Turtle paradise

With winter being over, there is one member of our family who gets more excited than anyone else. More excited, and much more active.. Mate, the turtle has been making his presence felt – she is up every morning to greet K and I as we sluggishly make out way to the coffee, she is awake at night to come and sniff our feet (that cold little nose can give you the shock of your life when you’re not expecting it!) and she is hungry, hungry, hungry. Like ALL the time.

This morning, we were woken by a loud banging sound, and K, bless him, jumped out of bed, knowing exactly what the problem was. He had seen it/heard it before – Mate was trying to get out from under the TV cabinet and had got a cord caught on her shell. Unable to move forward, she was banging on the bottom of the cabinet until K went to the rescue!

After being pulled to safety, Mate strolled up the passageway (probably to catch a glimpse of my lover in the shower – it is a girl turtle after all – who can blame her!) and wandered around our bedroom. I came out to the loungeroom to start working, and when I went up to see what she was up to, I found her in the shower… And then the idea for turtle paradise struck.

I filled our big bath with lots of lots of water… making it twice as deep as Mate’s tank.. And in she went.. Turtle heaven. Mate could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she did some deep dives, swam a few laps underwater, blew some bubbles up (a sure sign of turtle happiness), and finally came up for air. It made my cold heart sing with joy to see her so happy!

My friend came over to visit and I wanted to show my newly emerged from hibernation, happy turtle off. Azza took one look at the bath and said to me, in a very disgusted tone, “No matter how much disinfectant or cleaner you use, I would never bath in that bath again.”

But what about the happy turtle? “Who cares?” said Azza, “it’s gross.”

Note to self: some people love the turtle. Other’s, not so much.

Airconditioning

As I’m sitting here writing, I have two men behind me arguing over my heating/cooling system. This is, hopefully, the last in a series of events that have dragged on and on for months. It all started… when we moved into our apartment. And the heating didn’t work. Not a big deal really, in March, when the weather is mild. But as the weather grew colder, we wanted some warmth.

I called my property agent, and he said he would sort it. Now, no offence to any property agents out there, but let’s be honest – when you’re dealing with rental properties that your company earns about $10 a week on, let’s be brutal, you don’t really give a large rodent’s behind.

I called my property agent about 10 times before he got someone out to look at the heating/cooling unit. The dude came and had a look and told me he would call me when the part he needed came in. 6 weeks and 10 more phonecalls. He came back. And got the thing working. For a week. Then it broke again..

After about call number 10 this time round, I was getting, let’s say, a wee bit frustrated. I rang at 8.45 in the morning and explained to my property agent, as calmly as I could that 1. it was cold in our flat. 2. he advertised heating when the apartment was advertised. 3. we don’t have heating. 4. he has promised us heating. 5. i was getting sick of calling him. and 6. that he was slack and i was getting frustrated.

And my wonderful property agent’s response? He replied with, “You know what? You are very mean? You even are calling me so early in the morning!” (my property agent isn’t a native English speaker – not sure if I did his heavily accented, extremely frustrated tones justice.) This was at about 9am by the way. 9am. I was at work. My colleagues were all at work. AND he called me nasty! I hadn’t even started!!

Anyway to keep to the programme.. I have two men in my apartment now, arguing over how to get the darn thing fixed. I don’t really care how they do it. It would just be nice to have some heat when it’s cold and some cold air when it’s hot. That’s not too much to ask is it? I don’t want to have to call my property agent again and get nasty..

** Just as an aside to this (not-very-interesting-venting-of-the-spleen) – the two men were hunched over the airconditioning unit, when Mate decided to come out and say hello. I have never seen to grown men (with a combined age of at least 100) jump so high in their lives! Farken hilarious!! x

Reporting in!

OMG!!! It’s been eons and eons… Anyhoo, so I have SOOOO much to blog here. For those ardent followers that have been reading my blog for a while now, you have all read about my various trials (many) and tribulations (fewer) on planet love – where the terrain is rocky and the journey strewn with hazards along the way – especially when you are walking the path with the dude I won’t even name – he who was abusive, foul and generally a not-nice guy.

Somewhere along the way, I parted ways with afore-mentioned inglourius basterd (or however they are mis-spelling it in the movies these days) and did some solo travels. Life was good, the view was clear, I was, like the Primal Scream song, movin’ on up.

And then I met K. Ahh K. Lovely, lovely K. And not only did the view get a whole lot better, but the journey much more fun – having someone who is as loose as me along for the ker-razy ride.

