While Not Working

The time period between Christmas and New Year is a twilight zone, where meals consist of leftovers and the plethora of public holidays mess with everyone's orientation to time and date.  Struggling valiantly to remember what day it was, we nevertheless kept busy with all the family over from the east coast, and lots of things to do and see around Goolwa.  Not that the weather played ball: the wind blew a gale, the temperature struggled to crack 20C, and there was just enough rain to make things miserable. One of the visitors got sick and it was at least a small mercy that they had the room where one could lie in bed and look at the sea. For that matter one could lie in the bath or sit on the toilet whilst looking at the sea, should one so desire. Out on the windward side of Granite Island the waves smashed into rocks and sent showers of spray splattering up to those of us who had ventured out for a walk.  We raided the op shops downtown, where thanks to someone else's ea...

Storms hammered the east coast of Australia. Thankfully all our east coasters flew out before the storms started and joined us in Victor Harbor to experience South Australia's version of summer.  The sun shone brightly on their arrival demonstrating both that SA could do beautiful weather and that it would not last for long. As we traveled the Yorke Peninsula over the past weeks, we stopped in at all the charity shops and bought Christmas decorations and festive items, stashing them in the car wherever we could. When came time to decorate our Vincent Harbor unit we were pleasantly surprised by just how many decorations we had found.   We even found a Christmas tree! The day proceeded as Christmases do, with food and festivities. Roger started with crippling back pain but, much to his delight, got better as the day wore on.  Presents were given and Secret Santas inadvertently blurted out their identities all over the place. Games were played and naps were taken.  Seri...

Back in October 2021 our first house-sitting gig was caring for a blind chocolate Labrador with a habit of happily dribbling as he laid his heavy head on his chosen person's knee before trying to climb into their lap.  Two and bit years later and here we are caring for a blind chocolate Labrador who could well be his sister, given her predilection for laying her heavy head on your knee before trying to climb into your lap.  Thank goodness she's not quite the dribbler that the first one was!   This chocolate lab comes with two cat siblings and a chookyard out the back, in which three chooks consider themselves to be ruling the roost. There's a strange person in my house.  Oh well. This little menagerie has brought us to Goolwa.  We've lost our expansive sea views of Wallaroo and no longer have a ferry to supervise, but we're within spitting distance of the open beach at Goolwa, the Murray mouth, the Coorong, and all sorts of interesting places to explore....

I was up bright and early to finish the last little bit of the Reisling trail before the wind kicked in.  The trail extended north form our caravan park, past Clare and through the vineyards until it stopped, as rail trails are prone to do, at the point where funding ran out.   The art installations continued. Just outside of Clare I met a family out for a morning walk. Site of the old Clare Railway Station. An artwork recognising locally born author Monica Mcinerney,  whose father was the Clare station master.  Monica used to climb onto the roof of the station master's house and settle in next to the chimney to read the books which were delivered monthly by the State Library.  I knew exactly how much Monica enjoyed getting the new book delivery: I too used to wait for the monthly delivery of books from the State Library of Queensland (32 books,  4 each for eight children).  I suspect my mother also eagerly awaited the deliveries and the resulting...

 Some days my get up and go just gets up and goes, leaving me to roll out of bed with no energy at all. Today was one of those days so it was probably a good thing that I had less than 40km to cycle, most of that downhill and with a tail wind on the Reisling and Rattler rail trails. The start.  Which in reality is in the middle, just outside of Auburn where the Reisling morphs in to the Rattler and both of them are signed as the Mawson, just to be confusing. The Reisling trail ran through Clare to Auburn, segueing into the Rattler trail which continued to Riverton.  I rode happily through vineyards, dodging showers by ducking into the strategically placed shelters along the trail.  Wineries advertised their cellar doors, cafes, and  restaurants which lay just off the trail. 3.7 km in and the temptation began. After hauling my weary self up the challenging 1% gradient for 4km, I reached the highest point of the trail. My type of sign. From there it was all downhi...

A month or two ago my old sandals fell apart and I bought myself a fancy new pair of sandals.  My new sandals had little drainage holes in the soles, so that any water that came in could get out and I wouldn't have the squelchy feeling of walking in my own personal puddles. This philosophy was all very well and good, but the rainy weather exposed a weakness in the drainage hole sandal design.  As I found out, holes designed to let water out work equally well at letting water in.  Thus, wearing my sandals in the rainy weather, I was condemned to wet feet where, in the absence of drainage holes, I would be dry. Today's travels took place to a sound track of damp squelching whenever walking was involved.   Wet feet aside, the day started on a high when a pod of dolphins entertained us on our morning jetty walk in Port Victoria. Hello.  Do you have fish? We dragged ourselves away from the dolphin show and drove up the coast to Wallaroo. The time had come for Roger t...