Friday, November 20, 2009

Cars and jobs and cleaning house

The weather is as oppressive as we have been dreading. Today it reached an uncomfortable 39°C which is a hell of a shock to my body that up until a few days ago was enjoying the late autumn temperatures in Europe. The water situation here is critical. There are major bushfires burning across much of New South Wales and South Australia and some just north of home in Queensland.

Heat wave conditions saw high temperatures in much of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia with the maximum today in a number of towns of 45°C (that is 113°C !). Give me back autumn! Here in western Sydney it got to 42! Late in the afternoon there was an impressive electrical storm with more than 800 lightening strikes recorded in Sydney alone. Two houses hit by lightening were burned down - one of the hazards of living in Australia.


Well after a few days of searching Michael finally found us a car today. He had trawled the Auto Alley area of Parramatta / Granville yesterday after we found nothing in the newspapers, but with no success. So this morning Mum phoned her neighbours who know a local dealer and Jim very kindly offered to take Michael down to see the cars in their yard.

Still no luck and then Jim got very kind. He offered to take Michael out to Minchinbury (about half an hour from here) to where there is a conglomerate of dealers. And finally, he found this Subaru Impreza - you know the kind that was in the Fast and Furious movies!! Nah, not really, a hatchback! Older than what we really wanted and more expensive, but the best of what was on offer.

A summer cold is the worst to try and get rid of and I am feeling more and more congested each day. Still, I am on drugs and syrups so hopefully I can knock it before too long. There were a couple of highlights between the sneezes today. Peter ten, Michael's school boy friend called in and we shared a lot of laughs while waiting for Michael to get back, and then Lesley, whose gorgeous mum passed away recently, visited and we spent a couple of hours reminiscing with her. All sitting in the relative comfort of the air conditioned family room.

And then - we managed to get tickets to Mamma Mia the musical, playing at the Lyric Theatre at Star City! AND THEY ARE IN THE SECOND ROW FROM THE STAGE!!! So Lesley, the two mums and I are in for a real treat on Tuesday 1 December. Watch out world - might have to stop talking for a few days so that my voice recovers enough for a great singalong!

The other thing I have been up to is re-packing all our 'stuff' so that like things are all together. We have not bought a great deal of souvenirs, or at least I did not think we had, but all together, they fill to bursting the on-board suitcase that we bought. And once I had taken the grog we bought during the last couple of months out of one of the suitcases then I could get all our winter clothing in to one suitcase! So we are now sorted - winter in one, summer (as much as we have) in another for us to use now, souvenirs in one bag and bits and bobs in about another 4! Easier to find things thankfully. And Gen has told us that the three parcels we posted home from Europe in the last couple of weeks have all arrived safe and sound. God bless the postal workers!!

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