Car Crash, Anniversary and Fires.

A less auspicious start to 2009 is hard to imagine. Yes we are all still alive, we are all still in one piece and we are still together. It could have been so much worse, so I am very grateful. On the whole January itself was not bad. February however started off with Amy crashing Anita’s car into an embankment, and somehow rolling the car hitting another car on the passenger side rear door on the way down. Speed doesn’t look like a factor, but inexperience sure was.

She is ok. She rang us from the scene almost straight away; we left home immediately and headed toward the accident site. Anita and I managed to beat the ambulance there by about 15-20 minutes, and no, Glenn wasn’t driving, Anita was! She was talking, and the fact that she could call us gave us a good indication that she was not badly injured. When we got to her she was leaning against the bonnet of the car, being given some alternate healing by a lovely passerby who provided a beautiful calming influence. Thanks Chris. No broken bones, no large gashes or guts. A bump on the forehead, some scratches on her neck/upper chest, and lots of little nicks on her knee from the glass appeared to be her lot. Amy complained of a sore neck, and so when the ambulance arrived, she had a neck collar put on and was taken to hospital. She had precautionary neck x-rays and had to stay for few hours observation, and then she was allowed to go home.

She was ready to get back in the car the next day, and we actually drive out to the crash site and had a look. She remembers approaching the corner, but her next memory is of being upside down. There are no skid marks on the road, which makes me wonder whether the other car braked at all, especially as they told me they saw her coming for a fair way. I am not lessening what has happened, just wondering if some damage or risk could have been reduced. Maybe there is a good argument for all drivers to have to undertake some form of mandatory defensive driving course. Maybe all ‘P’ platers should before they get their full licence.

I am convinced that Amy had a Guardian Angel sitting on her shoulder that day. IT could have been so much worse. We might have been organizing a funeral instead of a new car. Yes the car is a right-off. There is hardly a panel that is undamaged, and apparently as soon as there is a crease in the roof line they right it off, or so I am told. We are waiting for the official reply from the insurance company. The people in the other car were fortunately okay. Only some minor cuts from a broken window to the rear seat passenger, and some mental trauma from a very close brush with a major accident. Their car was much newer, and had about $10,000 - $15,000 damage. I am not sure whether it will be a right-off or not.

So here is a summary. Amy is okay and has no lasting injuries, a few days later she had very minor bruising. She was blessed, God looked after her. The car is a wreck. The other people area okay. Anita will get a new car.

Six days after Amy crashed Anita and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary on the same day that Melbourne had its hottest day ever, and Victoria had its worst ever peace time disaster. The fires that swept the state have left hardly anyone untouched. If we don’t know directly someone who has been affected, I am sure we will know of people who have been affected. The media coverage has been so vast that it is hard for it to be otherwise. As for our little corner of the world, we were certainly smoke affected on Saturday, and we were under an alert from the CFA for a direct threat from ember attack. Evidence that they weren’t joking or over cautious was the fact that we had a fire about half a kilometre away as the crow flies. We were separated by the freeway and the railway line, but given the conditions of the day I am grateful that it was controlled quickly. As it was fires over the state had been spotting up to 20 kilometres ahead of the main fire front. We certainly had some large fires within 20 k. There was another fire about 3 kilometres away that required one of the Elvis helicopters to water bomb it. It was threatening homes right up to the fence lines, and could have been another disaster. We were in direct threat from that fire with the wind direction, and only realised later on how serious it really was.

Anita and I had booked a restaurant in Warragul for tea to celebrate our anniversary, and given the conditions we asked the kids whether they would feel safer if we stayed home. The decision from them was unanimous, so after organising them we headed the back way into Warragul as the freeway was closed due to the fires. When we arrived the restaurant was closed, and so were a few others. We decided we were being given a message, so we got some take away noodles and a bottle of Moscato from Brown Brothers and went home. That’s when we saw the water bombing helicopter coming to do its thing. We sat out on the front on the patio and ate our noodles and drank our wine, the hot weather reminding us very much of the 42 degree day 22 years ago when we got married.

The days after the fires that caused so much death and destruction were a bit sombre, and information was only coming to us from ABC Radio and the internet, as the Mt Tassie TV towers were damaged in the fires. The irony in that for me was that the only channel we could get was channel 10, which had been the channel with the worst signal prior to that. It took about 5 days for a decent signal to be restored to the others channels, and as I write this, we still have a channel or two that is down. But in the scheme of things that doesn’t matter, especially as I think of the people that have lost their lives and others who lost their houses and all their worldly possessions.

So I give thanks that we have our daughter and we have our lives, and we have each other. We are the fortunate ones.

