Wee beasty in the sink and other ramblings

As you can imagine coming from a land where there are lots of wee beasties which make you jump but can't actually do you much harm to a land where practically all wee beasties can do a person serious damage it can make one a bit cautious. Well that's my excuse.....

So to set the scene, I've just cleaned my teeth, had a lovely shower, drying myself off and I notice a fairly large brown 'thing' in the sink, which was empty when I cleaned my teeth a few moments earlier.  Breathing deeply and with heart beating much faster, I cautiously move towards the bathroom door having wrapped a towel around myself first.  Calling for Rick while looking for my glasses.

My knight in shining armour and I peer into the sink, the brown thing hasn't moved and looks fairly dead... and then it starts to look familiar.  Deb and Robert (whose bathroom it was) have a shelf above the sink and keep a couple of seaweed 'pods' on it..... one of the pods was the wee beasty in the sink..... not at all frightening.....

Well thank goodness for that.... note to self.... I must remember to take my glasses with me everywhere in future.

And on to other things...

It is coming to the end of summer here, the days are getting shorter and  the weather quite changeable.  Rain keeps being forecast but we've not seen any of it yet.  In the past week the temperatures have steadily risen, reaching 39c here in Adelaide yesterday, cooling down to 28c at night.  Something which not so long ago I found hard to imagine.

To stop the plants from completely keeling over we water the garden a couple of times a week about 6.30 a.m. to give it a chance to soak in before the heat really gets up.  Lizards go skittering around, they don't need the warmth of the day to get going as it's already warm.  There was a beauty yesterday morning.  Brave little fellow headed straight for my foot, reached the toe end and peered over the flip flop (thong) before skittering past me.  He was about 3" long from nose tip to tail end, pale blue with darker blue zig zags down his back.

Rick spotted one of the doves paddling around in the bird bath as if it was a duck.  It did look funny.  Mostly during the hottest part of the day (afternoon) not much moves, including sensible humans.


To help me keep cool Rick has rigged up a home made outdoor shower, it's brilliant and has helped huge amounts.... no sign of any heat rash which would have normally appeared by now (possibly a wee bit too much information).  The hose pipe attaches to the end (which is probably very obvious to all of you).  It's hanging over the shade frame in the back yard...saves alarming the neighbours when I dash out in my bikini!

Highly recommended for cooling off quickly.

At the weekend we went to a swap meet (my first), it was held at Murray Bridge.  It's very much like a car boot sale without the car boots being used.

This is the local (portable) radio station, it was brilliant and they played very good music.

 There were so many fantastic things there from old books, engine parts, lights, furniture even an old cart wheel.

Unfortunately when I took this photo half the people there had packed up to go home but it hopefully gives you an idea of the size of it.  There was a great deal of banter and bantering going on between everyone, lots of good humour and smiley people.  Great fun.

Following this we found a brilliant Gluten Free cafe and had fish, chips and salad for lunch... delicious.  They had a great range of home made GF food, the only thing which looked a little odd was Vegemite Fudge!!! Hmmmmm

Then onwards to the SA State Nursery.  What a fantastic find, they grow and sell native plants there and offer all sorts of invaluable advice.  You can imagine just how exciting it was (for us anyway) but we managed to restrict our buying to just two plants, both attractive to nectar feeding birds and great for little insect eating lizards to hide in.