Night Shift Sucks

KISA has been on night shift these last few days. We hate it! Apart from the fact that I don't sleep well when he is not here, he hasn't been sleeping well either. The first day or two he got 4 hours sleep per day, the third only 2 and yesterday he got the most, about 6 hours. He is a walking zombie, and thankfully any minute now he should be home from the last one. He goes back to regular shift tomorrow, so I am hoping he can sleep tonight as he will have to sleep today. My evenings alone have consisted of chick flicks and baileys irish cream. Kisa's days have consisted of sleeping. Here he has dropped off just after breakfast, before he even got started on his cup of tea. Poor man.I have been trying to find things to do that don't make a noise inside the house. So I have been spending time in the garden. The bottle brush is looking fine, KISA pruned it hard a few months ago and it seemed to like it. This is the most flowers it has had yet.

They are really pretty up close with the gold tips on the end. Very Christmassy. We get lots of funguses down the back in the mulch, some have very psycadelic colours. This pretty lavender one is new though, haven't seen it before.

To keep myself busy I applied the secateurs to the overgrown gingers and tree fern fronds that and died off or got damaged in the recent heavy winds. I know it looks a bit bare here but it will grow back. We prune it all this drastically a couple of times a year. Look at all those bananas. I think we will have to dig them out. Sigh.The bird of paradise plant will have to go too, it just takes over and has now migrated next door.

Can't do any more till the bin gets emptied this week!

A great blog

No.

Not this one, - this one.

It is about parenting teenagers and although the worst is over for us, I have just finished reading it all, (it only goes back to June) and I have both laughed and cried. Though mostly laughed.

It is nice to know we are not alone in this parenting minefield. Anyone who has or is parenting teens will love this I think. I did.

Have a great weekend.

The Diggings

As from last night KISA started 12 days of 12 hour night shifts while they deal with the "going live" of the new software project he has been working on for the last few months. This is the source of all the recent work stress and the climax as it were of it all. So nearly over, for this leg of the project anyway. There is another one early next year around May. So, as he had to work on his birthday weekend, on his only day off before all this started, we went to The Diggings. Just because KISA loves to drive the track, which is a 4WD track it is safe to drive alone, and because he had swapped land rovers with a guy he works with. He has a defender, so it was like an extended test drive for each of them. Here it is with the latest model KISA. Looking pretty fine eh? (Not the car) Very peaceful spot, there were even some campers. This is the creek crossing. It is the dry season so it was very low, only a foot or two deep. The road had been built up with rocks on the other side, and that is really the only tricky bit of the track. The steepness of the exit angle is the other bit.

The Forestry people had just graded the track, so it was pretty tame. Just as well really since it wasn't our car! We even passsed a young guy in a sedan on the way back.

This is one of the camping spots by the river. As you can see very nice place. No taps or loos though, you need to bring it with you and ship it out. No, I am not going to explain what "it" is!

Same spot looking where the tent goes. We may try this one. My sister and her family have a favourite spot here but the road to it seems to have been closed. Needs further investigation.

A defender in its natural environment.. Shhh...

Happy Birthday KISA!

Today is KISA's birthday. He had to go to work today, not only on a Saturday but his birthday too. I have a nice candlelit meal waiting for him when he gets home. Happy Birthday my love!!

He received cards from his sisters and Jdubya, series one and two of Live on Mars (UK Version) from me, a box of Grolsh from A&P and some of E's precious dry roasted peanut stash. That last was truly a gift from the heart as you can't get dry roasted peanuts here and E had a precious packet or two her Dad brought out from Scotland.

Having a whale of a time

Yesterday, someone at KISA's work snapped these photos of a whale and calf near the jetty. She was very curious and came right up to the jetty. Fantastic shots..so watch out over the water, they have arrived at our place!

