April 2008 Archives

It's turned bitterly cold this week and we've all had to drag out heaters and extra blankets. Last week we enjoyed 24 degree days and this week is down to 12 and 0 in the mornings. It's hard to take. Last winter I thought about investing in a new heater, and it might be time to do just that. We have gas, but it's old and has no fan and the kids sit right in front of it in the mornings and of course nobody else can feel the warmth. Not good.

Alex is staying at his Dad's tonight, who is leaving next week to live in Moree. I'm sure the kids will miss him. Can't say the same myself though.

As usual, work has been pretty hectic. I had to find all the subdivisions since 2002 and work out how many extra lots had been created, then find out if they're still vacant or a house has been put there. I admit I was feeling overwhelmed by the task. This afternoon I sat down with our Building Surveyor, and we went through them together, looking at the maps, then the parish maps, then the new deposited plans to decide what actually happened, eg. how many lots were created or whether it was a boundary adjustment, or consolidation, and by the time I left tonight we'd nearly got through the lot. So it's true what they say: two heads are better than one. What I thought would take me a month will have taken less than a day. I procrastinated for a week before I finally got in and started it though - a bad habit of mine.

I still have another couple of large tasks that have been put on the back-burner and now I can get stuck into them. One is the annual reporting to the Department of Planning. They want to know every detail of the developments that have been approved for the previous financial year. This year they're asking us to do a trial run and give them the first 6 months of 2007-2008. It was due today, but hey, what are they going to do?

Many of us attend the ANZAC marches around the country and get emotional listening to the speeches, but how many think about what it must have been like for those original ANZACs?

In the lead up to Anzac Day in this 93rd year since the end of World War I NEWS.com.au and the Australian War Memorial open the archives to bring you extremely rare pictures from the nation's photo record.

'An Australian Light Horseman collecting anemones near Belah in Palestine'. Picture: Frank Hurley, 1918

Squadrons of the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade in formation at Gaza Picture: Frank Hurley, February 1918

Australians of the Imperial Camel Corps form up at Rafa, Egypt. Picture: Frank Hurley, 26 January 1918

The 3rd Australian Light Horse Regiment machinegun in action at Khurbetha-Ibn, Palestine. Picture: Frank Hurley, New Year's Eve 1917

Four camel ambulances attached to the Imperial Camel Corps at Rafa - used as a base for the attack on Gaza. Picture: Frank Hurley, 1918

The 2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment behind the front line barricades at Nalin in Palestine, one man passing across a grenade. Picture: Frank Hurley, January 17, 1918

Australian Flying Corps planes in Palestine. Picture: Frank Hurley, 1918

Waiting the order to fire a camouflaged eight inch gun from the 1st Australian Siege Battery before the main attack on Polygon Wood in Belgium. Picture: Frank Hurley, September 1917

Official photograph at Gallipoli taken in early 1919 for The Australian Historical Mission showing a landing barge, wire and entrenchments. Picture: George Hubert Wilkins

A thigh bone and other skeletal remains near the Turkish war memorial at the Nek are a grim reminder of the fighting in this photo taken February/March 1919. Picture: George Hubert Wilkins

Stretcher bearers of the 13th Field Ambulance resting at a dressing station on Westhoek Ridge on the Western Front. Picture: Frank Hurley, October 1917

Soldiers, mules and carts stopped on a street in the ruined village of Voormezeele on the Western Front in Belgium. Picture Frank Hurley, August 1917

Statue of the Virgin hanging from the Cathedral of Albert in France. Local superstition held that war would end when the Madonna fell. She collapsed in the spring of 1918 under shellfire. Picture: Frank Hurley, September 1917

The derelict hulk of a British tank on the Pozieres battlefield - a battle in which for Australian troops distinguished themselves but suffered heavy losses while taking the French village and ridge from the Germans. Picture: Frank Hurley, 1917

An Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance wagon on the Philistine Plain, Palestine. Picture: Frank Hurley, 1918