Kids, kittens & tummy aches

Greetings to you on this first blog of 2009. Okay, I have copped a small amount of flak for being slack in updating the blog here. In my defence I have to say I have no defence, I am just slack. Okay, there, I said it. I actually don’t think I have been completely slack as I have been struggling a little with my health over the last 4-5 months. You may remember I had my Gall Bladder out back in October. That in itself was successful, but associated pain and nausea that I thought would GO when the Gall Bladder did, didn’t! In fact the nausea and pain got worse! BUGGER. There are a few things that make it worse, and they would be walking, exercising, eating, and bumps in the road. That last one is the killer.

As my job involves many hundreds of kilometres in a vehicle each work day, it sucks. Especially since country roads aren’t known for being pothole or bump free. And 4 or 5 year old Toyota Hiace’s aren’t known for their great suspension. The only thing that I have found that helps ease the pain isn’t medication, but an old motorcycle kidney belt. (Thanks Ken). I have been back to the surgeon, I have had an MRCP.

Definition of MRCP: Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography, an application of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to the hepatobiliary and pancreatic system. An MRCP uses an MRI machine with special software to obtain images comparable to the cholangiogram and pancreatogram obtained by the more invasive approach with ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) without the added risks of sedation, pancreatitis, and perforation. Definition courtesy of (http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=19514)

In other words, they use an MRI machine to take pictures of your tummy. The MRCP showed nothing wrong. Blood tests have returned to normal. So now I am off to have Gastroscopy (16th January ‘09) and an Endoscopy (26th February ’09). The Gastroscopy is no problems, BUT I am not looking forward to the endoscopy. I hate it when the put the camera where the sun don’t shine. I am just thankful that I am unconscious when they do it. The hardest part is actually the preparation. If you really want to know what it’s like, drop me an email and I will let you know, this isn’t the forum for that much detail.

Danger, Danger.

Sorry Amy, but people need to know. On the 29th of December, 2008, my first born got her licence to drive a car. So far so good, keeping all fingers and toes crossed, she hasn’t had an accident. I am not sure how many she has caused or how many close calls she has had. I don’t think she would fess up to that. But kudos to her, she got it. Her cat had a kitten back in November. That’s right, it’s not a typo, a kitten. One. He eventually got called George because he was very curious. I think he took a long time to get his feet steady because he had no brothers or sisters to push him, but he did. I enjoy seeing a kitten learning to do the things it should, it’s kind of like an accelerated baby to toddler stage. 0 – 2 years in 6 weeks. It either shows how complicated we humans are, or how lazy. But as our life span is much longer, I guess we win. We said goodbye to George yesterday, he went to a new home. It nice not to have to worry about getting a kitten pouncing on your feet while you’re making coffee. But I will miss him a little bit.

Katrina has been working part time at Sam’s Warehouse now for a few months, and has been getting a lot of work over the holidays. She is a good worker so I think she is among the first they call if they are short staffed. She has been working hard with her physio on the knee she injured playing netball, and now thinks she might be able to get back to playing netball this winter after a year off. A bit more hard work and she will get there. She still has the same boyfriend, Locky, and it doesn’t look like ending to soon, but you never can tell can you. Katrina’s next goal is to get her learner permit, and get her hours up so she can get her licence in 15 months time.

Late in December, we put a computer in Roberts’ room, so that he would be better able to do his homework in year 9. I struggled getting the cabling for the internet sorted out so I left it for a time when I was more mentally prepared to tackle the trouble shooting. Anyway, a week or so ago I felt that I was ready, I was cleaning out the office, getting rid of a lot of old bits and pieces of computers, which gave me space to get to the cabling that lead to the router from the various computer points we have set up. To cut an extremely long story a little bit shorter, when Amy painted her room last year, I tucked the network cable back in behind the wall plate, as she now has a laptop which connects wirelessly. And when I pulled the cable through into Roberts’ room some months later, I pulled the wrong cable through didn’t I. Well problem solved, Roberts happy, and so are his sisters because now he has the internet in his room we hardly see him anymore. With the X-Box and the Computer in his room now, he is as happy as a pig in mud. All he wants now is a DVD and a television aerial, both of which are a no-no as he still needs to learn some socialising skills.

Anita has been working hard in the shop, but took a few days off between Christmas and New Year. Her customers don’t seem to mind, and the regulars actually seem to encourage her to do it. Things are now nearly back to normal after the flood, with the last of the insurance money in so she can replace the stock she lost. It has certainly been interesting watching things in the shop and comparing it to the current world financial situation. I think we are lucky here in Australia, as I we haven’t yet been hit as hard as other countries, and Bizzy Bees is blessed in so much as we haven’t seen too drastic a drop in sales compared to a year ago. So it’s keep your fingers crossed time for Anita, and keep your toes crossed for Glenn that one of the scopes explains things, soon!

