Neighbour Feeding Our Cat Update

They say cats choose their owners, is this saying true if the cat in question is being fed like a king? As a follow up to my last post, Spike still hadn't been home - that we're aware of. We have a sneaking suspicion, that he's been coming in at night to munch on some cat biscuits!

Anyway, this morning I decided to pay the neighbour another visit. I was stuck there for just over 2 hours! Again, in a nutshell - I requested that she not feed him. I told her that I didn't mind him visiting her for company, but he has a heart condition and he was too fat! She agreed not to feed him. We shall see how long this lasts! The reason I say this is that she told me she had stopped feeding him, then moments later told me he was hungry yesterday morning, so she gave him breakfast! UGH!

So at the moment, Spike's inside, as I brought him home with me. He's pacing from one room to another looking for a way out, with the occasional lie down where he can shoot death stares my way! Oh well! At least he's getting some exercise to burn off all that extra food!

I have a couple of newish decks of oracle cards that I hadn't as yet used, so yesterday I thought to myself "Self, why not use the cards and ask about Spike!"

So I opened (yes they were both still shrink wrapped lol) the Messenger Oracle by Ravynne Phelan first. The card that I drew was card 42 "show that you care". Two things caught my attention with this card, the first being that the day before, my wife and I watched The Neverending Story. Straightaway when I saw this card I thought of Falkor the Luckdragon, so there was an instant familiarity with the card. Secondly, given that we have two new mouths to feed, the card made me wonder if Spike was feeling unloved?

So I ripped the shrink wrap off The Akashic Tarot by Sharon Anne Klingler and Sandra Anne Taylor. I asked the same question and pulled the "1 of scrolls on track" card. Guess what this card is about? Travelling. If you look at the card, it shows a man with one foot on the train and one foot on the ground as he looks over his shoulder at the signposts. According to the guidebook, there are maps in his hands. Wow! I thought that both of these cards were fairly spot on considering what had been happening!

Given that I hadn't worked with either of these card decks previously, it's fair to say, that so far I'm quite impressed! I should also add that the illustrations on both decks of cards are just beautiful!! When you pull a card from a deck you're unfamiliar with and pretty much know the meaning without looking at the guidebook, that says an awful lot about the illustrations!

Okay, I'm outta here for now! I'll keep you updated on the Spike situation and whether the neighbour keeps feeding my cat!

The Neighbour Won't Stop Feeding Our Cat!

The neighbour won't stop feeding our cat is my issue this week! Ok, so to get the whole story out, there will be some to and froing regarding timezones! The cat in question is Spike, he's 10 years old and we purchased him when he was an itty bitty kitty when we lived in The Blue Mountains. 

For the record, he's desexed, microchipped and as much as we have always wanted him to be an inside cat, he has different ideas! If Spike's locked inside and a window's open, he'll shred the flyscreen to let himself out.

So how did we find out that Spike (above) was dining elsewhere? Okay, so, approx 12 months ago when little Lily came to live with us, Spike wasn't altogether pleased. However, he got over it, after all, we did get Lily so that he'd have company because he's quite a social cat! As you know, it turned out that Lily had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) and passed away. 

During the early days of Lily moving in with us, Spike disappeared for one or two nights here and there. To be quite honest, I wasn't concerned. Spike can be moody and will vanish down the stormwater drains like a gutter rat, however, he always gets over whatever his problem is and comes home.

So we adopted two 5-month-old sibling cats recently (which I've not written a post about yet!) and again he disappeared - which we expected until he got used to them. However, there was a difference this time, even when Spike goes walkabout, he'll still be spotted in the front/backyard, or under one of our cars, or he'll come in overnight and eat the food that we leave for him. 

So we've had the two new kitties for about a month now, which has been plenty of time for Spike to get annoyed, disappear and come back home. Except for this week, we hadn't seen him for two solid days and he hadn't been home to eat for three nights. 

There's one house diagonally behind us, we've never met the owner but about 3 weeks ago I did see Spike on the fence on his way in that direction. I also knew that yard didn't have any dogs. So we decided to go around and introduce ourselves to the owner and ask if they'd seen our cat.

