TinnerStreet

This is also posted on my own blog, but I thought many of you haven’t seen much of Willow so I wanted to share it here too.

For those who don’t know much about my furiend, Willow, I want to just let you know a little bit about her. I rescued her when she was 4 months old and her earlier life she appeared to be a bit of a loner from what I could gather, not really mixing with the other kittens or older cats much. She kept to herself. Along I came and whisked her away from Sydney (I was down there on a trip), so a quick call to the airline “oh, there will be two passengers returning to the Gold Coast” (Queensland) and we flew back. She was really brave, I hated putting a young cat/kitten through something like that so young but she was of legal flying age for pets so we did it. Below is Willow not long after she’d moved in with me, she quickly realised she could share the bed.

I know most cats have similar characteristics, if you’re reading a newspaper, they want to lay across it to get your attention and various other things, well my little miss isn’t quite what you’d call ‘cat like’. Sure she does some things that would lead you to believe she’s a cat but they’re few and far between. She very quickly looked to me as her role model and tries to copy what I do with so many things. It’s quite funny at times.

You’ll see from the below slideshow some of her antics, she loves riding around on my back – not good for someone with a back condition, if I’m not careful and don’t know she’s about to jump on me, she can knock me to the floor. I don’t drink out of the toilet bowl though, she didn’t pick that one up from me. But one thing she has to do is share whatever I’m eating or drinking. She just comes along and helps herself to my glass of water sitting on the desk when she feels thirsty – even though she has two bowls of water around the house. She tries to work out what I do with the straw – how do I get the drink through it? If I’m eating, it doesn’t matter where, she wants to share it and will bug me until I do. I’m currently on a diet using one of those diet drinks (chocolate flavour), she loves it too and insists on sharing it with me. *sigh*

Whatever I pick up out of the fridge, or pantry she wants to know what it is and can we share it? She loves green vegetables too. Some things she turns her nose up at (thankfully) but other things she gets really excited about. I can’t do much without her zooming in on me. She comes to the toilet with me (I know other cats do that with their people), she actually isn’t a quiet cat, she wears combat boots, so whenever she jumps down from something, you can hear her easily because it’s a thud. She can’t hunt, she’s not sure how it works, she definitely hasn’t got a grasp on the stealth factor yet and I won’t teach her that one. She’s terrified of our pet cockatiel and our guinea pigs. She gets excited when she sees insects but sees them mostly as play things and has no idea how to catch them unless I catch it and give it to her, then they escape.

Her favourite insects are cockroaches, we get a variety of native roaches and introduced ones here, living near the coast unfortunately attracts them. Willow’s favourite game is to chase a cockroach, smack it until it lands on its back and then she pulls their legs off and generally will leave a leg or two under the covers in my bed for me (okay, that’s cat like), that’s how I know there’s a cockroach in the house to dispose of!

There are a ton of other things, but I can’t think of them now and this is getting long enough, so I’m going to share a few photos of her, some I’ve captioned and done lolcats of for added silliness (try and imagine how a cat might speak to understand it). Hope you enjoy! Some may have seen some of these pictures already, but I’ve got new ones in the mix.

Click on the thumbnail to see the larger picture.

Today’s input contains a lot of photos, and that may be the end of my pictorial story.  We start with the frame in place to pour concrete for the 3rd hole.

Of course, there is a lot to do around this hole yet; the concrete has to be poured around the frame, for a start, and the various pipes inserted into it.  One lot will take the water away, while the smaller ones will bring waste water from the culvert, and into the drain for dispersal.   The ‘old’ pipe in the front of the picture is the one which was put down many years ago, but it is time that it was retired.

The photos above both show the 3rd ‘reservoir’ before having its roof put on,

and this one shows the inlet pipe from the culvert and our drive behind.

We can drive into the drive at least, with a little care.

The fourth hole?  Another one??  That is four in about 30 feet.  And from the end of the roadworks, at this stage, it looks like this -

It has been an interesting project, following the work, and Wendy sent an email congratulating the men on the work they had done.  Our neighbour has been complaining bitterly, even though he was the main instigator in having the work done in the first place.   There are idiots everywhere.

