In which I get silly

Ok.. sillier.

I spent all most all of today out in the drizzle. You know the kind of weather where it’s trying to decide whether to rain or dry up, and so it’s doing both at once?

Yep… someone forgot to hire sunshine for the week.

As a result…I have gone fluffy.

And silly.

 

I’m at another seaside villa, sharing with a nice lady called Elaine who knits but is at present watching Smallville.

The squares I’m decked in is the Feathersoft Squares Baby Blanket.  It’s definitely progressing. Hopefully the hatchling it’s for won’t make an appearance before it’s finished… or M_F’s Eeyore is more than a muzzle and three limbs.

and for Kris - yes… sometimes I acknowledge the “a” word in crocheting…. but only when it’s mixed with something…like bamboo!

On the Safety Front…. Today featured the dismantling of a 200tonne crane. Into 23 pieces that require a separate large truck to relocate it to either Mt Isa (one of the chief mining sites in Australia) or back south to Gladstone.

In true “Would you believe ?” form, the segments, when loaded on trucks were 23cm too high to go under the only bridge between TB M and Mt Isa.

Even if you let the tyres down.

So we went back to the drawing board (despite my question whether the segments were square or rectangular - so could we flip them over?  There was momentary hope, tape measures dangling from Elevated Work Platforms… and no.. Square) and with strategic use of a gas axe and the brackets.

How many trucks should have departed by 5pm?

6.

How many actually left the gate?

1.

On top of that I spoke with the truckies about the price of fuel in Australia… The costs are becoming increasingly prohibitive and .. there’s also the issue of whether the diesel is actually available for the long distance haulers in the remote locations to refuel.

Wonder what would happen if the truckies were to strike? Could you imagine - if Toll Transitions or Patricks Stevedores, one of the major transporters in the country plus Truck drivers generally refused to operate?

Fuel deliveries, FOOD deliveries halted until the politicians actually did something about the price of Unleaded petrol and diesel.

It’s something I don’t get - the Australian dollar is on a 25+year high, the price of Singapore’s ULP has dropped (that’s the benchmark for our fuel prices) and so.. why is fuel so high?

 

I do understand that we need to find alternative fuel strategies and I wholeheartedly endorse them however pinching money from less welloff families doesn’t work.

Whew.

Thats a very political flavour to tonight’s blog.

Time for me to churn out another two squares!

Goodnight and Hugs to you all!!

My weekend to WIP

A very long week, and the fact I haven’t posted for a week has been a great indicator of how tired I am at the end of the day.

I have made a fairly big decision this week, and it involves a lot of things, including my ongoing battle with negative waves, Toads, tiredness and Plan Woolly. Please watch this space.

My project did acheive a significant goal this week: The final piece of the conveyor gallery was lifted into place which means that a $76million project is over the most significant hump. Also means I can walk from ground level to 11 stories up to take my sunrise photos.

Because I am one of the only women on site who wears Safety Orange, the office girls wear chambray corporate shirts (I do too, if I’m feeling lazy about the washing) and the office girls are always curious about what I’ve been doing when I come in, covered in coal sludge; I took them out for a walk on Thursday morning.

thats : Me, Heidi, Mandy, Lisa (who is very newly pregnant) and Mel. All remarkably happy to be wearing Orange and a long way up.

But this was my weekend off, and in order to live up to the “crochet” part of our name, I decided to dedicate myself to finishing a few pieces. I’m not sure if its a good sign that both my wrists hurt.

Anyhoo…

Firstly, I finished the Round Ripple:

I have definitely learnt a lot about the RR pattern doing this one. Including the necessity to count the number of points you start with. This RR was supposed to be 12 - 24. If you count… it’s 13-26.

Yah… I should have made the centre bigger too.

And I have learnt better techniques for expanding the points and then there’s that rolled chain border.

It’s… the first row was easy.. working out how to do the second and third repeats was .. I’m surprised I have any hair left.

Anyway - we survived, I like that border and love the colours in that RR.

Then I turned my attention to Avatar Afghan in Mohair, Version 3. I have to say, that it’s possibly one of the drabbest looking afghans I’ve ever made:

But it actually has it’s own charm. The greens and the browns are somewhere between the colour pallette for Woodland Elves “This year’s Spring Fashions” and Defence Camouflage choices. For those who like to know - this is 10 balls of Panda’s Lily in the Green blend. Lily is a longstranded Alpaca blend (118m per 50g)  sold through Big W (the only place available to buy yarn here in Mackay) for $3.29 a ball, so the afghan works out pretty cheaply!

