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.

GroundHog Year

Black tipped sharks gathering near the Seychelles, it reminds me of our elected leaders returning to Canberrra with suitcases of lies and misdirections of their intentions of actually being an excellent Parliament this year.  I don't know why I bothered to write that when we all know it's complete bullshit although that shark second from right looks like our Pauline and the one sneaking in way over the back reminds me of Mal.

Already one has stuffed up with her travel allowances, good on ya, Susan.  Centrelink is like the Oroborus with its tail in its mouth going in circles. Barnaby refused to apologize for the mess and why would anyone let computers do anything after the Census debacle.

Mother still lives, still planning her 90th Birthday.  But my dear Eric the Mower died on Friday. The cancer spread rapidly after the diagnoses and sister has been helping his partner. They've been friends for years but being a nurse does not help when someone close is leaving. The Palliative care team won the praise of sister which doesn't happen often. 

One of my neighbours has visitors and they have brought their dog and by the barking, the thing must be the size of a wolfhound.  The IceBear was about to go out last night, had one little paw on the step when the thing woofed.  I thought I might have to give the boy CPR after he fell to the ground. We don't have dogs anywhere near us and I hope it's gone home.  The brave Bear shot under the coffee table until I had to take him out the front door and stay there until he'd done the rounds of the front yard, didn't bother with the back.  We all know he is a white cat but he'd managed to find the one spot in the garden where I'd put water for the camelia and in came the filthiest muddy mangy looking creature I've seen in  years.  While I was wetting a towell to clean him up, he disappeared so I thought he'd be under the coffee table.  No no no, in the great tradition of cats, he was rolling on my doona, my brand new white doona, the one with splashy colourful flowers interspersed with black paw prints and circles of dirt.  I was not in the mood at near midnight to be changing a king size doona so I went to bed and so did he, right in front of the fan blowing over him instead of me.  

Christmas presents still aren't wrapped.  Dear people, you will get them at some stage, honest.

Four Generations

Great Great Grandmother, great grandmother, mother, granddaughter and little Clio the fairy child.

Anorexics will be fainting at this photo but all girls should be told over and over again, it's not the body that counts, it's strength of will, the fight in the heart and these four have the strength to move mountains and I hope we have passed it down to Miss Clio.

Coppy is feeling unwell, bruised, battered and slightly dizzy.

I expected to begin blogging again this week but instead I'm counting bruises. 
I was dragging a heavy bag across the carpet, very carefully, a half metre at a time, moving feet well back when I completely lost the rhythm.  Boy when I lose balance I really lose it, tried to stay up and might have not hurt myself as much if I had fallen on the small box sitting on the big box but a spindly legged what not got in the way.  Fell this way and that, almost had to extract a pottery rabbit from an unusual place  but he just had his head taken off.

Crawled to phone for nephew who shot round but  the way I used to get up is non-functioning.  I would roll onto knees (that really hurt) and use feet to push me up to a chair or couch. No, left foot doesn't do feel very well and right foot does feel far too much and both slip at the same time.

Call the Ambos again, explain there's a beached whale  needing a lift. I hate doing this in case there is an emergency but the operator says I would just move down the priority line. That made me feel better.  The Ambos thought it was hilarious that I'm on the floor with broken backside and my entertainment is watching the ice skating and I would hate to hit the ice the way they do.  So out comes the pump up cushion and five minutes later I'm on my feet.  I may or may not inform Doc Marvin of the 170 blood pressure.

Today the bruises have  come to life to give sparkle to the pain and I had to go out.  Wrap gifts for mother to give, taxi to Home, taxi to hair dresser, taxi home and I'm as dizzy as all get out. Forgot breakfast and pills.  Note on the calendar says Mercury Retrograde.  Good, I'm staying in bed until Friday when the cat is out of kibble and I'm out of pills and not a chocolate for the day.  But I did find my Christmas reading books.  Memo to self, do not hide things at my age.

