JUST CAN'T HELP IT !

This is Dash, our Australian Cattle dog cross.

She was dumped into my daughter's front yard as a small puppy about 11 years ago.

She was lucky, she was immediately adopted by Sally.

When Sally headed overseas we were asked to mind her two dogs for her while she was gone for two years.

Well, the two years turned into five and then she couldn't have her dogs with her where she was renting

and by then we had had the dogs for seven years so they have stayed with us!

We love them, they are our dogs though they adore Sally whenever she comes home.

Dash is a lovely dog ...... with one bad habit.

Every now and then she rips things to pieces !

She's been known to rip up her bed, strewing downy stuffing all over the yard like snow.

She's an old lady now...  you'd think that sort of thing was in her past but this morning,

when no-one was looking.....

and she was supposed to be sleeping peacefully in the kitchen....

she did this to her bed !!

Obviously just a moment of madness !

 It was just there and she just had to give it a little yank....

and that ripping noise is soooo delicious !!!

Then, we went out for a couple of hours and when we returned we found this...

Luckily, I've learnt not to leave good sheets on the line.

This is HER sheet she's ripped !!

She's very sorry......

She knows she shouldn't do it........

She says she doesn't know what comes over her.

She just can't resist that  delicious  ripping sound !!

Cheers.

PICTURE SCAVENGER HUNT - JANUARY

Somehow I managed to publish this post when it was half finished.

Sorry about that but here it is, all finished for January.

January's Scavenger Hunt

I've joined Kathy and Lyn  in a Picture Scavenger Hunt for January.

It's been fun.

 Some photos are from my collection

 and some I have had to search out and photograph especially for the task.
You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here they are:

1. an abandoned building

The area where I live is an outer suburb that is semi-rural - a mix of acreage and streets with suburban allotments.

I love these old corrugated iron farm sheds from the original farms of the area

2. a stained glass window

Taken at Notre Dame, Paris in April 2010

3. a goldfish

Patience required to get him out from behind those weeds.

4. yarn

Currently being used for my large granny square blanket.

5. playground equipment

In our recently flooded riverside park - luckily it escaped any damage.

6. a library

Part of my "library"  here at home

7. a tombstone over 100 years old

You don't know how hard it was to find this one.

The first settlement of Brisbane was around the 1830s so these members of the Shield family ( who all died in 1901, 1908 and 1906 )  would have been pioneers of the area where I live. I found it in our little local cemetery.

8. your front door

Welcome! Come in and have a cuppa.

9. a reflective surface ... not a mirror

Patricia Lake, Jasper, Canada. Taken during a holiday in 2007.

10. something out of place

I don't know about you, but this sure looks out of place in a suburban front yard to me !!!

11. nature

Surge of floodwater in the Brisbane River not far from my house. Taken 10/01/11

12. bubbles

That's it !

I'm looking forward to next month's list.

Cheers

FAVOURITE THINGS FRIDAY

It's Friday again so I'm joining Mrs Pyjamas in Favourite Things Friday.

Just click on the button on my sidebar and take a look.

Today my favourite thing is this.....

 I love this clock.

I'm not particularly a clock lover or collector.

I don't know what kind of clock it is.

It's not terribly valuable, I just love the look of it.

It was an  present from Tony years and years ago.

It has a little brother.

Don't remember where he came from but he lives in my bedroom and the big fellow takes pride of place on the hall stand in our entry.

Cheers.

AUSTRALIA DAY

G'day



The First Fleet left England on 13th May 1787 for the ‘lands beyond the seas’ – Australia - stopping at Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, where food supplies were replenished.

The fleet arrived at Botany Bay between 18th and 20th January 1788.

However, this area was deemed to be unsuitable for settlement

so they moved north arriving at Port Jackson

( where Sydney stands today )

on the Australian East coast on 26 January 1788.

The British flag was first raised at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. This date is celebrated now as Australia's national day. 


The Australian flag as we know it was the result of a competition for a flag design after Federation in 1901.

Happy Australia Day.

Cheers.

THE MUD ARMY

The flood clean up continues here today.

Many homes have now been cleared and hosed down.

Lots of interrior walls have been removed as plasterboard doesn't survive water

and mud has been hosed out from every nook and cranny.

