February, 2020 Mum & Dad’s place, Qld

Bumped into Jodie and Bryan at Cairns Central. Heading off to Mt Isa soon to start a new chapter in their lives working there – Bryan has a job as an electrician with the mine and they are trying to find Jodie an accountant’s position in the company as well. Sam is doing well over there as well. Only Stephanie left living in Cairns who is over in Canada at the moment. She will be moving into Jodie and Bryan’s home with some friends.

Steve posed with the axle and chassis that he is going to attach to ‘Smokey’ so make it a 6wheeler so we can carry more weight as we are building the camper to go on the back rather than towing a caravan.

More storms as the monsoon trough hangs over the north. It is humid but not too hot.

Joined Christine and Richard with friends at Thai Coin Restaurant to celebrate Christine’s 60^th birthday – lovely night. Started to rain just as we came out of the restaurant so we all quickly headed for our cars.

Good date for a wedding 02/02/2020 – Wendy’s son Daniel married his school sweetheart Bree today.

Another very heavy downpour as I headed down to work this morning – the drains not keeping up with the inches of rain.

Sold more bits of the wrecked car so we have covered its purchase cost which means the lazy axle and chassis are for free – well done Steve.

No rain but very humid and hot now. We are ok in the van with the fans going at night. Mum is enjoying having the air conditioner for their afternoon sleeps.

6^th - Steve removed the tray off Smokey – looks funny. He will build a new one once he has added the lazy axle.

7^th – took Smokey to Rick’s shed to start graphing the lazy axle and chassis to it.

Black cockatoos with red tail feathers landed in the gum trees across the road. We often hear them but this the first time I have seen them here. Wendy said they roost at night on the light poles on Mulgrave Road near their place.

Put the tray and the mud tyres off Smokey up for sale on Gumtree and Facebook and sold both – doing well with getting rid of the extra bits.

Mum feeling weaker so she is using her three wheel scooter a lot more now. Dad isn’t having his afternoon sleeps in the air conditioning so his prickly heat is getting worse. So hard to convince him to lay down and cool off because of his dementia. Other than that they are doing ok and are very grateful we are there to help them out. We are enjoying the time with them too.

11^th - Celebrated Tracy’s 50^th birthday with dinner at Greg’s.

Steve has the axle in place so sent off photos to the Certifier/Engineer in Townsville to get the go ahead to weld it in place.

12^th - Clive’s 70^th birthday today.

14^th - No rain here while the Gold Coast is being flooded.

Jenny has been having problems with her arm and fingers – I thought it was frozen shoulder which she had in the other shoulder but it is a pinched nerve in her neck radiating down her arm and causing pain in the fingers and then numbness. After chatting some more it is the same as I have been getting but mine isn’t as bad as hers so I have booked in to get it looked into. I think that must have been what happened to Dad too as he complains about his numb fingers all the time. Unfortunately it is too late to do anything about it for Dad. Jenny’s choice is surgery or physio so she is doing the physio exercises first. Rochelle’s husband had it years ago when he stretched and popped out the disc so needed surgery. Hopefully I have got it early enough and with physio can stop the pain in the fingers.

Very hot few days, 36, 38 and 40 but there is less humidity. Shopping centres are busy with everyone hiding from the heat.

The Police chatted with Steve outside the house as the neighbour beside us had two cars stolen on Friday night. He said to be sure to keep things locked up. She had her car stolen in October last year too so she won’t have much luck getting insurance now I suppose. Sad that we have to lock ourselves away while these ‘little/big’ darlings wander the streets doing what they like and the Justice system isn’t dealing with them hard enough.

18^th - All good with the truck axle so Pete welded it up.

Mickey posted a photo of the Gascoyne River flowing towards Carnarvon – 24km from town moving about 6.5km/hr.

19^th – Bradley’s birthday. Very happy as he has got a new job and car.

It is also Aunty Jocelyn’s birthday. We had a lovely chat with Uncle John the other day as Aunty Jocelyn is deaf and has dementia too – sadly a Brotherton family trait.

21^st – rain again at last to cool things down.

The Corona Virus has killed so many people in China and is spreading around other countries now. It is certainly making the thought of travelling anywhere a lot more scary.

Spent the weekend with Brian watching the Supercars race in Adelaide. Ian joined us too. General Motors have closed down Holden in Australia so things will be changing again for Supercars. Ford had just changed over to the Mustang as there were no more Falcons being made.

24^th – More heavy rain as we headed up the Kuranda Range to attend a Memorial Service for Lorraine Snook (Nolan). There was a sign flashing about a hazard ahead then we reached the line of cars. I texted Greg (her son) to let him know we would be late and he said they were ahead of us in the queue of cars. Through the UHF we heard it was a head on but no fatalities and after ¾ hour we were on our way again. Luckily the rain had stopped so we could open our windows. Got to the service about 15 minutes late but Ashley had waited so we had a lovely afternoon remembering Lorraine and chatting with different people.

25^th – amazing story dropped 70ml in our rain gauge in a short time. Lots of lightning and thunder right overhead. I was at Cazaly’s with the girls for our Tuesday night out and the lights were flashing on and off as the lightning flashed around us. Steve said he thought one strike was right over the van!

28^th – Steve has made the new tray for Smokey and painted the chassis. Waiting for a local company who is making the tray mounts for him. He has fitted the new exhaust system we bought. He is hoping to be able to have the exhaust out the side of the truck instead of having to run it all the way to the back. He is now working on fitting out the back seat area which will have a fridge and storage compartments for bits and pieces.

29^th – Finished off February on the Leap Day with pizzas at Trinity Beach with Kaylene, Rick, Wendy and David. Quite windy with dark clouds still over the mountains but no rain.