Moving on ...

Because of the difficulties I'm having running two blogs simultaneously on Blogger, Flea-bites is moving to Wordpress - www.grandmaflea.wordpress.com - I don't know how I did it, but the blog also has a new name - at least on the URL - see you there!

Perhaps it's time ....

So, 18 months ago I last posted - and said I'd return "soon(ish)" .....   perhaps it's time to start again. 

Normally, I'd have no problem writing a post. Once the words start to appear on the page, they gain momentum and tumble out, willy nilly. But since we moved out of our home 18 months ago, I seem to have  lost both the desire and the ability to put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard doesn't quite have the same ring about it). I've thought about this, long and hard, and have come to the conclusion that it's because we are no longer surrounded by bushland with the wonderful wildlife that lived and visited there. 

The things that I miss most keenly,  are some of the neighbours and the wildlife.  Apart from that - zilch. I don't miss the location, down a very steep hill, then down a long battleaxe drive. I don't miss the heat in summer and the cold in winter. I don't miss the lack of sunlight for 8 months of the year, brought about by 40 years growth of the trees surrounding the house.  I don't miss the leeches that would sometimes decide to take up residence - indoors. Although I do miss the geckos that lived on the brick walls, indoors and out.  I don't miss the oven that was a lemon from the day it was installed. I don't miss all the things that were showing their age and needed repairing. I don't miss the yard with the constant battle to keep the flourishing exotic weeds under control, nor the usually lost battle to grow anything else in the shallow depth of soil over the enormous  sandstone ledge on which we had  built. Surprisingly, I don't miss the privacy. 

I do miss the birds - rainbow lorikeets, crimson rosellas, King Parrots and sometimes Eastern Rosellas and black cockatoos that fed and played outside the windows, and filled the air with their calls.  I miss the tawny frogmouths that sat motionless, close to the trunk of the turpentine tree - so well disguised by their colouring that it would often be hours before I noticed them. I miss the boo-book of the owls at night and the vast swarms of fruit bats that would cover the sky at twilight, on their way to feed.  I miss the possums that visited us, often with their babies on their backs. I miss the echidna that honoured us by its presence when we least expected it. I miss the croaking of the frogs.  

And I miss Judy and Tony, Michael and Ian - our neighbours. I miss the dull rumble and the way the windows in the house rattled when Ian played and replayed  his favourite DVD with an earthquake scene, through his home made speakers which were each as big as our sideboard. It took me months to work that one out.  I miss opening the door to find Michael there, holding a tray of Chinese delicacies, covered with a snowy white napkin, for us to try. I miss the glasses of wine that would appear over the fence when we did battle with the weeds down the hill.

I miss bumping into Judy at our letterboxes and swapping our news over a cup of coffee (or glass of wine);  putting our heads together to write to the neighbours asking them to keep their cats inside at night to protect the possums. I miss the "homework" she would leave me in the letter box when I professed my ignorance of  things such as contour maps,  relative and absolute temperatures, or the finer details of  possum behaviour. I miss the phone calls, asking me if I knew that my washing had been on the line for a week! I miss the "Atholie Steps" that Tony built to facilitate our passage through the yard; his laidback, gentle nature; his embarrassment at some of my jokes.

Next post, I'll tell you what I love about our new home. But not before I respond to the emails that have been sitting in my "Reply" box - for months.

Encycopedia of Me Meme: Z is for .. the END of the alphabet ...

..... but the beginning of a new life for the Fleas. Talk to you all soon(ish). And, thank you again.

Encycopedia of Me Meme: Y - is for YOU

I have so enjoyed YOU, my cyber friendships and exchanges with you all. I haven't reponded to the last several lots of comments, and I've really fallen behind with reading your blogs, which I enjoy very much. I'm glad that some of you have enjoyed reading this blog and seeing the photos of our wildlife. I have enjoyed all your comments and promise to catch up when I start blogging again. Thank you.

Encycopedia of Me Meme: X is for ......eXtraordinary

It's eXtraordinary what crisis and change reveals about people - good and bad aspects of their nature that you had not appreciated in the ordinary turn of events.

