Latest report from Bloo and Wendy Dennis.

Well it’s here again, time for this old newsletter & best wishes to one & all for the merriest of Christmas’s & the very best in health & happiness for 2014!
Dec: We made it to Standown Park in time to put on the red suit again. The Doc made it down to spend Christmas with us & so we helped her look for new digs as she is going to be at Hervey Bay hospital for the next year.
Jan: New Year, Still at Standown & then to home & get the garden in some order, solar panels up and running, no more elect bills? & let’s not forget the new knee (just to do something different)!
Feb: Trying to get quack appointments sorted out so we can get away for our little meander to Darwin via Adelaide & kangaroo Island.
Mar: Doctors done, Scripts organised, Wendy’s health on the up so looks like we will be able to get away.
Apr: Finally away, Anzac Day this year was at Renmark for us this year as one of the blokes decided to get married in Adelaide the same week.
Oct : Well me older mates, her ladyship & yours truly are back in the thriving metropolis of Jandowae. Had a great trip away; left here in March as you probably know to travel south to Renmark in South Australia for Anzac Day (Old soldier get together & bullshit to each other knowing full well that we are bullshitting to each other about how we won the war)? Some of us were still wondering if we did any good! Never mind had a great get together with old mates for a week then all to soon see you next year.
Then on to Adelaide for Macca’s wedding, the wedding turned out beaut & we wish Macca &Dianne all the best for a long & happy future. Then to my brother Les’s to catch up & prepare for 15 days on Kangaroo Island, which we must admit was rather late in the season as winter was closing in & that half of Aus can get cool and damp. Anyway we loaded up the old Patrol & headed down to the barge for the trip over to the Island.
The Island, we rented 3 farm houses for 5 days each at strategic places for seeing all the Island, & what a great way it was to see it all! We expected it to be a bit cool & it was for Wendy, but Les and I battled on in shorts & tee shirts & the odd day with a singlet underneath.
Being late in the season we were more than welcomed everywhere we went as the tourists were getting thin on the ground & we as usual were in holiday FUN mode? Had a ball as you will note by the photos! Did the wineries & caught up with a mate of Les’s that could have turned into a disaster as his family owned a winery & I might add wasn’t a bad drop either as well nice piece of France working behind the counter. Well we did all the normal tourist things, National parks, lighthouses old & new, ruins etc. Except for the Penguins who weren’t home the night we went looking. Saved the wineries & pubs most days for the lunch period, excellent lunches & platters & stuff like that! Any way we did the sheep dairy & tried out the cheeses, that’s where this other tourist became a terrorist as he forgot to put his park brake on & his bloody great mobile home rolled into the back of the Patrol. The only good thing about that was he stopped against us instead of rolling over the edge & into a rather deep gully. Not sure how repairable his would have been then, but ours wasn’t that bad & soon got it fixed when we got back to the mainland. We finished up trading it in a couple of weeks later anyway. We know have Nissan Navara Ute with canopy and V6 engine and 7 speed gear box auto & sequential. This certainly tows the van much better than the Patrol & consumption about the same. Most of you young ladies will probably have to find a male of the species to explain that paragraph?
Well we got back to the mainland (Adelaide) when mother decides that she’s not finished with the old sympathy thing yet so off to the quacks we go and over the next couple of weeks/ months we buy this young fella & a couple of his mates (medical fraternity) a new Porsche or two to get around in, (for the uninitiated that means Dr. bills), Anyway we were still running around Adelaide & environs checking out the neighbourhood so to speak. A few wineries & pubs mixed in, oh & nearly forgot the penguins, funny little blokes we found down at this little nursery place for the injured on Granit Island, horse drawn carriage ride over the bridge from Victor Harbour.
Went off to church with brother Les a couple of times while we were there, some nice folk but, gord you should have felt the place tremble! A couple of AFL games whilst we were there as well.
Birdwood Motor museum, recommend to anyone visiting Adelaide, check it out, well worth the look.
Not to be put out to much by mothers need for the old sympathy, we head over to the Yorke Peninsular, (no not yours UK mob, the one on the other side of the puddle West of Adelaide) to have a look around while we are waiting for results & treatment for Wendy. Did the National Parks, red wine sunsets over the water and just generally forced ourselves to enjoy life, but as you must understand, ‘someone has to do it’ & I want you to realise just how bloody tough it is being that someone!
