Dreamy Times

Since being diagnosed with diabetes, its been amazing to discover how many of the people I know also have it.

As most of them are in the UK, it’ll be interesting to compare the treatments of the two countries.

So, I had my first session at the Diabetes Clinic last Friday. We have 2 x 3 hour group sessions and then individual appointments after that with a Diabetes Educationist, podiatrist and dietician. The first session pretty much covered all the basics – what diabetes was, how we could help control it, what sort of things we should and shouldn’t be eating, the importance of exercise and so on. I’ve got my 2nd session in about a month’s time.

Basically, we should be testing our blood 4 times a day – on rising and then 2 hours after breakfast, dinner and tea. The first test should be between 4-6mmol/L (no, I have no idea what the unit is either ) and the remaining 3 should be between 4-8mmol/L. I need to have carbohydrate at every meal – one serving of carbohydrate is about 15g and I should be aiming for 2-4 serves per meal. I also need to have a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack and depending on when I eat evening meal and go to bed, a supper too – these should be 1-2 serves of carbohydrate.

As well as that, we should have 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of veg a day, try to have a serve of nuts and limit saturated fats. I honestly feel that I never stop eating!! But despite all this food, I’ve lost a kilo in the last week. That could have something to do with the treadmill Yes, we have a treadmill (I can’t remember if I’ve posted about it before) I try to do at least 10 mins, 3 times a day, and so far so good. I just walk – 4-6km/h which (because I’m incredibly unfit) gets me out of breath, and is apparently the level I should be aiming for.

Blood testing is a pain, although I am getting better at it. The first time I had to prick my finger it took me ages to summon the courage, lol. The kids all thought I was a wuss and offered to do it for me. Now I’ve got the depth of the lancet (the spike) sorted it just feels like sharp pressure on my finger. Speaking of which, the alarm’s just gone off to remind me to do another one! Bloody thing

Well, in fact, 2 fairly small ones.

Yes, the Obmeister is currently at the vets, recovering from his ball removal. He’s not quite as bad as Luke was (he had the most ginormous cat balls ever seen in the history of the world) but they were getting there. Plus he needs to be registered with the council now he’s almost six months old, and its wayyyy cheaper to register a desexed animal.

Bless him, he went to the vets all unassuming – I doubt that’ll happen again.

Speaking of animals, we had an extremely tragic incident involving the dogs. I think I sort of alluded to it when I did the post about being diagnosed with diabetes. Alfie, commonly referred to as Alfdini, the marvellous escaping dog, had been quite well behaved since we moved to NSW. Because we have gates at the front of the house he’d given up with his ‘oh, oh, open door, I’m going to barge through and have a run around the neighbourhood’. Also, as far as we could tell the back yard was all secure. Then he must have found a hole down at the very bottom. Out the back of us is just a load of bush, so he’d had a gay old time, especially once he’d encouraged Ellie out through it too. No great harm – except it gave him that taste of freedom again.

Until we worked out where he was getting out, the dogs were confined to the front garden for weeing purposes. The next day, he was followed into the back and his escape route tracked down and closed off. We thought no more about it. When I came back from the pathology clinic (from having my glucose tolerance test), Himself and the boys were scouring the streets. Alf had only decided to find another way to get out and again, taken Ellie with him. We finally found the pair of them in next door’s yard. Unfortunately, next door had an elderly Jack Russell – it seems as if the terrier had tried to see Alfie off (quite naturally!) and Alfie had swiped at her. We discovered her on the deck, in a great deal of distress and rushed her upto the vets.

They did the best they could, but unfortunately Daisy (the Jack Russell) died. Just couldn’t believe it. The vet babbled on a lot about dangerous dogs etc, but really, even without that, we didn’t have any option about what would happen next. We hadn’t witnessed the incident, had no idea if both our dogs had been involved (so they would both be re-categorised as dangerous dogs) so we were left with no choice but to have them both put to sleep. All I could think was, what if it had been a small child next door? Or even a large child. Even though I’m fairly sure that if there had been children neither of them would have done anything,  I still don’t think I would ever have been able to trust them again.

