Disappointment, hospital and garden disasters

Emails are the strangest things. If you send a nasty message to an address you will have a reply with in the hour. If, however,  you send an email that requires a 10 second  “yes ” or “no ” response to the same address, the chances of a reply are fairly remote. Strange that!! I was waiting for an email that never came and I fear is unlikely to come now. Oh well, things happen – or in this case, don’t!  Disappointment aside, it has been a busy week visiting people in hospital and one in Palliative Care. Accident in town and elderly lady killed in a car collision. Actually as a passenger  she survived the collision but died in hospital. Car accidents and rushed to hospital are not great for an 85 year old. Don’t know if anything happened yesterday but the Royal Flying Doctor Service  flew in late at night.  There is still an air of – depression is too strong a word – but more a feeling of unease about the future.  Many people, despite the assurances in the press, don’t really trust what they are being told and although there seems to be more orders, four and a half billion dollars, is a lot to try and pay back. Also the company is up for sale and the fact that the good Arrium is be sold off first leaving the steelworks and the South Australian Mining Operations – which are the loss makers in the business – to bring up the rear and whoever thinks about buying the steelworks and the mining operations will have to consider the massive debt that goes with it. The administrator believes that the company will be on the market in July and that the steelmaker  could have a new owner by Christmas. There are interested parties – so we are told – but six months before we know anything.

For a number of reasons the back garden is not a place to wander in the dark. It is so overgrown now that I fear for my safety. I think there might be lions in there hiding in the undergrowth. Between a whole host of things I have let it become very neglected. I would show you photographs but I wont because it is so bad I am ashamed to let anyone see it. Even when I brought in the

workman to give me a quote to clear it and  I explained to him what I wanted done.  Anyway he did give me a quote which I found quite reasonable, so, he is coming with his equipment to clear the  place and take everything back down to the bare earth. Once that’s done I will then decide what I want done with the area. I have plans – well ideas more than plans – but it will mean a trip to Adelaide (Bunnings) to get the things I want. Why not shop locally,  after all we have three big hardware stores here? Very simply they don’t have what I want, whereas I know Bunnings do. Ho yes they can order it but it takes ages and costs more and then they slap on a delivery charge. Much better to empty the trailer and go to Bunnings  – yes, it’s a 370 mile round trip, but worth it.

I have another funeral to prepare for but at least I have enough time to get things set up, printed and collated.  It will all have to be done on my printer again and I will have to charge for the ink – it’s too much otherwise. With any reasonable luck we should have the church photocopier repaired and returned by the end of this week. But once again almost an entire ream – 400  – printed sheets  and there was some wastage this time  – I printed some sheets in the wrong sequence –  oops. Busy few days with the workmen coming on the Tuesday and the funeral on the Wednesday.   The photograph is the Whyalla shore taken from the Lookout on the Hill. I think it was taken only a few days ago when we had some sun between the rain. I took some photographs down at the wetlands of the birds and the ducks. Haven’t sorted them out yet. Benji is having a hard time at the moment. We have not been out for a walk this morning. I will detail this in another post.