We're Home!

We kept it under wraps so that I could surprise my  Mum on her birthday, but we came home earlier than originally planned. Exciting plans needed to be started. And we ran out of money.

Me surprising Mum - she had been crying and asking me 'Why are you here?' over and over again so I was starting to think things had gone wrong, but she perked up and was very happy soon after this picture!

Coming home to the Jubilee celebrations was a very generous fix for the Britishness cravings I'd been experiencing. Bunting everywhere, Union Jacks galore, news on royal preparations, and most food and people decked out in red white and blue.

I thought I'd stick in some images of our last bit of time in Sydney.

 Lili-Rose had become ....somehow, 'obsessed' doesn't do it justice - with One Direction, a British boy band; and made cupcakes devoted to the Adored Ones.

We were all pleased by this.

We went into the city and had a poke around

We went to a market where I nearly bought this jacket until I was informed it was $200 (what's the ponit of a market if jackets are $200?!)

Lili-Rose gave Ruth a lovely Mothers' Day

We found a crag just outside Narabeen (north of Manly)

Seal Rocks

We continued down the coast and went to a place called Diamond Head, which was supposed to be good for surfing. There wasn't much going on and the surf was all messy and rubbish so we carried on. We went to Forster-Tuncurry, which is the two towns of Forster and Tuncurry joined together by a big fat concrete bridge. This was another of those places with wonderfully designed tourist magazines telling you it's the best place in the world, but it was just another town and we weren't persuaded to stay. Gosh, we're becoming place snobs. What if we're just impossible to please now? We were thinking maybe we should just go straight to Sydney. I told Zappa that at some point I had decided I wanted to go to Seal Rocks. I could no longer remember the reason, and there was no mention of it in our remaining tourist propaganda, but I just knew I wanted to go there. So off we went.

On the way we unexpectedly started skirting round the Great Lakes (we were previously wondering where they were!) and they were beautiful! So peaceful, and in the late afternoon light they just looked gorgeous. I didn't take any pictures as we were moving but in case you're desperate to see it, here's someone else's photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petaurus/3641146840/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I was getting tired and the light was going, it was clear we had to stay somewhere as we probably didn't have enough time to get back to Sydney at a reasonable hour. We agreed we'd come back and stay in the Lakes if Seal Rocks was rubbish.

We found the road that led to Seal Rocks with my expert map-reading, which turned out to be a track with the biggest potholes we'd seen so far. We didn't hold out much hope for it being amazing, let alone have anywhere we could stay. I started to feel guilty about insisting we come all this way to this random place for no remembered reason. But when we got there, it was incredible.

Perfect, peeling waves - the best surf I've ever seen - in the most beautiful setting everrr. And then - look right - there's a campsite!

 The second bay

 Zappa got straight on a sunset surf, and absolutely stunned me with what he can do now. He always talks the surfing talk but when I come to watch he just stands there - until today. He was doing proper turns and everything! I was so proud of him!

 Pelicans provide patient company for the fishermen

I am SO in love with this place, it's already my favourite place in Australia so far. You know how sometimes you just know something is just right?

Crowdy Head

On of the places on our list to go to was Crowdy Bay National Park, as it featured in a touristy magazine and looked amazing. I'd already looked up the campsite we'd be staying in and was looking forward to it.
In Australia, some places have been entirely taken over by old people. Entire towns. They are eerie places. Everything is immaculate. There is at least one pharmacy on every street. The only animals around are little hairy rats on leads. All socks are blindly white and are pulled up to mid-calf. There is ALWAYS a bowls club, usually with tons of people playing. There are newly built, toy-town style 'shopping villages' with carefully replanted shrubs, where tumbleweeds go to get their sardines. Harrington, where the campsite was, was one of these places.

The, er, church, at Harrington's deserted shopping village.

We drove on through to Crowdy Head and found a seafood wholesaler, a lighthouse and a nice little surf break, nothing inspiring enough to stay for more than a day, but we went up to the lighthouse and Zappa gave the break a go.

I saw a cookie monster in one of those claw machines and wanted it and Zappa won it for me! That's proper boyfriend stuff that is. However he came wearing a hideous basketball outfit so I am making him a jumper. This and watching some of Zap's wipeouts kept me amused.

In Search of England

I've been downloading Radio 4 podcasts.

Zappa bought me my first box of teabags in 6 months and I told him it was the best present ever.

I wanted to buy the vintage Union Jack draped over the back of this sofa.