Something I found quite remarkable was that the varigations actually fluked in at almost exactly row length. Don’t know how I managed that one! the trick was to match one end of a ball with the next one to use. It’s one of those things that makes me adore using varigated yarns rather than force the issue by using different colours.

(Oh yeah.. and important safety tip : DONT USE A PORE REFINING PEEL OFF STICKY MASK WHEN CROCHETING FLUFFY WOOL. This is IMPORTANT.)

Having finished dreaming in shades of grass, new leaves, eucalytpus and bark (and peeling off a fuzzy face mask), I wanted to use up some yarn and chenille (which didn’t work the way I had hoped) and I started one of those “have always wanted to try projects” - the Half Moon Shawl.

A project I thought I could get my teeth into.

Boom Boom.

And - i played with the pattern a tiny bit and hey, presto!! I ran out of yarn.

Going back to get more from Yarn Bee this week. (Bamboo/acrylic blend)

And so, my attention has turned to the oldest of the UFOS - the fabled Laceweight Merino Christening Gown.

Yes, it’s nearly a year old, and I have not finished it.

but I have put another repeat on tonight. And it’s one of two projects I have packed to go to another hotel for the week (due to a double booking here at my little beachside house), the rest of the Travelling Stash is sitting in the Manager’s flat. So I will be forced to work on it, and the Feathersoft squares.

 And Sheeshk, it’s hard to go back to working with a 1mm hook after using a 6.5mm to do the Elvish Green Afghan, doing the tiny 5chains and SC made me wish for magnifying glasses. Hopefully I’ll have more to show you this week.

To sign off for the weekend, I have finally got photographic evidence of the existence of a long suspected monster believed to have been lurking in our backyard in TB C. This fabled beast, as mystical as the Loch Ness Monster, has left tantalising signs (mostly chomped rosebuds and … poo) in the grass and terrifies the bejeepers out of the mogs.

Our guest photographer (codename Father_figure) managed, using the hightech medium of his mobile phone, to capture a photograph of the elusive creature:

Yep - proof that we have kangaroos in our backyard.

Suburban Canberra.

For my next trick - being home with Jorge and getting a DECENT shot.

that’s it - promise to try and be more frequent with the updates this week!

Love and hugs to you all!

Fatality

Nothing makes the average Safety Adviser’s heart beat faster than a phone call with a sad/panicked voice.

My morning commute, not as bad as the 220 odd kms to Tb 3 is still a 40km drive in the dark. I’m either part of a carpool or like this weekend, a white Ute. This morning was wet and trying to fumble my palm pilot out whilst piloting a vehicle in wet darkness at 100kph was fun enough but at the other end - we had a problem.

From the photos, you will have noticed that the World of Coal is located right on the beach. Beach means coastline. Coastline means wildlife. Specifically, birds.

We have a Sea Eagle nest. and there has been some issues with birds versus the tower cranes.

Nothing sadder than a construction worker handing over a feather.

And this morning, the victim was a Tawny Frogmouth

And it was very sad.

Tawny Frogmouths are not actually an owl, but have very similar characteristics. This one was crashed in one of the drains, still fluttering but with a wing that shouldn’t look like that.

My boss and I sliding down a coal filled drain in the dark, tossing my jersey over the bird while he grabbed it with Welders Gauntlets. Once the bird was in the box, wrapped in navy blue polar fleece, I made the drive back to the local city to try and find a vet. The Wildlife rescue people having been a little less than awake when I called them.

My instincts, honed from years of having horses, said vets near racetracks.

And I found one who actually was very keen on birds.

But the damage to his left wing was too much, and so the 2kg owl was put to sleep.

The workgroup were actually noticeably saddened by the news. Big tough construction workers staring at their boots.

Otherwise, I’m sitting on my couch in my little house, working on Avatar III. And for the people who come here looking for patterns for Earnets for Horses…. I’ll have a go at putting on together for you…

 

Hugs to you all!

I think, I blinked.

I flew back north on Monday morning, very early, amongst Kangaroos on the road and very little sleep.

