2013.....I'm Ready!

Monday 31st December, 2012

Goodbye 2012

Hello 2013....I am ready!

Laundry done....check

Ironing done.....check

House all clean......check

Happy New Year everyone!   May you all have a prosperous year full of love, laughter, good health and all that your heart desires.

Tony and I stayed home again this year.  For some reason both of us didn't feel like going out to celebrate the New Year.
Although we did go for a drive along the beach earlier in the evening and so we had to have an icecream....

Earlier in the day I listened to the guy who sets up Sydney's fireworks and so I was interested to see them.  What a  let down....they did not have the wow factor for me.  I realise that to see fireworks you should be there, you don't get the same feel for them on TV, and this guy said there would be bird and koala shaped fireworks, but I didn't see any.

This is how us Aussies get to celebrate New Years when it's hot......

Semaphore..... at midnight they have fireworks off the jetty

Today's temperature got to around 32C, tomorrow is going to be 33C and Thursday and Friday the weatherman is saying that it will get to 41C and 42C respectively.  A really hot start to the New Year!

A Birthday To Celebrate

Thursday 27th December, 2012

Happy Birthday Bob!  This evening we went out for dinner with Robyn and Bob.  We ended up going to The Boathouse at Taperoo.  

I don't normally have steak when we go out, usually because it's never cooked to my liking.  I like my meat to be well done (dead), and this is one place that does cook it to my liking and it's so tender.  Tony and I had the sizzling steak, Robyn and Bob had a steak each.

Yesterday was Boxing Day.  We had to go out and get some ink for the printer so that I could print out the rest of the calendars.  Our usual place to go, Office Works, was not open.  We ended up going into the city and to Harvey Norman.  

It was the first time ever that the shops, in the city, had been open on Boxing Day and the people went there in droves.  They estimated some 125,000 shoppers went and spent their money on the stocktake sales.   The only other shops that were allowed to open were at Glenelg and Harbortown.  

We only went to Harvey Norman, we didn't venture into Rundle Mall.  I have never seen so many people in Harvey Norman and the lineup for the cash registers went from the front of the store all the way to the back. We were in line for some 25 minutes, thank goodness we had a friendly guy in front of us in the line who was chatty which helped pass the time.

Shoppers in Rundle Mall

                                                                                          photo from Adelaide Now website

'Tis The Day After Christmas

 Wednesday 26th December, 2012

Christmas has come and gone for another year.  I hope you all had a good one.  We have had a great Christmas spent with family and friends.

Last Saturday afternoon (which seems like eons ago now) we picked Katie up.  They went visiting friends on Saturday morning and so that's why we met up with her in the afternoon.  Seeing the temperature was around 35C we took her to the pool for an hour or so.  We called into the shops for some last minute food items, like the prawns and ham, and then home.  

Katie wanted to make her infamous "Chocky Balls", with some help from Poppa, plus earlier I had made some gingerbread and so she cut out the shapes and we baked them.  After the baking was done we headed out for some dinner and then off to see some Christmas Lights.

We had heard about this street in St Peters, Ninth Street, and so our first stop was there. Wow it was amazing........they said that around 45 houses in the street decorate their front yards with lights......it truly was a magical sight.

Our next stop was up in the hills to Hahndorf.  One house in particular we wanted to see and it was well worth the visit.

Sunday was spent preparing food for Sunday night.  Rick and Dianne and Jodi, Troy and the girls were coming over.  Tori was bringing a friend, Dylan.  Earlier in the day Rick rang to say that he had to take Dianne to the hospital on Saturday night and she had been admitted.  When I spoke to her earlier in the week she had complained of stomach pains.

I spoke to Dianne in the hospital, they presumed she had a kidney infection, but couldn't be sure until she had a scan which couldn't be done until the Monday.

Rick still came on Sunday night.  It was a great night until Jodi and Troy had a disagreement which involved Tori and so she left in tears.  Why does Christmas bring out the worst in some people?  The girls still enjoyed unwrapping their presents and were happy with what they received.

Monday was a quiet day.  Tony had to work, Katie and I prepared some more food for dinner Monday night.  Kahra and Darrin were coming over.  This was a much happier occasion.  We all had a great time.  Katie couldn't wait to open her presents.

