Fire watching

I responded to an incident call on Friday afternoon. It was just about 1pm when the pager went off saying there had been a smoke sighting and could crews gather awaiting further instructions. I'd meant to put my PPE in the back of the car that morning but had forgotten so I had to drive all the way home (and wouldn't the roads be just CLOGGED with slow drivers???), get my kit then drive back in to Springwood and to our shed. Luckily the others waited for me.

We then headed back out here to the Winmalee shed (I could have met the others there) and sat there until after 6 when we were tasked to go and relieve Karen's brigade who were watching the fire from Faulconbridge Point. And there we sat, taking regular weather readings until after midnight when we were relieved by a Valley Heights crew. We'd whiled the time away by having dinner - those tightwads at Winmalee didn't think to feed us - we got the generator started and made ourselves toasted sandwiches and cuppas.

Pete L, Tracey and I got ourselves comfy on the rocks and played I Spy (two goes each and we were out of ideas) and The Prime Ministers Cat.

Pete McD. had been banging on about setting up his hammock all afternoon. I thought he was joking until I saw this :
I'd put my name down for the 6am crew on Saturday so was up and out again before 5:45 having got home after 1:30am. Again we were tasked to sit watching from Faulconbridge Point and taking weather readings every hour. I was armed with a book this time which I got a little bit read of and Holly played Uno with Craig. We were relieved some time after midday by Karen's lot again and headed home.

Shortly after we were back on the bitumen again and just outside Robbie's school we came across a car accident. A young girl had gone head first into a power pole and there was a live wire on the ground. No one was hurt luckily. We put witches hats on the road to keep people away from the power line and did traffic duty while waiting for the NSW Fire Brigade and the Police to come.

It was a hot, exhausting day and although we had a street party on and I was supposed to be going out with the school Mums, I just went to bed and tried to sleep.

The boys went with Jamie's friend Scott to their first concert last night - Lamb of God at Luna Park. They had a great time they said. They went down on the train but Ian went down in the car to bring them back, I didn't think it would be wise for them to be travelling home by themselves late at night.

Ishbel was supposed to be going to Carols by Candlelight with her friend Zanny but they had a bit of a falling out and she ended up coming home. She and I watched an episode of The Goodies before we both went to bed.

Hot weekend

It was hotter than hades all weekend, a Total Fire Ban was declared and then yesterday we woke up to a freezing 16C! If we all get the 'flu I won't be at all surprised.

It was a peaceful weekend with the boys off at a Venturer thing called Waratah that they go to each year. Just popped over to Facebook to see what they got up to but I don't think they've written about it.

I saw Robbie for the first time in what seemed like ages this morning (Tuesday) because the boys left for Waratah before I came home from work on Friday afternoon, I was at the station on standby until after 6:30pm on Sunday, the day they came back - I think I may have seen Robbie fleetingly before he went off to bed after his heavy weekend - he told me they made a raft out of an old table - I was up early yesterday morning before Rob got up to attend a conference in the City, he was at work by the time I got home and by the time he got home after 11pm I was tucked up in bed, snoring! I had trouble recognising him when he popped his nose round the bathroom door!!!!

Ian drove up to the Waratah with the boys because they needed someone to pull a trailer. He was unsure whether he would drive home again afterwards, I didn't want him to because it would be very late. Anyhow, Ishbel and I were the only ones home and readied ourselves for a girls night in. We rang and invited Karen so she and Xavier (promoted to girl for the evening) came over for a few hours.

Xavier is walking really well, albeit with that holding his arms up and out, loose-kneed, orangutan looking way. He'd just been doing a step or two when we saw him not long ago. It was a bit disconcerting when he bolted off along the length of the kitchen!

On Saturday evening we had some of the RFS crowd round for a BBQ. We had to arrange ourselves round social butterflies Nigel and Amanda who we hadn't seen for many months. Nigel is now working in real estate, working Saturday and Sunday and unable to come to training. We hadn't got together with the others for a while either so it was nice to hang out again.

On Sunday I'd put myself down for Standby at the station. I went armed with a board game, Carcasonne, and a book. The first thing we did was get loaded up in the truck and drive into Springwood for coffees! Just as we got back in the truck we watched a man scrape the car in front of him as he reversed into a car parking space. He then started to drive forward again to leave. Quick as a flash Steve was out the truck and over the road to tell him that if he didn't report it, we would. He tried to deny touching the car. "There's six firefighters in that truck would testify otherwise," said Steve. How did he think he could get away with it?

Back at the shed, I swept out the tanker bay - a complete waste of time because the wind blew all the dust and leaves back in again and by the time we left, it looked as it did before I started! In between weather reports from Narrow Neck nr Katoomba and Glenbrook, we played games, Carcassonne as mentioned before and Scrabble on Pete's iphone. At one point, according to our calculations, the RFS FDI or Fire Danger Index hit the new rating "Catastrophic"! I bought a couple of boxes on Friday and wrote out a list for our Bushfire Relocation Kits.

About 2am on Monday morning the cool change came through (I know because I was awake) and by morning it was even quite chilly. I had to be at the train station to catch the 6:40am train to the City to attend the Public Libraries NSW Conference which is being held in the Masonic Lodge on Goulburn Street - we had the speeches in the hall complete with big thrones, etc. Most of the speeches were interesting but the last session was deadly and it was all I could do to stay awake.

We wake up to the 6am news each morning. In this morning's news was a story about a ram raid on a fashion shop in which Prada bags among other goodies were stolen. I wonder if our management team, Vicki, Patou and Leisa, were involved - they were staying down there for a couple of nights!!

Convicts, chicks and chocolate - what more could you ask for?

Flickr slideshow for the Book Thieves weekend away

We were reading The Secret River (Mother knows this one well!) for my Springwood book group this month. A while ago we decided that, because the book was based on the Hawkesbury River and the main character, William Thornhill, is based on an ancestor of the author called Solomon Wiseman who settled there in the early 1800s, we'd go to Wiseman's Ferry on the Hawkesbury for a weekend.

