Up and Running Again

So point one is computer is back and up and running, and, mysteriously, has acquired a webcam and a totally different, shiny screen, and a couple of extra stickers which sort of makes me suspect that it might not be the same computer at all... but all the software is there and the hard disk is almost full with all my photos so all seems well, and why look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?

And it's great to have it back... gone are the days of waiting half a minute just for Google to load and only being able to do one thing at the same time, though it was nice to be able to do the one thing. So video skype is back on the agenda again. And doing clever things with photos. And Civilization. Yay.

Nicole got offered a research post at work which she's thinking about doing part time so things are moving for her at work as well.

And I've found out that my course is to start on March 3rd. Only fly in the ointment is they're having an orientation day on February 28th, and we're going to need to sort out childcare as it's not a Monday or Wednesday. Oh well if the worst comes to the worst I'll just have to turn up disorienated...

Today I thought we'd go somewhere a bit different so we explored the far side of Bunyaville State Forest and followed a walk down into a valley and across a verdant tree-lined little brook and up the other side. It was nice. Eloise was fascinated by the white rocks the strew (if that's a word) the landscape. If I were a proper Dad I'd probably be able to identify them, but I bluffed instead as I'm inadequate and opted for feldspar. Hah.

Eloise was most helpful later on when we washed my bike, oiled it and inflated the tyres to the optimum pressure for performance cycling before ambling off to the shops and stopping off at the playground on the way back.

Eloise's art is progressing and she's producing some fairly passable whales and lots of repetitive symbols which she insists are numbers.

Career development

I recently put my CV forward for an expression of interest to provide annual leave cover for the haematology and bone marrow transplant clinical trials research nurse team. I hadn't heard anything so just assumed I had been unsuccessful but I bumped into the clinical trials co-ordinator this morning as I was leaving after night duty and found out I have been successful. She needs to talk to the ward manager about the logistics of how it will all work out but it sounds as if I may work with them one day a week initially so I understand the role and what is expected of me. I am feeling very pleased with myself. It sounds as if there is a possibility of a permanent post either full or part time if it all works out.

The ward will soon be advertising expressions of interest for acting clinical nurse (ACN) posts. I have been asked to submit my CV. It is a very good system as nurses are able to act up in the role of CN with support and then apply for CN posts when they become available. It seems as if this is my year to get myself noticed at work.

Humdrum

Another humdrum week, although my computer has been fixed now and is on its way back home. Fingers crossed it gets here in one piece.

Eloise has taken back to swimming like a - dare I say it - duck to water, and has overcome or forgotten her previous fear of jumping in and is now diving with the best, well the worst of them.

In fact she's been swimming four times this week, once at Claire's house, once at the Redcliffe Settler's Cove lagoon, once at swimming and once at Nudgee Beach.

After swimming we went up to Mount Coot-tha for a coffee and chino to celebrate. I offered her pasta for lunch, after all why change the habit of a lifetime, but she refused.... should I be worried, with my cornucopia of two lunchtime options?

Other than that it's been pretty humdrum really, Nicole had a couple of days off at the start of the week, which is where Redcliffe came in, and I think I've covered Warhol already.

Wednesday's a bit of a blank... Saturday we went to the beach then met up with Nicky (who Chris brought camping with us, remember?) and went to New Farm Park then got a pizza before retiring with a potential hernia.

Today we went to the beach again but balked at the crowded coffee shop, instead opting for Woolworth's before a lie-down in front of a doco (that's documentary to you) about Catherine the Great. And a litle closing of the eyes.

Warhol and Grass

Rainy days rainy days.

In what you might term a spate of indoor activity we have been to the Gallery of Modern Art to see an Andy Warhol exhibition, which was fine as it went, but a little repetitive, what with all the repetition and all that.

Still they had a good kids' sections so we returned to see that today (it's raining again). Eloise had a good time - they have a fifty-foot high room filled with helium-inflated silver pillows which the kids play with and some photobooths which make Warhol-esque portraits (the one we got in was broken though I reckon).