We have had a lot of help from friends and family - and as always, when the crunch comes, have discovered who our true friends are. Disappointing to find that someone you would move heaven and earth to help, because of your friendship, is not prepared to move out of their own way to do you even a small favour. It's a bit reminiscent of when Gpa Flea had cancer, 11 years ago - all sorts of unexpected people came out of the woodwork to lend their support, moral and physical, while someone we thought was amongst our closer friends showed their true colours in a quite unnecessary and hurtful way. That sounds a bit judgmental - it IS judgmental, but the hurt lingers long after the event. However life moves on and we don't take those people on our journey. (See why I find blogging so demanding? - the potential to be misunderstood is enormous - do I sound bitter and twisted? I hope not - just disappointed.)



The photo is the Flea family - minus the little Fleas, whose faces I don't like to expose to the world at large. The biggest Flea (third biggest in height, biggest in age) is in the purple jumper, second biggest (actually the biggest but second oldest) has the goatee, third biggest (but second tallest) is in the heavy duty jacket while Gpa and Gma Flea are the two oldies. Clear as mud? They have been a great help and support. They all came home to this house as newborns and did all their growing up in it, but have all said their goodbyes. Gpa Flea is a bit short-tempered and I'm sure it's because he's sad to be going, but he seems excited at the prospect of moving into the new place - he's a stoic like his Mum. My dear neighbour came down today and was quite upset and I felt a bit guilty that I'm so happy to be leaving - although I will miss some of the neighbours and our beautiful wildlife. Our two lovely young male neighbours have been so helpful with lifting things for us, and on Friday night had a good-bye neighbourhood get-together for us - we are only moving one station away, so we'll have no trouble staying in touch.

Encycopedia of Me Meme: W is for ....a While

It will be a While before I post again. Once we leave this house I'll be off the air for some time - so check back in again in late October - I can probably post from my daughter's computer.

Encycopedia of Me Meme: V is for ... Venturing Forth

Venturing into a new life.....

Today is Sunday - tomorrow someone is coming to take the washing machine (we hope) - a freebie because of its age and idiosyncratic ways. Our two lounges (sofas) and the dining room chairs ( a misnomer since we don't have a dining room!) are being collected to be recovered while we are away.

Tuesday, the moving people come and take our very few pieces of furniture and our 150 boxes to storage. Tuesday night we move our suitcases and files and computer to Maroubra to our daughter's place (she is in Canada at present) and sleep there until later in the week.

Wednesday, we come back here to clean up the yard and the inside. The cleaners are also coming in the afternoon to help.

Thursday, I go shopping to buy some summer clothes that fit my 15-kg-heavier-than-last-summer body. I'll also buy a swimsuit if I can do so without looking in the mirror.

Friday, we fly to India and Thailand for 4 weeks - and while the rest of our group are out looking at the Taj mahal and other things, I intend to explore the cultural differences of massages in the East!

October 10 we return to Sydney, stay with our daughter until October 13, when we move to her sister-in-law's (luxury, I have been told) apartment at Coogee where we will house and cat sit until October 23, when we will resume our nomadic existence until our place is finished - mid -November we have now been told, but I'm counting on Christmas.

When we do move in, we're faced with the enormous task of again sifting and throwing out, as our new place is for over-55s - that is, on the small size. About a 50 box size! I suspect that when we get there, so much of our stuff will be so obviously unnecessary that Vinnies and the Salvos (both within walking distance) will have a bonanza.

Encycopedia of Me Meme . . U is for Unknown

Yes, UNKNOWN - the completion date of our new home. My blogging has, of necessity, been neglected for the last couple of weeks. The sorting, packing and throwing out of 40 years of accumulated junk takes a lot of energy. When faced with an overwhelming task - I postpone/avoid. I have to confess to playing scrabble online instead of writing my blog. Writing my blog requires thought - of the introspective kind - do I say this - do I reveal that - what have I done that others might find interesting - while scrabble is in the moment - racing the clock and concentrating only on the things immediately on the screen. My apologies.

Somehow, despite my worst efforts, it all seems to be coming together.

Encycopedia of Me Meme .. T is for teeth ..

T is for the teeth I still have - despite the prognostications of a dentist that I had gone to when my children were all very small. My dentist was a train trip away - I didn't have a car, and with three little people 4 and under, and no family to help, getting to the dentist was a major undertaking. So I tried another dentist, closer to home. Imagine my horror when he informed me that my (regularly checked and already heavily filled teeth) needed all sorts of major work, preferably done all at the one time, under sedation and at a very large price. When I expressed some concern about this, he really put the heavies on, telling me that unless I had the work done, I would have no teeth left by the time I was forty. He suggested that my previous dentists had probably been older (which they were) and were not up to date with their procedures. I agonised about this for some time, and eventually, with my cap in hand, went back to my own dentist and told him the sorry story. He said that technically, what I had been told was correct, but that as my teeth were so heavily filled, and fillings had a limited lifespan, that by the time I was forty, the problem fillings would have all been replaced anyway.

