Grievances and first signs of Spring

Thursday to Sunday, August 16th to 19th

First thing I need to do is have a chat with the vet as the medications and instructions on how to administer them are not very clear at all. It turns out, that I need quite a few more pills. The vet is going to prepare everything and leave the parcel in her mailbox so I can pick it up.

She explains that there must have been some kind of infection and goes on to comment that Cameo's teeth are remarkably good and it wasn't coming from there. Interesting. I had been told that his teeth were totally rotted which I couldn't understand because just before leaving for overseas, I had the family at the vet's for their vaccinations and to be checked out and the verdict had been the same then: Cameo's teeth are remarkably good.

There had been other messages from the house sitter in which she berated me for the way the dogs were being fed, accusing me of feeding them all the wrong stuff to make Cameo so sick. Naturally, this was followed with a new diet plan she had devised, complete with strict instructions that I was to adhere to that in future.
Goodness me. Cameo had come to the ripe old age of 14+ years on my diet to become so very ill the moment my back was turned? Ridiculous.

Poor Cameo, he didn't think it ridiculous though! His mum disappears and the diet gets changed. Nothing was the same anymore. No wonder he wanted to throw in the towel. Life was just not worth living anymore.

I had also been told that Cameo could not get down the 2 back steps by himself anymore and that walking on the sand at the beach was too much for him.
When we leave to go for walks, he hops down those steps quite lightly and has no more problem getting into the car than he'd had before. He just needs a little bum-lift.
So far, so good.

We go to Randall's Bay Beach and Cameo has a wonderful time at the beach, walking on the sand, looking no worse than he had before.

That was a lot of negativity and unnecessary worry. Luckily, as far as the dog saga goes, all is well that ends well.

The sliding window that had been forced open shows only a crack in the top corner. However, the catch no longer catches and the window can now be slid open from the outside. That's a real worry.

I'll have to have that fixed rather sooner than later.

The house sitter did write in her notes that she had a spare key cut which she placed in the shed on a shelf - easily seen! Although I'm none too pleased about it, I don't bother saying anything. But when I go through the pile of receipts, I find that a second spare key had been cut two weeks later, a fact that she hadn't seen fit to mention. When I text her to ask what that was for, I get back some cock and bull story about how my locks are very hard and the keys very weak and so it broke and had to be replaced.  

That's funny, because I have always managed to turn my keys with just the fingertips of my arthritic little hands. To 'break' one such key would take at least a hacksaw and some considerable elbow grease. In other words, somebody has now a key to my house and I dread to think who it might be.

Ah well, looks like I'll have all the locks re-keyed as well.

But more of that later. The weather has been a little better the last couple of days and all around the place, there are first signs of spring to cheer me up.

Daffodils

Earlycheer Jonquils

Snapdragons

Forget-me-not

Gardenia under the bedroom window

Japanese Jasmine behind the hen house

More Jonquils and Daffodils behind the shed

Lily of the valley

Camelia buds

Small Grevillea

other small plants beside the hen house

It is related to proteas

Michaelmas Daisy

Emu Bush

Another Grevillea

Happy doggies waiting to go back inside after a lovely beach walk.

But wait, there is more. There are flowers in pots on the veranda.

Sweet William

Alyssum

On Sunday, the weather is so abominable that we stay home all day. We have a nice visitor this afternoon though.

And so ends my first week back home.

Emotional homecoming

Wednesday, August  15, 2018

The dear old suitcase just makes it home before the zip opens up completely. I'm so glad for that as I would have hated having to leave it behind somewhere and lose all the lovely stickers.

It is not the house sitter who picks me up  from the airport but the same dog walking friend who took me there 8 weeks ago. The house sitter wants to hire a car at the airport and go travelling Tasmania directly from there. Sure, why not. I could have coped with getting into my car on arrival and driving home, but that's not how things are organized. 

When I arrive, I find that the house sitter has left only moments before my plane touched down. She obviously didn't want to see me! As the story unfolds, I slowly begin to understand why she couldn't face me. 

Apparently, she managed to lock herself out of the house one evening and went for help to the nasty neighbour of all people, the one I had expressly told her not to have anything to do with. He took great delight in forcing my kitchen window open to get her back in. "Please don't get upset", begs my friend as she tells me about it.

However, my biggest worry is Cameo. On several occasions during my travels, I received messages from the house sitter telling me that he was extremely ill and probably wouldn't be alive on my return. Each time, these comments were accompanied by the offer to make the decision to have him put down if he got bad enough.

Each time, I emailed the vet and begged her to keep him alive as I thought he deserved to die in his mother's arms, not surrounded by strangers. Each time, I asked to skype with Cameo which was always met with some resistance, the excuse being that it would probably be to confusing for him.

Luckily, I persisted and the vet did her best. Every time Cameo heard me speaking to him, he perked up and got a little better again.

