No, I'm Not Lying!

Coming home from work on Tuesday, with Mim in the car, she declared herself about to die of starvation and wanted me to get some KFC or McDonalds from Hamilton.

"Sorry, sweetie, I don't have any money on me" was my excuse.
"Are you lying?" came the response from the backseat.
"No."
"Are you kidding?"
"No!"
"Are you joking?"
"NO!"

I think she understood after that, that I really didn't have any money on me!!

Michael, the domestic goddess

Michael had a pussy rubbing around his legs this afternoon.

No, I wasn't feeling frisky, it was just Morticia.

She had been lying peacefully on our bed having a catnap when Michael decided to tease her. He brought in a lovely piece of steak and proceeded to wave it around her head and swing it just out of her reach.

Needless to say, he was like the Pied Piper for the next few hours. He relented enough to cut her a small piece, she was ever so grateful. She'll probably sleep on his legs tonight instead of mine.

Michael has spent the afternoon making dinners for the next few days. Tonight is crumbed steak, tomorrow night is a beef madras curry, Tuesday night is spag bog, Wednesday night is an Angelo chook variation. I'll make my tuna mornay for Thursday night, as Mim likes it, and Friday night is pub night again.

Hospital evenings, here I come.

I'm all trained up and raring to go. Looking forward to my first evening shift tomorrow. Michael grumbled that I'm going to stay in bed all day and read until it's time to go to work. Hmmm, maybe I should prove him right!

The ladies at the hospital have all proved to have wonderful senses of humour so far. At one of Viv's farewell morning tea/afternoon tea/lunch/whatever, they were telling semi rude jokes (keeping it a bit clean for the new person I guess).

Did you know Viagra know comes in an eyedrop solution? So you can have a long hard look at things (boom boom).

So of course, I had to tell the Viagra / Prozac one (if you don't get a f$%#, you don't give a f%$#) - they hadn't heard that one!!

Congratulations Caitlin

Caitlin entered some photos in the local art show. She got a Commendation in the Young Artist category. There were some really nice works of art on sale there, not just amateur photos/drawings/paintings. It's given her an idea of how to present her stuff for next year (and maybe Jemima could enter one of her pictures as well!)

How Gomez keeps fit...

...or living in hope! Mini fox terrier vs large truck doing 100k/h - do you think he'll ever catch one?

Independence Day

Last Monday, Mim decided to assert her independence and dress herself for daycare. Picture this outfit: white long sleeved shirt proclaiming "I still live with my parents" in hot pink and black writing, brown corduroy skirt, black leggings tucked into green Bob the Builder socks (pulled up to her knees) and white joggers. Topped off with a blue jacket. And she had to do her own hair, the birdsnest look was in that day.

As we were already running late, I really couldn't be jacked fighting with her about her outfit, and let's face it, it's only daycare!

Bad move!

We get to daycare to find the photographers setting up..... it was class photos day!! I managed to untuck her leggings and roll the socks down but couldn't do much else with the rest of the outfit, and god forbid that she'd let me redo her hair!

Oh, well..... guess that photo will be captioned "Why my parents should always dress me!"

New Job

I started my new job this week, even though I'm still finishing up the old job.

Wednesday was orientation day, probably the best orientation that I'd been to. We got to finish off the day in the freezing cold wind, playing with fire extinguishers and hoses and putting out fires light by the arsonic HR person.

Thursday I started training on the ward. Started at 7.30am, by 10.30 I was wondering if I'd made a big mistake in taking on this job - so many things to learn and names of people. But by the end, even though my brain was in information overload, I was happy to be working there. The lady I'm replacing (well, it takes two of us to replace her) has been there for over 30 years and she knows so much stuff that is not written down.

A lot of the job involves walking around the ward, checking supplies, collecting medical histories, filing, dropping off pathology and radiology requests. Viv ( the one I'm replacing) walks like a marathon walker. I could barely keep up... and my balls are sooooo sore! I know why nurses and other medical staff wear flat shoes now!

Everybody is very friendly and it seems like a fun place to work. I'm doing two more full days of training next week, and then I'm on the 4-7pm time slot. Woohooo!

Meanwhile, I've got two more full days at Penshurst before I've finished there for good. I'll miss the beautiful people of Penshurst, both the patients and the staff at the hospital, but I'll be glad not to be travelling all that way!

Not Again!

Michael stayed home with Jemima on Wednesday, as her cough and runny nose are just not going away. He thought he'd take the opportunity to do a number of mundane jobs, like emailing our tax stuff to the accountant and ringing various organisations that needed to be rung. All was going well, until he picked up the phone..... no dial tone. The water pipelines bastards had done it again! So, no phone or internet from Wednesday morning until about lunchtime on Friday!! You don't realise how much you use these two items, until they are taken away from you.