We had bought her a trampoline for Christmas.  Darrin had called by on the Thursday night to pick it up in his truck and he was going to assemble it while Katie was staying over so that it would be all ready for her on Christmas morning.

He had taken some photos of it assembled to show us and Kahra wanted him to show Katie the photos so that Tony and I could see her reaction.  We wanted to let her wake up to it on Christmas morning, she still would have rang us so excitedly to tell us she had a trampoline.

Anyway Darrin ended up showing Katie the photo and her reaction was priceless.  She couldn't believe it and was close to tears.  I did shed some tears to see her so happy.

Christmas morning was so nice for Tony and I to have a bit of a sleep in.  Robyn and Bob came by at around 10.30 and 11.30 we left to go to Glenelg and the Watermark Hotel.  We were having a smorgasboard Christmas lunch.  The food was magnificent.  It was truly worth the $130 per head.  There was so much food plus more besides.

Father Christmas came and handed all the children a goodie bag, the adults got a container that they could fill with all sorts of goodies like fairy cakes, white christmas, brownies, rum balls, chocolate truffles, rocky road, etc.  

A wooden Christmas tree was on every table and these were allowed to be taken home.  As Robyn and I both wanted one Bob asked if we could have a spare one.  "Yes, no problem", the waitress said and went off to get one.  In the end she came back with more and so Robyn and I ended up with three each, 1 large and 2 small ones  They also gave us a goodie bag for Katie.

We enjoyed it so much we booked again for next year's Christmas.

Today has mostly been spent winding down.  The last few days have been hectic and so it's nice to just sit and relax.  Thank goodness I don't have to prepare any food, we have enough left overs for our meals today.

It's Christmas Day!

Tuesday 25th December, 2012

Just stopping buy to send Christmas greetings to all who come and visit.

I hope your day is full of love, laughter and good times as you get to spend it with your family and friends.

Merry Christmas!

A Milestone Reached!

Saturday 22nd December, 2012

Today Tony and I have reached a milestone in our lives............we have been married for 40 years.

Happy anniversary to the most wonderful man I know..........I love you more than words can ever say.

 I am looking forward to our next 40 years together.

We met at a local hotel, the Princess Berkley in Hindley Street in April 1972.  I worked with his sister and as she was getting married we all went to the hotel for drinks after work.  Tony came to pick her up but instead ended up taking me home.

At the time he worked for the Department of Civil Aviation as an electrician.  Due to his job he had to go into the country to maintain and service the country airports such as Mt Gambier, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Kingscote, Oodnadatta and so on.  Usually he was gone for a couple of weeks at a time.  The Northern Territory was also serviced by the SA region.

We didn't spend too much time together in the early days of our courtship, we kept in contact either by phone or letter.  On one of his 'extended' stays in Adelaide, in the month of August, he took me to the drive in movies.  While taking me home he "popped" the question by telling me that he had applied for a job in Darwin and he would like me to go with him so would I marry him.  I asked when would he be going to Darwin and he told me that it wouldn't be until after Christmas.  Oh, that's months away I thought.

Anyway I accepted his marriage proposal.  We went to Renmark so that he could meet my parents, luckily they approved of him.  A few weeks later he informed me that he had to go to Tennant Creek (in the Northern Territory) for 2 months. He was gone for the months of October and November and so I had to make the wedding arrangements myself. 

We set the date for Friday 22nd December.  We were married at 6.30pm in the Zion Lutheran Church on Glynburn Road, Glynde.  Tony wanted us to be married in a park but back then garden weddings weren't very popular and the City Council placed a lot of restrictions about what you could or couldn't do.  He was Catholic and didn't want to get married in the Catholic church, and unless we went to see the priest his mother was not going to attend the wedding.  The priest gave us his blessing and his mother was happy.

We went to Perth in West Australia for our honeymoon and when we came back we had a few days to pack up our belongings, say our goodbyes to family and friends and head off to Darwin.  We drove to Port Augusta, put the car on the train and we boarded the Ghan that took us to Alice Springs.  We arrived in Alice and spent the night in a motel, picked up the car the following morning and started the long drive north to Darwin.

