TIS THE SEASON

Memories of Wild Flower Trip

At our doorstep

Can you believe we are now in late November 2011??!! Just where did the last 12 months go? I hope and trust that the last 12 months have been kind to you and yours and sincerely wish you a wonderful, happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

Last time we spoke, we had just accepted an offer to stay at a pretty 50 acre property around 50-60ks north of Perth in a picturesque area called Bullsbrook. My darling DD keeps looking for the bull folks! He feels sure that there is some old hoary beast lurking alongside the local brook and hence the name!
I mentioned too that my daughter in law was having a few health issues. Well, as these things go, the health issues escalated just as we moved considerably further away from their home. We received an emergency call the day after we moved, advising us that Nom had once again been taken to hospital. As my son Brett had flown out to Sydney the day before on business there was quite a problem. Brett’s long time mate Brook, who should from here on be known as BTB (Brook the Brave) BTB had responded to Nom’s emergency call during the early hours of the morning and had hastened to their home to stay with Daniel the furiously fast four year old and Jack the jaunty 10 month old. BTB, bless his bachelor socks had stayed the night and then somehow, without any real idea of what he was doing, fed and dressed both the boys, ironed his shirt (with baby under arm) and managed to deposit them at day-care before getting himself off to work.
His plaintive call reached us mid morning. The brave and wonderful man was, he said, willing to sally forth back into the fray that evening and do it all again, but he was not quite sure that he would be able to cope very well. What an amazingly good mate he is. We had little choice but to give a backward glance at our new country abode and make haste for the ‘burbs’ again.
One of the problems associated with looking after the boys, is the matter of appropriate car-seats. Of course, these days one cannot just grab the kids and throw them into the back seat as we would once have done. As those of our generation well know, back in the dark ages, we would have just placed the 4yo in the back of the car and I would have nursed the baby. Not today of course. Now we are not very experienced in all this new fangled stuff and as the Cruiser (Zed) is a very large vehicle, we were unsure about how to transfer the car seats from Nom’s toy car into our big bus. This meant that DD had to drive the little silver toy that Nom drives. The toy is a manual, and yours truly, whilst holding a licence to drive a manual, has not driven one since acquiring her licence (you know, back then when Noah was a boy!!) As you all know we are fairly large people! My proportions, whilst not tall are very wide and DD is tall and nowhere near as sylph-like as he once was. DD also sports a size 13 foot and has habitually driven automatics for the past ............years. So........... after managing to squeeze ourselves into the toy (remember we are used to Zed where one almost needs a ladder to gain access) we proceeded to drag our bottoms along the road – at least that is how it felt – whilst bunny-hopping from spot to spot. DD was having terrible trouble with the clutch and the brake as his large foot seemed unable to move from one to the other smoothly and the ability to manipulate each pedal independently of the other was causing quite some stress. At the same time, my right thigh my dears, was attracting more attention than it had seen since we re-connected some 9 years ago! This was as a result of the gear stick being situated somewhere around my mid thigh. We must have made quite a spectacle, with DD hunched over the steering wheel (where else was he going to hunch?) and me squished up against the passenger door.

