Washing Macheen and Halloween...

Sort of works...
The headline for today is that whilst not completely sorted we have a functioning washing machine now! The pump arrived on Thursday afternoon but despite my best efforts I could not get the contacts on properly so I decided to wait until Allan was back and borrow his soldering kit and try again this morning - I have of course since remembered that I have my own soldering iron....
Anyway we got the correct fittings on and checked the pump and yes it was working! Allan went back home and I put the rest of the machine together and set it to rinse where I promptly got the same error message! My language was as I am sure you can image brief and to the point (if not exactly suitable for childrens ears - but as they were in school by then no worries!). As washing machines are fundamentally simple, you can follow the pipes with the water very easily, coupled with the fact that I knew this pump was working I set out to find the problem. Well it wasn't hard to find....

I have now removed three times this amount of lint from pipes, drain holes and around the main drum and at the moment (touch wood) it is working fine although I suspect I may have to clear more out before too long. The question on all your lips is "where did this come from???" and answer is NEVER BUY K-MART BATH MATS! As we have found out to our cost when you wash them they loose more hair than you can possibly imagine and clog everything up!

Thursday was also Halloween which as as we found out quite a big deal over here - last year we were driving from Darwin to Cairns so we missed it as we were in holiday accomodation in Townsville. There was a school disco planned and much to the childrens delight Tish was able to come as she had just finished four night shifts (although the hospital did call and try and get her to come in for another night shift!).
It was a very different looking car load that I took down to the school that evening....

Cameron went as a pirate

Hamish as a vampire

Xanthe went as Buffy the Vampire Slayer

And Tish's costume was a definate talking point throughout the whole do

she went as a bunch of sour grapes... all the balloons have sour faces drawn on them

I went as a hybrid Stormtrooper / Darth Vader but successfully avoided the camera.
A great time was had by all although there were three tired and slightly grumpy children at breakfast this morning!

Yesterday I also had two great photo opportunities.
Allan had found this stunning male Rhinoceros Beetle which he passed on to me to take a few pictures of

This beetle was at least 2 inches in length and had remarkably sharp claws and a bit of a temper - it hissed at me all the time!
It was whilst taking these pictures that I could feel some one watching me and turned slowly to find this young Black Butcherbird paying far too much attention to the beetle

Tomorrow the 2nd November is the first anniversary of our arrival in Cairns, although due to our removal company forgetting to put the container onto the train we did not move into Yorkeys until the 7th - how time has flown by

Frogs

We went round to Allan and Jens for a BBQ over the weekend - they were going to come round to us but Jen was manning the Wildlife Rescue phoneline so we took the BBQ to them.
In between eating, having a couple of glasses of wine and in Jens case answering the phone I wandered around the garden and found three native frog species

Dainty Tree Frog

this adult male is only 35mm long - about 1 1/3 inches in old money


Ornate Burrowing Frog

about 45mm long

White-lipped Tree Frog

a big brute of a frog!

Pumpdate..

Very poor pun but there you go what do you expect on a Sunday morning. Received an email yesterday saying that my new drain pump will arrive on Tuesday - hopefully with the correct attachments as they have been reminded several times what machine it needs to go into!
The main highlight of the week was Tish's party out fit - she went to a Hawaiian themed pool party Thursday

On the Friday I took Tish into town so she could go to the gym, I spent the time on the Esplanade. As the spring progresses migrant waders are flooding in to escape the northern hemisphere winter so there was heaps to se and photograph - although I spent most of my time looking at two resident species.
Gull-billed Tern

and Striated Heron (have only gone through a few of these there are still another 70 shots to look at)

Tish is on four nights this week so I will try and get back down to the Esplanade if the tide is right and get some more piccies

Pumps, fruit and toads...

It has been a rather busy few days in the Funnell household. The long running saga of our washing machine continues on.....

this is the offending piece - the water drain pump; I have found a replacement one and am now waiting for it to be delivered sometime next week - until then I am trotting next door and using Allan and Jens machine!
As the season changes from spring to summer we are starting to get the first of the local windfall

these Mangos will be perfect after a couple of days rippening in the sun.
Continuing the food theme my attempt at Toad in the Hole last night

I really must practise my batter mix...

On a serious note our thoughts go out to friends in NSW who are caught up in what is rapidly becoming one of the worst fires since the 50s - lets hope the weather is not as bad as is forecast and some control can be bought to the situation - but with one fire alone burning along a 300km front it could be a long hard battle.

And I'm back..

apologies for the lack of blogs for a while but we have all been rather busy. The school holidays have finished and so last week was manic as it was the first week back and to be honest the children are always a bit grumpy - they can't wait to get back to school to see friends (and get away from Daddy!) but then the novelty wears off and they are grumpy.
Anyway a couple of after school trips to the lagoon and we are all back on an even keel again.
Tish has been very busy at work and has had a run of night shifts which has meant that we have not actually done too much as she has been catching up on sleep.
That said on Sunday we visited

the visitor centre at Cairns Botanic Gardens as Xanthe had a piece of art work displayed there

She attended a workshop over the school holidays where they made insects and all the work was then displayed in the centre

very good Xanthe!!

I have been busy the last few days which has been great - although the temperatures yesterday on the Tablelands were a sweltering 46.5 degrees which made birding rather uncomfortable.
Even some of the local wildlife seemed to be struggling in the heat

This Emu chick was panting the whole time as it ran to keep up with Dad!

Will try and post again this week but no promises!

Oops a week gone and no blog...

Time flies during the school hols - well it does sometimes and at others it don't go fast enough!!!!
Anyway enough of that, what have we been doing since I last posted.
In the immortal words of Flanders and Swann  "busily doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do...."
The weather is warming up now, the nights are 18-20 degrees which is still quite pleasant, but the humidity has been creeping up, on some days over 85%. As the weather has warmed up we have returned to our routine of swimming in the Lagoon along the Esplanade; the children love it and it is a nice easy afternoon for the adults as well - although wimpy me is still finding the water a tad cold...
In between the swimming we have been visiting a selection of play parks...

and whilst Mum has been in the Gym we have gone for walks along the Esplanade

with occasional stops at various play parks, sculptures...

....and exercise stations

This is the best of both worlds as the children get to play and enjoy the walk and I can get some birding done at the same time.
Today I managed to miss two successful fishing runs from the local Osprey

but I did get a few decent pictures of the local Varied Honeyeaters

Tomorrow I do battle with a tent that we have been given to see if we can work out how to get it up - two hours today resulted in nothing......