Luck, 'Yuk!' and Muck!

We are still in Brisbane and are staying down here this weekend.

Will worked 3 days again this week as he was making up for the day he had off when we went to Fiji.

Will’s sister Shirley arrived on Tuesday. I was supposed to pick her up from Coopers Plains railway station but about 45 minutes before she was to arrive she rang to say that the train was not stopping there and she was getting off at Altandi.

“Where is Altandi?” I asked Dulcie.

“I’ve no idea...I’ve never heard of it,” she said.

I had been going over the route to Coopers Plains in my head and knew it off by heart but Altandi put the cat among the pigeons.

I found it on Google maps and memorised the route and set off...I was supposed to turn right after crossing the railway line at Coopers Plains but when I got to the traffic lights there was no right turn...I had to make the rest up and just head in the general direction...as luck would have it, I found it with minutes to spare. Driving Shirley back she was impressed at my knowledge of the back roads around Sunnybank...and she had lived near there for years, a while ago.

“I’ve never been down this road”, she said.

I confessed I did not have a clue where I was really and was just returning the flukey way I had come.

On Weds Blue Care came...Julie of ‘The King Brown.’

“Still got your net up I see,” she said.

“Yes, but I am getting better,” I said, “It’s not tucked in at the sides anymore!”

“Oooooooh!” She said, “Get you!”

I told her about the snakes I had seen now and the spiders. She said she had been bitten by a wolf spider once...I wondered if it affected her at full moon and whether she had then urge to go out and make a web...but I didn’t say anything.

She always spends more time chatting than doing the cleaning she really comes for but when Dulcie is on her own that’s just as important as the cleaning. She was talking about giving up smoking after her dad got lung cancer and how hard she has found it but she has stuck at it and done it....though she still finds it hard to resist. She puffs on one of those electronic cigarettes every now and again now.

There was Dulcie at nearly 91 puffing away at her ciggie, listening.

“You’re not giving up are you?” said Julie.

Dulcie shook her head and blew out a cloud of smoke.

After doing some cleaning she sat down and told us some horror stories of some of the places she had to clean. There was one place where the woman said;

“Oh, don’t go in that room.” The door was closed...but on the next visit it was open and Julie said she looked in and it was the room where the woman let her dog go to the toilet.

One woman had left rotten cat food lying on the kitchen floor. Julie said she just cleaned round it but the woman said,

“You’ve missed that bit.”

Julie said “Oh, it’s not in my job description to deal with things like that.”

The woman scraped it up back into an empty cat food tin.

“There you go, just get that paper towel to wipe up the last bit.”

Julie tossed the paper towel to the woman for her to wipe it up and then she mopped the rest of the floor.

She said there were very few places where she felt comfortable using their loo. She said she wanted to go while working at the last place that morning but thought,

‘I’ll wait till I get to Dulcie’s.’

It all sounded horrendous and we could not believe that she was sent into these places when they were clearly a health hazard.

We’ve been playing lots of cards, four handed Euchre with Will and Dulcie, Shirley and I had a game of Canasta while Will was at work. Dulcie absolutely slaughtered us.

“I’ve still got it up here,” she said, tapping her head, when we were telling Will about the massacre.

Today Will and I sorted out our Medicare cards...Will had to get his renewed after being away for 6 years and I had to get my visitor one changed to a resident one. We both had to fill in forms...I had already filled one in last time when I got my visitor one...but I had to fill it in again! I could not understand that because surely they had all my information on the computer...they did...because when I had filled it in again the woman checked it with the information she already had on the computer.

“That looks fine,” she said. It would be...it was the same information I wrote out last time!

We were given temporary cards...our real ones will come in 5 weeks when they’ve found a whale, caught it, boiled it up and made some plastic...or perhaps they will just get them bulk from China and  it will come by Junk.

Today we hired a carpet and upholstery cleaner from Woolies down the road for 24 hours. Danny had brought 4 dining chairs over that had been lying around under his house. We’d had a bit of trouble with the ones we had here...one of the seats snapped in two one day and a back lifted off another...so Danny thought these others would be better. They are much lighter than the ones we have now and are easier for Dulcie to move about but they were a bit stained....hence the carpet and upholstery cleaner.

It was quite incredible how they cleaned up...we thought the chairs had grey fabric on but they turned out to be almost white!

“Good God!” we all said.

We had also brought the carpet from Frogknot....I would have thrown it away but again, it is quite incredible how it has turned out after two washes with the carpet cleaner.

We are going to do the carpets in the house tomorrow too. Dulcie wanted to give us the money for it but we said no. Her birthday is coming up at the beginning of March and it is our birthday present for her.

It has been so hot! We have had the air-con during the day for the last two days and Will and I have a fan blowing on us all night as we lie on top of the sheet.

We have heard that Glen Aplin had 40mm of rain in 30 minutes yesterday...so we hope the dam is a bit  fuller and our repairs kept the walls dry.

More rain is forecast for the week...but it often comes to nothing...”possible showers,” is how they forecast it...it’s a bit like the weather app on Will’s phone. The other day is said “32 Degrees....Snow!”

Will is feeling much better after his tummy bug........finally!