Home again

I arrived back home last night so am trying to catch up with what has been happening in the garden etc. over the last ten days. The CEO tells me there was hail here a couple of days ago. I wasn't even aware that it had rained since I had left although I fleetingly tried to check the forecast most days.

I was much too preoccupied with a little toddler and an equally active four month old puppy who both kept me amused much of the time.

I have come home with cuts all over my hands and ankles from the razor sharp teeth of Patchy who becomes extremely excited when the girls appear in the morning and when they come home from school. I think Puppy Training School is going to be in her future plans :-) However, she does learn quickly but just knowing exactly the right way to teach her is a bit hit and miss at the moment although I did buy a dog training DVD for the girls but it doesn't cover everything. She is quite adorable but got really hot on that 38C day we had which was perfect weather for a bath. I am not quite sure how puppies cope with the heat of an Outback summer but they do seem to survive.

 

My daughter had a little free time on Friday so when we were in the shopping precinct I thought I would take a couple of photos to show how close the mine is to where the shops are as I have mentioned in previous posts that the city was built right next to the mine which wouldn't be allowed these days. 

There are three chimney stacks that are visible from most parts of the city and this is the tallest one which stands out behind a row of shops in the centre of the shopping area.

In case one ever forgets that they are in a mining town - which would be hard to do - there are constant reminders like the safety flags on many of the vehicles which I think are called Mine Whips as well as the Hi Viz clothes most of the men wear.  

 

I spent a lot of time with this little fellow who loved getting into his big sisters' room while they were at school and playing with their little bits and pieces.

What he really loved though was playing in the huge sandpit with his Tonka truck...

...and hanging over the fence near the sandpit is the neighbour's mango tree which hopefully will drop some ripe mangoes in a few weeks time. That is if the flying foxes don't find them first.

There are lots of weeds to pull out this week so the next few days will be spent taking stock of what is growing well. There are heaps of mulberries to freeze and all the avocados seem to be ripening at once.  I did have pumpkins growing but the CEO bought some new chooks while I was away so the pumpkins have disappeared. Sigh! I need to fence off some more areas that they can't get into. 

I hope everyone is keeping well and safe as there have been several weather events happening lately. I have a friend in North Carolina who was waiting for the rivers to rise the last I heard but she was okay as was my other friend in Florida. As many of my readers live in the US I hope you are all okay. 

Have a great week everyone!

Before I go.....

I meant to mention in my last blog post that Jes from Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth has written the most fabulous informative eBook called 100 Plus DIY Projects to make with fruit scraps with matching labels. She is having a 48 hour sale and if you put 'loyalreader' in the discount code box you will get the discount when you buy it. I haven't had a chance to read it properly as yet but I can tell it is going to be very interesting and will read some of it on the plane on Wednesday when I head up to the Outback to see my grandchildren....and my daughter and son-in-law too of course....and the new puppy :-) The eBook has 264 pages so it will take a little while to get through it all but I can't wait to start.

From the Outback to the South East

I left the Outback and flew home yesterday afternoon and, for the first time, I haven't felt the chilly temperature as soon as we hit the Toowoomba Range. The weather here is still very warm for this time of the year and it was 27C today which is hard to believe as we are usually rugged up by now. Mind you, I am not complaining as I haven't dragged out my winter clothes yet but it does make you wonder what summer is going to be like. I did read online though that the temps will plummet at the beginning of June so I guess things will get back to normal then. One thing I noticed was that the sun rises an hour later in Mt.Isa and it is just getting light at 7am which makes it very easy to sleep in.

Boxing Day Sales! What was I thinking?

I had my first experience of Boxing Day sales on Saturday!!! Mind you, it was all accidental. My daughter, the girls and I went to Spotlight during the week and I showed one of my granddaughters some fabric with cute dogs on it and asked her if she would like a skirt made with it and her older sister pointed out some fabric she would like as well. I told my daughter I would wait until the next sale and then buy a metre or so as it was quilting fabric and reasonably expensive.

A visit to Christmas Wonderland

In 2003 a local business, Burstows, had a dream of creating a Christmas lights event so that the community could come and experience the joy and wonder of Christmas. Well the community came along in droves and eventually it became such a major attraction that a bigger venue was needed and the organisation for what would become Toowoomba's Christmas Wonderland was handed over to the Lions Club. This is now one of Queensland's biggest light extravaganzas as year by year more lights and attractions have been added to the display now held in the Botanical Gardens in Queens Park and it is definitely the place to take the family from around the 5th to 24 December each year.

