Christmas and other things.

Christmas is both the best and the worst time of the year I think.  Best because it is an excuse/reason to reconnect with friends and family and to be able to share with them. Worst because Christmas always needs to be one more month away, lol.  With the best intent in January, I tell myself, this year I will be organised.... and yet.... work, visitors, and the" must dos"  in life seem to get in the way, lol.  I tend to buy things during the year for Christmas with the thought I will be ahead of the game, but constantly find a trillion things for one person and still struggle to find something that fits for the others.  As an exercise in speed organisation, I spent several harried days at Glenfield Mall in Auckland (while on my "holiday") sifting and sorting, managing to get the whole NZ contingent sorted and wrapped before I left - no mean feat indeed.

 Last Saturday we had the Tardun Christmas get together - not at my place this time but at the Brentwood Olive Grove about 15 mins south of Geraldton.  This place was on  Jude's and my  bucket list to visit and when she found out that this weekend is the last time they will be open to the public as a cafe, she fixed a date and amazingly it worked.  Due to the casualness of the invite and response she had only booked for 14 when 20 turned up and full marks to the staff who squeezed in an extra table and chairs.  We responded by liberating most of our water glasses for other guests and stuck to our drinks - in taller glasses and so the world goes round.  Need I say that the food was exquisite.  I ordered the Mediterranean platter and on reflection supposed it really was a shared thing, heh, heh, but as I had no breakfast and had not planned on much dinner, it was yee har instead. OMG it was divine.  Two small dishes of caramelised  onion dip and hummus, hazelnut stuffed green olives, a long green pepper stuffed with couscous, two vegetable samosa type things, marinated mushrooms, slices of warm turkish bread, preserved artichokes and capsicums in oil, and a couple of other interesting mixtures of I know not what,  but exceptionally tasty.  The serving was large and I managed every finger and lip licking bit of it. However, if that was not already enough, I soared into orbit with dessert  and felt at this point I had died and gone to heaven.  Way beyond OMG, lol.  I had an enormous home made meringue covered with lemon butter delivered on a bed of whipped cream.  The lemon butter was what I would have called lemon honey at home and pow, the zingyness of the lemon flavour with the sweet of the meringue was absolutely divine   Anyone with a spare pot of lemon honey/curd in the cupboard, go create this straight away, lol.

Feeling just a tad replete and after much laughter, catching up, reminiscing and several hours later, we exchanged gifts with those we would not see again before Christmas and I hitched a ride back with the WMH to flop on the couch at home.  Donna had arrived the night before with her lad and I had picked up "my" lad for the weekend,  so as I recounted the day to everyone, the boys asked if they could have a candy cane of the tree - yes and pass one round to me and Donna too. You know there are just some days you should quit when you are ahead.  I was biting on my candy cane with the few teeth I have left when crunch and that sickest of sick feelings that something was not quite right.  I removed myself to the bathroom, and spat out into my hand candy cane and a massive piece of filling!!!!!!  I also think I have nearly broken the tooth from its moorings because if I touch it the wrong way it feels like it is going to come out of its socket.  So far, it is not hurting so am trying to work up enough courage to find a dentist and then to cope with what ever verdict will come - it will come with a four figure price tag as my teeth are in a parlous state and then there is the trauma I usually go through - am needing this like a hole in the head and at the end of my proposed visit I may well be looking at just that - no teeth at all, lol.

Speaking of teeth, again the few I have left are mainly the sharpened front ones and they certainly were working well  on Monday night!  I had a real estate person ring me on Wednesday  last week saying they had a prospective buyer to show through and would the next day be ok. No, I said, I will be sleeping (on night shift) and will be sleeping Friday as well, Monday afternoon will be ok as I will be at work.  All good.  On Monday I get back here at just after 11pm and went to walk through the front porch door only to find it locked!!!!!! You have to be joking I thought - the only key I had to get in was the front door  which was behind said locked door.  A quick check about the place and of course post burglery earlier in the year, the house is locked down tight as the proverbial fishes bum. Blood pressure was starting to do a slow burn and while thinking what to do I went to txt the WMH to see if he was still up  only to find a txt from Emily his daughter earlier saying that she had gone back home when she couldn't get in also,  so just drove round instead.  Luckily  Gerard was still up and thankfully while I was seething and fanging about useless, poxy real estate people, he found me a phone book and I rang the rental people and the real estate agent only to get answer phones!!!!! Arggggh  - of course all my emergency numbers were locked in back at mine.  While contemplating what to do - break a window to get in and sort it out, ring the police to see if they could break in, rip some soft toy to pieces, lol, the phone rang and it was the rental people.  I explained the situation and was told to meet the person at the office in 20 mins - they had to get dressed and travel in from out past where I work.  Phew, as Gerard had a total house full, with one couch to spare which I could have used, but after an exhausting weekend and 10 hours work, I just wanted my own bed.  So, at quarter past midnight, with two sets of keys in case one didn't have the right key (?) I was back into my own house.  I got in yet another sliding door into the sun room this time as the porch door had been snibbed from the inside from the prospective buyer thinking I had left the place unlocked - ya think!  As I relayed to a colleague yesterday - do people not know  farm rules over here - if a gate is shut you leave it shut, if it is open you leave it open, It is the same with flaming doors!!!

