Tag: Officer Cadets

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.

Traveling again / warm to cold weather

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The drive to Adelaide was uneventful – a good drive in warm to hot weather. The car played up a little bit but then it seemed to sort itself out and was ok for much of the weekend. I did get to the new Pet Supply Shop that I had seen on my last visit and I did manage to get a collapsible silicone water bowl for Benji. This can stay in my bag for when we go out and the weather is warm and he needs a drink. I hope we get use of  it because considering the cost, we need to get lots of water in it. Generally, when I am heading to Mount Gambier, I stay in

Grain Silos at Coonalpyn

Adelaide at South Terrace, but due to a change it times I decided to push through to Murray Bridge and stayed there for the night.  The meeting didn’t start until 12 noon so in essence I had  four hours to get from Murray Bridge to Mount Gambier – too easy  ( HA!!)   The problem is that the GPS told me one thing – like the distance and the time needed to get there, what it does not tell me is road conditions, small towns all along the way that require speed reductions, fuel stop, and I got there in time to grab a drink before the meeting began.  This is the first time I have tried going via Murray Bridge  and I found it stressful to worry about time whilst driving. I should spend time thinking about the meeting- not the time it’s taking me to drive there. You are probably thinking that I am going senile in that I have driven to Mount Gambier often enough in the last few years, I should know all these little places.   Yes – that’s very true, but then I was driving to  Mount Gambier  and it  wasn’t an issue – this time I was driving to a timetable and that was an issue because these places were causing me to slow down and that was taking up time. Anyway, that’s it for M.G until May of 2018. The next meeting will be in Adelaide in February.

The Remembrance Service at the Memorial was quite different this year in that it was attended by over 200 Officer Cadets from the Defense Force Academy who are here to  complete live exercises as the final set of exercises before they return to Canberra for their final exams. I was not at the service, but I was told all about it when I arrived back home.

A number of farming towns have organised an artist to paint their grain silos. Coonalpyn was the first in South Australia and depicts the youth of the town. Other areas are taking this idea up but as far as I am aware it is not a cheap option and there’s not a lot of change from $85,000.

Relaxing on the swing.

Yogi has settled in back at home. I spoke to  Jim and he tells me that Yogi was just a bit stressed. Odd because he’s been here a few times and he has always been fine. But he is getting older and that could be a factor, but he and Benji get on well together.  Last time he was here, the WaWa was still with us, so perhaps he missed the WaWa. On the subject of the WaWa – never heard a  word from Sooah after she and her husband left with the dog.

Since I came back from Mount Gambier the weather has been cold, wet and windy – wind not so much, but definitely  cold and wet. We had a good week of really nice warm weather but that’s well and truly gone for the time being.   I know you can have an “Indian Summer” but can you have an “Indian Winter”?   The Cadets are out and about and yesterday evening I  was blocked from going on my walk with Benji and had to come back and go a different way – they were undertaking an exercise. I understand there was a “car explosion”and the  “Army”was deployed to secure the area – not that we got to see much because the area was blocked off.

This afternoon I have an appointment with my Cardiologist , so that should take a good part of the afternoon – drive to the hospital, have ECG, wait , wait, go, ten minutes with  himself, leave, take Annabell to library.  Quiet afternoon, really. Not that I could do much outside – too  cold. Still summer and warm weather can’t be too far away.