October 2000 Newsletter

It's going to be a struggle to get a newsletter out this month that's worth reading, as no-one want to contribute this month, last month's efforts seem to have worn them all out. In future this newsletter may become quarterly if this keeps up. But here goes, anyway.

<Soapbox mode> Well, the Olympics are over, thank heavens. Jenny & I seem to belong to a minority of Australians, that really don't care too much about the Olympics, can't see what all the hype & hoopla are about, and fail to see why so many entertainers get their foot in at the opening & closing ceremonies. The whole thing was a media circus, and our political masters used it to gain political mileage. Anyone remember much about the actual sporting events that went on? </soapbox mode>

Since our last newsletter, the seasons have changed in a big way. The long, cold winter is sadly over (we like the cold, we don't get much!) and Brisbane is back to it's hot & dry summer mode. It's been more than two months since the last rain, so the garden is now dry and brown. Jenny spends hours each week watering the trees and flowers in an attempt to keep them alive, the entire city is now brown. The wind has been unforgiving, and we have already had a few near misses with bush fires in our immediate area. We've done what we can to reduce our fire risk, but sadly our neighbours have not, so we are still very much at risk, to the extent that we may buy a petrol-engined fire pump to pump out the swimming pool in the event of a bush fire striking too close.

The swimming pool temperature went pretty well straight from too cold (15°C) to too hot (31°C) in the space of a couple of weeks - you dive in after a hot day, & it's hardly refreshing at all! Still, at least we have a pool to get wet in, could be worse I suppose! Laura is suffering in the heat for a while, she will soon lose her winter coat, but in the meantime she lives in the fishpond a good deal of the time, now that it is full of water again. Luci has moved into the dam, as she prefers deep water to swim in - mind you, our dam is tiny, and mostly dry at present, only the sump has water in it, which measures only about 2.5 metres square, and last time we checked, about 2 metres deep. We don't rely on the dam for anything, though, it's just a feature.

One thing we like about our little block of land is the wild life - that is, the wild life that hasn't been 'played with' by the girls (possums do not last long when used as a squeaky toy, sadly). In one of our tall gum trees there's a pair of rainbow lorikeets nesting, that we have been keeping an eye on - their nest is safely out of reach of ground based predators, although those mean kookaburras have a liking for nestlings. Our koala population seems to have disappeared, soon after the local by-pass was opened - they all either succumbed to Dunlop's Disease on the main road, or caught the virus that seems to be killing koalas everywhere. We have more than our share of crows and magpies (fortunately none of these are the aggressive variety), as well as plenty of other winged critters of every description. There are fewer lizards in this immediate area than we are used to, as the main road takes its toll of them - we do see them from time to time, once again if the girls see them before us, we tend to find them by the smell some weeks later. Jenny was always against having a cat for the reason of the wildlife they slaughter, now we find the dogs are just as bad as any feline.

A week or so ago I was putting some more telephone extensions in for our PABX, only to be confronted with a python in the roof - he's there to keep our rats at bay, which works well, but I still don't like it when he gets close. I saw a recently discarded skin of his, which I measured at a little over 2.6 metres (8 feet or so), which is a fair size for a house snake. Jenny won't let me get rid of it, on the grounds that it's harmless to us, but it doesn't do my heart any good when it sneers at me from inside the roof when I'm looking in there! I've never been a fan of Hissing Sid in any incarnation, like a large number of people.

Our garden is looking surprisingly green, thanks to Jenny spending hours with a hose each weekend (hate to think what our next water bill will be like), this picture is of a "Hawaiian Cup of Gold", which we have planted in the orchard. It is taking over the garden rapidly, we did have it planted somewhere else and it just did not thrive, but where it is now, it's close to being called a weed, the way it is spreading. Everywhere the branches touch the ground it puts out roots, which just makes it's empire a little large. But it does seem to be easy enough to keep in check, hopefully we have not bred a triffid! We've refilled the fish pond, only to find it is losing water at the rate of 4" or so per day - we don't know whether this is caused by evaporation, porosity in the concrete, or a leak - we are hoping the concrete is just slowly re-hydrating itself and the surrounds, and maybe in a few weeks it will reach saturation point - this is surely wishful thinking, though. 12th October - it rained last night, all of about 7 mm of rain - it seemed strange to hear the patter of raindrops on the iron roof of the house, sadly 7 mm is not enough to make a great deal of difference, the grass will be brown again within a couple of days if we don't get more this week.

Well, the rest of the family is on strike - having put so many words into last month's newsletter, they all have nothing to add - they must have very boring lives if they can't string together even a single sentence telling their experiences of the last month. So as usual I'll ghost write for them. Chris is coming up to his last month at school, the time he spends here are spend eating, sleeping or reading - he's at the age (17) when conversation is no longer carried out by words, a series of grunts is the usual way of communication with us - anyone have a Grunt/English dictionary? Richard is still smitten hard with Katie, to the total detriment of study - he's in the last week of the university year as I type this, and about 2 hours of study got done last weekend, with exams coming up in two weeks time, no sense of urgency has crept into his study timetable, with 2 assignments yet to be handed in, we are not hopeful that this semesters' results will be any different to last semester's (two fails, two passed). Jenny as ever is the only one with a genuine excuse for not contributing, as there is so much going on in her life, in between working, looking after the three of us helpless males, keeping the garden alive ...

Last weekend for me was spent laying concrete for drains, painting part of the garden wall, sinking a drain pit into the garden drain, dismantling the barbecue table for refinishing (another, long story I won't bore you with!) and getting ready for this week's work. Oh, and worrying about how the first tax report for our new tax system is going to come out - the accounting program I use (QuickBooks Pro) seems to generate a lot of rubbish that has little to do with the true facts of the business - the support staff advise doing the reports manually - so why computerise at all, I ask myself?

Well, that's it for the October letter, how about some of you guys getting back to me with your news?

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