Sunday, 29 March 2009

KOALA!!

1 comments Posted by RB at 08:04

So I have had THE BEST couple of days!!

Yesterday Kara and I went girly shopping which resulted in me buying a new dress (yes, you heard me right....a dress!) We went to Kara's mum's house for a wee snack and for me to meet her mum. Everyone has been so welcoming to me and made me feel part of the group, it's quite overwhelming! We ended up getting a bottle of champagne and tanned that back home. Kara was making dinner for us last night, so we headed round to her house at night. For those of you that don't know, yesterday was Earth Hour day, which basically means that you have to turn off everything in your house for one hour in a stand against global warming. We managed to time it right so that dinner was ready during Earth Hour and we sat out the back in candlelight eating Apricot Chicken, which was just WOW! I've not had such a laugh in a long time! Jason had taken his guitar with him and the 3 of us sat outside until 2am singing 3 part harmonies to loads of different songs! We rawked!! Whilst sitting in candlelight in Kara's back garden a possum jumped up onto Kara's fence and was sitting watching us! I got the fright of my life!! It was soooo cute! We put a grape out for it and it took it and ran up a tree, to come back down a bit later. Nature at it's best. I couldn't believe it! I was like a little girl, so excited!

Today Jason and I went to Cleland Wildlife Park in Adelaide Hills, which is literally a 20 minute drive from the centre of Adelaide. The weather here has been about 35 degrees, so you can imagine it's been quite warm (I erm...am burnt a wee bit - sorry mum!) **Just a side note for those who don't know...the sun burns you quicker here because Australia has no o-zone layer so we are closer to the sun and so it is more intense...not good for those with high risk skin, etc!** So we got to the park and when we paid to get in they were offering pellet food for the kangaroo's at $1 each...I didn't quite grasp what that meant until we went into the park!

It's literally loads of huge fields and paddocks full of kangaroo's, emu's, birds, little rat thingies (i can not remember their names!) and Koala's! I couldn't believe you could just walk amongst them! Well, seeing as Jason is quite the animal lover, straight away we were in amongst the HUGE kangaroo's and we managed to hand feed them! I was so excited I nearly peed my pants!! (I've got photo's on FB). After a while of doing that we went into another field and there were Emu's walking around us. Now i'm 5'4 and these emu's were bigger than me! Jason straight away started feeding them, but I was a bit of a wimp and wouldn't go near them. The Emu initially was walking straight at me and was cacking my pants! I think it's because it could sense my fear, but I slowly backed away and faced being called a scaredy cat by Jase....there was no way it was gonna try and take food off me!

So, just when I thought my excitement level couldn't get any higher, we walked round the corner to the Koala section! There was a queue which we joined....to pet the koala's and get your photo taken with them!!!! It was so cute and just sat there whilst we pet it! Again, photo's on FB (please leave me a comment if you want to see the photo's on facebook, but don't know where to find them - I'll send you a link).

Then, just to push me right over the edge on the drive back down the Hills, I spotted THREE WILD KOALA's up the trees at the side of the road! I stupidly (in my excitement) shouted KOALA! at the top of my lungs and nearly made Jason crash the car, but hey, it was the first one i've ever seen in the wild! It's just so awesome that the wildlife is just right there for everyone to enjoy! You just wouldn't get that in Scotland! I am so completely in love with this place! LOL especially the sun!!

I've just been looking through the photo's and i'm gonna post the picture of the kangaroo that we were petting. It's so well posed, you'd think that it was a costume with a real person inside.....trust me, this is the real deal!



Right, well I'm off to put some cream on my burnt shoulders and make dinner! We're going to a concert on Tuesday night. The artist is called Sia Furler. She's an australian artist and has a really brilliant voice. Can't wait!

Rhona out.

 

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Saturday, 28 March 2009

0 comments Posted by RB at 03:07

Just a quick post right now. I'm just waiting for my new friend to pick me up so that we can go girly shopping!

Last night was a blast! J and I met up with some people at a local-ish pub and ended up having a right excellent laugh! We were sitting outside all night and it didn't get cold once! I've got some great photo's which will be posted on FB in due course. Unfortunately, it means that we are feeling a tad worse for wear today! We've just worked out that we both got to our respective beds around 4.30am...not good! I'm feeling slightly better than J and am up and walking about, but he seems to be suffering something awful...haha, time to pump some music out!

