Moving on

I have been a very bad blogger for the last seven and a half years. That is not entirely true. The truth is that I haven't been a blogger at all for that time. Not one blog post. My excuse is that I was beavering away at university studies, but since I was only taking one unit per term that is a pretty weak excuse. But here I am and I thought I might try to get this blog up and running again.

A lot has happened in the last seven years. A new grandson who is no longer 'new' but a bouncy, happy, energetic five-year-old is top of the list. He is grandchild number eight and the last grandchild that we can expect, or so we are told. We don't have a blog nickname for him yet. It has been so long since I used blog nicknames for the other seven grandchildren, that I had to do some research to remind myself of them. Here's a list: Cheetah is now a gorgeous young adult at twenty-years-old. Lion is navigating through his teens with poise and confidence most of the time, after all, he is a normal fifteen-year-old. Dragon is in his early teens and finding talent in new skills. He enjoys working with his hands. He is thirteen. Little Bear is on the verge of teenage-hood. She is a mature and delightful young lady of twelve. Monkey is eleven and still living up to his nickname as a lovable and funny monkey (when he's not being a mischievous monkey). Ladybug is transforming in front of our eyes into an elegant young lady who can't stop dancing. She is nine. Butterfly is a lovable, chatty and constantly busy seven-year-old.

No doubt, I'll have more to write about them in the future. For now, I thought I might give you a potted history of our last few years. My university study kept me pretty busy for most of the time and I was doing better than I expected, especially in my writing subjects. I was aiming for a double major of writing and history. The history units were a bit more challenging but I managed to plod along until last year when I got my first pass mark. It felt like a fail because all of my marks to that point had been credits, distinctions and high distinctions. Even to get a P had been a struggle because of undiagnosed health issues. More about that later. In the end, I made the hard to decision to quit while I was still ahead and finish with an Associate Diploma which I had more than covered instead of a Bachelor degree.

Mr Sunshine and I hit a big milestone in 2017 when we were finally able to buy a home for ourselves. We had been living in less than ideal conditions in the family beach hut ever since losing our home, our business and our savings in the Global Financial Crisis. I don't use the acronym anymore after I was explaining to a health worker, who was asking questions, that we lost our house in the GFC. She asked, "What is a GFC?". Townsville was badly affected in the GFC. Unemployment soared. Business bankruptcies were rampant. I wasn't expecting it to be forgotten quite so soon. It might have been a different story if I'd been talking to someone in the retail industry rather than the health/medical industry.

Also in the last few years, we became the parents of two fur-babies for the first time in years. Two lovable, but naughty, dachshunds joined us for two yappy years. They were full of beans and very loving and sometimes very noisy, much to the irritation of one of our neighbours. Unfortunately for several goannas, a couple of snakes and at least one rat they were also excellent hunters. The demise of the rat was great...the goanna and snake deaths we were not happy about. We like wildlife. We worked hard at trying to train them to be less aggressive to other animals (and humans) and less yappy at the neighbours and we were making good progress. As my health status changed, I could see their future looking a little bleaker with them being left alone more often or locked in the house to keep them out of trouble with the neighbours. We made the tough decision to rehome them and it has turned out very well for them as they are now with a family who have two young teenagers and an older dachshund who has a new lease on life now that he has two younger adopted brothers to contend with.


My typing skill, which had never been great, was pitifully slow and mistake-ridden. Dizziness plagued me and made it hard to concentrate and think clearly. Sometimes I walked like a drunk. Appointments with medical specialists sometimes felt like throwing money away when they could find nothing seriously wrong. Tests mostly resulted in a finding of slightly worse than average but nothing to worry about. Our family doctors didn't give up though. They could only reassure me that according to my blood tests I was in great shape, but they and I knew something was not right and it was something that doesn't show up in blood tests or scans.

You know you are over the hill when...

This morning church didn't start until 9 o'clock which gave us a bit longer than usual to have breakfast and get ready for our 60 km trip into town. I was feeling pretty happy that we were going to be early (a rare thing I'm sorry to admit).