Basking in the late sunlght

Anyway to cut a long story short we had a couple of days and nights where we proceeded across to pick the boys up from day-care, stayed the night and then drove back to our ‘country estate’ in an exhausted state the following morning. Oh, just one more humorous tale to relate here. Young Daniel, the fast and furious four year old, has a habit of stealing into the main bedroom in the early hours of the morning. The process went a little like this, as one was sleeping lightly, with one ear posted for any sounds on the monitor in the baby’s room, one would hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet through the room, followed by the soft thud of the overnight ‘pull-ups’ hitting the floor in the en-suite. Then I would hear the musical tinkling of a wee in the loo followed by the soft foot-falls re-entering the bedroom. There the fiendish intelligence of the four year old cut in as Daniel, rather than risk refusal by trying to climb into bed next to us, would quietly insert himself into the bed from the other end, tucking in the process, his small but cold and bony feet into my doubtless warm and soft bottom. Now there followed about 3 hours (well at least 30 minutes) of twitching and squirming until he finally found his way back to the land of nod.
Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here, on the first night, there was only one person conscious of this activity, as all through the process we were accompanied by the loud and vigorous snores emanating from DD’s side of the bed. In the morning, DD awoke reasonably refreshed only to find a fairly fractious and irritable old woman in the kitchen. The second night however, my beautiful man wasn’t sleeping quite so soundly and after Daniel had once again inserted his cold little bod into the other end of the bed, DD would periodically sit bolt upright in bed and peer in an alarmed manner at the foot of the bed. I would then murmur something reassuring about it only being Daniel and DD would subside back down under the covers and the snores would then increase in volume as he sought to find a deeper sleep. After this entertaining (not) behaviour had repeated itself a few times, Daniel started to whine also. When I somewhat caustically asked him what the matter was, he informed me in a very peeved and hurt tone that he “just wanted him (DD) to go to sleep!” Eventually somewhere around 4.30 DD informed me that he felt he would have to go and sleep on the couch. Now girls, I think that this was my cue to do something heroic like demur gently that no, indeed it would be me to go to the couch, or that I would risk waking the entire household by moving Daniel unwillingly back to his own room, but my dears, by that time, having been up to Jack a couple of times, having settled both DD and Daniel back to sleep a couple of times, I was in no mood for self-sacrifice. To what must have DD’s considerable disappointment I said with great feeling “Well one of you certainly has to go!” At that my DD wandered sadly out to the very commodious and quite comfortable couch. Poor boy!
Anyway, we all lived through the experience and Nom has since then been fine. Hopefully we are finally at the end of the whole birth and subsequent ill health episode. Jack will turn one on the 30th November and doubtless, Brett and Nom will look back at this past year in some wonder in the future, wondering indeed how they all survived.
During all of this, Mother was having major problems with her eyes and we were also involved in taking her to a series of appointments with GPs, opticians and eye specialists, none of whom could find any evidence of any new problems, or indeed any further deterioration of mum’s eyesight. The trouble had started on the very day that I had taken her home after our wild-flower tour. She said it was just as if someone had dropped a shade over her eyes. This situation seems not to have changed a great deal since then I’m sad to say. Tomorrow we take her to the Blind society to have yet another test done and to determine what if any aids will make her life a little easier. This is all very hard to digest as she has just been declared fit to drive for yet another 12 months.
We, mum and I that is, had yet another falling out, this time as a result of her lack of trust in me. I won’t go into gory details, suffice to say when she does these sorts of things, it feels very much like a blow to the solar plexus (that’s a kick in the guts for anyone who needs a translation) and it takes some time to recover from the subsequent hurt. She is indeed a hard person to love from time to time, and yet, God help me, I do love her. Oh well, it has never been particularly easy, why should it change now at this late stage?
Well, all of this and I still haven’t told you about Bullsbrook! As I said earlier it is around 50ks north of Perth situated alongside the Gt Northern Highway. The property belongs to the daughter of a friend. We had visited our mates while they were looking after the place for their daughter and her husband. There is a long and convoluted story attached to the place, but in simple terms, our friend’s daughter and her husband purchased the property around 1 year ago with the intention of moving both their home and their business here. Due to some issues with disclosure (or more accurately lack of disclosure) they were unable to move the business here. The property went straight back on the market and hopefully in the not too distant future, some resolution to some sticky legal matters will be resolved for the owners.
The owners are a delightful young couple with 4 kids, their own thriving business and a super busy lifestyle. The property consists of 50 acres of undulating pasture and native bush. The bush is a glorious mish- mash of majestic trees, gravel, sand and banks of banksia and native Christmas Trees. Due to some regulatory matters the property is deemed almost to be a nature reserve and as such is a haven for the wild creatures which abound in this area.
There are two old houses on the property and for the first 6 weeks or so that we were here we had the whole place gloriously to ourselves. There are now two of the couple’s employees installed in the other house, but we rarely see them.
We have declined the chance to move our stuff (still in storage) into the house and have opted instead to stay in the van. I have however made myself a studio inside the house and we use the veranda each afternoon to watch the shadows lengthen over the land and see the roos come out of hiding to forage.
There is a lovely swimming pool which we are making good use of and I have to say we are loving being here. The peace and quiet are addictive. For excitement, we are quite close to the RAAF base and so are entertained quite frequently with the comings and goings of the aeroplanes and helicopters from the base.

