The Mosquitos are Mutating

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DAY 480-484


News from Woodstock this week indicates that the Mosquito’s have been mutating, I knew it when we were there at Christmas, I saw the biggest mossies that I have ever seen!

While out in the garden Helen reports that these giant mosquito’s just descended, they were so large that she almost go carried away, at this point I wish that I could draw caricatures, I have a great picture in my mind of a giant mosquito grabbing Helen’s t-shirt on the shoulders and flying away with her dangling in mid air while Wally and the other lovely doggies sit on and watch as she flies into the distance “Where’s Helen going? Who’s going to feed us?”

I can only advise Helen to take gin and tonic, the quinine in the tonic will do no good against Ross River virus or indeed it won’t take that awful itching away, but it still might make Helen feel better.

Also the lovely Kimba who has been on a diet, as she had become a little bit tubby custard of late, not helped by the hot summer of lazing around on the veranda instead of choosing to work with the other doggies or did Andy and I not help by giving her one dog nut too many at feeding time? Well the matriarch Kimba is looking a little bit tubby for the right reasons, she is once again in pup and has 3.5 weeks to go before the big event, which we wait with abated breath. Perhaps Andy and I will be able to pop over to Woodstock and see the puppies when they are born.

I have visions that Wally, the proud father to be, is sat up in his kennel smoking the occasional cigar in celebration. Wally’s bad leg is playing him up again, clearly not helped by continually jumping the fence into Kimba’s yard to do the deed, or maybe the cooler weather is not helping?

Talking of cooler weather, Monday 1st March officially the first day of autumn, actually brought autumn with a vengeance, it was a significantly cool and windy start to the day, a woman rushed into the amenities block this morning wearing a big jumper and encased in a large woollen wrap exclaimed “we were not expecting this!”

Tell me about it, this will undoubtedly mean the purchase of closed in shoes or even boots to see me through the coming months of autumn and winter!

A visit to our first ACT 4wd club meeting, means that we are now officially members after handing over our registration fee which now covers us for 2 years. We have met some great people in the club and we both look forward to hanging around the wilderness with some of them from time to time, or actually during the winter months some of the club events are not related to the wilderness, taking the opportunity to do theatre nights and perhaps an afternoon tea at the Hyatt.

The funny thing is that as I was talking to a couple of people last night, I was relaying a story from when we were in Forbes, then I realised that was early last year, did we go to Forbes early last year? Surely not it had to be only a couple of months ago? The time over here seems to mean nothing it was all only yesterday.

This week has been busy for Andy, well flat out really, no difference from being back home in the UK.

We have done our best to keep up with the swimming regime, some evenings after a fairly full on day at work it is hard to get the drive to get in to the water, but once you push yourself the water soon de stresses you, even the cold water has not deterred me from getting in for the swim.

I have needed the de stressing element as the staff at the Canberra Motor Village have really being trying our patience, we have been waiting for another replacement dongle from Telstra and it has sat on their desk for well over a week and every night I have gone in and asked if they have any post for us and the answer has always being no!

I won’t even bother explaining the whole sad and sorry story, but some of the girls there are just so miserable, they never say please and thank you and one girl does not even look at me she always looks blank over my shoulder, I thought that she could not understand English at first as I tried to explain what post was and then I realised after a while she is Australian and just does not want to engage or even bother to deal with what I am asking.

Anyway, rolling on to Friday, we are all packed up and ready to leave our camp this morning but first we have to go to work for ½ a day, having both planned to leave early as we are heading to Bateman’s Bay for the long weekend.

However mid morning Andy telephoned to say that it was hurling down with rain, he questioned if we should go, I knew we should for two reasons, one Canberra Motor Village was fully booked over this weekend and two we were meeting with Lee and Marilyn and as we could not get hold of them we needed to go, stating that we could stay in Canberra being wet and miserable all weekend or meet up with friends and be wet and happier all weekend.

So at 1.00 Andy left work, picked up the trailer and at 2.00 he was ready and waiting outside my office for me to emerge.

Being adept at this travelling malarkey, the black suit that I am wearing is soon relegated to the back of the truck while I have changed into my holiday kit of shorts, t-shirt and thongs, its still raining but I am past caring.

A couple of hours later we arrived in a rain soaked Bateman’s Bay where we headed briefly north on the Princes Highway to find Depot Beach where we hoped to find Lee and Marilyn.

Not long after we were sitting in Lee and Marilyn’s caravan drinking tea and catching up waiting for the rain to stop so that we could pitch up.

An hour later, the rain had stopped long enough for us to set up camp, we are next door but one from Lee and Marilyn, we have power, but as we finish pegging the tent down, the rain starts very lightly so Andy decided that the awning had to go up.

I groaned, but knew that it was a good idea with uncertainty over the weekend weather, we would be very grateful of the shelter. That soon became clear when Lee and Marilyn cooked dinner for us that night and we sat under our awning and enjoyed a great meal sheltering from the rain that looked set for the night.

We are back in the big outdoors again and at one with nature, we don’t care that it is raining we are happy sat enjoying the company of Lee and Marilyn a couple of beers and a hearty meal.

By 10.00 we are all exhausted, Andy and I had an early start to finish packing the trailer, so we were glad to hit the sack. It is a warm night, so the blankets are pushed back as we drift off into slumber listening to the sounds of nature.

It had been a perfect day.

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