27 August 2010

Many happenings and events. Last weekend Helen and I had an action packed time as we had a few shows booked for the Darwin Festival (booked before she started to lose her eyesight). We wondered for a bit whether it was worth going but decided to push on. Susan (Louis' lovely friend from Castlemaine) came too and helped with the logistics of wheelchairs, impaired vision, impaired hearing etc and it was a great success. Sunday night we joined a crowd of 3000 at the Darwin Gardens Amphitheatre to see Tex Perkins' tribute to Johnny Cash. We peeled off at interval avoiding crowds but got to hear Walk the Line and the "I got married in Jackson..." song plus a bunch of interesting history bits and pieces. That night Helen's older brother Robin from Melbourne and younger sister Jennifer from New Zealand and Jenifer's husband Ron all arrived for a visit so the next few days had lots of social aspects. Monday Helen had to have a routine staging CT scan at RDH which went well and was over quickly (apart from the nurses bozing the IVC insertion and getting me to do it for them). Then Susan, Helen and I joined Louis at Helen's friend Shirley's house and had a sneak preview of her completed self portrait for the Senior Territorian Awards. Helen couldn't really see the detail of it but was able to imagine to a certain extent having seen the work in progress. We shared lunch then returned to hang out with the family.Tuesday Louis headed off to Brisbane for a week or so. Helen had a lovely afternoon in the hammock being rocked by Jennifer and that evening Helen, Bilha, Susan and I went to Head Full of Love at Browns Mart. It was a very special performance and although challenging without much vision we had great seats right at the front (courtesy of the wheelchair), lovely beanies to wear (courtesy of Bilha) and at times the actors considerately positioned themselves right in front of Helen where she could get a bit of an impression of what was going on.
Wednesday was also action packed - the last day for the family visitors. Robin and Helen read some of The Orchard together. Ron was inspired to support me in my ambitions to buy a second hand spa for the garden and he and Robin and I spent the afternoon driving to stonemasons, hiring trailers, trying to borrow wheelbarrows and levels, eventually stealing (temporarily) a wheelbarrow which turned out to have a broken wheel and finally resorting to buckets! Ron and Robin moved a 1/2 metre of gravel through the back fence using only buckets and a shovel in less than 2 hours and built me a level pad awaiting spa arrival! I felt blessed. Photographs of spa will follow when the project is completed.

Meanwhile the other garden/house news is that the chickens have been rehomed at Humpty Doo with David and Tamara and their kids where we home their excessive tameness will be a positive rather than the burden it was becoming for us. Here's some last chicken photos of Susan with a chicken pretending to be a bird of prey....