We left a note at next door, asking them to call round when they came in, and we broke the news to them. Told them what had happened as best we could, and tried to deal with their devastation as well as ours.

Anyway, we opted to have them cremated and we’ve picked out a bush in the very front garden, outside the gate, to bury them under – so that the pair of them can forever run free.

Neighbours have been great – even called round to say thank you to us for the way we handled everything, which meant a lot.

Hey ho.

So, its all been happening in the Medical World of Dreamy.

As mentioned in my last post, I’d been feeling crap generally for several months, so had ventured off to the doctors to be referred for blood tests.

I had the tests two weeks ago (on the Wednesday) - the doctor rang me on the Thursday afternoon with the first lot of results. Good news – my thyroid was fine. As was my kidney function, iron levels, cholesterol wasn’t bad, pretty much everything had come back okay apart from my Vitamin D levels (on account of me being an anti-social hermit who doesn’t venture out into the sunshine unless there’s a damn good reason for it) and my blood sugar level. I was thus dispatched back to the blood clinic to have a glucose tolerance test done.

I have to say at this point that my doctor isn’t a bulk billing type (well, not unless you’re very old or very young) which in essence means that you pay him a consulting fee (of $53 in his case) and then get a rebate back from Medicare (of $34(?) ) I had to pay for my initial consultation – but all the blood tests I’ve had have been fully covered by Medicare and also all the phone calls from the doctors at the surgery have also been fee free.

Off  I trotted back to the blood clinic.. except this time I had to make an appointment, bahhh. As its a two hour wait between the two tests, they only do so many a day (its only a small waiting room!!) so an appointment was made for last Wednesday. I had to fast for at least 12 hours and also take in a urine sample (from the 2nd widdle of the day, very specific, lol) I got to the clinic, they checked my wee to make sure there was no glucose in it and then took the first blood sample. I then had to drink this most incredibly disgusting sugary drink – 2 hours later another blood test would be done to see what my blood sugar levels had returned to.

After the second test, I went back home – the rest of last Wednesday will not be mentioned, its all still a bit raw, but please y’all rest assured that the humans in the family are all fine and dealing with events as well as can be expected. Later that afternoon, the phone rings and its the doctor from the surgery. ‘We have your blood test results’, ‘What, the results from the test this morning?”, ‘Er… yes.’

So it turns out that I have Type 2 Diabetes. I had to make an appointment to see the doctor to further discuss treatment etc, which happened this morning. He was really lovely – very reassuring, pointing out that the whole point of early diagnosis is to minimize any damage done by the disease and that they were very keen to ensure that I changed my lifestyle with their help, to keep me as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

My weight and height were checked – obviously I already know I’m a fat heifer. The doctor stressed that regular, small amounts of weight loss were best – more easily sustained, more easily kept off. The Australian Government have an initiative which means that people diagnosed with Diabetes can access certain gyms/leisure facilities free of charge – our local swimming pool/gym is one of them, so see, there are some benefits, lol. I need to increase my exercise levels – preferably 30 minutes of moderately strenuous activity daily. Although my cholesterol is fine for someone without diabetes, I need to lower it because I DO have diabetes. My blood pressure was a tad high – within acceptable levels for someone without diabetes, but not acceptable enough for someone with the disease. He’s given me a blood pressure monitor for the next couple of weeks – to be used 2-3 times daily – to see if my pressure was just high because I was at the doctors.

