PASSED!!!!!!!!

I’m at least twelve hours late with today’s Blog. I know, it’s dreadful of me, but I needed to get to bed really, really early in order to make it to the exams in time. The exams were the reason why I didn’t have time to write yesterday, so we’ll start with a short sum-up of what happened yesterday.

Very little happened, I’ll tell you that much. Hah.
It was all about the lesson (five friggin hours again, aargh) and the delicious pizza little brother prepared just for the occasion. It worked perfectly too. On my insistence he used real yeast, which certainly made all the difference.

Let’s just say I ate way too much–on purpose, of course–and was seriously stuffed, even when it was time to go to bed. Hah.
I read for a bit, just for relaxation, and then went to bed without my usual ritual of doing the day’s Blog first. That did feel a little weird. In the past 150 days or so, I’ve gotten used to writing it in the evening. Sort of like at the movies; “And…that’s a cut!” but then for my day. I kept having a feeling that I was forgetting something huge.

Ah well, it was worth it, I guess. Though I was only in half-sleep until dawn–the exam day already whirling through my head, constantly and without pause–I did drop off for three solid hours, leaving me feeling semi-revived when it was time to get up and get ready to depart.

First thing’s first, however: The moment my alarm shrieks, I sit up immediately, blinking owlishly at the dogs and trying hard to sort through my brain until recollection of the reason why the alarm is going off surfaces.

I groan, roll out of bed and hurry to the door to let the confused looking pack out the door. They hesitate for only a moment and then storm out into the early morning, dashing into the yard at their usual speed.

Shaking my head at their noisy antics, I head back inside to wash…with cold water, mind you, ugh…get dressed in house clothes and then go down to bring the dogs to the courtyard.

I meet up with big brother in the kitchen, constantly exchanging reminders of stuff we need to remember for the exams, chewing on a slice of bread and slurping down strong coffee.

Within record time we’re both heading up to the car and pulling out of the gate to head to town. Seeing as our instructor has a tendency to be late, we really don’t need to hurry. When we arrive at the school and see that he isn’t there, we have a moment to relax and wait in the car until he’s there.

Fifteen minutes later he comes tearing around the corner and soon we are on our way. The practice run goes smoothly and without error, and since I’m first, as soon as the exam guy arrives we’re on our way. Within fifteen minutes my turn is over and I get to pull into a stop, feeling more than a little relieved that I’m done, no matter the end-result.

Big brother and I exchange places and for the next fifteen minutes he tries his luck. By the time we’re done, we are send away while our instructor discusses the exam with the man “of power” giving us five minutes of worry.

When the two men get out, our instructor is smiling and declares that even though big brother would have failed with another instructor, we both got a “passed” and are finally utterly done with the chore of sacrificing and average of fifteen hours a week. Yay.

WE PASSED!

Our theory exam teacher is thrilled, bouncing about and cheering…what can I say, she’s enthusiastic…and then looking proudly at the form that says, “passed” before carefully filing it away. With a final payment of sixty bucks and a handshake we say goodbye and leave the school for the very last time. Yay!

I call home as soon as we’re done, of course, receiving an immediate “congratulations!” from grandpa…who shares a lot of the credit, since he is the one responsible for us learning to “drive” in the first place. Through that we managed to get our exams with only eight hours each with a professional instructor at our side, rather than the required fifteen.

I’m so friggin’ relieved I still find myself releasing a sigh of relief, every hour, or so. Which brings this Blog to a conclusion.
I’ll write about the rest of the day tonight…I hope.

Early day and a dogfight. Aaargh.

Another quickie post it’s going to be today.
Exam day is rapidly drawing near…just 36 hours to go, and rather than linger on it, I’m going to postpone thoughts about the entire event until the moment is actually there. Hah…and tomorrow is the last practice run in the actual area, so I’m just going to bed early tonight and hope that I can keep my head completely blank.