Michael confronted the lads that were making a mudpit of our service road, but they denied that it could have been their company. HUH! The people across the road had lost their phone as well.

On the bright side, I finally met our neighbours that live about a kilometre down the road, on the same side. Craig and Sarah have a 5 year old, Isabelle, who is very outgoing and would probably love to play with Jemima. I'd called in to see if they had dialtone (they had), and Isabelle talked the whole time. She'd give Jemima a run for her money!

Let's see if the idiots can make it a trifecta!

Caitlin's new friend

Caitlin has become friends with Dr J's son. As Dhruv has returned to India until next year, she has been continuing the friendship via Skype chatting. And chatting. And chatting. In fact, they probably chatted for 7 hours last Sunday!!

Bloody teenagers!! And she wonders why I won't get her a mobile phone!!

Two weeks and photos

A lot has happened over the last two weeks. I'm mentally exhausted at the moment (too much watching Olympics) so sorry is this post is a bit disjointed.

Two weeks ago, I applied for and had an interview for a position at the Allied Health centre attached to the hospital. I was unsuccessful. So I applied for a Ward Clerk position and had an interview on Thursday afternoon. Got a call on Friday to say the job was mine! This means I won't have to drive an hour to work five days a fortnight. This position is 5 days a week but it's 4pm to 7pm, which means Jemima won't have to go to daycare regularly (yippeee!) and hopefully she'll get over this persistant ongoing cold! She'll also be able to go to Kindy again, and she's very excited about that.

Mim's had a bit of a gastro bug as well as her cold, so I've had to deal with a lot of shit lately .... literally!

For the next two weeks, I'll be working full time. Finishing off my 5 day fortnight at the medical clinic, and the days that I'm not there, I'll be training up at the hospital. Hopefully after that, I'll be on the afternoon shift, but I don't expect to have time to blog or do anything in the next two weeks.

The other day, the girls practiced their riding. Mim is getting better with pedalling but still tends to look down, and I think she has practiced her back pedalling/braking more than enough!
Pedalling up the service road.

On Friday, the clever lads laying the Casterton to Coleraine waterpipeline decided to dig deep. They managed to carefully evade the dead telephone cable for 2 kms, but cut straight through the live one. This meant that we were without phone and internet for most of Friday. Clever boys! Luckily it was on again by late afternoon, which meant I could email my resignation through to Head Office.

Just over a week ago, Carla decided to scare the bejesus out of everyone (including herself, no doubt) and had a heart attack. Luckily she has come through it relatively unscathed. I'll leave her to blog all about it, during her (hopefully) long recuperation.

Caitlin has decided she wants to enter one of her photos in the local Art Show. This means we'll have to get cracking and print it out and mount it and think of a title for it. She spent some time with Mim this morning trying to get some more lovely shots, but unfortunately didn't notice the water droplet on the lens, which meant most of the pictures were 'contaminated'. These were some of her shots, which would have been lovely if not for the water and the blades of grass:





Are these jonquils or daffodils? Anybody know? They are popping up everywhere in our garden. They smell heavenly though, whatever they are.

Took this shot today. Remind you of anybody, Mum????

Morticia never looks happy, does she? She always looks like one pissed off pussy!


I reckon that in about two weeks time, this tree is going to look amazing. Some of the pink buds are already coming out. Will try to blog another piccie when it's in full bloom.

Sheepvention

I'd been looking forward to attending Sheepvention, the biggest event in the Hamilton calendar!

It's like the Ekka, but minus Sideshow Alley, minus the Showbag Pavillion, minus the horses, cats, dogs, pigs, cows, couple of hundred thousand people..... leaving sheep and tractors, and the obligatory stalls selling woolen socks, clothing and other useful items!

It was fun to wander around though. Would have liked to see more of the farm dog trials, but we still had a few pavillions to go through.



I liked the Alpaca pavillion (really just a marquee housing a few pens). They were conducting the alpaca fleece judging when we walked in... heard over the loudspeaker "The sun has just come out, we should be judging the blacks now" (Wouldn't hear that at the Ekka!!!!!) So, Mum and Dad, can I put my Christmas present order in now? I want an Alpaca (no, make that two):)




Michael reckons this one looks like Ringo Starr.

We caught up with Dr Jayant briefly before going separate ways. Dr J bought himself an Akubra hat, as he walked out of the tent, Michael said "Oh, look, the Indian is dressing up as a cowboy". Dr J saw the humour in that.

Caitlin met a friend just inside the front gate, as soon as she could scab some money off us, she deserted us for the rest of the day.

lunch

Mim wanted to see sheep, so we wandered into the Sheep pavillion. and saw plenty of sheep. They had Merinos and Leicesters, black sheep and grey sheep, wool sheep and meat sheep, rams, ewes and lambs......



one very ugly sheep!