Months ago I rang the Wiseman's Ferry hotel to see about room costs and booking. I was told we didn't need to book. Last Wednesday I filled out an online booking thing and, not having had a reply in the stipulated couple of days, rang them on Friday to check. Good job I did. They were booked out. I was told they are always busy on the weekends! The man on the phone didn't hold out much chance of me getting a room in Wiseman's Ferry that weekend - there was a wedding on. Turns out he was right and, many phone calls later, we ended up having to take rooms at a place called St Albans, some way north of Wiseman's Ferry. Catherine gave the woman our sob story though and she gave us a special rate.

Not everyone was able to stay overnight. In the end there were just 5 of us staying overnight and 8 of the full group quota of 11 who were able to go at all. We gathered at Mary's house for 11am on Saturday morning and headed off in two cars. We'd not arranged a rendez-vous at our destination but figured the Wiseman's Ferry hotel, built as a home for Soloman Wiseman, would be the logical place. Luckily the girls in the other car thought so too.

Having 'powedered our noses' we headed back down to the riverside park to have a picnic lunch. It had been cloudy all morning but the sun came out as we set up the table and it was lovely by the river, feeding crackers to the kookaburra. After lunch, with champagne, we went back up the hill to the hotel, everyone grabbed a cuppa and we had our meeting.

Heather still had the last couple of pages to go. They happened to be the pages where William Thornhill is sitting on the verandah of his house looking out at the cliffs opposite. The description of the cliffs, as the rest of the story, is beautiful and Heather read it aloud to us as we gazed on the same view. We then got on with a discussion of the book, all had enjoyed it, and put in our reading suggestions for next year. We don't usually have a meeting in January because folk are away and this year it would be on New Year's Day so we've determined to go on an excursion to the movies - regardless of what film is on!

The meeting over, we said goodbye to the day trippers and Catherine, Trish, Heather, Mary and I piled into Mary's car and headed off for St Albans via the ferry. En route we stopped at a tiny little cemetary. They seemed to be a healthy lot; even in the mid to late 1800s the people were living into their 80s, 90s and even one to 100.

Finally we arrived at the Settlers Inn. We'd booked two rooms with the hotel needing to put an extra bed in one of the rooms. This seemed to be a bit of a challenge for the staff but finally we were shown to a couple of cabins out the back of the lovely old 1830s Inn. Drawing our names out of a hat, we decided on who was sleeping where and I ended up in Cabin 6 with Heather.

We had a drink in our room before going across to the Inn for dinner. The menu didn't look real great initially, there were no vegetarian or even chicken dishes on the menu and I thought I was stumped but when I asked about getting veggie something I was offered goats cheese tart which turned out to be very very tasty.

Waiting for our meal we were joined by two french men, Jean-Paul and Christophe, who ended up joining us for our meal. Everyone we met asked what we were doing there and we'd tell them about reading The Secret River. One of Jean-Paul's children had had to read it for school so he knew about it. Later we were joined by an aboriginal man, Colin, who had also read it. We also met Henry who is Deputy Captain in the RFS up there.

Back in our room we had more wine and chocolte, chatted and went to bed. Mary and Catherine were up early and out for walks early the next morning but Heather and I must've slept until 8:30 or so and were last ones up.

We had a breakfast of leftover picnic bread, salad and cheese then went for a wee walk across the river from the Inn. Saw a lovely cottage, Price Wilson Cottage, which looked idyllic. We ended up stopping in Windsor for fish and chips (the fish shop there is famous) and in an absolute downpour checked out the local markets. Then we headed south and back home.

The weekend in review

Image via Wikipedia

Still not back at work. I write this wearing my pyjamas and my RFS fleece with a hot water bottle down the back of my trousers and I am using the keyboard and mouse on the ironing board so I don't have to sit.

The back cracker lady (osteopath) wants me to have a phased return to work but when Vicki raised this with Council's HR/HB&S dept they said I have to be fully fit for work before I can return. If I'd hurt my back at work I would be covered by Worker's Compensation and they would be doing everything they could to get me back to work so I am quite cross and frustrated at this. (Not entirely surprised though - Gillian broke her collar bone a couple of years ago and they said the same to her). Because I had to take so much time off to look after Ian and take him to appointments over the past 6 months I have used half the sick leave I had accumulated prior to 20th March and will run out of sick leave this week. I am going have to eat into my annual leave which I was trying to build up so I could spend time at home with the kids during the long summer/Christmas holidays. I don't know if this will be taken into account by Ian's Worker's Compensation claim.

Anyway enough of my woes.

Had a lovely visit from Karen, Ben and Xavier on Friday. Ben and Jamie played XBox while Karen and Xavier entertained me in my bed. Jamie had finished his exams and had a couple of days off. Rob finishes his exams today but has to go right back to full routine - I think.

Everyone had a busy weekend.

Rob went off to the City all day on Saturday to meet up with half a dozen of the kids he went to Japan with. He had a great day. He borrowed my camera but I haven't seen the photos yet.

Jamie meantime was on duty in Springwood town centre for the RFS Open Day. Valley Heights man a stall with Winmalee and Faulconbridge brigades each year. Later he went on to the Walker's house. His mate Nick's parents, Graeme and Kim, are involved in a re-enactment society and Jamie has been going each month for quite a while. He is busy making his own chain mail something. Weeks of work has resulted in a square of chain mail about 10x10cm. This week he came home with a sword he'd bought from Graeme. Very pleased with himself he was.

Ishbel had a date with her pal, Zanny, for a sleepover. Ian and I thought we were going to have a lovely quiet day just the two of us but then Zanny rang to postpone picking Ishbel up until 3pm! Not long after that Jamie arrived home.

On Sunday morning Ian and the boys were up early to go paintballing with Nick and Graeme. They came home early afternoon not only covered in splodges of blue paint but also in large bruises that look like burns from a particularly large cigarette. Brutal stuff! Asked if he'd had fun and if he'd go again, Ian said Yes and No.

Quiet weekend

We had Sharon and Holly over for dinner on Friday night. Ishbel had been hanging out all week for tortillas so we had those and nachos, Yummmm.