The owner of the house is an 82-year-old woman, she invited us into her house as she said she did have a "stray" in her yard. She told us the cat wasn't there at the moment but described him as a grey cat. She told us that she owned a male tabby cat named Albert, that she had from a kitten and another grey "stray" female that she'd named "Visy" - short for Visiting Cat. (Spike below).

I'll cut a very long story short as we were at her house for at least an hour! "Visy" showed *her* face at the back door. My wife was first to see our Spike looking back at us through this woman's door! My wife said, "Um, there's my cat!". I turned around to see Spike! The woman, who had been quite demure to this point sternly said "No. That's My Visy". I stepped out into her yard and picked up Spike and stated that Spike was, in fact, our cat. One thing the woman stated before Spike appeared was, that she had never been able to get close enough to pat this cat, except on the head. The fact that I just picked him up spoke volumes!

Again, long story short - It turns out that she has been feeding Spike for approx 6.5 years! She's also feeding someone else's cat as well! She made a point of saying that she was feeding them because they were in her yard although it was clear to her that neither were underfed and did belong to other people! WTF! She also bought a bed for him, which is located right next to the food bowl!

It has now been five days since Spike has been home. I believe she has put him inside her house. I should also mention that it was pointed out to her that Spike has health conditions that need to be monitored. I don't think she realises just how wrong what she's doing is! My wife and I are now in a situation where we have to try and figure out how do we get our cat back?!?!? Is it no wonder I've got one ripper of a headache!

Broken Hearts

Yesterday morning our hearts broke. Lily our precious little girl passed away while being rushed to SASH. She was only 1.5 years old and we had her for just under one year. Sadly, we suspect that she had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). 

For anyone who's been following this blog, you'll know that Lily had some health issues at the very end of 2017. For those of you who want to read more about her past, I had written two posts about her:- Meet Lily - Part 1 and Meet Lilly - Part 2. 

Lily was a crazy little girl! She was jammed packed to the brim with affection and mischief. She was fueled by her love of food, tormenting the dogs, chasing lizards, crickets, grasshoppers, moths and anything else that was smaller than her and moved! 

When she wasn't eating, chasing insects or thinking up new ways to *surprise* the dogs, she spent her time with us. She sat beside me all day every day, it didn't matter if I was on my computer or in the lounge room, she was right there beside me. Apart from her antics, this is what I'm going to miss. She was company for me, even though 95% of the time, she was asleep. It's hard to describe, she didn't need to be awake, she was just always there.

As strange as it may sound, but I would talk to her, I don't know if she understood? Maybe she just chose to ignore me! In any case, I would talk to her throughout the day while she was *sleeping* beside me.

One thing that has really ripped my heart out, is that I didn't say good-bye. I think in my mind, it was going to be like it was on NYE. That she'd go to SASH and they'd somehow weave their magic and she'd come home. I didn't think for a single solitary minute that she'd die. In my mind, she was simply too young.

Last night, the flickering of the tv had me seeing her wander in. Even now, I keep expecting her to wander in, meow maybe, before jumping up onto the chair beside me and going to sleep.

Lily, if there's any way that you can hear us or feel us. Please know that you were loved SO much little girl. Safe travels to The Rainbow Bridge Miss LilyPilly, run, play, have fun! You're no longer ill little girl! We'll meet again in the blink of an eye before you know it. XOXOXOX

Sunburn, Dolphins and Cheeky Birds

This week my wife and I went for a day trip to Nelson Bay, a work colleague of my wife was holidaying there and asked us up for the day. I wasn't sure how the day was going to go as dark clouds seemed to be rolling in.

We had coffee before going out on a dolphin viewing cruise and wandered around the water's edge. There was a fish feeding area which was absolutely teaming with small fish! I'm not sure if you can see them in the photo? Taking photos of fish underwater with a phone isn't the easiest trick! I took about 8 photos and deleted all but one lol

Naturally, where there's small fish, there's going to be critters that love some seafood in their diet as well as maybe some hot chips that get thrown their way! So I wasn't at all surprised to see that there were a few seagulls hanging about! One which later took a hot chip that I offered from my hand while it was hovering in mid-air.

By the time we were on the cruise boat, the clouds were gone and it was boiling hot! Both my wife and I got sunburnt and are still feeling the effects a couple of days later. It's been a while since I've been burnt, I'm always so careful as I'm whiter than white!  

