Walking the Dogs

It started off alright. We set off for a trip around the lake. Bobby was all nicely groomed even. Then there was a disturbing encounter with bogans and an empty shopping trolley. They appeared to be of all ages. They left the trolley in the shrubbery.

Then we had a skirmish with a friend's kids and their Labrador. It ended after one kid ended up lying in the mud, Theo yelling at him to get his dog, me telling the other one to help do something with your dog while Theo literally hung our dogs in the air from their leashes, where they dangled, looking like skinned rabbits.
 
I think Billy started it, because the lab came running over off its leash. She seemed to be hanging off the lab's eye or ear or something. We threw them in the lake to wash the blood off them (they and our pants had blood everywhere). We could do without walks like that in future ;)

A little bit camping

We’ve been camping this week. We’ve been planning it for ages. We left on Sunday afternoon & came back not today or yesterday as planned, but on Tuesday night. Well, we thought that might happen ;)
All the things that I normally find fun, I didn’t. All the things that are normally just a bit inconvenient were sending my stress levels through the roof, and peeing twenty times a day in a portaloo is not much fun either. So, nothing was fun, everything was bad, I felt like crap when I didn’t just feel like sleeping, so we came home.
After I cried about it, I was relieved & Theo was very nice about it all & if he minded he didn’t say so.

Here's some nice camping photos I did end up taking :).

We also went out to a friend’s for tea last night and in between dinner and dessert the bachelor of the house made up a bed for me on the lounge room floor so I could have a lie down, instead of just doing that at the table. I felt like a 2 year old LOL. Funnily enough, yesterday was probably the best I’d felt all day in a while. Until teatime ;).

4 Tests Later....

On Tuesday I woke up feeling sad because I'd had this very vivid dream about this perfect baby I had had, and when I woke up it wasn’t true, and I had no baby. Mind you, Theo & I are trying NOT to have babies right now, and that was a very mutual decision ;)

This dream, however, left me feeling very weird to say the least. My period was actually late too but that was nothing unusual. I’d had cramps for the last week and a half, so I was expecting it any moment. At some point that morning I think I realised that my cramps were just hanging around not getting any worse, and that nothing was happening.

I think I went to the bathroom next, feeling silly, peed on a stick, and as I sat there watching the first line appear, I thought, right, that’s that silliness out of my head. I got up to leave. And then I saw this really faint second line appear. Started thinking I was hallucinating. Realised I wasn’t and ran straight to the bathroom cupboard to get another test from the box. Repeated the process.

They were both quite faint lines, so I think at this point I thought about my cramps and wondered what was really going on. I think here I ran to the computer and googled ‘cramps in early pregnancy’ and lo and behold, that appeared to be fairly normal. Why hadn’t I heard about this before?! (The sequence of events is all muddled up in my head and its possible I did all this before the first test. Makes less sense, but who knows! ;))

The morning was getting on by now, Theo was on earlies & due home at 1. I raced to the chemist and got a third test (eyeing off the door the whole time in case anyone I knew came in), and surprise surprise it was positive too. I made a doctors appointment for that afternoon (a miracle they could fit me in at all, really). I texted Theo twice because he was late getting home, and broke the news to him:

Me: “I had this weird vivid dream last night about a baby I had, and I was really sad when I woke up and it wasn’t true”  

Theo: “Are you pregnant?”

(I shove the test stick at him, which I had been hiding in the piano keyboard. He is most surprised. But very happy, I must add ;) ).

To cut a long story short, we go to the doctors, I pee in a cup, give them lots of blood. We drive half an hour to the nearest big chemist just to get the most expensive pregnancy test we can find, and I surreptitiously use it in Theo’s parents’ bathroom, where we surprise them with the news :). 

I’m only just now getting used to the idea :)

The Oven Is On Fire

And it was, but it all turned out OK (Mum hadn't used her grill in a very long time). Big flames. The fritatta had bits of ash in it. Smoke billowed. Tom ran around yelling 'the oven's on fire, the oven's on fire', much to the alarm of the blokes at the BBQ. In all that, I don't believe the smoke detector actually went off. I think they might need to check their batteries?

All part of the fun & games at Theo & Neville's birthday brunch. It was a brunch because it was Grand Final Day (AFL) and people were off to parties (not me).

Here we have two Collingwood supporter sisters:

Much food included pancakes (with lemon, sugar, cheese, maple syrup, warm berries in syrup, cream, strawberries and there would have been melted chocolate but someone forgot to get it out of the microwave), bacon, toast, crumpets (nobody got around to eating them), hash browns, little Italian spicy sausages, fritatta (with ash), and probably more things but I forgot already. Oh, cake, of course.

