In Australia, it’s now the “silly season”, as in the lead-up to Christmas with lots of frivolity and parties. “Silly season” seems to originate in the UK referring to a time in the summer when there’s not much news going on. In Australia, with summer starting on December 1 and that being the same time as the lead-up to Christmas, “silly season” seems particularly apt! So I’ll focus this blog post on silly things, in both meanings of the word.
Last Sunday, Hugh and I went to the Fig Tree Market. This market runs one Sunday per month and somehow we hadn’t gotten to it once in the 19 months we’ve lived here. So we made sure we got to the Christmas one! I think way back not long after we moved here, I told you about a camel farm just outside of Yeppoon – well, they brought camels to the market:
I can’t remember if I told you this already but Australia has a feral camel problem! I’m sure you wouldn’t see “feral” and “camel” in the same sentence in too many other areas 🙂 We didn’t go for a ride while at the market, we’ll wait until we have visitors again and head out to the camel farm to do that.
While at the market, I bought a macrame water bottle holder. Given that I pretty much don’t walk anywhere here without a water bottle, it’s nice to have a holder to sling over my shoulder so I can be hands free. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story. I happily purchased my macrame water bottle holder and at some point later at the market, a person at another stall asked me what I’d bought so far that day. So I told her. And she doubled over laughing. What on earth, it’s not that crazy of an idea to have something to carry your water bottle for you. Then she said, say that again. So I said macrame again – and discovered that it was my North American pronunciation that had her howling! The pronunciation here is very different from in North America – it’s muhCRAWmee, not MACruhmay. Apparently my North American pronunciation sounds quite hilarious to the Australian ear 🙂
Something else we bought from the market was a Madagascar Palm:
As the name suggests, it is not native to Australia, but it fits right in here – killer thorns on the trunk and it looks like it belongs in a Dr Seuss book!
It was a pretty hot and humid day when we were at the market. Have I mentioned that the UV is particularly strong here (although apparently even stronger down south):
Back to the silly season. On November 22, we had a work Christmas party where the theme was the Olympics so we all had to come dressed as our favourite olympic sport. Hugh and I thought very briefly about curling but a) no one here would get it and b) it would be way too hot to wear curling gear this time of year! So instead we went as the Turkish shooting team – wearing white T-shirts and jeans. Somehow I don’t have a photo of that.
The next night was the annual awards night at the yacht club. They were also celebrating their 50th anniversary so there was a 1974 theme. We had such a blast! Check out our crazy friends:
Rob and Barb:
Kevin and Joanne:
Rod and Llew (I swear Llew’s pose could go straight onto the cover of a 1970’s fashion mag!):
And of course, the Widdiltons (so Hugh did get to wear some of his curling gear after all, the pants from our team uniform at the Senior Mixed Curling Provincials back in, when was that Rob and Val, 2017?):
The following weeked was Boogie Wonderland – more 70’s and 80’s costumes! Hugh wasn’t feeling great that day so I went solo and met up with our friends Anthony and Vicki. They are active in the local theatre scene and knew many of the performers. What a fabulous night! I don’t know how many performers there were, I’m guessing at least 8, but talk about talented singers! Their costumes were out of this world and they were clearly having a lot of fun. I know this really has nothing to do with living in Australia, but I just feel the need to share some video clips to showcase the incredible talent in our little community:
Sharyn and Alanah – this one is for you:
Leigh – this one is for you, I needed you to be there to help me remember all the dance steps!
Another silly season party on Friday night this weekend but the only videos I have are of the 3D printer our friend Phil recently got – wow, is it ever cool! Again, nothing to do with Australia, but how neat is this as Phil made some ball markers for Hugh, I was mesmerized!
While on the topic of not-related-to-Australia items, some of you commented after the last blog that you noticed Hugh in a sling in some photos. Those with an astute eye would have additionally noticed his right pinky (here they say little finger) wrapped in a bandage. Well, here’s the story. If you get queasy reading about gross medical-surgical things, please close your eyes and use the scroll button to skip ahead. I mentioned in my last blog entry that my mom and sister went sailing to GKI with our friends Kevin and Joanne. You perhaps noticed that I didn’t say that Hugh and I went with them. We were on the boat to begin with, but as we were leaving the marina and Hugh was standing at the front of the boat to be ready to help with the sails, he lost his balance. His right hand landed in the small gap of an open window. Which would have been fine. Except that then his left hand came down on top of the window and with the full weight of his body behind it, closed the window on his right pinky. This completely severed the top portion of Hugh’s pinky. I had no idea what had happened as I was at the back of the boat and just noticed that Hugh had sat down rather suddenly. Kevin and Jo had seen what happened and they were incredible in calmly getting the first aid kit, towels for all the blood, getting a nurse in their family on the phone, and turning the boat around to head back to the jetty. When I sat with Hugh while waiting to get back to land, I still didn’t know what had happened (Hugh’s hand was well wrapped in a towel). I just thought it was a bad cut that was going to need stitches – until we were docking and Hugh said we should get his finger tip out of the window to take with us to the hospital. Then things became a bit surreal as I took Hugh’s finger tip and put it in the container of milk that Jo had prepared per her daughter-in-law’s astute nursing guidance. Amputation has always freaked me out a bit so I’m glad that both my and Hugh’s personalities have always been calm under pressure (well, perhaps not Hugh when curling and things aren’t going his way, but I digress…). Hugh and I headed off to the hospital and we insisted that Kevin, Jo, mom, and Andrea stick with the plan to enjoy a day of sailing (because you don’t need more than one person to carry a dismembered finger 🙂 – geez, all this a week too late to have had a good Hallowe’en story!). Hugh was seen right away at the Yeppoon hospital and a surgeon came into one of the Rockhampton hospitals later that afternoon just to see Hugh. He said that there wasn’t much point trying to re-attach the finger because it probably wouldn’t take, better to just clean it up and leave it as is. Four and a half weeks later, it appears as though Hugh’s hand-modeling career is over:
On the upside, our friend Leigh suggested that he may be able to get a discount on manicures 🙂 Fortunately, everything is healing well. Hugh’s back to golf and pickleball. Took a bit to get the full strength of his golf swing back but that seems to be coming along. The nerve endings are still a bit raw so every time he bumps the finger, which is often, he feels like it’s being electrocuted, but that will subside over time. The biggest problem thus far has been holding a wine glass – things you don’t realise that a pinky finger comes in handy for 🙂 Mom and Andrea messaged to say that episode 2 of Landman will be of high interest to Hugh, so we’ve downloaded a free trial of Paramount to watch that tonight.