When we reached Tennant Creek we stayed the night at one of his fellow workers, Dave's house.   In my opinion it was here that I was given the best piece of advice I have ever been given.  After dinner he took me to one side and told me that if our marriage was going to last, living in Darwin would be the test for it. He told me that to make it last, any problems that we encountered we had to sort them out ourselves.  He said that I didn't have my mum or my girlfriends close by to go and talk to and so Tony and I had to sit down and talk our problems through ourselves.  He also said that if our marriage didn't last in Darwin it wouldn't have lasted no matter where we lived.

We arrived in Darwin and Tony drove down the main street.  It was nothing like I imagined.  It was nothing like Adelaide.  Where were the modern shops?  They all seemed to be tin sheds.  The only modern building was the Post Office. I cried and said I wanted to go back to Adelaide.  Even the weather was horrible, hot and humid, after all it was the wet season.   

The first few months were a struggle, we were practically two strangers living together and so we had to get to know one another.  We took on board the advice we had been given and here we are 40 years later still very happy, and more in love.

Katie, you can have a wonderful, happy, lasting marriage if  you are prepared to work at it.   

Wanted: More Hours In The Day

Monday 17th December, 2012

I am needing more hours in a day to get what I want done before Christmas.  

The rains didn't come last Thursday but on Friday morning we got some steady rain which lasted for about 4 hours.  It was great for the garden.  When the sun came out in the afternoon it became hot and muggy.  After going to have my nails done I went into town to wait for Tony.  He had to work back as the electrical contractors were replacing lights and he had to take some light readings.

While he was still busy I went off and did some browsing in the shops.....trying to get in the Christmas mood!   When he was finished we went off and had some dinner.  On Saturday he had to go back into work again to take more light readings with the new light fittings in.  I ended up catching the bus into the city and met him.  We went off and had a look at some stone guards for the car.

The Carousel is back in Rundle Mall

I can't believe what they are saying in regard to our weather forecast.  On Saturday night I read on the website where they are predicting 39C for Sunday, 43C for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day dropping down to 26C with a few showers.  I know that 10 days out is too early for a weather forecast so I am praying really hard for the weather to change. 

On Sunday I slept in.  Tony came in and woke me up around 10.30am.  In the afternoon we went to get some more cherries.  It was the busiest I have ever seen the cherry place, people were everywhere.

What the mechanical harvester misses the cherries are picked by hand

This morning I had to take the car into City Mazda for its service.  I caught the tram into the city and wandered around until it was time to meet Tony to go back and collect the car.

The weatherman is still saying that Sunday will be 39C but there has been a reprieve for Monday........26C  with showers.
That sounds better, no word yet on Christmas Day but hopefully it will be nice.

Now that I'm home I am totally exhausted.  I have lots to do but am too tired to do it.  Tomorrow is another day! 

An Absolute Tragedy!

Saturday 15th December, 2012

What terrible news to wake up to this morning.  Another mass shooting in the US, but this time the victims were young children aged between 5 and 10 years old.  Apparently 20 children were shot dead and 6 adults (including the gunman, who took his own life).  This shooting happened in Newtown, Connecticut at an Elementary School.  Here, we would call it a Primary School.

When you drop your child off to school each morning you would think that they would be relatively safe. To find out that your child had been shot dead would be a parent's worst nightmare. I shed tears for the families who lost a child while reading about this, this morning.  My heart goes out to them and I pray that they will find some comfort knowing that millions of people from around the world are feeling their pain.

After Australia's worst mass shooting, which happened at Port Arthur, Tasmania in April 1996 our government banned the sale of guns to people unless you could legitimately prove that you needed one eg a farmer, member of a gun club, a collector etc etc.  If you were granted permission to have a license to own a gun, then the gun had to kept in a secure and locked cupboard.

Admittedly we still have shootings, but these are usually carried out by underworld figures and criminals.  As far as I am aware we have not had another mass shooting.  No government can ever ban guns completely while there is a criminal element around.

Who are we to tell the Americans what to do?  It says in their Constitution, that it is the right of every American to carry and bear arms to defend themselves.  They have a very strong pro gun lobby group. The same argument gets brought up every time........."it's not guns that kill people, it's people that kill people".  My response to that is, "don't let the people have such easy access to guns."  Too many innocent lives are being lost with all these mass shootings.  

I believe the problem goes deeper than just being able to get hold of a gun.  We have seen an enormous increase in mental health, which I believe in part is due to illicit drugs (and don't get me started on that).  

