I think she was pining for Sassy in her own way.

Missy also was used to the two cats that lived in her home and they also had an outdoor area. So when Missy came here she did not even really notice the cats at all. Ashley was so funny, it was if she did not even notice a difference in the dogs, not the least worried by her. By the second night she was rolling around on the blanket where Missy was sleeping not even two feet away from her feet. Missy looked up at her for a second and then just put her head back down and went to sleep. Rusty on the other hand hissed and hid away in our wardrobe for a few days. It was not until I grabbed her on the fourth day and shut her out into the cat enclosure with a few scratches to my arms for a few hours. During that time she needed to use the litter tray and had to see Missy on the other side of the mesh on the veranday. Missy did not even bother to come to the door, it was all Rusty being paranoid. Then the worse thing for Rusty happened. ""THUNDER"" Rusty can usually hear it a few hours before it even arrives, you know something is going to happen when she appears out of the blue, growling, making such funny noises with her mouth shut and rubbing up against you and the dogs! Sassy used to have her all over her so what was going to happen now? Eventually we let her out of the enclosure and she was in the spare bedroom with me while I was on the computer then the two dogs came in and Missy was sitting down by the door and Rusty had to walk past her to get out... well the rest is history. She overcame her fear of Missy, but not the thunder. So it is like it was before, a dark coloured dog and cat and a ginger coloured dog and cat..

All I can say is it is as if Missy lived here all her life, she has settled down so well and is part of our family now.

posted by Jill @ 2:02 pm 0 comments

Looking out my Kitchen Window...

Oh it is so nice to be home as I have been in Melbourne again for a week and it was so hot there, just could not wait to get back home again. This morning while standing at my kitchen sink I looked out the window and to my delight there were the family of wild ducks wandering around on the dead grass, oh there is a little green on there now since we had some rain last week, it was just a little rain but enough to get the grass growing again. Then looking over across the car park to the water a lone pelican bobbing up and down on the water. In the distance my eye got caught with a black swan flapping its large wings with tits white tips showing. I had the front door open and the sound of the lorikeets screeching to each other was music to my ears. The sun is hidden by thick white and soft grey clouds with a hint of brightness to them. We had a little rain overnight to moisten the dry parched ground. Probably brought some worms up to the surface for the ducks to peck at! It is good to go back to Melbourne once a month as it makes me really appreciate my situation here and how lucky we are to have this wonderful spot on this earth. Today I am spending the day finishing off some books I made at a class in Bairnsdale yesterday, it was a great day and thank goodness for the air conditioner, it made the day all the more pleasant!! gotta go now and get stuck into my books!! luv Jill xxx

posted by Jill @ 10:42 am 0 comments

AT LONG LAST A HOLIDAY!

Can you believe it?? No I can't as yet! Gerard and I are going on a holiday for two and a half weeks. Gosh it has been years since we have been away together. I think the last one was to Ocean Grove with Kate when she was younger!

So what is the plan? Nothing too spectacular cause money is an issue. Whenever is it not an issue? We have decided to travel up to Queensland by car, catch up with Annette and Paul, Hervey the dog and their new baby Logan, he will be about 3 months old by then, so exciting and then drive back home. On the way we plan to stop a lot and look around so that we are not exhausted when we get back home by just driving all the time.

G.T. is going to house sit for us which is such a weight off our shoulders as the animals are always a problem. He gets on so well with them and Milly just adores him 'cos he gives her heaps of pats and cuddles which is right up her ally. The cats tolerated him when he stayed for the week, so that is good also. They probably don't really care who looks after them as long as they have food and water and a clean litter tray! Especially Rusty.

So we leave around the 19th March and back home by Easter Yep I know it will be hot weather up north, but it is better than no holiday at all and having Geoff sitting for us is so great.

So woo hoo Queensland here we come!!!

bye for now

luv Jill
xxx

posted by Jill @ 2:01 pm 0 comments

It is me again!!

Well a lot has happened in what seems only a few days.

Mum is all settled with a new fridge. I wrote a letter to the manager of The Good Guys and it turned out that the manager of the white goods department was not aware of any problems as the sales reps did not report any problems, so this guy was so apologetic. The next day she got a new fridge delivered and a food parcel with apologies.

The fridge is working well at the moment so hopefully this is the end of the saga!!

Last Thursday I went along to the local animal pound to do some volunteering!! Machele asked if we were after another pet??? No way, two dogs and cats are enough to run around after, although I still yearn for the bunnies. Luckily they only have dogs and cats there.

What an eye opener, they had 40 or more kittens and about 15 older cats. So sad. One cat came from a nursing home as it was the mascot, but because it attached itself to two of the residents they decided to surrender it to the pound. How unfair for the cat and to the residents.

There was an 18month old ginger male there and he was so affectionate, just wanted to be cuddled and stroked for ages. The others all meow at you for attention except for two of them. One was a black one with huge eyes and so scared and sitting so stiff with fright, the other was crouching down in the litter tray too scared to move or eat! While there they brought in another cat also very frightened.

I plan to go again on Thursday this week and try and make friends with them otherwise they will not get a home!

