Thursday 11 September 2008

Fuel, El & Spiders.

G'Day,
I have had quite a busy week. My sister has been visiting. She is now living in outback Queensland and is on holidays. I took her to Yass this morning to meet up with her sometime but long term partner, Sandy, who is driving her home before they continue on their holiday shortly which will include hiring a cruiser to sail around the Whitsundays with another couple. Very nice. There are not many shops in Biloela where she is living now so she has had a real picnic in the shops here. She doesn't mind spending a bit of money on something that is quality goods.
When she was here, yesterday she was most amused to look out my kitchen window to find four sulphur crested cockatoos very happily going from one of my potted plants to another, gleefully snipping all the flowers and buds off and nipping off my coriander and parsley. Bloody cockies!
El's latest claim to fame was earlier this year. She was interviewed by some American reporter bloke who came out here especially to see her after hearing that she had had to close down a whole ward of her hospital because it had been over run by red back spiders. It went to air around Australia and overseas. Very funny. My sister on international T.V. Not that she hasn't been interviewed on T.V. before in the course of her job, because she has, but this went international.
Anyway we trawled the shops in Civic and Tuggeranong and had meals out. And if you know my sister ... had a few glasses of wine too. T'was all good. We had a beautiful dinner at the Hellenic club on monday night in their Ginseng restaurant, which serves excellent chinese food. She also took my Mum back with her this morning as far as Grafton, (so I get a break) to visit my niece and attend her daughter, Ivory's, second birthday party. I thought she was 3 and bought an age card for her saying so, she can't read yet so it does not really matter:)
Last night was a bit bad though. Mike and I were leaving work, he was driving and backed into one of the cars in the car park. It left quite a scratch on the back bumper of the other car and dented my front left side panel. I went inside and found the cars owner, he was one of the bosses there office, but he was very nice about the whole thing and reassured Mike that it would be o.k. etc. Lucky I have insurance or it might not have been so easy eh! And lucky it wasn't one of the Mercedes, BMW's, Audi's or flashy little Mazda sports cars that inhabit that car park. He was quite sympathetic especially when he saw the L plates on the car. I think what happened was he turned around in the seat to look behind him and must have pulled on the wheel when he did so and the car went across and hit the other one. It took some talking into it, but he got back behind the wheel today.
Oh Dear. Never mind, accidents happen. I remember when I was learning to drive I turned into a driveway on my Mum's cousins chook farm in Griffith and took out the letter box which was a 44 gallon drum set on a post. It slid up the bonnet of the car and hit the windscreen in front of my face making a really loud bang which scared the hell out of me but didn't do any damage to the car luckily. The people in the farm put the drum back on the post and stuck a few more nails in it. He he.
That reminds me. Today I put petrol in my car and it cost $1.67 a litre. It has gone down a little bit, a few months ago it reached $1.85 a litre or there abouts. When I started driving I was 17 yrs old and petrol cost 15 cents a litre. Hmmm. Not fair. I hope that soon there will be a viable alternate fuel source to run our cars on. One that also doesn't cost heaps to change cars over to like gas does. There was a bloke at Junee who Pete knew that had converted his cars engine to run on recycled vegetable oil which he sourced from fish and chip shops and when he drove it the exhaust fumes smelt like hot chips, funny eh! I use the cheaper version petrol which contains ethanol. At the moment the govt. here is talking about subsidising costs of Eco friendly cars and is investigating alternate fuels. They also subsidise gas conversions for your car but I think my old car is a bit past spending that amount of money on, if I indeed had the money to spend. It is all very well believing in supporting climate change and the rest of it, but many of the normal day people don't have the money to put it into practice.
The new jail in Canberra was officially opened today. They won't be putting people in it for a while yet though as there is still some work to be finished off yet. Pete didn't go to the opening. His personal choice. It will be good when it opens though as it is only a 10 minute drive from here for him to travel to work. At one of the schools I clean, the one at Campbell, they have been fixing up our cleaning/ store room buiding lockable cupboards and taking the door away. It is a bit strange but I will have to wait until it is all put back together to see how it works out.
Oh well it is bed time again. Good night. Love Linda.

10 comments:

Sorrow said...

Sounds like you had a great visit with your sis!
And some good wine, and a much needed break.
Sorry to read about the bump, but that stuff seems to happen when you least expect it. ( by the way whats a "L" plate???)
Thanks for the inspirations on the signs..I am having a bit of fun with it...
andit is amazing to me what sticks with us, what words just hang out in our hearts.
g'night then...

Shadow said...

wow, you have had a busy week. fun too by the sounds of it. except for the car bit. i'm so glad to hear you are one of those that don't just drive away. i've had to repair my car once before when it was bumped in a car park, yet the person just drove away. didn't even leave a note...

Peter said...

G'day Linda May, I don't think I'll try the recycled Fish shop oil in my Hyundai but good on the folk that experiment, you're right on about not many shops at Biloela so no doubt your sister enjoyed the retail therapy.

Merle said...

Dear Linda ~~ You sure have had a busy week, but I guess it was fun shopping
with your sister. My 3 eldest grandkids went to school in Bileola, grown up now.
Glad you are having a break from your Mum who may be glad to get back to you.
Thanks for the comments and I am glad you enjoyed the jokes and also garden pictures. It's not really very green, as we aren't allowed to water lawns at all. We get limited time watering the gardens. Take care, my friend, Love, Merle.

Bimbimbie said...

Hi Linda, I think I might have heard your sister being interviewed on the ABC radio - I remember that story!
Oh those cheeky cockies, you invite them in, give em a feed and then they prune your garden ;)

Martha said...

It is nice to get to do all kinds of things when out-of-town relatives visit. Wine sounds good, right now.
I want to know what an "L" plate is, too.
So true about normal people not being able to afford what the brains think up to save the world - and there are more of us than the ones who can afford it. I'm all for saving the planet but most of us need help to make it happen.

Everydaythings said...

a new jail...well they didnt report that over here, can we send a few of our wonderful people over there, as we are bursting at the seams here in that dept!

love your recount of your busy week. Linda - you always are sooo busy!

ps I now have blog tracker so now I wont be missing posts of my fave blogs!And yours is one of them!!

Merle said...

Hi again Linda ~~ Thanks for your comments about Peter and myself knowing Bileola. Did you know it's pronounced
(Bil-o-weela) That amazed me when it doesn't have a "w" in it. It's quite a nice place, but no big shops. I have stayed there a couple of days many years
ago. Take care, my friend,Love, Merle.

linda may said...

Merle, yeah I di know how it as pronounced, when I first heard about her moving there I googled it and couldn't work out the spelling.

linda may said...

Martha, I couldn't leave you a message again tonight as the word verification thingy wasn't there again. "L" plates are the signs you must display on your car if a learner driver is driving. It is another name for a learners driving permit. We also have "P" plates , (which is the next step after learners get their license) they get a provisional license, which they have for 2 years and has some special rules attached to it.