I have found and lost Christmas cards.  Everybody's presents are in a line to be wrapped but there's no time to post them.  You'll love your Christmas in January goodies. River sent mince tarts, very tasty and medicinal for falls.  Elephant's Child has not lost her cake making abilities, yes I know I promised to not eat until Christmas day, I lied.

I know it's been a while since I blogged but what are all these new thingies on the header.  I know I'm posting as Jah Teh, I've been posting as her since 2005 and now I can put a funny face somewhere, no it's 'insert special characters' none of which I understand.  I wish that Windows 10 could understand that I am too old to change from XP and I want it back.  You've got enough zillions to support the few non-experts who don't like change.

Some kind person email me on Thursday night to remind me I must buy chocolates on Friday.  Just in case dementors turn up unexpectedly.

I'll have to wash the blog now.

It's been rumoured that Melania Trump will not move into the White House but stay at home to look after Barron.  She wants him to remain at his exclusive expensive school where, presumably his exclusively rich friends will not stuff his head down the expensive toilets because they don't like Daddy President.

So while I am reading this tear jerking mother and son problem, my eye kept wandering over to the photograph of father and son.  It reminded me of some other photograph or couple or film and then the bell chimed and clanged my brain into reality.  Us Potterites still have not forgotten the 'fingernails down the blackboard' scene from Deathly Hallows Part two where Voldemorte tries to be human by hugging a horrified Draco.  Now look at the father and son photo again, it's there as plain as day.  Barron is as far apart as he can be while being held by two hands, he knows Voldemorte has returned.

Almost ten years to catch up.

Friday, December 14, 2007

FISH FARMING

Back in September 2006 I blogged about salmon farming and how the fish were given chemicals to achieve the level of colour that they got naturally by eating krill and wondered how long before it was realized it was cheaper to feed them the krill.

It wasn't long. Antarctic krill is already being overharvested to feed farmed salmon. Krill are tiny shrimp like creatures and are the staple diet of polar marine animals including penguins and whales. The krill are already under threat with the loss of the sea ice and parts of the ice shelf which forms the krill nursery.

The US National Enviromental Trust says fishing-industry figures indicate that a catch of 746,000 tonnes will be made n the coming season, 25 per cent above the quota set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

The krill eat phytoplankton, everything else eats krill or the creatures that feed on krill. It's all about balancing the environmental ecosystems that exist in polar waters. I'm all for stopping whale hunts but we also have to take a good look at the smaller picture. 


Well anyone who watched the ABC programme this week will now know about the chemical they give Salmon for it's nice pink colour so we will pay a fortune for it.  Also the other stuff they feed the salmon instead of free ranging for food.
I'm all for Aquaculture but feeding great fish to Tuna so that it can be sold to some snobby Japanese or Australian restaurant for more money than I could rake up is right there with the salmon.
If the salmon don't get the krill or the chemical, the flesh would not be the bright jewell like colour everyone adores but just an ordinary fishy grey. I think it's nuts to find fish to feed other fish so we get to feed the profits.  Fish is a treat for me, I love it but not salmon, too rich and not raw tuna so I'm no fish snob.  Throw me a Barramundi like sardines to penguins and I would catch it without hesitation.

A gourmet meal for me is fish and chips from Queenscliffe, which has the best shop on the Bay. Find a nice corner on the sand, out of the wind, watch the waves and if one does want to put on airs, two paper napkins instead of one.

Where have they gone?

 Boronia megastigma, or Brown Boronia, is a small shrub native to southwestern Western Australia occurring from Perth to Albany. Boronia megastigma grows to less than a metre. It has small leaves and small cup-shaped flowers, which occur in spring.
 Boronia - Australian Bush Flower Essences. This is the Essence for resolving obsessions - thoughts, events, things or ideas which are stuck. It leads to clarity and focus. It combines wonderfully with ...Daphne

 Daphne is a genus of between 50 and 95 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs in the family Thymelaeaceae, native to Asia, Europe and north Africa. They are noted for their scented flowers and poisonous berries.  I love the pink variety but my mother in law had a white Daphne which was more strongly scented.