Today was special because the Sunday School conducted the whole service and the children did one of the most entertaining Christmas pantomimes that we have ever seen. We got home in time for Mr Sunshine to attend a six year old's birthday party. You can't say 'no' to special invitations like that from your adoring public year one students.

All in all I thought things had been coasting along pretty well until Mr Sunshine asked me if I noticed anything different about him. I looked carefully at his face, but no, he hadn't forgotten to shave or plucked his eyebrows. He suggested I look lower. I was expecting a busted fly zipper or a food stain down his shirt. Suddenly I saw IT and it was nothing like what I was expecting. I couldn't stop laughing. As far as we know, no one at church even noticed. I didn't and my handbag was on the floor next to his feet. I'm wondering who will be more embarrassed -- Mr Sunshine or his children.

 

This is what happens when you are over the hill. Mr Sunshine turned 60 only two weeks ago. It doesn't take long for the rot to set in.



Sunbirds living dangerously.

After successfully raising one chick from a nest right outside our louvres, our sunbirds encountered tragedy on their next attempt. Unfortunately on a windy night, their nest blew down and the little chick died of exposure. It was a sad day for all of us. Father sunbird kept coming back to the nest site, calling out for his family. Eventually they built another nest under the neighbour's lean-to. It was a very sensible nest site -- protected from sun and wind and kookaburras who were too large to get through the lattice barrier. 

But now the sunbirds have built a nest outside our bathroom and practically next to the laundry door.

You might remember this post from a couple of weeks ago, where I said that Charlotte, the Bird-eating-spider, was back in her burrow about 30cm from my laundry door. You guessed it...the subird nest is directly above the spider burrow -- about two metres above it and I hope that is enough. One thing is certain. If the baby falls out of the nest it won't die of exposure.

We had another visitor this week. I could hear scratching noises in the back room and it was this gorgeous sand monitor goanna just having a look around. We have at least three of them living nearby. Two boys and a girl, I suspect, after the agressive confrontation I witnessed a couple of months ago. It was all for show and no one got hurt.  This fellow is welcome anytime if he promises to eat spiders. Mind you, he will be just as happy eating baby sunbirds.

Next photo is a slightly less welcome visitor squatter. Geckos...we have dozens of them and with no insect screens they come and go as much as they please. Mostly they don't go. They just stay, but at least they eat some of the bugs which also come and go as much as they please.

Last photo is the little double bar finches who are using our bird bath as a meeting place. One of our friends says he photographed fourteen of them all sharing his birdbath at the same time. They are very amiable little birds.

She is back...

Who?
I'm glad you asked. We think of her as Charlotte after that famous spider character created by E. B. White. She is an Australian Tarantula aka Selenocosmia crassipes aka Barking Spider aka Bird-eating Spider aka Whistling Spider and various other made-up names and she had a burrow about 30cm from my laundry door. I don't have a photo of her because when I tried to get close enough for a photo, it always turned out blurry. It might have had something to do with the uncontrollable shaking of my hands or the fast and heavy pounding of my heart. My camera lens's vibration reduction mode is good, but apparently my hand's vibration creation mode is better when it comes to spiders. If you want a short educational video about these spiders, with close-ups, you should view this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy--xIKJX18

Most nights Charlotte would sit patiently in the opening of her burrow, waiting...waiting...until some unsuspecting lizard, frog, toad, human or anything on her spider menu wandered within pouncing distance. During the day she would snooze contentedly below ground. Life was good for Charlotte and apparently her days and nights had continued in this settled routine for many years. My mother-in-law somehow forgot to mention this fact to us until I was relating the story of her untimely demise. That's right - her demise. I came home from an outing to see that her burrow had been enlarged to such an extent that it was noticeable from the kitchen windows. Horror of horrors! Was she now so huge that she needed a burrow opening of 15 cm or more? No. Our resident goanna, a Lace Monitor, had been looking for a spider-sized snack. Charlotte was no more and the burrow remained unattended, grown over by weeds and collecting dead leaves for weeks.

Unfortunately Charlotte had a secret.  Charlotte was a mother.

