I suddenly feel older.

My youngest Granddaughter

just announced her

Engagement.

Why bother?

This is Ashley James and she's wearing a  Bluebella emerson bra.  At least she's not wearing a Bluebella emerson thong, painful.  Coming from someone who should register her boobs as lethal weapons, I really shouldn't throw tits at tits but these look so uncomfortable I just had to speak up.
I know feminists are supposed to support women in anything they choose to do and wear and if Ashley wants to tie herself in triangles, good for her.   All I can see is me tying myself in knots trying to figure out what string goes where and what part will it support.  

This is when I thought of men wearing this, they'd only have to wear half of the Bluebella emerson but wait for a moment and it will blow your mind, yes, you've got it. Their anatomy means two bits will fall out and one bit will be strangled. A fitting revenge for the comfort of their boxer boy legs they didn't think we should wear.  

Is that a little garbled?  Well I haven't had any coffee and I'm going to see mother and I can't find any knickers which is why Ashley got right up my nose.  I am wearing underwire bras but one wire has gone missing so slightly lopsided until I yoiked up the strap and I am now even.  I need coffee.

Will migrants be grilled on the tradition of BBQ sausage on bread?

Dear Prime Minister and that other moron that seems to be attached to your side these days,

How many languages do you speak?
At least little Nigel Molesworthless spoke Mandarin.

Do you really think that Pauline Hanson would pass this test?  Perhaps another section should be added, 'foot in mouth' English. I suppose she can still speak 'Chippie' although her current BimBot wouldn't allow such vulgarity.

Shorten would pass, he speaks English and Butch Union. Umm, possibly knows the Qld code of beer can clicking but only the Secret Union Stuff.

Abbott speaks and lies in fluent English. There, another section  'Can you tell a lie like or believe one from a backbencher?'

Should cheating and running around the rules using 'Lawyer speak' be a separate section since so many Parlimentarians are so fluent in it?

And you wouldn't put Barnaby in charge of the language of the Bard, although I have heard he speaks 4 languages, English, Sheep Shit, Cow Crap and Utter Rubbish.

Ignore anyone in Parliament who comes from Queensland, not good with English but do seem to be fluent in Coal seam and mumbling with a secret code of beer can clicking.

Now dear Mr Trumpbull, er, Crumbull, damn let's just go with Malcolm, as warm and cuddly  as a dying Barrier Reef, I don't think you've given the new Migrant test for being a "Beer swilling, fly wrangling, thong wearing, sheila respecting, bloody good Aussie Bloke" a really good think. 
Won't somebody think of the children?  Our children who only speak Strine who'll be out there competing with migrants who must speak at least two languages, sometimes three if it's a dialect of the other two. 

 Parliamentarians should show an example, start at the top of the dung heap and it will trickle down to the peasantry.  Learn another language, speak it, read it, swear in it, cheat in it but show some guts and do what you're asking a 95 year old person, sometimes illiterate, probably traumatized from years of drone bombing whose only dream is peace and quiet and food.
So get orf ya bumcrack, take that beady eyed boofhead and have another go at alienating the world.

I, myself, have already set a fine example of speaking proper good English and a ripper dialect of Foul. 

Yours in Mateship, Coppy 
(see that, half way through a Phd in nickname)

What luck, two scammers vanquished in 10 minutes.

I have this set as background on my computer and sometimes when I'm trying to think if I did anything that was interesting in the past week, I'll just sit and look at it.  I don't like being dragged out of my dreaming by idiots trying to scam electricity and phone plans on me.  I don't care if it's the only job they could find to feed their 4 wives and 16 kids, I will yell and rupture their eardrums on a bad day but on a good day, I will use a voice straight out of the Actor's Workshop.  From my "Punk" Clint Eastwood to my poisonously sweet Miss Marple, they hang up very quickly. 