Had to return to Adelaide on & off to find out the results, but after Wendy found the Cornish connection at Moonta, she who thinks she must be obeyed will probably try to tell all that she now has a Cornish flag, well she does but it didn’t come from there, a lovely young Cornish backpacker that was working at the bottom pub here a year or so back got it sent out for her, the lovely young lass wouldn’t take anything for it! Cornish hospitality I hear, must agree. Anyway back to the story, I well remember the last time we were in Moonta some years back, mother walked into a pie shop advertising Cornish pastes & on discovering it had meat in it, marched back in there & gave them everything but the original recipe about Cornish bloody pastes. Didn’t happen this time?
Found a good little military museum at bubblacowie, huge amount of military memorabilia there as well as a lot of other stuff, with a van site or two, nice bloke to boot.
Jul: Well we didn’t make it to Nigel’s OBE (80th). A phone call to the strains of happy birthday & good wishes to him had to suffice. Applegees to one & all that were expecting us in the top end again this year. Jodi did though for a couple medical seminars in Darwin. She did manage to catch up with some of you which was nice for her, but didn’t have a great deal of spare time as she organised to do Ayers Rock & Kings Canyon in between the seminars
Aug: After all the farewells to the new & old friends we had made in Adelaide, saw us heading north to Port Augusta for the first leg of our journey north, had to make a few adjustments with the new beast and the van but from there on she went like a dream. A couple of days looking around and getting things sorted. We were off to Woomera, met some interesting people there and got some good oil on these so called refugees, mind you we aren’t talking about all of the poor buggers, but that’s a different story for a different time! Had to stay there for the best part of a week as the old winds came up checked out Roxby Downs, Andamooka as well as woomera town itself, best bowling green I’ve seen in a long time, make a good vege patch if you could get rid of the weeds (no bowlers in Woomera).
Anyway the wind drops & we head off for Coober Pedy, as one does when on holiday we did the tours and wandered the town discovering a rather small but active bunch at the RSL, whom we got to know over the next couple of weeks. You see I had picked up this bloody wog in Adelaide & it decided that it was going to give us some stick & it did,. Me one night orf to the horsepidal flashing lights & all, overnight and some antibiotics & I’m on the road to recovery. Not to be out done, Wendy has the best part of a week in there (just no sympathy in this man’s world). My compliments to the girls & boys at the hospital they do a great job with what they have available, always with a smile. Made some friends there too, nice people in odd places! Towns a bit dusty at times & they have the friendliest of flies.
Sept: Well, been here long enough, away again to the north. Decided to make time to check out the Rock as our Anniversary was coming up and the old chook came here to see it 40 odd years ago, so better to do it before we get to bloody old. We celebrated 39 years of bliss watching the sun go down over Ayers Rock with wine & a candlelight dinner complete with entertainment, a lovely night. We took a chopper ride over the lot. That was good, especially over the Olgas. As it turned out to be a series of bloody great rocks spread over a large Sunrise & sunsets over The Rock & the Olgas, Brilliant! Kings Canyon was next on the agenda, a couple of days there with a fair amount of walking to see all the sights, well worth it.
Alice Springs to catch up with old friends and check out the joint. Well we did, both. Was really great catching up after all this time!
Next the 3 ways & turn right, did an overnighter at Barkly Homestead, 40 under the waterbag, made me wonder how a man used to work in it. Must have been younger and sillier? Mount Isa for the weekend. Had a look at some of the stuff we hadn’t seen in the past, which wasn’t much!
Soldiered on to Winton & caught up with Paul & Sonya, she’s still battling the cancer, big heart that girl! While we were in Winton we got an invite to the premiere of the movie ‘Mystery Road’ which was shown in the open air theatre, sitting on deck chairs just like the good old bad old days, magic!
Oct: Blackall, we had a poke through the Jackie Howe museum run by his granddaughter and hubby again for the uninitiated, the blue working singlet in Australia was named after him. Morven showgrounds, $5 per night, clean toilets & showers. Then home. Clean the van before backing the bedroom into the Ranbuild Hilton till next time.
Nov: Well we have been down to Toowoomba & Wendy has done the rounds of the Quacks and they are all happy with her & don’t want to see her till next year. Christmas this year is at Standown again for us. 1; the red suit for me and it’s nice & close to you know who has to work this year!
End of this month we 3 are doing a weekend on Fraser Island for my birthday.
To cap it all off it looks like the Doc is off to Tamworth in N.S.W. next year to a GP practice.