Now Fiona has a blog, I think maybe I had better get back to mine...at opposite ends of Australia.

Well first the weather.

HOT hot day today...must have been over 30. Waited for high tide and took the dogs for a swim down the front. The water was lovely and warm. The dogs swam around and around. Diablo especially, he just adores the water. Colo has grown to enjoy it, he used to be very timid, but now he just follows Diablo all the time.

I saw a stingray, quite a small one, with bands of lovely brown on its back. Im not sure if I scared it off and saw the same one a few minutes later, or a second one.

Everyone is getting ready for birding, and there were a few boats moored down the beach...supposedly it is going to be a better season than last year, which was pretty pitiful. I got asked if I wanted some mutton birds but I declined. The first (and last time) I tasted mutton bird was just after we got here, and it stank and tasted like rotten anchovies. Ick.

Doing all the washing today, perfect day for that too. The tea towels dried in an hour flat. Using the clinic washing machine because ours was murdered by the Evil Bush Rat. This rat was regularly visiting us and chewing everything rubber in sight. And a few things that weren't. It chewed RIGHT through an electrical cord that went from the laundry to the kitchen under the door, and left one half on each side of the closed door and a line of saw dust where it had chewed the bottom of the wooden door. It also chewed holes through our mozzie nets to get in and out, and the seal off one of the sliding wardrobe doors. Then if that weren't enough, it chewed several holes and right through the rubber hose bit that controls how the washing machine fills. As a consequence, it kept filling past capacity and flooded the laundry.

So we finally closed all the doors and windows etc, and it had to stay outside, whereupon it ate all the corn right off the cobs still attached to the stalks. Little bastard.

But we must have killed it, cause it hasnt been back. Though there have been two mice. One I found already mostly dead on the bathroom floor and threw out into the buses. The other which I stomped on the head (and it crunched)in the same place. I am a cruel mouse murderer!