Sunday 4th October 2009

This has been such a full on week I have not had time to update the blog. We have had so much happening that my feet have not touched the ground. There have been some high's & lows. Winning an event in the garden competition was a high, hearing about Jason's industrial accident at Moree was a low. The good news is that Jason's arm was saved & he is now repairing slowly with the skill of all the Doctors at RPA.

Sunday 27th September - Rod, Anne & Joel came over for Sunday Pancakes breakfast & Joel was able to test run the porta cot that we keep here especially for his visits. (photo attached).

We played golf in the final round of the Mixed Teams series where we were running second after the second round. One of our team members was unable to play which was unfortunate, however the team that was leading had a fantastic round and blew everyone out of the water - so at the end of the day we were not disadvantaged. We would have had to score 40 points each to beat them. Sunday evening was a dinner dance and presentation of trophies which turned out to be a really good night.

Monday 28th September was a full on F-Troop day as there was a lot of mess around the course from the high winds of the previous week. We worked hard all morning picking up timber & watering some of the gardens where I had put in new plants the previous week.

Tuesday 29th September was "Mark Churcher Day" which is an event sponsored by the Club Professional. It is a fun day where the"A" grade get to play off the "Blue" markers which are the hardest option & play stroke, "B" & "C" grade had to hit off the "white" markers which are normally the Men's tees & play stableford. I have still not slid back into "B" grade yet so had to play stroke off the blue markets. That was actually fun & I enjoyed the day. I lost one ball in the 3rd dam & another in the 10th dam but my highlight of the day was scoring three pars in a row on the 14th, 15th & 16th playing off the blue markers.

I am back in "travel" mode & have today booked a golf cruise Brisbane to Cairns for next June. We sail on the "Pacific Dawn"to the Whitsundays stopping to play golf at Hamilton Island (Dent Island), Paradise Palms at Cairns & the Sea Temple Golf & Country Club at Port Douglas. Sounds hard to take doesn't it. We are also having two weeks at Byron Bay in January (as we did last year - lovely) and have also booked for a week at Mornington Peninsula Victoria Golf courses ( as we did last year - lovely). We are travelling with other members of the golf club to the Whitsundays & Mornington Peninsula & with our long time footie friends to Byron Bay. And that is just for a start. I am keen to get back to my travel plans as there are many places to go and things to see.

Wednesday 30th September I had some "me" time with a quick visit to my beauty salon & a little retail therapy before returning home to fill three green bins from cutting down the bouganvillea in the back yard. I have been chopping away at the bouganvillea for weeks now & am just starting to make an impression. It has been there for many years & had a lot of growth to prove it.

Kay rang to tell me that "Alex Dawson", son of Clay & Belinda won a baby photograph contest at Tuggerah. I looked up the web for the report & have to admit that "Alex" looked absolutely gorgeous in a little cowboy outfit.

Other family news - (not so good) this week was from Phil telling me that Jason had been in an industrial accident at work & had to be helecoptered to RPA in Sydney for urgent treatment on his arm & upper body. That was a very anxious time for everybody & I am happy to report that Jason's arm was saved through the skill of the Doctors at RPA & he is now slowly recovering from the trauma - but has a while to go before his is totally assesed for damage.

Thursday 1st October I spent some time watering gardens at the golf club as they were so dry after the recent winds. Thursday evening I attended the Gosford City Garden Competition Presentation night at the Japanese Gardens at East Gosford. I was thrilled to receive a trophy for the "Best Commercial Garden over 1,000 sq metres" which was the entire Golf Couse Gardens & to top that off we got two finalists certificates for the "Best Theme or Specialty Commercial Garden" with our BBQ garden and Wedding garden. That was exciting as none of F-Troop are professional gardeners and we work on a zero budget. The garden work has been good therapy for me & designed to stop me from sliding into "self pity" while the court case was running. It did serve it's purpose & I have been well rewarded with this win.

Friday 2nd October I collected the latest Stieg Larsson novel which I had on order from the
local bookshop. I have been waiting for it to come in as it is the last of a "triology". Sadly the author died before he could publish the book & I believe that the storyline was meant to go on for 9 or 10 issues. I will be interested in finding out how the publishers dealt with the "ending".

I did an early grocery shop in the afternoon to free up a potentially very busy Saturday & then we went to the Golf Club Friday night raffles as Peter was to be on duty there. We had a celebration with Club Members for the Garden Competition win.

Saturday 3rd October was a full on day. Starting with being up early to pick some roses from my garden for Leonies 60th birthday party tonight and at 9 o'clock I was at the club cleaning up around the wedding garden area as there was to be two wedding there this weekend. The promised rain arrived which was unfortunate for the wedding party but great for the course and gardens. The Gosford "Townies" Football reunion was being held at the Showground at 12 o'clock so while all the boys were there I had lunch at Iguana's Restaurant at the waterfront (yes, the infamous restaurant of Belinda Neal fame) with Vicki Woods, Carolyn Morris and Margaret Andrews. We had a lovely long lunch there & then went to collect the boys from their reunion late afternoon. It was good to catch up with a lot of the footballers that we have not seen for many years. Following that it was home for a quick change & then off to Leonie Casey's 60th birthday party which was attended by a lot of the Gosford Golfers. The skies opened up & forced the party indoors but everyone had a good time anyway. We had to leave the party in time to be at the Laycock Theatre by 8 o'clock to see "Steel Magnolias". We were supposed to meet our theatre group of Des & Yvonne Wilson, Bruce & Leanne Binns and Duncan & Rosalie Dyer at the "Grange" hotel for dinner but just ran out of time for that & went straight to the theatre. "Steel Magnolias" was really a show for girls only. The boys were very bored by it all. The actresses were quite good & there were some amusing & funny lines however I thought it was a show for 'girls only' as there was nothing in the script that would have amused the male contingent.

Sunday 3th October 2009 is going to be a R & R day after such a huge day yesterday. Fortunately the golf partners that we had booked with for golf today had cancelled earlier in the week so we decided to have the day off as it was also grand final day of the football. A wise move.

Phil & Lorraine are going to come & have a few days with us while Jason is recovering from his injuries in Sydney. They can catch the train from here quite easily if they do not want to negotiate the Sydney road traffic for their daily visits to Jason. The timing of their visit will depend on how Jason came through his second operation which was performed yesterday.

We have had quite a good amount of rain with still more forcast to fall so it is a good day to rest up & not do too much at all. I might even get some time to get my head into my newly purchased book.

Today is Sam's birthday & she and Shane have gone to Diamond Beach to spend the long weekend at Lyn & Richard's Caravan. We will have a catchup with her when they return.