French Premier Georges Benjamin Clemenceau on his only visit to the Australian front at the Somme, pictured with 4th Division command including Brigadier General Thomas Blamey, CMG, DSO, second from left. Picture: Unknown, July 7, 1918

Scattered graves marked by simple white crosses on the old Somme battlefields in France. Picture: Frank Hurley, September 1917

This morning I was down town with flags that I handed out for work. I had 250 and another guy had 150 and they were all gone within half an hour. I could easily have given away another couple of hundred. The day was perfect and the streets were packed. It was good to catch up with a few friends.

I've had a full weekend, and it's not over yet.

Yesterday morning I drove Alex to Borambola Sport and Recreation Centre where he's staying until Monday afternoon. From there, Carly and I went and collected Riley and Zeke so they could come home to spend the weekend with us. Carly played League Tag in Young, so after lunch we loaded the kids into the car and headed there. It's about an hour and a half drive, and we watched her play and then drove home again. The kids were great and I think they both enjoyed themselves.

We didn't get home until around 5 so it was a pretty full-on night with feeds, baths and then trying to get Riley to go to sleep. I think we had a bit much driving today and of course he slept for most of the time in the car. Zeke went to bed without any drama. He's always good to look after.

Carly was Riley's favourite choice, and settled easily for her. She left around 2 on Sunday to spend a week with her friend down the South Coast. I managed to get both boys to sleep around 3pm and they slept till 5 when Emily arrived with Scarlett. Zeke bounced straight out of bed when he heard Emily's voice.

Lauren and Daniel got here not long after Emily, and we enjoyed a lamb roast, always a great meal. I had a great weekend doing my Nanna thing.

What a day! I had last Thursday and Friday home sick and so today when I went in to work there was a mountain of paperwork waiting for me. To make matters worse, I had to take Carly to the dentist in Wagga and was gone for 2 1/2 hours. Around 5 it started to look like I'd made some headway and tomorrow I'll be back on top of it.

Carly's been very lucky with her teeth so far. She had her first serious filling today, and we were in there for nearly an hour while they deadened, drilled and filled. Two weeks ago the dentist put in a temporary filling for her, and in another two weeks she has to have a smaller filling done. She's always been very good with her teeth, brushing twice a day, but it looks like we should have had more regular check-ups.

The kids are on school holidays now for the next two weeks and I'm looking forward to next week already when Carly is going to the South Coast with a friend and Alex is going off to camp for a few days.

I'm feeling awful today, temperature, sore throat, cough. I went in to work for about half an hour because as soon as I decided I wouldn't go, I remembered a couple of things that urgently needed doing. Why I get so guilty about work when I'm genuinely sick I don't know, I rarely have days off.

Speaking of sick, Dad rang me on Tuesday morning and he sounded so much better. He said he told those doctors where they could shove the valium he was on, and I had to laugh, because I can hear him doing that. He said he was able to walk around better and he's alert. There's a chance the hospital will send him to a rehab home for 3 weeks and it can only be good for him. He was okay with that too. Broken ribs can take weeks to heal. I'm much relieved after talking to him.

I'm rapt, I've discovered a blogging tool that cuts the task down considerably. Instead of logging in to the blog, then navigating to a new post page, just fire up Windows Live Writer and choose the blog you want to post to, type away to your heart's content, even upload photos or files, insert symbols, all while you're looking at a live version of what your post will look like.

Windows Live Writer downloads your stylesheet so posts are styled the same as if you were logged into your site. I'd say it's cut my posting time down by 3/4 so you can expect to see me posting more often from now on.

We had a big weekend with a pre-season football carnival on Saturday and it was Alex's 13th birthday. My baby boy is growing up. He got home from the camp about 3 on Friday afternoon and it was up early Saturday for football. He scored a try in the first game and managed to get a kick in the head in one of the tackles and ended up very groggy with an egg on his forehead. It was a beautiful day, starting out cool but quite hot.

