The best laid plans...

Today Roxy was going for a service.We also suspected that a wheel bearing was going on the rear passenger side wheel so that was going to be checked out too.Udi, the mechanic, had been recommended by WIll's brother Danny.We prepared well and headed out to the garage address we found on the internet on Sunday to check where it was before I dropped it off this morning: 14/5 Timms Ct, Woodridge.We checked the bus timetable too and the possible route  I could come home if I took Will's bike in the back.Last night I decided on the bus option and so we made sure that my 'Go Via' bus card was topped up with enough money for the fares.The Van Der Zants, next door interrupted our card game last night to offer the use of their 'Ute' , short for 'utility vehicle' until we got Roxy back. It was very kind.All was set, planned and prepared...what could possibly go wrong?Will went off to work in the Ute this morning and at 8.00 I set off in Roxy for Woodridge. I was to drop it off at 8.30. I arrived at Timms Court dead on time but straight away noticed that the place we had assumed was the garage was not open.On the piece of paper I had with the address Will had written Timms Circuit but this was at Timms Court.I wandered over to a nearby garage to ask. The first bloke who was washing a car could not help me and directed me to his boss in the office."Excuse me, I am looking for the Schwaben Garage," I said. (Udi is German)."There's no garage by that name round here," said the boss."Is this postcode 4114?" I asked. He didn't know. He looked on his business card. It turned out it was 4119!I walked back to Roxy in a bit of a state. What do I do now?I tried to switch on Roxy's  satnav...but it was not playing ball so found the maps app on my phone. I have never used it before. Will always does it on his phone so it was all new to me.Luckily I managed to switch on my GPS and put in that I wanted to go from 'Timms Court 4114' to 'Timms Circuit 4119'.'Calculating route', it said. I waited with my heart beating loudly.When it finally showed the route, I was shocked. It said I had 55 kms to go to my destination and it was sending me way north of Brisbane.I rang Udi."Hello, I am at Timms Court, where are you?""Oh No!" said Udi, "We was not been there for the past seven years!""Where are you then? " I asked."25 Parramatta Rd, Unit 13," he said. It would be '13' wouldn't it!"How far is it from here?" I asked."About 10 minutes, " he said."Ok, so it's 25 Parramatta Rd?" I asked..... He'd gone!I got the maps app up on the phone and put in that I wanted to go from  'Timms Court' to '25 Parammatta Rd'.A box popped up on my phone screen;"Please Recharge, Battery Low".I ignored it  and got rid of it.'Calculating route.' I might as well have been in Beijing for all I knew about the area...I only knew the way back home.Luckily  the route it showed did not seem that far and was not that complicated.I headed into the unknown and found it after about 4 minutes. Now I was worried that it was the wrong Parramatta Rd because Udi had said it was 10 minutes away.It was the right Parramatta Rd and soon I was leaving Roxy in Udi's capable hands.I was walking away when I realised that I now had no clue about the buses from this new place. I walked back to the main road and found a bus stop. It turned out to be the same one I would have caught near Timms Court and so I was back on track....ish.The sun was beating down and I had no hat. I tried to squeeze into the shadow of a lamp post next to the bus stop. It  was hard.The bus came and after a circuitous route I arrived home just before 11.Roxy has been serviced. We picked her up after Will came home. He ran me over there in the Ute. There is nothing wrong with her wheel bearings...it seems it is the tyres that are making the noise. She may need a new timing belt though.At least I know where to go now.

Bed Bug.

It has been cooler during the day these past few days and when I say 'cooler' I mean in the high 20's.The temperature had dropped to about 23 degrees when we got in bed last night and it felt just right.I was just drifting off to sleep when something ran across my back."UUUUuuuuuuhhhhhhOOOooooooohhhhhhhhhh!" I cried out and leapt out of bed under the net.Will almost had a heart attack with me crying out suddenly in the peace of the night.I grabbed the solar bedside light and swept the beam backwards and forwards across the bed like some Stalag prison guard atop a searchlight tower.Nothing....just the red desert of the sheet."There is definitely something there!" I said, "It must be under the sheet."Will lifted the sheet and a moth crawled out. I pounced on it and squashed it immediately.I expected it to be something much worse with a couple more legs."See, things get trapped by this net," said Will, desperate for it to go.The net stays...or I don't.

