Ishbel's diary

Ishbel has been keeping a diary. I said I'd transcribe it for her so here it is - as is:

Sunday 9.12.07
Today I am going to my friend Rubys house for the day. Ruby has a dog called Nellson. He looks like my dog Bella. The first game we played was crack the egg. The second game we played was schools in the cuby and then me and Ruby watched a movie called Sleep-over when the movie was over we went next door to play with the kids there names were Bridget and Liam after they left we went to Springwood pool for a little play but we stayed for three hours and I was with them for seven hours me, Ruby and Oscer all got chips with tomato sauce but Ruby didn't have sauce but we all had solt then we went back in the water to play.
When we where in the water we went in the werlpool and Oscer ws after us. We were swimming away from him. Then we had to go so me and Ruby hid after a wile we went out of the water and went home when I got home I had a souer and the I got dressed Then I played with my builda bear then I went on the computer and I went on my website and played Mixy's cubby house. I had fun that Sunday. For dinner we had paster The next day I went to school and at lunch I played with Kate, Elki and Ruby and at recese I played with the same people pm Thursday Ruby came my house for a play we had fun.

Liaising with the SES

Last Sunday a thunderstorm ripped through Blacktown in the western suburbs of Sydney. Lots of damaged houses, cars, etc. and a state of emergency was declared.
The agency that deals with this kind of thing is the State Emergency Service (SES) who put up tarpaulins, cut down trees and so on. Such was the extent of the storm, however, they needed help and the RFS was called in too.
A crew went from Valley Heights on Friday and at 6:45 on Sunday morning I joined Bert, Pete and Matt from our brigade at the station. We then met up with another 11 crews from across the Blue Mountains at Glenbrook and, after a bit of a briefing, we all went down to Blacktown in convoy.
We gathered at Homebase, Blacktown where the SES, in similar numbers, were also gathered. While we waited for our deployment orders, we were able to get free food and drink from McDonalds.
We were assigned one-on-one to an SES team. Our team was from Bungendore near Canberra. Our job was to provide support but we were told we weren't allowed to climb on roofs; we haven't been trained to do so.
We were given addresses of households that had reported problems we should see to. We were told not to door-knock to ask if anyone else needed help - apparently some people had been door-knocked three times and were getting a little bit tetchy about it.
The first place we were sent, we had to crawl round half a dozen streets - hardly any evidence of storm damage and even then, six days on, most had either been sorted already by some other SES crew, or had sorted themselves out. The only evidence of the storm was brought to us on a plate by one man who had three cricket ball sized hailstones in his freezer. He said they'd been burying themselves 50mm into the ground.
We then had to sit in the truck while the SES crew radioed in for our next deployment. After a 15-20 minute wait, we were sent back to Homebase for more coffee.
Then we were sent to another street which had been quite badly hit but, as I said before, six days on, most had either been sorted already by some other SES crew, or had sorted themselves out.
Another 15-20 min wait for redeployment.
The next house we went to, the old lady did need help but, because hers was a fibro roof (and might contain asbestos) the SES refused to touch it and she would have to wait for the NSW Fire Brigade Hazmat team to deal with it. She'd been seen by an SES team earlier in the week but someone obviously hadn't taken her off the list.
The next house I actually got to help - I took a ladder off the SES truck. There there were 3 little holes in the roof which the SES were going to fill in with silicon (gives you an idea of the minute size holes we were dealing with!) but couldn't get to them through the roof space, nor would their ladder reach onto the roof. The SES lady assessed them from outside and reckoned that they wouldn't leak water anyway. Then the householder had her climbing up a tree to check on the contents of an icecream bucket he'd nailed there for birds!!!!
Our Deputy Captain, Bert, was NOT impressed.
Well after that strenous activity it was time for lunch - free at an RSL club. Said goodbye to Bungendore SES who were heading home.
Then we had to go to SES HQ to await redeployment. And we waited and waited and played cricket and rescued the ball from a drain and got a chocky from Santa and waited and waited some more.
At 3:40pm we were stood down and could return home.
Bert, already in trouble from his wife for going out so close to Christmas, was trying to work out what to tell her about the day . . . it wasn't looking pretty!

Name change?

As you can imagine, we get all sorts of spellings and pronunciations of our surname. I thought we'd heard it all . . . until we got a Christmas card from our local pest inspection company addressed to Mr and Mrs Coltmuttoun - that was completely out of left field.

Lunch with Karen

I was up in Katoomba yesterday for work. We are getting a new internet PC booking system installed. We bought the program years ago but managed to buy it without the installation (the only people in the whole country ever to do so). My predecessor was fiddling with it but never got it done, IT have been fiddling for over a year. It wasn't until Gillian and I went to the meeting in Canberra that we found out it was easy to get the installation done for us by the company.
Not that things have gone smoothly since we decided to stump up for the installation to be done. Someone was supposed to put in a purchase order before he went on leave a month ago and didn't. Our library admin officer had to chase around to find out what was happening several times over the last month. Meanwhile the company had pencilled us in for Tuesday and Wednesday this week. On Monday they rang to say they still hadn't got the purchase order and we had until midday or Geoff the installation guy couldn't get on the plane from Adelaide. At 12:10 they rang again, giving us 10 mins to get the PO done, or send an email promising to pay. I quickly got the authorization to send the email and all was OK'd as the taxi arrived at the Adelaide end.
ANYWAY . . . as I drove in to Katoomba yesterday morning, I saw Karen's work and thought I could go and see if she could have lunch with me. So, before going to the library I popped in and we made a date.
Had fish and chips and a lovely chat. I hadn't seen Karen or Dan for a while.
She took a pic of a big Christmas tree sculpture that's up outside the Carrington Hotel for me. I'll post the pic when she sends it. The title of the sculpture really tickled me - Peas on Earth.