The grind of alarms going off in the darkness, morning pre-starts and days where I try to get in and talk to as many people as possible ticked by so quickly, and at the same time so slowly that there needs to be a new measure for it.

New little camera is turning out quite nicely though!

The best part that as he does fit into my breast pocket, I can pull him out when I need him. Very useful for our favourite rearview shots.

(my other thought is: every time I see the gentleman from last weekend, I buy a new camera… hmmmm)

On the crochet front, the 12 point RR has grown the extra set of points to turn it into a 24 pointer and is about 3 rows from being finished. And…. to celebrate it’s status of moving (nearly…) from a WIP to a FW! i went yarn shopping at the chain store that does carry yarn (The Spotlight here in TB M was washed out by floods about 3 months ago, they’re reopening next week.) and only went a little crazy. They have this great alpaca mohair blend, I bought enoguh for two afghanbs, in a burgundy and green. The girl at the cashier nearly died.

Anyway - a long week, no really horrible things have happened, and the specialist crew we have in at present have been working better than any crew I’ve met yet. Unlike another work group I was caring for today, who left a toolbag on a conveyor and tried to feed it to a ship waiting out on the berth.

Yeah. Very apologetic they were too.

 

In other news… we are not going home this weekend on break, I’ve decide to stay here and show you life in a Northern Queensland town…. And right now : have to go, Pirates of Carribbean 3 is own (Hey ho, haul together, hoist the colours…)

Love and hugs to you all!

Have you heard the Fairytale where the Handsome Prince turned into a Toad?

In my semi Fairytale existence that makes Snow White’s lifestyle look like every princess’s dream (Hey - she only had to deal with 7 miners!!!) there has been one aspect that I have alluded to but not provided a great deal of commentary on.

 

Since today saw an almighty zap in an already fractured story, I thought well.. it was time to share it with you.

Firstly.. in honour of his background and my own studies, I considered writing it out in a 4GL programming language (assigning values for Confusion, sorting statements for truth but I think I get a “divide by zero” error. Thank you, Redo From Start) however…

Once a upon a time….

I met someone. 

And I have to say I thought he was pretty fantastic. He was smart. He was funny. He didn’t seem to mind that I was smart. And we could talk. And he actually had something to say.

And I couldn’t believe it.

And more than anything else…. I actually *liked* him.

But at the point in the story when you like to have the significant music start playing… he disappeared.

He kept promising to call back.. but never did. When we finally did meet up.. and establish a dinner date, I thought great, I just liked the idea of spending time with him.

And all day on that Tuesday, he sent flirty text messages until.. about lunchtime. And then he stopped.

And wouldn’t answer the phone. Wouldn’t respond to email.

I spoke with him about 5.30 and no… he had a prior engagement. No sorry.. just had something more important to do. He’ll call me.

And never did.

And so I flew back to TB G the next day… hoping that maybe he’d call… and nope.

There’s only so many times you can text or call someone without getting a reply before you start feeling like a stalker and so, you take the hint.

After two months of moving through the range of feeling stupid that someone like him would even consider me for longer than fifteen minutes and being angry that he couldn’t even be bothered to say “Hey look at the time..” the catchphrase we’d joked about. He got in touch.. but then… wouldn’t answer calls again.

Occaisional email…

And today, after waving M_F and F_F off at the airport (they’re heading north for a week’s holiday), I went to one of my favourite spots in Canberra. (Ok.. to reassure F_F : I went home and exchanged his Mercedes for M_F’s less culturally and financially significant Toyota first)

And I walked into…

Yep.

but to add another crack in the mirror - the point to note is who he was with.

A seriously adorable little girl perched on his shoulders.

 Introduced as his daughter.

I suspect that she answers many of the questions I have wondered about him for a while.

And probably, opens up a few more.

I know you read this from time to time, so I’ll say this:

I have no problems dealing with the fact that you’re someone’s Daddy. It’s what you are to that someone’s Mummy, that’s the biggest issue.

dot dot dot

Anyway.  I had a quiet day though I did indulge myself a little.

My photography, I think, has been improving steadily. Jorge has helped enormously and I’m now going on hunting expeditions to snap.

And more artistic:

 

But there is a limit to what you can do when you’re juggling a Nikon D80 with a 18-200mm Lens.

And our beloved but much beat-up Sony Cybershot is just not quite hitting the mustard.

So….

