D'Arcy Developments

Licuala, where this photo was taken in July last year is only a few ks from Innisfail where cyclone Larry and his 290k/hr winds made landfall. I hate to think what it looks like now. Innisfail is totally busted - there are some photos and news stories here . I can't help but cry when I look at them. I wonder how Chris and Gary (the ageing hippies) fared in their house with only one wall. They did OK 20 years ago when cyclone Winifried hit....The other thing is the devastating impact on the tropical fruit. Something like 95% of the nation's bananas are grown in that area, and 80% of them have been destroyed.

In other news, D'Arcy went to Adelaide with his dad to visit his grandma and had a great time - especially shooting with his uncle Barney and hanging out with his cousin baby Gemma.

Mouse score: i think it was a draw in the end. I have enlisted the help of the geriatric cat (by default). hen I dropped D at his dad's to go away on Thursday the cat was looking really crook, so I took her to the vet, not expecting good news. l got the "Cat's gonna die" talk from the vet, but also bought some special diet cat food from her, and got her to give Nippy some fluid injections. Much to my surprise when I took her home to my place, Nippy started eating and behaving more sensibly, so the day of judgement has been delayed a while. This is good 'cos D'Arcy loves her so much. Every time I talked to him in Adelaide he asked "How is Nippy? Is she still alive?". She is, and she is a good mouse deterrent. I finally found some of the good mouse traps that work, but I don't need them, it would seem. We also found the HUGEST dead rat in the garden.

Long weekend just passed, was spent at home entertaining, boozing and gardening. We went to mum's house for drinks on Friday night to celebrate the centenary of the birth of my grandfather. We had a phone hook-up with the Melbourne crowd too. Saturday night had a friend round for dinner and the beloved made fajitas and margaritas. Yum. Sunday we did some gardening with the new wheelbarow and planted rocket and parsley. Monday, bought a mattock and some bulbs for more gardening plans.

As usual I'm too tired to think now and have to get D'Arcy up at a sensible time for school and I'm s'posed to be helping in the classroom tomorrow, and going to some Harmony Day celebration at school..so I ought to get some sleep!

It's true, the Safe'n'Sure mousetrap was flawed, so yet again, the mouse feeding program has done its bit. I want this mouse DEAD!

We had some buddies over for a play this afternoon - Karyn, and her daughters Jenara and Yilani. The kids got nudie and played in the inflatable pool for some hours, which was great. It reminded me that D does play well with others and so he must soon settle at school.

His teacher is a bit concerned about his fine motor skills - writing and drawing, but we're not too fussed about it. We never really pushed him to learn to write, just followed his lead when he was interested, so again we assume thing will fall into place when the time is right.

Which sums it up. We have the world's smartest mouse, or the world's worst mousetraps. Bloody Shoprite. My mum has leant us one of those plastic ones like a big peg which she reckons do the trick. We'll see about that. I'm sick of running the mouse soup kitchen. I want it to be dead. We know that mice ar very fond of:peaches; pawpaw; peanut butter; and bacon fat (even tho it doesn't start with'p').

I did the second half of the school's 'volunteer training program' today. Very interesting, so now I can be one of the people who listens to the kids read. Scary, but exciting. Got into an argument with my stepfather this evening about phonics. He reckons it is great, and that the 'whole language' approach is flawed. I gotta say I reckon whole language is the way to go.I'm never in favour of teaching one thing in isolation, and more so in the area of phonics since today....anyway, it was interesting.

I'm having one of those "I really should update the blog" weeks, or months, or whatever. Things are just getting out of control. Not enough sleep. Too many household infestations: started with ants when we moved in; then the possum made itself known coming in and out of the roof; now we have a mouse (as of the last few days) and I'm too lazy/disorganised a housekeeper to clean up properly. I did get the beloved to buy mousetraps at the stupid market on his way home the other day, but one busted when I was trying to set it, and the other is difficult to set, with the end result that the mouse came by, flogged the food from the trap, and went on its merry way. The night before it ate half a pawpaw. The night before that it ate half a peach - kind of like The Very Hungry Caterpillar I guess. Speaking of which, the lemon tree has not one, but two floppy orchard caterpillars on it (hi Davy). If the tree weren't so small I wouldn't worry so much, but they've eaten all the new growth. I need to get a Mexican orange blossom to feed them.

D'Arcy is making himself unpopular with me by being really obnoxious (telling me to shut up) and refusing to eat anything other than pasta with cheese, and fruit for dinner. Not helped by the fact that his dad bribes him with soft drinks and biscuits, and money to spend on chips at the school canteen. So now I'm the nasy one.

We did go to see Circus Oz eventually, minus the human cannonball, which was good fun. Realised that one of the performers is a local in the second half, a guy I've been watching doing tricks for about ten years. He's still great. There should be some photos with this, but I'm just too tired to get up and grab the cable for the camera (story of my life), and of course we wern't allowed to take them at the circus.

I should drag my exhausted body to bed. I'll try to be more upbeat next post...