Monday...29 June 2015

Bad weekend. Our internet died! 

Three days with nothing, then we finally found a Telstra shop who gave us a number to call Bigpond. What a joke, why bother having shops if the staff cannot help you. And why do we have to deal with faceless people who only want to sell us another modem rather than fix our problem. This one is two months old and was purchased outright at a Telstra store! If it needs replacing it should be under warranty.

Himself was on the phone, mobile of course, on the one call for over three and a half hours being shunted from pillar to post from technical support to billing then back to another technical support and still no joy.  We are now operating on a wireless modem that only works if we use a plug in cable and even that is hit and miss! 

Then they rang us back as we sat down to dinner and tried to put the entire mess on to us and that call ended with Himself asking for the phone numbers for Optus and the Ombudsman! After that he turned his phone off for the night and we will now wait until we reach a big town with a Telstra Business store and then we will see if the matter cannot be resolved. Utter frustration. We do not need this much grief in our lives right now, there is much more important things to use our time (and the internet) for. Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

Thursday...25 June 2015

Another moving day.
Hay to Echuca today.
Good drive, easy travelling.
Set up camp told the kids we were here and within hours the one further down the road was on the door step! She did bring the grandchild with her so happy campers all round.
Very tired now.

Wednesday...24 June 2015

On the move again.
Condobolin to Hay today. We did not get to pack up yesterday so had to do it all today and being on the slow side these days we did not get away until just before lunch. We grabbed a sausage roll at West Wyalong and kept on going but before long I had started yawning and that set Himself off too so we have stopped at the Showgrounds in Hay for the night which means we do not have to unhitch and it is fairly cheap too. AND the internet works! It sort of worked back in Condo but it required a lot of patience and we all know how much of that I have!!!!!

Monday...22 June 2015

Blimey it is cold! We do not do Winter as a rule and being this cold for this long is not making me a happy little camper. I still have a cough, food still tastes awful, and worse yet my wine is undrinkable! I wonder how long before my taste buds get back to normal?
It has been bitterly cold overnight and most mornings we get up in a pea soup fog and cannot see the other campers here in the caravan park until mid morning. The days are fine and clear as such but the temperature stays very low (13). I did the washing yesterday and took it straight from the machine to the dryer even though the sun was officially shining. Another lady hung her washing on the line and still had to put it in the dryer after a full day in the sun!
The camp kitchen has a wood heater which is always going and this is a nice place to spend time keeping warm while chatting to other travellers for morning tea of scones with jam and cream supplied by the park managers and again later in the day for happy hour.
Nearly time for us to be on the move again. Stay tuned!

Thursday...18 June 2015

Slowly improving. Very tired and a bit foggy in the brain department. Have taken all my pills like a good girl, this is a first for me, I usually start and then forget somewhere in the middle of it all. Definitely not bouncing like I used to.
It has been raining for the last couple of days. More than an inch so the local farmers are happy. To quote one person I heard, at least it has washed the dust off the crops! If it continues for the rest of the week the local crops will be off to a good start.
We have been out to the farm for lunch a couple of times and met them in town for a coffee as well. They are going away this weekend but we will catch up with them when they get back and then it will be time for us to continue our journey.
The caravan park people have a bird they bring to morning tea and happy hour. It has a habit of trying to steal everyone's drink.

Friday...12 June 2015

Ok that is enough excitement for me.
Had no sooner finished partying and then I ended up in hospital with pneumonia.
Only I could manage that much drama so early in the week. After doing the hospital shake, rattle and roll for a few days and being on my best behaviour they finally let me out again today. They loaded me up with a couple of packets of pills and puffers and some very strict instructions about completing all the pills so that the bug causing my problems really does die and does not make a unexpected comeback.
(I had nebulisers, which make you shake, I had about sixteen pills a day, which make you rattle, and I had a bung in for IV antibiotics and that rolled all over the place!). They threw in a chest Xray and an ECG and a bucket load of blood tests just to make me and my health fund feel loved!
If you catch that flu I was talking about, be kind to yourself, it has a hell of a sting in its tail!

Tuesday...9 June 2015

What a weekend.
I have spent it watching one much loved 80 year old celebrate her birthday with family and friends. You could not get the smile off her face. Her greatest present was to have her family and friends around her and in numbers to be reckoned with.
On Saturday night 96 sat down to a formal dinner at her local RSL club. There is something very special to be in a room full of happy people all talking and reconnecting after years apart. It was a birthday party but underneath it was also a huge family reunion. This formal event was hosted by her daughter who made finger food for before the dinner and lovely little chocolate coated nibbles to be served with the birthday cake, which she also cooked, for dessert.

On Sunday it was open house all day out at the property. Once again they came in force! When we arrived, the back paddock had over 20 cars parked and I found more when I went around the front of the homestead. At times it was standing room only inside as we all paid homage to the birthday girl who sat surrounded by her family and friends in her own home with a smile from ear to ear.
And food......
When we arrived morning tea was being served, it was followed by a casserole lunch and then came afternoon tea and as we were leaving late in the afternoon I heard mention of what was on the menu for the evening meal. Once again this was all organised and mostly cooked by her daughter. The urn ran hot all day and someone had to have ended up with dish pan hands from washing all those cups and mugs to keep up with the demand. Outside the men chatted as they do about crops and sheep and heaven knows what, while inside we were admiring her 92 year old brother's Order of Australia Medal (OAM) which he received in this years honours list, What a pretty medal and what an honour to meet the recipient of such a prestigious award.
The birthday girls husband also did his bit and played tour guide, taking groups of visitors through the paddocks to the property at the back of his place to visit Christ the King Chapel. Out there nearly 50 km from town, one man has built a beautiful chapel in the middle of his place that is open to any and all who care to visit it.

A big weekend and it could not have happened without an awful lot of organisation and I take my hat off to her husband, daughter, grandson and his partner for all their hard work. I am sure everyone had a good time and will remember this one for a long long time. Well done everyone.

Tuesday...2 June 2015

Condobolin.
Golly it is cold! Right now it is zero. But apparently it will get better once the sun comes up, top today is expected to be 12! But the little thingy on Himself's phone says it will warm up later in the week to a top of 16. We will be all nice and toasty then.........
We are over our flu thank goodness but this cold stuff has made my nose spring a leak, most irritating. Beginning to think I should buy shares in Kleenex.
We have developed a problem with the front legs of the caravan. On our arrival late yesterday as Himself was raising them there was a lot of nasty noises and eventually they refused to go up or down. It would seem we have broken a bolt or something that helps make the mechanism do its thing. This is not a good thing to happen. For starters we are unable to level the van which is done by raising the front legs so although he wound it up as much as he could manually, once the bolt broke that was it, no up, no down. Guess we know what he will be doing with all his free time for the next week or so! We cannot move on until it is fixed and until he does fix it I need to get used to living with my balance out of wack!