I went to visit our friends at Domayne and I treated myself to a new pocket size snapperer :

Heeeee heeeee heeeee.

I also went shopping at Spotlight because I was playing Extreme Yarn Chicken with the Purple Baby Blanket I’m working on :

I bought 5 balls of the purple Honey babycrylic and I found I was getting 12 rows to a ball. I need 64 rows to make it square.

To make life more interesting, i bought the yarn at Spotlight in Cairns.

What are the chances that they have the same dye lot in a store 4000km away?

Small.

However. My luck was slightly in.

And they had… get this.

One ball of the magic Dyelot.

And to make M_F feel better… I only bought another 15 balls of yarn.

and I have been using up yarn :

It’s not quite so bright in real life but the flash picked it up. It’s a 12 point RR in pure wool, (a good yarn, but not great. The good part: it comes in nice colours, it’s pure washable wool and 100gms for $3.99 is great - it’s just not as Good as some of the 100% wools that are around.) once I’ve done the blue, we’re going back to the white, the green, the varigated and then back out to the pink and a border.

There.

 A mixed day  that really makes me believe my life would be so much more fun if was happening to someone else.

hugs to you all.

Candles that burn out.

Vale Arcadia Park Aragorn

Arcadia’s 5 year old stallion died suddenly a few days ago, leaving five gorgeous youngsters and some aching hearts.

 

We’re home safe in the cold of Canberra, some business activities tomorrow: registering Green Car, eating sushi… And unpacking a veritable pile of eBay purchases and not letting Mother_figure see how much of it is yarn….

However I am significantly tired after travelling for 6 hours, including a two hour layover in Brisbane watching Ratatouille with some new short friends. (A small tap on my knee, “Can we watch too?”) I think I should charge for babysitting in airports. Oh - and my energetic single-serve friend (Fight Club reference for you) who wanted to.. get this .. thumb wrestle! Which was sweet in a way. I did thank him for the souvenir pen though.

So it’s bed time for me… with an attendant Orange Mog.

Hugs to you all…

What sort of Control Measure would “Group Hugs” be?

Today was a mixed day. But mixed in a shading to good with a slight leaning towards bemusing.

Firstly, this morning - which started off looking like this:

Sunrise over a coal yard. Not bad, huh?

After taking the photos and going to the morning prestart meeting where two worker had owies from yesterday to be looked at and sympathised with, I headed out on my walking rounds. On the list of questions that I was asked (they’re all still not sure about me) was which team I would be barracking for in tonight’s Third State of Origin Rugby Match.

This, is Important.

I am not the world’s hugest Rugby fan. For all that I actually played in the Royal Australian Navy’s first ever Women’s Rugby Side (and no… I don’t “play for my own team”, if you get my drift) Secondly, I’m not from a state that actually fields a team and thirdly, I’m in Queensland, who does and the series is tied at one all.  My “home” team, if I were to pick a team to support, the Canberra Raiders has an interesting issue when it comes to the State of Origin - usually the players are split 50-50 QLD and NSW, and it has been known that both Maroon and Blue (the states) captains usually wear Canberra jerseys.

So my diplomatic answer has been that I watch (which I actually will not be as I’m tired and I want to sleep as long as possible tonight) because it will always be a great game, no matter who wins.

That said, I am wearing a blue scrunchie today.

My walk also included trying to prevent two very busy workers from burning the place down. Coal. Coal Terminal. Coal BURNS. So does grass. Oxy-cutting in long grass growing around a post in the middle of coal… You seeing it?

I spent the afternoon in a training session looking at the Hazard Control Measures (Elimination, Substitution, Engineering, Administration and Personal Protective Equipment) where the trainer placed an emphasis on Stress as a hazard in the Workplace (maybe he should go to TB G ?) And the scenario that we were given was draft a work method statement for the retiling of a Backpackers’ Hostel’s Dining Room such that the Dining Room could keep functioning.

Personnally I liked the idea of closing it and serving pizzas for three days and advertising it as a feature but I was told that wasn’t allowed. Nor was using backpackers as slave labour.

Teh!

Anyhoo. It’s Wednesday night of the second week which means one important thing.

We’re flying tomorrow.

And going south for the weekend.

Crochet to show you tomorrow night!  And how strong can I be… yarn shopping on Friday?????

Hugs to you all!!!

 

 

Warping People’s Minds (and Happy Birthday to Elaine !)

