Possum Galore
A life ‘Down Under’!
Clean!
We have just had showers!We brought in the old bath that is now lying in the garden....Will wants to keep it for axolotls or something....and carried it into a secluded place in the garage and rigged up Wendi's old solar shower above it.....et voila!It was a bit tricky....the bath wobbled a bit.I heard chuckling upstairs and Will was peeping through a hole in the upstairs bathroom floor!It was lovely though.....a little piece of civilisation!......but we are still peeing in a bucket!But............not for long!Tomorrow, riding north upon their white steed (Toyota Starlet) come our Knight-esses in shining armour to whisk us away for two nights in an apartment in the city!Bright Lights! Big City!....Here we come!
Kirrily to the rescue!
6.30 am!.......Sergio the builder and Mal of  'Shithouse Plumbing' were here this morning!Even Will was  only just up!Despite the early start the only thing we have done today, apart from the hospital visits and short trips to pee in a bucket in the man cave, is fill in bloody forms!'Claim for Carer Payment and/or Carer Allowance' (14 pages)'Carer Payment and/or Carer Allowance- Caring for a person 16 years or over' (7 pages)'Income and Assets' (or as I like to call it, 'The Bugger!') (16 pages)'Carer Payment and/or Carer Allowance Medical Report' (6 pages)The 'Mole' people arrived to cut the grass at 9.00, so we had drills and sawing and banging and strimming and mowing and swearing (mainly Mal....but sometimes me) to contend with.At one point the first form required my 'tax file number' and because I did not have one I was required to phone a number. I had to go through the whole 'something else' rigmarole talking to an automated voice before finally I was told"We are receiving a high number of calls at present and wish to inform you that the present waiting time is more than 90 minutes.""YOU WHAT!!!!!?" I exclaimed........The automated voice rudely ignored my query.I swore again and hung up.Just before it was time to go to the hospital for the first visit of the day I was losing the will to live, filling in 'The Bugger!'Some of the questions were so ambiguous about who owned what house that I was all for burning it."We'll go to Centrelink after the hospital," said Will helpfully."Ok," I said, "and can we call and get some tippex too?" I had made quite a few mistakes already.We took the Medical Report to the hospital. I felt that that would be the best place to find someone with medical knowledge of Dulcie at this time, and top of the list, it did say it had to be filled in by a legally qualified medical practitioner.We called in at the local bakers for pies on the way as we had promised we would bring them for Lillian and Dulcie for lunch.Only Dulcie and Lillian were sat at the table today. Celia had finally gone to her respite home on the Gold Coast.It was a bit sad....but we had pies!They were good pies as they always are and Lillian loved hers but could not eat it all. Dulcie ate all of hers.After we had eaten I took the Medical Report form to the desk and collared a nurse."Have you seen one of these before?" I asked.She had. She said she would take it and ask the doctor to fill it in.I had hardly sat back down at the dining table back in the hall before she was back saying,"Take it to Dulcie's G.P.""But he doesn't know what she is like at present." I said, bemused. I had looked through the form and knew that Dr Hew would not be able to fill very much in at all."Oh," she said and went off with it again.A few moments later a tall thin Asian doctor who we had never seen before appeared, smiling...." You need to take the form to your G.P," she said.I explained that he would not know how to answer most of the questions the form was asking because he had not seen her for 2 months."Well, he can ring the hospital and ask her condition and we will tell him.""But isn't that rather a long winded way of doing it?" I asked incredulously. " I just thought that the people who knew most about her present condition would be the people who have seen her daily for the last 5 weeks."The doctor just smiled, condescendingly."It says it can be filled in by a nurse," I went on...."Oh?" said the doctor and she sidled off.I was flippin' angry! It was only 6 pages.....it was not as if I was asking them to fill in 'The Bugger!'Further down the list of possible health professionals able to complete the form it said 'an Occupational Therapist'..........Kirrily!Sat behind us at 'the nurses table' was another Occupational Therapist who I had never seen before. Damn! Perhaps it was Kirrily's day off. I asked her anyway."Excuse me, is Kirrily around today?" I asked."Yes, she is just having her lunch,""I was wondering if she could help with this form,"  I said, "I have been told by one of the doctors that her G.P should fill it in but he does not know her present condition. It would be best if someone who knows what she is like now could fill it in."She took the form and said  she would ask her. We said we did not need it back today but if she was asked and she couldn't fill it in then please could we have it back as soon as possible.The form did not come back before we left.We went to Centrelink. Bojan was there. He was sporting a  Madonna headset mic and looked just as dashing as last time in his close fitting shirt and tight trousers...sigh...but I digress.The queue was long. We were hoping for Bojan but we got the rather severe looking woman in black. It just goes to show 'do not be deceived by appearances', she was