I’ll be referred to the Diabetes Clinic at my local hospital, where they’re arrange dietary help and all the information that I need. At the moment, I don’t need to do blood tests at home - they’ll do another blood test at the clinic in a couple of months time to see if my diet/lifestyle changes have helped significantly. And I’m nowhere near the point of needing medication (well, except for the Calcium/VitD supplements I’m taking)

So, I’m waiting for a call from the hospital and I have an appointment booked back at the doctor’s in 2 weeks (on me bleeding birthday!!!) where he’s expecting me to have lost about a kilo – so after that I’ll report on where I go next Oh and as I’ll be a frequent visitor to the doctors for the foreseeable future, he’s moved me over to a bulk billing account, so now all my appointments are fully covered by Medicare. Thank God, probably

Well, not technically true I guess – they could still deport me, but as of the beginning of June, TheDreamies are all officially permanent residents of Australia. Can I hear you say ‘Yeahhhh!!”?

I can’t really describe the feeling of relief when we got the email. I’ll always be grateful that we took the chance and came out here on a temporary resident visa – but the whole ‘28 day sword of damocles’ hanging over your head didn’t engender many feelings of security. At least now, if, God forbid, anything happens to Himself – illness or job loss – we don’t have to leave the country. And best of all, in about 12-18 months (depending on how you read the Citizenship Act) we can apply to be citizens too.

More good news! The contract on our Queensland house went unconditional yesterday. The sale should complete at 2.30pm on Friday 16th July (that’s this friday in case anyone was wondering) – unfortunately pretty much all the money from the sale is spoken for – new settee, new car, new bathroom blah blah blah new laptop blah blah blah (I think I managed to slip in the new laptop request without anyone noticing) – but it’ll be a huge relief not having an extra mortgage payment every month, never mind the worry that a storm would do major damage, or it’d be flooded, or.. well, anything really. Its just so annoying that our house has been ’sold’ since the beginning of March and it’d taken our purchaser’s this long to sell theirs. Well, for their purchaser to sell their house anyway! But no matter how convoluted it got, it’s all (fingers crossed) on the final stretch now. Can I hear ya say ‘Yeahhhh!!” again?

More good news! My word, where does it all come from? Ben has been accepted into Uni of Western Sydney to do his Bachelor of Engineering. Its his orientation next monday, and he starts the course the following monday. Hallelujah! And of course, we just managed to get PR before his offer came out All together now “Yeah!!!”

Obi, the new kitten, has fit right into the madhouse that is our home. He also farts with wild abandon and then wiffles it around with his tail. A proper Dreamy cat. The other two cats have also finally accepted him, although they do still see his foodbowl as a midmorning snack opportunity. Having said that, he’d rather eat out of their food bowls, so I guess everyone is getting enough food. The other morning, I was in the kitchen and turned around – Obi was eating out of Leia the cat’s bowl, Leia was eating out of Ellie the dog’s bowl and Ellie was eating out of Obi’s bowl. ::shakes head::

What else? Well, after months and months of feeling generally shite, I’ve finally gone to the Doctors. When I was in the hairdresser’s a couple of weeks ago, she wondered if I’d ever had my thyroid checked out. I’d never even thought about it, but when I came back and checked up on symptoms for hypothyroidism, I realised they could have been written for me. Once we got PR, we could get a permanent Medicare card, so as soon as I’d sorted that out, I made an appointment and trotted along there this morning. He agreed that it sounded very like hypothyroidism and sent me off for blood tests. To be on the safe side, he’s also having it tested for a load of other stuff, so I shall wait and see what the results reveal. Bizarrely, I’m hoping that it is that, even though it being diagnosed is just the start – at least that way I’ll know why I’ve felt so ill for so long. More next week!

(BTW.. James )

So.. completely out of the blue we now have  new arrival in the Blue Mountains – a beautiful, white, fluffy cat who is officially called Obi (well, we have to keep the Star Wars theme going with the cats!)

Here are some photos:

He’s safely ensconced in the cage at the moment – but he’s already bossing poor Ellie around. Alfie is back on Drool Patrol like he was when we got Luke and Leia – but they do seem to be settling much quicker than first time round. The other two cats are a different matter – much hissing and spitting going on, but we’ve only had him one day so they’ve got plenty of time to adjust to each other

In other news, I think I mentioned about submitting the visa application in the last entry. DIAC (the immigration department here in Australia) contacted the agent about a missing form last week – they did have it, but she thought that was excellent news as it meant someone must have looked at the application, and she had other clients who had submitted weeks ago and had heard absolutely nothing about them. On the Immigration forum I post to, one member who has been waiting since before Christmas had heard from Perth DIAC that new applications were being given priority and anyone who had submitted before February were in for a longer wait, so it may actually pay off that it took so long for ours to be submitted!

