Wet, Wet, Fine, Wet

I am now offically on school holidays as of last Thursday night. On the previous Monday we had the chief honchos come for a visit. I believe they had a pavement kissing sort of flight up from Perth, plus the road was in flood in several places from Mullewa to here. One staff member had to wait until 11am for the water to go down a bit before he made it through in his car. I went out with our office person in her 4WD just to make sure he made it through and could not believe the difference in 24hrs.
















It was very reassurring to hear from the honchos that there is no urgency to move on now the school has closed, in fact they are more than happy for all of us to stay on site until the end of the year. I met with the guy who has been up several times, working through this process with us and had a fruitful discussion with him. I have signed up today at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane to do three papers this coming semester which will leave me two to complete a degree in residential care. It maybe that I will graduate in Australia before I get to complete my degree in NZ, lol. The workmate is also doing four papers this term, two the same as me so we are going to keep each other honest, and on task. I am expecting a sparkling house as I am want to do housework in droves as my especial form of procrastination when I am studying,lol. Will keep you posted!!!!

On Tuesday night we had our final Mass in the Chapel and it was quite moving. One of the Brs bought up the Baptismal and Marriage record books that go back to the beginning of the school as they were to go back into archives in Geraldton. We followed the service with a lovely roast dinner with most of the staff and their familys in attendance.




On Wednesday I had a phone call which woke me out of a dead sleep to say come up to school now! Naturally I was not well pleased, even less when we all had to line up for a photo - no prior warning - great look for posterity, me feeling and looking like ferral Sheryl, lol, in clothes I had dragged on and hair all over the place - not a happy camper at all! The students all left for Geraldton after the photos for the day with several going for good, being picked up by family from town. There seven left that night, so after dinner we all decided to have a final campfire. One of the girls made some damper, we had marshmellow and potatoes and didn't wind up until 10pm. We had one of the girl's mum, dad and aunt who were staying the night come and join us as well which was great. Lots of hugs, tears and laughter which made for a special last night for those left.

On his way back from town, one of the staff spotted some emus not far from school and managed to find their nest with 10 eggs in it. He bought up two for the girls as farewell gifts. I have one of them on loan as we did not think it would get through 5 plane flights back up to the Kimberly's.



These were smallish eggs, though the equivalent of about a doz chook eggs, so we blew them but were too full to eat them that night.










Thursday I was up at 4am to get one of the girls up to catch her ride to the airport at 5am, then up again at 8.30 with the other girls as they packed and another one left. The last two left at 3pm to catch their bus home and that was it, the end of girl's boarding and the end of the school, after 81yrs. It was very hard to say goodbye as no one wanted to leave, the girls were in tears and one of the boys was too. However, we will see several of them again as I think there are some follow up visits planned to their new schools next term once they have settled in, to see how they are all doing.

The staff that were left on site that night gathered back down at girl's boarding and we had a shared pot luck dinner, and lit a roaring fire outside. It was not the usual end of term wind up at all and felt more like a wake than a celebration I have to say. Nevertheless, it was after midnight when everyone went home. I stayed on in the house for the night as I had all my gear still there and wanted to be up earlyish to pack and clean the next day. One of the staff came up about 10am and gave me a hand with the kitchen while I started at one end of the house and worked my way through. I took two ute loads of stuff back to my house late afternoon, dumped it in the door and called it a day. By the time I got here, the next door neighbour had his barbeque cranking and a fire pit going. The workmates kids were there and they were all taking turns on the neighbour's kid's go cart. This was a no frills dinner and totally carnivorous with chops, sausages and kangaroo to eat (there was bread, butter, tom sauce and fried onions to cover the other food groups), washed down with another few beers leftover from the night before. Have to say, I really liked the kangaroo - didn't taste as strong as beef and with onion made a very tasty sandwhich indeed.

Saturday was up with the larks at 9am, lol and back to the boarding house for more cleaning and the last of the packing up. Finally finished about 2pm, got home and then had to turn around to start moving things about so I could put things away - that entailed cleaning the kitchen cupboards, the bathroom cupboard, bedroom cupboard, while at the same time washing all my clothes and linen that I had bought back with me. I had to carry on and do it as I could not move about the house as it was. Luckily I bought a set of drawers down with me and have put all of my craft bits and pieces in them.

Yesterday was glorious - the sun was shining (28C), I got things dry, three out of four rooms were in reasonable shape, so I sat out on the deck for awhile to soak up the sun and then went and had a coffee with the DP before he left on holiday. I was NEARLY too hot while I was on my deck, and actually got down to two layers, being too hot for my jumper!!!, and then, today, I woke up to RAIN again - all day, on and off. We were meant to be going bush today while the next door neighbour tried to hunt a couple of kangaroos and to see some caves with aboriginal paintings so that expedition has been put on hold. If it rains again tomorrow we may not be able to get to where we want to go camping this week. The workmate is checking with the Shire tomorrow to see if the roads will be open. Watch this space!