Well we're still in Winkie...

We spent Wednesday night in Mildura attending Callie's graduation evening.  I will add the official photo once we get hold of a copy. I knew Callie would not appreciate me ducking to the front to get a photo of her on stage :) so these will have to do until then. It was lovely to see the culmination of two years study and we are all proud of her.

We went fishing down the creek yesterday afternoon, Bun caught a callop big enough to keep and Steven caught the most fish but threw them all back.  I sat in the shade and read the paper :)

On the long weekend while Ben was home, one of the trips to the river resulted in Bun's foot getting run over by the jockey wheel on the boat trailer and ending up severely bruised.  This is what it looked like one morning when it was cold and the blood didn't get to his toes.

Boof just loves having his tummy rubbed!

Both dogs love a late afternoon walk/swim in the lake.

I had a great catch up the other weekend with Tricia and Nay that started off as a morning coffee at La Villa in Loxton and ended up with lunch there and then Nay came back to Winkie for another cuppa before heading home to Waikerie.

Nay and I both had the kit for the Aurora quilt as seen in this photo.  It uses hand-dyed fabric that is then heavily quilted.  Now it is ready to take away with me for hand-sewing all the beading on.  I have challenged Nay to finish hers too by the time I'm back in August! We'll see if either of them are finished by then :)

I also had a dodgy leg on the long weekend.  Don't quite know why but the physio said that your body takes punishment for so long before it decides to hurt you!  Gee, thanks for that.  It wasn't the calf muscle but the one underneath it, google tells me it's called the plantarus muscle (who knew?).  Anyway the physio taped it up and I'll go back on Wednesday morning and see if it has improved.  Still doesn't feel right and it is over two weeks now :(  Just realised that this photo makes it look like I only have one leg??

Sylvana and I did a road trip to Pt Augusta on Friday to drop a car off for transporting to Perth.  Megan has moved over there but she flew, don't know why she didn't want to drive all that way on her own! :)  It ended up being a long day and we were a bit 'tired and silly' by the end of it but had a lot of laughs along the way.  However I would recommend heading somewhere other than Pt Augusta for future road-trips :)

  This photo was taken by Jodee as she flew from Tandou Farm to Mildura a few weeks back.  The large white square shape in the middle is the recreation room and just above it are the Jayco cabins.  Our van was in amongst the trees just to the right of the cabins and only a couple of metres from the water's edge.

 Bun took this photo when he was working in the cotton crop. It was cultivating and spraying at the same time. The photo below shows the old Chamberlain tractors they use to move the siphon pipes from paddock to paddock.

We caught up with all the 'old people' :)))  the other night for tea.  Ali, Sue and Lindsey are all turning 50 within a few weeks of each other so it provided a great opportunity for a get-together.  

Sue and Ali managed to do Kallie's puzzle for her while Kallie played on her mum's phone!

 Mel with baby Nate who is just 2 weeks old.

Somehow I managed to miss getting Danny and Terry in photos, I think they were at the bar!

Although Ali is holding Nate here, rest assured that I had a really long cuddle before she got him :)

Well we didn't make it to Adelaide for the sidecar racing because the weather just didn't want to co-operate.  

However, as we STILL don't have a caravan back, we are thinking that we might as well plan to be here until after Easter, as that's how it is looking van-wise :(   So we might head down to Gillman Speedway on Easter Sunday for the sidecar finals.  Also Sue is celebrating her birthday on Good Friday at the Martin's Bend so maybe we'll get to that too.

In other news, I may have tracked down a job for us during June.  I check a number of websites that advertise casual, short-term jobs and saw one in Wee Waa.  It involves looking after a clothing store and a farm property for the month.  I spoke to the lady on Friday and it sounds pretty good for us.  I would be opening and closing the store and relieving the staff at lunch-time Monday to Friday and working on Saturday mornings, all up about 20 or so hours a week.  The farm needs someone to keep an eye on things as there is machinery, fuel tanks, etc plus it would involve feeding the animals.  They have about 60 head of cattle, dogs, ducks, chooks and 5 CAMELS!! 

Anyway we'll see if it works out but sounds like a good chance to do something different :)

That's all folks!

HOME! for a while anyway...

The first few photos were taken while we were still at Tandou, we left there on 4th February to spend the next few weeks at home.

   

 These two are sunrises at Tandou.
 

 This shows the siphon pipes used for irrigation.

           Jodee and Becs with us a couple of days before we left Tandou, they are great company!!
                                

 Our little echidna friend, getting annoyed by Bun.

 Just so that I make an appearance on the blog :)
 I think Steven missed having someone to have a beer with!! This was taken within an hour of arriving back in Winkie.

