Nelson Bay is not the same when it is wet.

Hi............I'm back after a couple of months rest. I shouldn't say rest because it has been quite hectic and nerve racking and I haven't felt up to putting words on paper.

This is a photo of the Dancing Ten (although there is only nine now). It was taken at the Hogs Breath Cafe at Nelson Bay where we had our six monthly get together and stayed overnight at the Nelson Bay Lodge. Our 2 monthly meetings at Raymond Terrace became a bit of a chore as we are all getting on now so we decided to do overnights 6 monthly instead.

I was looking forward to taking the track to Dutches Beach and having a swim but the skies opened up and down came the rain and that was the end of that.

Tony's Brother and sister in law, Kenneth and Sheila are coming to Sydney next Thursday for 5 days. It is Kenneth's birthday on Friday so, guess what, we are going to Zacs. On Saturday, for his birthday, we are taking him on a seafood Harbour Cruise and on Sunday we are having a family BBQ.

Do you like our little frog? We found him sitting on our front window but we didn't invite him in.

This weekend we are off to the annual volunteer dinner at Wesley Mission in the city. Hopefully we won't have a heat wave like last year on this day. We will also be able to have a look at the David Jones Christmas Windows.

What .....is it only 37 days until Christmas? Where did the other 328 go?

We will do the Kris Kringle draw at the BBQ on Sunday.

Only a short blog today until I get into the swing of things.

Happy Birthday Jake

Jake is really into dinosaurs. We took him to Kids Playland for his Birthday but all day long he was waiting to have his dinosaur cake his Mum made. He was so excited about all the dinosaurs.

When a garden's not a garden.

We went to our friendly neighbour bowling club at Northmead on Saturday night for a Christmas in July dinner. I was never keen on the interception of Christmas in July and think it should be called "Winterfest". Some of our card friends asked us to come along so we did in spite of the fact the Tigers were playing that night. Anyway the people who run the restaurant at the club are Chinese and I don't know if they were quite sure what a typical Christmas in July dinner was but they tried their best. They served Chicken and Pork (without the apple sauce much to my disgust) and Chocolate Muffins with custard (which I left as I was looking forward to the plum pudding). Despite the disappointment with the dinner we had a good night with lots of dancing.
To my surprise the next day my knees were ok and I could move around. I managed during the night to go into the other room where the screens were and watch the end of the Tigers match with Peter, one of our friends who is also a tigers fan.

Tebbut Lodge news...... Last week we arranged a garden bed in a pattern and planted some different types of flowers. This week we were told my the Manager that we had to dig them all up and plant them somewhere else and this patch was to be lawn and not a garden. So Robert and Thomas dug them up and we replanted them. Although I don't know how they are going to go after their poor start.
I manage to type up a bit of Ron's book on Sunday and discussed some of the pages with him today. There are quite a few spelling and grammer corrections I have to make as I go along. I think I need Melissa to do some editing. I will send her some of the book shortly.
Trivia gets a good turn up these days. I think it may be the chocolates I hand out afterwards. Even the ones that have been asleep seem to wake up at handout time.

A new novel

I should be rather busy for the next few weeks .... months. One of the residents of Tebbutt Lodge who has written a book has asked me to type out the 400 pages for him. The title is "The Dream of Oscar Wilde". I haven't read any of it yet but David read the first couple of pages last night and said it didn't keep his interest. Then again it mightn't be the type of book of interest to David. Ron said he wasn't in a hurry for it as he had been waiting a year already. On the front cover it says "Should I die before this work is published and the family is not interested in its progress, please hand over to Tebbutt Lodge for publication and royalties". I most likely will start it tomorrow.

Diane and John were thrilled with the engagement card I gave them and said, of course, you
are invited to the wedding. They have not settled on a date as yet.


Jake turns 2 next Thursday and he is having a Birthday afternoon tea with lots of dinosaurs.

A few days in the Mid West

Here I am blogging again. I have to be in the mood to write and lately I have been distracted with other things. One reason being a jigsaw puzzle which is now finally completed. It's amazing you can spend hours looking for one piece, you give it a break for a day or so come back and pick up the piece you found so hard to find.

Also we had a break in Mudgee this week which was very relaxing. The accommodation was brilliant and worth 5 stars. We went with our friends we met on our New Zealand trip, Peter and Gina and we all got on fabulously. Only don't go there on a Monday or Tuesday as everything is closed those days. Despite this, we found a couple of wineries and attractions open and managed to polish off a couple of tasty cheese platters.

The great granddaughter of the original owner Dr Lester, who built the Federation house where we stayed, had purchased this house about 10 years ago when it came up for auction. Apparently it had been sold some years back and had been doctor's surgeries and when the previous owner purchased it she spent quite a lot of money turning it into a B & B but never completed it as she was charged with embezzlement and the bank put the house up for auction. Hence, Robbie the granddaughter, who had her eye on the place for some time and wanted it in back in the family. They certainly did a good job of restoring it to its original condition. We were in the East Wing and had the Red Queen Room and our friends had the Blue Queen Room. Our hosts, Robbie and Errol, were magnificent and made us feel welcome with all the comforts we could ask for.