Not that many dogs, but they tear at your heart. Oh they did have some smaller kittens there, one was a female, smokey ginger one, but NO I did not let it tempt me!

The moon is still about and bright and have been out walking to the waters edge the past two nights. Such a contrast, the first night I put on a jumper as it was so cold and last night it was a perfect still night. You could hear the fish jumping out of the water and I even heard a koala from the Island calling. Just unbelieveable listening to the still night, with the moon shining down on the water and hearing nothing but nature!

I encouraged Gerard to go to the gym the other night with me and have a programme made out for us both, yes I know I did have one done last year and did not keep it up, but as usual this time will be different, yep I have said it again. Gerard wants to lose a bit of weight as he now has the mid tum expanding quite a bit and me??? well I had better not go into details, just very heavy will do!!! So this morning we went up to the gym and did our first work out together, I hope Gerard will continue as it will do him so good!!

Well I had better go and do some stamping as my swaop projects I have committed myself to are mounting up and I need to find my "mojo" to get back into it! I have been finding that I am doing a lot more housework these days and not any stamping time! What a change for me! For so many years the stamping was a priority and the housework was there to do, but ....... well you know, I was not much for that sort of stuff!

I am a bit concerned that I could become rather obsessive compulsive over this houseworking thing. As I find there has been no spare time to stamp! Buggar what an awful thing to change into in my life right now.. UI just cannot find a happy medium with it all. I suppose being happy and content with our little house, it has given me an interest in it all the more. Mind you there are still boxes about the place needing to be emptied and find a home and the Palace is still unorganised chaos and the garage has boxes of stamping stuff in and we also have heaps of stuff stored in a garage in Melbourne, but hey I cannot believe that I vacuum each week!! when did I last do that in Rowville??? Yep what a slob I had become. I even vacuum out the cats area each week too. Boy do I build up a lot of sweat while doing it, but it makes me feel good afterwards even though I can hardly move with the body in so much pain! Well someone has to do it and we cannot afford to pay anyone to come and do it so I have to suffer!

Anyway it has taken me 30 odd years to get myself a little bit organised around the place and still need to do some more before I can say everything is done! I will die before then. Hopefully I will have the Palace all under control by then!

posted by Jill @ 1:32 pm 0 comments

Don't you wish you were here??? I do!!

