Fire and danger ......

Fires are raging all around the Mid North Coast of NSW at the moment. Have been up that way and today the Pacific Highway had to be closed to all North Bound Traffic at 2pm before being closed in the other direction due to high winds. The fire was not contained at that point. Very close to the service station and food outlets and the small township of Purfleet. Some relatives were up that way tin the morning and said they could smell smoke and see small flames late morning.
By 5m the Pacific Highway was also closed at the Forster/Tuncurry turnoff.
At the same time a large tree fell on the Bucketts Way - that was the only other access point to Taree !!
Whoops- headed home at 2pm to see plumes of smoke coming from down near Forster Keys/Green Point....and I didn't get to see the news so hopefully the 10 houses that were reported on the local radio station to be under threat survived it.

Hopefully you and yours are safe and out of harms way.

I'll be back later with my Friendship Swap 2013 picys :)

De

Friendship Swap

How exciting to be able to join the Friendship Swap with Kristina McCarthy again this year !

Today I received a parcel from Cheryll - my partner .

On arriving home this morning I saw the postal van parked across the road on the grass verge. Ooo yeah I thought - some little bits and pieces I've been purchasing on line have arrived and maybe my Friendship Swap parcel has arrived.

I know the mail can be slow up here but I was getting a little worried as Cheryll let me know the parcel was on its way prior to going on her holiday. And there was a reminder from Kristina about sending and noting receipt of our parcels via emails. I had a couple of other parcels overdue but put in a claim to eBay for one and received a credit only yesterday.

The postal gent waved to me and I crossed the road to retrieve the parcels only to be told - 'Sorry about the late delivery luv". I didn't understand his comment when he added that he had a couple of letters for me as well.  Now this is the parcel delivery man not the postperson who delivers around 2pm.

I said to him that I thought the parcel went missing because when I saw that he number of the house was one digit out it was my fault. He then asked me to read the letter prior to opening the parcels. And he said it twice. Now this was an odd thing to be told so perplexed I took the letters and the parcels inside the house.

I spoke to my Mum as I walked in about what the parcel delivery man said. I then opened the  first of the letters only to find an apology letter from Australia Post, the second letter read the same. Apparently both these parcels had been allegedly stolen and luckily retrieved and the matter was still in the hands of the police.

I sat stunned.

Both parcels were unopened - thank goodness for that. Only the larger of the boxes had ripped brown paper. I quickly opened the smaller to find that it was the parcel Id just got a credit for and I which I had also left neutral feedback for as this was the second parcel I had paid for from this particular seller.

I called eBay and had my comment rescinded immediately and then contacted PayPal to resend the money back to the seller. After all I had received the goods.

I was a little worried about the second parcel as I recognised Cherylls name and address on the back of it. I opened the box to find all the bits and pieces still in there. I will upload pictures and make comments on that later.

I think I am still stunned as only two years ago I sent out a parcel that went missing from the local post office I lived near at the time. This was never found and I had to put in a claim for things I had bought and made for another friendship swap. Difficult to put a value on things like these. It took months to get the claim finalised and I felt like the person to whom it was being sent and the organiser of the swap may have thought I hadn't sent it. I can't believe I'm on the other side of it this time. That's twice in three years!

So I'm not sure if the parcels went missing from the front door or otherwise, though I did speak to Australia Post who assured me it wasn't from the house - I was almost in the car to go apply for a P.O. box if it was!

So a topsy turvy day it has been with me not even able to access my Blog for hours. There seemed to be a block to me accessing this tonight as well.....note the late hour of this authors notes LOL

Wishing us all a better day tomorrow - I will be volunteering some time in handing out how to votes for the weekends election before heading home to complete the last few items for my market stall on the weekend. And if my dogs are lucky ( or otherwise as they may think)  - they will have major haircuts when I get out the clippers out.

Yours in craft and life - Dee

Day One of " The Trip"

Leaving Sydney at 8am

Silly really. Fancy leaving from the Sydney end of the expressway at almost peak time. Soooo much traffic boths ways - going up to the expressway to travel toward the City and Coast or southerly to places like Epping  and Parramatta (no way) . Thank goodness we had to turn off onto the M7 to go south after what we saw and sat in below. This, the shortest of trips took over an hour when normally its about 15 minutes travel.

Bumper to bumper, pouring rain. What a way to start a holiday. Figures though for the Lord and I to always pick such glorious weather to travel in. Should we be lucky that the weather would grace us with a peak of sunshine? Maybe.

We luck out most times - Hurricanes in Queensland - Bush Fires in Perth (never got there), chose Hamilton in New Zealand - earthquakes, Kobe in Japan - tsunami and Fiji - flood time but before we could book on our first ever (never gone now) holiday overseas, Mother Nature took her temper tantrums out in mega style. Sigh. Is it our lot in life to stay close to home?

Well not this time! It can rain all it likes. We have umbrellas, warm Ugg boots, jackets, and many layers of clothes to see us through whatever Mother Nature wants to send to NSW and Victoria. We even have a gas stove, kettle and tea bags so we can have a cuppa whenever the time arises that we require one.

So many photos to share but thought you would like to see what happened when we stopped at a little town called Jugiong in NSW. There had obviously been a flood in the township in the prior few weeks. The barrier rails had been lowered. This is to facilitate any debri being able to float across the bridge without etting stuck on it and the railing that normally protects cars from driving off it!

Bridge to Jugiong.

Before we actually got to the bridge we happened on a man riding an unusual mount !!!!!

Jack on A Roo :)

A rather old rusty man and his mount - a very large red kangaroo. The original Jack on a Roo..... a pun here ok??? Jack a roo.. Okay some won't understand but those who do should have a great laugh.

Happy Oxen :))

You can see the grass on the legs of these 'oxen' how far the water rose from the river to the old Truck Service Station.



I am sitting in a motel room at the mo, with the air conditioner on warm - actually very warm. The dial says 30 degrees celcius. Methinx not. We also have the advantage of electric blankets - something I normally don't use. Overheats moi and his Lordship. So I may have to turn it on to warm those blinking cold cotton sheets as the temperature is supposed to be zero tonight. But as the ever so bright and cheerful if somewhat unhelpful (Paris Hilton type) weather girl stated tonight - bright and sunny tomorrow at 17 degrees. Haha. Thanks for that - we are travelling farther south tomorrow.

I had to go out from the motel to purchase a meal. Round and round a growing city - that is Albury.

As I was driving I happened to glance to the left - a sign said PATCHWORK !!!! My 4WD took itself around the road to the left and then up Macauley Street, Albury to the patchwork shop - Avonleigh Country Quilting.

I just happened to 'require' some fabric to do some hexagons with while I am away - uh huh - and purchased three fat eighths of pink and rose print type quilting fabrics for $9.00. Served by a lovely lady who gave me their business card. 

If you would like to see more have a read of their BLOG at http://www.avonleighcountryquilting.com.au/

Had to add the following pic for all to see. This is the Albury Information Centre. Very helpful staff :)

And the very beautiful and well looked after Albury Train Station in its sunny glory. Gorgeous huh.

Now this weary traveller is off to shower and have a well deserved rest. Goodnight and Adious till the moro my friends - Dee