The Crusty Demons were on in Wagga and Alex went with Daniel and Zeke so we had to head over to Wagga straight after football. The carnival was all about representative selections, but I think Alex was more interested in the Crusty Demons. Carly went too with a couple of friends. I looked after Riley until Lauren came home from work but he slept the whole time. Later Emily came around with Scarlett and Daniel's sister, Tiana, turned up so we cooked up and all had dinner together. It was nice.

When the boys got back, Zeke was so animated telling us all about the big jumps and backflips, it was priceless. The all had a great time, the only negative being that it finished too early. We got home around 10 so Alex could get back to his birthday present: Guitar Hero - Legends of Rock. He used to spend every minute playing the demo in Wagga when we went shopping, and was thrilled to get it.

Dad is still very sick in the hospital and it doesn't look like he'll be going home any time soon. He still can't get around and is hooked up to the oxygen. Trying to talk to a doctor is nearly impossible. I rang there 3 times today but with no luck. I talked to Dad on Saturday for about 20 minutes but he doesn't sound so hot. I'm sure he's still very sore and wouldn't be able to move much without pain. We can only wait and hope he improves with time. At this stage there's not much point in flying up there. I'd only be visiting the hospital and since I can ring him on his mobile phone I'm able to keep up to date. Being over 1000 km away is very frustrating though.

Work is hectic too. For the last two weeks I've been cleaning up all the old computers ready for sale. It meant wiping the hard drives and reinstalling the original operating systems. Today I packaged up about 15 of them with monitors, keyboards and mice, and bought 2 of them. One for Alex and another for a friend of mine. They're a real bargain. Alex is definitely in need of an upgrade and the computer I got him has 1 GB Ram, a big improvement on his current one. We'll give his old one to his cousin. I still have another 5 computers to fix up, then we can get rid of the lot. We've been falling over them for months at work. The Department of Planning wants all our stats for the first half of this financial year too, and I've been printing off reports so I can complete the spreadsheet they've given us. It's a lot of work and will take a couple of weeks to complete. I have another similar job to research the number of dwellings and subdivisions over the last 6 years, which is also going to take considerable time. Five o'clock comes around before I realise it. But that's a good thing.

Alex is very busy tonight packing for his Year 7 camp that's being held at Laurel Hill near Tumbarumba. He'll be away until Friday afternoon and is quite excited.

Dad is still in hospital in Tweed Heads. He's been in intensive care since early Sunday morning. He collapsed about 5pm Saturday and about 1am Sunday he rang his sister for help. He had 3 broken ribs and had been laying in the cold for 8 hours. Sunday they had his status as critical (the Doctor I spoke to early Sunday morning didn't tell me any of this!) but he's much better now. Still in the ICU but no longer critical. I spoke to Maree tonight (my auntie) and she said Dad's talking about going home tomorrow (he wishes), but he's hooked up to oxygen, has a catheter and and IV in, so I doubt he's going anywhere too soon.

I spent last Sunday in quite a state, ready to jump on a plane any minute, but after talking to Maree in the afternoon my mind was easy again. I rang the hospital first thing Monday morning and spoke to a very nice nurse who filled me in on a few more details and went to work feeling more relieved. It's frustrating being so far away, not sure what the right thing to do is. I spoke to another nurse tonight and it seems they're all very nice and caring. He's in good hands.

It's been hectic at work and I haven't had much time for thinking about anything else. Seems like it's always hectic there.

Times like these you need lots of family support, and though we haven't been up there, the phone has been running hot with brothers and sisters ringing for updates. It would be nice to just jump on a plane, have a few days off work, and not have to think about the money. Unfortunately none of us have that convenience, so it's lots of phone calls back and forth. Tomorrow I'll ring the hospital and hope to be able to talk to Dad in person. Maree has been fantastic and has told us much more than the doctors or nurses. She's been to see him every day and is doing all the hard yards.