The sun was so bright, trying to take photos of the dolphins when they appeared was actually quite difficult, even with the brightness turned all the way up on my phone. In the end, I decided that I would take video footage and take some stills from the footage once I was home.

There really weren't all that many dolphins about, however, we did get to see a mother and her baby. According to the captain, this isn't a common sight. So I was pretty happy with this!

Again because of the sun, I couldn't get a photo, so I just took a screenshot of the video footage.Trust me, it was a lot more impressive in real life when they were swimming lol!

Once the cruise was over, we were hot and thirsty! So we thought we'd pop into a nearby cafe for a drink before driving back home. A couple of cheeky little rainbow lorikeets had made themselves at home! They were the funniest little things! There were pulling sachets of sugar out of the holder, ripping the tops off and eating the contents LOL! 

Myself and three other people all rushed to get photo thinking that the parrots would fly off. These birds had no intention of going anywhere lol It was very funny! Eventually, a sullen female teenage employee walked over and told us the birds had to go. We all took our last snaps before she shooed the birds away. Watching the birds for just a few moments, for me, was just as enjoyable as the two-hour dolphin cruise lol What's the saying? Small things amuse small minds lol That reminds me of this meme that I saw on Facebook yesterday:-

Anyway, I'll catch you next time!

Meet Lily - Part 2

New Year's Eve fell on Sunday, December 31st, 2017. Yep, Sunday, the day that a whole lot of stuff is closed. New Year's Day, the public holiday that follows NYE, another day where a whole bunch of stuff is closed.....

What does NYE have to do with Lily? Well, I woke up at 7am on the morning of NYE to Lily being in bed beside me, this wasn't unusual. However, she was howling. This was and wasn't usual, as sometimes she would meow for breakfast, however, this was not meowing, this was a whole other sound. I sat up and as I gently picked her up and she screamed in pain. I immediately put her back on the bed and started checking her for visible injuries, I couldn't find a single mark on her.

My wife was still at work (night shift) and due home shortly, I sent her a text letting her know Lily had to go to the vet. Then I realised it was Sunday.... Our regular vet was closed. I looked online for the next closest vet, they were closed, as was the next and the one after that. While I was doing this, somehow, Lily had managed to drag herself off the bed, through the lounge room and out to the dining area where I was and she had howled all the way. I didn't want her moving, so I sat on the floor with her until my wife arrived home. I also checked her for ticks, again I couldn't find anything!

When my wife arrived home, she started ringing the vet clinics hoping for an after-hours number, thankfully our regular vet had the number for SASH (Small Animal Specialist Hospital) on their answering service. We had no idea that there was now a SASH in our area! So My wife rang them to let them know we were on our way while I got changed and grabbed the cat carry cage. 

All the way to SASH I drove as carefully as I could as Lily was clearly in a lot of pain. I had no idea what was wrong with her, she had no wounds, no ticks that I could see (which cause paralysis), the only other thing I could think of was that she had been bitten by a snake.  Once we arrived, they took her straight away. We waited, we could hear her howling. When the vet came out, she asked more questions and said that they needed to keep her for the day to run tests and would let us know throughout the day how she was doing. 

My wife went to bed as she had worked all night and had to work again NYE. I spent all day researching snake bites as the vet said that if they couldn't find any ticks, that she had possibly been bitten by a snake. The afternoon swung around and I received a call from them, the blood tests were back, she hadn't been bitten by a snake and she didn't have any ticks. She had been given pain medication and was asleep, they asked for permission to take x-rays. I agreed. Later that night, I received another call, the x-rays didn't show any issues with her skeletal system, however, she was full of gas. This prompted me to tell the vet about her intestinal health when she was a kitten. The vet said they'd call me in the morning.

I woke up early, not sure if Lily would be coming home today or not. I waited for the phone to ring. When the vet did ring, he didn't really have any further news, except her pain had decreased some. He wanted to run further tests, again I agreed and waited for the next phone call. He said that at this point his greatest concern was that she had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) - it was fatal.

The next call was late that night, they still couldn't find out what was wrong, she was however now able to sit up as well as take a few steps, which she wasn't able to do the day before. Although she was still in ICU, she was stable. They wanted to keep her another night and wanted her to see a specialist the next day.

