I am sorry that I have been rather a poor blogger and commenter lately. I have been busy beyond the realms of normality. I am just about to go on a 1000k trip to my mother's to pack up her house. She is moving from her long term home into a unit in a retirement village near where I live. She is getting very frail, has severe rheumatoid arthritis and is getting very anxious and she needs to be closer than 1000k to family. It is going to be hard work, a life time to sort out and tactfully dispose of….and very hot 45 degree C last time I looked *sigh* I do not like heat and that sort of heat while cleaning out a shed is going to be not at all pleasant. However I comfort myself that getting this done means I will never have to go back there again. *praise be!!!* I can scarcely express how much I do not like ridiculous amounts of heat! An aversion formed young no doubt as I grew up in Darwin…hot and dry or hot and wet but always hot. Suffice it to say I do not live there now! Fortunately my best beloved can come to so solace will be at hand, or at least some one I can whinge too. Being English he like the heat about as much as me. So I will be gone and internet-less for about a month. I can feel the withdrawal starting already. I may not have been commenting or posting but I have been reading. I am taking the laptop and will try to write and I’ll post some stuff on return. Meanwhile, thanks so much to those kind people who sent me some snowflakes recently, I really needed them, it was 36C here at the time and we are very concerned about the fire risk. I wish you all a merry, safe and hopefully cool Christmas and I will try to lift my act next year!

(picture fromhttp://www.funnyzone.org/funny/funny-mouse-pictures/)
 

I have managed to do some damage to my rotor cuff and as a result the physio has said no more right handed mousing (amongst other things).  I had figured this out myself because it really hurts to use the mouse now.  So started using the mouse left handed and that has been a workout for my brain I can tell you.  I seem settled in know.  I did try swapping the mouse buttons, like left handed folk do but I found it made it more confusing.  I have now bought a new keyboard at work that has a built in touch pad.  This I have always liked them in my laptops , although I have never heard anyone else say this.  It has taken some getting use to.  It is a matter of changing long standing habits.  I am also making sure I learn more key commands as it cut out both mouse and touch pad.  Anyway I have found the whole thing challenging.  It has made a difference to the shoulder and arm.  The physio has said this problem is probably not going to go away , it is a matter of controlling is, cutting out the movements that cause trouble and learning to do things differently.  *sigh*

Better late than never…I hope you all had a little (or a lot) of love on St Valentines day. And what says this better than ferrets?

I regret to announce a very sad loss. The original Warrior of Chook of the Tablelands is dead. We returned home to find a scattering of feathers in the garden and no more Warrior Chook. We think it was a chicken hawk. She knew that she was not allowed in the garden. We only had to work out and she would bolt, but she was always a rebel and snuck in.  The garden is large and exposed with no hiding places, so her greed and rebellious nature lead to her demise *sigh*. 

We have had many chooks over the years and she is the only one who ever rated a title. We tried to work out how old she was.  She must have been 8 or so which is OLD for a chook. This may have been why she got got after all these years. 

She was the only chook we have ever had that actually had a personality. She was dubbed the Warrior Chook of the Tablelands when she was the only chook of a flock of 15 to survive a series of fox attacks one year. For a long time we did not have any other chooks, just ducks and the warrior chook. During this time she developed a deep hatred of ducks and devised fiendish ways of making life hard for them; a cunning and vindictive chook.  She was also smart. This is not common in chooks. For example when SO feds the chooks he dumps the scraps in the yard and then takes the bucket to the feed shed, gets the feed and goes and fills the feeder. While the other chooks were going nuts fighting over the scraps the warrior chook would follow SO to the shed and wait to the bucket was full and then jump in the bucket and gobble the feed on the walk back to the yard. Smart. 

She was also a good friend of Te Man and was photographed with him several times. The nature of their relationship has always been a well kept secret.

Anyway she has gone to that great coup in the sky. Farwell.

It’s the 16 days of activism to stop violence against woman. (Sort of trips of the tongue don’t it? ) Well we have all been busy little activists. Info stalls in public places, we have installed a "healthy relationships" picnic table in a park, I was on the radio and another service manager on the TV news, new s releases etc…But the bestest thing has been the Healthy Relationship Art exhibition. We put out brochures, arranged with a for real art gallery to have an exhibition, scraped together cash for a small people’s choice prize and hoped to heaven some people would submit art. We have over 30 pieces! A real mix of amateur and semi-professional, polished and on butchers paper (all had to be “hangable”) but a great varied little show. The art gallery is pleased because we are dragging so many people through the place. Today a group of women danced at the gallery, their expression of relationships. All quiet positive and not too much work!

Because I”ve been so slack with posts I thought I would do a meme.

 Snitched from torenheksje

 WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Marion Teresise

NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad )
Steven Fredrick

STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
Bucaro 

DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color, fav animal)
Green Lizard??

SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
Louise Moree

SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav alcoholic drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Indigo Gin and Tonic (I sure as hell would not want assistance from this dude)

FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Cass  (alright)

GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie):
Caramel  Anzac

ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Zena Fleetwood

PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Toffee Queen (OMG)

I wanted to take this opportunity to clear up some misapprehensions some people may have.  I notice the very free use of such terms as “That’s a pile of sh*t” and “That’s a crock of sh*t” as if the two were interchangeable.  I am uniquely placed to clarify

I have no understand about why I felt moved to share this….

I can not believe it but it is 32 years today! I look at the picture of that young woman and wonder if it could have been me! Was I ever that young.  But it is and he is still right here too! I just hope this chook and her BB (best beloved) make another 32 years *sigh*