A load of junket.

The day started early...we went to the markets at  6.30 am but I was not fully awake until about 7.00. We had Gourmet Calamari for breakfast and a  drink and chat with Ros and Kim before wandering the stalls. We got two lovely ginger plants as presents for Wendi (it was her birthday yesterday) and Shirley. We found a stall selling spices and Will asked if they had any paella spice mix. They didn't but the man said he would make some up. It just looked like he was mixing random things and we were both convinced he did not have a clue what went into a real paella spice mix.We got a paw paw for Dulcie and Will got some little yams for planting in the garden.Back at Celtis St, Shirley had made a chocolate cake for Wendi's birthday. Wendi and Geoff came over for morning tea and we had the cake and scones, jam and cream and a plethora of Dulcie biscuits before Wendi and Geoff took Shirley away to their house until Monday.Will and I went to Bunnings at Oxley...he had been the other day and found they had a better selection of plants than the one nearer us. He had brought back two 'bisexual' paw paw plants and some rhubarb.We ignored the sausage sizzle gang and got more mulch...three huge packs... and came back and set about mulching the large bed at the bottom of the garden. First Will spread out all the grass clippings, then he covered that with a layer of wet cardboard and covered that with the sugar cane mulch. This will keep all the weeds down. We are going to plant the paw paw plants and potatoes in there, when the time is right.Some of the things we have planted in the garden have done well and others not so well. We had some lovely sweet corn cobs last week but pulled the rest up today as they were dying off. We have had lots of tomatoes, a few cucumbers and some peppers are still growing. The fennel and the pumpkins are still growing. The peanuts are doing well and we have a few sunflowers out. The beans and the lettuce did not do well at all. The beans were affected by some pest and it was just too hot for the lettuce. We have a couple of melons growing at the moment but they are still quite small.I had a snooze this afternoon as not much sleep last night, because of he humidity, and the early start this morning finally caught up with me.I awoke just in time for tea. Dulcie had made her mince and veggies. Will had made junket for dessert which we had after our game of euchre. Dulcie used to make it for them when they were younger.It was lovely sprinkled with nutmeg.

Rejection!

Dear Nicholas,Thank you for applying for the Deli Team Member - Annerley position with Supermarkets.Unfortunately after careful consideration and assessment with the recruitment team, we have decided not to proceed with your application at this time. While your skills and background are impressive, we have received a large number of applications and others more closely matched the current requirements.While you were not selected for this role, we appreciate your interest in the position and encourage you to apply for other exciting opportunities we have available by visiting us at www.wowcareers.com.au.We wish you the best of luck in your job search!Kind regards,Recruitment TeamWoolworths Limited They couldn't even be bothered to sign it!

Luck, 'Yuk!' and Muck!

We are still in Brisbane and are staying down here this weekend.

Will worked 3 days again this week as he was making up for the day he had off when we went to Fiji.

Will’s sister Shirley arrived on Tuesday. I was supposed to pick her up from Coopers Plains railway station but about 45 minutes before she was to arrive she rang to say that the train was not stopping there and she was getting off at Altandi.

“Where is Altandi?” I asked Dulcie.

“I’ve no idea...I’ve never heard of it,” she said.

I had been going over the route to Coopers Plains in my head and knew it off by heart but Altandi put the cat among the pigeons.

I found it on Google maps and memorised the route and set off...I was supposed to turn right after crossing the railway line at Coopers Plains but when I got to the traffic lights there was no right turn...I had to make the rest up and just head in the general direction...as luck would have it, I found it with minutes to spare. Driving Shirley back she was impressed at my knowledge of the back roads around Sunnybank...and she had lived near there for years, a while ago.

“I’ve never been down this road”, she said.

I confessed I did not have a clue where I was really and was just returning the flukey way I had come.

