Jill and Gerard's Seachange

The day before and Christmas Eve day!

The little house with the blue roof is ours, this gives you an idea how far from the water we are, I am sitting in the kayak so very far away I have zoomed in to see the house, as you can see in the pic of Gerard the land in the background is how far out we were!

Well it was a very warm night, definitely not a good one for sleeping! Went down to the waters edge about 9pm as it was so hot in the house, took the torch with me and of course Milly came too. We sat on the stone wall for a while and shone the torch into the water, saw another one of those long things, not a snake, not an eel as it has fins at the front of it but wiggles the tail part to move in the water? Cat fish maybe I really have no idea, at least this time Gerard saw it too, he did not know what it was either, looks like I will have to buy myself an A - Z on fish now!!! I have a bird one and a plant one, so may as well add to the collection.....

Not much relief with the air con during the rest of the day cause we got sidetracked..... what's new??

In the morning Trevor and Marg from next door had "thrown" their kayaks on the back of their truck and drove them across the car park to the waters edge and were off for a paddle. Within say 20 minutes they were back, not a quick trip at all, meanwhile we put my "low acid" tomato plant in a bag of potting mix as suggested by someone and see if it grows into a fabulous plant bearing many tomatoes! We were about to extend the cat's haven out under the landing when they came back off loaded the kayaks and said they just went round the block!! As they were about to go inside, they offered them to us for a paddle??? Oh yes please and thank you so much. So forget the cats for the moment, actually forget everything and off we go to the water, boy I do need to get a trolley and a light kayak when we do eventually buy some.. By this time it was almost ten o'clock and warming up, luckily I put on some sunscreen on my arms as they were bare, grabbed my gorgeous straw hat, fly spray, camera, water to drink and a couple of slices of bread to feed swans if necessary!!!

What a glorious morning, the water was like a sheet of glass, so smooth, heaps of swans around but as we were moving along they kept out of our way, we headed over to Raymond Island just across from our place and decided to paddle along the edge there and see how far we could get. We would paddle a bit and then just stop and sit and take in the whole thing!!!!!! Looking down to the water which was so clear you could see the reeds and fish swimming around below us, also little fish were jumping out of the water, they looked like miniature dolphins, yeah right. Speaking of we did not see any, saw larger fish swirls and though maybe we were lucky, but no.

We were out there for about an hour and a half and it was great to see our house from a different outlook!! It looked so tiny next door to Trevor and Margs place towering over ours.. We had a lovely time, the sun was getting hot and I could feel my skin getting rather hot, thank goodness I put on the sunscreen as I am not at all red and uncomfortable. Gerards legs were pretty red as he had shorts on and also had been splashing water on them, silly man!!!! When we got back to the waters edge and I had to get out of the Kayak was the hardest part as once again I had to "squeeze" myself into it in the first place, for anyone who knows what it is like to get onto the floor and then have to get up again, rolling over to ones side and getting onto knees and then hanging onto something to hoist yourself up!! Some of us know what I am saying lol! well eventually I managed to "unsuck" myself out and turn over and get Gerard to help me up, real elegant look, like a beached whale!!!!! Trevor had strolled down to give Gerard a hand to bring the kayaks back which was so great, I did not have to carry anything except my camera!!!

Of course we had forgotten the cat's cage and the air conditioner by this time and I ended up going into the palace to do a bit of tidying up, so I put on my air con on in there and it was just divine, the best place to be, works really well and makes it so comfortable to work in without being too hot and sweaty.

It is amazing at the time of being out on the water you do not realise how much energy one uses until later that day. The whole experience of floating on the water and being so close to it is mesmerising, such a different freedom, no boats were about when we were out there, the stillness and quietness of this large expanse of water is unreal. Gotta get my own kayak...

Gerard is not travelling too well again and I told him he should get out there and just paddle real hard and get it all out of his system and it may make him feel better, don't know what to do with him cause he is dragging me down a bit at the moment and I don't need it as I have my own pain to cope with,, He has been to see someone again so hopefully this new person can help him better than before, it seems as if he does not want to try and sort himself out. I am considering seeing someone too as I don't need all of these ups and downs at the moment.

So after this awful night of sleeping off and on with no covers on and the thinnest of nighties I managed to get some sleep only to be woken up at six thirty with Milly yapping as there was thunder and lightening and lots of rain happening. Really do not want to be awake yet, but I give in and get up and let the dogs in, it is pouring with rain, so I go around and shut the windows on the verandah, Gerard has the early shift at the servo so he is not around. O.k. so I pick up the lap top and here I am sitting in the loungeroom with the telly on and SBS is telling me all the temperatures of the world with a bit of a movie of some of the countries, very interesting, flick over to another channel and would you believe it there are these little fairy's flitting about just so cute til they show an older male fairy and he has a "moustache"!!!!!! O.k. they get old too, but it changes the whole look of fairyland.. Flick again and we have video hits and not much to listen to. I have the two dogs in here with me flaked out on the floor and Rusty my little cat is growling and circling my chair, she just seems to hate the thunder so much and this uncontrollable growl just comes from nowhere!! Well the rain has stopped, I suppose I had better drag myself out of this chair and put my foot down on the floor!!!, go outside and get the soaked newspaper and have a shower get dressed and by then it will be time for the shops to open and do the "last minute" shopping before the big "Christmas Day" tomorrow.

We plan to leave here about 8a.m. hopefully there will not be too much traffic at that time of the morning, have no idea what it will be like as we have not travelled from here before on Chrissy day to Melbourne. Usually takes 3 to 31/2 hours depending on how long we stop for a break so will have to time ourselves this time. Having two drivers there and three on the way back should make it easier..

Things to do today!!!!

Do last minute shop..
Make a mud cake for tomorrows dessert
Wrap pressies
put some things away in the second bedroom, blow up the mattress for Machele, make the beds so that they can just fall into bed tomorrow night when we get here.
Clean up the kitchen after cooking session
Do some clothes washing
Pick up things that have been put behind the lounge during the inside painting.
Vacuum
General tidy up etc..

Hey not much to do really!!! Will take me all day and I still have not done any Christmas cards!! Where does the time go? Spend too much time on the computer, mum would say!!!

O.K. SBS now has some bloke talking at a conference in a foreign language and there is an interpreter speaking in another language so don't know what it is all about!! back to video hits and rage I think, no had better get up and have a shower and go to the shops soon.

o.k. hope you have a lovely Christmas whatever you do, will be back later.

luv Jill

P.S. please excuse any typo's as the spell check is not happy with me and I don't want to lose all of this so .....

posted by Jill @ 7:15 am