This morning I slept in til 10a.m. No wonder I was up til 2a.m. playing a game called Abundante, it really sucked me in! From about midnight I could hear voices outside of some girls and thought they were out the front of our place, they went on and on and laughing and getting louder and louder. By the time I went to bed, they were in full swing. It was Suze next door outside on the balcony having a good catch up with a girl friend with quite a few drinkies. I don’t know what time they went on til, but it was a perfect evening up there on their balcony, the moon was so bright, it lit up the place and I could only imagine the stunning reflection it would have made as it hovered over the water. I should have gone for a walk, but thought I had better go to bed, I was wide awake, so instead I lay in bed with the brightness of the moon lighting up the bedroom wall as it shone through our window. I have not appreciated the moon like I have while living here. If it was not for the renovations, I probably would not have noticed it so much. I was always shutting the blinds in Melbourne for privacy and never noticed what was happening outside! But while the renovations were happening here, I had to take down the curtains and live for months with no window coverings! It felt odd at first, but where we are situated, there are no houses facing our windows or roads etc, just a bit of bush and water! So the only passing traffic at night would the odd boat, which are too far away to see inside and the odd person who would go for a stroll in the dark! It seems pretty safe here. I changed the furniture around in the lounge and can see the moon shining in through the verandah to the lounge some nights and it is just mesmerizing. It is also such an exhilarating feeling going outside, standing on our little bit of decking, looking out onto the water and see the water shimmering from the reflection and to see the black swans floating by through the light. It is just awesome for me. Could just sit and watch it every night. The silence of the night is interrupted by the odd noise of a swan or a duck, calling from one to another or alerting each other of a predator near by. I will never forget the night we were out for a night walk, no moon this time, but it was a warm night and over by Raymond Island I could hear a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, in the water, it was some dolphins! Could not see them but could certainly hear them as they swam by. There is always something happening around here. The night before I was up til 3.30am as we had gone out to tea with some friends who were down for the night and brought home with us a little dog wandering the streets. It was friendly enough and we put him out the back with access to where our two sleep on the verandah, he got on well with ours, they were not worried, well I suppose at midnight they just want to sleep! Anyway what a mistake. He barked and barked for three hours!! I ended up letting him go, Gerard and Sudsy were out to it and GT and I were both wide awake by this time, the little rotter kept trying to dig out by GT’s bedroom window and bumping the kayaks, so they thumped on the walls near us! Talk about zombies in the morning. So two nights of little sleep will catch up soon I suppose. o.k. so at the moment it is 1pm and I am lying on the swing. Oh do you remember my swing? Well it has been neglected for a while as it has been covered up with sheets like everything else on the verandah ‘cos we had black soot floating in over everything from the fires. So it was soo frustrating to go out there and to have to dust all the mess off and I have not been writing to you that much lately, sorry about that. Anyway it is a lot cooler in the lounge room with the air conditioner on, but I am suffering the warmth for now as I feel inspired to write to you. So here I am lazing on the swing, it is a warm day, I have put on the fan to blow on me as I am hot!!, there is no wind outside and I have found this more comfortable lying out here than being inside for the moment! I have my 1.5ltr bottle of water beside me, going down rapidly the sky is a gorgeous blue with those soft fluffy clouds floating by, but in the distance the sky is grey from smoke! The water when I got up was so calm, I said the usual thing in the mornings when I look out the kitchen window, it would be a good morning for a paddle, and blow me down, he said o.k. lets go. He does not start work til 5pm today so there was no rush. So by about 10.20 we were off, no need to shower till after being out on the water! It was the perfect time, calm still water, no flies to bother you. We headed out to the left and towards Eagle Point, probably got half way there and thought we had better head back. It was so peaceful, no boats, just us cutting through the water with our paddled. We stopped for a while and just let the boats drift along, it is amazing how far you could drift along and quite quickly even though it was calm. The swans were in their dozens further along, disappointing this year as not many babies were around compared to the following year! I just love my second kayak, it is so much easier to handle and it just glides through the water. As we paddled we had little tiny fish jumping out and in of the water, absolutely stacks of them, I saw a long thing slinking along on the bottom and heaps of jelly fish, could not count how many, the paddle kept hitting them as they were hard to avoid. Some fish about 6 inches long swimming around and quite a few fish were jumping out of the water or making ripples when they came up for air. Unfortunately no dolphins this time. Would have been the perfect end to the paddle, never mind another time for sure. It is just so peaceful out on the water, must look out for an anchor, they do have them for small boats! So can take a book out or a good stamping mag and just laze out there with no interruptions! Have I made you envious yet?? It was such a shame to come back in, but we found that the current was getting a little stronger and if we went any further it would be harder and longer to paddle home. Gerard’s wrist was aching quite a bit because on Sunday night after going out for tea the boys wanted to know if we were going bunny spotting again, like we did one other time when they were down. I just love going to a certain part of Paynesville where there are heaps of wild bunnies and seeing if I can see them. Well there were quite a few and lots of little ones this time. Just when they thought they were safe! It is a new estate that has been opened and no houses are built there yet, so I drive down onto the blocks and down the hilly part and with the lights on high beam we see them scurrying about. Some of them just bob down so flat and don’t move, I nearly ran over one as I did not see it. We do this for about 10 or 15 minutes and you would think there were four hoons in the car, but no just four 50 odd year olds having a bit of fun. Gerard had had a few drinkies and he got out of the car to see if he could catch one!! Lol and he went A OVER T to the ground and grazed his knee and must have gone down on his wrist. The fun was then over for him and he just wanted to go home. That is when we found the little dog, closer to home! So his wrist has not recovered and his knees have those horrid grazes on them! While I was trying!! To get out of the kayak another person paddled by and was laughing at the ladylike manner in which I managed to get out!!! He said he has the same trouble. Lol. It is not easy especially when you have paddled up to the bank and you are leaning back! Anyway I am managing to get out easier and easier with each time I go out. Thank goodness for the wheels, they are so great, just pop the kayak on them strap it on and off I go over the car park to home. Gerard had a go in my kayak after and he has decided he wants one too so will have to try and sell the others for a good deal and get another one for him. Want to buy a pair of kayaks?? Will do a good deal? Anyway so now I am stifling out here, the sun has moved around to this side of the verandah and all I am getting from the fan is hot air! And also the lap top gets hot on my legs! While we were on the water I kept sneezing ‘cos I could smell smoke once again! It is all hazy over the mountains as it has been for weeks now, but as we got out of the boats, I noticed that the fires must have flared up again as there was a large thick trail of smoke coming up to the sky once again making the sky rather dirty looking over the mountains. Hope they can get it under control as we are in for some rather hot days again later this week. Expected to be 28 today and I feel it could well and truly be that already. Hopefully the arvo breeze will kick in soon and make it more comfy. Oh before I go, mum is having trouble once again with her fridge, it has packed up again and running all night just for the freezer, no one will be out til Thursday, hot weather again!! Well this time she is on her own, so hopefully Maggie will get anything for her as needed, she is stressing again!! Just not fair. I won’t be down for about another two weeks so that does not help her! So I am off to make some phone calls now and spend my time waiting for the good old customer service to answer their phones and have a whinge once again! Oh here comes the wind, I can hear it and see the trees are blowing but what it is like I will have to get up of my comfy swing, could go to sleep now, make some lunch and then get on the phone. Hopefully I will find time to bath milly as she is scratching a lot. o.k. great talking to you and will be in touch again soon. Bye for now Luv Jill

posted by Jill @ 2:39 pm 0 comments

How nice for a change

It was such a change tonight to look outside at the sky and see a grey sky with some pink through it. Much nicer than looking at grey smokey skies. It is also great to see some blue sky. Had almost forgotten what it looks like seeing the smoke from the fires has been around for so long.

posted by Jill @ 8:48 pm 0 comments

Home again - jiggety jig!

