Thanks, everyone, for your wishes. So far my holiday has been lovely. Way too much eating. Way not enough exercise and I’m not even going to mention the cheese. Oh no. I’m on a limited dialup account, going through Beloved’s mobile phone, so can’t get to look at anyone else’s blogs (waah!)

There are pelicans everywhere. It’s wonderful watching them fly. Masters of the air. Also lots of swans around the lakes.

Lots of attitude, and since our timeshare is just across the road from the water, it’s tempting for the kids to feed them. This is bad because the kids mostly give them bread, and bread is very bad for swans, the yeast gives them tummyache and that makes them agro (but they still want more bread – where have I heard that story before?) They’re very cheeky and will come right into Unit 1 if given the chance. But it’s not school holidays at the moment, so no kids and the swans are behaving.

We had a visit to Buchan Caves and afterwards a walk around the top of the ridge. Lots of locals there to greet us:

Joeys get it so easy

Weight loss has been a fairly low priority. Trying to get walks in, just because it feels good to do it. Yesterday I had an aromatherapy massage. Just to make me feel good. Just to know that I still have a body. I got a haircut, too. Not as delighed with that as I was with the massage, but my hair and I have a somewhat fraught relationship.

Saturday was a sort of meet and greet of the people staying at the timeshare this week, and one of the ladies had a somewhat larger tummy than mine and Beloved (always trying to make me feel good) commented that I shouldn’t worry about feeling fat when there are people like this other lady around. Well, there are always going to be  people who are fatter and thinner than me, but it doesn’t make me any less fat, even when I stand next to people like that lady, and it doesn’t make me feel any better about myself.

This place is full of mirrors and that’s confronting. I manage very nicely at home to avoid all of the mirrors (except for my magic one in the bathroom. For some reason, my wrinkles never show up on  that mirror, and my face is thinner.) But I took a good look at myself naked in the mirror last night and then again this morning and I tell you, no amount of draping is going to hide the bulk of my arse.

The other night I was watching a special by Susannah and Trinny, the What Not To Wear girls. I never got to see their show, I think it’s just on cable, but this show was about shape. Not size. Not bulk, but shape. Sadly for me, none of the shapes were “lump” or “blob” or “gelatinous mass” but I’m hoping to find out more from their website, because even when I do get thinner, I’m still going to have the same sort of shape. I will still have the large backside and thighs (even my  uncles had these questionable attributes, so what hope do I have???) I want to have something to look forward to, a way to dress nicely and show off what I do have that’s working. Funny thing in the intro to the shape website, is that if you have a shorter body then your stomach’s going to stick out more because your intestines don’t have as much room.

I never thought of that!

The other thing I saw that I found very interesting was this interview. I really want to get hold of Michael’s work and going to look for a copy of his book. I found his website here if you’re interested in taking a look. I felt like he was really hitting a nerve and telling me exactly what I need to know. Now I just need to do it.

Have a great rest of the week, everyone. I’m looking forward to catching up with your blogs and will blog again if I get the time (it’s so tiring, being this lazy).

Take care.

Hugs to you all.

This might be my last post for a week and a half or so. Beloved and I are going on a holiday. We’re going to leave Poss and BF in charge of the house (scary thought) and have a week in a timeshare at Lakes Entrance. That puts us about halfway to Radio Boy’s house, so we’ll go visit him the following weekend. I’m so looking forward to it. Of course, getting on for winter it’s not exactly going to be swimming weather, but that’s okay. Plenty other stuff to see. I’m just looking forward to sleep-ins.

Also Radio Boy tells me that whale season has started! Major yaaaaaaaay! Whales are my best thing (don’t tell my cats I said that.) I’ve seen Humpbacks and Southern Rights, but sometimes you get to see Sperm Whales and even Big Blues up Radio Boy’s way. It would be my ultimate thing to see a Blue Whale. Also Eden, which is near where he lives, is very famous for its Orcas. I can do a blog on them when I get back (I’m sure I can do some sort of segue between me and whales). The Orca pod was a bit politcally incorrect, it helped the whalers, but still an amazing story.

Anyway, I intend taking my puter with me, but not sure if I’ll be able to connect to the net. If I can, yay. Live blogs. If not, well, I’ll see you in June. And, as my old Weight Watchers leader used to say ‘I hope to see less of you’ and hope you see less of me, cause looking forward to lots of walks.

I’m surrounded by eucalyptus trees where I live. They’re fabulous and after six months in Germany, it was the smell of eucalyptus that really meant home to me. They are great fun in the summer, too. Oh yeah. This is a dry old continent and the eucalypts have evolved to rely pretty heavily on fire as part of their life cycle, in fact they do whatever they can to get the fires started, dropping bark and branches all over the ground and then spreading their oily leaves about. My mother in law says they do everything but light the match. It takes a fire and smoke water to germinate a lot of our native plants, and they’re good at surviving it, too.

This picture shows epicormic shoots. Basically what happens is that the fire rushes through and you’re left with a bunch of burnt black tree trunks that look utterly dead. Then a few days later you get this regeneration happening. It’s so amazing. A couple of years later the bark’s all fallen away and the trees are totally green and you’d never know there had ever been a fire there.

Now I have a balcony just out of my bedroom door. I totally love it and I have the best place in the house, sitting here beside the door, looking at my plants outside. I have a worm farm there, too and I get all sorts of random things growing, self-seeded, blown in on the wind, undigested by the worms.

A gum tree was growing. It was growing in the same pot as a self-seeded strawberry so I decided to give it a pot of its own and grow it up. Some day the possums will thank me, I’m sure. But something went wrong with my watering system (the batteries went flat. Oops!) Most things survived, but my poor little gum tree was only two leaves, and it died.

At least I thought it died.

Then I saw this:

You can see how small the tree is. That silver thing next to it is a pen. But there, just below the drop of water, two leaves. So small. But there. I don’t know if it will survive, but I am so overwhelmed by this life-force in us all.

Oh, and thought you bikie types might enjoy this Beloved rides a BMW but I have a Moto Guzzi. Not this exact bike, but one that looks a lot like it (0nly scruffier.) My poor old bike has been off the road for years, though. One of our ambitions is to own an actual garge with a concrete floor (the concrete floor is non-negotiable) where Beloved can play with engines to his heart’s content. He will take apart my bike and put it back together better than ever (especially the seat. The seat on my bike sucks) and we will ride off into the sunset together.