Happy 18th Amy

Well we all grow older. Except I think I feel a lot older than my daughter who just had her 18th birthday. Yes, Amy turned 18 on Wednesday 17th December, 2008. This is how we celebrated it.

Quite some time ago, Amy decided that she wanted a cocktail party for her 18th birthday. So she planned it, and she tried to open our pockets wide. Alcohol is damned expensive. So when you have a whole bunch of different cocktails with 2 to 5 different types of alcohol, setting up is not cheap. We don’t have an extensive bar, well we didn’t. We suggested that she try to limit the different number of cocktail drinks available to 6.

In November Amy and Katrina went on a shopping trip to DFO in Spencer St, Melbourne, there Amy found a bar tenders guide to mixing cocktails reduced about 70%. So she picked up the little bargain and trawling through the pages searching for yummy drinks. Keep in mind her experience of alcohol is limited, so her choice of drinks came down to colour and flavour, or it sounded nice.

So the final 5 (five), her choice, were, a Blue Lagoon, a Death By Chocolate, a Flirtini, A Heartbreaker, and a Midori Illusion. (Email me if you want the ingredient list). They average three different types of alcohol in each. That’s right; fifteen different bottles of alcohol were required. Amy even prepared the menu, and as Anita was going to be working, she even said she would prepare the food. She baked her own cake, which was a tower of Mississippi Mud Cake Muffins.

We held the party on Saturday the 13th of December, as her birthday would be mid week, and that wouldn’t be fair as people would probably leave early for other week day commitments. So, she invited 10 friends and their plus ones.

Some didn’t bring a plus one, so we had about 15 young people turn up and celebrate with Amy. We had tidied, cleaned and moved things in the house, so we were presentable and practical. I think they had a good time, I think Amy had a good time. They danced, they talked, they ate and they drank. And thankfully they didn’t over do any of it. All in all, a great bunch of young people.

On the following day, Amy’s Oma came up to spend the day, coming to church with us, and then home for lunch and the afternoon. Gran & Grumps came early afternoon and Auntie Joanne and Uncle Michael came mid afternoon. More presents and more food.

Wednesday the 17th came around, and we got the family up earlier than they would have liked, because Amy was working at the shop with her Mum. She is a hard task master her mum. “No day off just because it’s your birthday, in my day they made us work harder and we were privileged. Aye.” She said. Not really, it was actually Amy’s choice. I had to work, and by the time I got home at 8.30 that night, Amy was asleep on her bed. All tuckered out. Kids these days, no stamina.

So that is the tale of Amy’s 18th Birthday. Relatively pain free, and fun for all.

Neville Lloyd – 70 years young!

Firstly, sorry Dad; Sorry it took a while to so long to get this up. For everyone else, wish a Happy Birthday to my Dad. He turned 70 in mid November, 2008. We celebrated his Birthday on Saturday the 15^th with a gathering of family and friends at home in Frankston.

Dad’s oldest living mate, Wally, joined in the celebration, and in typical Wally style lead Dad astray, and off the wagon, with a bottle of single malt Scotch. But with his usual generosity, Dad shared. Mmmmmm. Dad’s sister Glenda came down from Albury, bring her daughter Jenni, grandson William and granddaughter Jenna with her. (Won’t go into the family tree of who belongs to whom)

Mums brother Lex and most of his family joined in, with his daughter Leah providing this excellent cake, which celebrated a large part of Dads working life, as you can see.

Family friends Joan Carson, and Di McKay turned up, and Di's son James graced Dad’s presence for a little while too. Others visited on and around Dad’s birthday and made this time very special for him.

Some of the memories I have of my father, and I am sure there will be many more to come, follow here.

- Visiting Dad at work in the Army Band

- Watching him blow the Bugle on Remembrance Day at the Shrine

- Driving to Melbourne every second week from Puckapunyal to go to Eye & Ear Hospital, and visiting the Vic Markets

- Trips up the old Hume Hwy, single lane, to Albury & Wagga Wagga

Learning to drive on the old airfield at Puckapunyal me aged 7, so that if Dad had an accident getting firewood, I could drive back to the main road.

- Dad going on road rescues with St John’s at Seymour

- Bush walking at Wilsons Promontory. Especially with the Carson’s; Dane wearing knee hi socks.

- Hitch Hiking around Tassie, and waiting an eternity in Strachan for a lift

- Dad blowing Bugle for the local RSL on Remembrance Day

- Going motorbike riding and Dad coming off breaking his knee, (looking for me ‘cause I was late back and he wanted to go home, but hey, no guilt!)

- A proud father on his Daughters graduation from the Police Academy; a proud father on his Sons graduation from the Police Academy.

- A proud father when his children got married.

- A proud Grandfather

A special thanks to Mum, (it takes two to Tango!)

We Love You Dad!