Getting back to normal

 23/03/2012
  With the vagaries of the recent  weather and the severe storms come all sorts of spin offs. Right now we have a plague of black beetles, which are quite harmless but a real nuisance, as they get everywhere. They are about during the day but come night they are attracted to the outside lights and make a quick entry indoors at every opportunity. So far that is our only problem and we have yet to be bothered by snakes. Snakes in very wet conditions, will move about looking for dry ground and food. Already we have heard of pets going missing, dogs, chooks, cage birds and cats, which the snakes are welcome to, not to mention wallabies and joeys. Crocs have also been displaced by overflowing creeks and are particularly dangerous if you get too close. The advice is not to go closer than 5 metres of a creek. Just another part of living in the tropics.
 Anyway we ignored all that, and after another day cleaning up, went off to Centrals Rugby Club for a schooner or two and a pizza, winning a tray of prawns in the Friday night raffle. Things are nearly back to normal.
  Normal?…..last bit of info from Nobble was on the 4 March, with the England Ireland result, nearly 3 weeks ago…….come on something must have occurred!!

 24/03/2012
  Moving day again as we decamp back downstairs. It was very nice up there in the penthouse suite but we know our place!
 After a mornings hard graft we took the afternoon off for a few schooners at the boat club with my brother Steve and a couple of mates. Back to Clifton, where we met Shaun, our guest for the week. He is up here from the Gold Coast for a weeks work and will be joined by his 2 colleagues tomorrow. We showed him Clifton Beach hospitality and got hammered….just cos  !!

 25/03/2012
  We want our beach back! Because we have been so busy cleaning up after the floods we hadn’t been over the road to the beach. The heavy rain and seas plus a king tide washed the sand away, the beach being 2 m lower than it was. Where has it gone?
 We have been in recovery mode most of the day after shifting a wheelie bins worth of beer, but recovered enough for a nice quiet beer at matildas on the beach with Allen and Lorraine. It was really nice watching the ocean and feeling a cool sea breeze. Something we haven’t done for a few weeks.
 Then we joined Shaun (Aussie)and his gang  Mike a Kiwi and Gordon from Belfast around the BBQ  for an hour of united nations Good craic and not a mention of the F word.

 26/03/2012
  Confined to barracks all day and came within an inch of being flooded again. We watched the creek across the road quickly fill up to the top and just as it was about to break out across the road the rain eased and it went down. We get tremendous amounts of rain, the damage is done when it all comes at once like 50/60mmin an hour.
 Glyn lent Phil and Jules some good DVDs so today we watched Monty Pythons The  Life of Brian, still as funny as ever. We have the boxed collections of Python and Blackadder. We have found a TV channel that show really old Brit shows such as Dads Army and Men behaving Badly with Harry Enfield, before Whotsisname Morrissey came on the scene. It’s a sad life at the moment…….still no news from Newbold.

  27/03/2012
  We both feel we are suffering from cabin fever with not too much interaction with friends here and absolutely no news from home so we took ourselves shopping for the day. Mostly we spent money from our monthly allowance from our masters in Brisbane ( for incidentals for the units) so it wasn’t too costly as far as our bank balance goes. We bought a new microwave as the one here in unit 3 went bang and got a Bunnings fix buying some bamboo screening for alongside the swimming pool. We had lunch out and did a good deal on a few cartons of beer. Not a bad day, Stumpy was knackered as she had walked around with just 1 crutch all day, and it looks like we are over the latest monsoon. The forecast is for hot sunshine from now right through to the weekend.

  28/03/2012
 After our coffee morning we drove round to Paul Mc’s to pick a bag full of grapefruit. He has a couple of trees and the branches are nearly breaking with the weight of fruit. He reckons they grow for fun. He also has bushes full of limes, but we haven’t enough gin to do them justice! It really is amazing the stuff that grows here, there are mandarins too, but they are not quite ripe yet.
 Stumpy had her first swim leg ironless this arvo, all good exercise. I jumped in complete with hearing aids and out pretty damn quick! No damage done luckily.
 We are still plagued by black beetles, but according to the paper thy should soon go away now the rain has stopped. They came out after a big wet to find a mate. Now the rain has gone Shaun will be happier, the 3 of them have been soaked for their first 2 days of their job. Sun sun sun coming up!!