Author: kazbah33pics

The Christmas decorations have only been taken down
and put away for a couple of hours … and I miss them
already. The only one they’ve left up is the Eiffel Tower with the coloured lights – and they’re not putting that away because it reminds them of Paris. I think they liked Paris a lot! M Kaz has even changed her profile picture to the one with the Mummies with the vintage deux chevaux (2CV) outside their hotel in Paris after they’d been on the night tour to see the twinkling Eiffel Tower.

M Kaz keeps saying she’s going to go into the garage and finish decluttering in there but she hasn’t yet. She’s been trying to find an app to put on her phone so she can track what she has to do. It might just be because I have never felt the need to have a ‘to do’ list but you would think she could just go and do it rather than having to write it down first. I guess this way she can track what she’s done – when she actually does it.

I am surprised that M Kaz is still getting up early to go down to the Broadwater. She’s usually out the door just after 5am but sometimes when she actually wants to photograph the colours of the sunrise, she leaves way earlier. It will come as no surprise that M Sooz and I are not actually fully awake when that happens. I’m not sure what happens down there but she doesn’t come back for a couple of hours some days.

Nothing much is happening around Jannie at present – it’s hot, it’s wet, it’s cooler (when those Mummies have the air con on) and there are a few critters around – dinosaurs and such but I haven’t noticed the tiny tiny canetoad-thingies that Uncle Wayne loves so much.

Well, I wanted to stay up to see the New Year in but I could not persuade those Mummies to stay up until 12 am with me.  It’s no fun staying up late if no-one else is staying up with you.  No amount of pleading would have them stay up until after 9.30 pm.  M Sooz didn’t go to sleep straightaway but you can bet your  bottom dollar that despite her best intentions to stay awake, M Kaz did not.  She was snoring very soon after her head hit that pillow – just like any other night really. 

I heard the fireworks at 8 pm, 9 pm and at 12 midnight.  I didn’t hear the other ones at 1 am – but I don’t think those last ones were official fireworks just someone letting off crackers somewhere.  That’s what M Kaz heard when she was having coffee down at the water the next morning anyway.  I didn’t see any of the fireworks – except the ones M Kaz showed me on FaceBook from Paris and Sydney.  They looked wonderful.

M Kaz hasn’t been doing that much work in her office lately – I think she said something about the courts in the ACT being closed for the holidays, which means she’s on holidays.  She had talked about doing some decluttering and other tidying activities but she hasn’t done any of that yet but she has done some reading, and some photography including sorting through the piccies from their trip, and she and M Sooz have been to Lismore to see their friend Janet, and to Royal Pines to see Roz.

Those Mummies are still not watching ‘Midsomer Murders’ again.  I thought they would have started it again but they have been watchng ‘Call the Midwife’ but won’t be anymore unless they go back to the start of the series, because they’re all caught up already!

M Kaz has been watching Paddington Bear because they are planning to see his new movie next week.  She’s been busy doing that which is why it’s taken me until now (5 January) to get her to type up this post for me!

I don’t know what M Kaz is playing at … it’s getting harder and harder to get her to sit down to transcribe my blog for me.  It’s been a week since she did it last – and there’s been a lot happening in that time – including Aunty M coming to see me a few times while those Mummies have been doing stays away overnight in Toowoomba.  A Nigey would be very lonely indeed if Aunty M wasn’t around. 

What puzzles me though is that sometimes when Aunty M is here and I know those Mothers are not, I can hear M Kaz’s voice coming from … somewhere.  I thought it was just me hearing it but I now know that Aunty M does too because she has been talking to/with it.  What kind of sorcery is this?  I think it has something to do with those (spy on Nigey) cameras they put in.  I’m just glad they only put the three in because there are still places I can hide so they’re not completely invading my privacy.   

