Catch Up Time

 Sun silvered water

I've always wanted longer legs.  This is the nearest I've managed...













I've been very slack on the writing front lately, however yesterday was very productive although I didn't get this post done.  By 4 pm my brain was mush and my fingers were dyslexic.

I've started on a new writing project.  Some years ago my mother, stepfather and I visited the Northern Territory of Australia...a raw, magical place.  I took heaps of photos and looking through them some time ago, I decided to write about the trip.  That took most of yesterday.  I had a travel diary which I updated every evening during our trip so I didn't have to rely on my memory.  It's in rough note form which needs to be transformed into something readable, quite a large undertaking, and will entail phone calls to New Zealand to see what Mum and Harold can recall.

My book, "Old Age and Villainy" is at a crucial point but more on that later.

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At long last we are experiencing some much needed and most welcome rain...a few months late but better now than waiting until the next wet season.  The most wonderful part of this system is that it covers a wide area of Queensland, which is a big State, so the graziers and farmers are getting relatively good falls as well.  Hopefully it continues a little longer to break the drought completely...although that may be wishful thinking.  Thankfully the daytime temperatures aren't too high, about 26/27 degrees C, so the humidity isn't bad  At night it's a little different with the temp being 22 degrees with humidity...most uncomfortable.  I think it seems hotter at night because the sea breeze dies down and the mugginess is more noticeable.  Anyway, it's been lovely to have these grey cooler days rather than just a heavy rain shower or brief storm then nothing for a couple of weeks or more.  Of course, by then any benefit has been lost by the hot days in between.

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We had a drama a week or so ago.  Our small block of units is on a busy main road with a 60 kmh speed limit.  Naturally a lot of people travel faster...  At about 4 pm one afternoon, there was the long blast of a car horn, a prolonged screech as tyres left metres of rubber on the road, followed by the resounding clang of metal on metal.

I flew down the steps (16 of them), not even stopping to put something on my feet, and shot out the driveway.  There, two cars were in disarray...one backed into the kerb facing into the road with something leaking out of the engine, the other, an SUV, stopped dead in the middle of the road with two close to hysterical women inside.  

From what an eyewitness said (who was travelling behind the SUV and very lucky not to be caught up in the smash) the car in the kerb was travelling from the opposite direction towards the SUV and, on the wrong side of the road, hit it head on. That vehicle was driven by a young man, mid 20s at a guess, who was released from his car by someone who was first on the scene.  Emergency services were contacted and two fire tenders arrived followed by an ambulance.  Sometime later the police turned up and the first thing they did was breath test the man.  Fortunately no one was seriously injured.  The man was having difficulty standing and whether it was from shock or alcohol, I don't know.  The airbags of both cars had deployed so they will be written off and of course, the tow trucks were there before anyone else apart from us residents.

It didn't surprise me that smash happened...I'm amazed none had happened before this in the three months I've been living here.  No doubt this won't be the only one, although I hope it is.

Funnily enough, I don't mind living on a busy road too much.  I did for some years when I lived in New Zealand and had to ring emergency services a lot more than once.

It was a blessing, apart from the cars being written off, this episode wasn't more serious.  It did have one good thing come out of it, for me anyway...I finally got to meet some of my neighbours!

After the excitement was over I walked back up the stairs, a lot slower than when I came down earlier, and poured a glass of wine.  It was then I noticed the little toe on my right foot was rather painful.  I looked down and found I'd torn the toenail...I don't know how but I could definitely feel it once the adrenaline had worn off!

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That's it for this post although I must mention that I will have some rather exciting news soon.  Watch this space...