Halloween

This is how my day panned out today:

0700 hours wake to an aching body and an episode of vertigo even before lifting my head off the pillow. Drag myself out of bed and drink a glass of water with the teeniest pinch of Celtic sea salt to counteract the vertigo.

0715 hours yoga nidra 

0745 hours load up the washing machine with another lot of what seems to be never ending dirty laundry which, I remind myself, will have to be pegged up indoors to avoid it smelling smokey.

0800 hours turn the sprinkler on the thirsty herb and vegetable patch because, despite a sprinkle of rain in the past 24 hours, my plants seem forever needy for water in this climate of low humidity, high wind and high temperatures. 

0845 hours make myself an affogato...sort of entree breakfast.  Follow this with half a fresh pineapple and freshly picked blue berries. Turn off water sprinkler.

0900 hours call my Grand daughter's school to see if they will accept a box of thirty copies of my sister's self published children's book: Ursula The Flying Unicorn. 

 I'm informed that they have been inundated with donations and I would  be better off taking them to the Baptist Church in Springwood.  The Salvation Army has agreed to host a toy drive initiated by an out of the area school and will be delivered to the church tomorrow.

0930 hours Shower

1000 hours Move carved Jack O'Lantern pumpkins outdoors in preparation for tonight's Halloween Trick or Treat.  Poor pumpkins are melting before my eyes after being carved out by Mr Honey Pie for a party last Saturday. They are quickly approaching their use by date. Into the car, I load books and  funnel web spider (discovered on driveway last Sunday by Mr Honey Pie).  

Lock up house and head off to Baptist Church to drop off books to be donated.  Meet some lovely people at the church working their little hearts out to help anyone affected by the recent fires.

1130 hours Arrive at Mum's house to meet up with mystery person which Mum had informed me about at 2145 hours last night when she phoned to asks if I can be there when they call this morning.  Meet Mum, she still doesn't know who is calling in this morning...thinks it's someone from Sydney Water.

1205 hours Man arrives at Mum's house.  It turns out he is a property developer who is looking at buying up land affected by the North West Growth Centre. Not quite what I expected but quite helpful all the same.  Although bad news is that Department of Roads and Maritime Services are cutting up Mum's land so badly that the developer is not interested.

1245 hours lunch with Mum at a cute cafe (a church-to-cafe conversion) not far from Mum's house.

1330 hours drive to Windsor to drop off above mentioned funnel web spider, 

drive up the mountain, quickly shop for individually wrapped chocolates and lollies, rush home, invite Daughter and Grand Daughter to dinner.  Eat cake while I make up twenty trick or treat lolly bags for expected trick and treaters later on in the evening.

Happy to report...some little neighbours arrive, attempt to scare us out of our wits, collect some treats and leave happy, with little Miss Six joining in her very first Halloween Trick or Treat Adventure.

Then It Started To Rain!

Remember this scary spider?

Well today was the day we took him off to Hawkesbury District Council so he could be sent off to Australian Reptile Park and milked for venom.  The venom is then used to make anti-venom.

The council's building is in a quaint little town called Windsor, which was settled in the late 1700s during the time of Governor Lachlan Macquarie's. Hence it is known as a Macquarie town.

On the banks of the Hawkesbury River, it was a vital settlement in the early days providing much needed locally produced food because food supplies from the mother country could not be relied on to arrive on time, or at all.

Architecturally it is important too, many of the buildings were designed by Francis Greenway. (A significant early architect who was an ex-convict).

Windsor also boasts Australia's oldest hotel, The Macquarie Arms.

After dropping off the spider, (where council staff ensured the spider was well secured.  Mr Honey Pie had to place a damp cotton ball into the jar and I'm sure some of the staff thought it would LEAP out of the jar but it didn't) we did a bit of sight-seeing and had a light lunch in the mall.

Then we visited Mr Honey Pie's sister who works in Windsor.

Australia's oldest hotel, the Macquarie Arms

Shops on the main street.

Loder House.

This little pier, on the Hawkesbury River at Windsor, was under water last week.

Back in the sixties this river used to flood regularly with most of the houses along The Terrace becoming inundated. 

Then it started rain!

Bucket loads.

So we drove home.

   

First Day of School, Dentists & Spiders

Wow - what a day, our little Miss Five started school today.  We love you so much our gorgeous girl.  May your school life be filled with many positive experiences.

This morning was also my visit to the dentist to begin root canal therapy.  I think I would have handled the visit a bit better if I hadn't had to wait over thirty minutes for my appointment.  This was long enough for my anxiety to build and to see me on the verge of tears.  I am afraid dentists are not my favourite members of the medical profession, even though I understand how necessary they are.  Well I survived but have been very unsteady on my feet all afternoon.

Then I returned home to find that Mr Honey Pie had a run in with what is one of the most venomous spiders in the world...the funnel web. 

The Blue  Mountains is experiencing a plague of funnel webs at present, some of my social pages 'friends' reporting finding them in shoes, in lounge rooms and in swimming pools. One friend had one fall onto her head when she visited the chook pen and went through a series of ninja moves to make any Leader ninja proud.

 Hubby found this one in the garden while he was cleaning away some building material.  Once, about fourteen years ago, we found one in our wardrobe...believe me that was scary! 

FUNNEL WEB SPIDER

FIRST AID