 The gardenia, a native of China, has been cultivated for over a thousand years. Planter John Ellis introduced the lovely flowering shrub to colonial America in 1761, following an Asian trip. Named for his friend, Dr. Garden, a Charleston physician, the bloom became a favorite for corsages because of its intense fragrance.  I love the curled petals but the fragrance knocks my sinuses for a loop if I'm exposed for too long.

Memories of these blooms came back to me yesterday when the wind blew the orange blossoms in my back door along with half the apple blossoms.  When we first moved here, 40 years ago, it was all native garden fashion and the delicate Pampas Grass which grew into the humungous house sized bush that in some cases took a 4x4 to drag it out.  It was quite entertaining watching the neighbours sweating it out.  Being the crap gardener I still am, I waited for the wind to blow everybody's grass seeds onto my bare sandy front and back yard, worked a treat. I didn't plant gum trees, I knew how big and how fast they grew so it was sycamores, golden elms and acers which were pruned down every Autumn.  

I did grow a Walnut from scratch and citrus trees  loved the place.  You will notice I don't mention flowering plants, a complete bust except for geraniums and ivy.  I remember one Saturday afternoon when an enterprising bloke drove round the streets towing a trailer full of boronia plants.  We all managed to buy at least one and the perfume was out of this world.  None lasted too long especially in the garden of death I had.  One neighbour had a yellow boronia by the front door and the perfume would go right through the house. She pulled it up and threw it in the bin because she wanted something more fashionable for the times, a bit like the poodle perm she sported. 

So when I wander round and look at the Sunday photo blogs, I never see any of those plants above.
My mother in law had them all. Mum had boronias.  So where have they gone?  It wasn't like Mum and M-i-L were mad gardeners, they just stuck in a branch of something and it would grow. One had sandy soil, the other had clay.  My theory is they grew because the two of them thieved every plant that took their eye when walking.  It was, "you have a cuppa and we'll take the baby for a walk", walk and steal from both sides of the street. The pram would come back loaded with looted goodies and I never knew them to be without a paperbag and scissors in their handbags.

I have one success, a patch of violets is flourishing under the shade of the apple tree but I have to flag it in case the new mowerman does them in.  At the moment the quote is $150 to cut the grass but I'll have to draw a map to show him where the traps are. The land might look level but there are holes everywhere where trees were cut down but it cost too much to drill out the stumps.  But there are ways, Buddha is still sitting on the Blue Spruce and every years the snowflakes flower around him.
A bowl of water sits in the place where the walnut came down and a bowl sits over the grapefruit stump which is slowly crumbling away.  That was the best way, a pot plant over the stump with another on top with a geranium.   Very bad Feng Shui to have stumps in the yard especially when I'm paying for the mowing.  I hate breaking in a new mower and I've put it off for too long but I hoped Eric the mower would be okay but the cancer has advanced too far and he will not be here again.
Mick the mower is also Mick the pruner and he'll be getting a lot of work in that direction as well.

It will be the end of my morning delight of watching the cat leaping over the wet grass to get to the poop patch.

For Highriser.

Andrew I know you said you wanted the croc boots but I had these especially picked out for you.

I've seen your legs, these are just so perfect, ravashingly divine in fact.

Remember the old days?

 Those days when I would post skimpy vampy costumes for all of us on Halloween unfortunately we've all put on a little weight and those skimpies would have us arrested on sight.
But shoes we can get away with and are these the weirdest shoes ever?

I am not a snake person and these would give me the horrors especially if the Cobra heads moved as I walked.  Frighten the hell out of snotty kids trying to lift my sweeties.