Kitchen cupboards, lounge suites etc have been discarded but some solid timber furniture has survived.

The crowds of helpers have been transported by bus to areas where help is needed and lots have driven themselves too.

During the day people have been turning up to distribute food -

sandwiches,

 curries,

hamburgers,

sausages in bread rolls

muffins

cakes

all arrive along with cold drinks and tea and coffee vans.

All this food is donated by people just wanting to do something to help.

I'm so proud of my fellow Australians.

The links below are short videos about the "Mud Army" as they are now being called....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/01/15/3113695.htm?site=brisbane&source=rss

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_arts/2011-01-18/454659610209.html

and this effort at "poetry" appeared on a neighbourhood website today.

Our Mud Army

In answer to the Lord Mayor’s call

They came from far and wide

On buses, in cars and walking

To push back the muddy tide 

They came in to clean our suburbs

 With buckets, gloves and mop

And went out somewhat blackened

From their toes to their top .

“Tell me where to start” said some

Who had never met ‘til now

“I’m here for whatever you need -

Please just show me how”

It was tradies, suits and teenagers

Retirees and kids alike

Brisbane’s proud mud army

A true inspiring sight

And then the Aussie army came

With trucks and diggers and men

These boys have only just come back

From the wilds of Afghanistan

But they weren’t the only ones

The boys in blue came too

As did the firies and the SES

All heroes through and through

And when the sun set on Sunday night

It was a sight to behold

This proud mud army stood as one

Around a beer with stories told

In true Queenslander Spirit

This city will rise again

On the backs of our mud army

We will remember them.



Cheers.

FAVOURITE THINGS FRIDAY

Oops, I nearly missed FTF today.

I'm joining Mrs Pyjamas over on Quilting in My Pyjamas. If you'd like to join us just click on the button on my sidebar.

Today my Favourite Thing is.....

OVERSEAS  HOLIDAYS !

Some of our friends did all their tripping around when they were young but we stayed home, bought a house and had our family.
Then came the growing years that took all our time and money.
Then teenagers and secondary schooling. We scrimped and saved for private schools and holidays went out the window.

BUT .....

Since the kids grew up and left home we've finally been able to scrape some cash together for some  lovely holidays overseas.
 
We've visited .....
 
New Zealand
(pre- digital so no photo I'm afraid)
 
Ireland
 

 
 

Scotland

Canada and Alaska

 

England

and France

My feet are getting itchy again.......

I'm planning a short holiday overseas......

I'll tell you about it soon !

Cheers.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - The Clean-up Continues

( All photos from local newspapers )

THE CLEAN - UP

Usually our little community is quite self -sufficient.
We have a primary school,
4 churches,
an olympic swimming pool,
a sports oval,
a shopping centre with supermarket, hair dresser, newsagent, butcher, fruit & veg shop, chemist, florist
doctors and vets,
a petrol station,
Thai restaurant and pizza take-away.

Of these facilities the churches and school are the only ones not affected by the floods.
75 homes in the low lying areas near the river were flooded to varying degrees. This is probably not a large percentage of the homes in the area so, although we have been isolated and without power for 4 days, a large number of us are fine.
Our freezers and fridges have defrosted in the heat ( 28 -30 C now that the rain has stopped ) so what food we had stored has gone. There has been much sharing and neighbourly barbeque-ing but families with small children ( and there are lots of them, our school has 600+ pupils and climbing rapidly) were beginning to do it tough.

 Finally, yesterday, authorities realised that we were isolated out here and running out of some types of food and now bread, milk, nappies and other essentials are being handed out at the Flood Evacuation Centre to those who need it. There is no fresh fruit and vegetables and there won't be for quite a while as the markets that control distribution of fruit and vegies was completely flooded.

The road towards the city finally emerged from the water around midday yesterday. It's a 20 minute drive through rural acreages to the next suburb and all the facilities it provides ( such as supermarkets and petrol stations ) but when we drove in yesterday the supermarkets were empty and so were the petrol stations. (There were people in cafes drinking coffee and eating cake !!!)

Diminishing petrol supplies (we have half a tank ) mean that we will not make the drive again until we know for sure they have supplies available. There are heaps of people working to clean up our flooded shopping centre and every flooded house has a large band of workers. These workers are being supplied with cold water and sandwiches by the CWA ladies.