Holly had wanted a driving lesson so Ian took her out after school. She'd been threatening to pay for lessons because Sharon kept shouting at her when she crunched the gears so we offered to take her out. Ian got her sorted and she went away happy.

Robbie went off on Friday evening to the snow for a weekend cross-country ski-ing with the Scouts.

HR postponed - until when, who knows, it's all dependent on the weather - too wet and too windy this weekend. So Jamie and I were out doing more trail cutting -exhausting. It's nice to walk back over your trail though and see what was achieved. Because sometimes several people go over the ground after you, you don't always get to see how it turns out.

Steve gave me a short bit of RFD training afterwards - doing stall recovery - what to do if you stall going up a hill. Our brigade PC is a Landrover Defender. To say we are less than impressed does little justice to the passions the vehicle elicits. Suffice to say it is universally described as "The Sh#tbox". I kept getting first and reverse mixed up and we called it a day.

Ishbel away for the night having a sleepover with Britany.

Had Steve, Bec, Hugh and Francoise over for dinner. Francoise has Meniere's Disease and needs to keep to a very low salt diet. She rang up to ask what I was planning to feed everyone and ended up offering to bring the main - spag bol. I love it when I invite people to dinner and they bring the meal!!! A lovely night which ended up with Steve, Ian and Hugh arguing about fire-fighting tactics.

Jamie and Ian up and out by 6:30am so here I am enjoying the peace of just the dishwasher and the washing machine drowning out the radio! Time for a cuppa and a read before they all come home.

Another big weekend

I note the last two weekend reports start "I should have posted this earlier but . . . " Let's see if I can do something different this weekend.

Haven't seen much of the family this weekend. I've been on a Rural Fire Driver course (Friday night, Saturday 12:30pm-11pm and Sunday 8am-5pm). It's so you can drive safely under lights and sirens and also teaches recovery for if you get a vehicle bogged and need to rescue it. The course, unfortunately, is heavily weighted in favour of those who drive the trucks which is not me yet. I'm there doing the 'light' component but spent a fair bit of the time in the back of a truck watching the boys having a go. That said, when I did get to drive the PC I got one-on-one attention. Today when we were out doing 'stall recovery' - how to recover yourself if you stall on a hill - I got to drive a Cat 7, one of the smaller trucks. I was then allowed to drive it back to the road. Woot woot.

In a month we do the second part of the course and the assessment. It is an overnighter with us going out west to Rydal.

Ian, Jamie and Ishbel meanwhile were heading out early on Saturday morning for Cronulla, all the way across town and south to the seaside where Jamie was playing his AFL match. It was the first time Jamie's team has played in a few weeks and unfortunately they lost. It must be nearly finals time, his season seems to be taking a long time, Robbie's soccer finished weeks ago.

Robbie was called in to work on Saturday afternoon and was still there when I came home. He's had a few shifts since the holidays where they've called him in at the last minute. I think he likes the money he earns.

Ishbel, having done the trip to Cronulla, was rewarded with a sleepover at Zanny's. She didn't come home until 6pm tonight and Zanny and Jeanne stayed for dinner - an Indian banquet which Ian had prepared for us. Yum!

Ian is recovering fairly well from his surgery - just getting his pin out on Wed - he was pretty sore for a day or so but I think it's better now. He's off work until Thursday at least; he has a GP appointment on Tuesday and an appointment with the hand specialist physio on Wednesday - he's just a bit concerned about how much flexibility he's going to have in his wrist.

Ishbel's birthday party aka the best laid plans . . .

(Should have posted this last week but I've been really busy)

Up early on Saturday morning, head spinning with all the things I thought I had to do. At the supermarket for 8am when they opened. Whizzed round and all at the checkout by 8:20am. Not the usual couple of hours as I bump into people for a long chat and perhaps a diversion to the coffee shop.

Among the to-dos was to bake a birthday cake. Having never had any luck baking cakes from scratch in the old house, we are now used to buying packet cakes. One of the advantages is that Ishbel can now follow the instructions and make her own cakes. All went perfectly until the timer went to tell us the cake was done. Twenty mintues later and the cake was burnt - I'd opende the door of the oven but not switched it off!

Back to supermarket for another cake.

The invitations said, I'm sure, drop the kids off at our house at 2pm and we would be taking them down to the indoor climbing centre in Penrith.

Ishbel was telling the girls to arrive at 1:30pm. One of them did. The mother of the other rang us from the climbing centre at 1:30 asking where we were . . .

Had a lovely time at the climbing centre. "Best day of my life," was Ishbel's verdict.

Here's the slide show

Home for pizza and a movie. The pizzas stuck to the tin foil and we burnt (again) a couple of them. Someone spilt juice all over the table.

Head spinning with shrieking girls and Pink on the CD player.

Karen, Dan and a still bit poorly Xavier arrived.

Cake had its outing. I have a square tupperware type box for cakes. It came with an insert with handles that you can pull the cake out with but the handles have broken off so I tend to put cakes on the lid and use the bottom of the box as the lid.

Ishbel didn't know that and, as she took the cake through to the dining room, did't have hold of the bottom/lid of the box - result - chocolate icing all over her foot and the dining room carpet!

Xavier tried some climbing of his own up the stairs. Was doing two steps up, one step down, quite happily until he face-planted a stair and tears ensued. Karen tried to interest him in the stairs again but he wasn't having any of it.

By 9pm two of the three guests had gone home. Zanny was staying overnight. Girls pretty good, not too noisy and we headed off to bed. Read for a while and fell asleep with the light on. Just getting into some deep snoring when Ishbel arrived at my bedside - Zanny crying and wanting to go home - at 11:45pm. Tried ringing her mum but got no answer and she didn't think her dad would come all the way down from Lawson to fetch her. And I had no intention of driving her up there, aside from being dead beat, I'd had a wine or two during the evening. After much persuading the girls agreed to try and go to sleep. I went back to bed.

Where I tossed and turned for another couple of hours, expecting one of the girls to appear at the bedside asking to ring Zanny's mum again.

And then up early to go to RFS training.

I NEED SOME SLEEP.

A good weekend continued . . .