lovely!I explained we wanted some help with 'The Bugger' and she asked for specifics and discovered that....oh joy!.....we needed another form to complete too."Take a seat, I'll get you the form," she said helpfully. My cup was running over!'Form MOD R Real Estate Details' ( 8 pages)Filling it in we were delighted to discover that we needed to fill in another MOD R form too for Frogknot!I went and sought out the delightfully nice but severe looking woman in black and got another form but before I could fill that in we were called up....The chunky but cheerful woman now before us  stopped smiling when she saw the forms and said"Oh, we cannot sit here and help you fill in the forms, we don't have time for that," she said.I explained that we had a few queries......she looked and broke the rules and helped us fill in that part of the form before reaching down to a shelf and presenting us with MOD F Business Details (7 pages)." You need to fill this in too.....goodbye."We returned home to Sergio and Mal and the banging and drilling and sat down to complete a MOD R and a MOD F form.I made the mistake of saying, yesterday, to Mal of "Shithouse Plumbing", when he said that he didn't smoke or drink that I did not either."I drink coke though," I confessed."Oh do you have some in the fridge?" he had asked. I did and of course he wanted some.Anyway, there I was faced with MOD R and MOD F and up comes Mal,"Do you have any of that coke?"He sat down to chat. Why say a few words when you can pour your heart out to people you don't know and who have recently taken to peeing in buckets?Mal was in Vietnam. Mal had a very unhappy childhood and had seven shades of something we would not dream of leaving in a bucket knocked out of him by his drunk of a father. Mal could only sleep 2 hours a night. He had separate room from his wife. They had been together a long time. She understood him. Mal had skin cancer on both legs and thrombosis. He also had a weird chunk missing from his forehead but he did not talk about that....I was almost ready to hang myself with one of the newly fitted electric wires hanging from the bathroom ceiling when he went back to fitting a  waste pipe!Sergio left at 2.45.  Mal was still here at 4.45........and we needed to get to the hospital!Just as he was finally about packed to go......the phone rang.It was Kirrily. She had filled the form in and it was waiting by Dulcie's bed. What a star!We locked up and walked past Mal still outside, still loading up the "Shithouse Plumbing" truck.Kirrily was still doing paper work at the 'nurse's table' when we got there. I thanked her heartily for filling the form in. My faith had been restored in some legally qualified medical practitioners!Dulcie was good. She was just stuffing the last bit of roast chicken into her mouth when we walked in.We had a game of cards and who should interrupt but Dr Sri, the Indian doctor who had shocked us when Dulcie first came to rehab by asking us and her if she wanted to be resuscitated if anything went wrong. He had been on holiday for 4 weeks but was back."It is looking as if you will be discharged early next week," he announced.Hang on a minute, I thought, we won't be ready then."Kirrily is doing a home visit on Wednesday," I said."Oh, well it will not be until after that," he said. Hmmm, I thought, you've been on holiday for 4 weeks what do you know!Still, the end of Possum Galore's residence at the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Hospital is in sight.Hurrah!!!!!!"Break out the Pepsi Max! ................Oh no! Mal's drunk it all!"
Out of my Depth!
The house alterations have begun.....Yesterday I had to drive over to Springwood to Danny's house to collect a large variety of tools and implements as they would not fit in his car.....Roxy to the rescue!I was quite pleased I found his house without the aid of Satnav....I used the old fashioned method of a road map instead!I felt like a fish out of water as he wandered around his workshop selecting tools that would be needed to alter the bathroom."Look at this Tasmanian Oak," he said, showing me some wood."Ooh, lovely," I gushed, stroking it but then coughed, lowered my voice to add, "lovely grain," and scratched at my crotch in a manly fashion.Today the builders arrived....practically at the crack of dawn! 7.00 am! I ask you....Is that normal in the building trade?I had only just had time to roll out of bed, have my last shower for what could be quite some time......take my tablet....(of course!) before Sergio and his team were here on the doorstep.Have I mentioned that this was going to happen? I can't remember....Basically, the bathroom and separate toilet are being knocked into one room to create a larger space for Dulcie to get around with her walker and also.....drum roll please......we are getting a toilet and shower room under the house too!At 8.00 am a large skip arrived and the demolition began....first they had to remove the old fibre board...it contained asbestos! I sat outside away from toxic dust, and listened in some alarm at the crashing and smashing sounds coming from inside.By 10.00am the bathroom was gutted and the skip half full.
When I got back from the hospital at 1.30 pm the dividing wall between the toilet and bathroom had gone and they had begun the frame under the house for the new shower/wc room.
By 3.30 pm they were all gone!......They are back tomorrow at 7.00 am!I just had to take a picture of this.....it is on the side of the plumber's van: (Click the picture to enlarge it.)
How Australian!