Saw mother yesterday, wanted to hit mother with a brick yesterday but got revenge by taking her cake home and eating it myself.  Every time Doc Marvin goes away on holiday, she begins the long dying and everyone is supposed to tend to her and no-one else.  From the look on the face of her favourite carer yesterday, she did yell at her no matter how many times she denied it.  She doesn't have the strength to have a really good cough and get the garbage out of her lungs but one small tablet last night did the job.  She feels so much better today so there must be some way I can get the Doc out of the country for a month's holiday.  And she'll have the flu vac next week and I'll have to remind her for the seventh year in a row that the headache is only a side affect not a brain tumour.

5.07 and the cat is right behind me, eyes boring into my brain.  He knows he's in trouble. He brought a friend in to play with, got bored and let the cockroach disappear under the stove.  I have no guilt about spraying under there with roach spray and if it gets the mouse so much the better.  Perhaps I had better feed him first in case he smells it and hacks up on the carpet.  Why are cats never polite enough to go out the open door when it's a paw away from the chucking spot?

Still two scammers vanquished is always a good day.

Complaints...add your own

I can't believe how long it's been since I blogged.  Something is wrong, the days seem to be long but the weeks are short.

1. I sat for two days waiting for the nbn to attach the in and out boxes. Nothing. Several messages on the mobile but I had specifically told them not to ring on the mobile but use the land line. These days I do not run to answer a phone.  And I couldn't answer the sms because the mobile is not connected to the internet.  The truck was in the street, would it have killed them to knock at the door after 4 unanswered calls when I was given a time to be home?  I now won't be connected until May, suits me.

Next day I paid the Telstra phone bill and 10 minutes later lost all the landlines.  Connect with nbn and optus and after not being able to answer the mobile and spending $20 on pre-paid mobile, the third idiot I spoke to  said I should ring Telstra since they still have the account.  No, it's not inside the house and no I can't move the couch or all the things in the front room (in the middle of that for nbn) because I can't get down that low.  Why low?  Because the house is old and all connections are on the skirting board.  $15 this  time but at least the Telstra bloke was polite and apologetic about the cost and fixed it.  Outside line which was drooping after the storm and the delivery trucks were smacking into it. Great, back in business, panic levels dropping.

2. One day after that, landlines are out again.  But I notice the light on the powerboard is flickering so I take the phone plug out and try it along the line, all out except one so the phone is okay again. I'm looking at a new powerboard and more money and moving stuff to plug it in.  Next member of Parliament who says pensioners should be able to live on what they're given will be sent a vicious email.

  Visits to the Doc's and flu vac

     Visit to the Podiatrist 

      Visit to Dentist

Ahoy there Scott Morrisson, try pulling that kind of money out of a pension while you are struggling adding 2 and 2 for the next budget.

3.  Mother has lung rot again so oxygen and ventolin full blast. Says she's dying again. She picked up a bit when I refused to go to hospital with her if they insisted. 12 hours last time when I wasn't even offered a cup of tea was the very finish.

 

4.  Nephew turn up and I'm ready to brawl about the warehouse down my hallway, 4 years and counting.  Couldn't do it, never kick a man with Gout in the foot.  Learned that from my father, when he had Gout, you couldn't breathe near him in case the pain went up a notch.  Sister gets Gout in one toe, apparently it hurts a lot.  I have so much pain everywhere I wouldn't know.  So I still have a warehouse.

5. New fence is up and up and up.  I don't know what went wrong but the fence that reaches my brick wall would have to be over 30cm taller.  They've spent the weekend digging out their old lemon tree and I notice the wooden fence slowly going up until the spouting disappeared.  Usually a new fence will be a bit higher, the other side is about 10cm.  And I think they may have nicked some of my land. The two brick fences were quite close, the wooden fence is right on top of my bricks and the other brick fence seems to be about 20cms away from the wood.   At least the back fence is sort of fixed up so only half might fall down in a storm.  What got up my nose was the fact that these builders and neighbours were walking in and out of my property and never once said what they were doing or getting permission to tramp over my land.  I felt like the Queen does when she sees a group of ramblers trotting through Sandringham.  And neighbour did the one thing that is a no-no, got going and painted the palings as soon as they were nailed.  Wood needs time to settle and dry out and he already has zebra stripes where it's moving and he was so careful not to let one dribble come over on to my unpaid for side.

