France, and Paris in particular, are recovering from the recent atrocities inflicted on that beautiful city and people are returning to normal life and revisiting the places they once felt safe in. One restaurant owner said that all traces of the damage had been erased and the place repainted and customers, albeit slowly, are coming back. My son spent last year touring Europe from Vienna to Casablanca spending the longest time of his tour in Paris. He greatly enjoyed wandering the
streets of Paris, paying his respects to the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe and then paying My respects to the Emperor Napoleon. John liked Paris a lot and was greatly saddened by the damage inflicted on her. Oddly enough , and I apologise to any Italians, he didn’t like Rome at all. Some of the photographs in parts of Europe that I use were sent to me by my son
Been a tad on the warm side this week with temperatures hoovering around 40c. Cooler today – only 38c – but a day of extreme fire danger since high winds and possibly dry lightening strikes are forecast. However, I think there is a cool change forecast for late Monday or early Tuesday.
Our Moderator and his wife visited us yesterday (Sunday) conducted the Service and joined us for Christmas Lunch afterwards. We had been criticized by some for the money we spent on the installation of two reverse-cycle air-conditioners, but at 41c, there was not a single adverse comment in sight – a very pleasant lunch in a pleasantly cool hall. Of course, safe to say that the majority voted in favour of the air-conditioners, but the dissenters were very vocal, however, fact is that without these air-conditioners the hall would have been much too hot and uncomfortable to spend any length of time in, let alone have the whole of the congregation sit down to lunch.
The expected cool change came in a little earlier than expected and there was widespread lightening strikes across the State – we even had some rain. However, we were not too bad but parts of the lower state are without power and will be for some days. We have our own power station here – Northern Areas Power Station ( NAPS) – but this is a coal fired station which is coming off line
during 2016. From then on we will be part of the main system and whatever power failures they get, we will probably get too.
The good aspect to all of this is that Benji never missed a beat. The noise of the thunder and the rain – such as it was – didn’t seem to bother him in the least. It didn’t last long at all. Herself always felt really sorry for Chienne because the noise so severely affected her and there was not a lot we could do other than the Vet
medication to try and calm her down. We did buy her a Thundershirt, but it didn’t work for her. It’s cleaned and packed away since Benji has no need of it. I have also been trying to give away one of the dog houses but no one seems to want it and BJ has no need of two. Actually we did have three but I dismantled one and stored it in the garage – will probably do the same with the other one.
Annabell and Benji get along well, so much so that at lunch she becomes his BFF – I get ignored because he really doesn’t like my diet food – I guess he figures he’s a dog not a rabbit. Benji is still not registered yet. I have written to the Canine Animal Register in Victoria and they still have not sent me his Registration and Microchip papers yet. It is now ten days since they informed me that the papers would go into the post that very day, and I believe that either this was a falsehood or there has been a mail holdup by highwaymen on the Cobb & Co Stagecoach ( Australian Wells Fargo) because using a stagecoach is the only way a letter could take ten days to come from Melbourne. Why don’t I register him here anyway?? I cannot because his microchip still lists his previous owner and if anything happened here and he went wandering I would have difficulty getting him back because he would be shipped off to Victoria and I have no proof that he is my dog, so I need these papers.
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