The third day a specialist rang me in the morning. Lily had now eaten a small amount of food, the specialist asked me about her health issues as a kitten. She couldn't explain what was wrong with her as she had a mixed bag of symptoms, she also mentioned FIP. My worst nightmare. After advising the specialist about her previous health issues, she wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound on Lily, she said she'd ring me with the results. 

So later that afternoon we received a call from the specialist. She basically stated that Lily could come home. The ultrasound was clear, although she couldn't rule FIP out, she didn't believe that Lily had this as she was now walking. She wanted to see her a week later for a follow-up and wanted her to eat a special diet. The specialist, although she hated to say it, felt that Lily had been bitten by a spider or insect as insect and spider toxins don't show in blood tests like snake venom does.

Fast forward one week. Lily has been on a strict diet, which she's not enjoying one bit! She's had no further symptoms either. So off to SASH. After chatting with the specialist, she said she'd like to do a blood test to compare to her admission bloods. The results wouldn't be in until the next day. She was happy with her progress and reiterated that she believed in her experience that Lily had been bitten by an insect or spider. Although this caused her a great deal of pain, I'm so glad that this seemed to be the issue and that FIP wasn't looking like the cause of the problems! The following day, I was advised that her bloods were all good and that she could go back to her normal diet.

The poor little thing has had so many medical problems in her short life!

Thankfully she's all better now, her fur is still growing back, they had to shave her neck, abdominal area, back and leg - she sort of looks like she's been at war with a lawnmower and the lawnmower won!

Given that she loves her food, she's extremely happy that she's allowed to eat her normal diet again. We felt so cruel when she had to eat the prescribed diet, she didn't like it at all.

Well, fingers crossed that she's grown out of getting stuck in strange places and the only way is up regarding her health. She's such a spoilt kitty cat as you can see in the photo above, she squeezed in between both of my pillows for a snooze.

Till next time!

Tradesmen! Grrrrr!

It's gripe day! I don't know if this is purely an Australian thing or a worldwide thing, but tradesmen in this country have quite a reputation for being dodgy, late or not showing up at all. As I wrote in an earlier post, we're having new fences put up. Our back fence backs onto a house and their property is wide and runs the length of three properties - ours being one of them and then we are having our side fence and gate done.

So today I got up extra early - because we weren't given a time that they would show up - typical.... They showed up around 9am. Then they discovered the fence plans they had were incomplete and they didn't have enough materials or workmen..... They then got in their vehicles and drove off without telling any of the neighbours where they were going or if they were coming back! 

They eventually came back and got into a bit of a debate with one of the neighbours, as two of us have pools and in Australia it's illegal not to have a fence around your pool. The original plan was to do each section of the fence in three parts, so that each neighbour had their old fence down and new fence up in a day. So the new plan is pull the old fence down, put some posts in and 'try' and complete the job the next day. 

As you can imagine, the other neighbour is not happy about this, as this was not what was originally discussed and her pool will be left without any fencing. She made it quite clear that should something happen, she will not be responsible. 

Our side fence is supposed to be done towards the end of this week, when I spoke to the fencer about this, his response was "You've gotta be dreamin'!". So there you have it, I always try and give people the benefit of the doubt - I don't like tarring everyone with the same brush as we have had some very good tradesmen. However this lot are a bunch of louts. I honestly wish you could hear what I can hear while I type. A radio is blaring and they are doing more talking and laughing than work - they sound like a bunch of high school kids! Tomorrow has to be a better day!

A Couple Of Outings!

Finding time to go out between my wife's roster and my 7 day a week business is a nightmare! In fact it had been months since we actually went out - just the two of us. However we got to go out on the weekend and we went out again for lunch yesterday! My system didn't know what hit it! Two outings in almost as many days!

The view from where we were sitting. 

On the weekend we went to a local art/craft market and then instead of going to a cafe for lunch as we usually would, we got some take away wraps and drinks and had lunch in a nearby park in the sun by the water - it was so relaxing!!! I seriously could have just sat in the park, in the sun looking at the water, the birds, and the other people all day!

The view in the other direction. 

Even though there were quite a few people in the park, it wasn't noisy because the park's a decent size. I really miss being outside, either being surrounded by nature or at least being able to see it. I feel much calmer and at ease within myself when I can smell and see trees, see or hear birds, look out the windows or doors and see natural beauty rather than the neighbours fence or wall. The suburb we live in has parks, but they're really small, surrounded by houses and are purely designed for children with play equipment installed. Don't get me wrong, kids need somewhere to play, but adults need somewhere to go as well. 