Bellingen Community Garden

Taylor told me about Bellingen's community garden on Snake Day so I went to check it out.

It really did feel like a properly lovely community space, apart from the fact it was totally deserted. Clearly, though, that is not normally the case, and I'm going to try and find a way into the gardening posse. I must be prepared to be inventive and patient, as a part of me suspects that these people were actually there all the time, that day, but were just hiding underground in their hippie burrows. Or maybe they only come and garden at night, by the light of the moon. In any case, I will do some investigating and report back.

Snake!!!

The other day I was round Suzy's house with her and Taylor, we were doing some gardening, when their neighbour gave us the heads up on a snake coming through the fence!

It was a big python, about 6 foot. Python's aren't poisonous. It had obviously eaten recently because it had a big bulge about two thirds of the way along it, which it got stuck in the fence for a while. It was then that we started to suspect it wasn't a very bright snake.

It slithered across the garden and started going up a tree beside the house. I touched it!

It went pretty high and we lost interest and started chatting away. I was mid-story when suddenly the snake fell out of the tree!!! It landed on the bottom branch and folded itself into a comforting knot, and sat there looking shaken for a while. We couldn't believe it. What kind of a snake falls out of a tree?! I can't believe it got that big, it clearly isn't very good at being a snake.

Then it composed itself and snaked along a branch, trying to get to the roof. This was its plan, snakes like living in people's rooves, and people don't tend to mind as they keep the rat population down. However, once again, the snake's IQ let it down, because the further it went along the branch, the lower the branch drooped.

When it had gotten all of its weight onto the branch, it realised it was headed for the ground, so decided to go along with that idea. It went round to the other side of the house and found a palm tree right next to the house to climb.

It was so crazy watching it go up the trunk, so clever and so weird!

Taylor called her friend's Dad out to come and get the snake as they were worried about their two chickens, two cats, mice and dog (quite reasonably). The snake managed to reach the roof just as he turned up, so onto the roof he went.

He took the snake off to the bush to release it.

Awesommme

Easter

I made an Easter egg! Isn't it coool?

Project Chicken

Quigley and Jean wanted us to build a chicken coop and run to keep the chooks from roosting in the trees, and laying eggs in bizarre places for them to turn into stinkbombs. We designed a setup that they liked and got building!

Foxes (and dogs) are a problem in the area so the fence needs to be dug in properly. As the total fence length will be 108 metres, we rented a trench digger (called Ground Hog).

Off Zappa went, unaware of the large pipe he was about to hit a couple of metres away...

Uh oh.....

Disasterously high sums of money for the total cost of this chicken home were suddenly invading our brains, remorse was wrapping its tentacles around our heads, and a nasty smell was wafting up from the hole. We didn't know what kind of a pipe it was, it was so big and in a funny direction, so Jean went to fetch the very Australian very handy neighbour. He gave us some wonderful news: the pipe was a run-off pipe from the septic tank! It already HAD holes in it to leak out lovely fertilising liquid into the ground (the solid stuff stays in the septic tank and that's the stuff that gets pumped out), so we didn't have to call out any expensive plumbers and replace it at all!

Zappa didn't think this news was all wonderful: 'So I just put my whole arm in sewage,' he said. 'Great.'

Baxter (above) thought the trench digger was amazing. 'I like wadching Zabba use the trench digger,' he said, 'becod it makes him shake aaalll overr.'

On the second side of the rectangle, Zappa and Ground Hog chomped through the phone line. Zappa then electrocuted himself on it whilst repairing it. No, no, that's not all. He electrocuted his FACE. Don't ask me how. And don't worry, it was only a small shock, like a mild electric fence, but he said he was suddenly standing up and didn't particularly remember getting there. We didn't know phone lines carried a little current, and if you didn't either, some useful trivia for you. Anyway, now the phone line sounds crackly so we're going to have to drive to Coff's Harbour to a proper electrician's shop to get a special underground connector box for it. Ughhh...

Since then, Zappa has been digging the trenches the old-fashioned way, with a spade.

The coop so far, and a mournful Dolphin who is in season and seems to have chosen me as a boyfriend. She just can't understand why her advances haven't paid off.

Stay tuned for project development. I'm dropping Zappa off in Byron for Bluesfest on Wednesday and coming back here for blissful alone time! It will give us a chance to miss each other (hopefully).We will recommence Project Chicken after I go and get him a week later.

A lovely sky at the end of a long day!

Blanket Progress

Look how big it's got!