The cake was a 'Torta di Ciocolatta Angela' from my 'The Commonsense Italian Cookery Book', which didn't turn out quite how I thought it would, but still very rich & chocolatey & everyone loved. There was only one cake so the gentlemen involved thought they'd pose as a married couple and cut the cake. Quite ridiculous.

And here's Bobby. Just because.

Babies of all descriptions

New seeds to grow into little baby herbs (note the cat prints all over them- they are now covered with bird (cat?) mesh).

Baby rhubarbs that something else has incidentally been eating

Family gathers in Ballarat to see the new nephew/grandson

 

 And it's goodbye to the old girl... 

And hello to the new baby :)

Domesticated animals, gratuitous machinery & a birthday

It's Theo's birthday & he loves cake.

He did also get roast beef, vegies & yorkshire pudding.

And due to his fascination with engines of all descriptions, he got a hot air engine.

On our recent Ballarat road trip, we saw & therefore couldn't pass by another old dredge/other giant machinery.

And everyone is interested in the new duckling. The chooks want to eat its food. Daisy runs around outside her cage at full speed pecking at everything, including the other animals, & makes the chooks freak out.

The dogs think she's a mouse and so can't be left alone with her. They also just try to sit on me all the time because they can never get enough attention.

And then there were three of them trying to sit on me, because we were dogsitting Hayley's dog, Roomie.

And the chooks enjoy the sunshine :). And dirt. (Note the lemons which I have not turned into lemonade. Um).

So I sit down. The cat sits down. The chooks peck me, the dogs sit on me, the duck pecks everything, the chooks run away, the rabbit watches on & the other cat hides in the shed. I'm surrounded by crazy animals & it makes me very happy ;)

Eldorado...

I am sitting here with a duckling on my shoulder. Just thought I'd mention that ;) She does have something to poo on so she doesn't do it on me lol. 

Theo's got a week off work this week, just to have a bit of a break & Col was going down to Eldorado this week, and Theo's been saying he'll take me there, pretty much since I've known him ;) so we just went down for a night. Left on Tuesday morning, came back yesterday afternoon. Col camped & we had our meals with him but we didn't bother packing the tent for just a night so we just stayed at the caravan park, which was really nice & the people were extra friendly :) 

We went gemstoning in the river on Tuesday afternoon & yesterday before we went home, we spent a couple of hours looking over the old dredge, which as Theo described it to me "it's sort of a cross between a giant piece of machinery & a big floating shed". 

So I was quite intrigued but I didn't realise what 'climbing and looking all over it' actually meant, so ended up being quite scared when we got on the thing (I am really not very good with heights ;)) but I did it & climbed all over the thing & got lots of photos to show for it. Actually, some of them Theo took because I was literally too scared to let go of the ladder/rail/ whatever I was gripping at the time. I actually climbed up and down one ladder with my eyes closed LOL:D. 

It doesn't look half as scary in the photos :D

We Love Dirt; Floods & the New Family Member

The camera had a hissy fit & deleted the photos I took of our five metres of topsoil we had delivered last Saturday. I thought the rain might wash it away, but we wheelbarrow-ed it everywhere & have new & improved garden beds to show for it. Here's the pile of dirt, much reduced. 

We needed some outdoor activity the other night when Theo got home from work, so we went to check out the flooding river at Murchison.

And today we drove to Waranga Basin for similar activities, where every man and his dog and child seemed to be also driving up, checking it out and driving off again. Decided to have a swing while we were there. 

The man of many talents made me a very complicated dinner last night & I was most impressed. 

Last but not least, here's the latest addition to the family. Col came to visit & brought me a present. 

I think I'll call her Daisy.

Steam Engines & Travels

Theo got some time off work but I was too sick to go camping, so we just went to Beechworth for a night. I'm not sure if I've actually been there before ;). It was on our list of things to do anyway, but that particular weekend was their annual Ned Kelly festival, so we got to see the suits of armour all on display and smile goofily across the street at Sigrid Thornton standing there with a cup of coffee. And John Jarratt rode past on a horse. Entertainment. I also got to sit down in a dark corner because all the multitudes of tourists and children almost made me throw up (well, remember I was sick anyway...), and we waited til 15 minutes before closing to see the suits of armour because that line had all day been very long.

You may not know how much Theo loves his steam engines. They had this little display set up in this park area there, and here's some vintage and model (wooden, even!) ones :) 

While we're on the topic, here's Theo's ones he made years ago, he finally set up to show me them going: 

On the way back from Beechworth, we meandered around & found one place we might go camping one day: 

And I'd like to say we like crossing the state border so much that we did it twice, but the truth is we were looking for something and couldn't find it... :D 

We do like our road trips.