We had a lovely meal out with our grown up friends on Saturday night. In the end it was just Janet and Sharon that joined us, Steven had the 'flu (a cold) coming on and we left him at home doing the ironing!

On Sunday morning I picked Ishbel up from Zanny's sleepover party and she and I headed for Sharon's. Sharon had invited Ishbel to go up to Megalong Valley where Holly keeps her horse, Wilga. Holly is away on a school camp but Wilga still needed to be fed and brushed and so on. Ishbel jumped at the chance and those two headed off together.

Meanwhile I picked Catherine up on the side of the highway and she and I visited the Grower's Market at Blackheath before heading down into Megalong Valley to catch Ishbel and Sharon up. Somehow Catherine and I ended up shovelling horsey poo for the afternoon! Ishbel got all the fun stuff to do and quickly made herself scarce. We got 4 big bags of poo for Catherine to take home to her garden.

While we were there Sharon introduced us to Russell who was there with his 10 year old daughter, Savannah. Savannah has a pony, Dexter, and they were kind enough to offer to let Ishbel have a ride. So Russell took her down to a covered arena and gave Ishbel a 'proper' riding lesson for 20 minutes or so - little girl heaven.

See the Flickr slideshow of our day here.

On the way home we popped in on Catherine's friends Michelle and Ben and gave them a gift of a bag of horsey poo. (Michelle is on your crew at Faulco RFS, Karen). A traipse round their garden and a cup of tea later and we discovered I couldn't reverse out of their driveway!!! I rang my brigade Captain, Steve. I knew he would know what to do and he's got a monster 4WD of some sort (it's a brown one). Luckily he was home and was round within 10 minutes - in uniform!! I told him the uniform wasn't necessary - he'd been at a course all day - he said - I think he sleeps in it myself.

A good weekend so far

Lazy morning this morning then shopping with Ishbel who had a gift to choose for her friend Zanny who turns 9 the day before Ishbel. I have just dropped The Girl off at Zanny's for a birthday party and sleepover.

So Ian and I are going out with Janet, Steven and Sharon to the chinese restaurant at Wentworth Falls for an adults only dinner. Feeling very grown up!!!

Went to RFS training this afternoon. Only 3 of us turned up so we couldn't do the trail cutting I'd expected. So we ended up going down one of the fire trails for a drive in the Big Red Truck, did some map work and weather work and THEN I GOT A DRIVE OF THE BIG ED TRUCK. Whoooooooo hooooooo!

THEN, coming out of the track, we heard Winmalee responding to a smoke sighting on our patch. Got back to the station and we got sent out to assist. As it turned out the fire was down on the plains but we had a nice ride down another track!

Another busy weekend

Usual morning of shopping, housework and AFL. Jamie's opposition forfeited the match this weekend but the team photos had been organised so he still had to go down to his home ground and he'd been warned that the Reserve grade might need players. Indeed he did end up playing with them (older people in their early 20s). Enjoyed the ramped up pace and even managed to score a goal. Chuffed at that. The Penrith team won - Jamie got the impression the Reserve grade hadn't won many games this year because they were stoked - it's what Jamie's team has come to expect.

Once they were back we took Jamie and Robbie's old beds round to a friends. She has recently separated from her partner and was moving into a new place with her children. Several hours and one false start later the beds (Ikea beds - to explain the several hours) were up and we gobbled up some pizza before home to bed.

Jamie and I were up early this morning and out to RFS training. I knew it would involve cutting trails for the upcoming hazard reductions (perhaps 15/16 August, Karen & Dan - although keep 15th free coz that's Ishbels birthday party day). Jamie only came because I said if he didn't make an appearance at the preparation he'd likely not be allowed on the HR.

In fact, we did not only do trail cutting - did a few training drills for the first hour and half or so, including marshalling vehicles. If I'd seen this video, I could have tried some of these moves!



Another big start to the week tomorrow - Josie is off to the vet to be de-sexed again. Here's hoping all gets properly done and we don't have to repeat a third time.

In the evening Ishbel and I are going with Janet to the Rock Eisteddfod. We've been for several years in a row now and always enjoy it.

Weekend report

The weekend began with RFS training on Friday night. Jamie Neale's dad had invited all those involved in the search and rescue mission to join them at an hotel in Katoomba but Steve, now our Captain, said he had a fun night of training for us instead so along trundled Robbie and I.

And it was a hoot! Somehow our "Ropes and Ladders" training session ended up, not with me adding another knot to my repertoire (of 3), but with us abseiling at Warrimoo in the dark!!! It was alright for Rob, he's been abseiling with the Scouts, but it was a first for me. Steve took some photos and said he'd send them on so I'll load them here and on Flickr when they come through.

Saturday night was Babysit Xavier night, something Ishbel's been counting down to all week. We think things went well enough that we have asked Karen and Dan if we can do it every six weeks or so despite the fact it meant even less sleep than usual for me.

The wee one was quite content during the evening. He thoroughly enjoyed a bath with Ishbel - we'd forgotten about the bath running as we made up his travel cot so it was lovely and deep - but didn't have much milk at bedtime.

We made up the travel cot in Ishbel's room and he went off to sleep really easily. However, around 2:30am he woke up grizzling. A wee cuddle and he went back down but woke up again later. Another cuddle and again off to sleep but again only for a short time. On the third time I gave him another bottle which he polished off in one gulp almost. Then (about 3:45am) he went back to sleep until after 7am.

He'd drunk his morning bottle during the night so he just had yoghurt and toast for breakfast. Same as us really! We were just getting ourselves ready to take Xavier a wee walk when Karen and Dan arrived. She gave him a feed that put him off to sleep! But we walked him up to the shops anyway and he was soon sitting sharing hot choc and a spoon with us.

This afternoon I took Rob out for a driving lesson. It's the first time he's driven a manual car. We've only re-insured the manual Suzuki for the boys; we can't afford to insure both cars for the boys driving, it's about double our normal, and we'd already done the Suzuki before we realised. We just went round and round a couple of loops in the local streets lots and lots of times while he got used to going up and down the gears. It was a bit jerky at times and I ended up feeling somewhat seasick but he mastered the skill pretty well in 30 mins or so.