One more sleep!

Only one more sleep till my grandchildren arrive! They have driven for nine hours today and will have another nine hour drive tomorrow and should be here by late afternoon all being well. It was my grandson's first birthday today and what a way to celebrate your birthday...driving through the hot and dry Aussie Outback. However, Outback kids are tough and the children have always been great travellers and I believe even the baby coped well with the long hours of sitting in a car seat.

From one extreme to the other

When I left Mt.Isa on Tuesday the temperature was due to hit 41C. When I arrived home it was windy and rainy and as I got out of the car I froze! Talk about extremes of temperature. Yesterday the forecast up there was for 41C again and ours was for 17C. :-) Although it is quite cool I know where I would rather live. If my family didn't live up there I wouldn't venture into the Outback at all as it is so dry, hot and dusty.

Happy Father's Day

A big Happy Father's Day to all our Aussie dads! I believe Father's Day has already been celebrated elsewhere in the world.

The end of Autumn

Here in Australia tomorrow is the last day of Autumn and in our neck of the woods we will be saying goodby to May with a series of lovely warm days before the colder weather arrives next week with the onset of Winter.

Back Home Again!

After an uneventful flight back to Brisbane from Mt.Isa and an equally uneventful trip from the airport with Greyhound, I arrived home last night after spending a little over a week with my daughter, son-in-law and my grandchildren. The baby especially had grown so much since I was there in December and he is an absolute delight at nearly five months.

Greetings from The Outback

Well, it has been quite warm here in The Isa and today it is 34C...a little hotter than it was when I left Brisbane on Friday all rugged up with a cardigan and scarf due to the rainy weather. I don't think scarves will be worn up here for a while.

Travel Chaos

Anyone who lives in our state of Queensland would have heard about the weather event in SE Queensland last Friday, 1st May...the day I was scheduled to fly to Mt.Isa to visit my daughter and her family. As the day dawned and the skies looked ominous I was praying that I would be able to get to Brisbane and then to the airport before the really bad weather that had been forecast set in. It costs a small fortune to fly to Mt.Isa and I didn't want to have to pay for another fare if I couldn't get to the airport on time and missed my flight.

My sister picked me up early to drive down to the Greyhound terminal and she was panicking a little as the roads near her place were already looking like they might get cut by flash flooding so we got there safely and she headed off for home to stay put for the day. The trip to Brisbane was wet but there was no flooding at that stage so I was fairly confident that we would take off on time. Little did I know.

I should have realised that something was different for this trip when I received an email from QANTAS weeks ago to say that my seat allocation had been changed. I wasn't able to book in online as I normally can and then when I arrived at the airport and tried to check in on their computers I got a message that I had to see a QANTAS worker about my flight. After much ringing of other departments I was finally issued a ticket with the only explanation given that my e-ticket hadn't been updated by them and I went on my merry way through the metal detectors and into my usual routine of having lunch and a casual walk through the terminal to get some exercise. Eventually I sauntered down to the section the plane always takes off from and thankfully asked at the counter if the flights were on time...which they weren't by that stage.

The QANTAS worker looked at my ticket and said I was at the wrong gate and it took me ages to walk to the other end of the terminal to find the right gate so I was glad the flight was delayed. I was really curious about the change of gate etc. after leaving from the same gate for years but still didn't twig about what had happened. Then the storms started with thunder and lightning and the airport was closed and flights that had landed at the gate where I was just had to sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours until a break in the weather before the passengers could get off. When they did they had to walk across the tarmac in the pouring rain and were absolutely soaked by the time they got inside.

I was feeling a little smug and thought to myself that they should have flown with QANTAS as there was NO walking across the tarmac with them. Eventually the terminal became very crowded with planes not being able to leave or land as the airport shut down, reopened again and so on for the next couple of hours. All power points in the terminal were being used by passengers charging their mobile phones and devices and fairly soon most of the floor space was used up by hundreds of people sitting anywhere they could find a space. The line to the cafeteria was a mile long and I grudgingly had to resort to paying $4 for a bottle of water from a vending machine.