Anyway – enough with the bad travel analogy already.. my news is this:

K and I are engaged!!

Yay!! And life is good. The turtle is happy, the plants are all flowering in celebration, our friends and families are gorgeous. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Big love to all. And more soon. x

Mate/Poppy/Turtle update

What a crazy week last week was! The most popular character on this blog – Mate, the turtle – decided it was all too much.. actually, no, I’ll go back to the beginning..

A few posts back, I mentioned that K, the love, and I, had moved into a new apartment. And one of my concerns was that we have a balcony with gaps in the balcony that a silly little turtle could fall through.. So, I blocked up all of the gaps in one very busy afternoon – all the gaps around the bottom of the balcony.. (you can all guess where this is going). This was the only gap left:

The last remaining bastion of hope for my escapee turtle

Saturday, I went to meet a girlfriend for coffee and got a frantic phone call from K, saying, “the turtle is gone.” I thought he was joking but made my way home incase he wasn’t.. and he wasn’t. At all.

There was no other way for the turtle to escape than through the very narrow gap (we are talking – that turtle must have breathed in tighter than me on a Saturday night in leggings). The only problem being that after the gap – there is nothing but a 5 metre drop.. Straight down to the concrete below..

But there was absolutely no sign of him. Mate was gone. And no matter how much I prodded the grass around the pond near our building, I knew it was futile. There were tears. And lots and lots of guilt. But mainly, there was complete bewilderment: 1. How the hell did the turtle manage to get itself through the gap. 2. How did it survive the fall (as in – why wasn’t it a bloody mess at the bottom). And 3. Where did the little bugger go?

By about Wednesday, K had convinved me to put up some signs saying that we had lost our pet.. I was reluctant as was already feeling guilty enough – I didn’t want to put up a sign, only to get no response.. but I did. And sure enough, two days later – at 7.30 on Friday morning, someone rang.. they had found the turtle and taken it to the local vets.

So, long story short, a multitude of phonecalls later, we located the turtle – curiously, at a vet on the other side of the bridge, which happened to be about 5 minutes away from my work.. We went for a visit on Friday night, before being able to pick her up on Monday. You’ll notice, I said “her”… The vet let us in on a very interesting piece of information – and that was that Mate, our favourite “him” or “it”, was in fact “Materella” – ie. Mate was a girl-turtle.

(* I just want to say that I blardy always knew that – that turtle always had WAY too much attitude to be a boy turtle.. and the fact that it has incessantly been trying to escape – she was singing “I am woman, hear me roar!” as she was bungee-ing (sans rope) off the balcony!)

Anyway, the turtle is back – albeit a wee bit of it shell is not. Picture attached. And we have named her “Poppy” – because we got her back on Anzac Day weekend.. the Aussie-Kiwi Connection as well – for those in the know!

Here are the damages – thank the flying spaghetti monster that they aren’t worse!

My suicidal turtle

Mate, the turtle, made the journey with K (the love) and I up to Sydney. He hated the travel in the shoebox so much that he sulked for two week after we arrived – to the point where K was treating him like a teenage son: “Is that turtle going to get up today? It’s 11 o’clock?” or “Is the turtle going to grace us with his presence this afternoon?” or my personal favourite: “All that turtle ever does is sleep his day away! Doesn’t he have things to do?”

It took me a few days to convince K that in actual fact, the turtle did not have things to do.. see life is pretty simple when you’re a turtle.. You get up, you maybe crawl out from under the towel your very kind owner has put you under the night before, you mope around the place, going nowhere in a hurry, you eat some beef heart, or turtle tucker, or if afore-mentioned owner is being really lazy, pellets, you maybe do a poo, have a swim, and then go back under your towel for another 36-48 hours of sleep. It’s a good life if you can get it..

So why then, is mate the turtle now a little bit suicidal? We have moved into an apartment building and we have a balcony. (You have probably already guessed that we aren’t on the first floor!) And unfortunately for us, Mate can fit under the railings of the balcony… and doesn’t seem to have any qualms with stretching his elongated neck over the edge to see what is all those metres below – with me holding him tightly so he doesn’t accidentally stretch too far. I’ve had some friends staying (the Irish princes) and they suggested that surely the turtle was too smart to throw itself off the ledge.. but I don’t think so. Turtle’s brains aren’t very big, you see, and I don’t think their spacial awareness is as.. existant.. as ours. Besides which, even if hewas spacially aware, that turtle is a risk taker – I have seen it do some very, very dumb things..