Weekend in Pictures

A quiet uneventful weekend here at Chez Whitby. We started the weekend with a Friday night treat. We don't normally have such nibblies with Friday night drinks as a rule, but while camping I had made a proper guacamole so I did it again as it was such a hit with KISA and it is good for you. Had a little of the precious Tilba Smoked Applebox that Jdubya brought us and sliced it thinly so it looked like more! Put it all in the nibbly do dad I won at the recent cent sale. It was a sunny weekend but there was a sharp cold wind blowing so it was cold. I wasn't feeling that well so after a quiet day on Saturday we went for a drive and picnic to Teemburra Dam on Sunday. We thought to suss it out as a potential camping spot. Well no camping is allowed there and even if it was we wouldn't. It was underwhelming to say the least. In fact I didn't even take a photo! A hole in the ground to stock with fish. It was in the hills so we got a nice shot of the upper Pioneer Valley. The dam is THAT way! But don't bother. Even the picnic area had no view, just some tables by the road. We only ate a third of our picnic there and drove to Kinchant Dam for the second third.

Then out to the harbour for a coffee and the rest. As you can see from the seagulls, it was cold and windy there too. Wouldn't want to be a seagull for quids! As we had had a progrssive picnic that lasted all afternoon, we didn't feel like dinner.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too, even if it was a quiet one like ours.

Eungella again

Last Thursday KISA rang about about 9am and said he could get the afternoon and that Friday off so let's go camping. I was on my way to a Leukemia Foundation Fundraising Fashion Parade and cent sale which wasn't due to finish till 12 but I said ok anyway. We packed up in under an hour and got to the dam with plenty of time to set up camp. We got the annexe up perfectly this time and while I got the camp unpacked KISA prepared the fire. It was a new moon, so therefore very dark, which enables us to see all the stars. We had bought a tripod especially to take a shot of the stars, and even though only the brightest ones turned out this shot still gives you the idea. You will need to click on this photo to see it better I think. Then imagine 4 times as many stars and you will get the idea. Next time we will really try to camp somewhere else, but KISA is pretty stressed with work and he likes to go somewhere familiar where he knows he can relax. Camping up here really reenergises him and he can sleep well. No phones can ring here as there is no reception!

The new axe we bought after the last camping trip broke as well. KISA had to manage with the hatchet. We took it back for a refund and bought a block splitter. They don't call the Australian timber he collected Ironbark for nothing I guess!

There were 4 campers in our little "bay" of the dam. Most of the campers were here as it is sheltered from the wind which was blowing from the southeast. This camper over the water is a Kimberley Karavan, which is the rolls royce of camper trailers, costing some $70000 or so. It even has an air conditioner and is supposed to go anywhere. But it took them just as long as us to set up and they still had to go off to the toilets so I am not sure I can see the value. It folds down to not much bigger than trailer size.

The other campers in our area. KISA and I went for "a walk" with the intent of having a decent stickybeak at the Kimberley. The owners were not at home but we got to chatting to the other two campers.

Our camp in the late afternoon. See how straight and perfect that annexe is?? We are very proud. We found a you tube video which showed a simpler way of putting it up which we tried and we had the whole camp set up from park to wine in under an hour. Plus it was straight! It was windy as well and stood up well to the wind and didn't flap noisily like it had in the past. We are getting there! I am making a guacamole to have with our bottle of wine here. Because we packed in a hurry I hadn't planned any real meals so just threw in whatever was in the fridge and fruit bowl. And happened to have all the ingredients for a guacamole!

Never get sick of watching the sun go down over this view. I know you have seen it a million times before but here it is again!

With the tripod and the night setting on the camera KISA experiimented to get some good shots of the fire. Fires never turn out if there is a flash. We took some with us as well, but we never sat still enough for the long exposure. I don't know how they managed in the old days when they had to sit up to a minute or two!

The same setting enabled us to get a shot of the moon as well.

We packed up on Sunday morning and made our way back to Mackay and a hot shower. WE long for the day when we can pack up and move on to another location.