Because we live in a regional location we don't have sewerage. Our toilet effluent goes into a septic tank, but our kitchen, laundry, shower and hand basin effluent is simply channelled outside, underground, into the sand. About a week after the 'goanna incident' we had a 'spiders-in-the-hand-basin incident'. Chimera found them first and thought they were half grown Huntsmen Spiders, but a little alarm bell was ringing in my head. Four spiders in the hand basin? Did they follow the leader across the bench? Did they bungie jump together from the ceiling? Or...did they come up through the pipe from below ground? That would explain why there were four at once. Chimera disposed of the spiders for me. I looked up my spider books.

Bizarre fact number 1: Whistling spiders care for their babies for many months until they are big enough to hunt for their own prey. A few days later we had more spiders in the basin. A couple had even escaped and were climbing the walls. Bizarre fact number 2: Whistling spiders are able to climb smooth surfaces, even glass and plastic. This was the stuff of nightmares. Mr Sunshine disposed of them, possibly illegally as they are probably a protected species.

Bizarre fact number 3: Whistling spider burrows can be a metre deep and up to 2 metres long with little underground chambers (pantry and bedrooms) off to the sides. I have news for the writers of the spider books. The pipe from the bathroom basin is over 3 metres from the entry to Charlottes burrow. THREE METRES OF SPIDER TUNNELS AND CHAMBERS. But, I could still sleep at nights because, after number 14, no more little spiders appeared in the bathroom and mother Charlotte had been gobbled up by our goanna, right? Wrong!

Today I discovered that the spider burrow has undergone a transformation - a renovation in fact. The weeds are pushed back, the dead leaves are off to the side and there is new web lining the opening.


Now I think I will go and have a lie down with a valium thick-shake.

A fresh start.

Finally. I updated the header photo and now you can see my Seven Little Australians (doesn't that sound like a wonderful title for a book?) as they are, or at least as they were in July. They grow up and change so quickly that in the intervening three months since the photo was taken they have already changed, grown out of some things, had hair cuts -- you know how it goes. Since their names are no longer in the title I will introduce you to them by their blog names from left to right: Monkey, Little Bear, Butterfly (on my lap), Lion, Cheetah, Dragon and Ladybug. Mummy McTavish took the photo when we were all together in July to celebrate Great Nanna's birthday.

I really must try to be a more regular blogger again. I began blogging in 2008 because I was a bit of a frustrated writer and I wanted to write, but I wanted to test the waters to find out if other people would read what I wrote. As it turned out, other people did read what I wrote and they even left nice comments. (Thank you commenters if you are still out there.) It gave me the confidence to take what for me was a drastic step -- the step of enrolling at university to learn more about writing. Mr Sunshine has been very patient as I have obsessed over various assignments and assessment tasks while chaos reigned in the home. It has paid off and I am now the happy recipient of 2 credits, 2 distinctions and 1 high distinction. I can say with honesty that I haven't received a single pass. My course is a Bachelor of Arts at University of New England and since I am plodding away, one subject at a time, it is going take me until early 2019 to finish. That is okay because I am in no hurry and I don't want it to interfere with my grandparenting duties. The children will grow up and not need me soon enough, but I'm sure the university will still be there.

That's it for now folks. I'm hoping that I can be a bit more regular with my posts from now on, but I make no promises.

Grandchild number 7 - missing in action.

It has been so long since I have even looked at my blog. What a shock! Our youngest grandchild is 13 months old and she is not even on here yet. That will soon be corrected plus an update of what we have been up to in recent years will be posted. Watch this space...

I'm a Little Doll

Living back in a small community has its hazards. One of the them is getting roped into things you would never do under normal circumstances. This video demonstrates my point exactly. Those are my friends E and B and I am in the middle.

It was done for a good cause. The Balgal Beach Seniors group (of which I am NOT a member) decided to take part in Australia's Biggest Morning Tea to raise funds for Cancer Council Australia. We were a hit, mainly because Balgal Beach people are very easily pleased such lovely encouraging people. We had already performed our little number at last year's Seniors Behaving Badly concert and we were requested to do it again because they like to see us embarrassing ourselves enjoyed it so much.

I think twice is more than enough, don't you?