Last weekend my family and I said goodbye to someone as precious to me as my own Dad was. My Mums partner for the past few years.

I have been so concerned for everyone elses sadness that I overlooked my own, I guess I hoped it would go away! He has been very ill for a few months and would be cross with me for being sad but I can't help it. It just seems so unfair to him and all his family too.

I know things will improve but for now...

Adios Querido uno. Hasta que nos reunamos de nuevo.

At last...I'm enjoying a good look around today after selling some work last weekend, I've had a bit of retail therapy. So now I'm looking at my beautiful new 22 inch monitor.
OK it's not a top of the range real 'fancy pants' type monitor but it's good enough for me. I can finally see what I'm doing

How perverse nature can be. I live in one of the driest places where people can live and there still be trees. On Sunday all was dusty and still reasonably warm as per usual at the end of Summer.
On Monday the remains of a cyclone passed over and the rain just bucketed down. Our area had local flooding. I was in my workroom and couldn't get out, the water was up to the step and even on the verandah nearly to the back door. My big 'brave' dog was hiding from the thunder under my desk. I could even hear the creek in our neighbors paddock roaring over the rocks after it stopped raining.
It did drain away fairly quickly but was so unusual for here I had to take a few pics. It only took a half hour or so to do this. I've been cleaning up the mud left behind ever since, and hubby has been fixing fences as have a lot of the farmers around here. At least all our animals are OK though some other sheep were wandering about on the road this morning.
A lot of the shops in town were not so lucky as us, there was quite a bit of damage and we even got on the news that night.

Today all is again Sunny and the dust is returning.

Some pics in my scraps
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There I was minding my own business, going through my photos to see what I could use for my Grandsons birthday, when there was an awful *POP SIZZLE* and then ...nothing...my computer was dead as a doornail.
It's been at the shop for a week getting fixed while I've been freaking out hoping nothing has been lost as all my work is in the hard drive.
I've been very lucky this time because I'd never backed anything up. That will not happen again. All the important stuff will be backed up this very weekend.

At least I got some painting done though, just as well, now I have to pay back the money used to pay for the fixing.

So now I'm back again to annoy everyone

Yikes, there are too many...a few days ago the swallows that were nesting on top of the back wall under the roof were making an awful racket, so off I went to investigate and found the resident(in the roof) monitor lizard(a bit over 2 feet long) at their nest looking very fat. The next morning the swallows were gone, I did want them to leave but not that way.
A couple of days before that, I needed to collect some eggs from our chooks and found two very large bobtail goannas pinching eggs(they're not goannas at all, they're blue tongued shingleback large skinks about 15inches long), these guys also keep getting in my laundry, just to give me heart failure, they quite harmless but they hiss like snakes. These chaps are fairly slow and some morons in cars deliberately run them over.
This morning there was another racket going on in my shadehouse and out jumped what I thought was THE lizard from the roof but it's a different one, so now there are two 2 foot long lizards living in my roof, that run way too fast to catch. I like them but we worry for the electric wiring in the roof!
Now just a short while ago there was a snake up in the hay shed...again. This guy is nasty, it's what we call a Dugite, a poisonous, bad tempered villain that could easily kill a horse (or a person)if it bit one.
Damn thing is still up there lurking.
I'm too old for this!