6. I left the good news for last.  The tree lopper did a fantastic job and even though I have a Visa card again, it was worth it. Photos when I remember what I did last time to get them off the camera and onto the computer.

Totally me.

You're the sage! According to Carl Jung, the sage represents wisdom and the search for truth. You are wise beyong your years, patient and a deep thinker. You're driven by a thirst for knowledge. One of your greatest fears is being ignorant, misled, or duped. You're incredibly intelligent but you risk over analyzing until you're actually incapable of making a decision. You're an old soul and wise beyond your years, but Jung would tell you don't get lost in the clouds. 

                                                           In other words, this is also me
           
           

nbn again but with Optusnet and nuts

You don't ring nbn first, you ring your provider and if you are lucky she speaks Australian.
Unluckily for her, she had to deal with me.  I have this strange feeling that I've just done a deal with the crossroads demon and in ten years the Hell Hounds will be after me.

Didn't understand a word, can't work out if I'm richer or poorer, forgot to ask what speed but everything must be done before the nbn comes to the house.   She did transfer my phone to optus from Telstra so I didn't lose the number and I will get a bill from them for the balance owing. I hope it's for the $85 a month balance which is the plan I'm on not the 50 or so mobile calls for mother, each one near enough to an hour.

I'll have internet and landline for $110 a month, if I'd brought the mobile phone across it would have been $20 less but I have two mobile phones in my name, pre-paid and one won't be needed at some stage so I went along with leaving things at they were until later when they bring out a better plan. She assures me they will be doing that.  Now before Andrew clutches his pearls and faints on the carpet, I know I could have probably done better elsewhere if I knew what I was doing but it was bad enough trying to work with two companies let alone look at 3 or 4 others.

I was paying Telstra $85 a month for ordinary call and all other mobiles not just theirs which was a lot better than what I was paying before they offered me the plan.  Mother managed to get up to $330 one month when she was sick and I couldn't get down there every day.  Optusnet has been very good with fixing up the computer when it fritzed  and good with the pre-paid which is why I went with them because Telstra didn't have pre-paid when I bought the first phone.  Expensive back then but they had a special two for one deal and we took it.  I was putting $50 on the mobile untill it ran out and $130 on the Internet until it ran out and in the last six months it seemed to be running out very fast. If you can't understand that what do you think it's like inside my brain.

I'm still paying off the tree lopper's visa loan, putting $50 away each fortnight for the house insurance, $50 in the teapot for Mick the mower, hair cut next week, $35 and the bloody cat this week, $17.50 council registration and I might have to go grey, the price of hair dye is discriminating against poor people.  I'll give up ice-cream rather than buy cheap rubbish.  Let's not forget the two grand a year I spend on taxis getting to mother.  The cat won't eat cheap rubbish, $40 a bag for special teeth kibble and it's "Madam, my preferred kitty litter is white crystals with lavender balls, I have a sensitive nose".  It would be nice if the nose chipped in for the litter.  And the freeloading birds are getting cut down on their grub. Direct Debits for AGL, water and Medibank extras, Rates, which I suppose will go through the roof if one more house gets sold for a million anywhere near me.

I can manage all that except for one vital thing.....knickers.  I will have to bite the bullet and make my own, I have the machine, I have the soft fabric, I have the elastic and just thinking about it makes me lose the will to live.  I will be tortured before I reveal what the measuring tape said about the size of my nether regions but I can't go out of the house without wearing knickers in case I fall down. 

At least perving on good looking blokes is still free and half of them don't wear knickers.

