Oodles of poodles

The floors are being polished, the insides painted and cupboards put in place - but I can't tell you what it looks like because we have been uprooted again.  This time for 10 days in glorious Alphington. The fun just never stops.

We are housesitting while J&P are in Hawaii.

For a while there we were house sharing as J&P had bought airfares so cheap they were indeed too good to be true and the airline, Australian Air, collapsed. P had left ahead of J so we spent a weekend with her before she got on her replacement return Qantas fare that sucked up all her frequent flyer points as well as some cash. P is coming back on Aloha airlines (or something like that) as part of an Hawaiin rescue package.

I've known J&P for over twenty years and when I lived in Alphington in the same street, was round there about twice a week - you know to borrow the lawn mower or to see if they had the missing ingredient for a curry I was half way through cooking. In all that time I never noticed how dark their place is.  It is very beautiful but there is lots of dark wood - furniture, architraves (yes I'm getting to know building jargon), mantlepieces and other features (there's a limit to the technical terms I can pour out).
Not only is it dark, but each room has a ten watt globe.

G and I have been sitting outside reading by the moonlight. This might sound romantic, but given the size of the garden and the warm evenings, we have to battle with mozzies. J&P have a stash of green mosquito coils and we are burning through them.

Then there are the poodles to contend with. P told me that I needed to understand that the dogs ruled everything.  He wasn't joking. The first night they kept diving on the bed, no matter how many times we threw them out.  However, fortunately they are scared of tall men. All Guy has to do is point towards the door and they're out.

Below is a photo is one of the dogs after she saw J's itinerary and realised how long she had to wait until she could sleep on a proper bed again.

We're also keeping very calm.  Both dogs can get excited about just about anything and nearly jump out of their black curly skins when we do something remotely interesting - like stand up or sit down.

But I haven't spent all my time in the house. Out and about in downtown Fairfield I walked past the back of a Vietnamese restaurant. At first my eyes were drawn to a maze of wiring - a bit like crazed black hokien noodles- but dangerou. Then I noticed the little shrine on top of the grafiittied hot water service. It had little blue plastic containers of rice, and an offering of fruit to the God, Vulcan. Very steamy, very Asian atmosphere.

Other homes

Dear Lord, it's been nearly a month since my last post. How time has flown.

P told us that we had to get out for a few days while they took out the wall between the living room and the kitchen. So we packed up the kitchen and the bathroom and the living room in prepration for the dust deluge.

Just before we left, P said we'd be happier if we stayed away for a week. However, we wouldn't have to move out again.

So we spent my summer leave at J's place in West Heidelberg looking after Black Otter the rabbit and Sushi the cat while J sweltered in a tin shed on his newly aquired land in countryVictoria. We luxuriated in his large back yard crammed with fruit trees and fat, relaxed parrots and magpies burping and basking in the dappled light. I managed to nick a handful of grapes before these self-satisfied loafers had a go, but had no luck elswhere. Every ripening apricot, peach and nectarine bore their marker.

I rang P, as arranged, on the Saturday to see how things were going.  Things were going well, but we'd be happier if we stayed away another three days.

When we got back the place looked great. So much roomier without the wall. However, we couldn't find anything because we couldn't remember what was in what box and what box was in what room.

We ate out or ordered in out until our collective memory of the condiments returned.

As I peeled back the lid of another mediterranean gourmet pizza, my mobile rang. I retrieved it from under a jar of cumin just before it went to voicemail. It was M, one of the owners of Mum's nursing home telling me that Mum's behaviour had become less manageable.

When she is outside chain smoking, she calls out to people walking down the lane to come on in. The type of people likely to respond to a toothless woman in a wheelchair with a rasta cap over long tangled grey hair are precisely the type you don't want to let inside a nursing home. When she gets anyone in the yard, she then gives them the security code and encourages them to visit.

Hence there are a number of what I have been told are undesirables paying visits.

M described in detail a large islander male covered in tattoos and wearing flourescent orange overalls paying his respects in the wee hours. I thought being an islander had nothing to do with being an undesirable, but I kept quiet as I could hear that M was on a roll.

Although M was at pains to tell me that she does not know what marijuana smells like, she believes that Mum is smoking this substance down the back lane with some of her newly acquired friends.
She is also ramming her wheelchair into walls, causing quite a bit of damage to her room and the hallways, constantly thumps on windows to either go in or go out and yells out 'Lezo' as her way of greeting other women.

Some of the residents are becoming a bit nervy around her.

At the end of the little speech I commented hopefully that things seemed pretty much as usual.
No, M responded. She now behaves badly for ALL her waking hours
Oh well. I said I'd drop off some cigarettes (she's smokes the illegal chop chop variety to make the pension go further) and ring on Monday.

We've worked out our colours for the outside and inside of the house and bought the lights we couldn't get on ebay at Schots.

Yesterday V the renderer spent all Saturday rendering the outside walls. The whole thing is coming together quite quickly now.
P has told us that we need to get out for five days - just so the floors can be polished and the inside painted. A friend is going away for ten days so we'll housesit and look after the dogs.
P said that he'd hoped for longer but thought he could squeeze everything in, inside of 10 days.