Oh mine, mine. People have always said I had a big mouth and a sharp tongue but they go so well with those shifty eyes.  Tongue looks a bit long, I can see me stepping on it and doing an A over T.

Now this is why I go to a podiatrist.  My nails end up looking like this if I leave the visits too long between. No, I'm not going to call them my 'kicking kiddy' boots but my wicked side longs for a quick jab just for the fun of it.  I'm old and nasty and so are these boots.

I want these framed only because they remind me of my son.  His sneakers could be brand new on Monday and look like this on Friday.  Since I'm now reduced to wearing sneakers because of damn painful feet, I want to wear these.  People would never turn their heads at my beauty but hell's bells they'd do a double take at my exquisite footwear.  And no, it's not another 'kiddy biter' boot, I don't hate kids, just loathe the little ferrets because they can use an iPhone and I can't.

I will crawl back

As most of you know I live in a house that could do for a couple of Phd's in biology just on the kitchen floor, cat fur rolls into hummocks, the mouse is still living in the oven and brooms linger in the corners and gossip like workers round the water cooler.  So off I go out into the bracing fresh air and come home with an air born Roto virus, the spelling is immaterial.  I am still ill a week later although I did eat a meal last night.  I haven't had a vomit spell like this since I don't know when and was lucky I grabbed a towell on the way to the bathroom. I won't go into the gory details but there is a reason Billious Yellow will never be named colour of the year.

My phone has gone crazy in the storm and I can't be bothered fighting with Telstra yet.
I tried to clean the toilet and if I ever find the evil bastard that invented child proof locks on toilet cleaner bottles I will jam his head so far down the S bend he'll never be found. I used a screwdriver combined with pliers.
Mother is sicker than I am, as usual.
I will never be without Gastrolyte in this house again and I'm never giving it to anybody even if I know they are feeling as badly as I did last week and this week, probably next as well.
It will be another week before I try eating food that isn't white, no colour, even the toast isn't browned.
And stuff youse all around me who now have speedy broadband, 8 of you thieving signal mongrels who all log on together and I'm left without a computer as well as no phone.
The world is whizzing around now so I'm back to bed so I can face the news full of politicians full of themselves.

I will return.

Last photo until she's 21.

I can't decide whether she going to be a boxer, I mean look at the hands, or Ian Thorpe, I mean look at those flippers and the length of the toes.

Both parents are tall so I'm going for the next Super Model.

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I am now a great grandmother, yea!

Here is Clio Therese.

Born last Thursday at 7.05

weighing in at 7lb 14oz.

and 52 cm long.

She's all wrapped here but she has hands like

Muhammed Ali and feet like Ian Thorpe.

My granddaughter's happiness

made me tear up.

I anticipate a weekend of blubbing.

Storms again.

Apparently this will be us this afternnoon to late evening but not as bad as it will be in Adelaide all day. It was sunny this morning so I dragged both bins out knowing what happened yesterday.  Rain would be okay but not wind, I have the small bin filled with those rotten packing peanuts (biodegradable) but hideous to get rid of and so light if the bin does go over then it'll look like large floating hailstones.
But back to yesterday, off to the podiatrist in glorious sun at 11.30 but by 12.30 it dropped to freezing wind and rain and not a lick of sun anywhere. At 2.00 the sun re-appeared but the wind didn't warm up and I was lucky to get home before more rain.  Forecast is rain tomorrow, maybe on Friday but probably sunny on Saturday because it's the Football finals.

