Adventures in Hervey Bay: March 2015

Sunday, March 29, 2015

So, I have learned from last week that the way to make the time go faster while Dad is in PNG is to fill up my days with activities - so, that's what I did this week. The dog walking at the Animal Rescue is going really well - I am getting two hours of walking done three days a week and the dogs are loving getting out for a walk. It would be nice to be able to take them for a longer walk (they get a 15 minute walk each), but there just aren't enough of us volunteers to go around. I am so glad that the other ladies don't mind taking the dogs who pull for their walks - I love the ones who walk nicely beside me. :-)

On Tuesday, Robyn and I went out for lunch to 'Hogsbreath Cafe' to celebrate my birthday. The restaurant sends a coupon for a free dinner when it's your birthday. I ordered prime rib with a jacket potato and salad. Last time we had that, it wasn't great, but I decided to try it again. They must have hired a new cook cuz it was amazing - so delicious - I mmmmmmed throughout the whole meal. :-)

Robyn and I celebrating my birthday at 'Hogsbreath' - our prime rib dinners were delicious

On Wednesday, I met up with my friend, Denise, and we went to visit with a woman in our ward who we used to visit teach. Ashnita and her husband have three girls aged 8, 7 and 1 and I had not yet met the one year old. Their second daughter has autism and it's quite severe in relation to her behaviour. So, Ashnita rarely gets out and loves to have people visit her. We had a really nice visit and it was good to be able to meet her little girl.

Me, Ashnita, Charlotte, and Denise

On Thursday, I met up again with Haidi at the 'Coffee Club' - she told me earlier this week that I had corrupted her (re: iced chocolates) and so we just HAD to get another one this week. :-) I couldn't argue with that, could I? We had a delicious iced chocolate and a great two hour chat - we might have to make this a standing appointment. :-)

Me and Haidi at the Coffee Club - after finishing our yummy iced chocolates

On Friday, I picked up Robyn and we drove to Maryborough (half an hour from HB) to go to our friends' house for lunch and a swim. Dan and Lyn live in a house by the Mary River - the view out the back of their place is really beautiful. They had made us a delicious lunch of salads (one of my favourites) and afterwards we went for a swim in their little pool which is in the front yard. They have grown plants around the pool so that you can't see those in the pool from the street. It was great being in the pool and yakking for a couple of hours.

Dan, Lyn, me and Robyn swimming in the pool in Dan and Lyn's front yard - what fun

Dad's week went well and he's glad that he only has a week left - the guys are doing well on the course for the most part, but Dad is getting tired of not being able to go out of the hotel other than to work. He did walk out into the compound this week and sent me some pictures so that I can add them to the blog this week.

view from Dad's hotel in PNG - you can see an airplane in the background

view from Dad's hotel

units which are part of the compound which Dad's hotel is in

pool at the hotel - Dad hasn't been in it and he's only seen a couple of people in it - the weather hasn't been co-operative - it is the stormy season there at the moment

security guard at the back gate of the compound (barbed wire on the top of the fence)

four guards at the front gate of the compound

Sunday, 22 March, 2015

Well, I can't say that I am bored anymore! :-) On Monday, I drove over to the animal shelter in town to find out if I could do some dog walking. I had seen an article in the newspaper about a need for volunteers there, so I thought that would give me something to do while Dad is away. When I went there, however, I found out that they only had one dog and already had a young girl who came in to walk him. They did need help in the office which wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, but I thought that it would at least keep me busy.

However, on Tuesday I went to the animal rescue place near the airport and found out that things were quite different over there. They are attached to the Hervey Bay pound and have tons of dogs and cats who are waiting to be adopted. They have about 20 dogs at this time and are always in need of dog walkers. A bunch of ladies come Mon/Wed/Fri and so I decided that I would join them on Wednesday to see what the routine is. I also asked about fostering a cat and they said that I could choose one that day and take it home. I chose a big fluffy strawberry blond cat named Garfield. He is lovely - he is cuddly and loves to be stroked. He will come and lay on me or beside me on my chair for a rub or a nap and then will jump down onto the cold tiles and lay on them for a while in front of the door often to get a nice breeze. I can keep him until we start travelling again and then will take him back to the rescue place. Then, if he has not been adopted by the next time we are in town, I can go and bring him home again. I am loving this as I have wanted to get a cat since we arrived in Australia, but it just wasn't possible with all the travelling that we do.

