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