So – I spent a very industrious afternoon making “turtle safety barriers” to go under the balcony railings – I’m not sure why you cant buy them, I’m sure there must be a huge demand for them.. and do you know what the turtle has done ever since I thwarted his kamikaze attempts.. that’s right – went and sulked under the towel – I haven’t seen him for days!!

A long overdue update..

Forgive me brothers and sisters for I have sinned – it has been AGES since I my last confession.

So here goes. I met the boy, we lurve each other, we did the back and forth, back and forth, and I mean in the interstate-romance-kinda-way for those of you with your mind in the gutters. I moved to Sydney, the job is going well, my car made the journey and is fabulously enjoying being driven around Sydney-town, the friends are all glad to have me back, Ma and Pa are fine, my bro gets more in love with god and the baby jesus every day, my Grandpa is still alive, the crew are all rocking along, Azza G had a nose job (and it is as FABULOOSE as he is, btw), Ellareah (flatmate-that-I-love) is missing me in Melbourne, but I’m heading down this weekend for a music festival and some QT with her, my ex-flatmate Philomena has moved back to these fair shores and my two gorgeous Irish princes are staying with me at present.

So, in a nutshell, life is good. Headline of the weak is that the turtle is trying his hardest to commit suicide off my new balcony. Everyone keeps trying to convince me that he won’t.. but I know one thing that they don’t. And that is – that the turtle is really not that smart. Actually, his brain is about the size of half a cheezel, and he doesn’t get the concept that the four metre plunge will result in his untimely death.. all he sees when he pokes his little head over the balcony edge is adventure, ADVENTURE, ADVENTURE!! Not the smartest creature on god’s earth, that is fer sure! (I used the G-word for you brother!)

Anyway, I’ve been inspired by my friends new blog – well done Pandora – keep up the good work. I’ve added a link to her page so please check back to see what we’ve both been writing. Big love to all. x

End of the holiday blog, and back to normal rambling..

I didn’t get too far with writing about my holiday, did I?

Oh well. A few concerned onlookers have asked why I haven’t been writing.. and the truth is – life has been getting in the way. Things have been busy, busy, busy since getting back from my holidays (which was about 3 months ago). I have loads to write but will keep it concise for you now.. with hopefully (?) some elaboration in later posts..

The man. Yes. Cinderfarkenrella has a new love. And no, it’s not the pot-smoking bogan.. It’s a lovely boy I met at a bar at stupid o’clock in the morning after a good few hours of bevaraging imbibing. He thought i was hilarious when in actual fact I was drunk, and we have gone from strength to strength ever since. Life is good.

The job. Still doing nutso hours and pretty over it. The less said, the better, but let’s blame a certain large Aussie Telco for this blog not getting updated regularly. They kill me.

The flatmate-that-I-love. I still love her, even though she is not longer my flatmate. My boy (let’s call him “K”) thinks we might be lesbians, only because we hang out so much. And we might be. Who’s telling? Heh, heh. JOKES!

Mate the turtle – is still being the best thing ever. He rocks. Everyone needs a turtle as a pet.

Cars – well, here is an update.. I got rid of the car I had with the stupid ex – that was after the blardy thing decided to blow a tyre about 150KMs out of Melbournio on the Hume Highway at 10.30 at night. Of course, I had been on the phone so had no battery with which to call the RACV to come and rescue me. After a bit of a “toughen up sunshine” inwardly-directed pep talk, I got down to changing the fricken tyre (in the dark, on the side of the highway, on my own – the shizzle B-grade horror movies are made of!), but I tell you, that was the last straw.. I was determined to get rid of that car the next day, even if it meant throwing it into the cap of some beggar on the street. It’s day was numbered. And, as the universe always comes through for me, the next day, when I took my car to get the tyre changed, someone, I kid you not, offered to buy the car off me. I was like – what?!?!? So, yup – sold the car to some vehicle broker who happened to be at Beurepaires Tyres. And that night – the Chiko roll mobile went to a lovely couple who came to inspect/buy it.. So the next day. I bought myself the convertible I have wanted for a while. I just like being able to say I’ve been driving around topless!

Anyway, I think that that is enough of an update for today. Big love to all and thanks for always checking back. Will write again real soon! x x

Update on the family(s)

Work has calmed down again which means more time for Scrabulous (have had to re-activate stale games), MSN and of course, cinderfarkenrella.. I can probably even find a few inneresting things to write as well.. (here’s hoping anyway..)