Garfield

On Wednesday, I met the ladies at the rescue place at around 8am and they showed me the ropes. Basically, I put a leash on a dog, walk it around the cricket field nearby giving them a drink half way around, put them back in their cage when we get back to the rescue place and then move on to the next dog. It takes about 20 minutes all up to do each dog. On Wednesday and again on Friday, I walked a total of six dogs which took me around 2 hours. I can tell you that I got a really good workout. :-) I was sweating buckets by the time I was done both days - the temperature has reached over 30C each day this week and by about 9am, the sun is shining strongly. I have enjoyed doing the walking, though - the dogs get a walk and I get exercise, so it's a win-win situation, I think.

ready to take a dog for a walk

my favourite ice-cream here in Oz - a Magnum Ego Caramel - I treated myself for my birthday :-)

inside the Magnum Ego Caramel ice-cream - doesn't it look amazing!

I put a sheet on top of the bed sheet on Dad's side of the bed so that Garfield could sleep on that side, but NO, he sleeps on my side :-)

On Thursday, I went out to lunch with my teacher friend, Bronwyn, to a local cafe called 'Salt Cafe' to celebrate my birthday. It's right across the road from the ocean, so the view was lovely. We ate and chatted for almost three hours - it was lovely to catch up with her. She and her husband are both (mostly) retired and they both love to travel, so I always enjoyed hearing about their journeys. Two of their four children live in the U.S. (her husband is American) and so they seem to be travelling there almost as much as we travel to Canada.

enjoying another iced chocolate at 'Salt Cafe'

Me and Bronwyn at the 'Salt Cafe' enjoying our lunch

view from our table at 'Salt Cafe' - beautiful scenery,eh?

On Friday, after dog walking, I asked the woman in charge at the rescue place if I could foster another cat and she said 'yes'. I had seen a cat called 'Violet' when I was there earlier this week, but she wasn't cuddly like Garfield was, so I had chosen him to come home with me on Tuesday. Then, during the week, I began to think that I really wanted her to come home with me - how could I resist a grey cat named Violet? :-) She is beginning to come to me and will let me give her a couple of pats, but mostly she just wanders around the house. I am sure that she and Garfield are enjoying the freedom of roaming around a huge house. Garfield, however, was not happy that I brought Violet home and has hissed a few times at Violet. It reminds me so much of Belle and her hissing when we brought Tabby home. :-)

Violet

Can you tell that Garfield is not impressed with our new cat, Violet :-)

Robyn came back to HB yesterday and I am so happy that she is back - after chatting on the phone for a bit, we arranged to meet up at the 'Coffee Club' for an iced chocolate and a proper catch-up. We then saw each other today at church and then had a good long yak on the phone tonight - we talked so long that her phone actually went dead.

Things are going fine with Dad in PNG, but he is starting to go stir crazy with not being able to get out of the hotel other than to go to the airport for training and to the grocery store to pick up a few things. The weekends are especially hard as he can't go out at all during the two days. He has been keeping busy doing his prepping - this is the first time that he has taught this course and he likes to be super prepared and so most of his time at the hotel is taken up with working on that. We get to Skype twice a day which is great - we talk after he comes home from work and then again before he goes to bed. Even though it has been really hard for both of us to be apart, I am grateful for this kind of technology that allows us to keep in touch.

Sunday, 15 March, 2015

I have tried to keep myself busy this week while Dad has been in PNG and Robyn has been holidaying with her daughter. I went to the Family History Centre on Monday to have lunch with my friend, Denise. She is the FHC Director so she is there on Mondays and Fridays. We like to go for a walk when we get together, but it wasn't going to work out this week, so lunch was it. There was another lady at the FHC who decided to eat lunch with us and so Denise and I didn't really get to catch up that day. So, on Tuesday, I drove to Denise's house after lunch and spent a couple of hours with her getting lots of talking in.

