Jill and Gerard's Seachange

Happy New Year!!!!!!! 2006!!

Thought this was a good time to test the "fireworks" setting on my camera! It was not easy cause I had to hold the camera and then I was not sure where the explosion would be!! Took a video of some of them, but once again the Blog does not like movies!!!!

Hi all, well it is the first day of 2006, nothing has changed, still feeling tired and it is too hot outside... expecting 37degrees celcius!!! I wonder how many dogs in the world are lazing in the loungeroom with the air conditioner blowing on them????? Well I can tell you of two!!! Sassy is flaked out at the other end of the room obviously getting the benefit of the cool air, Milly as usual is lying on the floor between chairs as close as she can get to me!! She is my shadow.

It is 11.30am, I have my feet up, telly on with video hits on, Gerard is at work at the servo and Machele and Tamyka have not appeared from the bedroom as yet! We, us three girls have had a very lazy time here, but hey the weather has been like that. I feel as if I need to go and have a nap again!!

Had a visit from the two Geoffs, it was so good to see them again, they stayed for tea and we "christened" the new BBQ. We have had BBQ's for tea ever since. Have gotten addicted to lamb back straps marinated with of all things "mint sauce" they are so yummy!!!

Just don't know what day it is anymore, every day just rolls into the next one with no set routine at all, even Gerard is upside down as his shifts over the Christmas and New Year period are all over the place..

We ended up at K-Mart and bought another canoe and also looked at Clark Rubber, they have a blow up Kayak which is made of very tuff stuff, so am thinking of maybe buying one of them as it will be a lot lighter for me to carry to the waters edge. Speaking of waters edge, the activity here is amazing. This is our first Christmas here as permanent residents, being so warm, the water has water skiers, jet ski's, swimmers, canoes, kayaks, donut shaped things on the back of boats, paddlers and heaps and heaps of swans. The main street is so busy with activity and people are out sitting on the sand at 10 in the morning all set for the day.

O.K. what did we do for new years eve??? The day before Friday was just soo hot, did nothing at all, yesterday was a few degrees cooler but not much, we had booked to go on a three hour boat trip around the lakes. It was great only us three girls were on the boat, Gerard had to work and mum did not want to go out in the heat. Well it was so great, the owner, Doug was great he took us over to the ninety mile beach, struggled a walk over the sand dune to experience the most awesome beach that went for miles, 93 in fact!! Just stunning. We left there and went to view a Pelican breeding colony!! So amazing, apparently Pelicans take three months from birth to reach adulthood. They are born feather less, then have white feathers and then get their black ones too. You don't see any pelicans apart from the mature ones normaly as they wait for the three months before venturing out. There were hundreds of them!!

We also saw some late nesting swans, and got a glimpse of some eggs as the swan rose to give them some air I suppose.

Learn't some of the rules of boating on the lakes and how the boat knows how deep the water is below it with a screen also saw where we were heading on another screen and the route we were taking. We boated past our house, amazing from a different view point and back up the new canal. The houses are worth big bucks on the canals, not to mention some of the boats. Could see Annette and Pauls house from the canal also! It was an excellent 3 hours, cool breeze, a bit more of a tan, yes used sun block, took some pics, hope to upload them soon. Can understand the "need" to get on the water, the canoes and kayaks will have to do as the money will not spread that far at all...

As soon as we got home there was a message from Gerard asking me to come and give him a hand at the servo, boy was it busy up there and especially after 7p.m. when the two supermarkets closed, of course there was no one else open except for some cafe's. The things people bought, two minute noodles, toilet paper, dish washing detergent, smokes, sunglasses, cold drinks, potato chips, chocolate, bait and oil!! oh and petrol of course or gas.

There was a constant trail of cars going past the servo heading for the main part of Paynesville obviously getting ready to see the new year in. This year they had fireworks at 9.30pm and midnight. We chose the midnight ones as we did not have our tea til 10pm, have been eating our tea by candlight a lot lately! My feet were exploding with pain, but I managed to get up and go down to the main street to watch the fire works with Machele and Tamyka. We got there about 11.30pm and were surprised to see so many teenagers and just so many people on the whole. Did not know so many people existed. We walked down to where it was all happening and joined in sitting on the embankment to view the fireworks display. Such beautiful explosions in the sky, just fascinating, and to hear the shrieks of the children and adults as they explode. We then called into mums to wish her happy new year as she was still awake. We then went on to see if anyone had their christmas lights on still and found a few of them, we also went to our regular bunny spotting place and yes we saw a few of them, not as many as in the past though. Got back home about 1a.m. and eventually went to bed, after falling asleep in the chair until 4a.m.!!

Well had better go as I have an order of cards I need to do and get Machele to take them to Lesley for me.

posted by Jill @ 11:23 am