A house sitter, a holiday and a stint in hospital

My house sitter Stephanie duly arrived just after the painting was finished and the furniture was in place.

After quickly showing her the ropes, I took myself off to Mackay for a bit of rest and recreation with my friends Waltraud and Brian and their pets.

If that's not R&R, I don't know what is.

After a glorious week with them, I stopped over in Sydney for a couple of days for a bit of a catch up with Amal, Diana, John and Rena before coming back home.

Still in holiday mode, I took Stefanie over to Bruny Island for a day out.

As always, the dogs were part of the outing and enjoyed some cheese tasting with us.

Stephanie had to run up to the light house by herself as there were too many cars for the sparse parking spaces and I had to stay with the car to keep moving it as other cars left or arrived.

The weather was absolutely glorious

November 30 arrived and I had to go to hospital for a back operation.

I couldn't leave home without first taking some photos in the garden.

It was a very hot day, but I didn't notice the heat much as they kept me pretty cool for the operation.

After a few days in hospital, I was moved to rehabilitation where I spent another few days doing physiotherapy and walking the corridors as well as the foot path outside.

Visitors came bearing gifts like flowers, fruit, chocolate and even wine. I lived like God in France.

And then one day, house sitter Stephanie arrived with Cameo and Teepee.

That was a very special day indeed.






























Cameo, in his usual laid back kind of way, settled at my feet once he had established that was where I was hiding, confident that I would soon return to them.

Poor Teepee was very excited to see me and also grateful for having been brought in to see me. She kept running between Stephanie and myself, dishing out her affectionate licks evenly.

A couple of days later, they all came to pick me up. Naturally, we had to stop in Kingston at the beach for a walk.

Stephanie stayed on for a couple more days, taking care of things and helping me settle in. Then she returned to Canada for a white Christmas with her family.

Then I had to rely on some very kind friends to take us for walks and deliver some shopping.

There was some home help organized for me - for one hour a week which was not much, but better than nothing.

We had a couple of very quiet days without walks as it was Christmastime and my friends had other commitments.

One friend breezed in with this heavenly Christmas present. Oh my, they were lovely.

For the first time in my life, I didn't stay up to watch the fireworks on TV on New Year's Eve. I still had to do plenty of resting.