I refuse to get excited until we have that visa label in our passports, which will happen when it’s ready.

Well, I refuse to do an apology for the length of time since my last entry – looking back over the past few entries they’ve all started with an apology for the length of time since an update! Needless to say, real life has taken over a little bit in the last couple of months.

Things are going really well here in NSW. It even stopped raining at one point Compared to Qld, its been lovely having a longer period of light in the evening (its dark in Qld at 6pm) but I’m not sure it makes up for getting up in the pitch dark at 5.30am to take Himself to work! Hmm.. well, ok, it mostly is.

We’ve  just got our house back to ourselves after the visit from Neil’s mum and her boyfriend Ray. It was the first time we’d met Ray so we were a little apprehensive about how we’d get on, especially as they were here for 5 weeks. He seems like a nice bloke.. but my God he can drink. Out of the 5 weeks, they had a week in Melbourne, a long weekend in Brisbane and a couple of days/overnight stay in Sydney.. but they still managed to get through (in the house) – 5 x 4l wine boxes, 2 x bottles of wine, 1 x bottle of Jim Beam, 1 x bottle of scotch, 1 x bottle of brandy, 2 x cases of beer. And that didn’t include anything he drank on his daily visits to the tavern at the top of the road! Oh well, at least, as I say, he seemed a nice bloke, and Margaret was happier than I’ve seen her for a long time, so he must be doing something right.

It was good to see her again, we weren’t sure that she’d ever come out and she was amazed how much the boys had grown up in 2 years. They also seemed to enjoy their visits around the country. They were pleasantly surprised at how good the public transport was here – they had intended to hire a car but didn’t bother in the end as they could get everywhere they wanted to on the bus/train/ferry. Probably just as well considering how much Ray drank!

It was lovely on an evening to spend time playing Uno as a family – even though Margaret is the most evil card player in the world (she was usually sat next to Himself, and she was always slamming him with a +4 card) and we had to explain the rules to Ray every night – sometimes several times a night. But it was still fun. We also managed to persuade Matt to have his hair cut, it only cost me my new monitor as a bribe. He looks actually quite handsome now, we may find some sucker female to take him off our hands, you never know.

So, what else have we been upto? Two things really – trying to sell the Qld house, and trying to sort out everything for the Permanent Residency visa. The latter has involved 4 billion pieces of paperwork/forms, police checks for 4 of us (x2), medicals and chest x-rays for 5 of us, proof of dependency for Ben (as he’s over 18), character forms for 3 of us which wanted every single detail of our life since we’d left school!, wahhh.. if I never fill in another form then I shall be happy.  Anyway, I think I mentioned in the last entry that we’d got our police checks back, and I managed to get all the forms filled in, with sufficient proof (fingers crossed) of everything that we need so it was only the medicals/x-rays left to do.

You may remember when the boys did the medicals for our Temp visa that we had a right performance getting clear urine samples for 2 of them. I was determined not to have this happen again and we all drank gallons and gallons of water in the days leading upto the meds. We’d arranged to have them done in Parramatta, which, according to google, was about a 50minute car journey from here. Our appointment was at 10am on a Saturday morning, so, to give ourselves plenty of time, we left here at just before 8.30am. I’d never driven to Parramatta, I didn’t know how easy it would be to find the place and I had no idea where car parks would be! We arrived, parked and walked to the Medical centre just after 9am! lol! So we decided we would be better off going in and waiting inside rather than hovering around outside and they didn’t have any problem with us turning up early. By the time I’d got to the front of the queue to register our paperwork it was about 9.25 – and we were taken through to start the process just after 9.35. We had to have our photos taken for the forms, then it was weight/height/eye test, then into a room to do our wee tests. Despite us all having had a bottle of water while we were waiting, EldestChild still produced urine the colour of tango.. so I started to get stressed, imagining that it was going to be another performance.