Pigeons in large fir tree in front of Mum's balcony.

posted by Jill @ 7:35 am 0 comments

What a week!

It was good to see Mum and see for myself how she was as she does not always tell all as with a phone conversation to Chris over the phone while I was there, telling her she was fine and o.k. o.k. my foot.... The past week seems like a fortnight now that I am home, I feel as if I have been away for ages. Luckily Gerard had to come to Melbourne also to pick up "Harry Holden" from the panel beaters as he was having a make over or should I say a new coat of paint, some rust taken out and now looks like new again, I think Gerard said he is 43 years old. an old EJ Holden! So he lugged the telly up the stairs for me and then struggled down the stairs with the no good telly, thank goodness otherwise I don't know what I would have done. We did not stay long at Mum's then as we then went to Rowville and met Kate for lunch and then went to pick up "Harry", before Gerard then had the three and a half hours drive back home, well longer in Harry as he does not go as fast as modern cars!! lol... or is it that Gerard does not want to push him to make him last even longer... anyway... I then went onto Little Bits for our monthly ATC night and got to Mum's about 9.45pm. First priority was to look at the fridge only to find that the fridge part was at room temp and the freezer was over freezing with all that soft frost everywhere and this is what you call a "frost free" fridge and freezer?? Moved a few dials around and still no change in either, Just have to wait til morning. No wonder Mum's food had been going off for the past two weeks, she did not realise the fridge was off.. pardon the pun.. She was just so overwhelmed with the telly and the freezer and her physical state she could not think rationally which sounds awful I know. So it is now Thursday and after making a few phone calls and get told the same as Mum and Wendy my sister in law that no one is available til the 18th January to come out and have a look, which is still over a week away, finally got through to them and they sent out a man on the saturday, thank goodness, poor Mum was going crazy it was stressing her to the max. Well once again to cut a long story short and in simple terms, a switch was not working to tell the fridge to defrost the freezer every eight hours so the tank where the water goes when defrosting was turning into a hard block of ice and not letting the fridge cool also! get it??? well the next thing was he replaced the switch and then told us to turn the thing off for two days to get the block of ice at the back to defrost and then turn on again and all should be good. WELL....... hmmmmmm, says Mum in a little voice "so you will come back and check it then and turn it on???" Oh no says the man you can do that it will be fine, just ring if any problems!!!! What about the block of ice where will the water go, "Oh just put a towel on the floor, there won't be much water!" Two days turning off the fridge to defrost the block of ice and there won't be much water??? Mum's face told it all, absolute horror. All she could think of was the water running all over the floor. Well as it turned out there was not much water leakage, about a mug full as we put a pot under where there was water dripping. Must have evaporated somehow, with no power... You tell me. Mum could not let it go which is understandable she was so worried. She had has so many sleepless nights worrying about the fridge motor running all the time and not shutting down for a rest. she is rather paranoid about electricity more so than others would be. Anyway two more days without being able to go to the fridge for food and for me no cold water, finally turned it on and hey presto it works!!!!! The dilemma of course was that we had five days of having to go out for meals and each day buying fresh food as it would go off otherwise as we were also going through such awful hot weather which was not needed at that point in time. Poor Mum she was frightened to touch anything, she felt like she had made the wrong decision in moving and everything was jinxed. She did not want to use the washing machine until I was there to again re assure her that the noises it was making was normal. I have just remembered she wanted to use her new rice cooker with me there for the first time just in case something happened also. She is frightened to move.. As if that was all to get through, we head off in this goddamn awful heat, I just lurve the heat, to the council office to get some parking permits as the parking has changed outside the units and because her pension card does not have her new addy on it nothing can be done! BUT while there I bit the bullet and asked about home care and also someone to take Mum shopping and yep we had an interview with a lady and she is now on a waiting list for assistance. When it finally comes through it will be wonderful cause Mum won't have a long list of things for us to do and it will be a little more relaxed for both of us even if it is once a fortnight she will be able to get a few things done in between times and it will be good for her to have some other company too. I had rung Centrelink to find out if we could change Mum's addy over the phone and the guy said no she will have to go in.. damn what a hassle I hate going to Prahran cause the parking is a problem and Mum cannot walk far, so it looks like a taxi job in this rotten heat. I decided to ring and check if we needed to make an appointment to come in and the lady said she could fix it all over the phone!!! am I going mad or what???? So job done and now waiting for her new pension card to arrive (3 to 10 working days) then off to the town hall again and the other places we need to prove change of addy.

You would think it would be a simple thing to just swap over tellys?????? Mum had forgotten when her new telly arrived that it needed to be tuned in, she is forgetting a lot of stuff these days.. anyway of course the replacement telly had to be tuned didn't it?? So of course where are the instructions?? who knows so after spending a couple of hours fiddling and finally working out how to tune it, my fingers and thumbs were so sore I could hardly move them with all the pressing of the button. The frequency or whatever the lingo is, is different in the country to the city and I ended up spending hours waiting for the little green lines to appear across the bottom of the screen, fill up and then start again. So to save time the channels are all over the place to add more confusion for Mum, but at least she has the channels written on the back of the remote and she has a telly and a good picture.