Hi Elaine!  i’m eating Apricots in Brandy in your honour!

 

Today was a middling sort of day : high on the Getting Patronised Scale, Low on the Tolerance.  Old men. that’s where I’m going to leave it.

I trotted out the new version of the Site Safety Induction and it was tolerably well received. The strangest concept for them was that investigations are carried out to find out how you survived this time (or not… as the case may be) and not to throw blame. Sometimes I would like to put the idiot in public stocks and throw rotten tomatoes at them for being so sodding stupid but I’m pretty sure that the Queensland Workplace health and Safety Regulations have clauses about that.

My contractors - concreters and steel workers have made it through their fourth day on the trot without damaging themselves. As we found out back in March, when it was a daily litany of carnage, this is worth being proud of.

 Tomorrow night we move into what is known as a “Shutdown”, one of the conveyors that ferry the coal from the stockyard out to the strings will be turned completely over to be worked on. Extra people are hiired and it’s a scramble to get it all done. Bonuses if they do!

So that was my day - relatively quiet. I did have some good photos this morning to show you but I have managed to leave Jorge tucked under my desk…..

And it’s getting close to my bedtime so I really will have to pickup my crocheting (28 squares out of 49 req) and head to bed!

Love to you all!!

 

 

J’Accuse!

One of the things that you get to deal with in Australia is possums.

On the roof.

Possums are nocturnal.

And for the last few nights the colony of possums here at our Sandy Toothbrush house have been doing what possums do best.

Trying to make little possums.

And quite often this is accompanied by protests that various possums do not feel like making little possums right now. And then there are disagreements about who should be making the little possums with whom.

And this has been going on at length.

Last night I went out with Jorge…

 

and captured our villians in mid swear

 

It’s Saturday, and the end of my third week here in amongst the Coal Dust. I’m still very tired at the end of the day - possums not withstanding and it doesn’t feel right to be this tired. I’m flying home on Thursday (Uh… M_F - could you turn the Leckie Blanky on for me?) will be home about 8.

In terms of the work.. the company I now belong to is far bigger, and much more organised. I liaise on one portion of the contract with two contractors (doing very much the same role that our friend the Small Elderly Safety Officer) and I note that the steel fabricating company has two Older Gentlemen (think the two old Grumps from The Muppet Show) doing what I was trying to do at TB G. One is a sweetheart and I thought I was going to make him cry yesterday when I commended him on the tidiness of the worksite.

The Other one is full of bluster and has told me how much he detests me.

Deep breath in… Deep breath out.  In the spirit of being grateful for everything, I am actually quite amazed how I was able to go for an hour with a Silly Old Man being twittish and not even raise my voice.

There are some more similarities between TB G and TB Coal, especially in terms of the incidents that they have been incurring. One of the most notable differences is that the workers seem much brighter and have a higher morale. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that they don’t live in a camp and have more to do than get drunk at night.

I’m still finding it odd to have a 2bedroom little unit and having to cook for myself everynight. Tonight’s dinner was omellette with cherry tomatoes and snow peas. Theres’ a lamb steak defrosting for tomorrow night.

So I’m going to pick up the pile of strips that I’m trying to edge for Arcadia’s Hatchling’s Strip Ghan and go to bed… 8 hours before my Alarm goes off…

Good night and hugs to you all!!

I’m not a frail and trembling flower

And you’d be surprised how many flowers grow around a Coal terminal!

This still life is brought to you by my newest pair of safety boots which are now significantly dirtier!

The male factor has raised it’s head with one of my older men being remarkably difficult today. But he was all bluster - nothing nasty!!! However the inevitable “Who the hell do you think you are, coming down here telling us what to do?” with the subext of “short female” in there, was one of the throw away lines…

The other news is I found what killed my USB drive - the magnets that are part of the drive train that runs the conveyor that carries the coal from the trains along the stockyard and out into the shiploaders on the jetty.

Otherwise, my face and hands are literally coal black when I get back to my office - I understand why Eliza Doolittle makes such a point about saying that  “washed my face and ‘ands afore I came, I did!”

It’s not hard living here - I’m in a neat little cottage - with a view… and aircraft noise

The crocheting is continuing, the RRs, the laceweight gown and there’s only a month to go until the GReek Crochet Games!

Hugs to you all from someone who needs a shower!