kiwibird: A good day for writing a blog

A good day for writing a blog. Too hot to move from the airconditioned house, with temperatures in the 40s. We cannot even be bothered going to the local shopping centre, or to the cinema, we did that last week on two very hot days. As there are extreme weather warnings, the U3A walk has been cancelled, Walter's bowls has been cancelled and Emma and Steve were told to work at home. Jackson and Isabel are not due back to school until next week. Luckily it is a big house so we can all find a spot to call our own.

So here I am, many weeks after I wrote my last blog. Just where the time goes to, I do not know. The days seem to roll into one, where we follow the hot weather routine, which is get up early, have breakfast, take Piper for a walk on the beach, come back and clean the house, have coffee, then lunch, followed by an afternoon nap, read a bit, make dinner, eat it, water the garden, watch a bit of television, and bedtime. I intersperse the routine with a few outings, and of course some wine. I seem to be opting out of quite a few of the U3A walks and cycle rides due to being too hot.

It has been one year since we sold our house in Joydens Wood, and so much has happened during that time. It certainly has been a busy year. Moving countries is not for the faint hearted for sure.

One of my recent tidying up sessions involved changing my Amazon account to Australia. This should have been easy, but due to using my telephone number as extra security I could not log into my UK Amazon account, in order to change over to an Australian address. Of course I put an Australian sim card in as soon as I arrived, and cancelled my UK sim card, before thinking of changing my Amazon account. Plus my Kindle reader is attached to the Amazon account, which I realised when I ran out of books. In the process I managed to attach the Kindle to Amazon NL which meant all books were in Dutch, in fact everything was in Dutch! But patience and some logical thinking saved the day!

My heart and mind is often still in Britain, especially at the moment when the Government is in even more disarray then usual. Every morning I read the UK newspapers and my heart sinks a bit more.

I could write heaps about the absolute mess the Conservative Party has made of the situation since the referendum in June 2016. The initial boastful remarks from certain key government people, about how easy it will be to leave the European Union, how much money the country will save, how great it will be to have no EU bureaucracy, about the joys of being free and taking back control, plus having a strong and stable government, just has not happened. Instead we have a situation, after nearly three years, where those in power cannot reach a consensus about how to exit the EU. We still have plenty of posturing by some key figures, although many of them have disappeared from the scene. It has been estimated that more than 2 billion pounds has been spent so far, with basically nothing achieved, except for a Conservative Party in total disarray.

And the deadline of March 29th, 2019 is looming very fast. The perspective from this side of the world is one of disbelief, at the lack of common sense, and of a country gone mad.

I think it is time for photographs.

Christmas morning on the beach. What a great way to start the day.

A perfect morning at Port Willunga beach. Blue skies, calm seas and plenty of white sand.

Christmas starters, cooked prawns, was a great way to begin a long feast. The rest of the family, the non prawn eaters, had disappeared, when the photograph was taken.

The prawns were delicious, as can be seen from the smiles on the faces.

Andreena and me, looking very happy.

My apologies to the rest of the family, as I have no more photographs. It was a very hot day, with lots of sticky flies, but we managed extremely well. We put the food, buffet style, on the table under nets, in the air conditioned house. Other than the hot potatoes, dinner consisted of cold meats and salads plus very yummy desserts.

You may be wondering what we did with the prawn shells, and no we did not dispose of them in the nearest public bin, after dark. I know some people must have done this, due to the terrible smell coming from public bins the next day. We did the right thing and put the prawn shells in the freezer until our next rubbish collection day.

We all received lots of great presents. My Oma cup, with the loose tea holder in it, very laid back. So cool.

Walter and I received a Google mini each, so much fun, giving instructions, and especially funny was thanking Google every time it followed instructions. One does need to be polite!

A few hours on Aldinga beach, under the pull out awning attached to Emma and Steve's car.

Parking on Aldinga Beach. We noticed that the pull out awnings are very popular here.

Just to keep in with the crowd, we have one too, on the Honda, on the front passenger's side.

A seal swimming happily under the Glenelg jetty.

Two days after Christmas the Adelaide Harriers organised a fun run from Glenelg to Brighton jetty and back. A very hot morning I might add, but our threesome managed very well.

Walter, Andreena and I decided to walk the distance, so we left an hour earlier and managed to get back to Glenelg about the same time as Emma, Steve and Donna. We were very happy with our achievement, even if we did not get medals.

And of course a delicious coffee afterwards was definitely needed.

Our teenagers received plenty of floaties for the pool.

An delicious evening meal of fish and chips, with Darren and Jespa, at Normanville Beach plus a beautiful sunset.

The kiosk at Normanville Beach, where Jay has a holiday job.

Andreen and Donna stayed with us for two days, which was lovely. The three girls having a refreshing dip in the pool, watched over by Poppy and Piper.

Steve bought a kayak, which will get plenty of use here, both at the beach and on the Onkaparinga River. Emma and Steve carrying the kayak on its first outing. It was early evening, not dusk, but the camera lens decided otherwise.

Carrickalinga Beach, another beautiful beach. The U3A cycling group starts here and ride along the coast, and then inland to Yankalilla, where we have coffee and cakes at the bakery. I love this ride, both for the scenery, the cool tree lined road, and the well kept bike paths.

I finally walked in Aldinga Scrub, with the U3A walkers. It was extra interesting because one of the walkers had officially led groups on walks here, and gave us plenty of information about the trees and plants.

The photograph below was taken on an extremely windy day, although not apparent from this photograph. We had to give up our plans to walk on this beach, from Silver Sands to Sellicks Beach. There were plenty of horses there, out for their morning exercise. They and their riders did not seem to mind having sand blown into their faces.