I’M BACK…

Just popping in to let you know I am still here. Still unpacking stuff and trying to find stuff already unpacked. No need to waste money on a gym membership…I go up and down and round and round umpteen times a day just looking for things. Important things, like bathrooms and coffee and wine. (Mind you, I can usually locate the last two without much trouble!)

Some of you want to know about the “new” house. And the garden.

Let’s start with the garden cos that’ll be easy. There’s sod-all garden! some horrible, lumpy, weedy grass, more palms , a few hibiscus, a begonia and something I have yet to identify. It was ABSOLUTELY covered in scale and sooty mould. Leaf is similar to Gardenia, but not as “leathery.” No flowers so I’m in the dark on this. But I water-blasted most of the scale from the stems, scraped most of the leaves and sprayed with white oil (neem oil is one the items yet to be located!) so we’ll see…

Oh, there are some bromeliads and succulents (including a sharp one, slated for removal as it’s a danger to the eyes.)

A passion fruit vine was threatening the swimming pool so that was tidied and trimmed.Some sort of onions;probably spring onions gone a bit mad. One tomato plant with one tiny tomato. And two HUGE eucalypts in the front yard. One is E torelliana. which I know can be a brute, but it’s home to countless critters. The other Eucalypt is too tall for me to be sure what it is!

Let’s see if I can remember how to get photos up here…this is the view from about half way up the back yard.The pool fence is on the left (and you can see the passion fruit vine on the timber fence.) E. torrelliana is the big, rather “bushy” tree beyond the satellite dish. And beyond that is the tall, skinny eucalypt

And here’s Sporran, a bit pissed off that she has to be harnessed, but she’d be over the fence where some very snarly bull dogs live. Is she watching the dogs? Nah! She’s fascinated by the Kreepy Krawly pool scrubber!

I will have more photos to show you, but I thought I’d just jump the gun and be ahead of the game for the next Book On A Chair. See? Dinah got the smarts!

And now Dinah says it’s Happy Hour!

STILL EXPERIMENTING.

Dashing in to the office before I have to dash off to The Big City. But I shall need a fortifying breakfast first…my car goes in for service (and, actually, that sort-of bothers me as it’s a new car. What can possibly need “servicing”?) and I’ll have an entire morning fill.

While I was tinkering over at the Dark Side, Jon remarked that it was a bit like watching “Tomorrow’s World” with all sorts of experiments taking place.Live.Before the very eyes. Hmm…

Back after lunch m’dears.

Well, that was a harrowing morning! Competing radios, blasting from, it seemed, every shop doorway. I sat in the library, reading for a while until a very noisy dispute broke out in the creche area.Little kids could shatter glass.

But my car was ready to go by the time I walked back down the street and the harrowing morning is behind me.

One of the (many)  jasmines, a Trachelospermum jasminoides, scrambling up a tamarind tree. And if you look closely you can see a thick stem just behind the flower. That’s a vanilla orchid, also racing up the tamarind’s trunk.

One of many flower buds on a Syzygium wilsonii. I stopped counting after twenty-something!

And some cheerful sunflowers I bought when I collected Sporran from the vet where she’d been for some dental work.

That’s enough for now…domestic duties beckon.

ON THE SICK LIST AGAIN!

Sporran…

…when she was just a little pippin.

Now, almost two years old and still very  “girly” compared to her rumbunctious sister. And racing about on the artificial hip with (mostly) no problem.

But yesterday…I took her to see Dr.D.

Sporran here:  this is about me so I’ll tell the story,OK?

Dinah thought I was “not very well” so she stuffed me into that nasty box-with-the-locks and would not even give me a chance to explain that I was “really alright. Sort-of…”

Anyway, Dr. D. (who is a real cuddle man!) squeezed my tummy (!) and then he told Dinah that “this needle “ is a godsend as it delivers a 14 day dose so we don’t have to get 14 pills down them.”

And then he picked up this needle.

It was ENORMOUS! And he jabbed it into me!

Well, maybe I don’t need to have a pill every day, but man! if they come at me again with this needle I’ll show them my needles. I have a full working set. And don’t you forget it, mister!

Dinah: We’re hoping (and so far, so good) the antibiotic will do the trick. Chronic cystitis would be miserable for anyone and Sporran’s had more than enough drama already in her short life.

Why? How? Life is as much a lottery for cats as for us. She’s on a good (make that very good!) diet, as are the others. And I don’t feed her exclusively on dry biscuits. Hell! They fare better than us some days!

Anyway, today she is much perkier and has already chased several skinks, butterflies and her sister.

Dinah is muttering something  about dashing away with a smoothing iron. Personally, I think she ought to be getting dinner sorted, but sometimes human are difficult to train.

<This is me!

And this is me and her   >  

(And she’s drawn us too fat!)

And we are black! says Geiger