If only I had a Pool Boy...

If Desperate Housewives, 90210, CSI Miami (that one I actually DO watch), etc., etc. are to be believed, clearly nobody in the good ole US of A looks after their own pool, so why should I have to? Where is my pool boy?

Seriously though, it's not all that hard to maintain a pool... The truth is that we don't actually use our pool much - we'd be lucky to swim in it 2 or 3 times a year - so it does seem like all we do is clean and maintain and spend money on the upkeep, without getting any of the benefits. I know this will change when Cheyenne learns to swim. At present, she will not put her face in the water at home (completely opposite to how she is at swimming lessons, where she spends most of her time under water) because she does not like the colour, shape or depth of our pool. It's not the same as the one at swimming lessons, you see.
Newsflash: Cheyenne, we are NOT selling our house just to buy another one that has a shallower, rectangular pool, painted white. Get used to it!
In fact, Steve is continually saying that our "next house will not have a pool!" Sorry? I wasn't aware we were thinking of selling up...

Obviously, Steve has a bit of a negative attitude towards the pool. Not sure why exactly. Maybe it's because of it being a slight drain on the finances, maybe he just has to have something to complain about... In the eight years we've been here, we've had to replace the pump and we have also upgraded our old dual cartridge filter to a nice new (lower maintenance) sand filter. Then there's the Barracuda. You may remember the dorky slogan - "Barracuda. It's a pool cleaner, not a fish." Yes, there have been numerous replaced sections of Barracuda hose (at $15 a length), at least 3 Barracuda diaphragms (around $30 each), a new weighted collar, and a new skirt (the rubbery bit on the bottom that sort of sucks in the debris and holds the Barracuda on the bottom of the pool - that was about $80 I think), but you have to keep in mind that's over eight years, so not really overly expensive!
Generally his conversations about the pool go something like this, "Stupid bloody pool, the Barracuda's not working again, there's always something wrong with it, more money to be spent, and we never use it, blah blah blah... gonna buy some dirt and fill it in!"
So you'd think, the way he carries on, that he's the one doing all the work, right? Wrong!

Since he's the one with the full-time job, naturally the job of maintaining the pool falls to the person with all the time in the world to do it in - me. Not to say he doesn't do some of it on weekends, but more often than not I'm the one taking the water sample to the pool shop to be tested, I'm the one adding the pool acid, stabiliser or salt (or all three, depending on the water test results), I'm the one raking leaves out and removing palm fronds, and removing seed pods from the neighbour's tree (grrr....don't get me started on that) which are clogging up our skimmer basket. I must admit, it's not my favourite pastime during Winter, when the water is freezing, but any other time, it's no biggie. Someone has to do it, or it'd end up going green.

So this is where the latest saga begins... Tuesday morning, before leaving for work, he notices that the Barracuda isn't working (again) and asks me to have a look at it. No worries, it's nothing major, just a palm frond from our Golden Cane has gotten stuck in it. So I pull that out, empty the skimmer basket and turn the pump and filter on to make sure the Barracuda is functioning ok again. That's when I notice water leaking from the top of the filter. Lovely! Since the filter is on a timer and we don't check it daily unless the Barracuda stops working, who knows how long it has been leaking for! This was one of those "mates rates" situations, whereby Steve used to play footy with a guy who now does pool installations and he got us the new filter setup at cost, and installed it for nothing... so we have no paperwork for a warranty ! It seems that it could just be a faulty O-ring, or maybe a crack in the filter itself or in the top piece. The jury is still out on that one, but since the leak has since slowed to a trickle, it will probably remain unsolved for a while until other major household bills are paid and we have some spare cash again.

As if the pool dramas weren't enough, I then discovered something completely festy. Another reason I need a pool boy... If you watch CSI Miami, you'd know that if there's a death near a pool, pool boys tend to be the ones to discover the bodies. (Then they end up being the main suspects, but I guess you have to blame someone...)
To set the scene - I have a half wine barrel, which will eventually be the new home of a nice red Hibiscus plant (when I figure out which one I want to buy), to replace one which used to grow around the pool, until it died a few years back. Since I haven't purchased the Hibiscus yet, I haven't filled the barrel with soil, so it tends to fill up with rain water, which takes a while to evaporate.

Imagine my horror, when I followed my nose (yep, can't mistake the smell of decomp. To quote Alex, the ME from CSI Miami "I work in a morgue. When I say something smells...it smells!") and discovered not one, but two, dead Noisy Miner birds, floating in the now manky water. Water, which had previously only contained a few mozzie wrigglers, now had partially decomposed birds and other wiggling things (maggots? bird lice larvae? other parasites?) which I was NOT going to get close enough to identify.
Now girls, this is why we tend to keep a man about the house. Even die-hard feminists would agree that men can be extremely useful in the removal of decomposing wildlife!
Steve reluctantly fished them out last night (bin night) with a rake and quadruple bagged them. Only problem is that it's midday, it's a hot, sunny day, and the bin truck hasn't been up our street yet !

OMG, I sincerely hope they don't miss our street (it has happened before) or I may have to phone the council and request a whole new wheelie bin!