Then he wanted me to drive him down to Blaxland where he works for McDonalds. He didn't want to have to drive on the Great Western Highway but I said for him to try going along Hawkesbury Road and we'd stop before he got to the highway if he wanted. However, he made it all the way down to Blaxland without a hitch.

Ian is off back to work tomorrow (although he'll have to be off again on Tuesday for a GP appointment). He nearly went back to work last week but stayed home to supervise the kids during the school holidays and anyway his hand has been somewhat sore. It's my turn for a week off this week. We've got Ishbel's mate, Britney coming tomorrow. And lunch with a girlfriend organised on Wednesday and I'll have to see who else I can catch up with . . .

Sick people

Image via Wikipedia

We were supposed to be going to Killarney Heights today to meet up with Genevieve, Jenny and Sue that I used to work with in the Dept. Medicine at Royal North Shore Hospital but Ishbel has succumbed to the lergy now. I was thinking I'd go anyway but Ishbel didn't want me to go. Robbie wasn't very happy - he told Ishbel to 'man up'.

She was spiking a temperature last night. I can never get her to take medicine; she must deep down somewhere remember that she spent her first 12 months on daily antibiotics which we used to have to force down her throat with the aid of a syringe. Such a contrast from the boys who would take anything and if one of them had medicine the other had to have a spoonful of yoghurt so he wouldn't feel left out.

In the end last night, worried her temp. was a bit high, I got 5mls down her by mixing it into a tub of yoghurt. Even then she carried on like a two bob watch. Only the threat of having to go to hospital and have a drip put in got her to co-operate, tearfully.

Anyway, she's feeling better today, still hacking with the cough but not febrile. We all stayed in bed until after 10 this morning - in our bed - me, Ian, Ishbel, Bella and Josie (who snores by the way!) Robbie got up and dressed, all set for our day out, but then went back to bed in disgust.

Jamie is out at Graeme and Kim's at the moment at their re-enactment group. He's pleased the day trip is off or he would have had to miss it.

The winter school holidays have started so the kids are off for the next two weeks. Luckily Ian is still off post op - he has a follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Thursday - and I will take the second week off so no need for Ishbel to go to Tanderra this holidays.

Ian's birthday, 4th July.

It was Ian's birthday on Saturday. Unable to go to the big party they throw for him in the US, we had a lower key celebration here at home.

We had dinner here with Karen, Dan, Ben and Xavier, Sharon and Holly, our Polish neighbour Chris and later, after they'd been to see their daughter Georgia in a play, Steven and Janet dropped by.

We had a yummy slow cooked lamb dinner with roast veggies and a banoffee pie to follow. The banoffee pie was a bit runny but no one seemed to mind - well Karen didn't!!!

Weekend report

Got our computer back on Thursday. They still hadn't looked at it (a week later) when Ian called after work. As he told them, they'd had it longer than we had at that stage. They said they'd get on to it and rang back later to say it was good to go. Seems ok so far but we'll see . . . any more trouble and I'll insist on my money back.

Friday night we went up to Jamie's school to see the musical. Jamie is working as stage crew. The musical they are doing is "Into the Woods" (Wikipedia entry) and it's a 'fractured fairytale'. It involves the Baker and his Wife who, in order to have a baby, need to go into the woods and collect one red cape (from Little Red Riding Hood), one snow white cow (Jack of the Beanstalk's best friend), some hair yellow as corn (from Rapunzel) and a golden slipper (Cinderella's). All the fairytale folk are in it; the Big Bad Wolf and Grandma, Prince Charming and his brother, the Wicked Stepmother and Stepsisters, the Giant.

A friend's son is playing one of the princes ("I'm charming, not sincere"). He's a tall, handsome boy with curly hair and dark eyebrows which he put to good use, hamming it up with the audience. Adam planted his feet on that stage and owned it; he was very funny. He and the other prince, a friend of Jamie's, sang a duet that quite stole the show (unhappily, Jamie said last night Adam was off-key for that song which brought Matt undone too and it was not good). The cow was also hilarious.


(Hope that works, if not go to: YouTube video )

At the end of the show everyone went home happy. The Baker and his Wife had collected everything and were to have their baby and the Princes had found their Princesses, Jack had been reunited with Snowy White the Cow.

Only it wasn't the end of the story. Just the intermission. After the break, the Princes were not so enamoured of their Princesses (Rapunzel was constantly in tears), the other Prince had a crush on the sleeping Snow White only couldn't get near her because of the dwarf guarding her, Charming fancied the Baker's Wife, Little Red Riding Hood's Granny had gone missing (again) and the wife of the giant that Jack had slayed was on the rampage looking for Jack.

It was all good fun and Ishbel has a crush on Adam now I think although her highlight was seeing Jamie each time he rushed across the stage, moving props.

Saturday had Ian and Jamie up at the crack of nothing to be across town for his AFL game. Jamie apparently played well and got a Coach's award : "James Coquhoun played his best game of the season and is this week's deserved recipient of the prestigious "Green Car" award". You can read the full Under 18s match report here. (No idea what the Green Car thing is . . .)

Rob went off up to Katoomba yesterday afternoon to the annual Winter Magic Festival with some friends. He stayed overnight at Leigh's house, Ian and Jamie are just away to fetch him home just now.

They are also taking home Ishbel's friend, Britney, who stayed the night. Only lots of threats (from both sets of parents) got them asleep before 10pm. Ishbel has had a lot of sleepovers, either here or at her various friends' houses lately, I think we may have to have a break for a week or so; she's just not getting enough sleep.

This afternoon I am off up to Katoomba for my book group meeting. We are having a fundraiser quiz for the MS Society in addition to our usual book chat. The fundraiser is called Throw the Book @ MS and all we had to do was register with them and they sent out all the questions. We held the quiz night with my Springwood book group at the beginning of the month and raised over $150. Unfortunately, we had to pay back Catherine $77 of that for wine prizes that she'd bought so next year we'll either not borrow, or make donations of prizes.