We bought Mum a DVD player for Christmas as she has often commented on wanting to be able to watch some films. After the saga of a video player I had been putting off encouraging Mum to get one as she got so confused with it and ended up selling it as she was too confused with working it. Anyway after much thought I got one for her, and one for me in the Palace as they were a good buy. Mine was playing up though and I had second thoughts on giving the other one to her, but took it to her anyway, she was rapt! Kate and Matt bought her a DVD of Queen live in concert, she loves the group and was rapt and I brought down Gone with the wind and Doctor Zhivago to see, brand new discs and everything was fine, so I was relieved, I got the dud machine. But nup the Queen DVD started playing up so Doctor Zhiv was the next one to try. We sat down and 13 minutes into the movie, it starts playing up. Buggar!!!! Nup it wasn't behaving either, checked it out with the other new DVD, nup the same, plugged the player into Maggies telly and it was the same. So back in the box it went and back with me to return with mine! Disappointing for Mum another electrical thing gone wrong!

For the first two days of my arrival we went out to do things and Mum was so tired as I forgot for a moment that she had not been out for two weeks, her feet started swelling once again as she had been on them for some time and she was stuffed.... We had a so called rest day on Saturday waiting for the fridge man to arrive. I encouraged Mum to go down the stairs by her self to go see Jean one of the ladies who also had a fall as she had not been down the stairs yet by herself and she had made the comment she felt all dizzy and shakey when she opened the door and walked outside. So after the second time going out there, I asked if it was better now going out the door and she replied NO!! She does not like heights and that is why she feels funny!!!!!! SHIT!!! why take a first floor unit???? Desperation to get back to the city. She had made up her mind to go and would take upstairs if she had to!

So the fridge was a goer now and I had planned to leave on the wednesday, Mum had a doctors appointment on the Tuesday and had to stay in until she came, did not know roughly what time as she did not bother to write it down, cause it did not matter she was going no where that day! So we stayed in waiting for the doctor. I had rung Coles to find out what the latest time was to have a home delivery and it was 3.30pm, sdo usually the doctor comes late morning, so plenty of time to do a shop! I managed to get Mum to do some craft work instead of just sitting there waiting and doing nothing and by 2pm I said to Mum that if she does not come soon, we won't be able to get the shopping done in time, would they ring you if she could not come? Don't know was the reply, have you checked the date? not trying to make her sound forgetful.. Oh yes it is today, we just have to wait she must be delayed. Did you write the date down? Yes it is on the calendar. hhhmmmmm... Yep it was there on the month of december. Dr Jan 17th early arvo.. It was the 16th today!!! we have waited in all day for nothing, oh well we did get some craft stuff done though. Too late to go and shop and it was so hot again anyway. So not going home tomorrow now, have to get up early, still hot, sleep deprived, ended up sleeping on the doona as mum has flannelette sheets only and I get hot.. and off to the supermarket in the morning, we were there for over two hours in the supermarket getting mum's shop, organising home delivery and then rush back for the doctor.. too hot and late to go home now..

Doc checks her over and says she needs time to recover as she has had a hard knock.

I don't want to get any older I have decided, lold age is cruel, here is a person who was an intelligent young woman, secretary to some top executive in London, got married, her new hubby gone off to war, left to have her first child and bring him up for almost five years by herself, hubby comes back, falls pregnant, finds out her husband is unfaithful while at war and when back from it, travels to Australia by ship by herself with my brother 9 and sick sister 4 for I think it was 6 weeks to meet dad here in Melbourne and to find they are to live in a tiny caravan!! What a great start to a new life. Falls pregnant again with me this time and struggles to bring us up while being an Air Force wife. Five years later she has my sister Chris, and has managed to bring us all up with dad not around much as he did a lot of shift work and only came home once a week as we lived too far from his work for him to come home each day.

We were posted to Malaya for two and a half years and once again Dad went there before us and Mum had to organise all the packing and getting us there safely. My brother did not come as he had just started an apprenticeship with the PMG and could not come as there was no work available there. It was one of the hardest decisions Mum had to make to leave her son behind and not see him for those two and a half years, I know she never got over that heartbreaking decision, he must have been about 17 I think at the time. I am not sure as I am not good at remembering numbers! Mum also ran a very successful craft shop for some years and also did many other ventures, ran her own ceramic studio, sold ceramics, sold hobbytex and artex.

Dad got a posting to Laverton and once again he went on ahead and Mum had to organise everything once again. Whikle living there Mum went out to work in the city working for AMP for some time. We then moved again back to good old Mount Evelyn, Dad eventually got out of the air force and bought a milk bar. So Mum spent all her time working in the Milk Bar for several years. Moved house again and again, that is where we reckon she is a gypsy. Also carrying the burden that Dad was not at all faithful to her for so many years, but did not feel she could leave as her children were so important to her and so she sacrificed so much for us and wanting to keep us all together as a family.

So from doing all that bringing us four up, to now forgetting things, being helpless at times, confused, unsure of herself, needing help filling out forms etc etc it is just so sad and not only frustrating for me but for her as she knows sometimes what she is like and other times she doesn't. They say patience is a virtue.. well it has been trying me out for some time now. I love mum dearly and it hurts to see her changing so much. She brought me up and looked after me and now the roles are reversed, at times she is the child and I am looking after her.