I still have to figure out how to dispose of the manky, wiggly "death-water". Preferably away from the house or anywhere Cheyenne might be playing... "Darling? I have another job for you"

If only I was Dr Brennan from Bones... That way I could have it all poured into some sort of canister by some lackey, and have it shipped to the Jeffersonian.

Reality sucks!

Camping hijinks

This weekend just gone we went camping with some friends and their two kids. We decided to head over to The Bedrooms campgrounds on South Straddie as the guys had camped there before with the kids on a Father/Son (Father/Daughter in Steve's case) weekend with their surf club mates. It was the first time our friends had gone camping as a whole family, since their kids were born.

Since it was only going to be an overnighter, and we were going by boat, we had to pack light to fit it all in. That meant just the bare essentials - one small tent for each family, the small 2m tarp (no poles), airbed and sleeping bags rather than the mattress and bedding, one small folding table, folding chairs, the single burner butane stove, frypan and esky.
(Longer trips or when we go by road and can take the trailer, we'd take our big tent, the large tarp, with all its poles, our camp kitchen and our camping box which contains all our camping necessities.)

So, with the tide times and BOM online weather report double-checked (fine weather, with 5/10 knot winds), we loaded the gear, four adults and three kids into our 5m tinnie and set off early from Jacob's Well boat ramp. We found a great shady spot, a little north of The Bedrooms, away from the other campers, where the boat was still close enough to shore at low tide, and set up camp.

Around 10am, while we were kicking back relaxing and the kids were digging in the sand, we noticed the clouds building and the sky getting dark. So much for the fine weather report! Then again, when has the Bureau ever been known to get it right? Steve was sure it was headed out to sea and would miss us, but that was not the case!

11.30am saw us all huddled in our tent, since it was the slightly larger of the two, waiting to see whether the expanding puddle of water at our tent entrance was going to make it all the way to the inner door, and trying to stop the kids from touching the sides of the tent - a little difficult when the wind is flattening the dome of the tent down on top of us! Naturally, curious little people are going to want to touch. "Look Mummy, the water's getting in. See? Right here!"
Yep, thanks. How about you make it leak on your own side of the tent, LOL.

Steve noticed that one of his anchor ropes was slipping and ventured out to make sure the boat didn't float away...round about the time the hail started. Yes folks, hail. That was definitely a first...for all of us! I've been camping in the rain before - who hasn't? But hail is a little less tent-friendly. Luckily they weren't golf ball sized or anything, so the tents weren't damaged. The storm and accompanying rains blew over after a while and the sun came out again after lunch.

I really wish I'd taken photos of how close the water came to getting into our tent. The "puddle" expanded far enough that it reached into the front vestibule area, which has no built in floor and is where we store our gear.

By the time I thought to dig out the camera (after it was all over), the water had soaked into the sand and most of the hail had melted.

Since the storm hit so early in the day, there was plenty of time for everything to dry out during the rest of the afternoon.

We even managed to find enough dry branches to have a small campfire to sit around, after our sausage sizzle dinner.

Of the two queen size airbeds we own, one has a hole, so we'd planned to inflate both during the week before the trip, to make sure we took the good one. Great idea, except that when it came time to test them out, we discovered that we could only locate one. Naturally, we figured this meant that we'd decided against repairing the one with the hole and had simply thrown it away, leaving us with one good one. Right? Err... no!

After sitting on the sagging airbed whilst sheltering from the storm, we decided that it would need serious re-inflating before bedtime. We re-inflated it at about 9.30pm, just before turning in, but by 11pm we were pretty much lying on the ground. Even so, I could probably have slept on regardless, if not for rustling of plastic less than a metre from my head! Possums (or some other small nocturnal thieving beasties) had snuck under the fly, into the front vestibule of our tent, and were snacking on my cheese and bacon rolls! So, with the remainder of my rolls rescued and relocated to inside the tent, and the call of nature answered (as you know, once you're well and truly awake, there's just no ignoring your bladder), I lay back down - on the ground - and dozed off... only to be woken once again at 3am by the beasties raiding our rubbish bag!


Sunday dawned gloriously bright and sunny and stayed that way for the entire day. We went for a ride in the boat down to Couran Cove to see how the other half lives, passing a pod of dolphins on the way. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and splashing in the water, until it was time for us to reluctantly pack up and head for home.




It really was a fantastic spot and, despite the storm and the airbed (which we dumped in the bin on the island, where it quite rightly belonged), I could have easily stayed a few more days. Maybe next time Steve will take a few days off work so that we can stay a little longer than overnight.

Another year older...

A good friend phoned me on my birthday and imparted some birthday wisdom, "You're only a day older than you were yesterday, but it's been a whole year since anyone cared!"


That's so true. Actually, in my case there are really only 5 days per year that I think about how old I am - my birthday and the next four days after that. As my hubby Steve's birthday is five days after mine, I have 5 whole days where he is only one year older than me. After his birthday, we go back to "normal" for the rest of the year, where we don't pay any attention to how old we are.


As usual, we had a combined celebration. When I say "celebration" I mean we went out to dinner. Nothing fancy - just dinner at The Fullmoon Hotel at Shorncliffe. I can definitely recommend the Wagyu beef Potpie with roast veggies. Mmm Mmm.