After the wee test, we went and sat to have blood taken. Then in to see the doctor who would look at reflexes, blood pressure, eyes, listen to chest and heart and have a quick chat about any major problems and look at our wee results. He scanned through all our wee tests and pronounced them all fine. I was sooooo relieved! Unfortunately, when he did my blood pressure it was sky high   .. he let me sit for a while and, although it was still sky high it had come down a little so he was happy to sign me off, especially as the rest of my tests were good. He did advise me to get it checked out…. and I will… once I’ve stopped stressing about the bloody visa! Everyone else was good, so we went through to have chest x-rays done and then we were all done – it was only about 11am! Incredibly efficient, I was very very impressed.

They told us that it would take 5-10 days for the chest x-rays/blood tests to be done/signed off and that we’d get the results come to us for us to forward to immigration. Four of the tests came to us the Friday after the medicals were done… mine was the one missing. I had an incredibly stressful weekend, imagining that it was going to be the police checks all over again… but mine arrived on Monday. Hurrah! Himself took them all in to the agent on Tuesday and apparently everything will be lodged this week. As its now Friday, hopefully that means today! Unfortunately, there’s now a backlog at the immigration office and its taking 3 months for them to be looked at.. which means that Ben is probably going to have to defer his Uni start   .. but hey ho, it’ll be granted when it’ll be granted and worrying about it isn’t going to get it happen any faster.

At least we’ve had good news on the house front. For the last month of so, we’ve had a couple who were ‘very interested’ in our house. They still had their house to sell so they were a little bit loath to put an offer on ours. Eventually they decided to take the plunge.. so they’ve offered us a really good price (exactly how much the agent said we would get for it!) dependant on the sale of theirs. So they now have 60 days to get an unconditional offer on their house.. and in the meantime, if anyone comes along with a better offer on ours, or who are in a position to buy ours immediately, we’re legally able to accept the new offer, so long as we give the existing couple 72 hours chance to make their offer unconditional (ie they would have to get a bridging loan and buy ours before they’ve sold theirs) – so its all looking very promising! We still have our fingers crossed that it all happens.

As some of you may know, I’m not one for having my photo taken (unless extremely drunk at a Bash!) For the last 2 years I have managed to avoid having it taken at all.. unfortunately MIL managed to get me in a few. As a result of this, and because of the blood pressure thing, I am back taking dieting seriously. Slimming World now accept international dieters on their online plan so, as I’ve had so much success with them in the past, I’m trying again.  I shall report how I get on.

Be good y’all

Its quite hard to believe .. but we’ve just passed our 2nd anniversary in Australia. Well, its quite hard for us to believe as it seems only 2 minutes since we were sat in Manchester Airport, absolutely terrified that we were going to miss our flight at Heathrow as the plane was delayed an hour thanks to the horrific storms. Some things never change!

On the other hand, its hard to remember just what life was like before we left the UK. I know we lived in a great place, Himself had a good job and the boys were well settled in school – but Australia has felt like home since the moment we stepped off the plane into the sweltering heat of a Brisbane Summer’s day. Even though we’ve moved down to NSW, we’re still loving it – our house is beautiful, our village is set in the mountains with rolling greenery and bushland all around and our day to day life is fairly brilliant.

We have gone through a bit of a cultural revolution in the last 2 years. The kids call routers ‘rowters’ instead of ‘rooters’ and I have been known to refer to my status as a ’stah-tus’ rather than a ’stay-tus’ – and thongs are now something I wear on my feet rather than on my bottom.

