1st - Dot visited Tuckshop on her scooter. She drove from her home down the road with her famous cream-puffs for us. So great to see her again and to see her out and about as she has had a few problems recently.
Graham and Sharon made it to the Tip of Cape York on the 30th August (as per Facebook).
2nd - Sophie and Nathan posted their photos of the Tip of Cape York too.
3rd - Kerry and Brian visited as they are heading back to their home in Port Macquarie soon.
4th - No work today. The government gave all schools etc the day off - how nice. The P&C had decided to shout us lunch for all our hard work and we had arranged to have lunch today anycase so thanks P&C for a lovely lunch at Dundees on the waterfront.
5th - Picked up Wendy and joined Sandra, Sandy, Bev and Kathy (the girls that came to Melbourne in Nov 2014 for the Melbourne Cup) at the cafe at the Botanical Gardens. Not much social distancing happening in this cafe and there was no hand sanitiser but they did ask our names and addresses in case someone got the virus! Other places we go you are so controlled and have to have temperature taken etc. At least we had a lovely time catching up.
6th - Father’s Day. I bought Dad a new shirt, sadly quite appropriate but he got a good laugh out of it. Steve rang Terry to wish him a lovely day.
Jon and Annalise visited then Dan and Fran dropped in with some scratchies. Dan must be very lucky as both tickets were winners, $70.
9th - Woke to a loud crack and crash as a tree beside us crashed down. Luckily it fell on an angle to the front of the van missing us and Sophie & Nathan’s van. The big bang was the tarp hitting the top of the van as it was tied to the tree.
Bit of a sight for Nathan and Sophie when they arrived home this afternoon from their trip up Cape York. Luckily Nathan has a chainsaw and was all keen to chop up the tree. No damage to either van.
They joined us for dinner and we taught them Skipbo.
11th - Nathan and Sophie headed off. They will head up through the Tablelands and on to Kurumba then work their way down to Cloncurry where they have a couple of months work on a station.
The results of the mole, Doc had recently removed off Dad’s back, came back as a BCC so I took him down again to have more removed. He is such a good patient. He had 4 stitches which need to be left in for 10 days. Will hide his timber backscratcher so he doesn’t pull the stitches out with that.
Roald called in as he was up the Tablelands looking into selling one of Thorold’s blocks of land in Millaa.
Nice rain this evening.
13th - 21ml of rain over night and it is still raining. Kaye and Rob are in Tinaburra in their van and we were going up to visit but they decided to come down as it was wet and bleak and they didn’t have room for visitors!
Brian came over and we had a great afternoon chatting with Kaye and Rob. They have recently been to the Tip of Cape York too with friends and are now making their way slowly back home to Brisbane.
14th - Kaylene’s birthday. Texted her as she will be working today. We will catch up next weekend for lunch. Sent Alexander a birthday message too and it is Erica and Terry’s 63rd wedding anniversary so sent them a text to wish them a nice day as I headed off to work. Terry heard the text and thought I had rung so had a quick chat before going to work. Erica’s good leg is hurting around the knee. Hopefully it is just strain from favouring her bad leg for so long. She will have x-rays etc tomorrow and get the results next week.
Nearly an inch of rain today.
15th - Sold ‘Pat’ to Greg. He is impressed with how Steve had set everything up and is looking forward to going off exploring in it.
17th - more rain.
18th - Last day of school term. The Seniors had a Gender Bender day so we had a good laugh at all the boys trotting around in the girls skirts and blouses. Doesn’t make much difference for the girls as the boys have a long sleeve shirt, tie and black long pants.
19th - Annalise popped in for a visit with some lovely fish her Mum brought back from Groot Island, where she works. Jon and his mate went barra fishing in Lakefield Nat Park - hope they manage to find some.
Greg came over to ‘nannysit’ so we could have a nice time out. We celebrated Kaylene’s birthday with lunch at Fratelli’s at Trinity Beach. The food and desserts were all beautiful and the view over the beach and ocean was lovely. We all had a great time chatting, though it is more about aging parents then raising children these days!
20th - Lovely sunny day - starting to warm up.