Once in bed I took some time to de-stress with a few games on the laptop and probably fell asleep around 1.30 2.00am to be woken by the phone at 8am by the real estate agent profusely apologising as he had just got my message.  I was ALMOST able to see the funny side of things by then, but 8am, come on, still the middle of the night for me, lol.  He totally redeemed himself however when I finally got organised and left for work, and yes out of the now open porch door, to find a parcel wrapped up in Christmas paper which was a basket of goodies and a card apologising for the day before.  A very professional and appropriate response and they will also get the bill for the call out so all is well with the world once more.

I got back last night from work at much the same time to find two new parcels at the kitchen door from NZ so yay - they have gone straight under the Christmas tree and will wait with anticipation to see what is within.
I have got a good amount of Christmas cards done and dusted.  Had a bah humbug moment with them too - went to print off my Christmas letter to enclose with most of the cards  and sod, sod, sod, the printer would not print.  Cleaned the nozzle - several times, changed inks and got everything going except the black. Shot up town to buy some more black ink and even that would not work so figure the nozzle must be clogged good and proper.  Was just going a pale shade of puce with frustration when I had a eureka moment - print it in a colour.  Tried a dummy run with blue and bingo it worked.  Another yay moment and then to double side a three page letter which is the smallest update I could manage, lol.  Several dummy runs as it had to print all the page ones, then be manually taken turned upside down or whatever to do the page 2's and lastly another run for page three.  Unfortunately, the printer hamsters were on the fritz too, so it took forever as I had to cancel and reload the job numerous times.  Flipping technology.

Speaking of technology or maybe it should be electronic/mechanical?  my fridge might be on its last legs.  It is an ex-Tarden model of unknown years and is temperamental in its closing doors habits.  I went to get something out of the icebox/freezer on Friday to find a mini thaw and refreeze had occurred that now prohibited the door being closed properly at all. Damn, I only cleaned it out the week before.  There was nothing for it but to do another quick defrost, de-ice and get it sorted before the weekend.  All done,with everything in neat and tidy, I finished, cooked dinner for Donna and the boys and retired from the kitchen for the night.  When Donna went to get water out of the fridge the next morning she noticed it wasn't very cold and then not long later checked to find I had not switched the sodding thing back on - another arrrrgh.  Luckily the freezer food was all ok but did not trust some of the fridge things so another clean out of food stuffs while I am thinking I may just throw money in the air - it will have the same effect as I had to throw out chicken I had cooked the night before - one thing I would not trust to keep.  Then one of the boys hung off the fridge door while I was cleaning it which I think was one too many things for it and now if you do not give the door a good slam, it will not seal properly.  Am keeping a bare minimum of things in there and eating mostly at work with the shifts I have this week, so will see how I go. Will not buy a new fridge regardless though may have to look at the prices of a second hand one.  The other fridge I had from Tardun I had given to the WM and family ages ago and that also died in the last few weeks so no replacement there.

I have tomorrow and Friday off so that will be my next flurry of last minute cards, gift wrapping and sorting out things like enough meds to get me through Christmas, maybe the tooth, and two lots of catching up with folk for Christmas coffees.  I missed the Christmas work dinner as I had to work night shift last week,  but was more than happy with that.  The Tardun Christmas and the actual day which I will spend with the WM, WMH and family will do me. I am having Christmas and Boxing day off this year and plan at this stage curling up with a good book on Boxing day, hopefully in the sunshine, on the couch in my sun porch with maybe a few carol CD's on in the back ground.

I have not watched the news on tv for weeks now, occasionally get a newspaper and listen to the news on radio to and from work and was floored by two tragedies over the past week.  The first was the woman who committed suicide after a prank call from a Melbourne radio station to the Duchess of York while in hospital.  The DJ's pretended to be the Queen and Prince Charles and the woman who died put the call through and gave out some information I think.  I am so over "it is just a joke" mentality that is often the excuse to cover bullying and mean acts.  The two DJ's are devastated but too late when it has cost someone their life - hopefully the entertainment media that passes for news etc these days will take a good long look at themselves.  The two concerned thought it was ok because it had been cleared by the legal department!!!

The other tragedy that bought tears to my eyes was the shooting of the children at school in the States.  What utter, utter horror and too horrible to imagine for the families of those killed. I think I picked up at paper at Maccas when I went for a coffee and to faces of the children killed was what bought tears to my eyes - all so young, cheeky and full of life when they were taken.  I believe the outcry on gun control is in full swing - and some mention of mental health.  The frightening thing is many of us work with damaged children, young adults who could so easily do same and the lack of support for anything to do with mental health is huge.  Australia and New Zealand have had their own multiple tragedies - each one that occurs leaves an indelible mark - the pain for those left behind is incomprehensible especially with the randomness these events occur to ordinary  people going about their daily business expecting to return to their homes and families at the end of a day.  I briefly caught a clip of President Obama bought to tears by the school shootings and you would have to hope something will come out of this event to prevent it happening again.

It is time to get moving for another day at the salt mines.  School finished yesterday for our kids so I am thinking there will be lots of beach time in the next week.  We are having lovely fine days and warm weather but there is still a lot of wind blowing.  I thought my washing and the tent the boys put up to sleep in on Saturday night, would all end up in the neighbours as the wind was so strong over the weekend.  Gotta fly :)