Our 'hard rubbish' collection is over for another year and I was restrained and dragged nothing home but I did covet some nice kitchen chairs up the street but too far for me to get them to my front yard.  
This year I have noticed something different, big 4x4 cars with large caged trailers full to the brim with anything and everything and COLLECTION AGENCY written on the doors.  I counted 6 of those in one day.  I've never seen so many 4x4s crawling up and down the street.  
The Council made it illegal a few years ago to go through and take whatever took one's fancy and we all ignored that.  It's the highlight of the year, watching garbage start at one end of the street and work its way up and down and considering that the Council doesn't bother to recycle, just throw in the back of the chomper and off to landfill, then dragging home a kitchen chair or two was in order.  But this year was bedlam. One of the neighbours told me that the kerb crawlers were putting a really good pile into their GPS to sneak back at night.  Even the walkers came back at night by torchlight, like I haven't done that myself, but to go through my pathetic little pile was a bit much.
The Collection Agency trucks  were scooping up everything. It wouldn't surprise me if next year there aren't drones flying the skies and reporting back to even bigger trucks.  Well, they missed mine last year with a sofa bed and huge lounge chair which was a shame since that went into the chomper truck when I really wanted a good home for them.
I did like the chairs, I always look for the chairs or a bookcase. It's a good thing that I don't drive, someone would have to remove the car keys from my clutched hand for the whole of collection week.

One foot in front of the other.

I feel as though I've been waiting for this wave to dump on me for the past few months.

So I've been trying to wade to safety on shore using empty ice-cream cartons to keep

myself afloat.

I must be nearly there, no ice-cream in the freezer and Domino's shares are falling.

It seems to have been a long miserable winter.

Don't give up on me, I'll be back

in full glorious colour and thanks to  the ice-cream, in wide screen.

Meanwhile read the comments on my last post, written by the golden 

poet Lord Robbert of the Western Lands.

Joy turns to hysteria and pain and inches me closer to that breakdown.

Now going back in the WayBack Machine which I use a lot on this blog, I visit my want list.
A Toilet. A toilet that is tall so I don't have to put an extension seat on it for my dodgy knees.  You must remember the joy when I finally had the money thanks to a jackpot at the pokies. I googled immediately and found the right height and what weight it took and the place was just down the road.
What was the hurry?  Well there were several other things on the want list and leaving money around this house is never a good idea.  The trees need pruning, the gates need work, a house cleaner for a day, a handyman for a month. Don't worry about the spouting, my mother used to ram a screwdriver wherever it was blocked and the water ran on to the garden in the dry spots.  Put a hose in the down pipe, yes done that except I kind of lost control of the hose and control of me standing on top of the ladder which wasn't in shape for my shape.  Thank the Godness, in those days no-one had those damn camera/movie phones or I would have been on Youtube for ever.

Anyway the excitement was too much for me and I bought my dream then started saving up for the plumber. Sister said why didn't I sit on it at the showroom, well honestly how does one try out a toilet without trying out a toilet.  Like trying out a bed in the showroom that 2 hundred people had already jumped about on it.  The big day comes, old is out, new is in and IT'S A COMPLETE AND UTTER BASTARD OF A THING.  Who in their right mind designs a square toilet when last time I looked bums are round.  My weight might have been spot on for the design but not for the seat and lid.  It rocked and rolled all over the place. Plumber comes back next day and puts in larger and longer screws, works for an hour. The soft self closing lid makes it all look so neat and tidy but it's not a flat lid. It has a 4cm rim to come down over the pan and it's hard plastic and it's sharp especially when it hits the really bad spot on the spine.  I could have been designed to hit that exact spot. And it's crashing and banging but the flush is very quiet which is too bad since I've woken up the neighbours with the first sit down crash.  And just to make it all bright, I twisted and put my hip out of joint getting out of the taxi and believe me it doesn't like square seats either.

I was up and down all night  taking pain killers with water and getting rid of the water in the jaws of hell and taking more pain killers.  Rang the plumber this morning and demanded he come back and replace dead old crappy crapper with it's swinging extension seat.  He hummed and aahed but I said I didn't want the money back, I'd pay him more and he could also take the $700 toilet with him.  That's right $700 and believe me if he leaves it here I will take a sledge hammer to it.  The reason for the hesitation was that it was so hard to install that he's not too happy at uninstalling it.  He should work for Windows 10, another bastard mob.

