There has been a tragedy!!!

I have been sewing away on my celtic summer cross stitch for a while. There are a number of pictures on here of her. She is loverly. Then today, by some random chance, I found that some people have made changes to the original Winter Celtic lady! I love them, they are soooo much better than the original one. Now I can't possible sew the Winter one as is, I have to do this amended one. I have no idea how I'm going to get the pattern, and I'm just miserable :(
P.S. Here is the Original for comparison

My bag has arrived

I went to visit Jacki's friend who kindly bought my handbag back with her in her luggage.
I am so happy :) Here is my new bag:

Fire - Demob is fun, no really

Yesterday I got back from my fire fire posting for the year. It was also my first ground support posting (Yayayayay no fire mapping!!) We left last Saturday, when I had the worst hangover. I felt so seedy, and we had to fly, in a ten seater plain, all the way to Marlo airport, near Orbost. Then we got on a mini bus and went to Cann River. I just have to say, Cann River is a hole, the locals suck and there is nothing there!
Any way, they wanted 4 of the ten of us to go in night shift, because this meant I would get a sleep for a couple of hours, I said I'd do it. I don't mind night shift, it's normally fairly fun.
The camp had been set up for a fair while, and the weather had been nice. When we arrived, it was pissing down, and all the stuff they had been storing outside (card board boxes, bedding, slabs of water you name it, it was outside) was completely soaked. The first night, I counted everything in the Cache. the Cache is a converted shipping container, with everything in shelves and boxes that a fire fighter could need. The Officeworks stock take natzi in me had a ball! I even had to count washers, which I tried into bundles of ten with bailing twine, to make it easier for the next person to count them :)
When we arrived the next night, we really couldn't work out what the six day shift people had been doing, as the place looked exactly the same. Except for a huge stack of slabs of water, that because their cardboard holders were all wet, had collapsed all over the ground. They had been left were they fell. What were they thinking?? why didn't they pick them up? I mean you had to walk around them to get in the building? Why didn't they move them? I'm never going to understand that. Any way, I moved them and sorted them into three piles:

• dry
• wet, but OK
• wrecked

Then we proceeded to clean everything in the kitchen. You have no idea how many trays a bay-maree needs!!! And they all have lids.
Two of us were being moved on to day shift, so we finished up at 3.30am, and came back to work at noon. Again, it was hard to see what they had been doing all day. I spent the first part of my day draining water out of tents. This was hard work by your self. I also made sure all the tents were closed, so they would get any more water in them I had done this the night before, when it wasn't raining, and some bright spark had opened them, then when it rained again, ooo guess what, they go more water in them, whats with these stupid people?
Some of the people in the trip were:

• Julie - the crew leader
• "Thats what I was going to do" Steve
• "Diesel Mechanic" Arther
• "I never finish what I start" Thes
• "Get of the phone" Christina
• Lizzie
• John (Julies ex-boss, who stopped listening to her about half way through the trip)
• Bob, crew leader in training (God I'm glad I'm not in his crew)
• Lucy and
• Me

I worked with Lizzie on night shift, she is cool! One shift, when we rocked up, the first thing I noticed was that one of the generators was off, the one that powered the kitchen and the cool room. I thought it must have been deliberate. When I asked Julie about it, she hadn't realised it was off, and yes we needed it back on. Arther and I worked out it had run out of fuel. This is bad in diesels. Arther rang the number of the side of it, cos even after we had put fuel in it, it wouldn't go, there was a warning light on, and we knew we'd have to bleed it, and didn't know how to do it. Thats why I named Arther "Diesel Mechanic" cos the man on the phone told him what to do, then we made it happen!! Yay us! :) now I know how to bleed diesel generators!!
Monday afternoon and most of Tuesday, consisted off pulling down tents. As my this pointed the weather was improved and the tents were drying. I had to go into Scout leader mode, and teach everyone how to fold tents. This was OK, except for my knees, which ended up really sore from all the kneeling. There were about 70-80 tents!
Anyway, I'm sure I'll think about other things that happened, I'm a bit tired still just now. Not to mention that everything hurts. Signing off, me :)

I need a new job.....