So, firstly to my old man darling dad, because I know a few of you love hearing about the dude. He is settling into his new life in “the ‘go” – for those not in the know, “the ‘go” is Bendigo (www.bendigotourism.com) – a town a couple of hours away from Melbourne – which means it’s close enough to see him more frequently than I have done in past years, but not too close that he can choose to just “drop in”. Sweet. Anyway, he is studying which is great, except that his loving daughter is has to help him with his assignments.. Not so great. But anyway. Otherwise, the love it doing well and cruising along.

For those who didn’t realise, my parental unit split in half to become two units at the end of last year and in typical my-family-style kinda way, dad thought “farrrrk this” and moved interstate to get as far away from things as possible.. Some people call it escapism, we like to call it “next!!”

Mum is good too and chillaxing without the dad to look after. She is same old, same old – an earth mother that doesn’t get stressed about anything – the ultilmate cool cucumber. And bro is too. Not much to report for either of them. They just rock as normal.

Closer to home, with my Melbourne family. Flatmate-that-I-love is gearing up for her big move (out).. We are both excited and, as she is moving about 200 metres away, we are working out the roster for whose house we stay at each night.. it will probably be mine when I’m cooking and hers when we go out to eat.. (heh, heh!).

And the other beloved family member, Mate, the turtle is being a little bit loving towards flatmate-that-I-love and I at the moment.. He keeps wanting to sit on our feet. Not sure if it something to do with the warmth or whether he is just being odd, or perhaps whether he has deep-seeded emotional issues. We’re not complaining anyway, it makes a vast improvement from him sulking under the lounge and never coming out to play.

So all in all, life is good. Hello to everyone and thanks for checking back even though I was being completely negligent when it came to my blogoriffic activities. Love all your collective gutses. x x

Mates for mates

Flatmate-that-I-love recently bought an apartment (congrats Ellereah – it’s gonna be great!!) and is moving around the corner. I am so excited for her as it has been something she has looked forward to for a while. But there is one member of our household that I think will be devastated when she goes and I don’t know how to explain to him that his other mummy has gone away.. Mate the turtle isn’t going to know what’s hit him when the flatmate no longer leaves her knickers on the floor for him to sleep in.

But not as concerned as I am for my flatmate.. She is going to love having her own place and love having her own space.. but I think she might miss the little thing that she has come to love nosing up against her foot when she turns the kettle on in the morning, or comes out to surprise her from under the couch when she is watching TV. (I secretly think she is going to miss having Mate go through her smalls when they have fallen off the clothes horse also, but we won’t go there). So I suggested to flatemate-that-I-love that I get her another turtle as a housewarming gift. They are the easiest things to care for – I go away for a week and Mate hibernates under the couch, he is so low maintenance it’s not funny, and he is clean and cosy wandering around the loungeroom.

I just need to convince the flatmate that it’s a good idea..

Melburn

Hi all! My last post for 2007. So, back in the southern city after a pleasant drive through the South Australian and Victorian outback (!). Was with my dad (see the earlier Elton John entry for a pic) and was trying to tell him how much better the drive (and I) would be if we were in a convertible cruising through the sunny, hot countryside. Dad was having none of it (it’s a waste of money, not sensible, you’ve got a good car (ie. the afore-mentioned chiko roll mobile), etc, etc (whatevs!)). In the end, I gave up trying to convince him – I figure, I’ll just rock up to his house one day when he least suspects it and ask him if wants to take a drive with the top down. He’ll be won over for sure…

Anyway, so back now to my home sweet home and my wife, and man, oh man, it is warm alright. 42 degrees today, which for an Adelaidean like me, is a normal summer day, but for someone who has been living in fair Sydney-town for far too long – roasting! Luckily, my gorgeous flatmate and I are sorted for our summer and inspite of 3a water restrictions, we filled up our fabulous pool and jumped on in. Instructions for use: Pool is best enjoyed after quite a few glasses of cask whoite woine and fun for the whole family – turtles especially love it.

 

We’ve only had it up for a couple of days, and I think I’ve already spent a good ten hours in it. If I didn’t have my father staying in my room (which overlooks the pool), we might have even had some German boys back for a Saturday midnight (3am?) dip – not as good as Coogee on a Sunday night, but not bad… Bwahhahahahaa!