Sadly the area I live in has new housing estates popping up every couple of weeks, the bulldozers roll in and rip out all the trees and McMansions are erected in no time - shiny, pretty and generic in appearance - without a tree or flower in sight. Only last week a Rosella landed on our fence, it was the first native bird I have seen since living here. 

Anyway back to our weekend outing! While we were having lunch, there was this guy doing some kind of Tai Chi nearby. Perception is a funny thing lol I found watching him holding his poses somewhat relaxing, where my wife did not lol I don't know if this is because when I lived in the City I would often see people in the parks doing this as a group and it was a normal sight for me, where you just don't see it much where we live.

My purchases.

After we had lunch in the park, watched the ducks, saw some boats and watched the Tai Chi guy, we went back to the markets and I bought a glass mosaic oil burner and essential oils. We did go to the markets before lunch and I saw it then, but I didn't buy it. It wasn't until we were having lunch that I decided that I wanted to buy it lol It looks amazing in the dark! I absolutely love it!

Yesterday we went to this cute-out-of-the-way cafe for lunch. This cafe has such an airy feel about it as it has huge doorways and windows, allowing for so much natural light and there aren't too many tables, so it doesn't have a cluttered feel. It's also situated right across from three parks and the ocean! Heaven! So instead of dining in, we got take away sandwiches and drinks and had lunch in the park overlooking the ocean. 

The stunning view from where we were sitting. 

It was such a busy little place considering how out of the way it is, but it was so peaceful sitting in the park amongst the trees, with the ocean down below and birds flying all around us. There was just this feeling of total freedom and openness. 

The sky was crystal clear like the ocean, not a cloud in sight. Some of the trees near where we were sitting were quite large, with holes and patches of moss. I love gnarly looking trees :)

Gnarly, mossy, holey trees and flowers. 

We've decided that we will have to make an extra effort to try and go out more, especially now that we're moving out of winter and into spring. Even if it's just packing a picnic lunch and going where there aren't any shops or cafes, and just having a peaceful day outdoors in nature, away from home and work. 

Storms And Colds

So what's been happening that's kept me away from Blogger? lol Where do I start? Okay so not long after my last post, the area I live in had the worst storm ever and it lasted 3 days! It was classed as a category 2 cyclone! I don't live in a tropical region, so cyclones technically shouldn't occur. I have never experienced anything like it in my life! I've seen on the news when tornadoes go through in America, and the people have those bunkers because they live in a region prone to such storms, and I often wonder how they keep wanting to live in those areas? After the storm we had, one was enough! I don't think I could live somewhere that had these storms/cyclones frequently!

We lost power for 3 days, the home phone for a week, our garage was flooded and rain was constantly blown in, around and under doors in our house, and we had some damage to our fences. We still had running water and gas so we were able to cook and wash. Mind you - when I say 'wash' lol I mean heating large pots of water on the stove and pouring them into the bath, as the gas water system has an electric ignition lol When the power came back on, you've never seen someone so happy to have a shower! Having a bird bath just isn't the same lol.

Others weren't so lucky, some lost power for more than a week, some lost the roof off their homes..... Others lost their entire home and sadly some lost their lives. Roads were closed in some areas due to power lines across roads, trees across roads or flooding. 

The news constantly told people to stay off the roads unless it was absolutely necessary. Guess what? I had to go out lol My shop is open 7 days a week and I have an online store. I only closed the shop for 1 day, but people from other states were still ordering products online. I took the photo above when I was on my way to the shop to fulfill an online order. I'm lucky I drive a SUV so the water wasn't an issue for me, but some cars that drove through this had water above the bottom of their doors. It also amazed me that people didn't slow down. One my way back home a woman in a small car raced into the water behind me.... Given that my car was much higher than hers she copped a huge wave of water over the bonnet and windscreen.... She slowed down after that.