Nephew came in this morning, built like a brick outhouse, 6'4", remember him. So I had him sit, sit I said, get your eyes tested and his opinion is actually unprintable, on my blog.  It crashed and banged and he said the plumber hasn't installed it right, I don't care, I want it gone.  Now I'm still in pain but after the taxi, I dragged the bins out and inside wondered why the cat was screwy. I'd warned plumber about dodgy tap in the bathroom for when he turned the water back on but forgot the one in the laundry and I had a flood so just to add to pain I had to pull out the washing machine and put a bucket behind to catch water. I did turn it off as much as possible.  Cat's litter box is in the corner surrounded by water, no wonder he rushed off and was gone for an hour.  I spent the next 10 minutes digging wet kitty litter out of the bottoms of my feet.  Plumber fixed that next day, held out a lump of rust and asked how long this washer had been in the tap, time of the ark by the look of it.  Nephew got the bucket out and pushed the machine back in. I haven't been game to use it yet, there's an eclipse coming up, think I'll wait til it passes.

Plumber due back sometime next week, or else.  Plumber's mate, really brilliant, tall so I asked him to take out one of the 4 globes that have blown in the light in the study. he asked me to turn the light on so he could see what he was doing.  I should have called a halt then.

So after the disaster with the chair, lights, nephew's warehouse down my hall way, car yard in the carport and tyre depot down the side and now bloody bog, nothing is ever going to be done again. The rat in the oven will live there until he dies, no new stove and no rat traps either.  I would never cook there again if I had to haul out a body to get breakfast.  Air conditioner hasn't been checked since 1996.  And if that isn't enough, hard rubbish collection is due.  I will not pick up one single thing unless it's really really useful. 

And the possums, such a joy.  Loving the oranges so much that when they've finished the inside, they're hanging the skins on the branches of the apple tree.  Looks really pretty through my tears since I'm quite sure the mongrels know I'm allergic to oranges and I managed to eat one which was ambrosia before I broke out in spots.

Now for painkillers and icecream stuffed in the freezer.  I can eat icecream, the battery in my blood checker has fritzed.

My usual take on Sunday selections. And I'm officially going to be a great grandmother. And I'd like to be moderately rich.

The newly appointed heads of the Australian Board of Statistics.

Notice the hair do, already looks like it's been torn out in frustration.

Notice the beady eyes, already shifty and they haven't stuffed up yet.

Notice the beaks, long enough to stick right into your business.

I'm adding another string to my bow.

Crazy mouse lady.

If this was USA I could have gone out and bought

a howitzer and blown the stove to bits

and killed the little mongrel.

But I'm still living with the cunning creep.

Several political parties are dead ahead for this.

The rest of this year could be very interesting.

I wish I had money invested in a lifeboat company.

At last it's official! Let the blame throwing commence.

Round is going to be flatround if he insists on stopping in front of me for absolutely no reason at all except that he can.

Cat logic should be a valid subject for University study, it beats any logic being spouted by our politicians at the moment.  From the 'oh my God, we've been cyber attacked by criminal hackers' we have now come to the facts of the crash of Census night.  They didn't have enough of anything that could handle the amount of traffic rushing to the site, in fact some code was written 30 years ago.  The poor bloke they handed this steaming pile of merde to is so new to the job I doubt he could find the men's room for a panic stricken pee.  Them in the Government starved the ABS of funds to buy new computers.  Their answer to that was to cut some of the questions, cat logic in action.  I should link to the Age article but they also reported that obese people live ten years less/fewer (should satisfy the grammar critics) than skinny people so I don't have time for that.

"HEADS WILL ROLL" was Malware's reply (straight from Hunger Games script) to this dastardly attack but this was before the facts were made public and I wonder how his NBN performed on the night in question.  Could we have a new Census about that?  Not trusting him in the slightest, I filled out my terribly, frightfully important few pages with a trusty pen and will post (laughter at trusting AustraliaPost) it tomorrow if it's not raining, I mean it's not like it's urgent now.