Splendid Fellow

We are spoilt for bird life. We have all the usual suspects in maggies, mudlarks, butcher birds, ringnecks, galahs, black cockatoos and of course a couple of crows. In addition to all of these we also have splendid wrens and amazingly a couple of red cap parrots. Of course we have taken to putting feed out for the birds on a daily basis (as the practice was before we arrived) and now also put out feed for the roos. It is an absolute delight to sit on the veranda in the late afternoon and watch the antics of the wildlife.
We have been fortunate enough to see this place at it’s very best as we arrived at the peak of spring. The grasses were verdantly green and the wild-flowers were prolific. Now we have fields of gold decorated with the olive green of grass trees and the vivid orange of the Christmas trees. We are sooooooo spoilt!

A couple of the locals

The place is a magnet for anyone who cherishes the peace and quiet of the Australian bush and we have found that visitors fall in love with the tranquillity. We have had a few visitors and love having people come to share our world with us. Because of all the space, and an empty house there is plenty of room for friends and family to visit, even to bring a van and set up camp for a couple of days. We are on the power grid but have no scheme water. A bore supplies water for the garden and pool and a large rain tank provides water for the house.
We have decided that if we cannot be on the road then this is a pretty good substitute. Of course, as the place is on the market, we don’t really know just how long we will be able to stay here. With all of this in mind, we have made the somewhat difficult decision to travel to Tasmania early next year. The intention, was until a week or so ago, to leave mid January and return mid- year. We were (and still are) very happy and excited at the prospect.
Fate, as it will do, has stepped in however. DD went off to his GP a week ago to have his 6 monthly check up and to get his medication for the next 6 months. While there he mentioned that he had been very tired of late and his very careful Dr decided to have a good look at him. Thank God that he did! It turned out that his heart beat was very irregular. This meant a fast appointment to see a cardiologist. Long story short – atrial fibrillation was the diagnosis. DD is now on medication to regulate his heart beat and also on blood thinning medication. Blood tests every 4-5 days will determine how much of the thinners he needs in preparation for an ultrasound to ensure that there are no blood clots formed in the heart. Once everything is stabilised then they will ‘shock’ the heart in an attempt to get it back into the correct rhythm. This, we are told is usually successful. If the shock treatment fails then we think it will be a matter of medication ad finitum.
Since starting the first medication to regulate his heart beat, DD has been sleeping much better, his snoring has decreased in volume and his sleep apnoea seems to have improved considerably. It is interesting and something to be aware of – if anyone you know has sleep apnoea, it is recommended that they have their heart beat checked! It seems there may be a correlation between the two problems.
All of this of course, sent me into a spin and I dare say frightened the you know what out of our lad. Doug being Doug tho’, he has handled the whole thing with great aplomb and considerable calm (unlike me) and has an unassailably positive outlook. That is something we do share. We are both confident that this episode with turn out well and a better quality of health for Doug will be the outcome.
This has all coincided with a major health campaign we had already embarked on. We are on a diet and we are as a result of the necessity of moving around a great deal more on this property already feeling fitter and healthier. The pool is a major plus and every afternoon when it is warm enough (and sometimes when it is not!) we are out there enjoying and exercising (in a gentle and restrained way of course).

From the veranda as the long shadows fall

Onwards and upwards is our war cry, albeit, perhaps not to Tassie quite so soon. DD doesn’t go back to the cardiologist for a check up until mid Jan and from there they will plan the shock treatment. We are not sure how much longer we will have to wait after that, but have hopes that we will get away early February. We have high hopes of still going to Tassie, but being the positive types that we are, if that is vetoed, then we will simply find another closer spot to visit. It is tough, because Mum does need us so much more now, but we really do have to look to ourselves and our own needs. This latest health scare is a huge wake up call – not that we really needed one, we were already aware of the risks we are taking in not doing what we wish to do, but at the end of the day, it has to be somewhat of a juggling act.
In the midst of all various dramas, we have celebrated being together for nine whole years! It seems impossible, but there you are. I have also managed to do some reasonable (and some unreasonable) paintings and we have managed to have both fun and some peace and quiet.


We join to wish you all a harmonious and joyous Christmas and New Year.


Doug & Steph