On Wednesday, I had a doctor's appointment for a skin check - fun.....not! My doctor gives us one every year just to make sure that there isn't anything suspicious happening on our skin. Anyway, my doctor told me that he wants to take out a thing on my back - it's like a skin tag - and he wants to get it checked out. He only does procedures on Tuesdays and he said he was full up for March and that he was going on vacation for the first week of April. So, my name has been put on a waiting list in case someone cancels.

On Thursday, I met up with my friend, Haidi, at the 'Coffee Club' in Eli Waters for lunch. I had an iced chocolate for lunch. They are so filling that I can't have that and eat as well - so, of course, I chose the iced chocolate. :-) We stayed there talking for almost three hours - it was nice to catch up with her as well.

On Friday evening, I met up with my friends, Alison and Thea, and Thea's daughter, Rachel at the movie theatre. Thea had called me and asked me if I wanted to join them in seeing 'The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'. Robyn had loaned the first one to me and so I watched it during the day on Friday and I gave it a 7/10 and I would say that the second one was a 7/10 as well. Afterwards, we went to the 'Hogsbreath Cafe' for dessert - I had a trifle sundae - it was okay - nothing to write home about - I should have ordered the mud cake. :-) We did have a nice time chatting and laughing together.

I was hoping to be flying to Wagga Wagga today to spend a few days with Auntie Norma, but since I have to wait and see what is going to happen with the doctor's office, I had to put that off - sheesh. If the doctor's office doesn't call me tomorrow, I might see if I can fly out to Wagga on Wednesday and then come back on the following Monday in case I get a call to come in on that Tuesday. It's such a hassle, but I want to be around if I get the call to go in for the procedure. If I do get to go to Wagga, I want to do some family history with Auntie Norma, including asking her questions about her childhood. I am hoping to use this information to write Poppy's life story.

Things have been going okay for Dad in PNG. He is staying at a hotel right beside the airport and basically spends his time in either place as the training room is at the airport. The training manager has been picking Dad up at the hotel in the morning and dropping him off at the hotel at the end of class. He has also taken Dad to the grocery store twice so that he could pick up a few things. Dad has been eating breakfast and supper at the hotel (usual expensive hotel food) and then eating noodle soup and snacks for lunch. It's not great that he can't go outside of those places, but it's for his own safety. Even the training manager told Dad not to go anywhere unless he had a driver to take him. Dad has been kept busy when he is not teaching, though, as there is a lot of prepping to do for this course.

We are talking to each other on Skype each day, but the internet in PNG is a bit dicey, so it's not always consistent. We can text each other, but it is really expensive for Dad to text from PNG and so we don't want to do that too often. We are both looking forward to him returning to HB. :-)

Sunday, 8 March, 2015

Wow, this has been a very busy week - I am going to have to go home to get a rest! :-)

Rosie and I spent more time doing family history this week - I am going to miss doing this with her. It's been wonderful spending time with someone who is as excited about doing family history as I am and Rosie knows so much about where and how to get information. We were able to get more info at State Records and also at the National Library. I am looking forward to organizing all of the information we have found while we've been in Sydney. I am also looking forward to reading more about family history in a book which Rosie loaned me called 'Family History for Dummies'.

On Monday night, Dad and I drove to a restaurant close to Rosie's place and met up with her and her family and Cheryl and her family to celebrate Steve's birthday (Steve is Rosie's husband). Rosie and Cheryl and their families try to get together for all the birthdays of the members of their families. It was great spending more time with my cousins and their families. I can't believe I didn't have my camera with me to take some pics and that I never thought to ask Dad to use his cell phone to take some. :-(

On Tuesday, I met up with Rosie, Rebecca and Liam again. We enjoyed another lovely day in the city. Rosie helps out Rebecca with the boys when she is working (she's a nurse) and they often get together and go into the city when Rebecca has a day off. We, of course, had to start with Rosie's coffee so, of course, I HAD to have an iced chocolate. :-) After spending time at the library where there was an exhibition for children, we had a lovely lunch and a long chat.

