Kat’s Visit

Just four days before renewing my phone data for another month, I ran out!  I had watched a couple of movies and forgotten I had given away over 65GB to Optus’ donate your data scheme.  My original plan with Optus was for 30GB but then I was given an extra 20GB for free (I think this is to encourage you to use more so that you want a bigger plan when it expires) and to top that off after the data breach I was given another 30GB so 80GB in total.  I usually don’t use more than 8GB-15GB max so I called Optus and asked for (consideration – not sure if this is the right word?).  The very kind attendant said I would have to call back before I paid it next month.  He also marked in my notes what had happened and promised I would get the $10 for 1 GB I was automatically charged till the end of the month.  When I received my bill I called Optus and after a bit of a chat was reassured the $10 would be taken off my bill. The Lord has once again been gracious in extending me favour.

I praise Him also for wonderful neighbours like Ann who was able to help me out with a bit of Wi-Fi as I don’t have it. That’s right, I don’t have WiFi! When I’d used up 100% of my data, the extra 1GB on my phone didn’t seem to have the power to be able to hotspot my computer to download my emails.  I could send them out ok but just didn’t seem to be able to transfer incoming mail to my computer.  Rather frustrating as this is where I do all the major typing work, with a proper keyboard for touch typing!  I had the very first community garden newsletter plus this blog to be sent out for proof reading and needed them back so I could email them on the first of February.

Oh yes, that brings me to my last blog.  Who picked up my mistake with the size of the caterpillar?  My dear friend Dorothy did.  She saw I had written 50cm instead of 50mm. Wow! That would have been a ginormous caterpillar!  Ok don’t go looking for the mistake as I have already corrected it.  Thank Dorothy.

Talking about the community garden newsletter I was thrilled to relearn (having totally forgotten) how to make hyperlinks to sections on the letter.  This will enable readers to click on the list of headings and be taken to the correct spot for reading.  We, the committee, also had to choose a name for the newsletter which I thought could be simple like Coastal Bulletin but others wanted something quirky, catchy and fun, relating to sea and gardens.  I would have preferred something relevant to news, gardening and ocean and came up with Mycorrhizal Networking or Gardening Symbiosis (a networking of communications used by plants and fungi).  Natalie thought it was clever but would go over most people’s heads.  I thought it would be a good opportunity to impart knowledge. We have settled on ‘Watermelons and Waves’.

Having completed the Horticultural course last year, the organisers for our Friday craft and activities outreach at church asked me to take a class.  I called it ‘Gardening Basics’ and have six adult learners to whom I hope to impart some of my gardening knowledge.  I was a bit nervous, even though I was thoroughly prepared.  All last year I was putting together 10 lessons, both practical and knowledge-based, covering topics from understanding our soil to plant biology, propagation of cuttings, pests and diseases.  I was really encouraged when one lady who was registered for another class said she wanted to change so that she could join us.  Though not all my students could come every Friday, our first few sessions went extremely well, with lots of interest, interaction and new information shared.  Then it was me who had to cancel a class as I had caught a cold. This didn’t stop me sending out homework.  I seem to have a reputation for the only group with homework. LOL

I’m sure you know by now I love trying to make my own food products.  I had some old red wine sitting in my cupboard from way back and thought I might try to make some balsamic vinegar. Since I found a ‘mother’ in the balsamic I had just finished I added this to the wine and pushed it to the back on my pantry.  Months later and it still didn’t seem to be doing anything so I looked it up on line and found post that said; “Vinegar is pretty easy to make from red wine, but balsamic vinegar is made out of the syrup of the grapes which is fermented and aged slowly for 6-12 months. During this time it will evaporate, so is moved from one barrel to another as the liquid reduces. The first concoction will need to turn into alcohol, and then it converts to vinegar. Once you have vinegar, you then need to make the balsamic.  It now needs to age – about 10 years!”  That’s a lot of work! I think I’ll stick to buying a bottle from the shop instead. Hahahah!

