Category: Ivanhoe

First outback posting

First Impressions of Ivanhoe

IvanhoeGreetings from Ivanhoe

The residence is quite big (and I didn’t really need to sell/give away all that furniture!). There are 4 bedrooms, a lounge, kitchen, dining room, bathroom and laundry…. plus a big sun room, which the Bear has decided will be his play room.  When you come in through the front door, the lounge is in an L shape and as you can see, we’ve set it up so that only 2 people can be seated to watch TV, which might be a problem when guests stay. I guess it will come down to survival of the fastest – to get to the recliners. Continue reading “First Impressions of Ivanhoe”

Western Exposure

It’s funny how you never have a camera when you need one. We went for a shopping trip to Hillston today (3 hr round trip plus lunch and shopping) and, for the first time, didn’t take the Bear. This was the first time that he’d been left at home so it was quite a traumatic experience ……. and the Bear didn’t like it either.

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2nd Month in Ivanhoe

Today while I was at the Post Office, I happened to mention that I was looking for some geranium cuttings, which then inspired the Post Office staff to ask people, who came in whether they could “give Kaye some cuttings”. When people asked where they should leave them, it was decided to leave them at the police station.

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Telco tantrums

In late August, we received a bill for a free car kit, which had come with my mobile phone. Not realising that ‘free’ meant that you had to pay for it, I rang and  explained that the salesperson had actually offered us two free car kits but when I told him we only had one car, he offered a new car kit for my new mobile and a $50 credit, in lieu, for Nigel’s new mobile. Now here I was staring at this bill for $49.01 for the car kit ………. and no sign of the $50 credit.

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The Grapes of Wrath

Greetings from sunny (and very hot) Ivanhoe!

efektoflyOne of the useful pieces of information that I’ve gleaned while living in the back country is that flies lose some of their aviational prowess when the wind is blowing, thus making it harder to land. This is quite important when setting fly traps (don’t ask) because they have to hang in a sheltered but sunny area. I say “I’ve gleaned” because once Nigel saw our first fly trap in full swing, he wanted nothing more to do with them.

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October Firsts

October seems to have been a month of ‘firsts’. ……….. our first holiday back home since we’ve been here, first temperatures in the 40s, first lizard in the yard, first king brown snake in the town (that we know of), first mouse ….. make that mice, Kaye’s first days of teaching at the Central School and last but not least, our first bout of heavy rain.

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Christmas ’07

IMG_2576 - CopyLast week we took advantage of a free week (between bookings) at Paradise Beach for some R and R (Repairs and Relaxation), kayaking with the Bear and catching up with the neighbours. Nigel thought it would be funny to fire off a few text messages complete with photos of beaches, plates of prawns and the like, to ‘remind’ Jackson and Mia (permanent part-time officer) what they were missing out on. Continue reading “Christmas ’07”

The Third Thing

For all those who are superstitious and will relate to this, our stormy trip back to Ivanhoe was the third thing that went wrong involving our car.  Our last shopping expedition to Deniliquin saw us limping into Moama (near Echuca) with the harmonic balancer hanging off. Sorry, but I don’t know what a harmonic balancer is either.

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