Happy Birthday Jules

Our first female prime minister Julia Gillard turns 50 today.  Unremarkable except to say that it's the first time a PM was ever younger than me.  Her boyfriend is said to be buying her a puppy, they won't call it after Bill Shorten (like in the wonderful new satire "At Home with Julia" on the ABC) but I reckon they should call it Peter Garrett.

  The Labor party in Australia is fucked.  Enough said.

An old high school friend of mine just celebrated 30 years of marriage.  Those of us who aspire to that (or like me wonder how the heck they stuck it out that long) wondered what the secret was.  She posted this yesterday, so now we know.  I love it.  Pity I gave up the plonk two months ago.

So today will be busy (she says still in her nightie at 9am heh heh).  I have to pack for a five day break away, get animals ready, somehow do some shopping, get Em to her therapy at one, then back again at three for group (all without a car on a rainy day), get washing done and dried, make up some goodies for the big spa bath, etc etc.  Not cooking though, we can get pizza or something.  We were going to take the dog with us, and then the cat as well till we slapped ourselves.  Max would have loved the holiday a few years ago, the place we're going is pet friendly, but I just feel he's too old now.  We want to get out in the boat a lot, which will mean leaving him by himself in an unfamiliar place, what if he whines and carries on while we're gone and disturbs the other guests.  We have a big cabin booked but I'm not sure how close it is to others.

I wasn't keen on asking Em's school friend to come and feed the animals again as we're a lot further from where she lives now, and also she is friends with Spittin' Kim whose father is a crim and we really didn't want to attract their attention to our empty house.  But I could not find one single pet sitting service yesterday, I rang everywhere I could think of.  We eventually gave in and asked Sindy to do it and she said yes.  She will earn $20 a day for the three days we need her so that's not bad pocket money for a 13 year old.  I'm thinking of starting our own little business for the Christmas holidays, feeding pets, walking dogs, collecting mail etc for people who go away.  Seems like it's much needed and would be good for the kids to do something like that.

And rain is forecast for Echuca, where we're headed tomorrow, but I don't care, we're going to have fun anyway.  The cabin has three bedrooms, and a big covered verandah with a bbq, and overlooks the beautiful Murray River.  I do want to take a trip on a paddle steamer while we're down there but the rest of the time will just be fishing, exploring the river and relaxing.  There is a big solar heated pool, a 2 hole golf course, mini golf, games room etc and I intend on buying a new book or two en route.  Easy meals will be the order of each day, we might even catch a fish or two for dinner.  The resort is quite a drive from civilisation so we'll need to stock up tomorrow and hopefully not have to leave again till it's time to come home.  Then next weekend is my birthday and Phill said we can take two nights to go anywhere I like.  Not sure where yet. 

Phill and the kids went out yabbying yesterday at a dam at Bethungra and came home with some lovely specimens.  Some looked big enough to eat (trust me to think of that) but they're out in a box of river weed, ready to use for bait.  Watching my country kids handling the live yabbies still amazes me.  It's times like that, and when they go out fishing with Phill that makes me glad we got them out of the city.  I would never have touched anything like that as a kid, I wouldn't even bait my own hook, always made my Dad do that for me.  But look at me now after 12 years of This Country Life, I am a (baby) snake wrangler!