You know you're getting "old" when you only get a couple of presents. Quite unlike the carload of gifts my darling daughter Cheyenne received for her 5th (of course, it helps to invite nearly the entire kindy class, but that's a whole other story!)

My mother made me this lovely Japanese fabric bag (pictured above). The colours are just gorgeous and I love the tiny hummingbirds on the pocket.

I have recently bought myself an "Amorica" bracelet and I'm slowly adding charm beads to it to reflect my personality. Steve bought me two more beads for my birthday (camera and seahorse) and I chose the filigree heart as my present from Cheyenne. My mother-in-law gave me money to buy another bead, and so I got my coffee mug charm. At the moment, the particular jewellery store has a deal going where you received a gift card if you spent over a certain amount. This meant I could afford another charm - I chose the music one with the treble clef - and that brought my total to 9. With my loyalty card, when you buy 9, the tenth charm is free, so I chose the one with coloured CZ crystals, as it's one of the more expensive ones. For those of you who counted my charms and found an extra (making 11, rather than 10) - the dolphin is a ring-in from another jewellery store, but I had to have a dolphin, right?

My best friend Kaylene sent these cute little guys to me. I haven't quite decided whether to put them on a shelf inside, or whether to hang them on the outside wall, under the deck, near my garden. Maybe, since there are two of them I could have one inside and the other outside...

My other gift was a 250GB portable hard drive, from my brother. It is what it is, and as such, is not really worthy of a photo. It will, however, be immensely handy for backing up all the photos on my computer, so it is, by far, the most useful of all my birthday gifts.

I really should get onto that, but as usual, I'm procrastinating.

Spicing up the blah

OK folks, there's only 3 days until my birthday. My 35th birthday. After Tuesday I'm on that downhill slide to 40.

Not that I feel like I've been around for 35 years... Yeah, ok, some days I feel OLD - stiff neck, sore back, creaking joints - but mostly, I still feel the same as I did in my 20s. Nothing has changed.

Maybe that's the problem - nothing has changed! I'm still the same boring, blah that I've always been.

So what can I do about it?

Let's take stock:
Attitude - lost cause. I'm pretty set in my ways, and basically too lazy to change. Let's move on.
Body - showing some signs of age and "middle-aged-spread". I go to the gym, but I love my chocolate and junk food, so it's a slow work-in-progress. Ok, check.
Features - average but ok. I've got a slightly lopsided head which really only is noticable in photos, but makes buying sunnies a major drama. Can't change that!
Hair - too fine and not enough of it to do anything much with in the way of style. I can colour it, though...

Hair colour is the quickest fix for a case of the Blahs. As an added bonus, the colour actually swells each hair shaft, so for a while, I can have thicker, fuller hair. Iknow, I know! Those of you with thick hair probably wish for finer hair, but personally, I'm kinda over being able to see my scalp through my fine hair. A hairdresser once told me I had hair like Maggie Tabberer. What?! Oh...um...thanks for that, but I'm not exactly taking it as a compliment.

So I phone my hairdressers to make an appointment to have some foils done. How long has it been since I had them done last? I'm not sure, March maybe? They check their computer. Turns out it was December last year! Oh well. I should point out at this point, that I am NOT and have never been one of those "trim every six weeks" type of people, nor am I a "product" person. I'm more the "wash it, let it dry naturally and leave it loose" type.

Since I have a bit of natural copper in amongst the "boring brown", I've gone with a coppery red colour along with the blonde. I'd put a photo in except that you wouldn't be able to tell. Why is that? It's because hairdressers ALWAYS think they know your hair better than you do.

I'm sure that "As your hair is so fine we're only doing each colour in small sections so that you don't get a big blob of colour in one place" is fine in theory, but each section of colour is so small (I swear it can't be more than a dozen strands) that when it's all brushed nicely and sitting in the right place, the sections spread out a bit and... YOU CAN BARELY SEE THE COLOURS!

I can see them because I know they're there, but my husband is wondering how the hairdressers can charge $75 for a fringe trim (the only thing I had done that he can actually see at a glance). It really takes the "feel good" out of having your hair done, if nobody notices. Next time I'm demanding "dramatic".

The truth is out there...

Somebody call Mulder and Scully. There's an alien in my cereal box.

OK, maybe I'm showing my age here, but I'm sure a lot of us watched as ET phoned home. Looks like he's back though, since I found him in my bowl of Nutrigrain.


Actually, I found him way back in July, but it was just too good not to share with everyone, and as good a photo as any for my first upload to my new blog.

Sadly for ET, I was hungry and finished him off after his photo shoot. I guess maybe I could have sold him on ebay...or does that only work for images of the Virgin Mary burnt into toast?

Off to a great start...

Well, this is it. I've finally bitten the bullet, as it were, and started a blog.

Can't promise that I'll post regularly - I am a bit of a slacker, after all - but I do have good intentions. Honest!

I haven't got a "theme" as such... I guess it will be a bit of everything. Abstract ramblings, family stuff, maybe even some photos of my craft projects if I figure out how to upload photos.

We'll see how it goes.