So after the clean up, including drying my garage out all seemed to be good. Then about a week later it rained again and I heard something dripping!!! I checked all the taps and couldn't find where it was coming from, then I looked into the garage and discovered that water was dripping through a small hole in the gyprock ceiling just centimetres from my kiln. The garage was flooded again. We had a builder come out to check the damage, and it turned out that the wind from the cyclone had blown a bunch of roof tiles out of place. Phew! He put the tiles back in place and didn't even charge me. We've had rain since and the garage remained dry :) 

Next topic lol I had my last x-ray checked 3 weeks ago by my Dr and the morning of the appointment I woke up with a sore throat and burning eyes. I thought 'Oh No! This is how it all started!'. She told me my x-ray was almost all clear and there was no need for another one. I told her about the symptoms I had when I woke up and she checked me over but couldn't find anything.... She told me to keep an on it as she didn't want me to land up back in hospital. By that afternoon I felt horrid, I had another cold. 

That was 3 weeks ago and I still have it. I was almost over it by the end of last week, but on the weekend we had been booked for a stall at an outdoor event for our shop. It rained all day and it was freezing cold. The whole time I was standing there I just knew the weather was going to set me back. Sure enough, Monday morning I woke up feeling like I was back to day 2 of when it first kicked in. I'm drugged up and feel awful, I'm really over having a cold and feeling like this.

I have some other news, it's sad and deserves it own post. So I shall write it now and schedule it for tomorrow. I'm off for another handful of tissues! 

We Always Want What We Can't Have

About a month ago we went out with some friends for a day of kayaking and laser tag. While we were waiting for our guide/instructor I noticed a small room and so of course I had to poke my head in lol The room only had a coke machine and fireplace. . . . I've lived in houses with fireplaces and the size of them generally reflects the size of the room that needs to be heated. Well this fireplace was waaaay toooo big for such a small room!

It was so big I had to take a photo lol, then it got me thinking.... When I was a kid I preferred the American TV shows to the Australian ones. I loved everything about them, I loved that they celebrated Halloween and we didn't, I loved their houses so much! I loved that they had attics and basements and we didn't. I loved their fireplaces, they seemed so ornate and were built as a feature, not just something to serve a purpose. In the houses I've lived in that had fireplaces, they were so dull and boring - seriously! No thought had ever gone into the actual presentation of how it looked. It was almost like the house plans had 'fireplace marked on the plans' so the builders just whacked one up.

If you google American fireplaces, OMG. Some of them are pure works of art. Some are so fancy you wouldn't want to burn anything in them. This is one I found that kind of looked like the ones I saw in TV shows as a kid, nothing too fancy - but they were so much nicer than the ones built here.

Then just the other week my sister and I were talking about American homes, and she commented that we should be making better use of our land i.e basements and attics, I agreed. A few years back I did some research online trying to find out why Australian homes didn't have basements. Now I'm not a geologist lol but the information that I found basically stated that the ground water level in Australia is too high for us to have basements. That no amount of waterproofing would prevent water constantly seeping into the area. This made sense.... Case closed. 

So why don't we have attics? Have you ever been in the roof of an Australian house? I have lol This pic above is the roof framework, now there is no squeezing an attic in there. We have rather low roofs here, I don't know why, we just do. I have crawled around in the roof of a number of homes and you literally have to wriggle around like a worm to get between the beams, wiring, insulation etc.

There's a suburb about 50 mins from where we live and one day when my wife was driving I got to have a good look around and I saw that a number of homes in this area had attics! None of these homes were new or clustered together, which may suggest the same developer built them all. So straight away I was like "I want to move here! These houses have attics!" lol. 

So like the title says:- We always want what we can't have lol

Anyway, here's another pic of my progress on my Tribal Cat cross stitch. Can you see the sugar skull magnetic needle holder in the corner? My sister sent my wife and I one each in the mail the other day :) We had no idea that she had done this, so it was a huge surprise and we both love the choices she made :)    

What's Your Hobby?

What's your hobby or hobbies? Some of us have a couple and some of us have loads lol. I like doing lots of different things, I guess it depends on my mood, the weather, the time of day etc. One hobby I found myself interested in a couple of years ago was metal detecting. Not because I was looking to strike it rich, but because I love history and I loved the thought of finding something really old. 

When I first bought my detector back in 2012 (I think) I practiced using it on a local beach. I found AA batteries, soft drink cans, ring pull from cans, bits of foil from food wrappers etc lol My wife on the other hand had a go and found 55 cents lol Due to things going on and life in general, my detector got put into the cupboard - where it still is.

