Cyberstalking Bianca

We have a new hobby.  We call it "Cyberstalking Bianca".  This isn't as dodgy as it sounds.  This week we've learned that a cyclone called Bianca is headed our way. See that line where the cyclone's path hits land?  That's where we are.

Every week seems to see Australia copping some "one in ten/twenty/thirty... year" extreme weather event, many of which have devastating consequences.  As a result we have become somewhat weather-obsessed.  The last big cyclone hit this region in 1978 and resulted in the loss of five lives, coastal erosion and widespread damage to property.  Bianca was predicted to be severe and to bring high winds which would cause this region's fire danger risk to go from "extreme" to "catastrophic".

For the past few days we have been following Bianca's progress towards us online.  The weather system has delivered us a run of incredibly hot and disgustingly humid weather - daily highs in the mid-thirties and overnight lows in the high twenties - peppered with electrical storms and a few torrential showers.  I find the high humidity the toughest thing to handle and difficult to find respite from; the sort of air conditioning our rental home has does not work in humid conditions and sitting in the garden is a no-no as Mandurah is currently experiencing an extreme plague of disease-carrying mosquitoes. 

So in what we hoped wouldn't turn into an "evolution at work" situation (like people going down the beach to get photos of an incoming tsunami) we headed to the estuary for a swim, to sit under the shade of a tree and to catch what little breeze was on offer.

The water was as glassy and calm as I've ever seen it.  We were happy just floating or swimming but others found ever more inventive ways to cool off. 

The sky became more and more ominous.  When the thunder and lightning started we headed for home.

Since then we've had cycles of torrential rain, high winds and some eerily calm times.  As the humidity soared I had another desperate poke at the air con system and discovered a fan only setting which gave at least a little respite.

This morning I fired up the computer early to again cyberstalk Bianca and see how long before I should bring in the bins and outdoor furniture.  But Bianca has all but gone.  Just like the many events that were cancelled due to Bianca's imminent arrival, the cyclone warning itself has now been cancelled. 

I can't say I'm disappointed but this will mean that I'll need a new hobby.  A more likely scenario is that I'll return to my old hobby: cyberstalking real estate listings.

My latest favourite place...

I know I said my favourite place was Soldiers Cove.  Well that was for kayaking.  At this time of year Mandurah looks mighty fine so picking just one favourite place would be silly.  I figure I'm allowed a favourite place for each activity I do - so walking slowly, walking quickly, reading novels, reading non-fiction, eating ice blocks, eating ice cream etc.

Tonight when my partner got home from work we went for a walk on a stretch of beach very near to our house. (I'm pleased to report that the patient is no longer a patient; he back to his old working, driving, walking-fast-for-miles self again.) 

This is what it looks like where we went tonight.

 

Can you see why it is now my favourite place for wandering along while wondering what to cook for tea? (Which tonight, strangely enough, was sausages.)

Time to go home.  No doubt I'll find another new favourite place tomorrow.

Galah o'clock

Who needs an alarm clock?  Not us.  (Turn your volume up as high as it will go and you'll still only get a smidgen of the true effect.)

Instead we have this charming young visitor at 4.30am most mornings.  What we used to call the "rusty bedsprings bird" is actually a young galah. The only way it shuts up is if one of its parents pokes something down its cakehole.  Have to say, that particular specimen isn't our favourite garden visitor.

It's a sign

I'm a shocking collector of stuff but I've been trying not to accumulate too much stuff while living here.  This has been made easier due to the tragic fact that apart from op shops (plentiful and not too bad) and one shop selling some nearly new furniture, there is not a single antique, bric-a-brac, collectible, junk, mid-century, retro, vintage or plain old secondhand shop in my new home town.

But I have been collecting something.  The signs of a place tell a story and here are a few from my collection.  Some of these signs perplex us, some amuse us and one saddens us that it even needs to exist. And in case you are wondering, no we haven't been to the restaurant above and yes we still have two children. Every time we drive past that sign those children shriek "Tastes like chicken!".

Mandurah has obviously had a plague of golfers at some stage as these signs are on every bit of public grass bigger than a doormat.

The signs below are common here and have interchangeable panels with "speeding", "seat belts" or "drink drivers".  Over the holiday period this one was edited by someone who I suspect wasn't actually a policeman.  Apparently one in a nearby town was altered to say "fat chicks".  Naughty!

Sadly in this already dry area which has just recorded its driest winter on record, arsonists do exist.  Last week some git set fires along the edge of a major road just south of here near Lake Clifton.  The fire ripped through 2000 hectares of bushland, destroyed nine homes and killed countless domestic and wild animals.

A local business is offering an additional reward.  Good on them for that and for giving me a new favourite phrase.  Hopefully Lake Clifton residents will be able to rebuild their homes, restore their area and again enjoy living in a "lively hood".

And finally, when I fall off my perch, I want one of these below. Imagine a do where attendees crack funnies and everyone goes home with a sore face from all the chitchat and laughing. Irrepressibly chipper people will say "Well at least she went doing what she loved most", which in my case means I'll have carked it in a freak needlework accident.

Sunday at Soldiers Cove

We've been trying out various places to muck around in the new boats. 

