Raining Again!

Can you believe that we are four months into 2025 already??!?

I am, as of this day, 21 days from turning 65 years of age.

Good Lord!

How did that happen?

I am flabbergasted!

It also means that I have been maintaining this blog for 14 years. That's commitment!

We've had 65mm of rain today. 

I still squeezed two Harley plays in.

A Zoom meeting with The Gypsy lasted for 2.5 hours and ended at 10.30am.

I made myself GF waffles with DF ice cream, banana, raspberries, blueberries and maple syrup for breakfast.

Adoring Husband and I watched the movie "Angel Has Fallen".

Somehow, amid all that, I got confused and thought it was Saturday afternoon, so I was settling in to watch the football!

Until I remembered that it's Wednesday!

I made curried mince & vegetable pastries for dinner, serving them with garden salad and tzatziki. Quite delicious.

We played trivia.

The rain has stopped and I'm ready to sleep.

Nite all.  

Quite Productive Really

I was awake for almost two hours in the middle of the night when the rain fell heavily and loudly on our roof.

So it was difficult to get up for meditation this morning, but I managed to be presentable when Heart of Gold arrived to pick me up. She had texted me earlier because the weather was looking ominous and offered to drive me to meditation. Obviously, I accepted her offer.

It was a good class with only six of us in attendance.

At the end of meditation, the weather was still looking ominous so The Gypsy and I planned a Zoom meeting so that she could get home before the weather set in.

This meant no long chat under the barbecue shelter, which is our usual MO.

Heart of Gold dropped me home and BGWLBH and I decided to drive into town to get the things that we couldn’t purchase yesterday.

The weather became gloomy with drizzling rain as we got closer to The Bay.

BGWLBH had quite a few unusual items on her list, like darning needles and fishing line, so it was like a treasure hunt trying to find everything on her list. We were successful.

We arrived home before 2.30pm and I made a prawn roll for late lunch, watched a quiz show, took Harley out to play, batched up the chicken broth, made up 9 Harley meals and prepared salmon patties for dinner.

BGWLBH made a delicious garden salad to go with the patties while Adoring Husband tidied the kitchen behind us.

We played trivia for 45 mins.

I’m in bed ready for some sleep.

Nite all.

The Wet is Coming

There is MUCH rain forecast for the next two weeks, so BGWLBH and I decided to head into town and stock up on a few things, just in case we can’t get into town due to flooding.

There were three places on the road that were still partially covered in water and in many places water was lapping both sides of the road. It won’t take much to flood again.

I was able get everything on my list except gluten free breadcrumbs.

I topped up my lotto tickets.

I bought the better quality bacon and told the butcher what I thought of the new addition to his selection (tough as old boot leather). He agreed that it was “chewy” but told me he loved it that way. I warned him to continue stocking my favourite!

I bought a bag of raw chicken feet for Harley, as well as 4 new balls, a rope toy and a quacking duck that has already lost its ‘quacker’, its tail and all of its stuffing!

I did a small grocery shop at Woollies and was served by a young girl who did everything in slow motion. I struggle with slow, but I remained upbeat and friendly. Ugh.

I bought some cooked prawns and some fresh bread rolls.

As soon as I got home, I unpacked the groceries, peeled and chopped the potatoes and sweet potatoes and put them in water in the pot.

I got the slow cooker out and filled it with all the ingredients of chicken bone broth.

I took Harley out to play.

I cooked duck breast with spicy orange sauce, mash and steamed green beans and carrot sticks for dinner.

We played trivia for an hour.

MAFS to finish off.

Tomorrow is meditation day so it’s time for me to sleep.

Nite all.

Hermit Sunday

I slept soundly all night from around 11.30pm until 9am!

It was quite shocking to see that time on my phone. Harley hadn't even woken me up!

I was moved to get out of bed when I received a text from BGWLBH asking if I had any ironing. I IMMEDIATELY took my 5 items to her.

Despite a good night's sleep, I was not in a good frame of mind and Adoring Husband, almost immediately, pissed me off.

He didn't do anything significant, but my patience ran thin and I just wasn't in the mood.

After Harley play, I didn't even make any breakfast, I came back to my bedroom where I intended to stay for the day.

Originally, I was going to complete my IChing course, but I got distracted by TV, Facebook, YouTube, journaling and emails.

The football started at 3pm and AH reminded me at 4pm that it was Harley play time.

After play time, I sat for 20 minutes until BGWLBH asked if she could help with dinner, so I gave her a task and joined her in the kitchen to get started.

Roast pumpkin and spinach salad, coleslaw and barramundi steaks with lemon.

Oh and I made some banana bread which we all enjoyed after dinner while it was still warm with lots of oozy butter!

The first final night of MAFS was tonight.

I'm sitting up in bed watching a replay of Australian Taskmaster.

I need to sleep soon. I don't want to sleep in again.

Nite all.  

Very Weathery!

This is just about to hit us …

We had 120mm last night. Who knows what’s in this!

It’s rumbling loudly.

Nothin on today except Harley play, a movie and three games of footy.

Fend for yourself dinner was actually lunch for me - I crumbed 20 prawn cutlets and made a honey/soy dipping sauce. I was able to eat 19 of them!

Delicious!

So no dinner for me. A frosty fruit ice block at 6.30pm.

It’s now 8.10pm and I’m sitting up in bed watching the Cronulla vs Bulldogs game.

It is JUST starting to rain and the thunder is getting louder.

