When Nash met Charlie...............

He seemed a little perplexed!She drooled............
Got a bit touchy feely........
And the two Nannys.......
Lapped it all up!

The House Progresses

Things have slowed the past two weeks, but electrician and plumber have done all they can until the gyprock walls and ceilings have been put in and that all starts tomorrow. The heating will go in next week also. Today the rendering started, that will be an ongoing process, I think just the blue board to start with. The roof to the balcony was completed today, so even though it doesn't look like much has been happening, it is! So the last couple of weeks we have finalised the kitchen and colours and tiles and exterior paint colours etc etc etc etc. Lots of little things that add up to one BIG thing!

More Nash

For those of you who have been nagging :)
He likes to start at Allan's knees and pull himself up until he reaches his face!

And a lift up....Above Grandad's head
Is a favourite game!

SOME SUPER DOOPER TROUBLE LOGGING ON - Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So here's a little sneak peek of the crawling baby! Will try to finish later.

It's now later and I still cannot log in to my own blogspot - have to through google.com to do it - not happy Jann.

Anyway, here's little Nash, crawling before he turned 6 months old. He's active and contented..
..and rather serious in these shots!
But you can't leave anything around now, anything of interest to him ends up in his mouth!
Here he is with a few of his favourites - his dad, his caterpillar and his frog :)

A CATCHUP POM

Nan and little one all concentration at the computer!If he is anything like his cousins he will be pretty computer savvy by the time he's two!

BACK IN THE LAND OF BLOG!

....and a quick catch up of poms.
Here's the pom sipping on an ice cold pineapple juice.

But first a back up to our quick trip to Adelaide two weeks ago. Remember it was HOT HOT HOT? We were at a cafe on Hutt Street just around the corner from our motel, it was 7:45am and about 30ish degrees (in the shade which is where we were!). Decided on an early breakfast and then off to pick up our heating of all things - anyway it was quite delightful sitting under that shade of the trees waiting for our breakfast to arrive.............


Our breakfast arrived.............


As I was tucking in to my pancake I heard an expletive from Allan (fortunately under his breath!) and looked up to find him with a salt shaker in two pieces, one in each hand and LOTS OF SALT everywhere!!


How he managed to miss most of his plate is beyond me, but it covered the tablehis, feet and the pavement! :) The photos are a little blurry because of my uncontrollable laughter as I was holding the camera!

OOOHHAAHHHHH - VALENTINES DAY!!

Some beautiful flowers for you all the way from PERU!Hope you all had a good one!

I wished I had thought of posting these photos for Valentines Day, but I didn't, so here comes a Valentines Day afterthought, which is pretty much Valentines Day in our house!

Back to South America and back to Peru and back to Miraflores! Miraflores is know (in Miraflores of course) as the city of LOVE :) Don't ya LOVE this statue of two rather overweight people wrapped in each other's arm? Well I do, so Allan a I set about replicating the statue.

Unfortunately we couldn't find a podium in front of the ocean, so we had to make do with one of the many 'love seats' placed absolutely everywhere around the city. The couples don't usually make use of them until the sun is setting, but it is a very popular pass time in Miraflores - snogging on the love seats in full view of all and sundry! It is all a part of the very acceptable courting process.

Them.....

Us!.....see the likeness yet?
Try this!!

Kath and Kel - eat your heart out!

And I'm claiming 3 more POMS! That takes me to #46!

More South America - Peru - Machu Picchu

Good Morning Sunshine - and welcome to the top of the world!! That is what it felt like watching the sun peep over the top of the mountain. We arrive at Machu Picchu in time for this spine tingling event. We could have been unlucky and had a vista of cloud over mountain top, or rain, but on this day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and we were so high I felt as though I could touch heaven - we weren't as high as we were in the Colca Canyon part of the Andes, I just felt different here.It doesn't matter what you see on tv or read in the travel brochures...
Nothing prepares you for the experience that is MACHU PICCHU!
It's just mind boggling and....