When I rang the "new" dentist to tell him that I wouldn't have the work done, he was very unpleasant about it - uttered dire warnings again and put a lot of pressure on me, but I stuck to my guns. Thank heavens - because about twelve months later he was arrested and struck off the roll for molesting his female patients while they were sedated! A couple of local women had been having coffee when one told the other about a strange dream she'd had when sedated at the dentist's - when her friend said she'd had the same dream, they decided that it wasn't a coincidence and went to the police. A young female officer went undercover for a dental appointment and was given the story about needing a lot of work under sedation. She returned with some sort of communication equipment, ostensibly to have the work done, and the dentist was caught in the act. Life works in strange and mysterious ways.

Encycopedia of Me Meme . . S is for sister ..

S is for the sister I always wanted when I was a teenager. I desperately wanted someone to share girlie things with. My brother is six years younger than I am, and was at a particularly annoying age when I needed an inhouse support group. I left home at 19, when Mr Mooney was only 13, so I really didn't know him when he was growing up. We are good friends and supportive to each other now - which I love. I still would like to have had a sister though!

Encycopedia of Me Meme . . R is for RIDICULOUS.

R is for ridiculous - I'm talking about the scrabble dictionary and the "words" that are allowed. How can words that have NO MEANING in English be considered words for the purpose of the game, when the rules say that no foreign words are allowed? eg "Li" is in the scrabble online dictionary is defined as:
1. A Chinese measure of distance, being a little more than
one third of a mile.
[1913 Webster]
2. A Chinese copper coin; a cash. See {Cash}.
[1913 Webster]

Yet "dux", being the "top pupil at a school", listed in the Oxford Dictionary, is not listed in the official scrabble dictionary. I have used the word "dux" (one of our daughters was dux - twice) but I have NEVER used the word "li".

Well, that's my wobbly for the day! Good news - we have a new baby!


I have been watching the possums for the last couple of months and have seen a certain expansion in the size of at least one. Then, yesterday when we were having lunch on the balcony, the possum opposite woke up and was fussing around in the box, when a baby possum appeared on it's head, squirmed across its Mama's back and generally made a nuisance of itself! Poor Mama Possum - she had a long-suffering look on her face as if to say "these broken days! I need my sleep!".

The baby is too small to ride on her back yet, and mama is very hungry - yesterday she appeared at her window before it was fully dark, and squirmed out and across to the feeding tray when I appeared with some fruit for her. These nursing mothers have big appetites! I am really going to miss the wildlife when we move.

R is also for ROOF - the roof is now on our new place, so the R is for RAIN won't hold the building up as much. It is now due to be completed in mid October until mid November, so we'll be homeless when we get back from India/Thailand on 10 October. Our furniture is being R is for removed on 11 September and goes into storage until the house is finished.

The Australianism for today is : "Received Standard English" - not exactly an Australianism, but this is the English to which we all aspired when I was a child - only people who had private school educations, or came from the upper classes in England spoke that way. All the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission") announcers spoke "Received Engish" - they spoke "proper" unlike the rest of the rabble. Nowadays RSE is not often heard on the airways - we seem to be quite comfortable with our own Aussie accent. Another blow struck for a classless society!

Encycopedia of Me Meme . . Q is for ....

Q is for Quokka - a small Australian wallaby for which Rottnest Island is famous. (Rottnest is a small island off the coast of Fremantle, near Perth, in Western Australia) Rottnest Island was named by Dutch explorers and means "rats' nest" as they mistook the tiny quokkas for rats.