That book group we opened up to friends and family. We charged a $5 entry fee then I managed to squeeze extra money from people by charging 50c each time they called out an answer (they had to ping and then wait for me to invite them to answer), charging 50c each time they got a wrong answer and by charging $1 if they wanted to buy an answer or point - they were collecting sweeties - each correct answer, or $1 fee earned a sweetie with the team with the most sweeties being declared the winners. The Katoomba group weren't wanting to open up the meeting but we decided on a $10 entry fee and when I told them how I'd squeezed the extra out of the others they agreed to the extra squeeze so hopefully we'll raise a fair bit more for MS.

I started reading one of those Cyprus books of Shirley's this morning. I hadn't got around to it before because of the reading I need to do for two book groups. I've only read a few chapters but I must say I'm enjoying them. I'm looking forward to getting on to Google Earth this evening and having a look at the villages she talks about. I suspect things are not quite so quiet as 1984 when they first moved back. Harry's pictures are great, but I would have loved some photos of the house they built and some of the village characters. I'll email Shirley later on and tell her I've started reading.

Weekend report

Jamie and Ian were up and out early to Jamie's AFL game at Pennant Hills. His team is doing pretty well and they recorded another excellent win. You can read the match reports from this and other games here. Jamie is in the Under 18s.

Meanwhile Ishbel and I did the shopping and Robbie caught up on his beauty sleep. Ishbel and I met up with Bec and her boys in the shopping centre and managed to cadge a cuppa and a doughnut off Bec.

Jamie and Ian came home just in time for me and the boys to race off down to the shed for 12:30pm to join the other Valley Heights RFS members who were going to do a sausage sizzle at the Springwood School Fete and Fireworks. After setting up, some of us 'volunteered' to cut onions - 40kg of them. I was alright, my contact lenses protect me from the onion juice/fumes but it was sad to see grown men cry! Eventually we loaded all 40kg of onions (and more) on to 1000 sausages and accomanying buns/bread. Guess what I did in my sleep all night? And Ian had the hide to complain my hands smelled of onions still the next morning. I hadn't been able to get my lot to bring any vegieburgers along so I had two onion sandwiches, Come the revolution . . .

Robbie managed to dip out early and went off with his friend Leigh but Jamie and I stayed to the bitter end, taking money, cramming onions and sausages into rolls - it was relentless for several hours. My only break was a half hour cuddle and tour of the stalls with Xavier, Karen and Dan. Being his favourite Auntie Heidi, I bought Xavier a little blue maracca (after I'd borrowed $2 from Dan) which he loved the taste of!

Got home after 10:30pm.

Up early for training at 8am on Sunday morning. More cutting trails for our proposed hazard reduction (HR) - lots of back breaking work, scratching down to mother earth. Plotting our progress back at the shed we found we'd only done 120 or so metres - much less than the last few times we've done it - but the terrain was pretty hard going for us rake-hoeing types and when I looked despondent Hugh took pains to show me we'd actually done very well. This is the third training session where I've done trail cutting - if they put the HR on when I can't do it there'll be blood spilt!

(Will post photos later - have no computer at home again. Brand new computer we bought LAST SATURDAY already at the menders. Not happy!)

Two lovely days

I'll need to keep this brief as I'm writing at work . . .

It was Mother's Day here on Sunday. I was up early, had tea and toast in bed and lovely presents from Ishbel (candle and home-made photo frame) and the boys gave me a Wasgij jigsaw puzzle (have you heard of them? They are great fun - the picture on the box is NOT the picture on the jigsaw - the picture on the jigsaw is either what the people in the picture on the box can see, or what happens next. You have no idea what the picture will be until the last piece goes in). I then went out to RFS training.

Or not training. We are preparing for hazard reduction burns this winter so, for the second Sunday in a row, I was out with a small group of others cutting trails through the bush behind houses in Valley Heights. It's hard work, raking the leaves and branches and bushes away, scraping down to bare earth, leaving a trail a metre or so wide for kilometres along. The birdies appreciated it though, coming down to see what beasties we'd grubbed up.

I got home, very tired, just before 1pm. Rob had left for his soccer match but Ian and the other two had made a baked chicken dinner for me. Yummm. Afterwards, full as a goog as Ian would say, I toddled off to read. I didn't even finish the page . . .

Yesterday, my birthday, started off quietly. I have to take Ian in to catch the 6:55am train these days so we were out early. Even when I moaned that the mini (my mini) that had been in the car yard had gone he didn't say anything about my birthday. I got a call from him once I got home though - my colleague Rita runs Book Express (library service on the train station) and she'd 'reminded' him!!

At work Jeanette, one of our elderly volunteers who usually comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, had changed her day, gotten up really early and come in with a yummy lemon cake which we devoured at morning tea. Then Rita came with lunch for me - a yummy spicy tomato soup which she makes from a Dutch recipe - don't ask me to name it. Then mid morning a bunch of flowers arrived from Sharon.

After work Ian arranged for us to go out for dinner. I chose to go to the Indian restaurant just across the road from work although we had to go home and collect Jamie first. It is never busy at that restaurant which is a shame because their food is very tasty. We were joined by Sharon and Holly and filled ourselves up on curry, rice and naan bread. Yummmmm. Ian and Jamie walked home.

So I've had a lovely two days.

Thank you GD & GT for the Cyprus books. I've not had the time to give them a really good look yet, but on first glance they look interesting. Was Shirley wanting to read this blog, or the library one? Either way she's welcome. Just give her the url for each:

http://springwoodcolquhouns.blogspot.com/
and http://readersinthemist.blogspot.com/

Thank you too, Fiona, Mark and Rory for the necklace. Lovely.

I got a digital camera from the family for my birthday. I chose it myself last weekend. I wanted a smaller one than the one we've had and I got a little pouch for it that I can put on my belt when I'm out on the fireground.

BTW: I was at book group on Friday. We are going to have a trivia night at our meeting next month to raise money for MS research. There is a thing called Throw the Book which is for book groups - they supply all the questions so it's easy to do. We're going to open up our book group to family and friends to come and play too. I'm quite excited about it.

What a week!