One 'somebody important' who's name I didn't get, asked why not another page (before the truth came out) about equal marriage, to save 160 million bucks on another time wasting exercise, why not a few questions about how many pets in the home, how many of your kids are on the computer at this minute, obviously for the rich who can afford more than one, who can afford the electricity and the NBN, what did you have for tea obvious cat logic to weed out the obese, paleo nuts and the rich dining on Wagyu beef.  So now it's all out in the open except for the public beheading and rolling.(ooh look a shiney new Coliseum)  And don't sit at the back and snigger, Abbott or ring your mate Hockey boozing his way around Washington, because this stuff up started with the two of you. 

 Which reminds me, I can't wait for Hockey's book on 'Doing Washington on $5 a day' because he is such a great money handler.  So sorry, Mal and Barnaby head of the Australian Buggeredup Statistics, you have done it again, scaled the heights of political logic when you should have gathered a flea bitten mob of alley cats and listened to their logic instead of the lounge lizards in the Parliament booze circle.  

Three days older and deeper in debt.

I can heartily recommend Sara Lee's Chocolate Ganache cheese cake for a birthday unless you're surrounded by friends who also like it.  Divine but I don't know about the salted Caramel one, it could be a bit rich.  Mother enjoyed it, thought it was her birthday.

The wedding magazines are in the bin, the carport and the lounge but I have a bookcase.  Now I just have to turn it that 180 degrees and fill it boxes of jewellery making stuff.  And open the door to the wardrobe and find out what's hiding in there that I couldn't get to before.

It has taken me five days to drag the recycle bin to the nature strip and it's only a third full of magazines.  I'll kill anyone I find bin dumping because I'm still not sure the truck will be able to lift it.  I couldn't even wheel it, I had to drag it bit by bit but the truck is stronger than I am.  I figure if it takes this load, I could get away with half full or more.  The trick is to leave it near the front gate and load it there.  And one bit of luck, I did it in the 5 minutes of sunshine we had today, cancelling that luck was getting to the Home in pouring rain.

Computer went on strike again.  This time I didn't get a patient person, they put me through to Microsoft where I did the merry-go-round with pressing numbers until they hung up on me.  So I rang the the daily service and bounced the technical difficulties.  This poor girl tried everything but because I couldn't even bring up the broadband connect/tool/ text thing,(dashboard, I knew it would come to me) she couldn't get remote control.  So we wandered through various parts of this and that which I'd never seen before, poking buttons, deleting, putting back until we finally got the dashboard on the screen.  She didn't know what she did, neither did I but we cheered and then took a leap of faith and turned it off and turned it on, thanks to the computer spirit who finally took pity on us.  I am supposed to send an sms to say how helpful Maria was but I don't know how to do that.

On the other hand I have made my first mobile phone call.  And I have put in 5 numbers to call.  And I changed my ringtone.  Actually the ringtones were so sweet that I wasted half an hour just playing with them.  I also had another Microsoft scam call on the landline and to top it off and bank scam call.  I've also taken notice of River's warning about mail scams.  I was waiting for the letter with my Census number but they sent me the whole form and a pre-paid envelope to send back.  Now I just have to decide whether this time, I'm Jedi, Druid or Pureblood.

And for the few who believe in such things, I had a birthday gift from my dead son.  Two beautiful mounds of violets flowering under the apple tree.  I've never seen them before, never planted them and they have never flowered there in all the years the tree has grown.  Violets were our symbol and he loved the wild bush violets but I could never get them to grow.  Twenty-one years he's been gone and it only seems like yesterday.   Ex daughter in law also says she gets visions of him whenever she sees a blue wren, her prophetic gifts obviously aren't in tune with the 80 tonne blue wren I'm trying to conjure up to hit her right in the arse.  That brightened me up, I think I'll go have pudding.