Sunday 30th October

Had a great riding session today with lisa. She took me out into the outback and we had so much fun. we were gone 2 hours without realising! I was riding Buddy and she let us have a gallop...i havent had a proper gallop since Kierra and it reminded me of the times i used to go hell for leather on Ki up Rudry Common...the horses love it! Buddy was really good and listened to all my commands so i felt really safe on him and was able to apply the brakes when needed...its always good to be able to stop a horse! Lisas phone rung whilst we were riding through the cattle farm and a cow was stood behind us inquisitively staring. We let the horses graze whilst she talked on the phone...5 minutes later when she hung up, over 200 cattle had proceeded to join the lonely cow and all stood motionless watching what we were up to. The horses werent scared, we just rode on past them and they moved out of the way. On the way back to the paddock we spotted 3 kangaroos not too far in the distance. When we got back, Lisa said we would take the horses to the lake to let them cool off. she handed me a long lunge rein and said 'you'll need this.". The lake is just around the corner from the paddock and Lisa's horse, Hayley was straight in the water and rolling around with her legs in the air. Buddy got knee deep and pawed the water with his front leg and soaked me! He was so funny to watch, he was splashing around making a lot of noise and sending water flying all over the place...now i know why i was given a LONG lead rope!

Back at the house Gaz had a good day on the computer. I nipped over to woolworths to get some food supplies and then realised i had forgotten something so ended up having to go back but Gaz came with me. I have started bumping into patients in woolworths now...its horrible and really awkward! I then had a little kip before doing some last minute tidying up before Gaz's parents get here in less than 48 hours! we are both very excited about seeing them...its going to be good fun!

Saturday 29th October - Bake day...FAIL

Gaz was up at 6am and got ready for his boating licence....i lay snuggled up in bed, just like he does when i go to work...it was bliss! He said the day was very boring and didnt get home till 3pm. There were 16 people on his course and the clever clogs was the first to finish the theory test at the end and was the only one to get 100%. Am very proud of him! He is now the proud owner of a boat licence!

I spent the day cleaning the house and sorting out some paper work. I thought it would be nice to cook Gaz this treacle sponge pudding he had been bleating on about for the past 2 weeks. I walked over to woolworths and picked up the ingredients and had it all weighed out and ready to go by the time he got home. I managed to mix all the ingredients with a little help from delia smith and  loaded the mix into a pudding steamer that Gaz had bought from Big W last week. Hmm...it said it had to go into a saucepan and be steamed....but we didnt have a saucepan big enough so i was trying to improvise. I had told gaz the steamer pot with the mix in was at an angle because it wouldnt fit in the saucepan we had and he told me to balance it so that it was level or else it wouldnt set properly. I spent the next 5 minutes faffing around with the bloody thing only to try moving the saucepan to a smaller hop when BANG CRASH AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Gaz leaped out of bed and immediately ran down the stairs to see what the commotion was about. The handle on the saucepan had broke causing it to fall off the hob, boiling hot water splashed my belly and the treacle sponge pudding (still in liquid form) fell all over the floor. Gaz was concerned that i had burnt myself but i was more concerned about the mess on the floor :( We took a picture to portray the devastation. I have made a pact that i am NOT cooking anything else on Gazs request...he keeps picking the hard things to cook and we dont have the right utensils. ill stick to cupcakes!!!

we have been for a drive in the car and around the corner from our house was a childrens Halloween festival with belly dancers dressed as witches and little kids dressed up as ghosts and ghouls...was nice to see the community spirit...that was until a big mean ant bit my foot - OUCH!

We have just devoured a pizza from the eagle boys pizza place and are snuggled in bed watched arrested development.

Friday 28th October - Bundaberg

Gaz and i went on a road trip to Bundaberg today. We will  be visiting again for new year to watch the turtle hatchlings and maybe visit one or two of the islands around there but today we thought we would go and check out the Bundaberg Rum Distillery. We were up and out of the house by 8.30am...a time of day that Gaz has not seen since our last road trip! Along the Bruce Highway, Gaz spotted a sign for 'Childers, Snakes Down Under' - Next turning right. We thought we would give it a go. We pulled in to a very empty car park at the same time as a family of 4 pulled up. We ventured inside....there was no one else around apart from a very chirpy tour guide. She gave us a talk on snakes, pulling out a numerous number of snakes from different bags. The family of 4 was made up of 2 young boys who had no interest in what the lady was saying but more interested in running their toy cars along the serrated metal edge of the snake pit. Very annoying. After the talk about snakes, the guide gave us the oppertunity to hold one of the snakes from the talk and the fresh water baby crocodile. I dont mind snakes so i was more than happy to have one around my neck...Gaz was in his element and asked lots and lots....and lots of questions. Its nice to see him so interested in something, i didnt realise he had such a passion for reptiles! Here is trevor the black headed python...

And the fresh water croc....

