Hello darkness my old friend.

It's Sunday night, childer in bed by 9.15, quick goss with the workmate and I am sitting in the dark at the computer with the sounds of silence (except for the washing machine and dryer LOL) all around. Bliss.

I came to work Thursday afternoon and will go home mid morning tomorrow to work tomorrow afternoon and then will be back Thursday afternoon. Winter sport has played havoc with our working hours on the weekends and the workmate and I are putting our heads together this week to see if we can make it work better for both of us. On a roll, I decluttered our sleeping quarters up here on Saturday. It was a reasonably laid back day after that as everyone was tired from the business of the previous week. Had planned on doing another walk into the great outdoors gathering wood for a camp fire but no one had any enthusiasm which suited me fine. Biggest excitement was the firing up of the old bakery on Saturday. I made a stray comment last term about it being a shame it wasn't used anymore and over the holidays when various people gathered here on site, the topic came up, investigations made, and then an enormous clean up of equipment and plant with some engineering know how carried out on the burner, and yesterday it all came together. Apparently all bread was baked on site up until 5 years ago when the person who baked left through ill health. OMG, you should see the oven, it is the real McCoy and huge with a door in the wall that opens and acres of space inside. The interested few yesterday made three catering sized pizzas (homemade dough)and I got to taste the results which were incredibly yummy. There is even the old wooden shovel with about 2mtr handle to slide under the trays to get them in and out of the oven and you should see the size of the dough making machines. I believe the fire for the oven is oil fired, and they got the heat up to over 800o to start with which helped, I understand, to burn the carbon off the inside of the oven before they put the pizza in. There are going to be more trial runs and they hope to have it up and running perfectly for open day and Tardun under the Stars (the major fundraising event of the year).

I had my own foodie moment on Friday as for the first time in three weeks I made it to a class in the kitchen that someone put me forward to take part in - cooking with the chef and the kids!!!! The idea is that the kids get to make afternoon tea and morning tea for the weekend. Friday was rocky road (white and dark chocolate batches) and then to balance the healthy option (LOL), cut up fruit and a salad for dinner that night. The rocky road was chocolate buttons mixed with copha (kremalta in NZ - you were right Mum) poured over chopped marshmellows and chopped glace cherries (coconut was added to the white choc batch). It was horrendously sickly even in small amounts but almost compulsive to eat at the same time.

Today we headed into Geraldton for soccer. Once again to Macca's for a restorative coffee and then I got dropped off at Aquarina with a few of the girls while the rest went to watch football - not sure who was playing but seemed riveting for those who went. Aquarina, as the name suggests, is the local swimming pool complex and it seems an excellent one at that. Very interestingly laid out, open spaces with toddler pools, a hydroslide and then a big pool inside for serious swimming and an outside pool (large). Managed to read a bit of my book that I took in between chatting to parents who turned up for various reasons and some people who had a child here some time ago. Because the bus has been a bit temperamentle, we walked from the pool complex back to the soccer grounds (all the sports grounds are in a row) and found the original time given for the game was incorrect so had to sit and watch the second half of a game that two of our girls were in. Fortunately, the bus started 1st pop so we got away as soon as the game ended.

Got back to cook the usual Sunday night barbque dinner for the girls. Found an apron to wear out of a cupboard and wouldn't you know it, I still managed to get fat spattered over the front of me (even though the apron had a bib on it!!). I had had the good sense to take off the jumper I was wearing and saved that greasy spots. Got flash tonight and cooked up fried onions as well which was enjoyed by all.

The Robocan seems to be working in our rooms up here. I spotted a fly on the ceiling yesterday and found it legs up on my bed last night - hoo rah. The ceiling has been clear in three rooms of any small dark insects of the biting/(urinating) kind. I have felt safe enough to have my head out from under the bed clothes which is definitely a plus. Have considered buying a burka to wear when in the great outdoors, however, the eyes still show and I have bites on my eyelids so have disregarded that idea for the moment. I also had a mental picture in my head of Brian's mother in the "Life of Brian" (a la Monty Python for those playing at home) and again - not a good look.

Had to sit up for awhile last night because just before I went to bed, one of the girls came to tell me her room mate was being sick - just lovely. After sorting that out (she also has a suspected torn muscle or cracked rib) I decided to wait up to see if she settled and was able to sleep (she was fast asleep in 30 mins) so to while away the time resumed my stitching on the quilt. To keep myself awake, had the MP3 player to hand and as I listened to Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Hendrix whilst stitching around ballerina teddies ..... had to have a small chuckle and thought niece Laura would have liked the juxtaposition of it all (one of her favourite words) LOL.

Have just demolished two bits of the white chocolate rocky road (I cleaned out my wallet and the bus today to be able to eat that LOL)and feel the need to read a few more pages of my latest book. I can't tell you the title or the author (Mrs Sedman, 3rd form English teacher will be turning in her grave) but am enjoying it. It remains unremarkable to date because it is part of the read every book in the library mission I am on so am completely unfamiliar with the author. I read a truely awful book last week and told the librarian I hadn't enjoyed it and thought it poorly written and on the strength of that she said she would send it back to the main library LOL. I mention Mrs Sedman because she drummed into us, that you always remember the title and author of what you read/study - it is a guaranteed two marks in any exam - don't know where that came from, just thought I would throw that in to the mix LOL. So, am off to put one more load into the washing machine and to bed. Nighty night.