Rotten rampant rodents!!!

Oh those little wretches know how to get at me!!!   Just when I think I have found all their little tricks, they spring another one on me.  

I picked up a bag of documents relating to the caravan and paper fluttered out like confetti.  There has been evidence of nest building in a few places, most notably MY PYJAMA DRAWER.   They (or IT)  ate a big hole in a pink pyjama top.  I'll make them/it suffer for that, if it's the last thing I do!!

The Moree mice and the Milnes Bridge mice have one similarity.  They both love the cutlery and utensils drawer!   I've taken everything out, washed and poured boiling water over all the tools but I expect to do that again and again, if it follows the pattern from Milnes Bridge.  There, I have reached the stage where I never expect to use the drawer again.

At least we have caught ONE mouse.  Steve went out  and bought extra traps today.  Now that should be insurance that there aren't any more mice!!

Marion minded Jackie Bear while I was away.  She returned her tonight, saying that she had been a naughty, 87 year old bear, very cheeky!    Marion has been particularly helpful to me but had a bunch of troubles of her own, while I was away.  She had no sooner returned from helping one daughter with her 4 little kids, than another daughter's husband was taken away by air ambulance, with a heart attack.

We were in the pool before 9am today, revelling in the warm water.  There weren't the usual number of people because it was pouring rain!!   Swimming in the rain is one of my childhood memories.   It was a determined, ceaseless rain, giving us a little over an inch, but it wasn't "hard rain", just non-stop gentle rain.

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Back home in Moree

Since the funeral, we have been working hard to sort out Betty's things and find an appropriate home for them.  Most of this has happened.  Then Steve started on the will and this has now gone off to the Supreme court for approval.  It costs nearly $400 to die!!   If approved, it will come back in 6 weeks for signature.  About 12 weeks later, "the parchment" will arrive and then Steve can distribute the money.

We caught two mice in traps, just before we left for Melbourne!!

Our trip to Melbourne, for Tatum's 21st was wonderful but we came home the day after, Monday, repacked suitcases and boxes and I had a massage on Tuesday and then we were off on Wednesday.   We stayed one night on the road, in a $60 motel in West Wyalong.  Steve was very eager to keep the wheels rolling so we travelled all day Thursday and arrived here around 8 pm.

And you'll never guess what!!!!!!!!

Mice had been in the cupboards here.

SOB SOB SOB SOB SOB

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Key of the Door

Tatum, our eldest Grandchild, turned 21 on August 21st.

She had the night before out with her friends and a lunch on Sunday with family and family friends.

 Here is Tatum, ready to go out on Saturday night.

We arrived in Melbourne on Friday and were ready, willing and able to do whatever was necessary to help.

On Saturday afternoon, we took Indy, seven, shopping and after about an hour in the Body Shop, he finally made his choices.  He had about $50 to spend and wanted to get as much as he could for his money.  The shop assistants fawned over him!!  They called him by name and fell over each other to bring products to his attention.  His major purchase was a container of 5 eye shadows, which he liked because they were in a wave shape.  By the time he gave them to Tatum the next day, they had become "5 perfumes that you can also put on your eyes."

We spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning until 2.30am with Rachel. She has made me laugh since she was a tiny child and this long stint of cooking was no exception.  She has a 'can do' attitude to everything, (which is helped along by experience.)  The heart shaped cake was a challenge but she decided that it would be the size of 3 normal cakes and went for that.  Disaster soon came when she tried to use her 21 year old electric hand beaters to beat the vast amount of mixture.  First there was heat and then smoke and finally they gave up.   Here we were with a lumpy mountain of dough for the white chocolate cake ------ HELP PLEASE STEVE.  He mixed by hand until his arm muscles were quivering.

With the cake in the oven for the next 2 hours or so, we turned our attention to other goodies, one of which was the famous "cake pop".   Not difficult to make but fiddly and time consuming, we laughed our way through a batch of what someone called "diabetes on a stick."

Rachel had chosen a shoe for the cake decoration as Tatum is a 'Shoe Queen.'  Oh boy!!! She had already made the sole, modelled on a real shoe, so we worked on strapping over the toe, a bow and the heel.    It was such fun, even though we were so tired that we got our words mixed up.  The stiletto heel was proving quite difficult, so I called for Steve.  He measured carefully and used his excellent eye to get the right angle and shape.

Making the bow was probably the best part.  It came together like a real bow.  We packed the loops with Glad Wrap to keep them open.

We fell into bed at 2.30am, half an hour before Tatum arrived home from her night out.  What I didn't know is that Rachel set her alarm and was up again by 5am and working on salads.  What a champion!

When Talitha, Maddy and Josh arrived, the amount of food increased hugely.  They had been busy bees!  Talitha and Rachel have always worked well together for catering but now we have Madeleine as well, who is a very capable cook.

