oops no photo, haven't had the camera out for a while! Well they are off...Jodie and Duane I mean, they left for Canada over a week ago...Big old tough me thought I would be fine and dandy and glad to claim our garage back but when the time came to say goodbye I was a blubbering mess.....I have had several emails since their arrival....food seems to be a big issue with them, they hate the grub where they are staying....the bus into the big town only comes once a week so they headed off to the corner store hoping to find some food more to their liking...jodie thought some tinned soup would be nice....beef and veg or pumpkin but the only ones on offer were clam chouder or chicken fajita....plan B was baked beans but they contained maple syrup so they settled on a box of Special K...seems the familiar packaging was about as far as it went because Jodie reckons the cereal looked like squashed up rice bubbles....I think its already time for a care package!!! On their second day they were going to go for a jog in a park but there were warning signs not to venture off without bear spray so that kind of killed that idea lol!! Also lucked out on accomodation, they were hoping for a room with just the two of them together but its Jodie, Duane and six other lads all in the one dorm, certainly must be cosy!
Things have certainly been hectic here, we have had Martins Mum come up from Victoria to stay again along with his sister who is over from Scotland and also his Aunty Betty and Uncle Eric...I thought I had the scottish accent sussed but their lingo had me puzzled many a time over the last few weeks...tarties are not jam tarts as I suspected but potatoes.....if you dee you are dead and if something has slaver o'er it dont touch it!!! It means its covered in saliva!!!!!!!!!!!!! nor yull nor means no you won't and the Scots really do say och aye!! Martin talked his sister Edith into making him a suet dumpling while she was here.....one of his all time faves, but I guess its an aquired taste..
I wasn't far out with my prediction, little Miss Ella is now walking....dont they look cute when they first start, like little robots with arms out and stiff straight legs....Ella isnt a nannies girl like Emily (not yet any way) if I put my hands out to pick her up she shakes her head"no! I thought I had finished my xmas shopping for the two littlies but Kmart had smart cyles on special the other day so I just had to grab one....do you know the ones I mean...its like an exercise bike for kids that hooks up to the tv and it looks like you are riding down the road, the faster you pedal the more points you get...now theres an idea for adults...I am sure if I was on an exercise bike with a picture of KFC on the screen in front of me I would pedal my guts out!!
While I was away at SWIG a few weeks ago MArtin and Ebony went off to Amart and bought a new leather lounge suite which was delivered yesterday... I was hanging out for a new one but after sitting on this one I am not so sure....without the worn in bum groove you sit up really high and my feet dont touch the floor...Martin hates it but doesn't say much because he chose it... I am sure it won't be long before we wear it in...the old suite was moved into....wait for it...the pool room! Well not exactly the pool room but the newly vacated double garage...Martin isn't taking any chances on having more freeloaders...I mean family taking up residence in there...so he is filling it up with as much stuff as possible...since it is detached from the house we thought it would make a great games room...Martin has wanted a pool table for ever so he bought a second hand one out of the Trading Post ...we decided that since it would be mostly Eb and her friends using it we didnt want to spend a lot of money on a flash new one in case it got wrecked...he got a 8 x 4 slate one that he haggled the guy down to 500 dollars which is pretty reasonable since the felt is ok just a bit faded and it came with a heap of accessories....aaahhh but then we had to find a way to get it home and the only choice we had was one of the few removalists who do that sort of thing, so another three hundred dollars to bring it three suburbs over....so on Saturday it will be going straight to the pool room...
Among all the chaos over the last few weeks we threw in a bathroom reno, the ensuite this time....we still had tiles left over from the last bathroom so it was just a matter of a new vanity, shower screen and dunny...our old dunny has a cracked base...Martin is blaming me...smartarse!! The tiling is all done but the other stuff is yet to be installed, its on the to do list.....along with our half painted exterior walls, the garden shed which still doesnt have a floor, the roofless pergola, the pool solar heating which is flapping all over the roof and the vanity in the other bathroom which still hasnt been finished properly...Poor Martin just doesnt have enough hours in the day....and at the moment he is suffering a severe case of gout....He gets it often but it usually only lasts three or four days at a time....this time it has been more than a week and he is suffering badly....which in turn is making me suffer...the tablets he takes make him quite ill and give him the runs...for some reason he feels it neccessary to give me a blow by blow account every time he goes to the john...waaaay too much information....
My mouth is still giving me buggery, it was just starting to be bearable and then I got mouth ulcers, by the crikey those things hurt and the stuff I have to paint on them tastes like a cross between metho and savlon...yuck!!!! and in another few weeks the rest of the painfull process takes place...these bloody false teeth better be worth it...THats if I even go back to the dentist, I have become used to chewing on the few teeth I have left, I am not sure if I can go through it all again..Santa if you are listening, all I want for xmas are a few back teeth lol
I wish you were all here the other day to witness my dog surfing....it was a stinking hot afternoon so Martins Mum, sister and I decided to dangle our legs in the pool...For the last few years thats as far as I have gone into the water but it was just so damn inviting, the kid in me burst free...Emily has a blow up dalmation pool floatie that looked just perfect for surfing on....I positioned it near the edge, took a flying leap onto it and made it almost to the other end. What fun!! I did it so many times the poor dog got a puncture but it was well worth it...I also had a go at hand stands and water ballet....very difficult to do when wearing wet denim pants and tshirt...thank god we had no unexpected visitors...the down side is I ended up with a horrific earache that night which reminded me why I dont swim.....the last time I ended up with a severe ear infection I had to go to the doctors every day for a fortnight to have a fresh antiseptic wick packed in my ear...I went to bingo one night and couldnt hear so I started to removed the packing and it looked like a magicians magic hanky trick, it just kept coming and coming and coming.....
News in brief
1. Now that Jodie has gone I have to work out how to do the tricky bookwork stuff she used to do for me...I should have listened more closely when she tried to explain things
2. It is difficult to cook for gout suffers when they cant have red meat, oily fish, shellfish, tomatoes, oranges, cabbage, peas and a million other things
3. There is NO foolproof way to empty the styrofoam balls from bean bags that require washing
4. When the tiler says the grout and sealer is still wet you shouldnt be tempted to touch it to see if that really is the case
5. DVD cases left on the floor make excellent skates if you accidently happen to stand on one...please dont try this at home because if the dvd happens to be inside the case it will cost you thirty bucks at the video shop when you return it broken in half
Thats all folks, catch you later!