He is bit of wag, is Tradie Brother. He has successfully transitioned from being a builder of homes and top of the end home renovations to caring for and helping aged and disabled people with in home care. He has to be 0.0 per cent blood alcohol each morning to drive and to do his job, and that has had benefits.
Here are photos of a few signs I took at his home on Christmas Day.
Apostrophe after the 'n' Bro but nuffink is probably acceptable too. Are there two effs in nuffink?
When people from our weather bureau speak on the radio to give us forecasts, it could be quite likely a weather woman, so if I could spell meterolgist, my heading should be Ask the Meterologist. I could probably spell the word if I really tried.
It was a curious day weather wise. Torrential downpours, strong winds and storms were forecast. One heavy shower of rain came through, two claps of thunder and the wind was moderate. The bureau overcalled it.
I don't really blame the bureau. It was a strange day. Just as it is becoming dark now, the warm humid wind during the day was blowing from the north to north east. It is now cool and blowing from the south west. The clouds looking east are speeding along from the north east but stop when they reach the south. The rain came down from the north west today. All very odd.
We've booked a holiday. Barcelona? Porto? Prague? London? Las Vegas? San Francisco? Hawaii? Catch up with JayLa in Budapest?
Nah, the government says no and none are COVID safe yet anyway.
Echuca is in the north of our state of Victoria. We don't normally like straying far from the sea for a caravan park cabin holiday but we are, although we will be on the banks of the mighty Murray River that divides the states of Victoria and New South Wales. Tricky point. If the borders are closed between the two states, can we take a paddle steamer lunch cruise on the Murry River which is officially in NSW?
As COVID waxes and wanes in Australia and state lock downs happen, we are not leaving our state.
We were looking for a local holiday for next week but everything was pretty well booked out. Instead we have booked for the first week in March.
We will stay three nights in Echuca and visit Step Mother and her partner who is in his 90s and not terribly well and they live twenty minutes drive from Echuca. Echuca is an interesting town and a damn lot cheaper to stay in that our seaside towns.
Something to look forward to.
These are the remaining photos I took while COVID exercise walking in South Yarra. There is nothing left to see for me nor you after these photos. We know it all. I have pretty well stopped COVID exercise walking. I am getting (almost) plenty of exercise in as we go about our or my day.
Cro asked to see this work on our wall. It always seem to shine in one direction or the other. When we bought it, it was too big to fit in the car, so it had to be delivered.
Someone kindly pointed out to me the New England states in the United States. Thank you. I don't know about the politics of New Hampshire where Maribeth lives aside from it having a Republican governor and it being generally conservative. Maribeth occasionally informs me us or me about COVID being rampant in her state.
Cross the border to another New England state, Vermont, it also has a Republican governor yet it is a brilliant success story. It matters little which party the governor is from but what rules are put in place. The governor of Vermont took COVID very seriously, put in place severe restrictions and the result is that the state of Vermont is a success story among the states so far as COVID goes, even better than the island state of Hawaii where it would not have been hard to keep COVID out.
You don't get off the train at Heidelberg train station to see Heidelberg Town Hall. You alight at Ivanhoe. Gosh, the two dimensional Google map made it look like it was a flat walk to the town hall in Upper Heidelberg Road. It was not. I took a couple of 'photo stops', one at this handsome and very well maintained former church.
For a couple of months in 2017 we regularly caught the Hurstbridge train to see Hippie Niece when she was confined in hospital before the birth of her twin daughters.
Most of the family met at Mother's to try to clear out her house before settlement and we came pretty close. Most worked so hard and it was also a good family day.
The local large charity shop has stopped taking donations so quite a bit was put into charity bins. Mother's rubbish bin has been seconded by someone in the units next door. It appears in front of her house and is taken in by a kind neighbour, but then disappears until the following week when it again appears in front of Mother's house. It is just being borrowed but we need it.
The Salvation Army did take a couple of things, the delightful bright yellow perfect condition laminex kitchen table and something else I can't remember.
Her lounge suite which was her mother's went off in a horse float to be reupholstered and French polished by the person who did the same in about 1979.
Sister took quite a bit of stuff, even though she said she wanted nothing more. Bone Doctor slogged away in the junk room until it was clear. Tradie Brother and Hippie Niece made a pile on the nature strip for council collection. The size was limited to two cubic metres and that was breached but by the time it is collected, it will be reduced by people taking things from the pile. Unseen by any of us, a working microwave oven disappeared as the stack was being made.
We took a late lunch break at the local bakery cafe which was really nice.
Tradie Brother had his four day old sandwich for lunch and in our absence the couple across the road came to collect some things they wanted, a crate of old vinyl records, a roll of new linoleum and something else. I don't know what it is about my mother but everyone is so kind and caring towards her, except for her own children who only feel a strong obligation, and her various neighbours over the years have always been roped into her world.
Soon to be dowager Mother and ABI Brother appeared, Mother shaking like she had St Vitus Dance. The neighbours from across the road came back. Mother and the male neighbour embraced and cried. His wife works in aged care and no doubt has seen it all before and was a little more stoic. They stayed for a good while as we mostly paused our efforts and Mother held court. Sister told Mother we are just as sick of hearing about your hospital stay, medical problems and your moaning about your Best Friend Forever as you were with your hospital stay. Of course Mother ignored her and on she went.
Ex Sis in Law's daughter, her partner and a mate were there all day Sunday filling an eight metre skip and a four metre skip has been ordered for tomorrow for them to fill. I gave Ex Sis in Law's to be son in law my credit card details to pay for it all. I hope it is not a case of famous last words, I trust him.
Another council collection will be ordered for collection of two clothes dryers and the washing machine. R and I will make a final cleanup and that will be that.
R was concerned Mother would become emotional and she was when the neighbours came across, but she wasn't at all about the house she lived in for 55 years. Tradie Brother took her for a walk around the back garden for the final time. Hippie Niece was in the tool shed as I tried to find a tool to unbolt a bed and she was looking at some of late Step Father's budgerigar prize certificates and she burst into tears.
Bone Doctor found a ladder somewhere and looked into the ceiling space to see if that was where late Step Father put her confiscated skate board after she broke her ankle, but it was not to be found.
While I never lived there, it is a house full of memories that seems to be beyond the physical building. In three weeks, it will belong to someone else.
Once settled, Mother can repay her children for the cost of rewiring the house just three years ago and the new side fence two years ago. I told R I will buy him a new phone.
I'll try to leave you with a laugh. Ex Sis in Law's son in law to be, about 21 and quite attractive came face to face with a resident possum when he was clearing Mother's garage. He ran out of the garage with shrieks that could be heard kilometres away. I have seen him behave very girlie when he has had a drink or two.
Joining in with Elephant's Child and River often joins in along with others.
