Update

On the last school holidays, I bought a new camera so am finally taking some photos of things that are happening around the place. It's a little Olympus. It's nice and small but I'm not entirely happy with the photos it takes.

Here are some photos of my house. I have reorganised lately after getting stuck with a heap of my neighbour's furniture when she moved to London.

If you noticed the pretty flowers on my table, I got them last week. I am seeing a guy called Ryan and he sent them as a surprise. He's 29 and lives in Roma and it is going really well so far. The only bad part is that he works in the mines in Emerald, 20 days straight a month, which feels like a very long time.

In response to Lauren's post about intruding wild animals, I thought I'd share my daily experiences with the local wildlife (well just some of the daily experiences, I can't believe that I've grown accustomed to seeing kangaroos outside my back door each evening). Meet our ferals:

These are just some of the feral cats that live in our backyard. We are currently up to 9. When I first moved into this house there were 3 feral cats that had apparently always lived here, so Monte and myself ignored them and we all got along happily. Then the tarty tortoise-shell on the left had three babies towards the end of last year. I managed to get Simon to adopt one. Then just recently she suprised us again, with 4 more babies. Although they are very cute, and it's kinda cool to look out the back window and see kittens frolicking as far as the eye can see, enough is enough. 9 ferals plus Monte is a bit ridiculous for one house, although kind of funny as these units are affectionately known as "Pussy Lane" by most of the town, partly due to the similar sounding street name (Pulford Street), and partly due to an ex-teacher who was apparently very 'friendly' to the local males.

So, I know Lauren will find this distressing, we are making moves to 'take care' of our escalating problem. It's just two sad having 18 hungry eyes peering at you through the back door all day. It's surprisingly hard, in a town full of men who spend their free time killing pigs and kangaroos, to actually pin someone down to help with this matter. Especially considering that I want nothing to do with the whole situation. So sad!

Fiji - Just reminiscing

Today was an extremely hot day, somewhere over 40 degrees and my evaporative cooler just wasn't cutting it. We were all sitting around wishing we were near the beach where we might be able to enjoy the heat slightly, without getting harrassed by kids that we teach (a common hazard at the Wandoan Town Pool). We ended up sitting under the sprinkler. It made us feel quite nostalgic about our Fiji trip last year, and of course everyone decides NOW that we should have booked something for this Easter (I've been saying this all year!). Here are some photos!

Monte-goo

For those of you who haven't seen him in a while, I thought you might like to see Monte. He is as un-photogenic as ever, refuses to look at the camera and goes all squinty. He is turning 14 this year, can you believe it?!? He is still completely unaffectionate and seems to take great pleasure in doing things he knows he shouldn't do and then hiding from me. It's a love-hate relationship.

Finally

Here is a photo of my car, taken on my phone: