Edd gets a puppy and Josh breaks his arm

27.5.2009 The weather has changed. It is definitely damp and there has been a little of that rare stuff …rain. We should be jumping for joy. I am sure all the plant are, but with the wet comes mud and we have started excavating shed sites so I expect a lot of mud. I have no right to complain with so much of the country up north having such bad floods.

On Sunday Edd’s new dog arrived. Delivered to our door by his breeders who have very kindly given him to us. He was pretty frightened when he arrived and had been sick in the car but he has settled down fast. The people who stayed here the weekend of the fires found him for us and arranged everything. Edd has called him Jana (rhyming with Banner), which apparently is a Cornish way of saying John! He is a black and tan kelpie and a very solid little chap with a very long tail.
Edd says he often sees ghosts of our dogs that died in the fires who work around the place with him. I have seen no ghosts and still miss the dogs terribly. I do not feel ready for a new dog myself yet but it is good that Edd does because he is working on the farm every day now and has time to spend putting the work in that a puppy needs. I have been quite surprised so far at Jana, who behaves well over night and is trying hard to fit in.

My main task this week has been catching up with our accounts and getting in Tax statements. We have endless bits of paper that have to be sorted in to some form of order. It is quite horrific having to spend so much on new household things. We lost everything from sauce pans to furniture so are continually discovering new bits we can’t function with out. Friends have been very good; Jane even brought me over a thimble this week in a bag of other sewing goodies. I discovered I needed one when I had to sew up the baby clothes I have been knitting.

I have also brought tools to tile the shower room. Edd has lined the donga porch with cement sheet around the shower unit so it is ready for finishing now. We have hung up a small bathroom cupboard and will make a tiny shelf for the men to put a mug of hot water for shaving on. We have to use the kitchen sink as a basin as space is tight.

Down at the old house site I have begun working on my destroyed garden beds. They look so much better when the soil is raked of rubbish and dug over. I am laying broken bricks as a cobbled path round the drainage ponds at the back of the toilet. I fancy covering the old swimming pool with ferro cement. It would repair the damaged liner and burnt walls back to a useful condition and make a stronger pool in the long term.
I am studying ferro cement construction on the Internet every time I get a spare moment and am intrigued with the possibilities. I do wish I was younger and stronger but perhaps it is just a matter of working out an approach.

Our latest problem is that Josh fell off a ladder at work and broke his right arm. He spent most of Friday sat in Dandedong hospital waiting for attention and we picked him up in the evening after he had been given an anaesthetic and had the arm set. He is pretty fed up about things but is really not feeling well enough even to try going back to work yet. He even found walking round the super market hard yesterday. I am taking him for a check up tomorrow and if all is well he is going to visit his friends in Townesville and spend a few days somewhere easier to live while he recovers. He left Townesville in a very depressed state and I hope it will be good for him to put old issues to rest. He has now got his degree and has got over his broken heart so he may see it differently.