Well once again I have rambled on way too much as usual, but hey I had so much to tell.

talk again soon bye for now.. xxx

posted by Jill @ 5:51 am 0 comments

Mum has gone back to Melbourne!

I have mentioned in the past that Mum decided to follow us up here to Paynesville as she felt it was too much for me to travel back and forth all the time to see her and she did not want to live so far away from me, so she got into the local Hostel here in Paynesville. After 6 months she decided she was not Hostel material yet and it was costing her so much money she did not have any extra for extra food, personal things, the phone or the pokies! She was lucky enough to get into a two bedroom unit near the shops so after getting rid of all her household stuff cause she did not need it at the hostel, we had to scrounge around for those sort of things once again for her to set up house. Mum almost managed to stay here in Paynesville for two years. But after me working in Melbourne for the ten weeks which I think was the icing on the cake for Mum, she had made up her mind to go back to Melbourne. She did not want to rely on me too much and found that she was, and wanted to be independant once again! To cut a long story short, she managed to get back to Elsternwick where she was before, but on the first floor! So once again exhaustion set in with all of the organising and the moving back to Melbourne. Not to mention trudging up and down those stairs to the first floor almost killed me during the week of settling Mum in. My knees don't like stairs! Mum turned 86 on July 31st 2006 and a lot of people were amazed at her wanting to move again. It must be the gypsy in her.... (in joke) I was concerned for her moving back to Melbourne as she was comparing herself as to how she was two years ago and she has changed quite a bit in those two years. She has cataracts on her eyes, but not ready to operate on, also found out she has glaucoma in both eyes and has to use drops for the rest of her life (did you know it is hereditory? Yep the optician said to make sure the family are aware of this and to have regular eye check ups) and if that is not enough she also has macular degeneration! So in other words her sight is not good. She wondered why she felt so unsteady of her feet and it was because she was unsure of the levelness of the ground when walking. She cannot pick up when going from sun to shade if there are steps or see any uneveness on the ground. So for the past two years we have been walking around looping arms to make it easier for her as she was worried she would fall over. While living in Paynesville she did not go out anywhere by herself, she did rely on me to take her everywhere. She did not want to walk down to the shops because there was a hill and no footpaths and was worried she would get hit by a car! There is more to it but I won't go on. Anyway she got to Elsternwick, she wanted to prove she could still be independant, and not be a burden to any of her family! as she always said in the past. Well for the first few weeks of moving in she relied on me to take her food shopping when I was there. Maggie has taken her down to the supermarket a couple of times to get food. She caught a taxi to the local RSL for lunch with two other ladies and also exhausted herself by getting a taxi to Chadstone shopping centre, got disorientated as the taxi dropped her off at another entry point and not the one she was used to when she regularly went to Chadstone on the community bus over two years ago. I think it gave her a bit of a boost in confidence, but also exhausted her as she had to do so much walking as Chadstone is such a big place. When here she was saying how good it will be to be back there cause she can walk to the end of the street and catch a bus to the city whenever she wants and walk around in the city and then catch the bus back. Go for walks around the block and walk down to Glenhuntly Road and do her shopping and get it delivered. Well how many times has she done all that in the past 4 weeks?? None! She was also going to come back here to get her hair cut each month and to join in still with the stamping with Narelle and myself. Well she did not come in December cause she was tired and was not sure about catching the train from Caulfield to Bairnsdale. O.K. the confidence she did had about this has gone as she was so eager to do this. Well Christmas was almost upon us and Mum was invited to my sister Chris's for Christmas and on Boxing Day with Pete's parents which Mum had been included in for many years. She decided to go. Kristy my niece picked up Mum on the Friday before Christmas after work and took Mum down to Rye. Chris and Pete have just had a house built down there and had just moved in. I am not sure of the exact details, but Chris showed Mum about the house and told her what to watch out for and to be careful of cause things were not completed. Well!!!! what happened next, I won't know exactly what, but Mum fell down one of the heater vent holes as they did not have their covers on them yet. Mum went down as her leg went down the hole and she landed on one knee and somehow hit her head also. Mum told me she stayed there for a little while to check she had not broken anything, then got up and did not tell anyone about it. For how long I don't know but she did confess to Kristy and wanted her to keep a secret!, I don't know if it was the next day or later that she had fallen. Kristy could not keep it a secret as she felt Chris should know about it which is fair enough. Just imagine if she had caused some sort of damage or the shock was too much for her and she had died in bed that night. The shock of finding her in the morning and not knowing what had happened and she had bruising on her legs and head???!!! Mum got some bruise cream and applied it to her leg and ended up with a black leg from the knee down. She did not let on I don't think as to how bad she felt, she just wanted to get home into her own bed and place. So Kristy and Chris took her home on the Wednesday or Thursday which was the 27th or 28th December. Mum said she has not heard from any of the family to see how she is! I am horrified as Mum has not left the unit. Apparently she has been in a lot of pain with her knees and hip and cannot walk up and down the stairs so she is a prisoner in her flat! The shock of it all has set in and she has lost any confidence she did have about going outside, but the pain is so bad she cannot use the steps and there is no lift! This was another concern as Mum was so desperate to move she was willing to take anything even upstairs, whereas in the past when she was there she was so glad she was on the ground floor for that reason! It is now 10 days later and although she says she is starting to feel a bit better she has still not ventured out and still no one has rung her to see how she is! I am angry, probably because I know what Mum can and cannot do and can and cannot see etc, and that vent should have been taped up and covered so no accidents could happen. Mum is also forgetful and cannot see properly, but they would not know all of that because they don't see or speak to her often enough to know how much she has aged and changed these past two years. I will be going down on Wednesday and most likely stay a week, to get some sort of confidence happening and get her out and about a bit and get some shopping done and anything else that is needed to be done. Unfortunately when she got home from Chris's her TV had cracked it and was not working. Mum lives for the telly and also to be house bound and not feeling well she almost lost it. Also her new fridge was leaking water on the floor. So she was having doubts about her move. Thankfully Maggie lent mum her little portable TV. Mum will end up with my bigger TV which she used before she bought that one. Unfortunately she has no receipt for warranty purposes and it has already had work done on it once! Costing more than it is worth and it is so damn heavy I will have to organise some help taking it out and disposing of it and carrying mine which is heavy up the stairs! Not an easy task. So the purple palace will have to have the little one in there for now. My friend Machele has been wonderful, ringing mum up and visiting her often seeing I cannot get down so often now and Maggie and some of the other ladies have been looking out for her too. Mum did not make it to the January stamping here with Narelle and I as she was in so much pain so again she has not had a hair cut since October now! So now that I have had my whinge I might think about going to bed as it is oh my goodness 3a.m. and I am not really tired. Probably have the moon shining in on me when in bed and that will keep me awake some more as I just love looking at it! Probably still a very dark orange from all the bushfires smoke covering it! night night!