We started the week off with a trip to the GP (again) on Monday afternoon for a progress check for Ian. His wound was looking a bit green when the dressing was taken off so a swab was taken and Sue, our GP, arranged for us to come back on Wednesday for another check. Ian's wrist was still very, very sore so she also arranged for him to have an XRay. He was so long that I had to leave him there and come home to collect Rob who had a shift at McDonalds. Then back to the radiology place to collect Ian.

On Tuesday I was at work for the morning but had a long-standing appoointment of my own with Dr Taper who, as I posted before, doesn't want to see me again. Jamie has AFL training on Tuesday at Penrith. He gets a lift down with other parents and we take the boys home. Rather than go all the way back up the mountains from Penrith I decided to stay down. I thought I might have time to go to the pictures until it was time to pick him up but got sidetracked and missed the start of the movie so went to the training ground with a copy of Revolutionary Road, our next book group book. It was chucking down the rain so I rang to see if Jamie had been picked up - he told me he was waiting for Ian (who isn't supposed to be driving) to come and get him. He'd not thought to let me know I could come home!

On Wednesday things were looking better with Ian's wound and Sue took the stitches out but the XRay of his wrist showed there may be a little break and she wanted him to have a CT scan to make sure. We have Worker's Compensation here which not only covers you for accidents at the workplace, it also covers you for your journey to and from work so Ian's treatment can be charged to the WorkCover authority. They had to give authorisation for the CT scan, however. We just had to get the paper work in and Ian's work hadn't sent it to us. We spent the afternoon chasing it up. Two forms of 3 pages each. We didn't get a case number until Thursday but Sue doesn't work on Thrusdays so when we saw her on Friday she had to ring and ask for authorisation for the CT scan before we could book Ian in. It took them 30 or more minutes to ring back saying it could go ahead.

Thursday was a big day for Robbie who was the recipient of an award at school. They make a big deal at his school about these things and we'd been invited to a special assembly but hadn't thought any of us, including Rob would be there - he was supposed to be playing cricket for the school but it was rained off - so we didn't book seats. Thursday was my only full day at work last week so I didn't feel I could take more time off and Ian had been forbidden officially to drive.

On Friday, while we were outside the GPs taking a phone call we were accosted by a woman wanting to know how Ian was doing. "What business is it of hers?" I thought then she explained she, Alison, had been on scene when he had his accident and had called the ambulance. We asked her what had happened, Ian not having any memory of the impact. She said he'd swerved to avoid the car but it had hit the bike and Ian had gone sailing over her bonnet! It was nice to be able to thank her for getting Ian help (one of 5 or 6 calls to 000 the ambos told Ian) and she'd given a statement to the police too.

I parked Ian at the library for an hour or so until my lunch break. It gave him a chance to choose some books to get him through the next week. Sue has told him he won't be going back to work before Easter.

On Friday evening Ishbel had her little friend, Zanny, staying overnight. I didn't see anything of her really. I had book group to go to. I quickly cobbled together dinner before going out and was home near midnight then Robert and I were up early to go and help out at the Springwood Foundation Day. As we did last year, we helped out with crowd control during the Fun Run (didn't look like a lot of fun to me!) and the parade. I asked the Captain if I could be in the truck for the parade. He didn't look very happy to be asked but eventually said yes and I had a ball, waving to all my fans! We travelled with the flashing lights on and I got to press the siren button a couple of times . . . no one told me about the loud speaker system until it was all over though!

I met up with Karen after we took our truck back to the station and we had a wander up the street and back. It took us ages. First she bumped into someone she knew then me. There was a point there where we took over 10 paces without meeting someone and it was really wierd!!!!

In the evening we went to Nigel and Amanda's house for dinner. They moved house a bit before Christmas and they've been promising to have the gang round and have been copping a lot of ribbing because it took them sooooooo long to get round to inviting us. We were hoping to see their new grandson, Aiden, but he had gone to his other Granny's for her birthday.

It was up early again to go out to training (but not as early as it might have been had it not been the end of Daylight Savings). At the last training night the gang had gone out along a track and found a tree fallen. We're not allowed to use chainsaws in the dark so they decided to go and deal with the tree today. Off we set down the track but it's pretty wet out there after rain ALL week and the truck was in danger of being bogged. After getting most of the crew to get out and walk in to the tree, Bruce the truck driver, David and I, who was PC driver, ended up reversing all the way back along the track to the road and approached by the other side. We found another two trees down. Lots of chainsawing for David but a tad boring for the rest of us. Never mind, we had lots of fun running away from leeches and getting the vehicles muddy.

This afternoon Jamie went to his friend Nick's house. Graeme and Kim are in an historical re-enactment society and Graeme has been doing some battle training with Nick, Jamie and Scott. As I arrived to pick Jamie up a few hours later it was to find that he'd expressed an interest in learning more about ENGLISH 12th Century history, the Templar Knights, etc. Kim and I voiced our disgust long and loud!!!

Just waiting for Poirot to finish on TV so I can go to bed and we can start all over again!

Tiring weekend

We have three very tired firefighters in our house tonight. James, Robert and I did the second weekend of our Village Firefighter course. Friday night 7:30 to 10:30/11pm, Saturday 8:30am-5pm and today 7am-5:30pm or so.

Today we went down to a council depot at a place called Kemp's Creek where we did the 'hot fire' day. Instead of just pretending to fight fires, the RFS can use containers and an old car and have really fires to put out. It's exhausting work as we do the drills 2-3 times each, in and out the truck laying hoses, putting out fires and then packing it all up again. We need a lot of practice before we will be ready for assessment at the end of May.

It is a filthy environment at Kemp's Creek. I'm planning to wash our gear at least twice and then run the washing machine empty a couple of times before doing any other washing. There was oil and grease and kerosene and drip torch fuel and gravel and tar and, and, and . . .

Meanwhile Ishbel and Ian have had a quiet weekend just the two of them. Under Ian's guidance Ishbel has made the boys a chocolate cake for their birthday. We have to have it tonight because someone or two is out EVERY night next week until next Sunday!

Not going to Victoria

It seems my chance of going to Victoria has been and gone, for the time being at least.

