on the up side (not that fire warden training is really a bad side, I get half a day off work, and I’m taking the other half off so …) Mr Tasmania gets home this afternoon.

Oddly enough, even though I’ve been absolutely fine without him (as I should, having lived by myself for quite a few years!), not displaying any of my usual stress symptoms (to wit … general snappiness and / or forgetfulness) I have found out that I was stressed .. the day he left my lip came up in an enormous bruise/welt/bite mark – and no, he didn’t do it! I’d dug my teeth in during the night apparently … have done it on the odd occasion before but nothing to this extent. Poor old lip … now got the gel on it trying to stop it turning into a nasty … looks a bit urky but not paper bag time thankfully.

Isn’t it amazing how, even when you think you’re fine with stuff, the body and subconscious find little ways to tell you you’re not.

Yep, I’m off to be trained to be a fire warden.

I honestly can’t imagine what I’m going to learn that will take 5 HOURS but we shall see.

only because I, with GREAT dedication to the dog, put myself up to my knees in the ocean this evening. Mr Tasmania is in HObart, so I came home from work a bit early to walk JD in the daylight. He’s cut his pads a little on the cutty grass in the backyard, so I thought a bit of salt water would be good. He usually charges in but wasn’t hugely keen tonight, so I rolled up the jeans and in we went.

I’m not happy going into water when it’s colder than the cold air temp! It was about 15deg C .. and the water must have been only 13 or less! Not happy!

I would not willingly do that for many people, so I guess I love the dog. Oh, emergency situations are excepted of course … I would put aside all thoughts of hypothermia and fling myself into the waters to rescue someone! And I wouldn’t even wait until they were going down for the third time!

no, not ‘the light’, light FITTINGS.

I”m a bit tired because we started looking at lighting websites last night … bad move, very bad move!

I went and looked in a lighting shop in Burnie today … and (in the spirit of finding your wedding dress in the third one you try on) I think I may have found the light fitting I want as the pendant light (three of) to hang over our kitchen island bench … and it was the first one I looked at in the shop.

Not SCARILY expensive, not particularly cheap … but now I’ve got the name and the shape I’ll hopefully have some luck finding it cheaper online … and once I download and print off a colour shot of it that I took with my trusty little camera, I may even have some luck in getting a cheaper one in another lighting shop … I’m fairly sure I’ll be looking at quite a few between now and the end of the year!

a gorgeous sunny day today, started out with a frost which froze the water in the buckets outside but got up to 18C while we were working at the block – beautiful! I weeded while Mr Tasmania mowed, and JD played with his brand new bright yellow tennis ball and ran around after the ride on lawnmower.

Mrs Claus and The Punter turned up just before we left, with scones and coffee – lifesavers!

While Mr Tasmania went to buy a trolley jack I went across to the paint showroom opposite and played some more with the paint machine – it’s so cool, all the paint chips have barcodes, you whip them into the machine, choose which colour you’re playing with, it gives you internal or external paint options, then two different combinations of three paint colours, which you then print out – excellent fun!

I’m working on bathroom colours at the moment, trying to work out firstly what colours we’d like our bathroom, then what combinations of those colours we’d like …. not as easy as it sounds! Seriously, in the ‘white and neutral section’ there are 50 or 60 different colours … and if you saw all the whites individually you’d say they were all white! You’d think I’d know, having worked in a Graphic Design studio for three years, but no … until you start doing it you just don’t understand. At least we know we want LARGE tiles on the walls and floor … not quite sure if we want square or rectangular yet, guess that will come when we start looking at actual tiles … for now, it’s colours!

I’ve also just enrolled us in a 5 hour adult education course at the Uni, to be held in October, on going solar in the home ie putting on solar power and all it’s ramifications, benefits, drawbacks etc. It’s a 5 hour course and should be very interesting (I hope!). We’ve pretty much decided to go electric boost solar hot water .. but solar anything else? Not sure if it’s practical OR possible cash wise … hopefully this course will help us to make the decisions.

who disappear with your car while you’re at work and bring it back with lovely thick new dark grey sheepskin seat covers, already on the seats. He is a lovely boy!

and yet another blue sky day! toooooo nice!!!!