Q is also for quandong - an Australian tree with an edible berry used as "bush tucker". Bush tucker is food gathered from native Australian flora and fauna as eaten by the Aboriginal people. Some bush tucker has become popular with more adventurous chefs - I have seen wattle seed ice-cream, quandong jam (as made by our son), pepper berry seasoning, lilli-pilli jelly to name a few. The Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, notes that the word quandong is a colloquialism for a "person who exploits or cadges off another", with another obsolete colloquial meaning of a " a stupid person, a country bumpkin". Apparently another obsolete colloquialism is to "have the quandongs" or, in modern speak, "to be stupid". Now, I may be a quandong, but I've NEVER, EVER heard the word quandong used for a person of an exploitative, or cadging nature - although The Macquarie Dictionay may feel that I'm a living example (albeit obsolete!) for using their definitions when I could make up my own!!!! In my view, "quandong" would be perfect for those days when you're all at sixes and sevens - "I've got the quandongs" - without any of the perjorative meaning of stupid attached. In fact, henceforth this blog will use its own definition of "quandong" when appropriate!

Roxie was very taken with " don't come the raw prawn with me" - so now I expect to see her "having the quandongs" occasionally and we shall all know that she is using "flea speak" (two invented concepts in one day - I'm firing!)

Q is also for Queen - I am a staunch republican and believe that in this day and age it is ridiculous for Australia to remain a colonial outpost, with a head of state across the sea, in a country that bears little resemblance to our own, despite our shared history. Bring on the Republic of Oz is what I say!!!

P is for ... Pedro

Word(s) of the Day: Those things that some people call "shrimps" are called "prawns" in Australia. "Don't come the raw prawn with me" has nothing to do with food - it means don't try to hoodwink me with whatever was being spoken of. It's not a saying I use myself!

P is for Pedro, my son, six foot five, 38 years old, No. 1s over the head, widow's peak and goatee - I hate goatees. I think he looks like a bikie! He is a gentle, caring man and father of Ms 11 and Master 7. Speaking of whom - Ms 11 applied for, and has been accepted into, one of the schools of creative and performing arts for her high schooling. She starts next year. I am delighted for her - she applied for two different places and I was worried that her self-esteem would be badly damaged if she wasn't accepted into one - but she gained entry to both - so much for Grandma's anxiety.

P is for plague - that flea plague is not getting any better - again, many, many hits looking for information on, and photos of - "f*l*e*a*b*i*t*e*s" - my sitemeter page comes up with all these advertisements for flea control products too. Most of the searches seem to be from the USA.

Encycopedia of Me Meme .. O is for ....

O is for oranges - I love juicy navel oranges, but don't like Valencia oranges which are widely grown in Australia. When our own navels finish, I buy California navels - but I'm beginning to think about the carbon footprint now .... O is for Ohhhhhhh!

O is for the colour orange - I love it - the burnt orange kind, or the apricot kind, but not bright orange. Orange is not a colour I can wear, but I still love it.

O is for - ordinary people - like you and me - ordinary people who have extraordinary lives and talents if we bother to scratch the surface and get to know them and - if they will let us.

O is for opportunity - it's not always to recognise an opportunity when it comes along, especially when we're bogged down in "just living". I don't know whether there really is a Chinese proverb that says " in every crisis are the seeds of opportunity" - but it is true - mostly. Crisis can make us strong if we can learn from the experience; crisis can cause us to take paths and follow directions that we may not ever have considered. I say mostly, because my heart goes out to those who are in the middle of war, famine, persecution/abuse, or suffering from a severe mental illness. Sometimes crisis is just crisis with no up side.

Carson and Roxie have both commented on some of the Australian/American language comparisons that I have been making. So each post I'll give an idiomatic Australian word or expression for your delight (or horror!). By the way, I am spelling "Encyclopedia" that way only for the purposes of the "Encycopedia of Me Meme" We all know that the correct spelling is "encyclopaedia" don't we? - it's just those people from that large northen land mass who can't spell!

Encycopedia of Me Meme - N is for Nancy

When I was child I had a celluloid doll called "Nancy". I loved that doll. Then I got an N is for "new" little brother who reached the teething stage, and HE BIT Nancy's nose, leaving her permanently disfigured. I was extremely upset and never felt the same attachment to Nancy after that. Talk about a shallow, fickle, unfeeling child! Just as well no-one bit Grandpa Flea on the nose - I might have left him out in the rain!

Encyclopedia of Me Meme - M is for ... Me

In case you haven't noticed, my avatar has put on a lot of weight ... just like ME. She also has new glasses ... just like Me. She has also changed out of her jammies and gone to the beach, as the weather became so hot we all thought the winter was over a month before it should have been. But yesterday, it suddenly became icy again and today I've been shivering around in a J is for jumper.

Encycopedia of Me Meme - L is for Laughs!