The garden has been going mad with the rain-sun-rain-sun cycle. I mowed it the other day and Barton's two-stroke made heavy work of it.

Yesterday a snotty-nosed Eloise and I raked the front bit and we saw Val. She whipper-snipped (that's Aussie for strimmed) our edges and lent us her wheelbarrow. By way of repayment I made a cup of coffee for her, and while I was doing that Eloise helped her take her washing down. Oh how we laughed when she sneezed and blew her nose on the nearest available brassiere....

Little Miss Bump

Yesterday she:

- stubbed her foot into a door
- banged her head on a door jamb (got a plaster out of that one)
- slipped on the floor forwards
- slipped on the floor backwards
- stood on a something in the garden

This morning Nicole observed that her foot was swollen up and she was hobbling around on tip-toes. So we booked her in at the doctor, from whom she wholly expected sweeties and so was quite enthusiastic.

Needless to say within ten minutes the swelling was starting to subside and normal walking service had been resumed.

All was well when we went to see the doctor and chit chat was had until he got out his "silly glasses" - a pair of spectacles with magnifying lenses sticking out on the front - at which she became very agitated and burst into tears.

However an electric singing and dancing hamster dressed as a doctor came out, then a jelly bean and soon she was back to normal.

The doctor reckoned either she'd been stung by a bee or bitten by an ant, so she'll be on antihistamines for a couple of days. But really she seems fine now, all that remains is the accidents for today.

Walking on Water

This is the bridge we rode across, not long after we did. But the waters had risen a little since then and when we came back it was pretty much submerged.

Our Own Little Flood

Eloise and I took the dogs to Bribie Island today and had a jolly time building sandcastles and paddling in the waves until a worrying looking grey mass of cloud began to lower to the West of us and I decided it was time for home.

So we drove back along the sea front with Eloise pointing out Chino shops where we might like to stop and I prevaricating over the rain and dogs.

Soon indeed it started to rain though not that heavily and it only cleared up when we got home, where it was soon apparent that we were out of milk. So we hopped on the bike and rode over to Fresco's fruit market.

When we crossed the brook there was a pretty decent flow of water creating a quite impressive cataract over the the rocks just upstream of the footbridge.

When we returned half and hour later, only an inch or two of the footbridge was visible under the torrent which had now burst the brook's banks. We (I) merrily (and carefully) cycled across regardless with the water reaching up to the axles of the wheels. On the bridge a little chitchat established that the brook had just expanded to this extent in the last five minutes.

After dropping off the shopping we went back with the camera and toured up and down the brook, riding through it where there weren't footpaths any more and generally goggling at the amount of water that must be coming down from upstream from what was, from what we had seen, only a pretty average downpour.

We saw Paul and Carol later and apparently while we'd been out there'd been an absolutely torrential rainstorm which had dropped half an inch of water in half an hour.

All this as extreme weather events cause flooding across SE Queensland and Northern NSW, as this news article attests.

Sounds like ideal weather for waterfall-watching, don't you think?

Kondalilla Falls

All this rain is driving us nuts. Me nuts.

As soon as it starts raining it stops again. When you're ready to go out it starts raining. Then just as you decide it isn't worth it, it stops again. In an endless cycle that can only end in painting, playing music, watching childrens' TV or surfing the internet.

The other day we combined drawing and surfing by drawing pictures of whales while listening to the song of the Humpback Whale on whalesong.net. Discussing it over supper, we foolishly mentioned that it would be nice to go whale watching sometime, wouldn't it be lovely to see a Humpback Whale for real.

In the morning the first thing Eloise said when she burst into our room was "We're going to see the Humping Whales!" What a hot choc moment.

