Australia Day

Australia day is one of my favourite public holidays.... the mood is always super relaxed and there is no real plan for the day.
We started off with a sleep in followed by mango smoothies.  A friend gave me a carton of mangos that are just huge but delicious - so big I couldn't eat my way through a whole one for breakfast the other morning! The smoothies just had mango, milk, icecream and vanilla yoghurt.
After that we lazed around the house, put on fake tattoos, talked to family in the US on facebook, watched cricket and listened to the triple j radio station hottest 100.  The count down has always been traditional on Australia Day - it provides a great sound-track!
Mom came over for a really late lunch of snags, onions and potatoes on the barbeque and she brought over a really good layered salad.  I told her the layered salad will have to go into popular rotation from now on - it was great! Desert was of course pavlova After beating the egg whites i dumped it all onto the baking sheet and the splat it made looked a little like Australia... so with a bit of creative license and a spoon I went with it.  Those of you who know me well will no I do not have an artistic bone in my body so this is about as close as it gets! :-) Whatever it looked like, covered in MORE mangos and kiwis it was delicious! Then we had a few beers and watched more cricket, caught up with some friends and then came home to watch the fireworks.  They set them off from the water just outside our house so we just wandered down our driveway a bit and got a great view.  It was a pretty good show for small town Carnarvon!
And then it was back to work on Thursday.... Its always so hard to go back to work after a public holiday!

Facebook and cricket - a fun lazy day!

 Sausage sizzle with onions and tomato sauce, bbq potatos and layered salad.

MMMMmmmmm pavlova - my favourite! 

Oh and later that day I bet Justin's god-daughter $20 she wouldn't lick her pet frog.  Best $20 I've spent in a long time, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard!

Queensland floods & animals

One of the girls at work said to me the other day that she and her hubby went and borrowed some DVDs the other day insted of watching tv because they were so tired of continually hearing bad news.. and in a way I understand.  Although I tend to be one of those who in a tragedy stays transfixed to the tv, even I have had enough.  It has been a very crappy month for all Australians.  After Carnarvon was inundated with flood waters it seemed as if we were trapped on a sucky merry-go-round as the flooding passed from state to state, first and most dramatically Queensland, where at one stage 75% of the state was underwater (Queensland is over 2000 square miles bigger than the state of Alaska).  Then it just seems to move south, New South Wales is flooded and now even Victoria is flooded.  All you see on the news is upset people who have lost their homes or businesses or loved ones... I have never been so bombarded with the terms peaking, levy bank and sandbags more times in my life.
However success stories too are coming hard and fast.... there was a news article today about a Queensland woman whose house remained high and dry had taken holidays from her job to cook pretty much around the clock to feed hungry rescue workers.
I discovered a new blog today http://jigsawsthoughts.blogspot.com/ and from it have borrowed these great photos (thanks Julie) of some of the animal chaos in the Australian floods.

Good 'ol Aussie battler spirit!

Carnarvon Pistol Association - severely affected by floods

I have sent this email out to as many shooting contacts as i can think of but feel free to forward it on as you wish.  Every little bit helps!
Any emails can be directed to cpa@westnet.com.au

Hello fellow shooters and shooting supporters!

 

For those of you that aren't aware, Carnarvon (a small country town ten hours drive north of Perth, the capital of Western Australia) was hit by severe flooding on the 19th of December 2010. Luckily the floods did not affect the majority of the town site but the waters flowed right through some of the outlying areas, including our pistol club.

 

As you can see by the attached photos, our club is all but ruined.  We are a strong local club with 60 active members and we compete every Saturday for eleven months of the year.  However it is unlikley we will be able to compete now for some time.  We had eight ranges, now none are safe to use.  We had a great clubhouse with kitchen and seating area for up to 50 people, now this has been covered in water (initially flowing, but later just stagnant) up to mid-thigh.

 

A range that normally is large enough to run three seperate competitions, almost 2m deep in water.  We have a train that runs along tracks down an incline to serve as one of our shooting props, you can just make out the top of the green train.

 

 

 The safety area of one range, the dividing range wall and shaded area for spectators

 

 

The road to Carnarvon Pistol Association - the gate is next to the large tree you can see in the middle of the photo

 

 

Drums filled with sand to form the dividing wall of our 100m range

 

 

A member wading out to survey the damage, note the sign welcoming you to Carnarvon Pistol Association

 

 

One of our storage containers - it has floated to a new position and targets and range construction materials inside are ruined.

 

Not only did the water come through quickly and with force, it also pooled in our ranges like it has never done before and is still there presently.  The water as it receeds leaves behind a thick coating of mud and debris.  Carnarvon is a horticultural town and some of its main industry is growing fruit and vegetables and also raising livestock on the outlying areas.  As the river was so large and unexpected it swept through many homes, sheds and paddocks in outer areas resulting in the water becoming contaminated with chemicals, petrols and dead animlas.

 

It is going to take many hands on deck, machinery and funding to move forward with the massive, unpleasant cleanup opperation, reconstruction of ranges, stripping of the clubhouse, regrading of the road and reconstruction of shade and safety areas.

 

The recovery part of this opperation must now begin!

 

Part of this is getting the message out there to all of you, please feel free to distribute this message as you see fit.

 

If you can provide us any assitance, (and any and all is welcome!) - please contact us either using this email or by phoning club president Justin Smith on 0409087986

 

Kind regards,

 

Jessie Marett

CPA Secretary

cpa@westnet.com.au

Reading list

Recently I encountered something I haven't had to deal with in quite some time.   It's called FREE TIME.  As in not having to work, not having to travel, not having to be somewhere and I love it.  Justin's work roster has changed so that he is working four days on/four days off and so inevitably some of those days he is working will be days that I have off.  A work colleague asked me today how I was finding it and I had to admit that I have a guilty pleasure in being able wedge myself into the couch and read for hours at a time.  Don't get me wrong, of course I love Justin being there more than being alone (if I didn't then we would have a problem here) but the thought of hours stretching out in front of me and a good book (and quite possibly multiple cups of tea) is quite a solitary but favourite pastime of mine.
The book I have just finished: A Fortunate Life - A.B. Facey.  A fantastic book (and a third time read for me) about a young man growing up in Australia in the early 1900s.  This book talks about places I know and is a very good example of the Aussie battler spirit. 
The book I am halfway through: Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden.  Another book I have already read once before but rediscovered it on my bookshelf and thought it was so good it deserved another round.  I am not disappointed.  Fabulous story telling and use of language.
The book I will read next: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson - because my cousin Lily reminded me how cool this book is. A classic.  I can't believe this book was written in the seventies, it could have been a new release, it just doesn't seem to date.
And while I am on my soapbox I would like to make it know that i am vehemently against books being turned into movies and am yet to find one that comes even close to living up to the print version!

Unrelated but seeing as I haven't added a photo of us to this blog recently - here is one of us taken at the wedding we recently went to... the height difference between us isn't really that great! He was standing on a higher step! :-)

Happy noooo yeaaarrrr!

(insert noise and image of one of those whistle/horn thingies with the paper tube that flicks out when you blow it.....)
Its 5pm New Years day.  I'm still in my pyjamas.  It's been a good day :)

Thinking about my family in far-away places.... New York in the chaos, Fairbanks in the snow and Queensland in the flood.  Love and miss you all.

Cheers!