Ideal places:
a) are not too far from our house,

b) have parking space near a publicly accessible boat launching area (surprisingly tricky to find),

c) have nice shady spot on shore for the non-kayakers,

d) are safely removed from boat and jetski traffic and wakes ("jetski" has become a dirty word in this house...),

e) are sheltered from strong winds and currents,

f) are relatively contained so that if someone decides to have a rest from paddling and just drift along "enjoying the serenity", they don't get swept or blown to Africa while their mother has kittens back on shore,

and g) give us the chance to spot interesting wildlife. (These pelicans don't really have a miniature village on their island.  I've just accidentally taken a Things Bogans Like-style strange-perspective photo.)

Today we went to a place called Soldiers Cove.  It ticks all the boxes. The cove is sheltered from the main boating motorway by a peninsula reserve covered in samphire plants which is home to many birds. 

After a while the children had a break from kayaking to pretend they were pirates who have walked the plank and must swim to the nearest island.

I took my chance to take off in one of the boats and properly explore my new favourite part of Mandurah.

Ding dong meltingly on high

I'm a Southern Hemisphere person.  I thought I knew a bit about summer Christmas.  But Christmas here was hot.

Our celebrations started on Christmas Eve evening with a stroll down the road to see the local version of houses decorated with Christmas lights.  Here it is the canal houses who pimp themselves up, but only on the side facing the water.  Mandurah's canals are very much private space; there certainly aren't footpaths along the edges of the canals like the ones in various European cities.  Therefore the best way to view the Christmas lights is by boat and hundreds of people do every night, either in their own boats or by going on a canal cruise.
 
We don't have a boat.  We just walked around the streets with our torches and crept onto various vacant blocks of land to view the sights. 

The "style" of most of the canal houses is not to my taste.  Walking by some of the more outlandish ones in daylight tends to make me suck in air over my teeth.  However that night I was determined to enjoy the spectacle and enjoy it I did.

It was a gloriously balmy evening.  There was no denying the festive atmosphere as dozens of boats chugged past with their excited young passengers shrieking "Happy Merry Christmas!".  The lights were as kitschy and tacky yet inexplicably enjoyable as any I've seen.  Then for ridiculously perfect icing on the cake, two dolphins started frolicking around in front of us.

On Christmas morning I was woken at 5am by a very excited boy.  He was right to be excited as Santa had visited. (Given that this is Mandurah I doubt Santa pansied around in a quadruped-powered sleigh.  Mandurah's style is more metallic-pink stretch Hummer limo.  With a musical horn.)  Santa had left a few small presents for each of the children and a couple of big presents for the family to share.

Yes, we now have boats.

We spent Christmas morning down at the estuary trying not to drown ourselves. The children's father isn't able to kayak yet but their aunt and I harassed the children from the shore by calling out "Is it our turn yet?".

The temperature crept up and up and up. The Fremantle Doctor had a day off on Christmas Day. Instead the paint-strippingly vicious easterly desert wind got stronger and stronger and the day got hotter and hotter. By late morning the temperature headed for the late thirties and we headed home.

It was too hot to cook. It was too hot to eat.  It was too hot to drink alcohol.  It was too hot to tolerate the person who kept singing "Ding dong merrily on high".  He was made to desist.

The temperature hit 40 degrees.  I kept walking around the house trying to find the coolest place (which is lying on the tiled laundry floor).   It was too hot to care about decency or style; in true Australian style our underwear magically became OK as outerwear.  It was too hot to care about our poor old planet.  We turned the air con on.

Slowly we became human again and eventually delved into the fridge.  Between us all we made a simple but delicious meal of Tasmanian salmon.

We dressed for dinner.  For my sister this meant hauling on an elegant dress, for my partner it meant donning his 1970s safari suit, for me it meant fifties floral frock over damp swimsuit, for my son it meant his new Christmas T-shirt and for my daughter, well

she says she dressed as a Christmas tree.  (No shoes because she'd left one of her criminally-ugly plastic shoes outside on the paving stones and it melted and shrunk two sizes.) I thought "Ding dong misguidedly on high". 

And that if I don't get that maddening song out of my head soon,  it'll be a case of "Ding dong murderously on high".

Happy Birthday to me

My birthday is a few days before Christmas and as a result it is usually an almighty dud.  It is either spent in a last-minute frenzy of end-of-year/end-of-school/end-of-work/pre-Christmas nonsense or, if we've headed off on helliday early, it is often spent in a road-side layby wiping puke off a child and the back seat of the car. 

I'm a big girl and I can handle it.  Given that my partner is still recovering from his health dramas I had fully expected that my birthday this year would be another complete non-event.  Never mind.  My dream birthday would be something like this.

Get lent the use of a beautiful house in the bush in a gorgeous part of the world that I'd never been to before.

Wake there to coffee in bed and delivery of fabulous presents.

Be driven around by my sister to scenic spots and galleries.  Head back to the house for a delicious lunch followed by a stroll in the bush

 to spot lizards,

butterflies, kangaroos, dozens of birds (including two types of black cockatoos) and various interesting insects.

Head indoors to consult "The Book" to try to identify the creatures we've just seen then have a chapter of a new novel and a nana-nap. 

Head to the local icecreamery for an afternoon-tea treat from my son. 

Have a stroll on the beach then back to the house for my partner's fancypants home-cooked dinner of local produce accompanied by Margaret River wine.  Watch a stupid sitcom and laugh myself silly with my children then head off to bed for another chapter of the new book.

And that is exactly how my (fabulous) birthday went this year. We stayed in the bush near Dunsborough and explored there and Yallingup and Margaret River. Sometimes I just love being wrong.