MAGNIFICENT

I could post dozens of photos of Machu Picchu, but this will do I - in fear of you turning away from my blog :) The last shot is of the group that we travelled with from one side of Sth Am to the other. We lost and gained a few along the way, but the core group remained the same.

This post includes POMs 40, 41, 42, 43 (I know it's cheating, but it's the only way I'm gonna survive the promise!)

I'm Still Here

.....in one form or another!! Where has the week gone? I don't know but I do know I haven't had time to blog! Nor keep up with my POMs. Nor down load photos. Nor update "February is South America month! Nor mow lawns or top the roses. Nor do much house work (who really cares about the last one :).

Anyway this little note will have to do for now - It's breakfast time DON'T LOOK AT THE POST TIME!! I've been lazy and had a leep in, for those that don't speak Rori, it's a sleep in :)

But back to reality and the reality is while I can sleep in, our neighbours in Victoria are still trying to eliminate huge fires that fortunately at this very small point in time are semi under control and not an immediate threat to any towns or homes, BUT, it's heating up again and the danger is still there. Many hundreds of people are living in tents and borrowed accommodation, many hundreds are mourning the loss of family and friends, houses and whole townships.

Before I share some more koala survival photos (thanks Kylie) I'll share a quote from the morning newspaper The Advertiser:

FIREBALL FROM HELL
'At 5:15pm on Saturday it was business as usual in sleepy Marysville. Most of the town's 590 residents were locked inside their airconditioned homes watching TV to escape the heat. Thirty minutes later the town was gone.'

We've said "How could this possibly happen, why didn't they all get out well before?" Well, it seems that the speed, force and ferocity was just overwhelmingly worse than anyone could ever imagine and now it is all ashes.

And then it seems the cruelest irony that at the top end of our country the force of floods has had a devastating effect on people, towns, farms and animals as well, but fortunately not the loss of human life.

So on to our Koala pics...


The Koala is not the friendliest of animals

Really likes to be just left alone
to sleep
and eat
and sleep some moreand take a drink


But the fires have been just too much for these little beings and they have accepted all the help that has been offered.

Too Koala Cute

This sequence of photos have been circulating the email circuit, so hopefully I'm not doing the wrong copyright thingy by printing them on my blog. If I am I am very apologetic, but.......These are just too cute not to share.
And though these photos are cute....
The situation for our wild life is not......
During our sweltering heat waves the animals really have nowhere to cool down....
But this little one made its way into back yard of a family in the Adelaide hills, they provided it with some water to drink and cool down a bit. A drink wasn't enough for this little sweetie and decided a full plunge was in order :)

Sadly there have been quite a few koala deaths as they seek out water to cool down, especially in the Adelaide Hills. They have been climbing into backyard pools and then not able to get out again and drowning. Luckily this little fella had someone to help.

I SO HAVE TO CATCH UP.......

What pressure - I need to find FOUR, that's 4, it's even QUATRO (just practising the Spanish!) poms!

So here we go................and they will all be quite recent this time - none of this cheating and finding photos from 2005, 2001............last century even !!

Here's me (or my fingers, sadly in need of a manicure!) with my trusty Spanish phrase book. I'm helping a new student who recently arrived from Argentina with some English. His name is Santiago and lucky for him we have a teacher who spent a year in Honduras as an exchange student and is quite proficient in Spanish. I'm hoping to spend an hour or two a day with him if it works out that way, so I have had to brush up pretty quickly with some words and phrases. I can't believe how much progress Santi has made in just one week at school - Muy Bien Santiago :)

POM 36 photographer me
Band rehearsal at church last Sunday in our humble little school chapel!
POM 37 photographer Jason (our sound man)! Thanks Jase.


Me waiting for my dinner - ordered at 7:30pm - finally served at 10pm, everyone else at the table had eaten, actually everyone else at the restaurant had eaten!! In fact the kitchen had almost closed.................... Belgiorno's you are off the list AGAIN!

