Long Day 2

 I mentioned getting out of Hotel rooms, to do this we are buying a retirement unit in Williamstown.  There has been various levels of stress associated with this purchase. The settlement date was always tight at only four weeks. We have placed large orders for furniture and white goods and arranged for delivery according to the settlement date. The paperwork has dragged on for those four weeks. Various urgings to get on with it have done nothing.  There are three lots of solicitors involved in this. Today we got various calls and emails thru the day, that the settlement was off, then it was back on. We had a final inspection today as well and there are at least five or six painting issues to fix and other outstanding items. The out going vendors cancelled the electricity when they were not supposed to. We had to scramble to get our provider to turn the juice back on ahead of time today.  Even still the garage door is not working and we could not test the hot water as the unit is off.  We have been assured all will yet be working by Friday's settlement. Finally we got word that a signed contract by the vendors was received today.  Talk about last minute.   This long day 2 occurred on the same day as long day 1. 

Long Day 1

 We will be glad to get out of hotel rooms, especially with restless nights, considering Beryl's reoccurrence of pain problems.  After Debbie got back to the hotel around 8:00 ish Dennis took over for the all nighter. Debbie got there again around 8:30 am today and after another 4 hours or so, saw her mum into a proper ward.  The prognosis is similar to last time and a management plan is being devised, this time perhaps requiring some injections for bone health.  My mum had these and the apparent osteo problems have cleared up.

Fully in Charge

 This was my biggest grand parenting day yet.  Debbie got called away to get her mum into hospital which is another story.  She has spent the last 7 hours in a waiting corridor, hopefully Beryl was somewhere else. As for Estelle the snuggler I am covered in runny nose goo but that's the way it goes. Before Debbie headed out we got Estelle to the library. Here the main game is to get the books off the shelves rather than reading them.  I kept her entertained until 11:30 when it was sleep time. She faffed around for 15 minutes but did get some sleep and woke up at 1:00pm.  Lunch was a kid's frozen pasta bake mix which she ate almost ¾ of.  The afternoon consisted of 30min on the sunny deck and an hour at the playground including the walk there and back.  I changed her nappy twice in the day and both times was a bit soggy. Too much information?  In the end I had to get a taxi back to this hotel room as the car was in a hospital car park.

The reading chair

swing low

the snuggler

87th Birthday

 We went country driving today to Darraweit Guim to Leanne and Shane's farmstead. They have 99 cows now and three in calf.  We tried to get Asher and Estelle closer to them for a photo. At least they sat quietly for a photo on the tractor seat.  Inside it was catered food for lunch, meaning beef, pork and chicken with plenty of side dishes.  Asher and Estelle sat well enough on Grandpa's knee for blowing out some candles. It was a cold business outside in the wind but Estelle was keen to run anywhere she could get to.

Moooo...      Mind the electric fence

cake time

almost a kiddie ride

Asher in the Totem

 We knew there were kids on both sides of Asher's van, as they were eyeing it off to move a third family in.  So Asher starts to get to do some play with them and Daniel introduces himself and within minutes we find that both sides are selling up and moving to a holiday house nearby that they have all bought together.  So there are two prime location van sites soon to be available. I guess there will always be new kids for Asher to play with just not these ones.

the old totem set

Lawns, Bins and Washing

 Back to reality time here. We have done a short shopping trip in Geelong to get back in time for a meeting. We have lost track of our bins but I think I will have to go out now and give the lawns a mow and we have had loads of washing for everything that was in the suitcases. I have been working on some videos taken last week.  This one is a shortened version of a walk we did up to the Forts area. There were gun emplacements, a command post, observation post, barracks, ammo dumps, admin halls and the whole shebang. 

command post

Snorkel Trail

 The reef is close to the beach in Nelly Bay.  The first marker is about 100m out however there are things to see after only 30 metres.  In fact that was the only area we could see.  The deeper the water the cloudier were the depths. I think this may have been the reef itself always shedding small fragments.  We still followed all the markers but when you arrived, the rope line descended into gloom and you could not see much and I did not want to pull myself down.  Closer to shore there were coloured stripey fish and plenty of different coral types.  We brought back a piece of brain coral that had washed up.

New Brain