Not that that means M Kaz hasn’t been busy taking photographs of me over the last little while.  I’ve been through the pics (there are a few) with her and picked out some to post here but as I keep telling her – there are too many.  I think it will be better when she starts taking her camera down to the water in the mornings again so she can get it out of her system without having to follow me around the house so she can take shots of me lying down, or sleeping, or playing with my friend the rubber band.  If I’d wanted my life documented I would started a blog!

Uncle Wayne hasn’t been back for a while which is a shame because, even despite his obsession with those spray bottles, I do like having him around.  The Mummies aren’t sure when he’s going to be here next – but they did see him in Toowoomba when they were there on the weekend. I know they talked about me too!

The washing has disappeared from Outback and has moved into the bedroom that Uncle Wayne and I share.  M Kaz has sorted it into baskets and I have made one of them my own.  Yes, yes, it does have black tee-shirts and other black things in it – which is why it’s my favourite. 

I’m glad those Mummies have trusted me enough to have the Christmas trees up inside the house – the real ones which light up, not the felt ones that stick to the wall.  They’re a bit boring.  The Mummies have the lights on every night they’re home and the ones hanging outside the living room (glass) doors are lovely to look at too.  I have been very careful to not touch M Sooz’s nativity scene alone because I know she’d be very upset if anything happened to it. 

I’m not sure how much longer the Christmas lights are going to stay up though – Christmas was the day before yesterday already and I think there are ‘rules’ about how long trees and lights and things can stay up.  Aren’t people funny?  You think they’d want to keep them up all year round – they’re so nice to look at. 

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!  Uncle Wayne has been visiting and the Mummies have had him doing jobs around the place again.  This time they had him putting up the solar Christmas lights.  The most amazing thing about that is that they still work – given the ones they had him put up have been sitting in the drawers near the front door since I arrived here five years ago!  M Kaz is not one to rush things.  And Christmas light fixing technology has come a long way since then – with little sticky things now available that will adhere to most surfaces to allow the fixing of the lights. 

Uncle Wayne has fashioned a Christmas tree out of some of the lights on to the fence in the front court yard and those are not currently programmed to do anything flash, and he’s framed that with flashing coloured LED lights.   It was that set of lights that he’s had to replace the rechargeable battery in – who knew they become unable to hold their charge after some time in the box. To be fair, M Kaz thinks they’d probably lose their ability to hold the charge if they’ve been used to.

That’s outside.  Inside, for the first time in a good few years – since the year after I arrived – Christmas trees have appeared.  The bigger LED tree has not been plugged in – I may have tried to chew on the electricity cord the first year I was here.  M Kaz has festooned both that tree and the little tree with strings (metals?) of battery-operated lights.  They’re pretty – Santas, gingerbread me (or are they reindeer), caravans and coloured balls. 

I think M Kaz likes them – I came in the other night and she was just sitting on the couch, in the dark except for the Christmas lights, just watching them.   It won’t be long until they start listening to Christmas music.  (Update:  I was right.  It’s started!)

When they were buying Christmas light supplies, M Kaz also bought something I hate.  They were billed as ‘commercial quality’ so it’s just wrong that she is using them on me.  What are they?  Bl**dy spray bottles – and they are so much better (worse?) than the one Uncle Wayne had while those Mummies were away because it doesn’t need to be ‘primed’ – just point and press the trigger and every time a stream of water spurts out.  Grrrrr.  There’s been a bit of spray bottle action since the Christmas tree came out – and more now that M Sooz has her nativity scene out.  It’s going to be a long time until 12th Night when they all came down. 

Another job the Mummies had for Uncle Wayne was putting up some security cameras Aunty Wendy had given them.  I have been trying to tell the Mummies that having the camera out in my area constitutes an invasion of my privacy but they don’t seem to be listening.  I’ve fixed their little red wagon though – I’ve now worked out that if I go to top of the (Mimi) cat tower, the cameras register me as ‘human’ and that triggers a notification on M Kaz’s phone.  Heh heh – and I know that she’s set the notifications from the cameras to sound even when her phone’s on ‘do not disturb’ at night.  I am going to have some fun with that.