One Week In

by phoenix

I can't believe that we've been here for almost a week. It even seems a bit strange to me that I haven't blogged yet. But, I guess we've been busy checking things out, exploring... and just basically relaxing and enjoying the surroundings. Plus, there's the fact that this computer is quite slow. Perhaps Gryph has just spoilt me with ours. I can't wait to start using it again, but I'll just have to be patient until he arrives. I miss him like crazy too, I'm finding it really hard to keep my mind on anything for too long. But, oh well... back to the task at hand...

Gryph's still in Rockhampton, sorting out our stuff. We couldn't afford to keep our cabin, so all of our stuff will be either sold or stored at my eldest daughter's house. We only had a week to get down here, as the property-owners' (let's just call them G and L for now) arranged house-sitter had to cancel. They are friends/neighbours of my Big Sis, and they were desperate to find someone. We almost said no for a number of reasons... finances and family members who couldn't come with us being our main concerns. But in the end we figured that it'd be good for us. For those of you who know us, you'll know that we both love being outdoors. We've been stuck in town for too long lately and we're both starting to go a little stir-crazy. At the very least it'll be a free holiday... but we're also intending to use this time to do some computer-related work. Anyway, there's a lot to do when you want to pick up and move house, and we just didn't have enough time to do it all. So, Gryph stayed behind while Lara (9), Spaz (15) and I travelled down to meet the owners and take over the shed.

Well... the trip was good, a bit boring but ok. We left Rocky last Sunday morning. We traveled 5 hours by Tilt Train to Gympie, the closest stop we could get to our destination. The trip was punctuated by small excitements, such as a breakfast of chipolatta sausages, potatos and a bacon quiche. We weren't all that impressed, considering it cost us five dollars and we were still hungry when we finished. After that we found out that we could have gone to the dining car and bought sandwiches for two dollars each. Oh well, you get that. Then we watched a movie... Hairspray (it sucked, I'm not much of a musical girl)... and Spaz and I kept ourselves amused by playing 'Spot the Hottie'. I must say that there wasn't too much in the talent department on that particular train. I did manage to walk in on a young lad who had forgotten to lock the toilet door, though. I'm not sure which one of us was more embarrassed.

Big Sis and Big Brother-in-law drove the extra two hours or so to come and collect us from the station. It was good to see them again. I'm not even sure just how long it's been... years anyway. They've both changed a bit, but not really all that much... they're both a bit older and greyer... but then, aren't we all? We stopped at a pretty little town called Kilkivan and ate lunch in the park, chicken and salad rolls, provided by Big Sis. The kids had a quick play and we stopped in at the shop for some vital supplies (lollies, that is). Then we drove back to Big Sis' place for a cuppa and a freshen up before we came to meet G & L and have a look at the place. They showed us around, introduced us to the animals and explained all of the important stuff (how to fill the header tank, how to empty the composting toilet, etc). L let the girls have a little ride on one of the donkeys and they were rapt. All I'd heard from Spaz before we got here was "I'm going to ride donkeys!"

We stayed at Big Sis' the first night because there wouldn't have been enough room for us all at the shed... there's only two bedrooms. The girls and I slept in their old caravan and I slept all night, which is a little unusual, but understandable. I'd slept even less than usual in the week prior to arriving. It must have been a mixture of the fresh air and knowing that there wasn't anything else to do for the time being. Whatever it was, it was the best night's sleep I'd had for quite a while.

Big Sis drove us back over to the shed early the next morning. G & L wanted to get an early start, and left pretty much straight away, so we had all day to explore and check things out. Big Sis invited us to go along to her craft group (which meets each Monday), but I was too buggered and just wanted to put my feet up and take a few deep breaths. I might go along tomorrow, we'll see.

In the ensuing week, we've been for a few walks, played with the animals, and just explored. We bummed a lift into Kingaroy with Big Sis on Thursday to do a little shopping. She took us to a cool little op shop first and we picked up a few extra things, jumpers and long pants, etc.
While we were in town we went to visit Big Sis' grandkids too. It was good to see them all again... once again, it's been too long. Other than that, we haven't really done much. I commandeered a few chooks from Big Sis as I was getting a little sick of throwing out our food scraps. Jack (the dog) usually eats all of our left-overs, but he had to stay in Rocky with Gryph. (Did you know that you can't transport pets on the train any more? Well, I didn't). I also went through her garden and did some plant shopping... mostly herbs and veges. We'll plant them and get them going nicely, so that G & L have a bit more in their garden by the time they return. We'll also build a proper run for the chooks, as L said that she'd like to get some when they get home. A few more things on the agenda... expand on the vege garden and get rid of some bugs... put in a good herb garden... plant some flowers and perhaps some fruit trees... make a proper compost heap... etc. But I'm leaving most of that for Gryph to do, because I know that he's missed getting his hands dirty. The garden's a bit overgrown with grass at the moment, but he'll fix that up quick smart, I dare say. There's beans, cucumbers, zucchinis, lettuce, capsicum, chillis and egg-plant on at the moment. And then there's stuff that's nearly ready... corn, leeks, celery, watermelon, rockmelon... mmmm. We'll definately have to expand on that, that's for sure.

