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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Made it!

First of all belated Happy Christmas to you all. Life has been a tad busy for the past two or three days and I just haven't found time to hop on to blogger - but those of you who I know on FB will have seen some of what's been happening to me.

I won't backtrack to when I last posted - don't think I can remember anyway. Christmas eve we went round to have a meal and drinks with friends, Christmas morning we had breakfast at another friends, then got myself all finally packed and we went into town and had drinks with Shaz and her son and daughter and from there round to Grant and Tiff's. Left there about 5pm to go to the airport for my flight at 6pm. As many of you will have heard we've had amazing rainfall and now flooding in Central Queensland. The problem on Christmas night was visibility due to low cloud cover. My plane was arriving from Rockhampton but couldn't see to land at Gladstone - two tries and then it went back to Rocky to refuel. Came back about an hour and a half later - another two tries and still couldn't land so carried on to Brisbane without us!!

So Christmas night and all my flights needed to be rebooked! Fortunately I have a one in a million travel agent whose mobile number I have - so at 9pm he with the help of some of his airport staff made the booking changes but it needed to be reticketed before I started on the journey. By 8.30am on Boxing Day he was on the phone to say it was all sorted out. But the weather was still horrendous and I was seriously doubting whether or not I'd be able to get out of Gladstone that day. We made the decision I should try for the 1.30pm flight rather then wait for the 17.30 flight - in the hope that the light would be better earlier in the day. I'm pleased to say the 1.30pm landed OK. So then started my monster journey - a 10 hour wait in Brisbane for my flight to HK, then 5 hours in HK, then an absolutely brilliant flight through to Frankfurt - my section of the plane only about a third full so had an entire row to myself - makes for a fabulous sleep on a 13 hour flight! Then into Frankfurt and overnight at the Mercure hotel at the airport, a yummy breakfast the next morning then back to the airport and on the 12 noon flight to Edinburgh and there were my wonderful family waiting for me.

The first night was just Mum, my sister and brother in law and I and lots of catching up with many laughs. Yesterday we just had a quiet day at home and then last night Mum, Linda and Frank (the two mentioned above), my brother George and wife Lorna and my two nephews Cameron and Lloyd and I all went to the pantomime. It was Snow White. The last time I had been to the panto was with the Girl Guides I think when I was about 12 but it was still as much fun as it was way back then. So lovely to hear how much the little kids enjoyed it and of course that quirky Scottish humour - with the particular slant that only Glaswegians can put on it. It was fantastic. We went for dinner first at a little Italian restaurant just across the road from the theatre.

So today we're heading for Stirling for a spot of shopping while Mum and Linda get their eyes tested. Bloss is coping OK at home - was a bit of a worry there for a while about the floods - so much so that a policeman arrived at the door on Monday warning him to be prepared to evacuate. However the rain has eased these past two days so the panic is over for now - but I think it might be quite a scary couple of months if we start to get a few cyclones moving around.

And now a couple of photos :

My sister, brother and I - I'm the eldest - 9 years older then my sister and 12 and a half years older than my brother

My sister in law and Mum
Me with my two nephews
Bloss and I on Christmas morning
My brother and I

My brother in law and sister
Right then that the latest from me - will try not to take so long to get back next time.  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones and wishing you all the very best for 2011. 

Love Z xx

Monday, December 20, 2010

Wacky Weather

It seems to be all over the world - crazy weather - either totally unseasonable or the other extreme soooo ultra seasonable.  Here in Queensland we're just having amazing amounts of rainfall with the odd super humid day inbetween.  We can sit on the deck and practically watch the lawn grow!  It could be an interesting new year for us - our house is at the lowest point in our street, and of course we're right beside the river.  We have a large drain at the foot of our driveway into which all the water run off from the street drains away across the road to the river.  But.... upriver from us is the Awoonga Dam - which was doubled in size a few years back and never expected to fill - but it did and is currently running over.  So line up all the holes in the cheese - we have the aftermath of a cyclone (and they're predicting a big season), the dam is flowing over with a vengeance, it's one of the January king tides in the river and the rain is falling out of the sky - where might it go - hmmmm might come in our front door!!!

Meanwhile there's my trip to Scotland - I leave here on Christmas night and fly to Brisbane, then on to Hong Kong and into Frankfurt late Sunday night. I think that bit might be OK.  But then there's this horrendous weather they're having in Europe and if I'd been making my trip today my flight from Frankfurt to Edinburgh was cancelled because of the snow in Frankfurt and to a lesser extent in Edinburgh.  It would be so frustrating to be within an hour's flight of my destination and not be able to make it - but hey it's the weather and there's nothing you can do about it so just get on with it and hope for the best.

Only four more days of work - frantically busy - trying to get all the performance review stuff sorted out and leave everything kind of organised for the person who'll be looking after my departments as well as her own.

Packing wise I think I'm all sorted - so just the beauticians tomorrow night for a defuzz, hairdressers on Wednesday for a cut and a root perm to give my a bit of body and I'll nearly be all ready.

Now to share a funny story - well I think it is.  I download some movies sometimes from one of the file sharing sites.  So I had a copy of Toy Story 3 and was babysitting the boys on Friday night and Josh asked to watch it.  I almost plugged my laptop into the TV and left them to it but then decided I might want to do stuff on it so I copied the file to my external drive and loaded it on to the other laptop.  Then I'm sitting there with Josh firing it up when suddenly all these strange looking pictures start scrolling across the screen - like frames in a movie.  It took a few seconds for me to realise that it was bloody porn!  The flaming movie I'd downloaded had been named Toy Story 3 but trust me there were no normal toys in the bit I saw.  So there's me getting all flustered clicking away frantically trying to shut the bloody thing down and saying to Josh - who was looking on interestedly - that there was a problem with the movie and it certainly wasn't what I thought it was.  I had to fess up to Grant and Tiff the next day - who fortunately thought it was quite hilarious.  But a lesson for me to check first!!!