Rosie's fancy coffee - we think it's a texan hat on top

Me and another iced chocolate

Liam with his $5. cupcake

Rosie and Liam in front of Il Porcelliono statue Sydney Hospital, Macquarie Street (1968)
Brass replica of a 17th Century fountain in Florence’s Mercato Nuovo, depicting a boar. The statue, which symbolises the close friendship between Australia and Italy, was donated in 1968 by an Italian woman whose relatives had worked at the hospital. Like its counterpart in Florence, good luck is supposed to come to anyone who rubs the boar’s snout. Rosie was showing Liam where to put the coins in.

After he put the money in, we told Liam to rub the snout of the boar for good luck - true to being a boy, he put his finger in the snout's nostril

cute kitchen tools we saw in a very unique store

On Thursday evening, Dad and I met up with Ian (who served a misson in HB) and his girlfriend, Jessica. We met at an Asian restaurant close to where they live. The food was really tasty and the conversation was good. It was really nice to finally meet Jessica and to hang out with Ian again.

view from the restaurant

Dad, me, Jessica and Ian

On Friday night, Dad and I met up at a restaurant with Cheryl and her girls and Rosie and her daughter, Lauren and Rosie's grandson, Joshua, to celebrate Cheryl's birthday. Cheryl is 12 days older than I am and I like being able to tease her about getting old before I do. :-) We had Italian that night - Dad and I had real Italian pizza - yummy! I look forward to eating more of it when we go to Italy. :-)

from left around the table: Lisa, Renee, Rosie, Lauren, Joshua, Nicki, Ayla, Dad, me, Cheryl holding Lily

Ayla holding on to Dad - she loves the males :-)

At Rosie's after dinner: Dad, Lauren, me and Joshua

Dad really enjoyed teaching the guys on the course in Sydney and the guys enjoyed learning from Dad. The day before the course ended, one of the guys gave Dad a gift and a card which was from the whole class. When Dad showed me what they had bought for him and the card they had signed for him, I was overwhelmed - how wonderful for Dad to know how much those guys appreciated him. One of the guys in the class had been at a market and had seen this framed picture of 'Milestones in Canadian Aviation'. He asked the other guys in the class if they would all like to put in for it to which they readily agreed. They then all signed the card and said such nice things about Dad. I was so pleased for Dad to get recognized for doing a great job of imparting of his knowledge.

Dad's card

close-up of Dad's framed picture from the guys

Dad's framed picture from the guys

Dad and I flew to Brisbane yesterday - Dad stayed there and I continued onto HB. Dad stayed overnight in a hotel in Brisbane and then flew on to Papua, New Guinea (PNG) today. He will be there for four weeks teaching a course on the Fokker 100 airplane. He has never worked on that airplane, but took the course from his boss, Harry, when we were in Perth. Part of that course was checking out the airplane, so he has some familiarity with it. Dad's company offered to pay my flight there, but also told Dad that they were concerned about me going because of the unrest and crime in the country. I did some research on the internet and talked with some people and so much pointed to it being dodgy there and so I decided not to accompany Dad on this trip. He will be okay as he is staying at a five star hotel with tight security which is right beside the airport where he will be teaching. Someone will be picking up Dad each morning to drive him to the classroom and will drive him back to the hotel again after class. Dad will not be going out of the hotel other than when he is teaching. I am going to be praying very hard for his safety while he is gone and will be so happy when he comes back home.

Sunday, 1 March, 2015

Another busy week and it's been so nice to be busy! Dad says his course is going well and there's really no new news in that regard. Things are just going along as they should and he is keeping busy each evening preparing for the following day.

