A Wet New Year

And so 2010 is done and dusted and the new year looms all shiny and slick, mostly its the sheen of water running across it from all the rain we have had so far. And we aren't even in the thick of it. SE QLD for example is crazy with floods. Whilst I sit here with cabin fever at being locked in a house minus my better half (who is away for work all week) I really shouldn't complain. There are thousands of people in my beloved QLD who have been, and will continue to be, flood-bound for weeks.
Behind me my boys plot to shoot me with nerfed guns and ball launchers. Their whispered commands and 'shushes' followed by a badly aimed ball and a torrent of giggles makes me smile. Things could be worse.
The book has been building like the floodwaters trapped inland. I've had a house full of visitors since before Christmas and toddling off to write when friends want to catch up is bad form. I left the story hanging by a tentacle so I'm itching to get back to it, and there is a lot in my head that wants to get out. It will spill across the screen like the Big River's broken banks if I don't get into it soon, but tonight I have promised my eldest I'll watch Avatar with him. I haven't seen it (YES I KNOW) so I don't know if it will be okay for him. I figure if I'm there he can be shielded from any truly disturbing stuff, but from what I've heard it should be cool. He has watched Pirates of the Caribbean plenty of times so I doubt the aliens in Avatar will freak him out any more than the zombified Pirates of the Black Pearl.

A Blank Canvas

I think it is trying to test our resolve, this house on the hill.  Delays of cataclysmic proportions have included a twenty year flood, and the resulting destruction and havoc that entails for us living on the Big River.  We  have also had all kinds of legal hooplah, bank debacles, and just plain weird goings on setting things back.  

In truth the flood wasn't so bad for us, stuck in Iluka we had only cabin fever to be truly worried about.  This place got hammered not only by the floods, but the herd of cattle that were brought up the road from a nearby farm.  They seemed to think our driveway looked good, and headed up, only to be chased back down and through our gorgeous old post and rail fence- which still sits partially demolished on our front lawn.  One of many jobs to do on our little patch of land.  We have had the driveway resurfaced, and plan to strip and redo both bathroom and ensuite, toilet and laundry also.   We need a fence built, and piles of rubbish torn up and taken away (we refuse to burn everything as is the custom here).

The title of this ramble reflects the yard outside my kitchen window, which was previously known as the 'Tick Garden' after all the lovely, minute grass ticks that infested anyone foolish enough to enter it's tangle web of lantana and other wonderfully noxious weeds. Two hours of excavator and bobcat work saw to it though, leaving a slope of stripped earth with the odd stubborn root and strewn boulder to tell of it's past glory.  It will soon become a rolling lawn with raised cubby house and aforementioned boulder lined garden beds.  Plenty of work there too.  Which brings me to my last point (hurray).

I have never felt so tired and so alive on a day to day basis as I do here at Bandicoot Hill.  Sure we're not sleeping for longer that a two hour interval throughout our nights.  And I am sure I have picked up a couple more ticks in the last two days, yet I am still at peace almost all of the time (sleep deprivation side effects aside).  I am living on the land, by a river and it's warm.