Month: November 2018

Winds of Change

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The daytime temperature has been nice but the mornings are cold – probably not in Adelaide – but up here, cold. The evenings have been much the same

Some of the larger birds at the wetlands. Swans have gone, though.

and I have taken to be rugged up if I take Benji for a walk around the wetlands in the evening as the sun  is on the wane. The other day my son sent me a message – “Wetlands in 30 mins.” so off  Benji and I trotted to the wetlands and caught up with him and the pram The day is great, warm and sunny, but the mornings and evenings are still cold. The month of November is a very busy month for the Royal Flying Doctor Group here. I said in the last post that I was asked to organise a fundraiser for this weekend – which I did – but this coming weekend is particularly busy with three events all going off on the one day. Next Saturday  I will be on the go from 8am to at least 9:30 pm. Still if it raises funds for the RFDS, it’s all worth it. I will be doing a fundraiser at the hardware store from 8;30 until 1:30 – a quick change and over to the Ada Ryan Gardens and the RFDS Simulator and  showing people through that until the close of the After Pageant Fair at 9pm and by the time we tidy up and get everything put away, it will probably be close to 10pm. Never mind – worse things happen at sea, or so they tell me.

The RFDS apart, it is going to be a busy time at church over the next month. The Lutheran Church are holding an Advent Service next week to which Annabell (my wife) and some other members of the congregation will be attending. With the other lady still on the sick list, I am still the Tuesday and Wednesday driver, and to add to that I have to take Annabell and pick up another lady for the Lutheran Advent Service on Wednesday afternoon. I thought after Mount Gambier things would start to calm down – oh sure, lead up to the Pageant,  Christmas, Carols in the Park and New Year and  you think things will calm down?

I had a bit of a “wake-up”call on Monday evening. On Sunday, the family come here for dinner. This Sunday Andrew did not come. We held off dinner, but still no Andrew. I tried to telephone him, but no reply. He was on call,  so we assumed he had been called out. Monday I tried several times to call him and again after dinner on Monday -still no reply. So I got into the car and drove to his place. He opened the door and he looked fit and well to me, but I asked how he was. He said he was fine. Talked to Trish and she was fine too. Trish quietly left the room leaving

My Grandson.

me with Andrew. I had just done what Andrew believed I would do when he did not turn up on Sunday and his phone remained unanswered – I would get in the car and drive over – and that is exactly what I did.  His reason for doing what he did is that he believed that this was the only way he could get me to come to his house. In the last year I have not been there to see my grandson, or play with him, because there has always been a reason to prevent me getting there –  organising some function or event for the RFDS – a church function or I am away for days at either Para Hills,  Naracoorte, or Mount Gambier on church business. And if i’m not doing that, I am up to my eyes in paperwork. He asked if I had to do the things I do – i.e. why me, why not someone else? I edit the church Magazine. This takes up time and effort but as much as I have tried to get people to even contribute – well,  everyone wants a magazine but no one is willing to help. The same with the State Newsletter – write on what’s happening here for the State Newsletter –  every other month I have asked for someone to do this- no one has ever responded. I have to go to the places I go to because that’s my role over and above running the service,  if you like. There are three of us who run the church, neither of the other two are fit to undertake the stress of  driving around the State – and by fit I mean medically – one is disabled and the other is recovering from  Cancer, which leaves me. Helen take care of everything locally and undertakes many of the visits, I look after things beyond local – that’s my role. I have to prepare reports for each of these meetings and be prepared to answer any questions that may arise. But Andrew is right, I am so tied up in other things that I am missing the growing up of my grandson – and to be very blunt and truthful – he is the only one I am likely to have.  Things will have to change and soon. I relayed all this to Annabell and she said she was not surprised  at Andrew’s method of getting me over there. “Your son knows and understands you more than you think he does”

 

Model Trains and Kangaroos

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
The Enchanted Forest – my favourite.

The Model Railway Exhibition was brilliant. Oh yes, it was  a very busy weekend for the RFDS but there were compensations and one of those was that retired Senator Buckland  who is President of the Club said that the RFDS people would be allowed into the exhibition free of charge. The  setups were fabulous and I was really amazed at the amount of work that had gone into them. What really floored me was that some of the exhibits  were large in their own right but  amazing that they were really only part of a larger set up. There were  model railway set-ups from as far away as Western Australia but also sets from  Adelaide and  various places in Victoria.

The weather was changeable over the last  couple of weeks and we did have some rain during the Model Railway two days. Not long after that we were looking after Dougal for a few days as his people went down to the Royal Adelaide for tests. However, she is still not the best so she will have to go back down on the 20th of this month and we will have Dougal back with us  again.

Not long after Dougal went home I left for Mount Gambier. Stayed overnight in Adelaide and drove to Mount Gambier on the Friday. Set off for Adelaide right after the meeting  on the Saturday and stayed overnight before hitting the road again at 05:30 since I really wanted to be home at 11am – well not so much home but to be in the church for part of the 11am  (Armistice Day) Service – which I was. The weather has warmed up and over the last few days we

This morning on our walk

have been in the mid 30c. I took Benji out for a walk  at 6am before it  started to heat up and the ground was still cold. I was surprised to see Kangaroos around since I assumed the rain for much of the week just gone, would have been enough to keep them happy. They only really come near the town when there is little to drink and not much feed out in the bush. Not the best of photographs but they were a bit back off the road and trying to hold a dog, hold  the smartphone steady and take a picture, wasn’t all that easy. Tomorrow it is supposed to be overcast with the possibility of  rain and a bit of a storm – at least that’s what the state forecast was. The local news was not quite so certain in regard to the weather, so it might rain, but then, it might not. —- It did..

In a few days the Officer Cadets of the Military College , Duntroon, Canberra will be here for three weeks  to conduct exercises. There will be command posts set up around the town and  the army is calling for volunteers to take part in the population evacuation exercises. I didn’t do that last time but I think I might  have a shot at it this time. At the moment the Cadets are doing some training at Cultana before they come over here for the next three weeks. As it turns out I wont be since the registration is this coming Saturday and I  had a call from the  Mitre 10 hardware wanting me to organise a RFDS Fundraiser for this Saturday. I have been on the phone much of the afternoon getting a team together

The Ambulance Ramping crisis continues with 18 Ambulances at the Royal Adelaide waiting to be attended to. Whilst they are there, they are not available for any emergency. The photograph was taken by

18 ambulances with patients on board – waiting…….

an ambulance para-medic. But there you are – the most expensive hospital on the planet and it doesn’t work and it can’t cope. If a real medical crisis, where many people are affected,  ever hit Adelaide and South Australia, we would be well and truly stuffed.

Benji and I have been out and about. I took him back out to the lighthouse and then to the wetlands. Sometime over this weekend I really must get the model railway photographs sorted out. I take hundreds of photographs but am not the best of photographers.