Of cyclones, and buggers and dead kangaroos!

It was a lovely sunny day today here in Brisbane and yet a few hundred miles north they are battening down the hatches at the approach of Cyclone Ita! For those of you who don't know....in the northern hemisphere theses storms are called hurricanes but in the southern hemisphere they are called cyclones....and just like the water going down the sink the wind spins the opposite way to the winds in a hurricane.Ita is all over the news and tonight ABC1 is doing a Cyclone Live broadcast from 11.00 pm, the time it is due to hit land, for those people who want to watch houses and trees destroyed by 275km per hour winds......as it happens! It was a category 5 but has been downgraded to 4 and is expected to become a 3 on reaching land. I sound like I know what I am talking about don't I? I think it just means it was really bad and it is becoming fairly bad.  I was wondering if Brisbane gets Cyclones so I googled it. The last to affect Brisbane but not directly cross the city was Tropical Cyclone Hamish in March 2009......Hmmmm, quite recent then!Instead of packing and rushing off to find refuge in a cyclone shelter we just went off to the hospital as usual. I took some of my cake for Dulcie and packaged up some more for Lillian, Celia.....and couldn't leave out Maureen.Dulcie was dressed but in bed under her blanket....everyone else was out at the tables. We learned later that she had not gone to Physio that morning because she had stomach pains  and they were probably leaving her in bed....but we didn't know that then and just got her up and out.Danny came while we were having lunch and so we had a game of four handed euchre....it was a really close game....but team 'Nulcie'....I prefer that to 'Dick'.....won!Danny left us and Kirrily came to chat. We asked for a formal meeting next week to discuss how we can get Dulcie home quick. Kirrily was pleased with her and it was a positive chat.We took Dulcie for a ride outside for some fresh air for awhile."Is that the QE II hospital?" she said as we sat on the bench."Yes," I said."I think I'm staying in there," she said.We have noticed that she is more forgetful...she asks about three times what we are having for tea. She is good and so much better but she seems older after this accident. We need to get her home soon.Back in her room the nurses were putting Maureen back in bed."Oh, I'm buggered," said Maureen.Lillian looked shocked. "I wonder if she knows what that means," she said to me. "I looked it up once. I was looking in one of those books...what are they called? The ones that have all the meaning of words in....""A dictionary?" I said." Yes, a dictionary. I was looking up some word that my mum had said and I was flicking through and I saw 'bugger' and I thought 'oh, I wonder what that means'.....well," she gasped," I was shocked....people wouldn't use it if they knew."Heck! I've heard worse words trip off Lillian's tongue. It made me laugh.We went back again for tea. Lillian, Dulcie, Celia and Jorge (pronounced Hor-hay) were sat around a table. It was great to sit all together for once.Jorge only seemed to speak Spanish. Lillian did most of the talking.She came to Australia when she was 26 and is now 90....she has not lost her southern English accent. She's travelled a lot in Australia. Her husband drilled for water. She told how once when they were out in the bush her husband had been shooting and handed her the gun and said "there, get that kangaroo." She didn't want to kill it she said so she aimed the gun away from it and fired...but the sights on the gun were so far out of line that she actually shot the kangaroo!"I felt terrible," she said," I was cradling it in my arms, hugging it and kissing it and saying sorry."She has been in hospital for eight to nine weeks!"I just want to go home," she said.Ironically, one of the songs that the 'talker' plays on the piano, without any feeling just belting it out, is 'Show me the way to go home'.The 'talker' ambled past us at the table heading down towards the piano."Oh, God!" said Celia, clear as bell!Luckily, she was just going to watch the news.......Did I mention there is a cyclone coming?