I will sign off and wait for Adoring Husband to join me.

Nite all.

Crazy Weather

I’ve been sitting up in bed listening to 70mm of rain fall in just one hour! 

It was LOUD with lots of wind.

Adoring Husband still suffers from PTSD since the tornado (12 years ago) so he spent some time in my room for company until the worst of it was over.

At 10.30pm we had received 101mm since 9am. 90 of that was after 6pm.

Crazy weather.

I tried to post the weather warning on a number of Hervey Bay Facebook pages but because MY new Facebook profile is less than a month old, they all rejected the post!

All of those poor people in The Bay who haven’t recovered from the last flood will AGAIN have no warning … unless they follow other meteorologists … because the BOM didn’t issue any warnings for us.

BGWLBH and I drove into The Bay today to do the shopping that we didn’t do yesterday. I had a substantial list.

But we got caught in heavy rain driving home and there were crazy drivers tailgating us, unexpectedly cutting in front of other drivers and  overtaking 2-3 cars at a time when visibility was poor.

BGWLBH was yelling often.

We made it home safe and sound.

Harley got a very short play time this afternoon between showers but he refused to go out and pee in the rain tonight!

My tipping is not going so well this week, but neither is anybody else’s. Thank goodness the Broncos won!

Now it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

Raining Again

BGWLBH and I drove into The Bay this morning.

She was STARVING so we found our way to “Salt” cafe. We haven’t been there for quite some time and it was fairly busy at 10.10am when we arrived. Only 2 tables available.

I wasn’t hungry so I ordered a Sunshine Bliss fresh juice while she ordered her usual bacon and eggs with a pot of tea.

The food arrived long before the beverages, which was annoying, so we were there until almost 11.30am. We’ll know not to go there at that time of day again.

Afterwards, we browsed the shops nearby, but found nothing to convince us to open our wallets. We drove around the back streets checking out the flood damage and the footpaths loaded with damaged boxes and furniture awaiting council collection.

The flooding was more far reaching than we originally thought.

I have to mention that there were some crazy drivers out today. 

Many people tailgating in the heavy rain, pulling out unexpectedly in front of other drivers, overtaking at speed when visibility was poor and one particular idiot who was doing circle work on the road at the big Toogoom intersection! He didn’t care that there was traffic coming from all directions!

Fool!

When the rain got heavy, we found ourselves a little cafe to hunker down with tea and coffee and wait for it to ease before driving home but after 90 minutes, it didn’t even look like easing, so we put on our big girl pants and hit the road.

The traffic was horrendous at 3.30pm and we were stationery on Old Maryborough Rd for some time as the heavy traffic attempted to manoeuvre through the main roundabout. At one point, the traffic was even stationery on the roundabout.

The queue to enter Eli Waters was the main culprit and the turning lane was backed up to the roundabout. Until that point, we had planned on shopping there, but chose to bypass and even took the back road home.

The lane turning onto the Hervey Bay/Burrum Heads Rd was backed up to the traffic lights so we sailed passed on the outside lane towards the next traffic lights and drove through the industrial area and behind Craignish. No traffic to speak of and a smooth ride home.

It’s the first time we have spent 5 hours in The Bay and come home with absolutely nothing!

I made a fried rice for dinner and served it with leftovers from the last two nights.

We played trivia before the football and then watched Penrith lose to South Sydney. I was very annoyed because I was going to change my tips but I was a minute too late! Nobody in the tipping comp picked Souths.

Now I’m feeling quite tired so it’s time to sleep.

Nite all.

Showery Day

Today’s forecast was for significant rain.

We received 30mm and that was mostly after 2.30pm.

We squeezed plenty of Harley play in, so he was happy.

While the old Aussie film, “Coolangatta Gold” was playing on the big screen TV - it’s not a good movie - Adoring Husband was watching something on his iPad and I was searching for an old Aussie movie that I thought was made around the same time as Coolangatta Gold (1984).

The movie I wanted was actually made in 1977 and had some top Aussies like Gus Mercurio, Grigor Taylor, Wendy Hughes and Judy Davis, but the star of the show and the one I was smitten with when I was 17 years old, was Joseph Bottoms, who is American.

It’s set in Surfers Paradise. Surfers Paradise 1977 …

Surfers Paradise 2025 …

This is Joseph Bottoms in the movie 1977 …

This is Joseph Bottoms now (ish) …

He was 65 here, but is now 70yrs old.

All very important and productive for the day (not).

Dinner was an interesting chicken concoction that I put together. 

In a pan, (just larger than bite sized pieces) chicken thigh, salt and pepper, a tin of crushed tomatoes, 3T chicken coq au vin mixture spread over the top, pieces of bacon 2”x1” spread over the top, a carrot cut into small cubes and scattered evenly, last night’s leftover sweet potato & potato mash mixed with chopped spinach and grated cheese spread over the top of the mixture and toasted pine nuts scattered over the top.

Into the oven at 170°C, covered, for 25 mins, then uncovered at 190°C for another 25 mins.

Served with garlic snow peas.

It went down a treat and AH went back for seconds.

The three of us made a video of us singing for Mr Perfect’s 40th birthday, which was hilarious, and also went down a treat.

We played trivia for half an hour.

MAFS dinner party night.

Scrublands final episode … what a great series! Only four episodes but kept me interested the whole way.

Now it’s almost 11pm so it’s time to sleep!

Nite all.