On my phone, (actually I have two, but this is on newest one which is six years old) the turn off/on switch was not working. This would have been ok, but it meant I couldn’t do screen shots, which is essential for me. It also meant I couldn’t power off, which I had tried when my phone had been doing strange things. I left if for a few days, but still no improvement, so it needed to be taken apart by an expert.  My neighbour, Kathy, had an old phone which she said I could use for parts. I even asked if the guy could give me a discount on my repairs, but he seemed to ignore me and yet took the old phone anyway!  Well at least I tried. Praise God he was able to find, what he said was his last spare part for this particular operation on my old iPhone.  It was once again operational within two hours.

The week before Kat, my sister, arrived from Cairns, I frantically cleaned the house. Having visitors is a great incentive for me to tidy up.  There was a quote on Facebook I saw one time which was a true description of my place, which read “Creative people don’t have mess; they have ideas lying around everywhere.”  I’d like to make this into a plaque to hang in a prominent place on my wall. (But I don’t think I have any more space!)

Being aware of my back having just been corrected recently, I didn’t want to do anything silly to put me back to square one again.  When down on my knees mopping the floor, I was aware that this might be a trigger, so I prayed that I would be able to finish my cleaning without any incidents.  With frequent checking along the way I was delighted, when my job was finished, that my back had survived.  Normally I would have been crippled over in agony. Praise the Lord for His healing!

Swept, vacuumed, mopped, surfaces and skirting boards dusted, woodwork oiled, kitchen cupboard doors wiped, bench tops and dining room table tidied. Kat’s room, which is normally my walk in wardrobe, was cleaned and clothes put away. I even just managed to squeeze in a car wash, actually two as while I was at it, as I did Ann’s car, as it was just as filthy as mine.  I thought it was a nice way to say thank you in advance as I was planning on borrowing it while Kat took my car down south for a week.

Well that was most things done and enough for at least another six months, even one of my sheds had a quick clean up.  I was very pleased with my efforts.  But it wasn’t long after Kat arrived that my projects and ideas began to accumulate in little plies of things to be done.  I have always admired minimalistic living but have never quite understood how it could possibly be achieved when there’s always so many partly-finished jobs on the go!  My place has always be the opposite, one of creative chaos!

Praise God it was all done and dusted (pun intended) just before Kat arrived. She stayed her first night in Perth with a friend close to the airport as she arrived at 11pm.  Be warned, I don’t wait up for late-comers, even if it is my sister.  I did say I’d leave the door unlocked if she wanted to let herself in.  She was fine with that and was dropped around the following day at 1pm after a swim at the beach while I was at church. On the spur of the moment, we decided to go to my favourite satay place in Floreat.  Unfortunately by the time we got there at 3pm, it was closed.  Praise God my second-favourite store selling Malaysian Fried Kway Teow was still open.

Both Monday and Tuesday mornings I’m busy with church things, which gave Kat her required quiet mornings.  Monday lunch we met up with family friends, Jan and Ant for Yum Cha at Morley.  On arriving we saw the place was closed till early March!  We weren’t the only ones surprised as quite a few Chinese couples arrived after us. We asked them where there was another and heading in that direction while messaging Jan.  She messaged back saying she would like to try Pearl River which happened to be where we were heading. God is in the details, as this place also had my favourite Durian Mochi as well as a good choice of other dishes.

Tuesday Kat planned to head south for a week. I left her sleeping as I went off for my morning jog then met her at the beach and introduced her to some of my beach buddies, one of who said ‘your sister is quite a character isn’t she.’ to which she answered ‘You didn’t meet our Mum!’  Yes, we certainly are our Mother’s daughters, all a bit eccentric in our own way. Before Kat drove south, she came down to the church where we were making coffee for the primary school teachers across from the church. She was delivering some things I had left at home that I had meant to bring with me.  She arrived just in time for one of our amazing coffees and to meet the team before we cleaned up.