About 16 kms away was a town called Gulgong. It looked like one of the towns out west in the US. This town is famous and is called the Ten Dollar Town as its picture was featured on the original Ten Dollar Note. But of course, being Tuesday, there was not some many things open. So we carried on to another winery with magnificent views. Our next couple of days away will most likely be Wollongong or Orange.

Last Sunday Kerry-Ann, Felise, Jake and myself took a trip to Thirlmere Heritage Railway for a Day out with Thomas the Tank Engine. However we did not ride on Thomas but another one of his friends, called Donald and boarded this on a heritage-listed 1880s railway station called Sodar. There were over 40 locomotives and 80 carriages on display in the Museum. Our favourite was the goal train. After a picnic lunch and some serious fun on the jumping castle we took 2 tired little bunnies home but not forgetting to stop and play for 5 minutes at Grandma's as Felise had wanted to do.

I have had a couple of weeks off Tebbut Lodge ...reason being first week I looked after Felise and Jake and second week I was in Mudgee. Will have to prepare my trivia tomorrow as I know they will all be looking forwarded to it. Especially the newly engaged couple, Diane and John who are my no 1 fans. Their wedding will be a first at the Lodge.

Tony has gone to the footy today and taken a Warriors supporter in my place and this has allowed me to catch up on some important "me time". I will be watching the tigers play in a moment and if they can beat Manly they will be in second place on the ladder.

Home Alone ......in the Dark

Well here I am home alone. I find myself having conversations with my dog Pinto. Only good thing is he listens to me and doesn't answer my back. Only bad thing is he barks every now and then and gives me a fright. We both have to go to the door or window and look out to see if anyone is sneaking around. Also he wanders into bed before I do and leaves me up alone.

Tony is in Perth until the 3oth of this month with granddaughter Amy. They are dividing their time up between his brother, Kenneth in the North and daughter, Catherine and grandchildren in the south. The South Sydney team just happens to be playing a game against the Melbourne Storm over there and they will all be attending the game as Catherine and Jazmin are rabbitoe fans..

Just before going to play euchre at the club on Monday night I was washing up and I had just turned the insinkerater on when everything went pitch black. First I thought someone had turned the power off and I was a bit frightened (I have seen too many movies). I felt my way into the laundry where there is a large torch and went outside to see if anybody else's power was off but all there lights were on. I checked out power box and there was one switch that said off. This wasn't one of the usual ones that turn off so I gather it must be the main switch. When I turned it back on (or should I say George our neighbour turned it on as I didn't want to blow up the house) it went back off again. I then realised it must have been the insinkerater that was faulty and I hadn't turn its switch off. When I did this the power switch stayed on. I now have to get a plumber to look at the insinkerator. I would like to get rid of this anyway and get a normal sink as I have always hated it. As for euchre I don't know why I turned up this week as I only won 1 game, my worst night ever......although the company was good.

What beautiful weather we had on Sunday. I caught the M2 bus into the city and met Kerry, Michael and the children and we went to the Museum of Sydney and the Botanical Gardens. I hadn't been to this museum before and found it quite interesting. It was grandparents day and they had a live 3 piece band and singer which was a bit much for Felise as she doesn't like loud music so we were unable to watch them. At the moment they also have an exhibition about the depression years and I plan to go back with Tony and have a more detailed look as it was a bit hard to see everything with the children.

Freddo frogs went down well at trivia today.

Welcome home David

David returned on Monday from his travels and after a couple of days to recover has returned to work today. I am looking forward to seeing his photos and hearing his tales.

Yesterday at Tebbutt Lodge there was a concert in the afternoon and I was sitting there watching one of the residents, Lisabeth, dancing around to the music, with a couple of biscuits down shoved down her bra saved from morning tea. She used to be a dancer in her bygone days and well the biscuits I had made a mistake of giving to her as that's what she does with them. I began thinking about life and what happens when you get old and unable to care for yourself.
She seemed happy enough dancing around in her own little world but I began to get tears in my eyes thinking this could be me one day. Just then I was interrupted by Billy who wanted me to take him back to his room. On the way to his room he began crying and saying he was going to fall down as he thought we were lost an unable to find his room. I calmed him down and told him we were nearly there and we eventually made it and I told him to have a little nap. Billy is one of the residents that came from the hostel at Glebe which closed down and is taking a little bit of time to adjust to his new home.
That was the second person yesterday I had to take back to their room. In the morning Barbara had asked would I take her as she wanted to use the toilet. She uses a walking frame and it must have taken about 15mins to get there. However, the cleaners hadn't been into her room to clean it yet and when I saw her bathroom I had to go and get one of the PCs as it was so disgusting I couldn't go in.
As the concert was in the afternoon I decided to do Trivia in the morning. I told them some one line jokes which made them all laugh. Even Nellie was answering questions, even if they were a bit cynical. There was such a big turn up and I realised why. It was because last time I had given out chocolates. I promised them I would bring some next time.

Michael is spending 10 days in New Zealand so last weekend Kerry-Ann, Felise and Jake slept over at our place. Kerry-Ann had to work on Saturday so we took Felise and Jake to North Rocks shops to have coffee with Nora. However, Nora didn't turn up and had forgotten about it completely even though we only spoke to her the night before. Anyway we meet up with Burne and Jan who happened to be going to have coffee and joined them.