Mozzies

Hello all,

Not doing to well on the new year's resolution front - Luci still ignores me and this is only my 3rd post on my blog since March! But I have been spending more time sleeping. Mum Una has not been sleeping so well though. After a bit of rain early in the year, the moquitoes came out and they just love the smell of an Englishwoman's blood. I think she has described in gory detail on her own blog the bites she got in Sydney. Brisbane mozzies (as they call them here) aren't quite so bad but overnight she would still get bitten. So now she has a mosquito net on her bed:

It's so very colonial, isn't it?
So now she is relatively mozzie bite free. The downside is that I can't get in to the bed to sleep next to her, and she goes mad at me when I make holes trying.

A Dangerous Place

I've been reading the Courier Mail (it's Brisbane's local paper) this weekend and my goodness, Australia is a dangerous place isn't it.
It's been a busy weekend for all those creatures that bite, sting and generally try to kill you.
Firstly, a woman was bitten by a funnel web spider in an inner Brisbane suburb not previously known to be inhabited by such spiders. Thankfully the woman got to a hospital and received antivenom.
Next, a local newsreader's daughter stepped on a stonefish on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane. The poison was spreading at an inch a minute. She was treated with morphine and anti-inflammatories and recovered quickly.
And then late yesterday afternoon, a surfer was bitten by a shark while riding a wave. He seems to have escaped with relatively minor injuries.
So I'm hoping I'm safe lying on my futon and I'm not going to venture very far from it. Luci likes to go exploring so I hope he doesn't get bitten by anything.
But don't let me put you off coming to Australia. They have anti-venoms for most things these days ....

A New Year

Greetings all! And a Happy New Year! I hope you are all well and if you've made new year resolutions, I wish you all the best in realising them. And if you haven't, then aren't you so lucky that you haven't got anything you want to change about your life. Here is my list of resolutions for the new year:

• get Luci to love me
• sleep more
• post to my blog more regularly

What are yours? Visiting us in Brisbane, perhaps?

Lizards and Lounging

Hi everyone,

I haven't blogged for a while - my arthritis has been giving me trouble so haven't been able to use the kyeboard well enough to type. But Mum has taken me to the vet and I've been taking regular glucosamine and it's a lot better now. Still, I don't get out much, spending most of time on my beloved fufi (futon) on the deck:

So with all the time of the fufi, there's not much news to tell. Discovering more wildlife: some very cheeky crows that make lots of noise early in the morning and steal food off the table on the deck if there's no one looking, and lots of lizards of all shapes and sizes, including this one found in the rumpus room:

Birds in the Backyard

So now we've been in the new house for a three weeks, I'm getting to know the local wildlife.
Apart from the miner birds, there are lots of other birds that hang out in our backyard.
In the morning, it is particularly active. And you can hardly hear the passing trains above the various bird chirping and squaking.
There are galahs, that come and feed on the oval behind the house. They don't make much noise and they don't come very close to the house, so Mum Dr Kat hasn't got a picture of them yet so I've got one off the internet.Then there are crows that are huge! You know they breed everything big over here. And they are very noisy.

And my uncle Steve spotted a pale face rosella in a tree the other day. Here's a photo of it, but it's a bit blurry as there wasn't too much time to take a photo.

And my favourites to watch are the rainbow lorrikeets, which are very busy and pretty noisy too. They are always around at breakfast time.

Our New House

I'm back online. After all the talk of boxes, it turns out we've moved again. It's not much fun moving and we've left Pete behind. It's hard leaving friends! And I don't think my mums are very pleased with me because I had an accident in the car on the way to our new house. The car will never smell the same again.

Instead of possums, there are lots of birds in the garden of the new house. You might say that's cat heaven but I've never much been one for birds. Tosca, on the other hand, was a great bird hunter in her day but she seems to have met her match with the noisy miners in our back yard. The Australian Museum describes them as "bold and curious" birds and another website has a page called Noisy Miners - agression in the suburbs. That probably tells you something about what these birds are like. The first time Tosca ventured outside the house, a whole group of them came charging towards the house making loud noises. Tosca was back inside within seconds. So I'm guessing that there's no birdy num-nums for Tosca for a while.

Something's going on

Pete's been in again last night. This time earlier, while our food was out. Tosca (see below) hissed at him. She's very scary. Well I think so anyway, but Pete just kept on munching on our yummy Senior Tuna Whiskas. I'm sure he's supposed to be a vegetarian but he's obviously one of those vegetarians.

I sense there's something going on - Una and the Dr speak in hushed tones of trucks and boxes and "Next week". The last time they talked like this, they put us in boxes and sent us on a very long trip without them where it was very noisy. I really don't want to do that again. I'd rather stay here with Pete, even if I do have to share my Whiskas with him.