The most beautiful version of Hallelujah you have ever heard.

Calming music for nbn hysteria

Monash Malaria Trials with No Roads Expeditions Foundation

All thanks to Malcolm the Moron, master of the nbn

Well,I sit down and ring the number given to me last week for a tech wizard to come and see where to put the nbn connection box.  This is Telstra, this is not for nbn but I will connect you when you stop the hysterical screaming.

Five minutes later, she comes back to the phone.  She is terribly sorry but I will have to ring nbn number again in two hours......and here comes the screaming again.....because their computers are down.   I think I have rung 3 times and the computers are still not working.  Doesn't that give you a wonderful feeling about the nbn and all the joys of its speed we've been promised.

The ritzy booklet tells me to join gen nbn today to avoid disconnection.
It tells me to find the providers in my area or online at nbn.com.au.....scream coming.
nbn does not charge for a standard installation......what utter crap.  Tell me what 45 year old house is set up for an easy installation, bloody Malcolm and his copper wires.

My equipment setup.
Outside - an nbn connection box
Inside - Coaxial wall outlet to the splitter coaxial cable to your pay tv
             Another long coaxial cable to your own service provider's router and then to your homephone
                                                                                                    
             From the power outlet a power adapter which plugs along with the long coaxial cable into the nbn connection box.
           

Somewhere in there, nbn provides the boxes and my service provider supplies the router and Ethernet cable to connect my internet and phone devices as required.

My study is nowhere near any of the two phone connections.

And I did not understand anything I just wrote.

No idea what plan I will need, well I do, cheap.

I feel a scream coming on again, even the cat hasn't dared come near me whining for food.
I would really like a handful of fibre optics, should look great sticking out of various Malcolm orifices or should that be orifi, somewhere hurtable anyway.                                                                                               

You must read this or I will cry, I'm very teary.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-25/malaria-testing-new-technology-to-battle-endemic-in-png/8385504

I couldn't find this on Youtube but it's only been showing on ABC 24 today.  I have written about
this experiment before but this is the first time it's been on the road for field studies.  Asssociate Professor Wood is a friend of mine and he and two other scientists have been working for years to get this testing kit funded and on the market.  Read right through as this is going to have an impact on us when warm area virus carrying mosquitos start to head down the coast.  Ross River Fever is already with us, who knows what will come next.

I hate humidity and I felt breathless just looking at the team working with the local villagers. 
The team have had to beg and scrounge for funding and I don't know how they had the patience to try and explain to politicians the science behind this technology.  If I knew how to I would email this article to every brainless twit in Parliament except our Pauline who would immediately condemn the mozzies as a muslim plot.

So take a minute and read the article.  If the link doesn't work, ABC news on line has it. 

She made it

Prognosis when she entered the Nursing Home was 4 to 6 months, seven years ago.  Today she makes eighty-seven years old and a great great Grandmother.  It makes me half dead.  She looked okay with little Clio which was back in December but now she is on oxygen most of the time but her mouth still moves. I turned up yesterday with an old friend of the Home and it was, Mel, could you please move that box and put that rug up there.  There was also another old friend of the Home and a grand reunion was in full swing which is why we picked yesterday instead of today.  The Homies could take a tour and see what's been done, see whoever is still breathing and both said it was a different atmosphere.  Except for one thing, no staff.  The girls on the floor were excellent but there were not enough if an emergency occurred.
Because she had a willing slave to command, it was Mel who went through the cupboards and loaded me up with stuff to cart home. I could barely lift the bag and I warned the cab driver before he copped a hernia.  I stopped at the corner shop to buy a paper and have a reviving cup of coffee and sat in the Autumn sun, lovely until I had to walk home. 
Really looking forward to another year of living two lives.

