For those

For those avid readers who are wondering where the *** He has gone, and What is happening ..., suffice it to say that I am (un)comfortably ´enjoying´ jet lag Down Under. Day 3 today, so (not) looking forward to a, traditionally, short night. 

Unfortunately, my love is not here with us, but in 3 weeks only she will join us here again! Apparently, since I left, some 6 or 7 weeks ago, to go to Europe, it has been constantly raining here. Add to that the four months that we were in Australia, during which it also incessantly rained, and we´re looking at an easy 6 months of rain ... The grass is muddy, and wet; Red had mowed but couldn´t really do much else because of the water.

The house is rather dusty and grimy, looking a bit tired, so tomorrow Sadie The Cleaning Lady will descend on the house to give it a good Once (or maybe even Twice) over. It´s going to take her at least one day, if not 2, to get everything done, and done properly but then we should be good to keep it in mint condition until my love arrives for inspection ...

Tess and Yarrow are studying for / preparing for / sitting tests this week and the next two, so they are kept pretty busy studying. It is so, so nice to be back with them again, to occupy the same space. I´ve been meeting them after school for an extracurricular end-of-.day cup of tea, at Niki´s and my Alstonville ´haunt´, the Savannah.

The fact that I am refreshing the blog from home must mean that the Internet is working again ... This is true, but it is still quire unreliable and inconsistent so I am working with the phone people for a technician to come out to check out what is happening. A Nice Lady called Andrea contacted me who works for a more regional (i.e. less anonymous, more authentically customer-oriented) part of the phone company and she is going to help me sort the (remaining) mess out. (Would the fact that Andrew, My Man at Hinterland IT, managed to get an MP (yes, Member of Parliament) to ´escalate´ the issue, have helped to kick some proverbial into gear? Who knows. I don´t really care, but I am glad we have returned to a workable situation.)

So, allons-y: on we go with Realtime, China Grammar and Other Bits and Bobs... and counting down the days again ....