It rained, it poured .....

Where do I start!! The rain did come and then some LOL. For those playing at home - 60mls in the one night! I read in the paper today that it has been 9 yrs since there has been the same amount fall from Jan - April!!! Of course the server went down - and was only up again today. I did not do the vege run on Wednesday - the road was closed to Geraldton and most roads further up were closed as well. The workmate's husband got back from Geraldton the night before - just - as an hour later, one of our other staff could not get through and had to stay in Mullewa the night and had to swim through water to be picked up from this side the following day. The local school bus could not get through so the the primary school kids had a day off - after only one day at school! In fact we only got the last lot of girls back today. I was told I could go to Geraldton if I really wanted to but would have to go through a pile of back roads and decided to flag that. I went to Mullewa later in the day instead to take one of our girls to the Dr (in the workmate's 4WD) as we could by then, get that far. The road was still blocked to Geraldton by a truck that had fallen into a part of the road that had been washed away - all very dramatic indeed. Managed to get the ph bill paid and stocked up at the library - yay.

Thursday required another trip to the Dr - this time I had to drive the bosses' people mover - an 8 seater VW wagon (I think). It was a bit like driving a sherman tank and took awhile to feel comfortable. Just before we got to Mullewa a car with flashing lights approached - a Police Car!! I slowed and stopped as I figured all the flashing meant just that, as he had plenty of room to pass. A cop with an Irish voice (not very Blue Heelers at all!!) asked if the roads were blocked where we had come from (I did say he was Irish LOL) and I was able to reassure him it was all good at our end. As we were listening to the Pogues (Irish band) on CD at the time it was a little wierd. Managed to do our business and return unscathed when lo and behold just before we got to the turnoff for school, I spotted a blue tongue lizard crossing the road (I had thought it would be too cold to see one any more). As I always carry my camera with me, I stopped the car and one of my colleagues leapt out of the car and caught it for me to take a photo and to touch it. I only touched it body - very scaley with a shoes and handbag feeling. They have a nasty bite so went nowhere near its head and after the photo shoot we sent it on its merry way.

Today I was off site again - it seems mad to be off the property so much. I finally got to drive the red ute!!!!!!! (A subaru, single cab - again for those playing at home). The boss gave me the keys to fill it up ( being the expert that I am now - and this time I did hear the gurgle LOL) and I was on my way to Morewa. The road is nearly dead straight all the way there. It is about as far as going from Waiuku to Papatoetoe. I kept to a mere 80k on the gravel road bit and picked up speed once on tarseal. The entire way, there was no one travelling behind me and only 7 cars came my way - bliss! On the way home even better - three cars my way and still no one behind me - I kid you not. Had a good mooch in the stationers, hardware and bought some food at the IGA and noticed several things on the way back. It did not take as long going home, the only time there was a double lane on the road was around the one curvy bit in the whole road (and there was a double white line painted as well) and another couple of places where there were blind parts as you came to a slight rise in the road. The aussi's are not wasteful when it comes to tarseal and a small narrow road will do for most of the road when you are in the middle of nowhere. It was interesting pulling off the road when the odd car did come towards me - it is quite a knack going from full speed to move to half the car onto gravel keeping the other half on the road. I decided to slow down considerably to do this particular manouver which was relatively easy as you usually see the other person from at least 1/2 a mile away first LOL.

I have saved the best for last! TELSTRA!!!!!!!!!! I despise them with a passion. I rang them this morning from school as I still did not have the phone back on today when they said it would take an hour to be back on after informing them that I had paid the bill, on Wednesday. Some extremely foriegn accented personage told me in fact it had been connected so all should be well now. I waited 10 mins and then tried my own number from where I was still sat in the staff room - nada, zilch, nothing..... I rang Telstra again. After explaining the problem to someone in Melbourne this time (as you do) I was asked if I was ringing from home - nooo, that would be why I am ringing you for the second time this morning from the SCHOOL phone number. Well, (miss perky said) I will just try faults to see if there is a problem on the line because yes you are connected, and yes we have just rung the number and (oh my gosh) yes there does seem to be something wrong - here's Neville. Neville from faults explained (after asking me if the phone was indeed plugged in - yes it bl----y is) that if it was my phone it would cost me $100 for them coming out to fix it and if it was the line, they would fix it for nothing. I replied that as I had bought the phone from Telstra, if it was the problem, I would not be surprised! Neville then said they could transfer my number to another line - did I have a mobile - I replied that one ph with Telstra was enough and the rest were school numbers so hardly worth it (in a somewhat tetchy tone by now). Neville told me that they would have someone out by Tuesday 5pm to which I asked, seeing they were so handy at cutting my phone off perhaps the fact I am unable to access the number I have paid for, perhaps that will be reflected in my next bill. The man had obviously had training on dealing with viperish clients (it must be a daily occurrence for Telstra), and dodged that one by dribbling on about customer services as he was faults at which point I terminated the conversation. Not impressed one single bit. Great entertainment for the office staff who heard my part of the conversation throughout. Grrrrr

Anyhoo, it is now extremely late and I need to get to bed. I have two girls getting up at 5.30am to be water girls at football tomorrow, and another one is going home at 8am and I have a lonngg day ahead.
Catch you later, and goodnight from me.