posted by Jill @ 2:17 am 0 comments

It is a boy!!!

Annette and Paul have a baby boy. So wonderful for them. They have named him Logan, thank goodness it was not something like Wilberforce! Seeing for a few days he was known as baby W!! I am rapt as we are planning to go up and see them in March. I am a sort of granny as both Annette and Pauls parents are in England, so I volunteered my self as an Aussie granny, although we are so far away too. Paul's parents are out here for about 5 weeks, so they not only had visitors for the birth and Christmas, what a wonderful time for them to celebrate with the family. Gerard's friend Geoff is going to house sit for us which is great. He really enjoys the dogs and Milly thought he was terrific. Geoff was holding Milly in his arms like a baby and she just lay there!! amazing. He likes dogs so that is half the battle. The cats also did not mind him staying here so that too is a bonus! So roll on March... oh no not so quickly as I really need to lose some of the weight I have stacked on over Christmas to feel a little bit comfortable at least! Yep still battling with the weight, gosh it sucks. Why do we have to deprive ourselves of the foods we like?? Trouble is I cannot stop once I get stuck into the chocolate! I won't tell you how much chocolate the four of us went through in a week... So when am I going to start??? I think I need to get serious very soon like tomorrow or the next day!

posted by Jill @ 2:09 am 0 comments

This weekend!

I feel terrible I completely forgot Maree was coming down this weekend for her Dad's birthday, so instead of us going to the movies, having a good chat and catch up, we only managed a couple of hours on Sunday before she and Trevor left to go back to Melbourne. It was great seeing her, she looked so well and her spirits were high. and why not when you are living in your dream home now, after a long wait, it sounds like a mansion!! Imagine having your own theatre room with luxurious chairs like at the movies and each chair elevated so no big heads in the way!! lol. It has been so warm this weekend, and they had a special day on Sunday for the kids to learn how to and go fishing and a fishing competition. Right in our own backyard! Well not really, it was held in the car park that backs onto our place. There were demonstrations and information on sizes of fish you can catch etc. What really impressed me was the demo of what is alive in our lakes! They got four buckets of water from the lake with a bit of the week that grows in the water and poured each bucket into a white tray. I could not believe the amount of live creatures in each tray! There was a jellyfish, well yes I knew there were heaps of them in the water, the rest of the stuff, I have forgotten their real names. BUT there were tiny black specks darting around in the water, they grow to about half a centimetre and turn green! There was like a long skinny worm, but it's head was the shape of a seahorse! sea snails, shrimp, other green things and other slimy looking things too. other things like shrimps but not shrimps!! I was amazed as to what does live in the water here. They said the water has really improved in quality and no wonder the fish are not biting with all the food they can get by themselves. I don't think they had as many people supporting the event as expected, it was too hot for one thing and then the change came through, we had a huge downpour which soaked everything but only lasted about 10 minutes if that, but it was enough to spoil the whole event. The wind also came up and was so strong it kept blowing the laundry door open. I had to barricade it to keep it shut! By three o'clock everyone had packed up and gone home., It was supposed to run til 5pm. Such a shame, it was great to see the car park being used for this event. So far for the holidays the car park has been used a lot with holiday makers which is good to see, heaps of boats going out. When the cool change hit with the rain, I had to shut the veranday windows to stop everything getting wet. It did cool down and I turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows when the rain stopped. I went and picked up Maree and by the time I got home again it was so hot again, so back on with the air con and so in the lounge is where I have been most of the day. The smoke is getting tossed back and forth with all these strong winds. Fires have flared up in Bruthen which is about a half hour drive from us! Bit of a worry if we get ember attacks if the fire comes closer. Marg the next door neighbour was awake at 2.30 and could see the glow from the fire in the distance .They have a two storey house with the most magnificent views as well as our blue roof!! While sitting her in my chair I happened to look up at the window to see a large orange ball, had to look again until I realised it was the moon. It changed so many times from a dirty dark orange to a pale orange to yellow glowing and also trying to fight past the clouds which at times looked black. It managed to peer through most of the time, I found it fascinating to watch as often when I go to bed about oh I don't know 2am ish I see the moon from our bedroom window and I just cannot stop looking at it and then I lay there wide awake for ages! Yes I do eventually roll over to I cannot see it!!! lol.