Early in the week, I met up with Ian Richardson who served part of his mission in Hervey Bay. He is from the Melbourne area, but now is living in Sydney. We met for lunch and enjoyed a yummy meal at the local hotel. It was nice to catch up with Ian and we are looking forward to meeting up with him and his girlfriend for supper next week.

me and Ian

I spent more time at the archives with Rosie again this week gathering more information about our family history - the information which I have collected can be used as sources for information which I have gathered previously. When I get home to HB, I want to put all of the information I have into the Family Tree program so that I can see what else I need to work on.

Dad has been asked to go to PNG (Papua New Guinea) for three weeks starting next Monday and I will not be joining him. I want to use that time to work on my family history. I am hoping to take a week of that time and go to Wagga to get some information re: family history from Auntie Norma. I want to go through all of her papers she has and also to talk with her about growing up in Wagga (I want to use this info to try and write Poppy's life story).

I also went to the State Library this week and copied some newspaper articles about my ancestors onto a USB stick. It is so awesome to read about them in the papers - back in the late 1800s and early 1900s there wasn't much news to report, I guess, and so it's interesting to see what they considered news. For instance, a wedding announcement of my ancestors was put in the newspaper and in the annoucement, who gave what gifts was listed (one of which was four handkerchiefs). :-)

On Friday, I met up with my cousin, Robbie - he is Rosie and Cheryl's younger brother - and he lives quite close to where we are staying. Cheryl had suggested I call him to see if he would like to get together with me. Since I don't know Robbie that well, I didn't really say anything to Cheryl about it. She went ahead and called him and asked him if he would like to get together with me and he said 'yes'. So, I called him to make a time when we could both get together. He picked me up at the hotel just after 10am and we went up to a local mall where I thought we would have lunch and that would be it. We chatted for a while, had lunch, and then he wanted to do some grocery shopping. We took the groceries back to his place, chatted some more and then he drove me to a beach for another chat and then to a different beach for another chat. He dropped me off at home just after 6:30pm. I was so surprised that he wanted to spend the whole day with me - Robbie is a very private person who seems to prefer to be on his own - I thought it was very nice that he wanted to spend so much time with me. We chatted about all sorts of things including some memories of life in Wagga when we were young - it was a good day. (Robbie doesn't do photos, so I don't have any of him for the blog).

Saturday, Cheryl organized a get together with her family, her friend's family, Rosie's family, and Dad and I.at a local park. Everybody brought something for the luncheon (we brought crackers, cheese and dip) - other things brought were: spinach dip in a bread bowl, egg sandwiches, meatballs, fruit salad, quiches and cake. We really enjoyed visiting with everyone in a very relaxed atmosphere. After lunch, we went for a quick trip to see Cheryl's place and then on to see Becky and Sean's new house. We visited more at Becky's - long enough for it to be supper time - and so Rosie suggested we go to a Chinese restaurant to eat - Becky and her sons, Joshua (7) and Liam (4) joined us. It was such a delicious meal and I am disappointed that I forgot to bring our camera to the restaurant. Fortunately, there was enough food leftover for us to have tonight for dinner - mmmmmmmmmm. :-)

Dad holding Lily (Renee's daughter) - Lily likes the men :-)

Cheryl holding Ayla (Renee's daughter) with Rosie in the background

Picnicking with the cousins

Rebecca and Rosie

Lisa holding a friend's baby

Sean (Rebecca's husband) playing with their boys Joshua (7) and Liam (4)

After church today, Dad and I went over to Manly - do you girls remember going there - that's where Aunt Janet used to live. It has a beautiful beach there and we walked for more than two hours along it. Around 4pm, all of a sudden, the sky got very black very fast. We couldn't believe how fast the clouds came in! It started raining, bucketing actually, and so Dad and I walked very quickly to the main street where we could get under cover. We walked up and down the main street looking in the windows of the shops and finally ended up at the wharf where we could catch the ferry. We shared an iced chocolate and a piece of black forest cake before waiting in the line for over half an hour to get onto the ferry - believe it or not, 950 people can fit on a ferry and we still had to wait for two ferries to depart before we could get on the one which took us back to Sydney. It was a really nice day overall - and our last day of sightseeing before heading back to HB.