Now, to the shed... I should start with the gym. It's not huge, as in size, but it has a walking machine, a weight bench, a tricep machine, a rowing machine and a cross-country skiing type one. Lara was a bit disappointed to find that there's no punching bag, though. I think she was looking forward to releasing a bit of steam. The computer is in the office/gym too. They do have a flash big laptop, but the bloody thing broke down so they left me with a little Hewlett Packard. It's very slow, and if you open multiple pages it crashes, so to be on the safe side I'm not going to open more than one page at a time. The office/gym also contains a printer/scanner/photo-copier type thing and a sewing machine.

There's two bedrooms, both with queen size beds. Our room also has an x-box. The girls wanted that room, but I commandeered it, since the other one doesn't have doors. The kitchen is fully stocked with food that we can use... and they have healthy food. Lots of rye stuff and wholemeal stuff, and not a bickie or a tub of ice-cream to be seen... mmmm. There's a bread-maker, a deep fryer, an electric frypan, electric oven, steam cooker, sandwich maker, yoghurt maker, ... etc. In the lounge is a wood and leather lounge suite, which faces a wall that contains a four-foot plasma screen tv, but it only gets austar. We can watch four movie channels, two music channels, the cartoon channel, the weather channel, two national geographic channels, the fashion channel, cnn and bbc... but we can't watch normal tv with local news and stuff like that. The girls are quite upset that they're going to miss Supernatural on Monday nights, but the cartoons and Jackass specials on mtv should keep them happy. There's also probably a couple of hundred movies here to choose from if that all gets too boring.

The bathroom is pretty flash, only a shower but it's big (you can actually turn around in it without damaging your elbows). The hot water is controlled by a unit on the wall so that you only have to use one tap. You set the temperature and hop in. The water is all rain water, and we have two big tanks (about 5000 gallons each, I think) with a small 1000 litre header tank for the shower and toilet... or one of them, at least. There are two toilets, the first is a composting toilet, which uses no water but you have to add organic matter when you do the business, and then you have to empty it out when it gets full. Good for the environment, but a bit gross to maintain. The other is a normal toilet for those who might be a bit fragile.

There's also a kick-ass shed with all of the tools that you could imagine, including circular saws, a band saw, a drill press, grinder, planers and stuff like that. And I think G must have every possible conceivable size and shape of screws, nails, bolts, and everything else too. There's also a beach buggy, but it's got a flat tyre and doesn't run very smooth, apparently. And a quad bike too. Gryph might like to play with those... as well as the vege garden.

And what else... the donkeys are pretty cool. Bonnie and Jack. You can ride Jack, but Bonnie doesn't like it. She is a very friendly donkey though, and has developed a bit of a fondness for Spaz. She's the one who's been feeding and grooming them the most. They wait near the gate in the morning until she comes out and sees them. If she takes too long or if she doesn't go straight out to see them, Bonnie starts braying, and she's quite loud. I think she's kind of spoiling them a bit, but I don't think they'll be complaining about that too much.

The cat is a big fat black one and she's already as spoilt as. She'll only eat her dried food and 'Fussy Cat' food. This is basically just meat in little single-serve packets (it looks good enough for us to eat). But she won't eat anything else. How's this... I tried to give her some steak off-cuts the other night and she even turned her nose up at that. She's pretty cool though, and I feel privelleged because she likes me... Big Sis says she doesn't like many people. She slept on my bed for the first couple of nights, but then she found the kids. She seems to have a real fondness for them too, so I don't mind. She's a bit tricky though. She's not allowed out at night, but she tries. The other night I caught her hiding next to the curtain (it's black so I couldn't see her at first), crouching down ready to make a run for it when I opened the door. And with that dastardly plan foiled, she jumped up onto the arm of the lounge and glared at me for the rest of the night. What can I say, I'm a party-pooper.

Well, that's about all the news for the moment. Big Sis lent me her camera so I'll take some pics and post them sometime. For now though, I've probably wasted enough time. So, I'm out of here.

Stay tuned.