Back by popular demand…

I’ve recieved a few requests for an update on the most-favoured member of the household (sorry, flatmate-that-I-love)… Well, all, despite having a bad attituude and a death wish at times, Mate, the turtle, is doing well – he cruises around our loungeroom like he owns the joint and occasionally making a bid for freedom out the back door (thus far all have been thwarted, though there have been some close calls) as well as getting right in amongst my flatmate’s smalls when she leaves them hanging low on the clothes’ horse (which begs the question.. does she do this deliberately? I don’t wanna know..).

So, here’s a pic to sate everyone’s curiosity. You can also take note of the empty pots which used to have plants in them until the possums enjoyed one of their bacchinalian feasts at the expense of some rosemary, violets, and others that I can’t remember, but loved for a good few days.

Lesson of the day

Just wanted to pass on a bit of wisdom that was passed onto me just the other day. As I mentioned, I had a good friend down visiting me on the weekend. As also mentioned, my flattie and I were out meeting (dodgy) guys on Saturday night. What I didn’t mention was that the dodgy guys ended up back at our place (with my big, burly mate there to protect us from untoward behaviour!) to watch the rugby. England won (whatever!).

My flatmate and I were being the hostesses with the mostesses with chips and dips, beer, wine and soft drinks.. All was good. We were happy. We were content. And we wanted to share the happiness and contentment with the other member of our household. We didn’t want our little pet to feel left out. So, I got down on my hands and knees (not a pretty sight – my big backside flashing the world!) and fished the turtle out from under the couch.  And my flatmate and I proceeded to fawn over our little guy, while he tried desperately to open his eyes in a bid to have a clue about what was going on (it takes him/her/it a while to wake up after sub-couch-hibernation).

Our new best friends were not impressed. In fact I would go so far as to say that they were quite disgusted. Which could explain why they beat a hasty retreat without even asking for our phone numbers.

My bestie then handed over this little pearl of wisdom: “Girls. When you meet guys, and bring them back to your house. Maybe it’s not a good idea to get the turtle out. People might think you’re a bit strange.”

But, believe it or not people, this isn’t the lesson of the day. The lesson of the day is this: “If the dude’s not down with the turtle. He’s not down with me.”

 Viva la mate forever!

Cleaning the turtle – part II

I noticed a few people find this site by doing a google search on “how do I clean my turtle?” and I was a bit worried, because if you read the blog entry they will come to, it doesn’t offer any advice. In fact, it goes so far as to say that I won’t even feed my turtle, let alone clean it! So probably not good to take my blog’s word on the whole turtle cleaning thing.. except that.. I have done some research. And apparently you’re not really meant to clean them at all. The sludge on the back of the shells is meant to be good for them and contains good bacteria etc for them..

However, if you’re like a lot of the people doing searches on google (and again, I only know this because I did the search myself) and actually looking for how to clean turtles in order to eat them – keep on looking, this is really not the site for you!

Cleaning the turtle?!?

Just a quick one today.. I was msn’ing a friend last night and conversation eventually moved to my turtle. My friend related a tale about how she was in pre-school and there was a pet turtle in her class (not actually in her class, but you know what I mean). Some bright spark decided to clean the moss and other ’gunk’ that inevitably accumulates on the turtle’s shell… After a few weeks, and much to the horror of the 20 four-year-olds who rushed to see the turtle every day, the turtle passed on to the great big turtle-pond in the sky, which is when it was agreed that cleaning it’s shell must have either removed all the necessary-to-live bacteria, or at least have given it a very nasty shock.. Anyway. The point of my story was that my friend told me NOT to clean my turtle’s shell. Which, as it stands, is good advice. But then I thought about it. It’s even better advice when you think that my friend actually thinks that I might ever be bothered to clean my turtle’s shell. Honey, you know who you are, thanks for thinking that it might actually happen. But I just want to say this. I hardly ever even feed my turtle, so the chance of it being cleaned is nil at best. But big love to you for thinking that I am way less lazy that I actually am!

Spiderturtle

So I have a pet turtle and he/she is great company – low-maintenance, not demanding at all, I just wished my loved one could take a leaf out of it’s book… So, I built a little turtle run along the side of my house and I was pretty proud of my efforts until about the third thwarted bid for freedom. I could not work out how the damn thing was escaping – there was fencing all around, including on the ground in case it wanted to make like a rabbit and dig… I was absolutely stumped! So I undertook some reconnaissance (watching him through my loungeroom window – he thought he was undetected – ha, ha!) and discovered this:

It  was going OVER the two-foot high fence – who knew turtles could climb?!?!?