So what happened today? Not bloody much, I fear. It was literally freezing this night, forcing me to leave the heater on during the hours of darkness just to be remotely comfortable. I wake up two hours earlier this morning, knowing full well that if I want to get anything done I’m going to need those up-front hours to get a few edit pages in.

It works too, since we add three more to the whole, do some minor chores and then head to town for our lessons. We take along the liner packages we gathered in the old pool, stuffing them on top of the car and dropping them off at the local landfill before it’s on to school where our instructor arrives ten minutes after us.

We make our payments, both for today and tomorrow, and then head out. It goes remarkable well today; making me to hope that the course I do today will be the one for the actual exam, ‘cause this one is so easy compared to the others.
I guess we’ll have wait and see, however. Maybe I’ll get the disastrous one from Friday, instead. That would be just my luck. Aaargh.

But anyway, after the lesson, it lasted three friggin’ hours again, so with the drive to town that makes a whopping five hours from our day that really could be used for more useful chores, darn it, we still have the main groceries ahead of us.

Little sister and a close family friend already did the sporadic groceries during our instructions, so those, at least, are over and done with. With our carts we head inside, going through the aisles one at a time, tossing in the supplies we need and then heading for the checkout counter to load it all out again.

This task, billing everything and putting it back in the carts, actually takes longer than the entire “finding what we need” process, and afterwards we still need to put everything in bags and load it up in the back of the truck. An hour and a half later we’re heading back home.

Since the two remaining sibs spent their time cleaning out the supply closets while we were gone, everyone is on their own for dinner. But it doesn’t matter, we’re all too tired anyway, so it’s little more than a snack once everything is put away and we can relax a little.

We make an attempt to do some more editing, but end up alternating between staring blankly at the screen and picking ticks off the dogs instead. Finally we decide to call it an early night and head on up to our respective quarters in hopes of getting an early start in the morning.

While I’m letting my dogs out of the courtyard, Amos–little brother’s mini-boxer–decides to come messing around, creating such havoc that Sitabah and Lhabanah end up pouncing on each other. The Weimeraner and Labrador are involved in a fierce battle, and since it is dark and the other dogs are more than happy to join in the melee. I decide to let them have it out, rather than risk an intervention.

I’ve had “fighting” dogs before, and if humans get involved, the issue will never get resolved. One of them is going to have to give, and I can only hope that one will, before they do each other some serious damage.

Three minutes later, by the time I reach my cabin, chasing the other dogs up so they will leave the two alone, both combatants give up. They’re limping and bleeding a little but are pretty blasé about the entire thing. Lithely, Sitabah jumps on the bed, leaving Lhabanah to circle around it. Stupid bitches.

Strange, huh. Here females are considered to be the weaker sex, while in nature females are far more ferocious than males.
The males will do some posturing, throw a few punches–so to speak–and then cheerily continue on their way. Females on the other hand go for each other’s throats and will tear each other from limb to limb, given half a chance. Makes ya think. Hah.

But anyways, after feeding the dogs and doing some relaxation reading from a Julie Garwood novel, I get to work on the Blog and prepare for a short session on the Net to wrap up my day.

Warm to cold...yikes!

Considering that I have only a few minutes to write today…tomorrow’s another lesson day…I’m going to try to keep this really short for a change.

I’m not so sure what to write about, since it was all very average. Basically the morning is like any morning, followed up by breakfast and a long edit session that goes remarkably well, considering that I am dreadfully fuzzy again. I need two coffees before I finally start to think properly.

Today the fourth character of the female protagonist first surfaces, so it’s a lot of fun to write, if for no other reason than paying attention that she is truly different than the others and that this comes across in a satisfying fashion. Different intonation, sentence structure and behavior patterns: All of it is so very important.

We manage almost six pages in the three hours available and by the time the sibs come down we’re ready to head on out into the bright sunshine. It’s Sunday, so a new batch of rocks were fetched this morning, and after the sibs and I empty the truck bed, big brother and grandpa head out, to get another.