Also many people are living in troubled times and can find no easy way out and so life gets too overwhelming for them.  For some reason they "snap" and go ahead and do the unthinkable. 

What is the attraction to go out and shoot at innocent people?  Notoriety perhaps, knowing that their name will always go down in history as being a mass murderer.   Obviously they intend on killing themselves as most end up turning the gun on themselves, so why don't they just do that in the first place.  So many less people would be affected by it.   In a case like this and the ones before it's not a few lives that are affected but many hundreds.

Let's hope, that out of this devastating tragedy, President Obama and the American government can come together and legislate for tougher control over the ownership of guns.  

The eyes of the world will be watching!

12/12/12

Wednesday 12th December, 2012

I had to write something today because of today's date, 12/12/12.  This will be the last time most of us will ever see a date like this.  The next time where a date, month and year are the same will be in 88 years time.....on 01/01/2101.

We went and bought some more lights to replace those that we bought on Sunday.  Tony changed them over last night and guess what, there was nothing wrong with the original ones.  Hehehehehe.  The problem with them was that one of the lights had come out of the little socket that they sit in, consequently not allowing the other lights to function.  Once it was pushed back in they worked!

We decided to keep them rather than take them back.  While playing around with  the lights Tony also fixed up some of the solar ones I have in the garden.  We need to get some new rechargeable batteries for the others that don't work.

Today has been very hot, I think the temperature got up to somewhere around 40C.  At the moment a thunderstorm is building up, there is lots of thunder and lightning has already started some grass fires.

I think our weather is changing here.  I can't remember us having so many "tropical" days of high humidity and thunderstorms.  Adelaide used to have more of the "dry" heat.  I don't mind the humid weather, especially when the sun isn't out.  

Nothing came of the thunderstorms where we live although a few kilometres up the road they had some heavy rain and flooding.  The weather bureau put out a wild weather alert but that has now been cancelled.

Tomorrow they are forecasting for more of the same.  All I wanna see is some rain.  We will just have to wait and see if we get any.

Strawberry Pickin'

Sunday 9th December, 2012

Where did this past week go?  One day it's Monday, the next Friday is upon us..  I don't know what happened to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Crikey, Christmas will have come and gone and I'll have missed it at the rate the days are flying by.

On Friday I met Dianne for lunch and a bit of last minute Christmas shopping.  After dropping her off home I went into town and met Tony.  We went off to do some more Christmas shopping.  It had been a fairly hot day and had not cooled down any towards evening.  Not being able to find what we wanted we decided to give it a miss and try again in the morning.  We ended up at Henley Beach again for coffee and some more of that Passionfruit Torte.   Mmm mmm!!!!

While driving around we have noticed that there doesn't seem to be as many houses with Christmas decorations like there has been in previous years.  I think because our electricity prices have risen so much, people can't afford to light their houses up.  A lot of people are having their power disconnected because they can't afford to pay these higher costs.  Thank goodness we have solar panels which have kept our costs down.

We did come across a couple of places, but they weren't  private houses.  One was a tree in a park and the other place was some sort of business.

On Saturday morning we went off to see if we could find what we were looking for the previous night.  We were in luck and so there should be one happy girl come Christmas morning.

After stopping to have some lunch we headed for  Beerenberg, just outside of Hahndorf.  Here, you can go and pick your own strawberries.  We eat as many as we pick, Tony calls it the taste test.

After we had eaten our fill and picked some strawberries to take home we went off to Mt Barker.  We went and saw the James Bond movie "Skyfall".  I'm not a 007 fan but apart from a slow moment in the movie where I fell asleep and then felt Tony nudge me, cos he said I was starting to snore, (yeah right! lol) the movie was pretty good.  It was a typical James Bond movie, plenty of action when things got going.

The movie finished close to 6.30pm and so we thought we would go to Hahndorf Pizza for dinner.  Sadly they have closed down, they only won the award for best pizza in SA a few months back. 

Instead we decided to go to Two Wells and get a pizza from there.  The one we had from there previously was nice and so we thought we would try them again.  This time we didn't enjoy it so much, we think we ordered the wrong one.  Not to worry, we ate it!

From home to Hahndorf,  to Mt Barker and then to Two Wells and back home again we travelled around 160 kilometres. 