Righting the truck

Just a few pics of the truck being righted.

You can see a slide show of all pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11895723@N05/sets/72157603379154328/show/

Overturned truck on Victoria Pass 2

Back down at the overturned truck we were put to work moving the gear out of the truck into another truck which was not even half the size of the overturned one. Much 'you've gotta be kidding" and expletives when we saw what we had to try to do. We got a line going, ferrying stuff from one truck to the other. Most of the stuff being moved was not in good condition, even before it went head over heels, it looked like it was more ready for the tip than relocating in a new house. I suspect the poor owner of the stuff would not have insurance to cover the damage.

Luckily it was Saturday and the traffic wasn't as heavy as it would be tomorrow when people who've been away for the weekend returning to Sydney. We were able to keep a two way flow going, only stopping the traffic entirely for 20 mins or so while the truck was righted and attached to the back of the tow truck.

Overturned truck on Victoria Pass

So Steve and I jumped in the truck and headed up to the overturned truck on Victoria Pass and found ourselves helping out.

The truck was full of stuff from a family moving house. The driver had borrowed the truck from a brother-in-law and the breaks had failed going down the very steep hill. He was very lucky that no one was seriously hurt (his young son and another adult were also in the truck when the accident happened), that he didn't encounter any other vehicles coming up the other way because he ended up on the wrong side of the road, and that he didn't go careering over the guard rail and into the 90 metre drop.

But before we dealt with the truck there was another vehicle in distress on the pass. A ute had broken down - this one had a Santa's sleigh on the back and was towing a horse box. In the horse box were 3 live reindeer!! We hooked them up and towed them up to the top of the pass to the nearest petrol station.

Rob's Bushfire Assessment Day

Robbie had his BF assessment today. His mate, Nick, was also being assessed and Nick's dad, Graham and I went as a helpers/assessors. We had a busy day in wet, dreich Katoomba. Following completing the multiple choice questions, the teams had to deal with a small fire scenario, a property protection scenario and a large fire scenario.
Graham and I had a bit of trouble keeping a fire going in some drums - even the liberal use of the drip torches couldn't keep the straw burning well in the rain. The first team we dealt with got a reasonable blaze to tackle but subsequent fires were rather laughable.

Rob's team was held up for a little while after one of the team complained of chest pains. The ambulance was called but it seems he was having a severe anxiety attack and the ambos went off to attend a motor vehicle accident (MVA).

During lunch a couple of teams were quickly put together to attend the MVA also - a truck had overturned going down Victoria Pass. Graham raced off to help while we finished off the assessment with the boys.

We couldn't go home without Graham so had a bit of hanging about to do. The assessment day was held at Firecom at Katoomba. I've been there several times as Council use the building for training but hadn't been in the communications room. One of our brigade, Helen, was working there so she gave me a quick overview of what they do.


After hanging about for some time, Steve decided he and I would go up to the MVA and have a look. We had to leave Robbie and Nick because they are not yet certified to attend incidents and they are still too young to do so even if they were.

Wet weekend

I had an email last week from Margaret, a friend I made while at the Stirling Royal Infirmary. She wrote saying "You will all be enjoying your summer weather now. I will be thinking of you all ,while i look out of our conservatory windows at grey skies and pouring rain."
How ironic to be writing back "it sounds like the views from our windows are the same as yours".
It's been raining for most of the past week which hopefully is getting into the water catchment areas and filling up the dams. A huge percentage of NSW is drought declared but I haven't heard much about the farmers out west getting rain. The last time they got rain out west they all rushed to put crops in the ground thinking the drought had broken but the rain didn't last and the crops died. Our local baker has a sign saying the price of flour has gone up 45% because of the drought.
As I write though, there is a gentle drizzle, it is cold and we are all wearing jumpers. The newly washed dog has just been for a walk with Ian and stinks of eau de wet chien.
The other night there was another thunderstorm with one huge, loud clap of thunder that rumbled and shook the house. It went on so long we began to wonder whether it hadn't been a bomb.
Our boys are out in all this weather on a Scout camp. It's a water-based camp this time and they are having to build a raft and sleep on it all night. We aren't sure they have taken much in the way of wet weather gear and almost expect them to ring to be rescued.
Clive has just rung to say the Bush Fire Brigade Christmas picnic has been cancelled.
We are going up to Katoomba for dinner this evening for to celebrate Stephen's birthday. The restaurant is called Swiss Cottage (http://www.swisscottage.com.au/). There are escargots on the menu - think we can get Ishbel to eat any? We had a French French teacher at school (Mrs Macnamara of course) who brought escargots in once. Even under threat of getting an order mark I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.
It’s voting day today and as voting is compulsory in Australia we have had to trot along to our local polling place and make our mark.

Joey visit to the zoo

on sunday i went to the zoo and i got to feed and pat a possum i made a frog pond and a lizard lounge and i also caught a tadpole.

Picture: Ishbel and Joanna Kibble