 Thankfully the family wondered off but the tour guide took Gaz and i on a talk of the park showing us each reptile and holding them up for us to touch. I think she appreciated someone (Gaz) being so keen and interested in each reptile. She was very knowledgeable which is just as well to keep up with Gaz's questioning. I took quite a few snaps of the reptiles (which are all on my facebook) but here are 2 of my favourite...

I like this bearded dragon picture because hes so cute! .....

We spent a lot longer than anticipated in the reptile park which wasnt a bad thing. We continued up to Bundaberg and were impressed with the number of shops there. I was expecting a clock tower with a dental practice and maybe one or 2 cafes but no, there was lots there...it reminded me of Hervey Bay only without the beach. We stopped for lunch in a steakhouse and wondered towards the clock tower as my brother, Adam, said his dental practice where he and Gemma worked was nearby. ....I must have looked very crazy taking a picture of the dental practice but here it is...this ones for u, Adam and Gem!

Eventually we made it to our destination - The Bundaberg Rum Distillery. We rocked up, cruised over to the door....and read the sign. 'Enclosed Shoes ONLY to be worn around on the guided tour'. Gaz and i looked down at our bare feet...flip flops. Doh! Luckily inside you could hire plimsoles to wear around. i dread to think how many other peoples sweaty feet had been slipped into them before us. It was very impressive with how much work goes in to making the rum and i offered to drive back to Hervey Bay so that Gaz could enjoy the tasters at the end of the tour. We found out why they use a polar bear as their logo and its apprently because in the 60's no one down south was drinking the rum because they felt it was more of a holiday drink in the hot weather up north...the Bundaberg rum people wanted to change this perception and so wanted an animal that would scare the cold away and warm you up...the only winter animal australia has is the penguin on phillip island so they went for the polar bear....and it worked! Gaz doing his usual questioning thing asked if the Bundaberg rum polar bear came before the coca cola polar bear...the tour guide didnt know. Any way, we didnt end up buying any rum as we already have some in the house but it was an educational afternoon! 

Wednesday 26th October - Good Day!

Today i feel like a good dentist. Gaz reckons i am a bipolar dentist...i think 9 days out of 10 i feel good and then a rubbish day hits me. The day went really well and i successfully managed a surgical removal of an impacted wisdom tooth which i am really happy with. I baked 2 batches of cakes last night to take in to work. Gaz had a cake last night but i left him one this morning on the counter with a little note saying 'i love u' (lol). When  got home for lunch gaz had returned the message putting 'i love u 2' on the saucepan next to the stew i was going to heat up. bless!

Gaz has had a productive day today. He went to the place that issues boat licenses (as he wants to do a test to get a license so that he can drive a good boat for when his dad, Ian, comes to stay with us so that they can go fishing). Unfortunately they said the course was full so he left his name and number....by the afternoon they had rung him back and said there had been a cancellation so it looks like he will be doing it after all! He also went to Big W to get a football so that we could have a kick around after  i finished work. We got down to the beach but the tide was coming in....we kicked the ball for a few minutes and decided we had had enough so strolled for a bit then came home. Gaz has just cooked me spag bol and we are going to relax and watch some TV. It is my last day in work 2moz before the weekend! 6 days till ian and chris get here! yay!  

Tuesday 25th October - Tough day in work

Today work was sooo frustratng. The DA i work with is great but she has so much energy and likes to talk...even when your running really late shes still talking to the patient and you just want to get them out of the room! she even finds me extra patients to see...for instance 10 minutes till our tea break and shes grabbed me a denture review from one of the other dentists...i said are they running late? she said no but i thought we could see them because shes writting up her notes. In the end the guy came in and there were all sorts of problems with the denture so i was late for my break then....nice one. Just before lunch i had to deal with post op pain from a patient who another dentist had taken a tooth out on. She was a right drama queen and thought she was dying and was trying to hold her breath to make herself pass out. She said her eye was sore and persistently kept rubbing it which made it worse and screamed with tears when i said i had to numb her up to clean out the socket. Her poor boyfriend. Then after lunch i had a guy, really lovely patient but hes in a wheel chair and needs the skippy lift to get into the chair. Its a big ordeal for him to get to the clinic and the whole skippy lift things takes forever and we need so much consent. This guys wife has been with him for every appointment and then the DA turned round and said...whose going to sign for the consent....the patient has no use of his hands so the wife was going to do it but no...shes not allowd because she doesnt have a piece of paper saying she has rights of looking after the patient. what a load of crap...so they were going to send the patient away just because of no signed consent...in the end i got the patient to grab the pen between his arms and scribble something...i wasnt going to send hm away the poor guy. It went from bad to worse anyway because the guy has previously been on oral bisphosphonates....so 1.we have protocols to give all this antibiotics coverage crap which i had done but 2. the fosfomax makes the bone like lead! i had 2 teeth to take out. the first one took 45 minutes...and the second one a further 45 minutes with bone removal (not ideal) and the help of another dentist. The poor patient didnt moan once and everytime i asked f he was ok, nodded and smiled. What a trooper. I felt like a really crappy dentist...and then 4.30 i still had 2 patients to see before 5. Denture inserts. One wasnt my patient and of course there were problems with the denture....eventually he was happy with it and the DA wanted to make sure he could take it out...which he had already shown me he could do...but VERY slowly. So i was running even more late....and then she talks.....4.50pm my last patient in....convinced him the denture fit fine.  What a day!