Today has been spent sweeping and vacuuming around the back and watering the plants.  Tony got on the roof again and had another look at our air conditioner.  It doesn't seem to be working properly and so he thinks we may have to get some new pads for it.  He took the old ones off and gave them a good hosing down.  Now it's just wait and see for when we get some really hot weather to see if that has helped.

When we finished cleaning up out the back we went to Bunnings, a hardware store.  We ended up buying some lights to put up under the patio.  These are solar ones but they don't work.  Now I have to go and meet Tony tomorrow after work and go and see if we can get these changed over.

You Have To See The Funny Side

Tuesday 4th December, 2012

On Sunday evening when we met Kahra to drop Katie off, Kahra was still laughing about a sign she had seen.

I had to go and photograph it.

Someone has a sense of humour. 

This sign was in a cemetery. 

Tony and I had a good laugh too.

Anyone willing to volunteer?  No, didn't think so.   I'll pass 
too, I still have too much living to do!

Christmas Sparkle Is Still In Her Eyes!

Monday 3rd December, 2012

December is here and Christmas is just 3 weeks away.

The last week of November was a hot one, the weather started off in the low 30's but by Thursday it had got to near 40C.  Late Thursday afternoon we had thunderstorms and a bit of rain which made things more steamy and Friday was unbearable. Now, I normally love the humid weather but on Friday it was so hot with high humidity.  Thank goodness a cool change came in overnight and Saturday was back to perfect weather again.

On Friday we met up with Katie.  After leaving Kahra we headed off back into the city and to the Magic Cave.  Katie was still excited to be going to see Father Christmas.  "What will I ask him for Nanna?" she asked.  "Well what would you like?" I replied.  She started off wanting a bike, iPad, trampoline, lego and on and on.  "How about asking him for a trampoline," I said.  "OK, I do really want one," she said "and I'll ask him for some lego too". 

With that sorted it was soon our turn to go and see him.  She just loves going in to see him and they have a quite a nice chat together.  This year she told him how Ella didn't like Santa and had put a sign on her bedroom door, No Father Christmas!

After we had finished there we went off to have something to eat.  Then she asked to go and see the one at Myers.  Oh dear, she had forgotten to ask him for something!  So off we went to see Myer's Father Christmas.

By now it was getting close to 9pm and it was still very warm outside.  We decided to go down to Henley Beach and get a coffee.  Maybe there would be a cool breeze down there.  No, it was just as warm but we did get a few sprinkles of rain.

On Saturday I had a scrapbook class to go to.  Katie was upset that she couldn't come to and so Tony asked her to help decorate the Christmas tree while I was gone.  She was happy to do that.

When I got back Katie and Tony had done a wonderful job with the tree.  We decided to take her down to the Beachhouse so that she could go on the water slides, the boats and the bumper cars.  It wasn't warm enough to go swimming at the pool.  "Yes! I haven't been to the Beachhouse for ages", she cried. 

After spending a couple of hours there we went and had Mexican for dinner.  Katie had Nachos, Tony and I had Chicken Vegie Bowls.  Yum!  For dessert we shared Churro chips with a hot chocolate dipping sauce.  Katie made sure she licked the sauce bowl clean!

On Sunday we went and had a look at the new Harvey Norman Big Buys store.  They sell everything that they don't sell in their normal Harvey Norman stores like, nursery furniture, toys, camping goods, kitchenware, fitness equipment and musical instruments.  Katie found the trampoline that she would like and also has next years Christmas present worked out.........a set of drums!

She also fell in love with this mini Ducati motor cycle.  Thank goodness she was too old for it!

From here we went to Gumeracha and to the Cherry Shed.  Yes....we were in luck, they had cherries.  We had coffee and scones and then came back into the city.  A 1D (One Direction) store had opened in King William Street and Katie wanted to go and have a look.  This band of 5 young boys are to this generation what the Beatles were to my generation.  She was in 1D heaven.  I bought her a couple of Tshirts (for Christmas) and she was over the moon.  The store is only open until the 6th January.

Now it was time to go and meet Kahra.  Unfortunately we can't go to her Christmas concert this year.  It is being held this Thursday but Tony has a Christmas function he is going to.  Oh well maybe next year!