I taught Mim how to tell the difference between a boy sheep and a girl sheep. It was funny to see her wandering around, bending over and looking between the sheep's legs and calling out "this one's got a ball, it's a boy", "this one doesn't, it's a girl".


For those not familiar with sheep sexing, the male is the one on the right!

Mim has decided that she would like one of these for Christmas:


She asked me what the silver things on the handles were..... "brakes, darling"!


I think these blokes will audition for the next "Farmer Wants a Wife" series?

All in all, it was a fun day. I'll definitely go back next year, they are thinking of including dairy in it as well!

The Sydney weekend

Had an enjoyable weekend just recently, flying to Sydney for Michelle and Catherine's joint 30th birthday bash.

Flew from Hamilton to Essendon in a little 19 seater Metroliner (Michael calls them flying cigar tubes, which is probably an accurate description).

past the Grampians

Then taxi up to Tullamarine and onto a Virgin flight to Sydney. Sydney had been experiencing "weather conditions" which necessitated the closure of one of the runaways, and therefore increased departure times by up to an hour. Luckily, I was shunted onto an earlier flight, which was due to arrive in Sydney half an hour earlier than originally planned.

Ah, Sydney, back to the land of kamikaze drivers, tailgating and split second decisions!! And Livio's pizza! Nothing beats Livio's pizza!!!

Michelle had cleared out the spare bedroom for me, but I was not destined to sleep alone. Bella decided to be my bedmate. I should point out that Bella is a full grown Alaskan Malamute, she took up more bed than Michael would have! But, she was lovely and warm.


The party was excellent. Not too many people that the place was crowded, but not too few that it was uncomfortable. The boys enjoyed watching the Bledisloe Cup on the big screen, food came around regularly and Nanna proceeded to hold court in the smoker's section with the girls from Michelle's work. It was after the fifth drink that she offered to crochet a lap rug for one of the girls, who was looking a bit cold. (The rug was passed on to Michelle on Sunday for onforwarding to Chrissie).
the birthday girls
Mark and Nanna in smokers corner

Michelle and I trying to be taller than the other

The birthday cake was wonderful, a caramel mudcake with a photo of Michelle and Catherine up a tree.


When the girls were serving the cake, I refused to take the bottom half of Catherine, I pointed it in the direction of Dom , her husband. He said that it tasted as yummy as always (more info than needed!!)

Towards the end of the night, Chrissie gave birth to a helium balloon that she christened Monday Cheesecake (as a tribute to Kidman's Sunday Rose (Roast)), and Mark serenaded us with a helium inspired "Doe a Deer". We finally left around midnight, piled copious amounts of helium balloons into a taxi and did a "Macca Run" with a hilarious Asian cabdriver.

We had a lovely fry up breakfast of bacon, eggs and muffins the next morning. Mark refused to sing Nessun Dorma on helium, the piker.


We had lunch at the Revesby Workers Club on Sunday, we were running a bit late but Mark played rally driver quite well through the Sydney traffic.

After lunch, we did another rally trip to the airport and I caught another Virgin flight back to Melbourne. Cruising altitude coming up was 11,500 metres, going back down, it was only 8,500. Got a good look at the mountains with their snow. Even though we were cruising lower, we managed to do the trip quicker than expected.

The snowfields north of Melbourne
flying into Melbourne

Took a taxi to Essendon airport, managed to get a taxi driver who had no idea where it was, it wasn't coming up on his GPS. I had to tell him to stick to the Tullamarine Freeway and we'd see a sign for it somewhere on the left.
the busy metropolis that is Essendon

Arrived in Hamilton just after 6.30pm, exhausted. It felt a lot later than that. The girls were very pleased to see me home and Michael arranged a wonderful dinner for two, expertly done porterhouse and veg. Unfortunately I couldn't do it justice, I was too tired and still coughing up my lungs.

Rollin', rollin', rollin', get them truckies rollin'....

It's been an exciting few weeks in Hamilton.

First, a truck carrying pigs rolled over at the large roundabout. 500 pigs were on the loose, being rounded up by the police (see any irony in that?) - it made front page of the Spectator!


Then, two weeks later, a truck carrying diesel rolled at the same spot.


There's a big hoohaa about improving the roundabout and spending copious amounts of money to make it 'safer'. I wonder how much money a sign saying "trucks - 30km/hr, or you'll roll" would cost?

First proper frost

Winter is almost over, apparently it has been a mild winter. Last Tuesday we had our first real frost of the season. Yes, we'd had a bit of frost previously, but nothing like this (almost) winter wonderland.

The first inkling I got that it was frosty was when I let Gomez out before sunrise, and all I could hear was "crunch, crunch, crunch".

Michael took some shots of the property and across the road.




The temperature gauge on the car read minus 3 as we left for work about 7.30am, it's pretty accurate. There was even a bit of ice on the road as I reached Penshurst just after 8.30.