On Weds Blue Care came...Julie of ‘The King Brown.’

“Still got your net up I see,” she said.

“Yes, but I am getting better,” I said, “It’s not tucked in at the sides anymore!”

“Oooooooh!” She said, “Get you!”

I told her about the snakes I had seen now and the spiders. She said she had been bitten by a wolf spider once...I wondered if it affected her at full moon and whether she had then urge to go out and make a web...but I didn’t say anything.

She always spends more time chatting than doing the cleaning she really comes for but when Dulcie is on her own that’s just as important as the cleaning. She was talking about giving up smoking after her dad got lung cancer and how hard she has found it but she has stuck at it and done it....though she still finds it hard to resist. She puffs on one of those electronic cigarettes every now and again now.

There was Dulcie at nearly 91 puffing away at her ciggie, listening.

“You’re not giving up are you?” said Julie.

Dulcie shook her head and blew out a cloud of smoke.

After doing some cleaning she sat down and told us some horror stories of some of the places she had to clean. There was one place where the woman said;

“Oh, don’t go in that room.” The door was closed...but on the next visit it was open and Julie said she looked in and it was the room where the woman let her dog go to the toilet.

One woman had left rotten cat food lying on the kitchen floor. Julie said she just cleaned round it but the woman said,

“You’ve missed that bit.”

Julie said “Oh, it’s not in my job description to deal with things like that.”

The woman scraped it up back into an empty cat food tin.

“There you go, just get that paper towel to wipe up the last bit.”

Julie tossed the paper towel to the woman for her to wipe it up and then she mopped the rest of the floor.

She said there were very few places where she felt comfortable using their loo. She said she wanted to go while working at the last place that morning but thought,

‘I’ll wait till I get to Dulcie’s.’

It all sounded horrendous and we could not believe that she was sent into these places when they were clearly a health hazard.

We’ve been playing lots of cards, four handed Euchre with Will and Dulcie, Shirley and I had a game of Canasta while Will was at work. Dulcie absolutely slaughtered us.

“I’ve still got it up here,” she said, tapping her head, when we were telling Will about the massacre.

Today Will and I sorted out our Medicare cards...Will had to get his renewed after being away for 6 years and I had to get my visitor one changed to a resident one. We both had to fill in forms...I had already filled one in last time when I got my visitor one...but I had to fill it in again! I could not understand that because surely they had all my information on the computer...they did...because when I had filled it in again the woman checked it with the information she already had on the computer.

“That looks fine,” she said. It would be...it was the same information I wrote out last time!

We were given temporary cards...our real ones will come in 5 weeks when they’ve found a whale, caught it, boiled it up and made some plastic...or perhaps they will just get them bulk from China and  it will come by Junk.

Today we hired a carpet and upholstery cleaner from Woolies down the road for 24 hours. Danny had brought 4 dining chairs over that had been lying around under his house. We’d had a bit of trouble with the ones we had here...one of the seats snapped in two one day and a back lifted off another...so Danny thought these others would be better. They are much lighter than the ones we have now and are easier for Dulcie to move about but they were a bit stained....hence the carpet and upholstery cleaner.

It was quite incredible how they cleaned up...we thought the chairs had grey fabric on but they turned out to be almost white!

“Good God!” we all said.

We had also brought the carpet from Frogknot....I would have thrown it away but again, it is quite incredible how it has turned out after two washes with the carpet cleaner.

We are going to do the carpets in the house tomorrow too. Dulcie wanted to give us the money for it but we said no. Her birthday is coming up at the beginning of March and it is our birthday present for her.

It has been so hot! We have had the air-con during the day for the last two days and Will and I have a fan blowing on us all night as we lie on top of the sheet.

We have heard that Glen Aplin had 40mm of rain in 30 minutes yesterday...so we hope the dam is a bit  fuller and our repairs kept the walls dry.

More rain is forecast for the week...but it often comes to nothing...”possible showers,” is how they forecast it...it’s a bit like the weather app on Will’s phone. The other day is said “32 Degrees....Snow!”

Will is feeling much better after his tummy bug........finally!