And now a brilliant photo

Curtis' graduation from Day Care

It was Curtis' graduation from Day Care last week. He's a funny little bugger and can very easily decide he doesn't want to play and just packs a major spak attack. Tiff thought he might freak at the thought of the cap and gown but as you can see he played to the crowd!!!!

Ok not sure when the next post will be - possibly not till I'm whiling away 5 hours in Hong Kong airport.  So wishing each and everyone of you a very very happy and safe Christmas and hoping that you can realise at least one of your dreams in 2011.

Love Zxxx

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Head Hanging!!

Yes my dear 'blends' my head is hanging in shame it's been so long since I've last posted.  Life is just so so busy - not a really good excuse since it only takes 10 minutes to rattle up a post.  Anyway I'm here.  So what's been happening - think a few dot points might be in order to bring you up to date with my life

  • new job - fantastic - loving it especially now that I'm starting to feel that I'm almost back in control.  The first few weeks were quite scary for me - I'm such a control freak and I really felt that I'd lost it - so many things happening and so much knowledge I didn't have.  But the last week or so I'm starting to feel like I'm driving again (rather than hurtling down a mountainside with no brakes!).  I've managed to fill a couple of long standing vacancies we had, our annual performance reviews are coming together nicely, I'm making big inroads with our reporting system and I've come up with a process for our supplementary labour hire
  • work Christmas party - decided our team would go to the races - great day - only trouble was that it was so wet that there were actually no horses running at the race track - but that didn't stop a good time happening
  • weight - crap - haven't put any on - in fact have dropped a kilo but it should be much more than that but my head is just not in the right place - I quite regularly get angry with myself but nup - still just not doing exactly what I should
  • No 2 son - has a new lady in his life - so excited about that - he doesn't usually share much until it's getting quite serious. He's currently working in Korea - 8 weeks on and 2 off and has been going to Melbourne mostly on his 2 off - supposedly because he's building a couple of town houses there and of course  his Dad is there at the moment too.  Anyway he skyped me the other night and was telling me what his plans were for the new year - he's up here late December - but of course I'll have left for Scotland by then - anyway break after that he's heading to Bali and then another break he has plans to go to Fiji.  He ever so casually mentioned that 'Joe' wanted to go to Fiji.  Up till then I'd just assumed he was going with some of his mates.  Anyway I just as casually asked if that would be Joe with an "e" or without an "e".  It's a little game we play as we know each other so well.  It was without an 'e'!  Of course he expected me to deluge him with questions at that stage so instead I said well that's lovely I'm so happy for you and changed the subject.  Round 1 to Mum!    Anyway from then on there was lots of further input to me from one of his friends and from DiL, Tiff.  I won't go on and on but the lady in question is actually his 'step' cousin if there such a relationship. His Dad's wife's niece who he's known for about 10 years but they finally hooked up last Easter. So fingers crossed it works out for him - don't know when I'll get to meet here - looks like it might be this time next year - but as long as Clive is happy then I'm happy!
  • getting very excited about the trip to Scotland - two weeks tonight I'll be on the plane to Brisbane.  Mind you not looking forward to the weather - they've had it incredibly tough in Central Scotland this past week or so - and I'm not sure there's going to be that much improvement by the time I get there.
  • Zanna has had surgery on both her ear and eye a week or so ago.  She was scheduled to have surgery on her eye for a haemangio - like a little blood blister - which need to be removed or it could grow and affect her tear ducts.  But two days before she was due to have the op she developed a massive haematoma on her ear - mainly becuase of her allergies - she scratches and shakes her head and bursts a blood vessel in her ear which fills up her ear with blood.  Only cure is surgery.  Anyway she ended up getting them both done - one a couple of days early and is recovering nicely.
  • Bloss is well- has gone off fishing for the day with his boss - left at 3am this morning and due back around 9pm tonight - with lots of lovely reef fish I hope.
  • I got an extra $500 in last month's pay in recognition of 15 years service with Rio so I decided to use it to put towards buying an Iphone for myself - and I did - and I adore it - I'm such a gadgety geek!
So now you're all up to date - my bags are pretty well packed - it's been a bit of a struggle since I'm flying Lufthansa this trip and I only get a 20 kg allowance - with Qantas because I'm a Qantas club member I get 30kg - and of course it's all heavier winter clothes I need to take and I want to take pressies too.  But I think I've got it all sorted out.

Ok chickens - a few photos now -

All prettied up ready to go to the races

These are the ladies I work with and the one kneeling is my boss - a brilliant bunch of people

My friend Deb was also at the races as her company were having their Christmas do there too

On Monday night we went to the Entertainment Centre to see Shelly who was in the cast of a production of the Nutcracker - here's Deb and Shelly together

Clive asked me to drop by the house he's built in Gladstone as he had just organised to have turf laid and he wondered how it looked so good old Maw took a few pics and sent them to him.
Another friend and workmate who moved to Brisbane a couple of months ago was back in town on Thursday night so a few of her friends went out for tea.  This is me with another of her friends - who also used to be a workmate of mine but now works at another Rio site.

And that's it  - so sorry that I've been so slack on commenting - I have been trying to have a quick read whenever I can but unfortunately not taking time to comment - but hope everyone out there is doing OK.  When I've got 5 hours to kill in Hong Kong airport in two weeks time - I'll be sprinkling words of wisdom and compliments galore everywhere.

Take care possums
Love Zanna xxx