How the day goes when you sleep til 11

The Doc offered pills but I have enough to be arrested as a dealer but I promised to come back if life gets any darker.  It worried him that I've gone off chocolate and ice-cream and haven't been to the pokies for over 3 weeks.  Buying patchwork fabric on line is a good substitute because I don't have to go outside the house but even there I'm going to have to have an intervention because I spent the food money. I'm not hungry, most unlike me but it sends the sugar screwy.  Everywhere I look there is something I must put away or wash up or wash but it's just too much.  Living two lives is finally taking its toll on me.  

The Home is giving me the horrors and getting there is like a step too far into breakdown.  I am still suspicious that the residents coming in are all in various stages of Dementia.  Not their fault but they are walking around, my mother is confined to wheelchair or bed, her chum is the same.  They haven't forgotten the last demented walker who slapped and punched one and would creep around mum's bed to see what she could take - in the middle of the night.  Now we have an "ohgodohgodohgod" all day, a screamer, a hitter and a crap thrower.  You can bet none of this was on their records when they came in.  
Not only do I have to worry about any of them getting near my mother but I saw the worst of the worst PCA yesterday.  She forgot the bed control but remembered the emergency bell which mum had to use.  She's on oxygen all the time now but felt she wasn't getting enough by the time she was put to bed so back comes the prize dill and puts up the oxygen to 3.  10 minutes later mum is getting a bit distressed so back she comes, oh so sorry about that, I've put the machine on the oxygen line and don't we all remember that scene from "Flying High".  After I left, some one else discovered that the nose line for the oxygen was in upside down so instead of going into the lungs it was freshening up the room.
No cups of afternoon tea either, staff were all over the road having another meeting and only one to organize the Thursday Happy Hour.  If I could I would have been down to the kitchen to complain but I still had to hide the garbage bags, the Home was buying them for each resident but they were disappearing faster than they could be replaced. Mum especially needs them so I was taking my grocery bags down and they disappeared.  The tissue boxes disappeared during the night so I've taken to buying 10 boxes at a time and hiding them on the bottom shelf of her table because no-one goes that far down to clean anything.  Add to this 2 boxes of colostomy bags which takes me 3 hours at home to fix up and I have to put 20 in one bag, 10 in the other with a big note which says when this box is opened please ring for replacements.  Still I did get a pat from an agency nurse who couldn't believe how I could cut them out to the exact fit, everywhere else she goes, she has to do it herself. On behalf of my two mangled fingers, thank you.
Did I remember everything? 2 butterfly motifs for her T-shirts, boxes of tissues, garbage bags, colostomy bags.  Fix up the phone charger, wrong one.  Write cheque for postage when I get home.
I'm a bit dry, have you any tictacs?  Did you have lunch? No, walking with all the crap I couldn't be bothered. I didn't even have any water, thinking I would at least get a cup of tea, ha!

I grabbed a cab at 3.45, got the mail, fed the cat and fell into bed and woke up around 6 with the cat cuddled up to me and a nice dose of the shakes and pain in every joint.  Erring on the side of caution I took one happy pill and two Panamax, should have done it the other way round and the shakes would have stopped a lot sooner. The pain in my head will have to stay since I can't take Telfast with everything I've just taken.  Cat decides to go out so I leave the door open and turn the lights out, that usually fixes him, rolls in at 1.a.m and curls up with me to get warm and I know the bloody door is still open.  Get up to shut it and in my multi-tasking way sprays a huge cockroach on the curtain.

I don't have the shakes today, no pain in the head, no aches but it cost a load of $$$$ in fabric. 

Don't go shopping after speaking with mother.

My birthday is in July, you have time to practice and save up for the shipping.  I was saving this for another post but since my taxi nearly got wiped out by a chocolate truck this afternoon, I felt it was appropriate.
Work was being done on the gutters and the road is divided by a concrete and tree arrangement, the truck felt it didn't have enough room so without a signal it swerved in front of us, rounded the divide and swerved back in front of us.  I swear there was only a gnat's whisker between truck and taxi. Since he didn't slow down in the swerve, I have visions of the back of the truck being a full mixed box.

