The morning blues

Snuggled up in bed I was this morning when Warren nudges me and says "That's your alarm", I didn't even hear it. As I didn't have to get out of bed this morning, it wasn't by my bed. I stumbled out of bed to find it. My phone is my alarm clock and it will continue to go off and get louder each time so I knew I needed to find it and turn it off. My handbag was in the kitchen and my phone was inside, as it was a little chilly out from under the covers, I grabbed it and hurried back to bed. Couldn't turn the damned thing off, why? because I have a cover on the phone which is plastic and the plastic had become hard with the cold.

I had to remove the cover to turn the alarm off of course by this time I am almost fully awake and it was only 6.13am. Last week I had to get up at this time to have enough time to leave for work, silly me forgot that the alarm was set for each work day morning.

Fixed that problem and hunkering down for a bit more sleep and Warren is talking to me (unlike me, he wakes wide awake around six every morning, with or without an alarm) then his alarm goes off at 6.30am and the news comes on the radio. Arrrgh! more noise, I just need/want a little bit more sleep.

I did get a little doze in and then decided to get up as my sleep-in had been shot to pieces. Warren left for tennis at eight and I have done the washing, cleaned the kitchen, checked my emails and now the morning is mine to do as

I wish. Fresh orange juice from our tree for breakfast, the above photo was taken a few days ago (afternooon tea last week) but I did squeeze some for brekkie this morning as well as I had time to do it .

This is our orange tree with heaps of oranges as you can see, they are very juicy and sweet this year

Wimbledon tennis

I love watching the tennis and have been watching Wimbledon this week, unfortunately it is only shown on TV at 8.30pm. I have et the rule that i will watch the first set as its usually an Aussie up first and we tape the rest of the match.

Even though we heard that Lleyton (Hewitt) our number one player had won his first match we still watched what we had recorded.

This year Australia had the most player in years, I think thirteen, maybe it was an unlucky number as we only have one after the first week. Nick Kyrgio played last night but it was delayed because of rain so we were able to watch all of the footy (Brisbane v North Melbourne) I'm sure no-one expected Brisbane to win but they got in front and managed to stay there, winning by nine points in the end. During the week Jono Brown had retired, he had been their go to player for years but in his last game had been concussed again and doctors advised him to call it quits.  It did seem as though the players were giving 110% to win a game for Brownie, he was there for his send off and walked the boundary at half time with his kids. In an interview, he said that it had been a busy week for him, Sunday evening he had met with his coach and discussed his options, Monday he announced to the media his immediate retirement and next Tuesday morning his wife gave birth to their third child, since then he had been between the hospital and giving interviews.

Anyway, rather than chose between the footy and the tennis, we got to see both until the rain came and stopped it. Nick was down four games to one and we really thought that he may have gone out but we taped it anyway. This morning's news before we could stop it we heard that he had won thru.

We havent seen the match yet but will probably watch it tomorrow. Nick was/is the only teenager playing (male) as there is a sixteen year old female who has now gone out. Nick had to play qualifying to get a place and has already put out the thirteen seed no hes no slouch, looking forward to seeing him jump up the ranks. I have an app on my tablet re tennis and after his game two days ago he has gone from 245 place to 86, there are now five aussies in the top one hundred.

So many clothes

I do have heaps of clothes and two years ago just before going back to China for another year, I know that I bought extra "to take to China" as there was very little that I could buy there to fit me. Many of the extras that I bought didn't make the "cut" to take to China because of weight restrictions.

When I was first asked to do the five week relief work, my thoughts turned to clothes, what should I wear? I had set myself a challenge for the year of not buying any clothes as I didn't need any more. I did buy two pairs of boots, why two pairs? because I couldn't decide on between a black pair (more serviceable) or a suede burgundy pair, the price was ten bucks each so what the hell, I bought both. The burgundy one I have worn once but I have had quite a few wears from the black ones.

After two weeks I realised that I hadn't worn the same shirt/top so i wondered if I could continue and yes I could, as i worked four and a half weeks, that's twenty three days, really I must have too many clothes. Although to be fair (trying for a bit of justification here)the days were still warmish at the start and so short sleeved shirts were fine but needed something with long sleeves for the last couple of weeks.

Thankfully the three cardigans that I had made for me in China have made an appearance as well as I was starting to think they were a waste of money but where else would I have got cardigans made to fit (in cashmere)at an affordable price?

My many scarves also got quite a bit of use too,  so maybe I should continue my no buying clothes for next year as well.

A crazy week

leading up to end of term and the end of my five weeks of work. Kids and teachers were getting tired and there was still some work for some students to do. Some classes that I went to, were showing movies or parts of them. Science class watched a couple of episodes of Myth busters and then did a couple of experiments themselves outside, seeing how far different types of balls would bounce. That was interesting, one group were upset as they thought that they had used the measuring stick the wrong way. When I pointed out that the actual measurement didn't matter as they weren't competing with others, they just had to compare the three balls that they did, suddenly they were all smiles again. Of course the super ball went higher than the tennis ball or the poly ball, some got as high as 76 cms, others around the 60 cms mark.