Most of you who may read this are likely to have heard lots of tales of Mum and Dad’s cockatiel, Spike. I’ve seen many an email or card come acknowledging him, you’re all secret Spike fans I know Well, here’s a little tale of Spike hot off the press. Today, as dad was finishing washing the dishes, Spike decided that since the tap was on, he’d duck under and have a ‘bath’. We have a double sink and he walks down the middle of it and dips himself in the water as it’s running (though we have to turn it down to low so we don’t drown the poor little mite.

What’s funnier about today’s ‘bath’ was that he got himself so wet that he slipped into the sink, it didn’t seem to bother him at all. Dad picked him out and he sat there looking totally bedraggled. If he only has a small shower he let’s himself dry off but when he has a bigger ‘bath’ he likes mum to help him dry off with the hair dryer – check out the photos below. (Mum still needs to clean under his tail, he’s not as fussy about it as we are).

To see the full sized photos, click on the thumbnails to open the slideshow.

Dad found this great photo on the Geograph British Isles Website – I like his sign. Here’s a challenge, can you come up with a caption for him? No prizes, it might just be a bit of fun!

Teddy Bear made with hay bales

Picture Source: Teddy Bear © Copyright Galatas and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Here I am, writing yet another episode in our saga, and I wonder whether I should call it something like “The various levels of our street”?  No, I will leave it as it is.   I include the photos as I think of the saying that one picture is worth a thousand words; that is a load of rubbish of course, as you could describe the subject of my photos in very few words, as I have.  In fact there is a question which you may be able to answer for me – if the picture says it all, why do I write a short caption underneath it?  Ah, got you this time, haven’t I?

Today, the series starts off with a photo of …..

Stuart and Pam (I had managed to stagger on to the verandah with my heavy bag, of a packet of biscuits.)  Oh yes, it took all three of us, as the car was down the street, and there was plenty to carry.  I should have thunk quicker though, as I could have sent Stu back for another load, thereby making my job redundant.

It is late afternoon, or getting on to that, so the activity on the road is to pack up to go home.  I must admit that I have enjoyed watching the action – I have spent a little time out there over a few days – and the reason for that is that I love to see experts doing what they are expert in.  I like to see the way they tackle their work so easily, taking up so little time whereas I would still be thinking of what to do next.

This is the second ‘sink hole’, which will hold water from the roadway in heavy rain, as it releases it to the system of pipes under the road which I, and through my pictures, you have seen built into a waste water system.   This second hole is right outside our house, and opposite the gutter which has been pinched.  In this photo you can see a little of our drive in the foreground and the edge of the safety frame on the right.

The photo above shows – 1) the new pipe coming into the sink hole, or small reservoir, and in the foreground, 2) the very old pipe which as been the sole way of moving waste surface water from the area behind us (Dolphin Avenue and the Gold Coast Highway) in the past.  That pipe took the water across our street, under the garage of the house opposite, and through a small estate of homes, until emptying into a canal about 500 metres away, picking up surface water as it went.   You do not have to be too smart to know that that old pipe would have had great trouble keeping the water level down.  Of course, that pipe would have been laid between 20 and thirty years ago, so we cannot really criticise decisions made and work performed at those times, but there are neighbours who are doing, of course.  Not surprising, is it?

This is another view of the third sink hole, and the two pipes.  The old one on the right will be cut and directed into the hole, so that any surface water coming along that line will be collected by our new drains.  Then, that pipe will be blocked to avoid any water running back, which it shouldn’t anyway.

This shot is taken from our house – see our pink drive in the foreground – along the nature strip of the next house, No 17, and to No 19, where our car is parked behind the digger.  We might be able to get our car into our drive tonight, but …   I might go to the library today.  I say that only to say that I will be able to go out with my books, and then bring my new books back, having a good look at the work as I do.  That way, the workers will not get the impression that I am keeping an eye on them, even though I am.  Damn it, I have to wait for an hour before there is any movement out on the road.