Kat going south was perfectly timed as the day after she left I came down with a sore throat! It was the first cold I’ve had in ages.  In fact I can’t remember the last time. I dosed myself up with cold & flu tablets, Vitamin C, gargled and consumed Olive Leaf Extract, lemon drinks, raw garlic and lots of rest.  Well maybe just rest from physical activities as there’s always lots to do around my house with the little projects laying around to be completed. LOL.

I took this time to finally get online to register for the Food Handling course, which all the baristas need to do for church. It wasn’t as easy as I thought!  Firstly I couldn’t find where to put in the discount code and had to call Kaye at church to walk me through the steps.  It wasn’t obvious as you had to work through the whole application then click on some obscurely labelled tab to continue.  As I had tried everything else, this was just a ‘hope this works’ action.  Finally I was sent an email with the link to the course.  That didn’t work either!  It just kept spinning! I thought it might be due to not being on WiFi so I called the help line and was informed not to use Firefox.  Praise the Lord, when I used Microsoft Edge, things ran smoothly. The course itself was, to me, very common sense, maybe because I’ve worked with food and in hospitals so knew the general rules of food handling. I whizzed through the questions, completed the course and received a certificate which I emailed to Kaye.  Praise God that was done.  Another thing to tick off my list.

I also took this opportunity of home isolation, to make some fig jam from the figs my neighbour Kathy gave me from her son’s property.  I was hoping to make a large batch but after Kat and I had eaten some fresh and she had taken some south with her, I only had enough for two small jars full.  One for Kathy and one for Kat to take home with her.

My body must really have been battling this infection as although I took some Phenergan at night to help dry up my runny nose, I was often back to bed again at 8am, sleeping for another hour or more.  I was unusually doubly rugged up with blankets, wind cheater and tracky-dacks. Yes in the middle of summer! Then on Sunday I woke at 3:45am and thought I’d be awake for the day, so put on an amazing worship clip which had been sent many months earlier by Lucinda which I hadn’t gotten around to listening to (again the Lord’s perfect timing).  At first I sang along, feeling the presence of the Lord wrap me in His love, then I must have dosed off as I woke with it still playing nearly 2hrs later! Lying there after it had finished I dosed off again finally waking at 9am!  I really did feel refreshed.

I missed out on Sunday church and Bible Study on Monday but by Tuesday I was feeling so much better. I’d also gotten so much done during this time of quarantining.

Kat drove back to Perth Tuesday, meeting me at Hillary’s Boat Harbour for our favourite ice cream, then down to Hamersley Pool for a swim as it was 37⁰.  This year our summer has had hot days interspersed with cool days. It truly has been a blessed change after last year’s 40⁰ heatwaves. There’s lots to do before Kat returns to Cairns this coming Saturday.  We have a few places where we would like to eat out and she has lots of friends to catch up with.  It’s a bit of a whirlwind visit.

Photos: 1. Tuart flowers    2. Excavated Community Garden    3. Skipper butterfly    4. The Saying    5. My Eggplants    6. Kat enjoying her Malay Curry    7. Succulent flowers    8. My ripening pears

Prayer & Praise Points:

Praise God for His love, guidance and provision in our everyday lives.

Praise Him for answered prayer in helping me impart knowledge to my fellow gardeners at Share In’s Gardening Basics series.  I’m also learning from them in a variety of ways.

Please pray that we all have opportunities to share His love with others.

Please continue to pray for Kat to have an enjoyable time here in Perth and for her to be able to catch up with all those she would like to see.

Praise the Lord her sessions with Ray have gone well, please continue to pray that this treatment will help correct her health problems.

Please also pray for Jen that she will remain safe and well during her adventures and travels in Europe and the UK.

Please continue to pray with me for those caught up in the extreme weather conditions and the consequences.

Let’s all pray for world peace and for the refugees who are caught up in the suffering this war has caused, both in Ukraine and Russia.

Please continue to keep my sisters, Tricia, Jen and Kat, in your prayers.  Pray that they will come to know the love of Jesus.