Tonight Kara (J's best friend) is cooking us a meal. She's pretty cool, I like her. Tonight is also Earth Hour where around the world everyone is to turn their lights off for an hour in a world wide fight against global warming. Any excuse to light some candles!

Well Kara is here, so i'm off...will update soon!

 

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Friday, 20 March 2009

10 green bottles.....

1 comments Posted by RB at 04:20

Everyone has been bugging me to update this, so here it goes...


I've not written anything before because there's not really been anything hugely interesting happen (lol apart from being in a gorgeous country!)

Ok, so just read my last post and I really haven't been keeping this up to date!  Here goes.

Last weekend we went to Adelaide Zoo!  It was pretty awesome!  The weather was gorgeous and the animals were on top form!  I got some pretty good pictures of them and have posted them on my facebook.  At the end of the day we finished up by walking through a huge aviary where there were loads of birds and tortoises, etc roaming around us.  Since it was the end of the day Jason and I were the only ones there.  There was a wee green parrot that caught our attention so Jason went to stand next to it to see how close he could get.  Cool as you like the parrot climbed onto Jason and they shared a moment...or 10!  I have posted a couple of videos of this encounter on FB - pretty unbelievable!

The Adelaide Fringe is still on at the moment, so town is pretty buzzing.  I went into the centre of Adelaide a couple of days ago to do some very necessary (yeah right!) shopping and there were a couple of street performers doing acts.  Very funny!  This one dude was doing magic and was bloody brilliant!  I also suspect he was Scottish, which made him even better!

Last night one of J's friend's came round.  If you are on my FB you will see that i've claimed that I was at Eric Bana's house.  Truthfully, his friend just looks really like him!  Well the alcohol was running freely and between the 3 of us we accumulated quite a few beer/cider bottles.  We then decided to have a band practice....see below...




What started off as Mary Had A Little Lamb soon turned into renditions of the Sound of Music and more. We are available for most functions, including weddings. Please contact me for booking details! Video evidence of the practice can be found on FB.

Tonight we are going to Jason's Grandmother's for dinner. Note to self...no swearing, no cheekiness, no hitting Jason. Hmmm maybe I should stick to water all night!


I have spent most of today tagging all my photo's on FB. How sad! Well I had best go get the house tidied up and make myself look presentable before J gets back from work.

Laters!

 

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Monday, 9 March 2009

underdogs, britishness and paddle brushes

1 comments Posted by RB at 20:32

Good morning world...it is me...Rhona!  Haha, that was such a good book - anyone remember that?  I think it was Sheila and not Rhona though.  Hmmm sufficiently random start!


Not blogged in a few days and my fan base has started emailing me to ask why!  General summary of the past couple days coming up!

It's been absolutely gorgeous here.  Yesterday it was 30 degrees.  That's hot!  I could definitely get used to this weather though!  We went for a hike up Waterfall Gully on Saturday.  Jason was a bit tame in his description of it though and we lasted around half an hour before I literally said NO MORE!  It was scorching heat and I think he forgot that I told him I didn't do hills!  We walked back down to the car and went to the end of the hike (Mount Lofty) and looked out over the whole of Adelaide.  The view was simply stunning!  When I have my phone up and running on the pc i'll shove some pictures up.  On Sunday night we went back to see the city in the night time.  It completely took my breath away!  In the sky there were so many stars that i would never have seen in the UK.  It was absolutely awesome!

Jason found my hairbrush yesterday.  Because I have long hair, I use a paddle brush so its quite big and quite flat.  He took this as an invitation to start hitting me with it.  Not good!  He completely took me by surprise and although I was peeing myself laughing...it was blinking sore!  Of course this is his new party trick.....thoughts on revenge via comments please!  