I got home...could easily have fallen asleep but i had cooked a stew so we had some of that. Gaz and i even had our first argument since being out here...and it was over beef stew (lol). I was grouchy from work any way and served up the stew but gaz said he didnt want the veg, he only wanted the meat so could he pick all the healthy stuff out.  For some reason it became a big deal that he didnt want the veg, only the meat...the argument only lasted 5 minutes but its all sorted now and he ended up eating the veg (bless him) but we have compromised and ive agreed to put extra meat in the stew next time so he can pick it out lol.

We then watched the rest of Arrested development series 2 which we have now completed. 

Sunday 23rd October - Day of rest

This morning i had my riding lesson, leaving gaz in bed and very confused about where i was going so early in the morning...he was completely out of it! I rode buddy again and Lisa let me go off gallivanting on my todd with him which was fun. when i rode back to where she was giving a lesson, she offered me the chance to ride through a field which had 2 horses already loose in it. She said they wouldnt bother me and they will stop following when i get to the trees on the far end of the field. This was not the case. I rode buddy through the field and one of the horses, Toby, followed. He didnt stop when we got to the trees and buddy had tolerated him up his backside this far but was becoming frustrated at Toby following so close. We rode through the trees and toby began to get restless and i could feel buddy getting annoyed. I turned to go back as i didnt feel comfortable having a loose horse so close to us and toby started getting excited and kept trying to get in front of buddy and puttng his ears back. Each time toby did this i steered buddy away n a different direction, weaving in and out of the trees so that toby couldnt get so close .Lisa and the owner of toby had got concerened and i could see them waiting by the fence in the distance. I rode buddy calmly back through the field but toby was getting all excited. Buddy put his head down and bucked at toby to keep him away. I was glad to get out of that field...i dont think lisa will be letting people ride through there again with loose horses...not a good idea! Driving back from the riding lesson i almost ran over a lizard. Ive called him ALMO...which is short for 'ALMOST run over'. I braked suddenly in the car and the daft little thing didnt move, just carried on sun bathing. I ended up having to reverse the car back and pulling up onto someones garden to get past. He did give me the opportunity to photograph him on my phone...i say he was lil but actually he was quite big!

 Here is almo....

I fell asleep for 2 hours beneath the air con whilst gaz played on his computer. He had a good day today which was nice and put him n a better mood. We went out for lunch and ate it on the beach which was going to be really nice only some stupid idiot was banging a tree the whole time. We thinking he was trying to break the branch off or something but it was soooo annoying! We got back to the house and watched some 'Arrested Development' and had a sudden urge to go to the gym....which we did. We were home in time to watch the france vs new zealand final and were amused by the hacker and the way the french walked forwards towards it...will they get into trouble for that? We have just had a takeaway from the thai place down the road...yummy. 12 cupcakes baked 3pm yesterday have now become zero by 11am this morning. Oh dear.

Saturday 22nd October - Successful baking!

Thursday evening neither of us could be bothered to cook so we headed to the Hervey Bay boat club for some dinner. Nothing much happened. Friday i worked and in the evening, because i finished at 4.30, we drove down to the esplanade and enjoyed the last hour of sunshine sitting outside in a restaurant for dinner. We then watched the wales vs australia rugby match...gaz got the time wrong so we missed the first half hour but i wasnt upset as i lost interest in the game after 5 minutes of watching. Gaz told me off for shouting OH GOD HOOKS GONNA MISS, HOOKS GONNA MISS...but i was right, he missed. Then once i stopped watching, my shouting was replaced with Gaz's 'OH FFS! and punching the bed with his fists.

Argh! today i did 2 lots of washing and the clothes have been hanging on the line. Ive noticed the grey clouds wafting over but i thought i would write the blog first before getting them in off the line. Ive just heard the rain start pouring on the roof...its a bit late to get them in now as the rain here is heavy :( Also i have been baking again today! not wanting to be defeated at the last attempt, i have returned to good old delia smith recipe. I went out and bought scales and a tube i can fill with icing and twist to squirt it out into patterns. The kitchen became a bomb site but i took my time and made the best cupcakes ive ever made! i was so happy, i took a photo. What i should do in future is bake on one day and decorate on another as i must admit after all the time spent baking, i did get a little bit bored by the time it came to decorating. Gaz was my taste tester and he didnt keel over so they must be ok! he hovered around me doing the butter icing and kept wanting to put his finger in for a taste like a little child! The only problem now is work is not until monday so i am now stuck with 10 amazingly tasty cupcakes in my cupboard...how can these NOT get eaten by us two!

We cant be bothered to cook again tonight so it looks like we are goin gto get a pizza take away. oops!