So, today I have planted out a coastal rosemary which I have had in a glass on my kitchen bench for about three months. I originally just picked it ’cause it was flowering, then realised it had grown roots .. it’s a creeping form, which will be very nice trailing down the daisy bank at the shack and then, once this one has grown big enough to strike from, over the large boulder bank at the block.

I also planted out a punnet of seaside daisies (erigeron), and seeds of the following in pots (to be planted into the garden later): C*ntinental Parsley, Sunfl*wer Sun King and Prad* Red, Gazani* Giant Mixed, Pumpk1n Buttercup, Bush Be*n Violet Queen, Heartse*se, N*sturtium Jewel Mix, Mexican Cucumb*r, Cucumb*r Long Green, and P*ppy Iceland Mixed Colours. Whew!

Hopefully they’ll all come up

I want to plant zucchini, a few types of tomato, and lots of basil, as well as some rhubarb, over the next few weeks.

well, we went back to bed at 5:30am … but i can’t say we actually got much real sleep before we got up again at 6:45am …

At 4:13am an alarm started sounding outside the house … for about two seconds we thought it was next door … the we realised than no, it was OUR LandRover!!!!

Mr Tasmania leapt out and did a nudey run (close your eyes) and raced outside, turns out his very expensive to replace electric car keys had gone through the wash with all his bike gear… we found the spares … but turned out the first pair still worked (tough eh!) …

Unfortunately starting the car did nothing … so he took off (in his dressing gown and crocs by this time!) up the hill and away … with the trailer still attached! I could hear the horn blaring constantly as he went around the twists and turns of the 6km drive up the mountain to the highway ….

It gradually diminished, and finally, while he was on the phone me, stopped … hopefully for good.

So, it’s parked across the road, to be taken in to the mechanics this morning, along with info I downloaded from the manual he has on the desktop.

ADventures, adventures, they never stop eh

Fortunately it happened now, rather than in three weeks time, when his parents are here ‘dogsitting’ while we’re in NSW … they’re perfectly capable but it’s not what you want to deal with at 4am on a cold winters night when you’re in your mid 80’s … so, silver linings

Yep, quite a lot of West Coast mud … but also a very happy boy who enjoyed his weekend away with the boys … and who is comfortable enough in his masculinity to cope when i tell him that I’m clean and I’m not touching his muddy clothes.

Cleans his bike, washes off the things that can be washed off, puts the rest in the washing machine, sets it all, gets it going, puts the rest in to soak once it’s done, and then goes and washes himself (with a nice hot dinner and chocolate in the middle of that – I’m not heartless!).

Quite the gem, actually

yep, except for about half an hour through the middle of the afternoon, when the snow clouds came over, it’s been a gorgeous blue day. The breeze is cold but if you can get out of it the sun has been magical.

So, I planted the magnolia, hopefully it will grow nicely in that spot. I’ve also planted (at the shack) out another purple blob, some daffodils (already sprouting) that I got cheaply (not one single clue as to what type they are!), some geraniums I struck about 6 months ago (in place of one of our miniature Kangaroo Paws, in a gorgeous blue pot – the yellow one has essentially karked it, the red one is going nuts – and I put the deadish one in the garden so it might revive), and some viola and poppy seeds.

I think tomorrow I will try to concentrate on the daisy bank (otherwise known as a big pile of grass!) and planting seeds (flowers and vegies) … my garden is going to become the classic Sydney wog garden that I grew up with and that my aunt still grows – spinach growing amongst the roses … or in my case zucchini and pumpkin vines among the daisies and geraniums.

Mr Tasmania is on his way home … apparently an enormous amount of Tasmanian West Coast mud is coming with him.

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