Instant Winter

Winter's slammed into town with roaring cold winds and rain, about time! We'll be whingeing about it by the end of the week, but god it's nice not to be hot. Loving the sound of constant rain all day on the tin roof. Grow, garden, grow!

The mallee fowl has moved in to the bushes next to the north fence, it seems happy. Yesterday as we drove in, a family of mulga parrots were relaxing around the roo pond, a rare sight - they look like a cross between parrots and budgies, vivid aqua-green in colour. Also have a new honeyeater coming in to the bird feeder, haven't identified it yet (there's like 70 million varieties of honeyeater in the bird book, and it's not like you can go tell the bird "Hey, have you got a tiny yellow streak under your left wing during mating season or what?").

Meeka madness continues - two scrub fires to put out in one week, my tenant is in jail, a car exploded at the tip (more fires) and anticipated feral behaviour at the kids' weekend gymkhana caused three days of alcohol restrictions to be clamped down on the town. Our terrified Sri Lankan friend Bithun looked after the camp during the gymkhana while we were away and managed to survive, clinging to Honey in the darkness.

I got a phone call from my tenant Dave's mad Russian girlfriend a few days ago to tell me that Dave is in jail for some kind of complicated accidental "receiving of stolen goods" vehicle offence or something (you can never make any sense out of these kinds of stories in Meeka). Poor girl is only twenty years old, has just started her first job working at the hospital, and was beside herself about the rent, trying to clean the house up for the sale photos and of course wondering what's happening with crazy Dave.

Dave gets out in two weeks apparently, so I told Ali not to worry about the rent because it's Dave's responsibility (he's always been good about paying up), and to call me if she's getting stressed out or needs anything. She doesn't really know anyone in town yet and has just come up from Perth, so the poor thing has no idea about the outback or dealing with a house or anything. She's very smart but very young. "You put your money away for yourself and give Dave a kick up the arse," was my advice. She's cleaning the house, and Gaz & I will go over next week to tidy up the yard.

Gary's doing the garbage man run for a week, I'm up to my knees in piles of filing crap, we have curry going on the stove and all the animals are sleeping under my desk while we sit out the storm. Heaven!