Anyway notwithstanding all that, we haven't actually left Brisbane for two weeks except to go to dodgy railway museums and windy beaches, and this infamous low-pressure system that's hovering around creating all this wind and rain and general unpleasantness looks like it isn't going away any time soon, so with Nicole having a day off today I/we decided to bite the bullet and go out somewhere.

I reasoned that what with al water flowing downhill and there being plenty of water around it would be nice to go and see some waterfalls.

So we trooped off to Montville in the Blackall Range to go and see Kondalilla Falls, about which I knew virtually nothing but I quite like the name.

So after a pleasant drive up there with Nicole at the wheel taking us up into the cloud-bedecked mountainous tumuli of the Sunshine Coast, we pitched up and walked down, and the heavens opened.

Eloise was all right because she has a raincoat, but we adults spurn such luxuries (apart from walking boots) and trudged down into the rainforest before being confronted, if that's the right word, by a lovely waterfall flowing hard into a rocky pool and under a bridge.

Whilst I took happy snaps the others wandered off and in the two minutes a tarried behind managed to lose me completely as the path forked... well I caught up with them heventualleee.

The heavens continued to open intermittently and Eloise, tiring, had to be shouldered as the path dove down into a gully down a set of winding stairs to the head of the main attraction.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, given that Eloise is getting to be quite a lump and not that easy to lug around for protracted periods of time, the path to the bottom of the falls was closed due to erosion and general unsafety so we never got to see the main waterfall.

Judging by how loud it was, and how much mist was boiling up the valley from it, it would have been pretty good though.

Never mind, instead we went back to Montville and had us some coffee, hot chocolate and cake.

"Will your little lady be able to manage a whole mug of hot chocolate?" the man asked. Oh yes she will. Oh yes.

I Am A Lady

This is what you do when you're a two year old, stuck inside of an afternoon and can't get out because it just won't stop raining.

You take your Christmas pens, do your fingernails. Do your toenails. Do your lips. Do the same to your Dad. Do the same to the dogs.

Happy New Year...

Happy New Year

I agreed to work on Christmas Day as the staffing at work is not good at the moment. I agreed to this on the suggestion that I might be able to swap my late shift to an early shift on New Year's Eve. Anyway when push came to shove the staffing was even worse and I agreed to work an E12 (07:00 - 19:30) - 4 hours overtime - but atleast I got to be at home earlier than anticipated.

Since New Year's Eve 1999-2000 Neil and I have given up the going out to a pub and standing around talking to people that you can't even hear as the music is so load business and I have cooked us a nice meal at home. Neil stepped up to this tradition and so I arrived home after my 12 hour shift to a huge slab of steak with roast potatoes, asparagus and a melange of other sauted vegetables with a white sauce. It was a lovely surprise and now I know Neil does roasted potatoes so well I am hoping I'll be treated more often.

We were hoping to go to our vantage point on top of the reservior in Wilston to watch the early display of fireworks at the South Bank at 9 0'clock but the weather here has been cool and raining. Fireworks were cancelled on the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Ipswich, Queensland due to low pressure winds and Brisbane were possibly going to cancel at the very last moment weather depending. We heard the fireworks from the comfost of our living room. Not so exciting but definitely drier.

We got Eloise off to bed about 10 o'clock. We watched Help! The Beatles film. I was exhausted from working two 12 hour shifts in a row. Neil woke me just before midnight. I watched the fireworks on the telly from Melbourne and promptly fell back to sleep again.

The ward has been really hard just recently. I guess it is due to the fact that we send everyone who is well enough home to be with their families. It is sad enough dealing with people who are newly diagnosed, relapsed or palliative at any time of the year but at this time of the year it seems even harder.

I have put in my CV to the research nurses to cover whilst someone is annual leave.

The permanent residency is coming along. We are waiting for out UK police checks to come through later this month. Then I guess a decision will be may made shortly after that. So, I guess we may be off to New Zealand later on this year.

My parents are coming out to see us in May. Our only visitors so far...

Anyway, I wish you all a very happy and healthy 2008.