It's 7am in Adelaide and I am up and awake (wtf!!)  I've had a very good night's sleep and am ready to tackle the city!  Well, i'm actually not going to be today though.  J is back at work so my plan today is to go to the end of the street to Woolworth's (yep, they ain't in administration over here!) and get some food shopping done.  We were meant to do it yesterday, but it was a public holiday in Adelaide because there was a race on (sort of like our Ascot) and the city was shut down for it!  I wish it was like that in the UK!  This meant that all the shops were closed aswell.  Instead we went out to some Pancake cafe-type-place and had a German Breakfast, which consisted of pancakes, sausages, eggs and bacon.  It was lovely!  We then went for a walk around Adelaide Botanical Gardens.  I will be the first to admit that sometimes I do think that one tree looks like them all, but the trees here were pretty amazing!  AND...I came face to face (well more accurately, foot to foot) with my first big spider!  AND I didn't scream!  I was quite calm actually for having noticed it just as it was right close to my foot!  It had been paralysed by a native wasp (they're bigger than our wasps) and was being dragged back to the wasp's nest!  The spider was apparently a Huntsman spider (according to my tour guide, J) although that sort of means nothing to me.  All I noticed was that it was big!  

We came back to the house and ended up watching some TV.  I think it's quite ironic that I come to Adelaide and we ended up watching Michael McIntyre, Top Gear and The Mighty Boosh!  WTF!?  Shouldn't we be watching Neighbours or Home & Away!?

I think I might go back to bed for a couple hours.  I'm only up because Jason woke me to say goodbye and to give me his house keys so i'd not be isolated to here only.  Hmmm a good read of a book for 20 mins and i'm sure i'll drop right off again.

Rhona out.

 

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Friday, 6 March 2009

cleaning in the middle of the night...

1 comments Posted by RB at 23:34

I feel I should update those of you who may be worried...he's safe!  And I'm safe!  No booglie wooglies!


Big shout out goes to my twinny though, who in our infinite twinisdom knew I was a bit hett up and found me on google mail just in time to calm me down!

All is hugs and puppies with the world albeit I am a wee bitty tired after not sleeping!

Oh, and I stick with my original statement - midnightish cleaning is NOT therapeutic and will NOT calm the soul!  My advice - don't do it!

 

let the adventures begin...

0 comments Posted by RB at 17:01

Well!  Here's my first post from Adelaide!  Jason is still out with his friends and to stop me worrying too much about him (long story and will become apparent in due course) I thought I would come online and catch everyone up (and take my mind off the worrying!)


So the flights were ok actually.  There was only one moment on the Singapore to Adelaide flight that they had to put the seatbelt sign on cos of turbulence, other than that they were pretty uneventful.  I must've looked like a lost lamb wondering aimlessly through the airports cos I had no clue about what I was doing!!  Haha!

So Jason was waiting for me at the other end (yay!) and we made it home (double yay!)  Of course, my flight got in at 7.30am but my body was still on UK time so I thought it was late evening, so when I was offered a beer I said YES!!  It was 10am!  It never occured to me until it hit 12 that it was as early as it was and by that time we'd had about 3 beers each.  I decided to bring the sensible side out of me and I decided that we were going to go for a walk.  Jason lives in a beautiful part of the suburb of Westbourne Park.  The houses were just amazing and when we were walking around catching up on the past 6 years it felt like we had been doing that kind of thing forever and there hadn't been an absence of 6 years of not seeing each other!  It was really nice.

By 7.30pm I was beginning to not be able to open my eyes.  I finally gave up fighting the tiredness at 8.30pm - they say to try to resist going to bed until your normal time then getting up in the morning so that your body is disrupted as less as possible.

So off I trotted to bed at half 8 and Jason tapped on my door 5 mins later to say that he was going to go round the corner to meet his friend for a drink...fine by me, i'm sure sitting in on a Friday night whilst I was in bed sleeping didn't appeal too much.  So off he trotted to the pub!  I was in the middle of quite a deep sleep when knocking on a door woke me.  First I thought it was Jason back and was knocking on my door again, but realised it was too loud and too distant.  It soon occurred to me that it was his front door.  It was 11.30pm.  Jason lives in a unit on the first floor.  He has a screen door then a wooden door as his main front door.  I hadn't heard the screen door opening, but there was no mistaking that the thundering was coming from his door.  So I quietly cacked my pants in the bedroom, with the lights still switched off.  It did cross my mind that it was Jason and he had forgotten his keys, so he would phone my phone.  The knocking stopped and I heard the screen door close, but there was no phone call.  Then no more than 2 minutes later I heard the screen door open and again, loud bangings on it.  Then, knocking on his windows began.  I think it's fair to say that I was having a mini heart attack, all my spidey senses were tingling and the adrenaline was pumping.  I was just deliberating what to do when my heart stopped - they had tried the front door to see if it was open.  If the door was unlocked and they got in, I really didn't know what to do.  Luckily the door was locked, the knocking stopped and after 10 minutes of sitting rock-like still in the dark, I phoned Jason.  Yep, he was still in the pub so definitely wasn't him.  He was concerned that I was concerned and said that he was going to come back, but I was fine so told him to stay out and have a good time.  He had joked that if he has forgotten his keys, he'll stand in front of his unit and sing "our song" so that I knew it was him.  Well, it's 3.50am and no sign.  Of course, if any of you know me, you will know that I've watched my fair share of horrors in my time, and right now my imagination is running wild.  I managed to get back to sleep after my heart beat normalised, but was woken abruptly (i'm all nervy now) by what sounded like the screen door opening again.  No sign of him, so naturally my imagination is telling me that whoever it was earlier has been waiting and he's been jumped/taken.  At what point do I really start worrying?  I can't sleep now (which has knocked my jet lag again!)  He's a grown man, so do I worry at all??