We were only home for 3 days before we left for Canberra.  We spent a weekend with Ben, it rained one day for a while (first lot of rain we'd seen for a while).  Ben was shopping for a BBQ for the back deck so he and Bun spent a couple of hours (and about 3 beers) putting it together and then Bun disappeared for a little nap, I think beers at lunchtime will do that to you!

I can't remember what was funny here?

I haven't had a photo of these two together for a while :)

There was stock on the road just coming into Hay on the way home.  One of the reasons for the trip to Canberra was to pick up the Commodore from Ben.  So Bun and I drove home separately and it made for a loooong day :) 

Patty's dog, Bram, really thinks he's a lap-dog!!  We spent a great evening with Patty and Marty on Patty's birthday last week.  Their back yard/entertaining area is progressing and while they still have a little way to go, it's looking great!

A sunrise at home!

We spent a weekend in Adelaide with Josh and Kara.  Bun had a skin appointment on the Friday and although it was Clipsal weekend, we had no trouble with traffic.  It was a relaxing weekend, even though it was pretty damn hot.  Bun and I went down to Maslin Beach on Saturday night to catch up with Paula and Justin and the kids.  The view from their balcony is beautiful and I took the camera with me thinking that the sunset from there would be pretty special.  Unfortunately, we were so busy talking around the table after tea, that I completely missed the sunset!  What can I say??

                                                                



Ben left this morning to head back to Canberra, having been home for the long weekend, so he managed to wakeboard on his birthday on Sunday!  He was able to scheme the day off work today also, so he was actually home for 3 full days and got to the river each day :)
He was keen to use the Go-Pro camera that we gave him for Christmas. It's already had a workout when he's been mountain-biking around Canberra.
It seems like a long time now since these two were able to ride together so be warned, I took lots of photos.
Using my DSLR was fun, especially on sports mode with the multi-shot feature.  Only problem is then there are soooo many photos to delete!

Yet another sunset shot, this time just at the bottom of the driveway

Kara's puppy, Patch!  Still very boisterous but cute :)

I left this photo in the mix as you might be able to spot Stevie and Patch in it, they are the brown and grey blurs!!!

Sunday morning saw a couple of hours spent down the river before coming back to get things ready for lunch.  We had our family over for Ben's birthday and also for everyone to meet Kara's family.  It was a relaxing get together and amazingly my parents have known Kara's Pop and his wife for many years already, having met through dancing. It's interesting really because Patty has worked with Kara's mum, Barb, for years at the hospital and Kate and Roger are neighbours with Kara's Pop at Paringa :)

Holiday Monday saw us back at the river, this time they were surfing.

A couple of weeks ago in Adelaide, Bun managed to find another small surfboard for using behind the boat.  It was missing fins and had been reduced and reduced in price from $500 to $120 so he thought that was a good buy!
He had struggled with the board that we had and so hadn't surfed for the last couple of years.  On the weekend he had a go and was pleased that he remembered how it was done! :)

 We have a relatively quiet week here this week but will head down to Adelaide again to see sidecar racing on Saturday night.  If it's not too hot, we'll probably stay at Josh and Kara's overnight.  Their house doesn't have much air-conditioning and the spare room gets the afternoon sun and stays pretty warm.  It would be good to stay and take the dogs to the beach Sunday morning before coming home.

Next week we go to Mildura on Wednesday for Callie's graduation dinner that night, it's a formal occasion so it will be nice to get dressed up for once :)
We will be home again Thursday and join a group of friends for dinner that night.  Ali Halupka, Sue Dollling and Lindsey Bauer are all turning 50 within a few weeks of each other so it will be great to catch up with everyone at once :)

At the moment, we are planning around leaving here at the end of next week but it will depend on whether we have a caravan back!!
The roof panels on the van were looking a bit dodgy when we got back here from Tandou.  Bun noticed it when he was cleaning it and we went back to Renmark Caravan Centre to show them.  The upshot was that it was taken back to Melbourne so that the manufacturer could do something with it.  Apparently all the roof panels are being replaced (under warranty as it should be) but we are still waiting on it coming back and it's now been 4 weeks since it left here??

Anyway, moving on before I get my 'cranky pants on', hopefully we will be on the road again soon.  The tentative plan is to head through NSW for a while and then back to the property we were on back in October.  Killawarra had flooding rains about 6-7 weeks ago and will need to replace fencing.  They were very supportive for us while we were there and Bun and I would like to repay the favour by giving them a hand. The fact that I would be able to have some more 'child minding time' is a bonus :)

We will be back by the end of July in time for our granddaughter to arrive!! Yay, I get to make pretty, pink things!!

I'm pretty sure that Callie and Steven will be happy for the 'OAF'S' to disappear again and leave them in peace :))

Cheers for now
Anne