And mother, dear mother, almost permanently on oxygen or she turns a delightful shade of blue, has decided she doesn't want the glasses that were ordered and I don't blame her.  She always has a slight pink tinge to cut down the glare and the pair that came this week had lens of lovely Cartland pink. I even attended the Relatives and Residents meeting to voice complaints but copped one of the bigwigs
of the Aged Care group going on and on about Dementia.  It would have been useful for the relatives but his audience except 4 had Dementia but it was a captive audience until I'd had enough and told him my mother didn't have Dementia when she came to the Home and he said it often developed as they aged.  I said he was missing the point, that this Home was for high care residents who couldn't walk or look after themselves because of physical trauma but now they are still bedridden or in wheel chairs in a place where the demented can walk around and terrorise them.  My dramatic exit was somewhat diminished by having to be levered out of the too small chair.  Of course mother was pleased that I spoke up and then told me if anyone came near her she could always poke their eye out with her Chinese fan.  So glad you're not in any danger from the demented.  

The point of all this is that she wants her optomotrist from two years back. She knows her first name but not the second. Her friend wants her back as well, she knows the first name but not the second and by the time I got off the phone, they couldn't agree on the first name.  Finally I've found her name in the cheque book.  It was October 2014, okay so we'll go for 2 years ago and Lens and frames cost $285 with the blush tint. This time I was told over the phone, $500 and everyone was charged $500 including the residents with dementia.  Please let dear Susan be still in business or I'll go totally round the bend...like a chocolate truck. 

Fire and Ice

Map of Iceland showing locations of these volcanoes

Hekla

 Bardarbunga

 Grimsvotn

 Katla

Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland said that Katla, Hekla, Bardarbunga and Grimsvotn are restless.

Katla is the least recently-active volcano of the four, last erupting in 1918 but is now shaking with over magnitude three tremors. It averages about two eruptions each century. It's especially dangerous since it is partly covered by the glacier Myrdalsjokull which fills a caldera depression and covers the eruptive vents so when it does go off it releases hot molten mud flows called Lahars.  These are uber Lahars, the last eruption in 1918 extended the southern coast by 5km just with laharic deposits.

Hekla, otherwise know as the "Gateway to Hell" has been quiet for 16 years but data collected in June last year revealed it is building up magma, and it's internal pressure is currently higher than before its last two previous eruptions.  It's ready to go, erupting once every 10 years, from 1970 to 2000, it's been dormant until now. Professor Einarsson said that tourists should stay away but what do you do with the 20-30 planes full of passengers flying right over the top of Hekla every day.

Bardarbunga volcano had a red alert issued at the end of August 2014 to February 2015 when it experienced a small eruption but only because it lies underneath the Vatnajokull glacier. The volcano sits in a 700metre caldera beneath ice but the majority eruptions come out of the fissures in the side. Not small fissures either, the Veidivotn fissure extends for over 62 miles to the south west almost reaching Torfajokull volcano while the Trollagigar fissure extends 31 miles to the north east towards the Askja volcano.
The last eruption was the strongest of its kind in Europe in more than 240 years and with earthquakes starting up, it suggests that magma could be building below the surface.

Grimsvotn is a near neighbour to Bardarbunga and likely to be fuelled by the same source of magma.  It erupted in 2011, sent a huge plume of ash skywards leading to flights being grounded.  Seismic activity is steadily rising. 

These are only four of the volcanoes that dot the island of Iceland.  Between the lot of them you have just about every kind of volcanic activity documented.  All we need now is for the other side of the world to start rumbling, Yellowstone is already doing that but I mean rumbling in a really vicious Presidential kind of rumbling and then I might worry.

