my burnt garden

ROSE
This is my rose garden after last week's 40+degrees (105degrees f). the roses were struggling with the drought but i think i have lost them now.


ROSE BED


BURNT ROSES


FUCHSIA
This is what 's left of my standard Fuchsia.


GERANIUMS
Even the most hardy plants suffered.


CAMELIA
This 40 year old camelia might not survive to its 41st year.

Boxing Day Sale

Hi everyone,

I have been looking at all your posts and comments.
Hope you all had a merry Christmas?
Helen and I went to the boxing day sales because Helen wanted a portable d.v.d.
we found one at a well known electrical goods store (not Harvey Norman). When we went to plug it in it didn't start. I was already wary of this store as i had an experience once before with a computer dvd which worked for a few minutes then nothing. We had taken it back to the salesman who took it out the back to test it and then came back out and said that it was working fine. He wouldn't let us see it working on a computer and because we had already opened the package we couldn't have our money back or an exchange. This is so stupid as to find out if it is faulty you would have to try it first!
Needless to say i was worried we would have problems.
We went back the next morning and the man looked at it closely and said their was fingerprints on it. Mind you we had it for less than 24 hours. Mark said of course there was, we had to open the lid after all. Sure enough he sent it out the back to test it. Guess what? He said it was working! Mark said what about the charger and the man plugged it in and it didn't come on so we were right, yay!.
So they got another charger from another box and yes it did worked.
What was strange was that he could have given us a new box and kept ours. The store manager asked him why he didn't do that too. He just gave her a look and said he only needed to replace the faulty charger because our dvd player was working okay. Therefore I think the same thing happened to some one else earlier. Because we got a faulty charger with the dvd player that we purchased. The box had already been opened.
I have heard a lot of complaints about this store. They are very reluctant to give you your money back.

My Prize won for me by Kooka

This is what we won at our church fair. I have waited years
to win this. Mark bought 3 more tickets at the last minute.
It was a bit embarrassing as Mark was asked to draw out the raffle ticket.
To his dismay he said it was his ticket. He asked if he should draw another ticket.
I hoped that he wouldn't draw another raffle ticket and luckily everyone said that he won it fair and square.

This is a picture of my happy wanderer over the arch way. It has taken many years to get to this size. Sadly the flowers are just finishing:



Here is a close up:



This our jasmine at our front door. The perfume is devine. It was here when we bought this place twenty-seven years ago. It has survived all these years despite Mark's heavy handed hacking. I remember when my parents came to visit and were aghast at Mark's handiwork. He wasn't forgiven until after it had started to grow again. ha ha ha lol

When did my daughter become me as the mother?

Role reversal is happening.
Yesterday Helen and i were crossing our very busy road and i said "i can't see the cars coming!" because a 4 wheel drive was blocking my view.
Helen said, "don't worry." I can see," she says grabbing my sleeve. "when i say go, we go!".
Half way across I'm thinking oh my God, i just put all my trust into her hands and hoped that we would get across in time.
When did she grow up? It has happened in a blink of the eye.

Hi everyone,
Been doing the rounds of every one's blogs and just thought I'd give you an update.
My step-mum is alright. She has left hospital after a week there and has gone to a rehab place for about ten days to recover. The stroke has given her a bit of dementia or it could be old age or a bit of both. Anyway apart from that she is going home next Tuesday.
I am having the one day off for a while and was really looking forward to it when the phone rang at 9pm last night asking if i could do the kitchen upstairs tomorrow which is our dementia unit. Naturally i said sorry i can't do tomorrow.
It is cold here so a nice relaxing day inside with the heater on will be nice.
We have been hearing about the fires in California and Australian firefighters are being sent over to help.
Thanks all of you for your concern with my step-mother.

Best wishes Jo.

It is mid-winter here and this is a picture of our wattle tree in full flower.



Also last Thursday I got a call from my brother to say my stepmother had a mild stroke. She had a big stroke 18mths ago so this was not a surprise. She seems ok at the moment and is relieved that she dosn't need surgery again. We don't know how long she will be in hospital. Apparently she fell as she was saying goodbye to her daughter. The nurses think that she had the stroke after her fall.



Hope you all had a great Independence Day!!

Jo.