Click for a slideshow of captioned photos or watch small version below.

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Dreams

Last night I dreamt that I took Betty to a large conference of doctors.  She and I stood on stage while questions were asked of her.  I did the answering because her voice was too soft.  We were given a folder and told that it was private;  the doctors were not allowed to see it.  This seemed so unfair to me.  What if the folder contained information that could have cured Betty?  So, as we walked out, I tucked the folder under my arm and we went in search of her doctor.  Naturally, my dream didn't have an end .... we didn't find her doctor.

I think it was an indication of the thoughts that have run in the back of my mind.  As I recall, Betty was 47 when she was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.  She was diligent about blood testing, food preparation and counting "portions" which was the method of that time.  She had a couple of hospitalisations when the blood tests were too high, where they adjusted her medication, checked on her food and made her walk the corridors of the hospital for exercise.  For the next 30 years, nothing else was done except for regular blood tests, yet her kidneys were slowly and  irrevocably damaged.

Forgive me for thinking of myself and Steve, but we don't want to do nothing but have blood tests for the next 30 years.  We need to know what we should do instead.  I need to know what possibilities, if any, were not offered to Betty.  I guess that's what underlies my "doctor's conference" dream.

By the way, Marion tells me that she has trouble reading when I use RED.  Anyone else?

 

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Dare I ?????

It's a mouse story again.....

When Andrew arrived before the funeral, he was a bit jet lagged so we stayed up talking until late and he was sleepy.

In the morning, he told me this story.   At some stage during the night, he put his hand under his pillows and guess what he found?????   

There were two.   Old and withered up.   The sheets had been changed and the beds made before we left for Moree.   As there were no mice evident throughout the house, I didn't think to check the beds. 

Poor Andrew!!!  He leapt out of bed and spent the rest of the night in a single bed.  Fortunately, that was also made up and even happier, it had no mice in it but he gave it a good inspection first. 

We had four more visitors after Andrew and we whipped the sheets back on those beds before we let anyone in!!

A visitor noticed one little chappie dart across the dining room while we were eating.  Steve set traps.  One day, we came home and the trap behind the fire was missing.  Steve had already experienced a mouse dragging the trap away, at his Mother's, so he went looking.  No sign of mouse or trap.  A few days later, we were making the bed.  Steve pulled the bed away from the wall and found the trap and mouse.  The mouse was dead BESIDE the trap,  It was no longer in it.   I don't even want to think about that.  My aim is to trap them so that they die immediately, not to torture them.  It travelled about 4 metres to reach the bedhead.

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The spirit lingers

Each night at seven, I go to ask Steve if he has rung her, or will I ring tonight.  I've been on the point of going around to her flat to ask how to look after the hoya plant.  After reading letters from Aunty Grace, I was going to tell Betty how funny Grace was and ask about some people mentioned.  And so on it goes......... 

I've never thought it could be possible for someone's inner spirit to disappear at the moment they died and Betty's spirit is certainly hanging around.   That's good for us.   Unless, of course we become frustrated if we can't hear her answers.

A funny moment -----  Whilst cleaning out the flat we found a mean looking dagger and a loud sounding whistle in a bedside drawer.  Betty was not a big woman and in recent years was quite frail.  The thought of her leaping out of bed to menace an intruder with the dagger, while blowing her whistle, is too funny!!

We had a lovely break from funeral affairs on Wednesday.  It was Indy's 7th birthday and we went down to Melbourne for an overnight stay.   Rachel had a student and Talitha had two, so we stayed in a motel that Rachel organised.  It was an interesting layout --- the large public dining room was overlooked by a semi circle of bedrooms and conference rooms on the floor above.  We breakfasted there in the morning; it was a fine array of fruit, cereal, bagels, croissants and juices, plus sausages, bacon, tomatoes, eggs and hash browns in hot boxes.

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And now it's over ......

We were happy with the funeral, which was conducted by Debbie's civil celebrant friend, Nerelie.   Steve and Andrew spoke very well and most people expressed their approval.  Kim, a granddaughter, said a few moving words.  It was a lovely gathering of people ---- family galore, old friends and some friends from new pursuits, like the Library.  I think that Betty would have approved of the simple but dignified  informality.  She would have been amazed at the large number of people who attended.  Most people came back to the Leitchville Complex for "the wake", which was catered for by the Leitchville Anglican Ladies Guild.  What an amazing job they did.  That was a good couple of hours for people to mix, chatter and debrief.

The rest of this week was taken up with cleaning out Betty's flat.  No one would ever have thought that such a small flat could hold so much!   There were a few surprises.  We all knew that Betty made many notes, particularly in her later years when her memory was failing.  We just didn't know that she made so many!!!  Little messages were everywhere -- letters that she was planning on writing to us, instructions on how to operate the computer, notes to remind herself of something to do, but best of all -- some beautiful, romantic pieces of poetry.

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