What a night to frazzle

I just couldn't sleep even with the fan blowing over me. It was toss and turn until I finally got up and put on the computer by the light of a small torch. I have a small fan by on the desk and a jug of cold water.  So begins the surfing and remembering Andrew's plaintive cry for a video to show how to fold a fitted sheet, I did find this.  The woman of the house would realize just by looking that this sheet has been ironed first, it's far too smooth to have come out of a dryer but it's a good demonstration.  Although I don't know why he isn't like the rest of us who crunch and fold and sit on the damn things until they're flat.

Coming up for the weekend is Wild Time in the skies.  We have a full moon called a snow moon in the northern hemisphere, an eclipse on top of that and a passing comet. So time for something crazy and I won't be dancing in the nude, mosquitoes are hungry down south.   Unfortunately we don't see the eclipse or the comet but we feel the effects.

Iceland is about to bust out in volcanic eruptions, four are rumbling and grumbling. This is a job for drones instead of planes, lose a drone, lose money, lose a plane and lose people.

I want it now and I want it all, gimme gimme!

Iced Vo Vo Pavlova.

I am hypnotized by the luscious.

There are ten layers.

I mean TEN layers of sugar induced coma just sitting there.

I will electrocute myself if I keep drooling on the keyboard.

The only other cake as yum as this was the ganache covered trifle cake.

But I'm true to my roots, Pavlova Rules.

All lies says the leader

He's won, he's the President, the big cheese, and still he whines and complains that his turnout march was bigger than Obama's.  Cameras lie but not as much as he does.
I hope it is photoshopped for the big blank spot of the Universe but no doubt about this, Attenborough Rules.

(it's okay Annie, I checked nothing is being chewed to death amongst the penguins)

I wonder if Teh Leader is going to ban animal migration from Alaska to Mexico even with their green card stuck to their butt?

We live in interesting and arresting times.

$29 phone working.

$29 and pre-paid $30 credit and mother is back in business. Press the green to say Hello, press the red to close and she hasn't figured out how to get me in contacts yet.  A win all round so far.  Still on oxygen and Ventolin and feeling very sick this morning.  If I run into the twat that says she doesn't need so much oxygen, he won't be needing any.  She is failing, she might have one more Nellie Melba in her but it's not a done deal.  Doc Marvin has been in two days in a row, he usually says he'll see her Wednesday but yesterday it was call if you need me.

It was 3 a.m. before I finally fell asleep last night and very worrying to wake up to find the cat asleep with me with his paw on my arm.  He only ever does that when I'm not well and it's always the can opening arm his paw embraces.  His eyes are so expressive, "please don't get up until you feel right. You might fall and I won't get fed".  Far too much stress last week I think.  He did have a nasty turn when lazing under the tree on Thursday, he copped an apple on his head dropped by the biggest parrot I've ever seen.  Not the Rosella with the blue and red but a huge green and red bird.  I love that tree, parrot in the top branches with the apples, little birds on the ground picking up the leftovers and at night, the possums have the lot.  Did I tell you they love avocados?  We have such fantastic avo's in Australia even though I really can't stand them no matter how good they are supposed to be for fat people, that I was furious to find Woolies had them on special from New Zealand.  Using a female piece of logic which can never be explained, I bought 3 and put them out for the possums.  Next day only a round bit of skin was left and that was because I'd forgotten to take the label off.

I really wasn't going to go into any politics this year because they are all such (love you Keating) swill but the Grand Poobah of Swill in America is something that can't be shrugged off.  Have you noticed his signature?  Poor John Hancock would likely swoon into a full faint at the sight of it.
It's not writing, it looks like the spectroscopic analysis of a serial killer.  Everything he has signed is by Executive Order and look how many EOs of Obama he has overturned so if his is overturned he can say, it wasn't his fault, it was them, all of them, whoever them is. He can stand there shining and blameless.