Note for Mum & David - You say that i'll understand the worry you go through when I'm not back til all hours and don't contact you when I have kids of my own.  Well tonight, although Jason is not my child, I fully appreciate the worry that you might go through - sorry about that!

Ok, 3.55am - hmmm do I phone him??  I think i'll leave it til 4.30.  I wouldn't normally worry, but after the whole knocking on the door and trying to get in (to which Jason has no idea who would do that and has never happened before), my imagination is on overload,

So that's my update so far.  I think i'll go clean our dishes from today (well, yesterday now).  People say that cleaning is therapeutic (can't say that I come under the "people" catagory, but I'll give it a shot!

I'll keep ya'll updated!

"Welcome to Australia!"

Rhona out.

 

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Tuesday, 3 March 2009

last day standing...

1 comments Posted by RB at 10:23

It's 10am, i'm sitting up in my bed with the laptop on my knees, Everybody Loves Raymond is on the TV, it's Tuesday and I'm flying to Australia tomorrow! I can't believe how quick the time has flown in. It seems just like yesterday that I was booking my flight and starting the 6 month countdown!

Firstly, let me say yay - my sister has just become a follower of my randomness...and if anyone knows how random I am, it's her! You just have to ask her about her latest birthday card from me!

I got the last of my pre-packing stuff yesterday and my list is made so all I have to do now is pack it all! My gosh Raymond is funny!

Yesterday I went to my Grandma and Grandad's house to say goodbye to my family (they all live close to each other so can just go to one house and all my family come to me!). My Grandma asked me to help her on her laptop to check that the email addresses she has for me and my sisters were right, so whilst I was doing that with her, she asked me to help set her up on Facebook! How mental!! My 75 year old Grandma is now on Facebook! WTF!?!?! What is the world coming to?? How hilarious!!

I thought that I would incorporate my "pic of the week" into this blog. This drawing was originally featured in the first series of Heroes. It was a premonition picture of Peter and Simone sharing their first kiss. Although it does have that background to it, I just absolutely love it. It just looks like a really intimate and romantic moment. I just love it!

Right gonna go and pack now. Rhona out.


 

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Sunday, 1 March 2009

three little sleeps...

0 comments Posted by RB at 13:44

and I'll be in Oz! I can't quite believe how close it is until I go! Last night I was at my Sister's Pampered Chef (don't ask!) party and my friends and I got a wee bitty drunk. Was a really good night and she made loads of money for her hostess gifts!

We then ended up in our local to say happy birthday to an old friend and was such a blast from the past! It seemed that everyone was out in force! Nic and I had drank quite a lot by this time ensuring that we were feeling a bit invincible...it would come as no surprise then that at the end of the night we nearly got into a fight! I had to pull Nic away (a wee blonde girly girl who wouldn't harm a fly) and we ran away. I thought it was the best option as I knew fine if it got physical I would've had to step in and I didn't really fancy either a) spending the night in the cells and ending up featured on "Night Cops" - a series on tv following Edinburgh policemen at the weekends, or b) going to australia with black eyes (although I'm sure they would've ended up worse off - I have a mean right hook!) Fun and games my last weekend in Scotland! Never a dull moment in my life!

I just got my travel insurance through too, so bring on the dangerous sports!!

Woohoo!! I need to do my photo of the week - i'll have a think about that one!

 

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