December Rain

As I went past the rain gauge on Saturday as I whipper snipped I tipped 25 ml out, which had fallen Friday night. I tipped out another 35 ml this morning which fell on Saturday night accompanied by much thunder and lightning.

Since my last post we've had a holiday to South Australia where we found considerable relaxation if not peace and quiet. We stopped overnight on day one at the Kaniva motel having failed to find a vacant cabin in the Nhill caravan park. We cooked on the communal barbecue in company with several shearers who were having a quiet drink after a long hard day. The motel owner had warned us there'd be some rough looking and talking characters at the barbie but they were "good boys" who often stayed there. Lib thought she brought some frozen steak but when she took it from the esky thawed out it turned out to be a big fish head, whatever that was doing in our freezer I know not, perhaps it was put in there with the intention of putting it in the bin on garbage day but was forgotten. We had enough sausages to get by.

The next two nights were in a motel in Adelaide, on Sth Terrace near wher Rob is living. Adelaide is great. The city centre is surrounded by parkland and it's an accessible city with excellent public transport. People are relaxed and friendly and there's far less traffic and hustle and bustle than Melbourne. We dined out at a Greek restaurant one night and a Chinese the other with Rob and his friend for company. We did a tour of the Adelaide oval and St. Peter's cathedral and explored the city.

We then moved south to the beach and stayed 3 nights in a cabin at Adelaide Shores caravan park which itself is only 15 minutes from the city. The airport is right next door so we watched (and heard) many planes coming and going. Saturday we went to Morphetville races just up the road with mixed result on the punt. Our best collect was when I put the money on the wrong horse for Lib, No 4 insted of 5, she didn't want me to but I went back and put some each way on No 5 and as luck would have it 4 and 5 came first and second. We drove to the Clare Valley one day and Maclarenvale another and bought some fabulous wine to enjoy over Christmas.

Everywhere through Western Victoria and rural S.A. the wheatfields looked fantastic and harvesters were busy and grain trucks delivered wheat to mountains of it in the storage yards. It was a great thing to see, and probably the best harvest for many years.

We've been back a week and I been very busy picking beech and flowers and catching up on bookwork, grass cutting, weeding and other business concerning the park and museum etc. Never a dull moment.

Gotta go, very tired. Great win by NZ in the cricket. As I write it's raining again, I can hear it on the roof. I hope the heavy rain has missed the broad acre crop areas. I must buy the Weekly Times on Wednesday to find out.