POM 38 photographer Allan

Last night we surprised Tracy (my goodest fwend) with a 50th celebration dinner and she was overwhelmingly surprised - much to our delight - she was delighted that she was to celebrate with her family, but would really liked to have had her 'closest' friends there too, BUT everyone seemed busy and going away or the like....looks like I was more surprise than her in the photo :) Don't even ask, I have no idea what I was doing !!

POM 39 photographer Trishy
And I'm going to cheat and claim this POM as number 40 and be one in advance!
And a couple more of the 50 year old and her celebrations - photographer Me :)

Then I do digress................

Friday after school Allan and I headed off to Adelaide to pick up our heating "stuff" for the house - in the UTE, the UTE so needs a different set of tyres, it was a rather uncomfortable trip.

It was very warm when we left.

It became warmer the further we went.

We stopped at Naracoorte for an ice cream and drink and it was plenty hot!

We stopped to refuel at Keith and it was SO DAMN HOT I nearly passed out - 45 degrees and I'm sure that was in the shade!!!

By the time we arrived in Adelaide I was praying that our motel room air conditioner was in great condition and we would get some sleep.

We arrived in Adelaide and it was a little cooler (9:30pm) yay it was only 41 degrees.

We arrived at our motel and opened the door to a BLAST of Antarctic like air :):):):):): (that's me very happy (Muy Felize!). If fact it was so cold we had to turn it off and our room stayed cool cool cool all night and we slept like - like really great!

Anyways, as I said, I digress: Below are a couple of shots taken of the sunset as we travelled along the Princes Highway, the photos are taken through the windows of the ute and travelling along at 110kph - the first one just before Tailem Bend.

This beauty was just out of Murray Bridge - It made me think God was saying hello and welcome!

HELLO BACK GOD!

POMS FROM PERU!

Travelling throughout South America there were many amazing places and things to see but one of my favourites was the Andes and the Colca Canyon which is part of it. So so high up it felt as though we were on top of the world. The landscape was desert and desolate but unbelievably beautiful.

Below a small herd of vicuna in front of the magial Misti Mountain. Misti is an active volcano. The vicuna (vicunya) is a relative of the llama and produces extremely fine wool which is VERY expensive because the animal can only be shorn every 3 or so years! Shearers would go broke in Peru!

Then in the middle of absolutely nowhere we came across a market stall and women selling their wares. They were friendly and funny and we bought stuff even though we didn't particularly want anything.
The Indians are incredibly poor and incredibly religious - this beautiful church or cathedral is maintained by the local villagers in this tiny town. It is kept in immaculate condition, while they live in the most basic of homes. The church is rebuilt on regular occasions, depending on the most recent earthquake!The landscape of this place was surprising - travelling on a dirt road, seemingly just in the desert and all of a sudden we are in the Andean Bogs with frozen waterfalls to enchant us.
Allan and I standing on the edge of the Colca Canyon, it is hard to describe the length and breadth of this Canyon. If you have ever been to the Grand Canyon in the USA, you would have been blown away by its grandeur - well triple that, the Colca is wider and deeper, though I don't think as long.
We were privileged to sit on the edge of this canyon and watch the huge condors catch the warm currents that flow through the canyon during the morning. They glide and twist and turn and we were treated to an amazing show.
This was one of the highest points of our Andean adventure - over 4,800m above sea level. We stopped for some fresh air - which was in very short supply and paid a local man a few pesos for a photo with his beautifully decorated llama and the highest tips of the Andes in the background.

I'm very proud to say that Allan and I were about the only 2 of the group who did not feel ill or suffer from altitude sickness at all. We took the locals' advice and chewed the horrible coca leaves and drank the tea as often as we were able. We kept very hydrated and added a block of chocolate a day to the mix (I'm sure it was the chocolate that kept us healthy). Headaches, nausea and vomiting were the norm for everyone else.