About a month ago as we drove by the beach that we tested the detector on, I commented to my wife that I would like to give it another shot. Then about a week after that, we met up with a friend who mentioned that one of their family members had just bought a detector. So that got me thinking more about it. The problem is finding the time! Plus finding the right location. There's also the issue that since I haven't used it for so long, I've forgotten how it works lol It really isn't as simple as 'waving it all about'. 

I've started checking out the old forums that I used to hangout in, and I've been reading all the 'newbie' info to try and refresh my memory. I haven't actually taken the detector out of the cupboard yet, as I have to re-read the manual regarding the settings for depth, pitch, sensitivity etc etc - See I told you it wasn't as simple as waving it all around lol

I also found some great websites that I hadn't discovered before! One of them allows you to choose a location in the present, then overlay a historical map! It's amazing just from a historical perspective to see what used to be in an area and how much the landscape has changed. At the moment I'm completely hooked on reading all these old maps and I haven't left the house!!! LOL!

Here's an example of this mapping site, it shows where a helipad used to be in 1943:-

Current location image

When you start to overlay the images

The image has been completely overlayed so you're now viewing the 1943 map

I have been looking at areas all over our state, just to see what used to be in certain locations back in history. I love it! :D

Okay, well I'm off! I'll let you get back to your hobbies :)   

P.S I Hope This Makes Sense LOL!

P.S Yes I'm putting the P.S at the top for a reason lol. This is my second attempt to get this blog post written today, as I'm still taking pain killers my brain just doesn't want to link words in the order that they should normally be found lol Due to this reason, I took a break from writing today as I was constantly correcting mistake after mistake.... So I do hope that the rest of this post makes some sense and is readable :o)

The Original Start:- I haven't got much to blog about on the parrot front, as I've had the the first part of my dental implants inserted this week.... So I've been off with the fairies, thanks to the painkillers. Don't worry, I'm not going to show you a photo lol. So most of Tango's time has been spent with my wife, as I was either asleep or just not feeling well enough to cope with his antics lol. I go back next week for a check up on the stitches and the posts/screws that were implanted, then after three months I go back and the crowns are put into place.

A couple of days before I had the implants done, I went to see an optometrist as I have started cross stitching again, and I've found that my old glasses aren't quite doing the trick...... They are seven years old lol Anyway, as I expected, I needed new glasses. So I asked if I could keep my old frames as 1. I like them, 2. They're really lightweight, and 3. They cost me a small fortune! I was told that it would cost me more to keep my old frames and it would be much cheaper to get new frames with new lenses!?!!? The girl that I was talking to looked at the figures of what my health insurance company covers, and it would have cost me a minimum of $150 just to send my old frames off! That's not including the price of the lenses. 

So then she looked at the figures of what it would cost me to get new frames and lenses and the total gap I would have to pay was $139.50. This cost was for two pairs of glasses.... mind you, I only wanted one pair.... But the deal that was running was 2 pairs for the price of one. It's just crazy! So in the end, it was cheaper to get two pairs of glasses, instead of just changing the lenses in my old frames. So next week I will go and pick up both pairs of my new glasses lol

Anyway, as I said, I have started cross stitching again. I used to cross stitch all the time when we lived in the Mountains. As it was so cold there, having an indoor hobby was a must. But since we've moved to The Central Coast and it's so hot, I've found it very hard to get interested in it again. The photo above is of a witch, I have actually done more than this, and I thought I had taken a more recent photo.... But I can't find one and to be honest I couldn't be bothered right now digging it out and taking another photo lol I will post a photo when it's completed :o)

                             

I also discovered an online store called 123stitch.com, wow, what a dangerous website! They sell everything that you could ever want! I have already made a number of purchases from them lol Even though they're located in the USA, their prices are so much cheaper than Australian prices. Plus they stock so many things that you just can't buy here.

My Sister recently found a website called Clouds Factory, and they have some brilliant patterns. They're all small patterns that you could stitch up as they are designed, or you could turn the characters into cards - I've purchased a couple of the patterns and I also have a 'wish list' going there lol. I'm also back on Chatter Fox, which is an online cross stitch/crafting community.

Anyway, I'm outta here and back to the lounge room. :)