posted by Jill @ 1:32 am 0 comments

The Smoke is back!

So when we went to bed last night it was very warm so we had the overhead fan on low and eventually drifted off to sleep. It was one of those restless nights, partly cause it was hot, the other the fan being on which is not the norm! So finally at 6.30 I got up with the strong smell of smoke once again! Looking out the bedroom window, I knew at once what the day is going to be like once again. Yep the smoke is back well and truly. From the kitchen window the sun was struggling to get through the smokey clouds and now an hour later It has broken through a little bit, but it is a firey orange ball with no rays! I keep feeling like I am going to sneeze! I did say to Gerard if it is flat water again today we will go for a paddle, but even though the water is flat, the visibility is not good so probably won't go out, no we won't be going out today! So frustrating, it is either so windy the water is too choppy or the water is so smooth but the visibility is so bad!!! Patience is the key!!! not too good with that at the moment. I will get off my big bum and take a look at the sun and see if it is worth a picture and do a bit of cleaning and tidying up here before it gets too hot, expected to be about 33 again. Am meeting Narelle tomorrow for a stamping session which will be so good, catching up on any news and getting into some ATC's for swapping. So bye for now will talk again soon!

posted by Jill @ 7:13 am 0 comments

New Years Eve

Something went wrong with this addition, looks like I lost all I had written, so it is your lucky day, a short version as New Years Eve was so long ago! Machele and Tamyka were here and oh yes I remember, at midnight I walked to the water's edge to see if I could see the fireworks from the main street and yes I could, they were stunning. While walking back there were some more fireworks from around the Bairnsdale way and yet again could see a glow from most likely the Lakes Entrance ones. It was fun having the girls down for the week, My Chrissie present to Tamyka was me and the Purple Palace and she could do some cards etc. We had a good time in there I have put up some pics of what she made, she does have a good creative mind and a talent with colours. Machele also did some cards and some canvas prints as I gave her the stuff for a pressy to make them herself, she was surprised at how easy it was and we all felt we achieved a lot.

This photo does not do this card justice, mounted onto a CD and glitter added it looks stunning in real life! We gave the CD the crackled effect for this card.

Again a crackled effect on the CD and layers of petals with glitter applied makes alovely card.

Serviettes applied to a canvas and glitter that you cannot see made this such a gorgeous Christmas decoration.

posted by Jill @ 11:46 pm 0 comments

Christmas 2006

We left for Melbourne around 7.30am, drove through the pouring rain which was a first for ages and arrived at the hostel where Marj was staying for the moment after breaking her hip. She was pleasantly surprised to see us. Then on to Chris and Jim's for lunch with Margaret, Graeme and Nin, (Gerard's family) for a hot dinner which was appropriate seeing they woke up to a white Christmas day, although not snow it was so much hail.

Then on to spend tea with Kate at Matt's home with his family and friends. It was a huge feast of seafood for us all.

Got to Machele and Tamyka's about 11.30pm a quick sleep and up and off to Paynesville at 6.30 in the morning. Had a great run once again, obviously beat all the traffic.

Have been to the pictures and had a good laugh with Happy Feet, just soo cute and also had a trip with Jamie the clydesdale horse around Raymond Island.

New Years eve is almost here, will go down to the foreshore for the annual fireworks display which is just beautiful and it is amazing to see so many people here in Paynesville.

Jamie the Clydesdale Horse on Raymond Island

Jamie took us on a tour on Raymond Island searching for Koalas and we were not disappointed. Took many photos of them and also managed to see three Tawny Frogmouth Owls which was very exciting for me. Just gorgeous!

The Koala just looks so cute and cuddly, but those claws look so dangerous!

posted by Jill @ 10:38 am 0 comments

Changing of the days with smoke

These are some pics of around our place with the effects of the smoke from the bush fires, just real eerie!

Above are pics of the changing smoke conditions over the past week!

posted by Jill @ 12:50 pm 0 comments

Fire report! Thursday 14th December 2006

posted by Jill @ 3:34 pm 0 comments