In return, we’ve had our effect on Australia, no matter how small. Dams in Queensland were at their highest for years by the time we left, and I’m just waiting for them to change the Bush Fire Warning indicator signs for Flood Warning indicator signs here! Ben reckons it”ll only be a matter of a couple of months

Himself is well settled in his job now and coping admirably with the train commute every day. Ben and Matt had the result of their exams – Ben will be on his way to Uni to do a degree in Engineering later this year, and Matt is looking at doing a diploma in Computing at TAFE, and then ‘thinking’ about going on to do it at Uni too. James is due back at school in a couple of weeks, and although he’s repeating Year 10, thanks to the differences between NSW and QLD educational systems, he’s looking forward to making some new friends. He’s not so sure about the Maroon and Yellow uniform, but hey, we all have our crosses to bear!

Our second Christmas passed without incident. It rained most of the time Himself was off work (quite predictably!) and so it was a little cooler than last year. We did a proper Christmas dinner this year too, which helped with the spirit of the thing. I also attempted to put the Christmas Tree up, but mostly it was a battle between me and the cats as to where the branches were placed – slotted into the tree or scattered around the house. The cats mostly won, and, apart from a bit of tinsel, I didn’t even bother with decorating it! Next year it can go out on the deck, where we shall admire it from afar

So what does 2010 hold for us? Hopefully: Permanent Residency, Uni for Ben, TAFE for Matt, James settled into school, Himself advancing further into his job and me just doing what I do best  – looking for excuses to avoid the housework!

Hope 2010 brings something wonderful for each of you!

The Dreamy family are all together once again, not just in the same state, but now in the same dwelling. Hurrah!

Well, obviously not at this exact moment as Himself has to go to work to earn giant pennies to pay for the two houses we now own. At least the Queensland house is finally on the market, even if the real estate blokey had to use old internal pictures cos the feckarse cleaners hadn’t finished cleaning when he went to take them! Hopefully they’ve completed the job today and he can take some of our decor rather than the ‘lovely’ green and blue that was there before. Hey ho.

So yes, I am sat here in me new study, looking out at New South Wales trees and wondering where the mountain breezes are that I promised the kids. The house is as lovely as I remembered it and it still looks lovely even with all our crap in it! Dogs, cats and kids have all settled in, so all is right with the world.

The move went off remarkably well (despite an escape attempt by LukeDini the cat). They came and packed everything up last Monday, then came back on the Tuesday to load the containers, which would then travel down to NSW by train. The plan was that I’d grab some sleep on my faithful blow up bed and drive down with the dogs and the cats early on Wednesday morning. I think  Igot about 2 hours before I gave up. Part of the problem was that Ellie really really liked sleeping on the blow up bed. Really REALLY liked it. And didn’t want to share any of it with me. In  the end, I loaded the car up early and set off about 9.15pm Qld time.

No real dramas on the way. The dogs were great, mostly just lay in the back and slept (alright for some!) The roads weren’t too busy – mostly trucks coming the other way. Some fog settled in about an hour over the border but it wasn’t too bad. I drove until about 5am and then pulled into a rest area and had an hour’s sleep. Unfortunately, when I let the dogs out for a wee I was attacked by 3 billion mozzies – all up my arm and legs and a couple on my face and neck. Luckily only 3 of them swelled up excessively, but they’ve all gone down now.

I drove on a bit further and about 8am NSW time (they have daylight saving here, which they don’t in Qld) I rang his Lordship. ‘Guess how much further I have to travel’ .. ‘about 500km?’… ‘nopes, only 270km left to go!’ Not bad for a journey of about 1100km

I only had one slight scenic detour when my directions let me down. But Parramatta wasn’t that bad to drive through, honest We were all glad to get here and stretch our legs, and the boys and Kev had arrived at the house after picking up the keys from the agent.

I went and grabbed a couple of hours sleep and felt half way human again. Although to be fair, I don’t usually feel more than 3/4 human at the best of times Thursday morning dawned, bright and hot. Thank God for ducted air con! We got a bit of shopping but not having a fridge limits what you can buy. We did manage though and the furniture was due to arrive on Friday. Unfortunately, there is absolutely NO signal for my virgin mobile, which was the only number anyone had for me, so I had no idea if everything was going to plan.