The last time this happened was while I was in Sri Lanka and then in transit and news couldn't reach me which made my journey a tad traumatic. I was quite resigned to the possibility that I might have to come home, say hello and goodbye to Cameo. That was one reason why I couldn't settle on the flight from Bangkok to Melbourne, too much crying at the prospect of having to take him to the vet to be put down the moment I arrived. 

However, at some point, a flight attendant handed me a card for free WiFi connection and since I couldn't sleep, I thought, what the heck and connected the mobile phone and what pops up but yet another photo of Cameo out walking.

After all that, it is no wonder I can't wait to get home and see my babies. 

The joy is great when I walk through the door and see Cameo sitting up on the sofa looking for all the world as if he'd known I'd be here any moment now. 

There is just a little bit of uncertainty during the afternoon as I am working on unpacking my luggage. Mother is doing something with those dratted suitcases again. Who knows, she might just get spirited away again. Everybody is holding their breath, especially Cameo who makes it his mission to follow me around - every step I take.

Cameo keeping an eye on me

Teepee doing some very energetic tail wagging

Lucky following me around

Mitzi being watchful

Lisa, Hanni, Janet and Mary
Yes, even the girls are happy to see me.

When I finally get to sit on the sofa, all four fur babies pile up on me or beside me. I'm being besieged.

At bedtime, I drag a mattress into the bedroom and put it beside the bed for Cameo who can't get up onto the bed. Everybody else piles up on the bed.

And that's exactly where everybody still is when I wake up in the morning.

It's good to be welcomed home so warmly.

A hectic few weeks

May 2018

Just when I thought I was getting my strength back, I had to go and hurt my already bad knee. Now, I have to spend more time visiting doctors and physiotherapists. The best thing that comes out of this silly little accident is the fact that I discover hydrotherapy classes that have just started in a private pool in Cygnet.

Thankfully, I recover pretty quickly, as I usually do. After all, I can't let a little thing like that get in the way of enjoying life.

Not exactly smelling this flower, but discovered its vibrant colour. It is not something I planted, but it is pretty, so it can stay.

Periwinkle by the fence

We are having some wild weather at times, even a full day without electricity. In my case that means nothing works in the house except the gas cook top which I can ignite with the help of a match.

Unfortunately, the weather has turned pretty cold and the central heating is not working as both the ignition as well as the pump run on electricity.

Looking at the moody weather from Sandrock Point

There are always things flowering indoors as well, like my beloved Mona Lavender. I used to call it Jesus plant because in the beginning it seemed to flower around Christmas and again around Easter. But it has been growing so vigorously that regular pruning has become necessary. Now it just flowers all the time.

My unstoppable Mona Lavender

Somebody gave me a little plant that looks quite different from the Mona Lavender, but here it is suddenly producing little flowers that look quite the same. They must be related.

Another indoor plant flowering. Perhaps a relative of the Mona Lavender.

After one particularly bad storm that caused a lot of damage and flooding in and around Hobart, the beach at Randall's Bay is quite littered with seaweeds, kelp, drift wood

even quite a lot of rather large trees and all sorts of other debris like those interesting

empty shells. They are called  heart shaped sand urchins  and live in many parts of the world. Click on the link to read more about them.

For a few days, the beach is also littered with apples that have been swept away from an orchard in the Huon Valley.

One Monday, we're leaving home in thick fog to go visiting the blind lady in Snug Village. By the time we leave and go down to the Snug river, the fog is just lifting, but still hiding the hills across the bay, making these boats look like ghost vessels.

The fog has completely cleared over the river itself and we can have a very pleasant walk in the sun.

The picture in Kingston is very different. The bush track is so badly flooded, that we have to turn around and give it a miss.

The beach itself is virtually non-existent. Somebody has cut up the trees that had swept in and stacked the logs on top of each other making them look like aliens. Pity about the lovely sunny day and no beach to walk on.

A week later, we can have a walk again. But it is not as it used to be. From the bush track, we have to come down over the dunes to get to what little beach there is. After a few moments of bewilderment, the children get the idea and enjoy themselves trudging through the debris.

And at the end of this little adventure we have lunch in town - Nachos, something we can all share.

At Randall's Beach, mother nature is doing a good job cleaning up the mess she left the other day. The seagulls are just sitting there, bobbing along. Perhaps it's too windy for them to make the effort to fly.

At home, the little garden by the hen house is coming along nicely 

and the Daphne under the bedroom window is  starting to flower. If the weather was any warmer, I might even be able to smell the heavenly scent.

The lemon tree is just starting to bud up again too, and just the other day, I 'harvested' the last of the two figs! Can't wait for the fig trees to produce more.

June 2018

Besides all of this, I have also been very busy organizing my next big adventure. I have all the tickets and the house sitter arrives in two days from now.

Check out my special travel blog:

Around the World in 56 days

See you back here in August.