I am still L for laughing about the number of hits on this blog over the last week or so. There really must be a f-l-e-a plague, especially in the USA - of the hits that I can identify, 35 of the last 48 on this blog have been searches for information on f-l-e-a b-i-t-e-s and most of those are from the USA. The Ancient One has commented that her local school in eastern NC (is that North Carolina?) has been closed because of a plague of the afore-mentioned creatures. I'm frightened to use the word as I feel quite bad that poor itchy people are being diverted from their quest. I have, in fact, much experience with those pesky, little hoppers. We have had dogs over the years and periodically would have to resort to letting off f-l-e-a bombs in the house. In fact, when my kids were younger, it was a great boredom buster to search the dogs for the unmentionables. It was always a family saying for fat little tummies after meals that "I could crack a fl** on that tummy" - the children would race around to Grandpa Flea and shout "Crack a fl**" and present their bare tummies for a tickle. It's become a family tradition and currently little Ms 5 likes to have a fl** "cracked" on her tummy.

Roxie has asked in response to "J is for ..", what we call the "hood" of the car - well, here we call it the "bonnet" and the "jockey box"/"glove compartment" is the "glove box". I guess you already know that your "trunk" is our "boot". I read a book called "Trunk Music" - "Boot Music" doesn't have quite the same ring, does it - sounds a bit like line dancing! (i.e. boot scooting).

Which reminds me, L is also for line dancing. I tried to learn line dancing last year, but my spatially challenged brain came into operation again. Whenever we had to do the turn bit, I'd end up facing a whole room of people .... I may try it again one day, as it's good exercise.

K is for Kindergarten

K is for Kindy. When I was a little girl in Kindy, we had to sit on the floor on little hessian mats with a cloth binding that our mothers had to make for us. The girl who sat in front of me had long plaits and I was fascinated with them. I was always in trouble for squeezing them - I wanted to know if the plaits could feel - I knew my own short hair couldn't, but those big fat plaits looked so ALIVE - I can still remember trying to puzzle it out. No matter how carefully I tried to squeeze them, this girl would start to flick her head and look over her shoulder - and the teacher would be on me like a ton of bricks.

J is for ....

J is for the first initial of my only sibling's name - Mr Mooney. He is a sweet, gentle man who lost his beloved wife to breast cancer just over eighteen months ago - she had just turned 47. They were true soulmates and Mr Mooney is, of course, still grieving. I love him dearly and wish I could make it better.

J is for June, the month of Ms 5's birthday and her Grandma Flea's birthday.

J is for July, the month of her Mamma's birthday and her Grandpa Flea's birthday. There is a nice synchronicity there.

J is also for "jumpers" - those things that Aussie's wear in cold weather. They are called "jerseys" in the deep south of New Zealand, and I do believe that those people who speak the President's English call them "sweaters" (I hope sweater wearers remember to bath every day!). We do have regional variations in English in Australia, maybe, just maybe, jumpers are called jerseys in South Australia, but I'm not sure. "Sweater" is becoming more common here - the pervasive nature of television is stealing our identity. I know that when I lived in Victoria as a little child, we called our swimmers "togs", and our suitcases were "ports". We also used an American "a" in words like "castle". I only ever said it once in NSW. I was a quick learner! Amazing how the ridicule of your peers speeds up the ability to learn!

Encycopedia of Me Meme: I is for icord

I is indeed for icord - a useful little trick to have up - or on - your sleeve, especially applied icord.

I is also for island - the tropical kind, where the beaches are long and white, the water is like a cool bath and little ripples run gently up the shore; where the cool, dark vegetation provides a welcome respite from the heat of the midday sun; where my cabin has a shady verandah with a view of the water and my comfy chair which sits next to a low table where my knitting awaits my pleasure, and a tall pitcher of iced water with lime slices has little cold drops of condensation running down the side - where is this island, I hear you ask? In my dreams, dear child, in my dreams.

The littlest Flea saw her cousins furry scarf with pockets for keeping little hands warm (in the absence of a magical grandma who could knit Sanna, Sorceress Apprentice's self-heating mittens), and promptly ordered one in the same colour - a colour which I could not get again. So, I used some faux fur from my stash and edged the pockets with the left over yarn from Ms 11's scarf, then used the remainder to knit an earwarmer/headband. The yarn is multi-coloured - hence the orange pocket trims and the pink headband. Ms 5 is a PINK girl - I hope she is happy with it.