There was one weird incident sometime Thursday night/Friday morning. We were asleep on the blow up bed and I woke up, having had this really weird dream involving rabid cats. I lay there, wondering why I could hear a cat collar (they have bells on their collars) and also wondering what the hell the strange popping, tearing noise was. In our wardrobe, there’s an access hole for the air con, which is stuffed with a plastic thingy at the top (in the floor of the wardrobe) I realise that doesn’t sound very clear, lol, but its hard to describe it. I woke Himself up and told him there was something in the wardrobe. We both sprang off the mattress (well, ok, I sort of rolled off it in a direction opposite from the wardrobe – it was early in the blooming morning) and he was sent to investigate. His investigations mostly involved sliding the door shut, which had to suffice. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well for the rest of the night.

Next morning, we were up bright and early to wait for the removals men to come. I opened the bedroom door. Only one cat was there. Went downstairs to sort out the dogs and make pet related breakfasts. Still only one cat. Realisation dawned the bell noises and nightly shenanigans might be connected. We went back up to the bedroom – definitely cat claw marks on the plastic. Rahhhhhhhh!!! We tried moving the plastic to one side – no good. Then we tried to work out where he might be (for yes, it was Lukedini once more – Leia is far too sensible to get herself into trouble) What was worrying me the most was that there was a distinct absence of mewing noises. We took a hatch off in the hallway which seemed to lead to the air con ducts. However, we had no furniture, so nothing to stand on and have a look. No torch so we couldn’t even have seen much even if we DID have something to stand on.

I was in tears by this point, convinced the SFC (stoopid fecking cat) was dead somewhere in the ceiling. James went out on the deck to see to the dogs and, thank God, heard mewing coming from the eaves. Back we all went to the open hatch. Himself hoisted James onto his shoulders and we did the ‘lukkkkkee…’ thing, whilst shaking a box of cat biscuits. No sign.

Out once more on the deck – the mewing seemed to have moved further inside. Hurrah! It must be working. Back to the hatch again – eventually, his grimy little face appeared. James tried to lift him down. No, he wasn’t having any of it. More encouragement was needed with cat biscuits until James could grab hold of him. Finally he was rescued – James has a lovely big scratch along his forehead but we’ve told him it’ll make an interesting scar.

It was decided to put SFC aka Tom Cruise straight into his cat carrier ready for the removals men coming. Little shit promptly escaped. Cat carrier was taped up with the grill bit facing a wall, just in time as the containers arrived. Himself went into the kitchen – SFC had escaped AGAIN and was hiding in a kitchen cupboard. He was finally deposited in a bathroom, although concerns were raised that he might do a mission impossible down the bath plug or something.

So finally, as mentioned at the beginning of this lengthy post, we are all together again. Furniture is all in. Boxes are ALL unpacked. I can hardly believe this last fact, I think its the first time since 1995 that I haven’t had any packing boxes in the house! Boys are happy with their Warhammer painting workshop in the basement. Dogs love the undergrowth in the garden. I’m in heaven with the kitchen. Himself loves his study. And the SFC can stay out of the flipping air con!

Up, up, up to the Blue Mountains, what fun!

Yes, we’ve bought a house in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, NSW and two weeks tomorrow it’ll be all ours! The big move will start the following Monday (a two day pack up, on the freight train on Wednesday, delivered on Friday) and I’ll drive down with the dogs and cats on Wednesday. I promise to take the camera and take pictures along the way.

Its a rather beautiful house (well I think so anyway).. here’s some pictures stolen from the estate agents site until I can take some of my own

Of course, buying the house means that I’m in full on panic mode to get our QLD house sorted out before we leave. We’re lucky that we can wait until we’ve vacated before we put it on the market, so no worry about what to do with the animals when people are coming to view.. and also solves the problem of just how do you keep 3 teenage boys bedrooms tidy..

