The Next Migration

On another move to the tropics now, but very late in starting the travel diary I promised myself I'd do. I'm too much of a slacker to ever build a media empire. So far we've stopped at Newcastle and Repton (20 min south of Coffs) and are now in Moree. The first two stops were for visting, the current one is just because Newcastle to Charleville is just too long for sanity. After I finished hiding from the movers to avoid freaking out about how they were touching my stuff all wrong, we headed up the coast to Newcastle for our first stop: the brother-in-law's new deck. Okay, there was a house attached, but Rob did build a pretty good deck, so that's the part I choose to focus on. We had some of the best BBQ food ever along with a fantastic salad, although Rob would surely argue that the BBQ took the real skill as that was what he did all of Friday night. We ditched Rob and Katie after only one night in anticipation of the shitfight of holiday traffic that awaited us on the Pacific Highway. It was as shiteriffic as we had expected. On the way North, we stopped at Cassegrain winery just outside Port Macquarie for lunch, photos and carefree frolicking. It was good. We got into Repton pretty late, but still had enough light to get the tent up. Our stop in a town none of you have ever heard of was to visit my friend Gin who was also lovely enough to organise her baby shower for the Sunday afternoon I'd be there. The baby shower was the main reason we got up there a day early. We had planned to do a straight drive through on Sunday morning but 23km traffic jams don't lend themselves to punctuality. Coming a day early meant that Gin had other plans Saturday night, but she popped down for a quick visit to gossip and admire the lake while Graham set up the campsite for me. More proof that I am lazy. I threw Gin out at 8:15 when we realised that we had to move soon if we wanted dinner that didn't have a 'Mc' in front of it. Aussie pizza from the North Beach Bowling and Recreation Club. Does it get any better? I stole a coaster. I'll do the rest of this later because I'm getting all bored and hungry now. You have a great rant about grey nomads to look forward to. You might also get some photos if my mobile modem decides to upload them at more the 5kbps.

I'm Not So Sure About This Dog Thing...

I will begin by reminding/informing you that we live in defence housing. It is vital that you understand the way this works ie we take whatever house we can get our mitts on and are then stuck with it regardless of how we feel on the matter. Generally this hasn't been a huge problem, we have lucky enough to have some very nice houses with no gaping holes appearing in the bedroom floor. Actually, that's something they will move you for. Even defence don't want people getting out of bed in the morning and dropping through to the carport.
So, our houses have all been quite good, and we've considered ourselves quite lucky. Our current house is lovely, mostly. We have a nice, big, kitchen, which, despite is size, suffers from a great dearth of storage. This means that we have lots of bench space but no pantry to speak of. I just kind of throw food into the cupboard and cross my fingers that it doesn't all fall on my head the next time I open it.
Our yard is also lovely and big which is remarkable when you consider that we live in one of those horrid estate suburbs with 18 bedroom homes on blocks of land the size of a small car. I think the developers may have been a little bit stunned at having so much yard space as they seemed to have no idea what to do with it. Apparently they decided to just thrown down some turf and runaway to deal with more manageable yards that they could simply concrete over. I don't imagine this to be very entertaining space for a dog to spend all day in. The canine equivalent of watching Senate Question Time all day.
Our neighbours do not have a lovely big yard like us. They have one of the aforementioned concrete yards the size of a Barina. Ordinarily the state of the neighbours yard is suitably low on the list of "things I give a shit about" unless, of course when there are an awfully large amount of power lines running into their back shed or there is an odd odour emanating from behind said shed. In addition to owning a yard the size of a loaf of bread, the neighbours also run a child care centre out of their house.
Some of you may be starting to see where our problem lies. A small echoey yard, screaming kids and a colourbond fence do little to create a calm dog. Steffi does not like the noise. At all. She hates it so much that she has developed a new sport, a sport which involves throwing herself at the fence as hard as she can to STOP THE DAMNED NOISE!!!!!
The small children didn't seem to appreciate this. Nor did the neighbour who we like very much, but who is also absolutely shitscared of dogs. A bad situation for all became worse at about the moment that Steffi managed to pop one of the fence panels out with her acrobatics. Sure, there was not a big enough gap for her to get through, but that doesn't matter when your outrageous dog phobia has you convinced that the dog is about to burst through the fence and eat you.
Council rangers were called. DHA were called. I had a small heart attack. Then the astounding thing happened, our property manager suggested we ask for a move. I would never have thought of this as the only time I have seen anyone actually receive a move was in the earlier instance of the gaping hole in the bedroom floor. Spurred on by the giddiness of having a government worker on our side, we applied. And. We. Got. It. We have to move ourselves, but WE GOT IT.
Note: You may be propositioned in the nest few months with requests for help and offers of booze and pizza if you acquiesce.

Why Does It Go So Fast?

I am very upset, the new school term is approaching. I only have a few days of holidays left. I think I may have sabotaged myself with this whole thing by leaving all my planning until the last minute. I only have one lesson planned so far. But i did buy some shiny new text books so I'm trying to convince myself that makes up for it. If I say it enough it's true.

Gray got his course date today for the basic signaller course. he starts on the first of September which is fantastic because I get to keep him for an extra month before he goes. Yay! I think his course will run over school holidays too so I will be able to visit him. Rarely is the army so (unintentionally) accommodating.