Lotto Fever

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DAY 234

It seems strange not to be packing up and moving on, but nice all the same. The nights are quite cool and refreshing, it is nice just to sleep with a single blanket or sheet.

We are still catching up on a few necessary things so we still seem to be keeping busy, however despite that it is hot and you really also want to sit around and do nothing.

Today I am expecting my new power supply for the Dell Laptop, they have said it will be with me by 5.00 tonight, I am hopeful, it should be delivered by courier and they will accept it at the reception desk for me, so I won’t keep popping down every 5 minutes to annoy them, I will wait until lunchtime.

We wanted some toast for breakfast, we have not had toast for a while, so I wandered off to the camp kitchen to use the toaster, well, I would have if there was a toaster in the camp kitchen, I could find everything else, the kettle, microwave, fridge etc. but no toaster, so disappointed I headed back to our camp and relayed the bad news to Andy, instead we resorted to Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

Andy wanted to give some cornflakes to the White Ibis that is hanging around, I reminded Andy that this would be the slippery slope, remember Tasmania and the Possums? He insisted that it would be fine so despite putting them away (hiding them actually) Andy managed to retrieve them and gave a small handful to the Ibis, who in his own sweet time gradually picked them up to eat. He vanished shortly afterwards.

In the meantime I am catching up on blog work and emails etc, Andy has gone for his shower, I am sat in the car using the laptop as it is currently my only source of power, I hear a rustling in our campsite behind me, I jump out of the car thinking that the rubbish bag is being rifled by an Ibis, however I find an Ibis has picked up my open bag of dish washing sponges, emptied the three remaining ones on the ground and was running away with the plastic bag, I gave chase explaining to the Ibis that it was not food and to leave it alone, eventually the Ibis dropped the bag and ran off.

When Andy returned we sat around in the cool of the shade and finally I managed to pick up a new book to read, I have a few waiting but chose the Maeve Binchy novel, Tara Road.

It is lovely but we are both finding it hard to relax, we both feel the need that we should be busy.

Andy’s guilt trip seems to have continued working on you guys, today we have received more messages via the blog. This is great; we are both thrilled to hear from you. Jan and Ted thanks for the advice on the Listerine, I may pick some up when we go shopping next. Dull fact for you all, I used to work for the company in England that made Listerine.

I am going to seriously try not to bore you all with the number of times I go to the swimming pool while we are here, suffice to say that the pool is gorgeous, it is cool, but nowhere near as cold (or monkey as we like to call it) as most swimming pools we have come across on this journey.

The swimming pool here is in behind the squash court; it is beautifully landscaped and also has a lawn area to sit in the shade. This pool is fairly large so you can have a decent swim, and when you have finished swimming there are a couple of plunge pools off to one side that are beautifully in the shade. I might even get the strength to pop round with the camera one day to take a picture to show you how tropical it all looks.

We decide to pop out into Howard Springs Village late afternoon, it is lotto day today and there is apparently $92,000,000 up for grabs, we could do with a slice of that, so we go and buy 4 tickets. We both agree that we would be happy with $1,000,000 that would see us nicely round Australia a few more times, perhaps in a Winnebago, but before we go out we drop in to the camp reception to see if our Dell parcel has arrived but it has not, so no surprise there then!!

We drive round the area just to see what it is like, we see a lot of blocks of land being cleared, no doubt for building new homes on and other blocks of land already have fairly new modern houses. There is very little for sale here.

Back at camp we see Jennifer and Aaron, I will remind you that they have been waiting for a new engine to put into their ute before they carry on with their Aussie Adventure, the problem is that they left on Monday morning in the hope that it would all get done, but they reappeared here that afternoon with the news that the engine would not be in until Wednesday.

We return just in time to see Jennifer and Aaron wandering over to us with their chairs and a few bottles of beer. I have a bottle of gin to see me through the next few weeks, bliss my first one in months, well it seems like months, it was only one g&t that I had the other night at Victoria River, that was the first one in months.

We chat until it gets dark, but before long our tummy clocks are telling us that it is dinner time so we all bid goodnight and sort out our respective dinners.

Andy started to get some bits and pieces out of the truck that he knew we would need while it is in for its service tomorrow.

It was another humid evening, before we went to bed a shower was much needed to cool down, trouble is my hair gets wet, so I go to bed with wet hair and in the mornings I wake up with hair like Tina Turner, all over the show. Still I would rather be cool to go to bed, it does help you get to sleep quicker when you are not so hot and sticky.

Trouble is last night was going to be one of those nights where sleep was not forthcoming, I lay awake for ages, well I was thinking about stuff so did not really have my mind in the right place for relaxing.

Outside I could hear rustling, I have not thrown the rubbish in the bin I remember that it is still on the ground. There is a tin can in there and as I cannot bear the thought of a Possum ripping open the bag and cutting itself on the tin I have to get out of bed to go and place the rubbish in the bin, where it will not be able to get its paws on it.

Back in bed, I still lie awake as I can hear snuffling around the edges of the tent, I am going to have to get used to this again, there are lots of Possums around, they scream and fight, they are quite noisy.

It is after midnight before sleep finally hits me.

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