I’m just about to start glossing the doors downstairs.. then its a matter of painting the downstairs bathroom (now we’ve finally been able to get a plumber to come and fix the dripping toilet) and touching up the worst of the painting excesses in Ben and James’ room. I’ve got a garden man coming on Monday to tidy up and a cleaning firm to hose down the outside of the house and the paths/driveway/pool area.. and the lady from next door who has a cleaning company is coming this afternoon to give me a quote for cleaning inside once we’ve departed. Next week I’ll get in touch with some agents and find out just how much they think it’ll sell for..

Its certainly all go.. but it’ll be worth it.

Finally, I have my home back to myself.

We waved goodbye to Himself’s mother last Monday, after her month long visit, and although it wasn’t as horrific as I feared it would be, I was glad to wave her off. A month is definitely too long, Himself will have to tell her 3 weeks max for her next visit, which she was threatening to make in 2011.. rahhh. Although that might have changed now as she had a nightmare travelling back. Her flight was going from Brisbane-Sydney, and then Sydney-Heathrow with a refuelling stop in Singapore. Himself arranged his trip back to NSW so he could go on the 1st leg with her, and point her in the direction of the Internation transfer section once they got to Sydney.

All went well until they touched down in Sydney. There was a massive electrical storm which meant that no staff could leave the terminal – so they were stuck in the plane for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, Violet had a short connection time.. so even though her international flight was delayed too, and they knew she was coming, by the time she’d got off the plane, over to the international terminal (having just missed the first transfer bus) the plane had taken off. Naturally, she got herself in a panic – but Qantas put her on the next flight which was leaving about 20 minutes later, via Bangkok.. and when they said she could sit anywhere in the cabin (except Business or First Class) she plonked herself in the Premium Economy seats and had massive leg room the whole way back. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that

Anyway.

It’s been a busy old time in the Dreamy household. Alfredo Delmundo Crash Bandicoot Stoopiddog managed to get bit by something on his side. He’d had this bite for a while, but decided to mess at it so much that it became infected and swelled up ginormously! We took him to the vets and they said that it needed to be cut out and that although it was unlikely, could be cancerous. When we picked him up after the surgery he had this HUGE gash down his side, about 9 inches long and he looked soooo sorry for himself. Fortunately the lump was benign and its all healing up nicely now. He’s had his stitches out and hair is growing back in the area now.. and he’s lost that hangdog look. We’ve told him if he gets bit again he’ll be having a big needle so hopefully he’s learned his lesson.

KillerCatLeia is definitely under the belief that she is a dog. She’d stolen a bit of fatty lamb when we had a roast last Sunday. She lay down on the floor to gnaw at it, growling at Luke and Alfie every time they went near her. Alfie kept looking at me as if to say ‘there’s something wrong here, but I’m not sure what, and I have no idea what to do about it’. It was hilarious. It was a proper throaty growl. At least it stopped her from leaping out from behind walls and attacking me for a while

We’re in full on house hunting mode now. The bank has agreed to give us a new mortgage (rather than just a bridging loan) so we know how much we can borrow which gives us a great budget for the new place. We’ve done a bit of a shortlist – and as soon as I’ve finished decorating here I can go down to NSW and do some viewings. Its all very exciting!! And it takes the pressure of selling this house, so we may wait until we move out before putting this one up for sale. At least that would solve the problem of what to do with kids, cats & dogs when we have house viewings..  I painted half the rumpus room yesterday, so just the other half, the bottom of the stairs, the downstairs bathroom and touching up in the kids rooms to go. Oh.. and glossing the chuffing doors. Shouldn’t take long, so hopefully we’ll find something quickly and be settled in the new place by Christmas! Otherwise I don’t know what Himself will do over the holidays, he’ll have to take a couple of weeks off work I guess, so that he can get on a flight back here. He’s doing really well in his new job, already a promotion to Possessions Manager, which is fantastic!

Fingers crossed all goes to plan!