OK back to the silly season! One of the things we love about Christmas in sub-tropical Queensland is putting decorations up wearing shorts and T-shirts!
I think I mentioned last Christmas that we were told not long after moving to our house that we live in a neighbourhood known throughout Yeppoon for its Christmas decorations. So we installed outdoor power points (Aussie for outlets) and made sure we did a reasonable job decorating. Then we discovered that our street was one that didn’t really join in on the festivities – we were the only house with lights up on our end of the street and I think there was only one house at the other end. Well, apparently the neighbours decided they’d better keep up with the Joneses (aka Widdiltons) and this year 8 houses have put lights up, it’s awesome! We bought extra decorations this year and I particularly like the Christmas tree of gifts:
And then a laser light show on the garage door:
We thought we were doing well staying ahead of the neighbours. But no. One of them just had to go absolutely crazy:
How on earth do we top that?!? We quickly went out to the shops but didn’t see anything that grabbed our fancy. So we ordered some items on Amazon and we’re hoping they arrive this week. There’s no way we can surpass our neighbour’s Christmas extravaganza (that Santa on the left is 2 stories tall!), but hopefully the new additions will add some delight around our pond area. Stay tuned for photos.
Oooh, almost forgot – we had some serious excitement in Yeppoon on November 24! I happened to check Facebook that afternoon and people were talking about a massive police presence down at Fig Tree Creek (same spot where the market was last weekend). The X at the top of the screenshot is where the police presence was and the X at the bottom is where our house is:
Ross Creek meanders through piles of mangroves (or maybe the mangroves meander through Ross Creek?). The Yeppoon Facebook group was alive with speculation but someone in the know indicated that there was an interstate manhunt on. A murderer from New South Wales had ended up in little Yeppoon, ditched his car by Shell World, and fled on foot through the mangroves. The next post said that in addition to heaps of vehicles, police, and dogs involved in the search, they were bringing in a search helicopter. Literally moments after reading that, I heard a sound and looked out my front window to see this:
Yikes, that was close! So, being the smart person that I am, instead of staying in the house and locking the doors, I stood on the front yard to videotape the helicopter as it zigzagged back and forth about one street away from here 🙂
You must be in need of some Australian bird photos by now, so here you go, starting with some lorikeets in the bird bath, then a kookaburra near the pond, a crested pidgeon on our neighbour’s antenna, and finally some curlews with their little babies:
Oh and how about this really cool spider’s web that we woke up to this week on our patio – it looked like a CD the way it was catching the light:
(Hugh later accidentally walked through it and got covered in all the spider’s planned meals.)
Well, it’s my birthday and I have to say, I am LOVING having a summer birthday! I was chatting with mom earlier today and we were laughing about how Andrea always got to have pool parties for her birthday whereas my parties were usually cancelled due to a blizzard. Well not anymore! Hugh and I went out for breakfast at Jolt near the ocean this morning:
Then we wandered along the boardwalk to admire the beach:
Finally remembered to take a photo of the free outdoor gym area just off the boardwalk down from the photo above:
We’re going to extend my birthday celebrations into tomorrow and spend the afternoon at the beach. Enjoying hot sunny days at the ocean on my birthday – how lucky am I!
It’s now summer holidays for the school kids and Yeppoon does a terrific job ensuring there are lots of activities happening. This board is up by the amphitheatre at the beach showing everything that’s going on (mostly free) between now and late January:
We noticed that our friend Sarah is performing this coming Friday night, so we’ll be heading down for that!
A non-silly item to end with. RIP Sue. You brought a lot of laughter to the world and every time I think of you, I picture your impish smile. And I remember the night at the curling club when the new bartender didn’t know that $5 Black Russians shouldn’t fill an entire highball, and you and I took great advantage of that. Thank you for so many fun memories.