Hanson's in trouble with her blokes.....again.  Malware briefly hit the news then returned to his burrow.  Nowt from the Mad Monk, extremely strange.  Shorten, I swear if you wear another fluoro vest I'll spray paint you.  You don't look like a worker anymore so try for the Statesman gig and smile, ever so slightly. Every time I see you, you look like the prophet of doom, worse than Morrison.
And I never thought I'd miss the dribblings of Chrissie Pyne,  where is the little twerp?  I'm only going on like this because it's tennis, it's cricket and ready to scream into Melbourne, the Grand Prix.

I need a small holiday. Cameraface, would you mind if I ran off with R for a few days?  Of course you'll have to take over the Mothering duties but man up, you can do it. 

You knew I'd be back although it's been a crap year so far.

I just could not help myself, I had to post this photo.  Aren't they gorgeous?  I love that my granddaughter looks so serene and happy as a mother almost as though she's found something that she didn't know she needed.


We are up to the Year of the Rooster but I feel I'm being pecked to death by money grubbers not birds.
First a letter from Optusnet saying they will not be supporting 2G phones past March. Mother has a 2G cheap pre-paid mobile.  It's easy she presses one button and gets me but not anymore, they won't put any more money on pre-paid.  So now a pre-paid cheap Optusnet phone has to be bought and I am not teaching her to use it.  I'll get them to put in the sim card which I have to pick up at the Home on the way to Southland and my home phone number on speed dial.

I had another call before I left on Tuesday.  He was doing eye testing at the Home and mother had picked out lens and frames, a bit of a cataract, two degrees deterioration and that will be $500 please.
This is an aged care home, pensioners, half of whom wouldn't have a clue what he was doing. I asked him if they were gold plated and he gave me a discount of $60, that'll be $440.00 please.  Now I hadn't been informed he was coming, Mum has her own girl who knows how to handle elderly people but she isn't allowed in anymore only if affliliated with SCcare.  Mum's a bit deaf in one ear so probably only heard half of what he said.  Arrives the daughter in a filthy mood because my foot is hurting.  They had put up an eye chart which mum couldn't read (not the only one to complain) and then handed some frames to try.  Can anyone tell me why you would take frames already fitted with prescription lenses and expect old people to be able to see in a mirror?  It isn't polite to go someone who is smaller than oneself but it took him 2 seconds to hit mum's room with the frames.  The frames that he said she picked out were absolutely revolting, too small and almost black and on a face as white as a sheet, they didn't look good.  She didn't like them and was certain she hadn't picked them. I made him go through 15 frames before I was satisfied and she looked good.  She always has a pink tint and he didn't want to do that.  She has a large black spot just between the eye and nose, we know what it is and it isn't being touched but the frames mustn't touch it.  That will be $440 please, not until I'm there to make sure they fit, she can see through them and they have a pink tint. I really will have to stop watching Vikings.

Then there's next door, the new neighbours.  A letter in the box informs me that want a new fence as soon as possible and my share will be........but my share won't be that because the fine print says owners must removed all tree roots, rocks and shrubs which would cost me in the region of nearly $400 to get a gardener (Mick the Mower just mows) and I know there is one shrub which is holding the fence up and it's a beast to cut.  I've cut it right to the ground at least 3 times and back up she comes.  Ivy all along and over, Lillypilly tree in the corner with roots underground.  And then in the finer print, when they are digging the post holes, it's $20 for every rock or root they come across and I know there's a mound of bluestones  up the side way thanks to stupid ex. Also $500 to pull the fence down and remove.  I've told them I have no money, none especially for a gardener, they don't have trees right on the fence.  Now hernextdoor has taken photos of the fence and will get involved and that's when I will lose either money or a limb.  We'll talk it out over the weekend and he can see what's involved on my side, poverty, his side, two grown sons and him with salaries.

And for the cherry on top, Bank of Melbourne has fixed my mother's ATM card so that if I use it for her bits and pieces, the money comes out of my account instead of hers. 
If you hear of a woman being arrested at Southland tomorrow, you'll know who it is.

And mother is back on oxygen, ventolin and antibiotics, thank you, Year of the Rooster.