Jono comes down tomorrow and he and Ian are going down to Philip Island, Vic. for the motorbike racing so I've had to make myself unavailable. Anyway, I was stunned to get an email from our brigade Yahoo group to say that our time had been and gone and we were down at the bottom of the list again. Without any of us knowing anyone from our brigade had been sent anywhere. The captain's response to a member's query has been uninformative and unsatisfactory but he has shut down any further discussion on the topic. I sense that no one is happy. Unfortunately for the folks down south, their situation appears likely to continue for some weeks yet so once Ian is back I may be able to put my name down again with some hope of being sent on RRG.

We had yet another busy weekend. At RFS training on Friday night Rob and I got to go on a call out - to help remove a tree from on top of a car. It didn't take long and all I did was control traffic - all two cars but I got the opportunity to give a policeman directions!

Robbie had a cricket match most of Saturday - I don't know what the weather was like at Hazelbrook but it rained a lot here. It's a two day game so I will have to take him next weekend - yuk - I don't do cricket.

Ishbel spent much of the day with her friend Brittany. Brittany was going to choose hermit crabs on Saturday morning and wanted Ishbel to help her choose. Didn't know Ishbel was a world reknowned expert on hermit crabs and much sought after for her advice, did you? Anyway, as I suspected would happen, I got the call in the afternoon asking if Brittany could stay over.

We were supposed to be going to Music by Moonlight at Homebush for Latino Rhythm 'n' Groove with Sharon and Janet and Steven but it was wet and soggy and we decided early in the afternoon to bail out and have dinner here instead. We weren't much chop at thinking of latino food and just had paella, tacos and tortillas and the only latino music (and even this is stretching it) we had was Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Santana. The only dance we could think of we all knew was the conga line! Pathetic.

Unfortunately Sunday was pretty boring, especially for the girls. While Jamie headed off for a day out in Penrith with his friend, Chase and Robbie snored upstairs, we headed down to Penrith to look at flooring. We need to replace the lino here in the kitchen/family room and want to take up the carpets everywhere else in the house except the bedrooms. We were looking at floating wood floors but have been persuaded that wood-looking laminate would be much harder wearing, not to mention much cheaper.

We called in on Karen on our way back from dropping Brittany off and got our Xavier fix for the week.

Wet weekend

Sorry we didn't get around to Skyping you over the weekend, Fiona, as usual we were running about at breakneck speed all weekend. Will see what we can do this weekend. Did you have a nice birthday anyway?

Ishbel had arranged for her friend, Ellen, to stay over on Friday night. Ellen is one of my favourite little girls, she's incorrigibly happy, always smiling, but a bit hyper and questions, questions, questions. However, our patience was rewarded and Ishbel disappeared with Ellen to spend Saturday night at her house.

Friday night I left Ian to it with the girls and headed out to book group at Cathy's. We usually meet on the first Friday of the month but Cathy was working that night so we'd changed the day for her. We'd read (some of us anyway - Trish has the distinction of having attended nearly every meeting but never having read ANY of the books - she's doing a PhD and doesn't have time for reading) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Cathy always goes all out to create atmosphere when we meet at her house. She was dressed in lacy blouse and lacy, tiered skirt (the book is set in Spain) and had a 'Cemetary of Lost Books' on her sideboard.

We always have a lot of fun and Friday night was no exception. Apart from hearing how Heather had turned the tables on an obscene phone caller, Sharon told us she had an annoying song in her head. The cure for that is to sing Jesus Loves Me - it puts the annoying song out of your head but doesn't stay itself. How does that go? asked someone. So I started to sing it and the others joined in. Sudden silence from Cathy's boys in the next room! We really lost it when Cathy reached in behind the Cemetary of Lost Books and pulled out a picture of Mary and Jesus (or Mary and Joseph) which, at the flick of a switch, had flashing lights going! Cathy's mum had got it from the local convent when it closed down and thought Cathy would like it!

I was up and out early with Jamie on Saturday morning. Jamie was doing a two day Senior First Aid Course up at Firecom in Katoomba. Luckily our friend, Marie, and her son, Rob's mate Leigh, were also doing the course so we were able to arrange for Jamie to go up with them. Rob and I did the same course about this time last year.

During Saturday afternoon (Valentine's Day) I rang Sharon and Janet and Steven to see if they wanted to come round for tea. It's been raining and cold for AGES now and I thought we could do cold weather comfort food like thick soup and steamed pudding. Nobody was free, which was a bit of a fizzer but not long after that I took a call from Cathy Humphries. Cathy (separated, single woman now) offered for the children to come to her for the evening, letting us do something for Valentines. I looked up the showing times for the Ricky Gervais film, Ghost Town, and tried to book us into my favourite restaurant in Katoomba but it was fully booked and I thought it would be a similar story all over so thought we'd just take pot luck after the movie. I didn;t give Robbie any choice, just told him we'd be dropping him off to spend the evening with Cameron and Brendan and Jamie would be able to walk over there from Marie's place when they got back from Katoomba.

The film was great fun. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend it. I laughed out loud all the way through and there's a shock at the end where I shouted out loud too. After the movie we crawled through the main street in Katoomba looking for a not overcrowded restaurant or cafe. But it was chucking it down and there was no parking so we then trawled the Mall in Leura. Again no parking. We thought we'd have to just wait until we were back in Faulconbridge or Springwood. We tried Wentworth Falls on our way past. There just happened to be a parking space outside the Chinese restaurant so we thought we'd give it a go - and had one of the nicest Chinese meals I've ever had. And it was a very reasonable price.

Meanwhile the boys had been playing board games with Cameron and Brendan and had also had a good night. We had a cuppa and a serving of sticky date pudding (my favourite) with Cathy before taking them home.

And up early on Sunday again to take Jamie to Marie's. Not me this time - Ian. I stayed in bed trying to finish the book for my other book group. I didn't finish the book but that wasn't too much of a problem, I'd read it a couple of years ago and I got pretty close anyway.

I went to see Xavier. He was awake and playing happily on the floor plaything. When he started to grizzle I picked him up for a play, tired him out and made him grizzle so he was sent to bed. By then it was time to head up through driving rain to Katoomba for book group and back again through cats and dogs stuff afterwards.