We started packing yesterday.  It’s now less than two weeks to go until we leave.  I hate packing and having a baby certainly adds to the stress of it.  Nina kept trying to climb into the boxes and pull out everything that we put in.  Thankfully, we know the lovely people moving in after us and they have a baby too so much of it we can leave behind but much of it also needs to go in boxes.

It’s always pretty sad packing up a house you have loved living in.  Lots of emotions.  It’s also hard packing up stuff that you may not see again for a few years.

Books – she can’t get enough of them.  She especially loves “found you little wombat” and “ten little fingers and ten little toes”.  Here is daddy reading to her before bed, which he does every night.

Bitta- The Cavanagh’s (our neighbours) have a dog named Bitta.  She is beautiful dog and Nina loves her.  And more than she loves her she loves to say her name over and over all day “Bitta, Bitta, Bitta”  The other night I woke up at 3am and she was in her cot saying Bitta.  Here is a photo of Her with Bitta and Libby.  She really, really loves Libby too.

Blueberries – Nina loves blueberries.  In face she loves most fruit especially is she can get it all over face.  Nina loves being dirty.  Here is a good example.

Climbing into the washing basket- Nina is a great help when I am putting away washing.  She will pass me things and say “Ta”.  But she will also climb in the basket in the hope I will give her a push.

One of the girls that I have been tutoring at the high schoool decided to drop out three weeks before the exams start.  I have to confess I feel a bit disappointed.  I certainly spent a lot of time and effort with her.  However, my time and effort are really irrelevant here and probably just about ego anyway.  Mostly I feel a bit sad for her. Not that I believe having a SACE (the equivalent of the HSC here in the Territory) is everything but it sure does make things easier not to mention gives people a sense of satisfaction to finish.  And she was so close but could no longer take the pressure, she didn’t believe that she could do it.  I really wish that there wasn’t so much pressure put on young people at this time.  I know mostly teachers, parents etc are just trying to encourage them, I am too, but so often it comes across as simply pressure. 

Yesterday I was listening to the radio and there was a piece about the fact that Alice Springs town camps are getting letter boxes for the first time.  Until now they have had to pick up mail from the council and there were lots of cases of unclaimed mail or people geting mail too late and missing appointments, dates of payments because of it and then having to deal with the consequences.  I guess this is just another example of Aboriginal people not getting basic services that the rest of us take for granted.

QandA was live from Darwin last night.  As a Territorian myself these days I was rather interested in the program.  It was okay although I don’t think they really got into enough depth on the really important topics and perhaps more depth than necessary on some of the less important issues.

Rosalie Kunoth Monks was extraordinary.  Hearing her comment on how it felt to have the government people just roll into town in their luxury 4WD and just land them with intervention literally over night was powerful.  I also thought the guy from the Cattleman’s Association was interesting, even if I didn’t agree with him on most things and Stuart Blanch from the NT Environment Centre was very knowledgable and explained things well.  As usual the politicians were irritating.  David Tollner was particularly infuriating with his constant trying to bait the Chief Minister into a debate and I don’t think he thought about anything he said before it came out of his mouth.  My favourite line was from Tony when he referred to his wife as girl Tony just said something like, “I actually call her a woman”.

I was pleased to see a lot of the Twitter comments saying how good it was to actually hear about what goes on for people in the Territory.  Issues such as the Intervention get talked about a lot without any imput from those really affected by it.

Australian politics is rather embarassing.  Both Labor and Liberal want off shore processing of asylum seekers but because of their politcal games they have actually ended up with on shore processing.  They both want to blame the other party but any one with half a brain can see that they are entirely equally to blame.  I guess the shame is that they are both saying that the other should compromise as well as the Australian public and media are saying that but if they do they will be attacked mercilessly for being weak.  As Bono would say “compromise is not a dirty word.”

I am though very pleased with the result of their childish behavoiur for this particular issue.  What a victory for those of us who actually believe in the compassionate and fair treatment of asylum seekers.  I am very pleased that claims for asylum will be processed on shore rather than off and that may mean more people are able to live in communities while this is happening rather than cruelly detained.

On Tuesday night we decided to go camping.  Drew is visiting from Sydney so it was a good excuse.  However, the whole thing became a bit of a disaster and ended up with us at home eating beans.  It was an adventure none the less.

I can’t really say there weren’t warning signs.  It was raining a bit on Tuesday morning but the weather forecast assured us it would be clear in the afternoon and we decided to trust it.  I guess here in Alice we aren’t used to things being ruined by rain and at 5pm when we picked up Ryan from work it was fine.  Five was leaving things a bit late but our destination was just over an hour away so that gave us about almost an hour of light to set up. However, our first problem struck.  The other car coming with us got a flat tyre. By the time the spare was on it was actually 6pm that we headed off realising that we’d be setting up tents in the dark.  I guess not so bad on its own.

Then the second problem struck.  As we drove the storm began.  It started with some pretty cool lightening, then some crashing thunder and finally the rain hit.  We drove for about 45 minutes hoping it would get better but it just kept getting worse.  With a heavy heart Martin and I decided that we couldn’t really put Nina through that but maybe Drew who was in our car could go with the others in the other car.   So we turned around expecting to meet the other car in about 5 minutes.  Ten minutes later when we still hadn’t passed them I realised our third drama was upon us.

Finally, after driving for 25 minutes of stressfull driving we found them on the side of the road in the rain.  The spare had exploded and they were waiting for a tow truck to come.  It was such a blessing it had happened under a little hill where they could get enough mobile coverage to call.  And I was totally grateful as well that we had decided to come back.  They were carrying all our sleeping stuff including Nina’s.  If we had got to the spot, set up camp in the rain and dark and then they hadn’t arrived it would’ve been a lot worse.

So none of us ended up the camping but the beans, the shelter of a home on a stormy night and the one good decision to turn back before arriving are things I am grateful for.