G'day, everyone.
Sharon, I always figure it's better to have to mow the lawn, than to be worrying about drought and watching the plants die.
Smallworld, that art camp sounds lovely. I'm glad you are all enjoying your summer.
Christine, I hope your week remains manageable. Good luck with the house.
Sharon, I'm glad easy child is enjoying working for her dad. Enjoy the fireworks - we missed ours this year, Australia has "crackernight" mid-June.
We're slowly getting back into life after our holiday. I was getting a scratchy throat in the last few days of the trip; difficult child 3 was also feeling unwell at times fighting off a cold. We got home to a house full of sick young adults and went down like ninepins.
I had to see a specialist on Monday (haven't seen him for years, I had to give him updates) and my GP today, so I've barely had time to scratch myself. husband was back to work yesterday, just in time to do the financial records for his department to finish off the tax year (the Aussie tax year finishes on 30 June).
We accidentally left my mobile phone back in New Zealand, as a result of 'bugging out' in a hurry to try to get ahead of the road closures due to the blizzard. At first the place where we stayed insisted that the staff would have checked the rooms thoroughly and no phone was found, but we remembered that the cleaning staff were short-handed that day as the icy roads were so bad the staff were not able to get in to the place; plus a lot of the other guests were late getting away due to being caught by surprise by the blizzard and not being prepared. So we emailed this to them and they looked again - and they are posting it back to us. The phone is network-locked, so nobody can use it, sell it, give it away or register it with another service provider without my ID or password. It was in fact the network lock that had meant I couldn't use it either, in New Zealand, and so the phone got missed in the rush to get on the road.
husband was feeling jaded about the place, now he is feeling glad for the milk of human kindness in the staff. A good feeling, to know someone can come through for you.
The proprietor of the place also mentioned in her email that it was a good thing we left when we did - by the time the series of snowfalls and hard frosts finished, they had five inches of ice to contend with. On steep, sloping roads...
And I tell you, New Zealand is a beautiful place. You can't take a bad photograph - wherever you point the camera, there is a masterpiece of a photo waiting for you to press the shutter.
New Zealand had our brushtail possums introduced there about a hundred years ago. Now there are more possums there than in Australia. More possums than sheep in NZ - really saying something. In New Zealand they are really a problem. At home I love the critturs, but in NZ we bought "merino mink", which is wool made from merino spun with possum fur - very warm, very soft. The NZ possum trade is the only fur trade in the world ENDORSED by the World Wildlife Fund.
But last night, when I went outside to get something from the garage, I startled 'our' possum. I ducked back inside to get a banana and called her over. She sat on a nearby stump and daintily nibbled the banana, being careful to not drop any bits. Then I heard another noise - another possum! This one had been raiding the pellets in the chook house (hen house) but it also came over to me for some banana. easy child 2/difficult child 2 came out to see, and ended up patting the larger possum while she fed it banana (this is a wild possum, folks - not particularly tame). From what we could see, the large one is a female with a baby in the pouch, and the smaller one is another female. From the protective behaviour of the large possum, I think the smaller one is last year's baby.
We fed both of them - they like strawberries too, but when easy child 2/difficult child 2 tried to feed the large one a slice of star fruit it dropped the fruit and nipped her finger, assuming it to be banana we think (it probably smelt nicer than the star fruit, easy child 2/difficult child 2 had just been holding banana). If the possum had meant to be aggressive it would have done a lot more damage. Those teeth (diprotodont) are scary. But easy child 2/difficult child 2 is very forgiving, perhaps because these possums are so sweet.
It is good to be home among familiar things.
But I'm not telling our possums about my new NZ possum skin boot insoles. That's my secret (and my warm feet).
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Marg