As I have been going to many year eleven classes and they had block exams, I found myself going to different classes to help students get assignments finished. I accompanied two boys to a music lesson only to find that their assessment was actually playing in a group and being filmed but I did assist in some behaviour management, the next day I was with the same class and typing up their written assignment which was on Aussie bands, one was about AC/DC, that was great. Although kids use computers a lot and from year nine, they have their own or the use of, many of them struggle to think and type so I type what they tell me.

During the week, the one boy in the wheel chair had his gear box malfunction and staff had to get the maintenance people out and then yesterday there was an accident with a door being pushed open while he was heading towards it (probably at a great rate of knots lol) which resulted in one of his foot plates coming off, again he was stationary while a new bolt was found (it had sheered off the bolt). The staff room has its own tool box to cope with these types of things but he was motionless for a little while.

Also during the week, I was asked if I would consider returning next term for fifteen hours a week, Yes please, I said so in two weeks, I go back for three days a week until the position is advertised and then i can apply for the permanent job. Yippee (do you get the feeling that I like it!) Don't know what I will be doing  yet.

Come on Lights

Due to certain circumstances our youngest grandson is spending the night with us tonight. I picked him up after school where he asked if I could take him to Coles to get something to eat. Coles is just across the road but I would have had to move the car etc etc and I wanted to start for home so I suggested that we stop at the next township. He agreed which was lucky as he really didn't have a choice, it was my way or none.

Half way there, he asks if it was where he went to kinder and I said yes whereupon he said, "There's a nice bakery there" see, definitely our grand kid.

He directed me to the bakery and we bought cheese and bacon rolls and a drink, then he sees a croissant.  and asked if he could have one of those instead, I said yes and we bought both. last week I had bought him a croissant at a coffee shop and he really liked it. We set off for home and there is this sigh from the car seat and an exclamation, "There's no ham in here!" "No" I told him "Its a plain croissant" "But I wanted ham and cheese like last time" "Too bad, you asked for a croissant and that's what you got, so eat it please." Grudgingly I got an "okay"

All was quiet for a while and then a voice said, "Nanna, I've finished can I play on your phone please" "No, I'm driving so cant get it for you" "When you stop?" "Won't be stopping until we get home" Silence! Should have just said no but six year olds can twist things to suit.

Heading to lights and the same voice says 'yes,yes, come on" What are you talking about/" "Nothing!" the lights change and I sailed through them. heading for a turn to the left again I didn't have to stop. "Why did we turn?Nana" "Because this is the way to go home." Then it dawned on me what he was doing, he was trying to will the lights to go red so that I would have to stop!

Four more lights and I didn't have to stop, the voice tone went from Come on (pleadingly) to a very strong Come on (as in you have to be joking) on the sixth set of lights, he was in luck and I had to stop, so I grabbed my phone out of my bag and passed it over the back. The rest of the way home it was quiet except for shooting noises and the occasional Arrhg, when he missed one.  Maybe I should try "willing" lights to stay green when I am in a hurry, I cant remember the last time I got six lights in a row when I didn't need to stop.

KFC

Warren did his grandparent/parent duty today and went to sports day at school with youngest grandson. As he and I had been out all day (and I hadn't taken anything out of the freezer for dinner)I suggested take away. We decided to buy KFC and take it home. Five pieces of chicken, two individual serves of coleslaw, two small tubs of potato and gravy, a serve of hop chips and a pepsi each and a few cents change from $20.

After we had eaten i asked warren how was his chicken and he said "Quite frankly, the KC that we used to buy in China tasted much better" I had to agree. We had bought KFC quite often while we lived in China probably as much as once a fortnight, some nights we would walk to one KFC outlet, eat and then walk home again a distance of between five or six kilometres. (In our city in China there was at least six KFC outlets and only one Maccas)

Often we would buy a bucket of chicken which would include ten pieces of chicken two bread rolls, two sweet corn cobs and a large bottle of Pepsi for 74RMB (approx $16) included in the pack was three large disposable cups and ice.

Tonight's meal was the first KFC that we have eaten since returning from China twelve months ago. I have already taken meat out of the freezer for tomorrow nights dinner.

Baby lambs

I went to Agriculture science yesterday with a student and while we were there, one of the farm support guys came to the class and said that there had been new lambs born and would the students like to see them. I had not been to the farm before so off we set, up a hill thru a water course another hill and finally after about 300 hundred metres we arrived at the "farm".

It is a couple of paddocks behind the playing fields of the school and there were some sheep with new lambs, the oldest was two weeks old and the others had been born in the last few days, two that morning.

The kids were ecstatic about seeing such young lambs and couldn't get over the size of them. One asked why the newest one was sleeping, poor thing had been delivered in the last two hours and had been drinking when we first got there and of course was a bit tuckered out after having a feed.

Just think i am getting paid for this!