Easter Monday - March 24th

Whew! I’ve been busy and just dragging one foot after the other with the long heatwave here in Adelaide. The Japanese students who I was teaching English to, wilted in the heat and I had to maintain enthusiasm even when I felt like wilting! But it was good and I enjoyed teaching them for 2 weeks - as I usually do! Time just flew.
My parents needed some TLC and now my Mum is much better. She is still a bit dizzy and is reluctant to drive. S came over after finishing off the house-sit in Victoria and he needed a slice of my energy too! He was lonely. Another little drama last week was Mum’s brother Brian died. He was ill and had little quality in his life so it was a blessed relief. The funeral was in Loxton Easter Thursday afternoon and so I drove Mum and Dad up in the morning and we stayed with relatives overnight. We dawdled back on Friday taking back roads and letting Mum soak up scenes of her beloved River Murray. S couldn’t come too as we started a house-sit on Thursday night. We are looking after a maltese terrier in an Adelaide suburban homette until next Sunday 30th March. It is good as S has had enough of my Dad!
To celebrate our free time on Sunday we rode to Seacliff (to get bike locks from our stored stuff) and then to Semaphore to see the annual kite festival. It was very good – at least 100 kites all shapes and sizes and colours. My favourite was a red, cerese and orange frilled neck lizard, which was 20 metres long on the ground. Afterwards we rode back – a total of 70kms. I was pleased as I hadn’t ridden for ages. S had been riding about 40kms very early every morning before the heat came for the day. (Then he would have naps in the afternoon while I was working!)
We are catching up with friends and house hunting for a house to rent when all the family gets together for J’s wedding in mid April.. Next week we want to go on a long bike ride –either mid north – Barossa, Burra, Clare etc or to cooler climes down south-east – robe, Millicent, Port MacDonnell etc as we rushed through that district last year. Depends a bit on the weather. It is not just the heat, but all Adelaide districts look very parched and unappealing! Adelaide house gardens look so dry too. There needs to be a lot of rain! There are some posh houses and gardens near here and many have signs saying “bore water in use”. That annoys me. They can afford that infrastructure and it will take a lot of rain for the water table to be restored. Think of the big tree roots. It is so sad.