The piles of rubbish outside houses is a sorry sight. The awful smell ! Rotting , spoiled food as well as mud containing heaven knows what.

So even though we are no longer isolated by floods, our community continues to cling together. Lack of fuel means we are staying close to home and doing what we can to help our neighbours and progress is pretty rapid there.

The next hurdle is the removal of all the rubbish but our Lord Mayor says he has it under control. Helpers must wear gum boots ( who on earth has those except horsey people ?) or work boots and gloves and in some places masks as airborn bacteria of some kind is causing a type of pnemonia. Our former Prime Minister , Kevin Rudd (a Brisbane resident), was hospitalised after contracting a foot infection from wading in the floodwaters so it is very important to be careful.

 I am sorry this post is lacking photos but it seemed such bad taste to be photographing people's misery.

Cheers.

BACK IN TOUCH AFTER THE FLOODS

Hello, hello all my blogland mates.

It's sooo nice to be back.

Many thanks for all your kind thoughts.

We've now come through the worst and I have lots to tell you about the terribble flood we have been through.

Where to start?

I guess the river is the best place.

This is the Brisbane River that flows right through the centre of Brisbane.

 It's a very windy river - it winds quite a torturous path as it moves towards the bay

and the suburb where I live is on the western outskirts of Brisbane where the river makes a big loop - almost a circle before it heads off towards the city centre.

After an enormous amount of rain our slow, lazy river turned into this raging torrent.

Although we have a dam especially constructed to control the amount of water that comes down the river in these situations more water was going into the dam from runoff than they could release and the dam was filling rapidly to a very dangerous level.

Add this to a raging torrent from another river which flows into it right here at our suburb and we have a recipe for disaster.

On top of all this we had a King Tide which stopped the water flowing out to sea and acted like a plug, causing the water to rise very rapidly.

So, the morning after the shelves at the local supermarket were emptied as I told you in my previous post,  we woke to find the supermarket looked like this.

The top of the dark line is the water level - nearly to the top of the roof !

The power went off at 4:00am as water compromised repeater stations and wires became dangerously close to the rising flood.

We became cut off from the city and neighbouring suburbs in all directions and the water continued to rise steadily.

All we could do was watch the water rise and help where we could as homes quickly were inundated with this creeping brown horror. At least the rain stopped.

Upstream  a huge wall of water had swept away several rural hamlets, whole houses swept away with their occupants peering out the windows in terror.

There are still some 50+ people missing with the death toll now numbering 10 confirmed.

To their horror these kayakists thought they had come across a dead body floating amongst the trees in a suburban street.

Imagine their delight when they found it was just the Flight Centre Man from outside a travel agent's shop !!

A welcome bit of fun at a terrible time.

So here we sat, luckily for us high and dry, but with many of our neighbours having to be evacuated from their homes clutching their treasures.

For some there was time to move valuables, take some clothes, photos but most had to leave furniture behind or moved it upstairs only to have the floodwaters rise so high it was in vain.

So we watched and waited.

The temperature was around 26 degrees C with

no power for refrigeration,

no power for charging mobile phones,

no power for powering computers or recharging laptops,

no power for radios

no power for lights.

We were completely cut off.

All we knew from snippets on the car radio was that everywhere along the river was badly flooded.

We tried to make the food in our freezers last as long as we could - didn't open the doors and used all the perishables first but milk and butter don't last long in the heat and cold drinks didn't stay cold for long either.

By this morning many of us were emptying out our freezers, cooking what we could and sharing with our neighbours. Lots of food had to be discarded  - no taking chances with spoiled food at times like these.

Most were doing OK but families with small children fared the worst without bread, butter and milk.

This morning I cooked up a big curry and we shared it tonight with friends from down the street who were out of meat and vegies. 

Tomorrow we were ready to start on tinned food, eggs, pasta - plenty of food we would not starve!!! 

Then power was restored!

Fantastic

Then the flood water went down as quickly as it rose and we were back in touch with the rest of the world and left with a legacy of stinking MUD and rubbish as well as sodden, muddy furnishings

 

So now the clean-up begins.

We have power but no shops so we'll start on the canned food.

Everyone is pitching in and helping eachother with this heartbreaking task.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers.

PS. My Favourite Thing for FTF is   electricity !!