Home at Milnes Bridge

Steve didn't let the grass grow under his feet and we arrived home on the night of Tuesday Oct 12th.

Since then, he has been running around like a chook with his head cut off!
He brought Betty home from hospital last Monday and she has done very well.

In between times, Steve is cleaning up our house.  It is SO bad.  I retched when I first went inside --- the stink was overpowering.  Isn't it great that Steve can't smell!!!!    The mice have been everywhere except in the linen cupboard.  I'm grateful for small mercies.  Steve's cleaning has been meticulous -- just like I would do if I were capable.  He has amazed me!    He has disinfected the kitchen benches and cupboards to within an inch of their lives and finished the computer bench today.

On our first full day home, I put on a load of washing in the front loader in the van.  It did its various cycles as we watched TV and it wasn't until the end that I noticed a little water on the floor.   The more I looked, the more I found.  It had run down onto the lounge carpet and parts of that were squelching.  The weather was cool and it took more than 3 days to dry out.  We mopped it up with every towel we owned.

I'm now washing all the towels --- 3 dozen of them ---- and every other piece of material that was around the house.  The mice camped on everything.  Washing is something I can do --- about the only thing at the present time.

The phone wasn't working when we got home.   It was finally fixed yesterday --- it looks as though mice were to blame for that too.

One of my worries was that I would lose a large photograph that Harvey Norman, Moree,  had sent away for processing.  It should have been back before we left but it wasn't.   I rang them today and gave my name.  Before I could say anything else, the young man exclaimed, "Laurie Jenkinson".  I asked why and  he explained that he had his hands on my photo at that very moment.  Phew.  I haven't lost my money.

We had a visit from my Case Worker, Carol.  She offered help for cleaning up the house but I refused.  I just don't want anyone in there until every mouse sign has disappeared. 

So, we remain in the van until the time is right to move inside --- whenever that might be!!!

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On our way home

This is a very sudden take off.
Steve's Mother Betty went into hospital, with the same condition, a build-up of fluid, so we spent Friday and Saturday packing up and left on Sunday.  Tonight we are in Gilgandra.

We tried to think of everything that had to be cancelled, rearranged, picked up etc --- all except for paying the last few days of rent!    We were given the usual grand send-off and Lindy also rang tonight to see how far we got, so I don't think she is worrying about the rent!

We anticipate being home by Wednesday.

I plan to live in the caravan until I am satisfied that the house is clean and sweet.  Last time Steve went home, he cleaned up a lot of mouse droppings.  No doubt they will have played while we are away.

I planned to put some sounds here last week.   They were of two frogs croaking, one in a pipe and the other on the ground.  I had been wondering how best to capture the sound and Steve came up with the idea of using the video on the camera.   It worked brilliantly. 
Then I wanted to extract the sound, so I downloaded a program to do this.  It went through the motions but didn't make a playable file.   So I downloaded a second program.   It didn't make a difference either.  I think the problem must be Windows 7.   Now I've downloaded about 21Mb unnecessarily and to the detriment of our allocation.   I'll have to be careful until the end of the month!    If I can't find a way to put the audio here, I'll just put up the video and we can watch a black screen and pretend it is night while we listen to the frogs!

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