22nd - Dad went for a wander up the slope at the back of the house heading to the neighbours. Unfortunately it is overgrown with lots of roots and things to fall over so we will have to keep a closer eye on him when he goes outside to do his watering. He gets confused about where he lives even though he has lived in this house for 50 years. At least he is happy to let me lead him back to home. I just don’t want him falling and breaking a leg or hip!
Rang Erica to see how she went at the Doctors. Good results - her cancer number has fallen again which is very promising though there is a spot on her spine they will keep and eye on. Her leg is as we thought - worn out from favouring the other leg so hopefully it will improve now she isn’t feeling pain in the other leg.
Valerie picked me up to meet Christine at Cazalys for a cuppa and a play on the pokies. They are still following the CoVid rules with sign-in, temperature taking and no standing around, just sit at the table or at a pokie machine. One day things will return to normal. I had a win on the pokies so that was fun.
23rd - Brian’s birthday. Steve had bought him some special rum and was going to drop it off but Brian is gas metre reading so he will see him later.
Rick picked up Steve and they headed up to Rob’s lease in the Palmer Goldfields to work on Rick’s machine again for a few days.
Rebecca dropped in for a cuppa in the afternoon. Dad gave me a scare again as he wandered off up the other side and onto the flat where our van is then down the slope to the road. He takes it very slowly and cautiously but I worry about him falling.
25th - I met the girls from Tuckshop at the Uniform Shop to choose our new work shirts. Tash had arrived to do the cleaning so I was free to join the girls for a cuppa and catch-up.
I continued working on my new laptop moving across the files and programs I wanted. As the old one was 7 years old I had to change a few programs too.
26th - Mum’s cousin, Jim, messaged hello and to say that their cousin Bob Ingham had passed away on the 22nd, 8 days short of his 88th birthday. He and his brother Jack were Ingham Enterprises, carrying on the poultry business their father started years ago. We visited Bob’s house in Casula when I was young and I remember being in awe. There was an atrium in the middle of the square house with purple carpet up the walls in the ‘dining room’ and gold taps in the bathrooms. Their kids had their own wing with separate bedrooms and lounge room with TVs in each room. A big pool, change rooms and stables for the horses. You can imagine how impressed we were with the big city ‘cousins’. Bob’s daughter Debbie, carried on with the horse racing that Jack and Bob were also involved in and Debbie’s horse, Winks, is famous for winning so many races in a row.
I worked on my family history program, Legacy, and continued linking photos to each of the descendants. Nice to put faces to the names - there are a lot of them too.
27th - Steve and Rick arrived back in the later afternoon from the Palmer. They had a good time and the machine worked better. Rob is very happy to have them there too.
28th - Dad’s orchids are blooming well. His pineapple is growing nicely too.
Emailled Sam as we haven’t seen any photos etc they said they were going to send about the camper. As Steve was planning to pick it up on Thursday they are cutting it a bit thin. Sam replied with a photo and the comment that it is coming along though they might not have the scissor-lifts installed in time. Steve said he can do that and we said he would be down on Friday morning to give them another day.
29th - Kaylene picked me up for a day out as Steve is home to ‘nanny-sit’. It was lovely to wander around the city checking out the shops and the Art Gallery. The car park has lovely cut-outs dispicting the rainforest, flora and fauna. Interesting history on signs telling of the history of Cairns - this one is about Lake Street (named after Mr Lake but apparently appropriate due to Cairns being built on swamp so there were lots of ‘lakes’ around). Wendy and I wandered around Cairns a few years ago just after they put in these signs. It is very interesting to play tourist in your own town.
Steve rang Erica to check where they will be on the weekend after he picks up the camper. They will be at Woodgate so he will see them there. Monday is a public holiday so that gives him an extra day to get home.
Picked up Valerie for our Tuesday night out - cuppa and pokies at Cazalys. Had two wins of $5 each.
30th - Veronica’s birthday. Wished her a happy day. Dark clouds and light showers.
Rebecca called over for a cuppa and information about Tasmania as they are hoping to go for a few months once CoVid border restrictions relax.
