Toad Soup

A dentist visit on 31st January was the last before I travelled home on Wednesday 1st. I left Sydney at about 6:30am daylight saving time and, even gaining an hour, I didn't arrive home until 6:30 EST. I stopped several times for water and loo breaks, and stopped at Glen Innes to check out The Strawberry Patch and get some food, and before I got home I remembered to stop and buy milk and some fresh fruit.

It rained all the way to Glen Innes, there were some showers betwen Glen Innes and Tenterfield, and it wasn't raining along the Granite Belt until I got to Stanthorpe. No rain at Warwick, and clear skies approaching th Cunningham Highway turnoff, though there was rain all around. It would have made a spectacular photo, but there was nowhere to stop and take the photo!

I arrived home on Wednesday evening to discover that I'd forgotten to empty the dogs' water bucket out.... and there was a well decomposed toad in Floyd's water bucket - ick.

My neighbour had recently mowed Meggie's yard so it was nice and neat for her. The rest of the grass has grown with all the rain, apparently almost non-stop since I went to Sydney! I'll have to get out there with the roundup and hit those bits I missed last time I rounded up the green panic. But I'll have to be sure that it won't rain and wash it away. The grass (?) beside the carport has turned into a weed area and I'll need to hit that with some weed 'n feed, when it's not going to rain for a few hours.

I have to do some web-upload stuff for the rissole I do the webstuff for and it's going to be interesting because my e key is not working properly. Somtimes I'll just be typing and the e will not type, when I hit it again I'll get two of them from one key stroke, don't ask me why! Touch wood, it's behaving at the moment. But probably not for long, though as long as I don't use that letter I'll be safe... arrgh.

I will continue with the Norfolk Island travelogue soon, there's more to show you and tell you about.

Lunch with MDFD today where I gave her the goodies I bought for her on NI and in Sydney (an $80 coat for $15!), I think she was pleased. We also went to the markets and I found a staghorn for my sistr in law, and one for me, as well as a nice "money tree" for the office.

Back to work on Monday and I'm dreading it, so much to do before the start of semester - and the timetabling isn't completely sorted yet, so I'm going to be flat out! And there's the preparation for semester two.... it never ends!

After three weeks away I came home to a bundle of bills, rates, rego, phone and electricity - though the electricity and phone are credits, and there's a few hundred already paid off thee rates... truly, it never ends, does it!

Floyd is skinny, I suspect he hasn't been eating properly while I've been away. If  he was sharing with Meg he'd have had not much food at all because she's a guts. When I put food out for him he started eating it straight away, which is most unlike him because he's usually more interested in what I'm doing than eating if I'm out there with him. I don't think he's talking to me, either. He's coming around, though.

*sigh*

Oh, I forgot to tell you. The NSW Government seems to have a new policy on road repair. All along the badly damaged New England Highway are those light signs on trailers which say "Caution, rain damaged pavement". Wonder when they'll get around to fixing them - they've already run out of the mobile signs and in many places there are the usual yellow metal temporary sign boards, and in many others there are no signs at all and the  potholes and chunks out of the road are really dangerous. Something else the Federal ALP needs to look at funding, highway maintenance and repair - yeah, good luck with that!

Something else, Tamworth was very wet and I wondered if it would flood there, and I noticed a lot of the rivers and creeks seemed to be full and I wondered whether they'd flood with more rain on the way. It seems that Tenterfield has flooded, so I think I came home in the nick of time!

Dogs don't like citrus.

One day I came home and had a drink of mandarin juice. Floyd watched intently and wanted some. I put a little in his bowl, but he wouldn't drink it. Okay. Dogs don't like citrus. I understand.

Today I arrived home after a brief sortie to the markets looking for that special something* and I had a bottle of orange and mango juice which I took a swig of where Floyd could see me. He sat and watched. That usually means he wants to know what I'm having and can he have some too?

I found the tiny little stainless dog bowl I'd acquired as a prize (there were no large bowls left), and wiped out the dust. I took it outside and had a swig of the juice, then put some into the bowl for Floyd, telling him he wouldn't like it, it's citrus.

He drank it and wanted some more!!

Floyd is weird. I love Floyd!

*MDFD wants a couple of desert rose plants for her garden. She flogged off the plants she had on e-bay, someone paid $82 to come and dig them up. Go figure! She saw the photo of the desert rose on an earlier post of mine and just knew that was what she wanted for her tiny garden.