Suddenly there was an announcement that a delayed flight to Melbourne would be boarding soon and there was a very loud shout of jubilation from the passengers booked on that flight much to the amusement of everybody else. Then it was our turn to be happy as our boarding time was announced. Thankfully we went through the gates and down the corridor to get onto the plane when suddenly we came to the end of the corridor and there was the plane across the tarmac. I couldn't believe it...we had to walk to it in the pouring rain!!! Well, no use walking so I ran and hoped I didn't slip on the stairs and fall down, finally boarded a very damp plane entrance and then realised I was a sopping mess.

On finding my seat I asked the attendant if she had a towel as my hair was dripping wet and she said the only thing she had was a blanket which I dried my hair with and then wrapped it around myself for the duration of the trip as I was freezing. I then noticed how small the plane was and looked at my very damp boarding pass and realised that I was flying QANTAS-Link...so that was why we had the tarmac walk. My daughter has since found out that QANTAS-Link are now flying a couple of days to Mt.Isa so I won't be flying on those days in the future.

Once on board the plane the weather deteriorated once more so the plane taxied for 15 minutes or longer (no joke) then sat for an hour being buffeted by wind while planes landed and took off as there was a backlog understandably. At last we took off and without a few minutes the pilot announced that we were flying over Kilcoy and the forecast was for clear skies ahead and that we would land around 9.40pm which was three hours late but thankfully we arrived safely.

My son-in-law and my night-owl granddaughter met me at the airport and we headed off to home after all the drama. When we took my suitcase out of the car I realised that it was wet and when I opened it my clothes were sopping wet as well as my electrical chargers. Obviously the baggage handlers in Brisbane don't cover the luggage when it is raining so it was a rather soggy start to the week for me. I am thankful to be safe though as I believe there was loss of life in the severe weather event.

Sorry to bore you with the details but I know some of my friends want to know how I fared and I can write my Blogsy posts offline so am not using up my limited internet allowance from my phone while I am away up north. The baby has grown since I saw him last at 10 days old and the girls are also growing up quickly. It is lovely to see them again and to catch up with what is going on in their lives.

Have a great week everyone.

...oOo...

Posted with Blogsy

The Long-Distance Grandma

Six years ago, when my first granddaughter was born 1700km (1056 miles) away, I found it quite distressing not being able to see her until I went on holidays a few weeks later as I was working part-time at that stage. One of my colleagues, who was a grandmother herself and had grandchildren living in other cities, gave me a book by Janet Colsher Teitsort called ' Long-Distance Grandma: How to Stay Connected with Grandkids Far Away'. I have the 1998 edition but I just noticed that there is a more recent edition available.

Mango Heaven

I meant to write this post when I was still up in Mt.Isa but the poor internet connection and sleep deprivation got in the way. However, I thought I would show you the photos anyway as I know that they might cheer up some of my friends in the Northern Hemisphere who are probably freezing at the moment.

Clickety-Clack went the needles!

One of the items on my six year old granddaughter's 'To Do With Nanna' list was for me to teach her how to knit. So one day we unearthed my daughter's knitting needles and wool, made ourselves comfortable and off she went learning a new skill.

Happy New Year!

I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and I hope that 2015 is a really great year for you all. We had the joy of welcoming a new little boy into our family before Christmas much to the delight of his two big sisters.

An Outback Christmas

While I was in Mt.Isa I took a few photos on Christmas Day to show my friends in the Northern Hemisphere how some families spend the hot and often muggy day in Australia. I believe it is extremely cold in some countries at the moment so the photos might cheer some of my readers up as they look ahead to the brighter days of summer.

Nearly time to go home.

Our new bub, Isaiah James, is just over one week old now and it is nearly time for Nanna to go home. It has been a week of getting to know him, trying to get into a feeding and sleeping routine while trying to keep one's eyes open at the same time. Some nights have been better than others but I am sure he will settle down wonderfully once he is a little bigger and has gotten used to the noises made by his two older sisters.

It's Recliner Time!

What changes a new baby makes to a household! Mr.Isaiah James came home from hospital yesterday much to the excitement of his two older sisters. It didn't take long for an already exhausted mum to become even more tired after a sleepless night. So Nanna has been coming to the rescue and the bub and I have had some bonding time on the recliner in the early hours of the morning

Our Christmas baby has arrived!

After a very long wait our Christmas baby has finally arrived...all 8lb 4ozs of him! He is a lot bigger than his sisters were at birth. It feels strange holding a newborn again after four years but he is very cute and was looking around at times at his sisters and probably thinking to himself that they were such a noisy pair :-)