and have done for quite some time. I have had almost nothing to do in my present role for around 6 months and it's getting to the point of ridiculousness. So last week I applied for 2 jobs and there is one more I have to hand in this week and GUESS WHAT!!!!?!?!?!?
I already have one interview lined up!!!! Yay! Got to be happy about that. I'm not going to say anymore than that, cos other wise I'll be just getting my "hopes up" (what ever the hell that means)

Scottie must have

I found these photos months ago, and never book marked them, assuming (stupidly) that I'd be able to find them again easily. Neil and I have just spent most of the afternoon trying to find them again, and I finally had success, randomly searching photo storage places (thankfully on the 2nd on I looked on!)
The owner is happy to have them blogged, so This way at least I should be able to find them again easily:

Tartan Day in Brisbane, with the cool Scottie coats.........
Anyway, the reason for this is, I just HAVE to make one or two for my pups. I even bought Tartan in Edinburgh to make them from. I did discover after I got home and kilted it up the proper way that there is no way it would be enough Tartan, and then had to buy more in Queensland. But I'm starting today!
The Black and White dog match is coming up in February, so I REALLY want to have mine done by then.............

Neck

what have I done to my neck. I hurt! Either way I turn it, I don't know what I've done :(

Hot

What is with Melbourne weather....... It is over 40 degrees again! There is no change due today. The is one tomorrow, but not til late. I'm sooo not going to be able to sleep tonight :(

The fire danger rating thingie is HUGE! When it's over 50, that means extreme fire weather. Tomorrow it's meant to be around 150. Crispy state on the way again.

Radley

I've done it, I've bitten the bullet, and ordered a REALLY expensive hand bag! I gave ordered this one:

Radley went a had a sale, which meant everything that I really liked, went REALLY Cheep, and cos I was too slow, I missed out on a lot of it. The bummer is, I wasn't too worried about the price, cos as they are in pounds, it's really expensive no matter what. Anyway, I quite like this one, it has a Scottie on it and it's on it's was to Jacki in Edinburgh. Radley won't send outside the UK, so I have to get it to got to her, then organise for it to come to me. I might have to send Jack's on a small shopping trip to the royal mile for one thing I really should have bought when I was there, but I was too much of a tight arse. I'm still deciding on that though :) I have my hand bag!! Sort of.

Dogs are such Dogs

Every now and then, they just like to remind you that they are dogs. I can home early last night cos I had a friend ground for dinner. The little monsters weren't at the back door to welcome me like they normally are. They were asleep. Then I noticed that Molly had a huge patch or blood on her back. I got instantly worried that she has scratched herself on one of the dodge nails on the back porch. An examination of the said blood showed that it had come from outside the dog, not inside. So my next thought was that Clara had a hole in her, but no hole or blood could be found on her (she was also not in season early, cos I checked that too).
That left only one yucky option: There was something dead or dying in the back yard somewhere. I really didn't feel like looking for it, it was hot, I was tired and I had to get ready for my guests arrival!
In the second last corner of the yard, I found it. A rat, quite dead, which Molly had clearly been rolling in. Yay. There is really only one possible good part about this story. For the last couple of months (all right it might only be 6 or so weeks, but it feels like months.) We have been being woken at around 5.30am by a rat scratching in the roof of our room. We tried many things to get rid of it:

• Clearing out it's nest and putting chilli oil there
• Filling the space it was living with expanding foam (we thought this might also help with insulation) then he moved
• Getting tuff, we bought a trap
• Then we gave up and bought poison

I wasn't keen on the poison idea, cos of the dogs. But I ended up soooo tired! I just wanted to sleep. That was just before Christmas, so its taken a while to work, if thats what eventually shuffled him off, which as much as I'd love to think it was one of the dogs that got him, I'm fairly sure it wasn't.
He didn't wake me up this morning........ but I'm giving it a few days before I decided it is the roof rat thats died, and not some other random rat.

Own dinner

Neil has ran away to fires and left me all by myself, so I had to make my own dinner :(

But anyway, I think I have done rather well

Neil's Party - mini

Gotta Love Cheesels
Clara prefers Burger Rings