The younger sibs and I head down to the old pool again. It’s a beautiful day, even though there are a lot of clouds and a few drops of rain fall. There’s also a cold wind coming from the northwest, but it doesn’t take away the wonderfully warm sunlight that falls on us as we get back to emptying the remainder of the massive gutter, running along the length of the old pool.

The mimosas are in full bloom, filling the air with a sweet scent that mixes pleasantly with our jasmine vine, blooming in the courtyard a solid twenty yards away from where we work.

It takes quite some effort to empty the gutter. Trees and bushes (mainly the Eucalypts we suspect) have rooted in the place where lots of water ends up. The roots are thick and hardy, needing actual hacking from three of us while the brothers build up a small rock wall on a place where sand continues to tumble down.

The air rapidly cools, by the time the sun begins to descend behind the mountain across the valley. Small clouds of mist form in front of our mouths, and feeling considerably chilled we decide to call it a day and start to head up the mountain.

Like us, the dogs are chilled too, and more than ready to head into the house and get to dinner.
Little brother has prepared ours, vegetables with lintels and rice on pita bread, which certainly goes down well after the rather strenuous work.

After dinner I spent some time doing more mending of clothes that are really starting to be riddled with holes. Afterwards I spent quite some time hanging a big batch of laundry–yesterday’s still isn’t dry–and literally fill up the lines before I get on my computer and get down to some work.
We manage approximately one more page when it’s time for me to head up to my cabin and start on the day’s blog.

It’s dreadfully cold when I arrive, the temperatures only six degrees more than the freezing point and a miserly rain is coming down again, chilling me considerably as I hurry into my bedroom and switch on the heater. I hate the cold.
After feeding the dogs, who are all hurrying inside…they don’t like the cold either, and pounce on the food I disperse for them. After going through the morning rituals, I’m pleased to see that I’m right on time. But, I get distracted again, of course.

Both grandpa and big brother come to visit and we end up talking for two solid hours before I finally get down to business.
Thoughts of tomorrow’s lesson are already trying to gain the upper hand in my head, but I’m determined to keep them at bay until I can no longer postpone it. We’ll see how it goes.

Rainy day. Yuck.

My dream this night was much in the same theme as last night, only a little less detailed. Friggin’ zombies.
When I wake the sun is shining brightly, and a strong wind is rolling down from the mountain, setting the blooming mimosas in motion. There’s a wonderfully sweet scent in the air sweeping through the open windows of my cabin.

The dogs are restless, and I hurry to the front door to let them out into the open. They storm out full speed, Bommel going back and forth on the porch impatiently before turning back into the cabin and heading towards the back door instead. In the morning he likes the small backyard better than the great outdoors, and returns to a sunny spot inside to lounge while I go through the morning rituals.

Once down at the house there is a large batch of laundry waiting for me, needing to be hung on the lines that were blissfully empty for the past couple of day. Ah well, everything comes to an end at some point, I guess.

I feel a tad sluggish during the morning, and have trouble to get going while we talk with grandpa over breakfast. As it turns out he’s been feeling poorly over the past few weeks, and rather than “burden” us with it, he’s been keeping it to himself. That won’t do of course, so we spent quite some time talking with him, making sure that sharing his troubles is as important for us as it is to him.

He seems to feel better afterwards, so we get to the computer several hours late, and really don’t manage to focus on the necessary edit. After only a page the sibs arrive and once again we’re distracted from work as we get up to date on all the projects and find out that outside it has started to rain.

We’re all pretty bummed about that, especially since we had planned to head out into the garden again. Luckily we really aught to clean up the courtyard tool room, too, so together we get to it. It’s a mess in there.
The dogs, who have long since found a way inside decided to use it as a bathroom for some reason, so there’s a lot to clean up.

First thing that needs to be done is lugging out everything that isn’t supposed to be there, and drag it out to the car for disposal. It takes several trips, but in the end only tools, wood and supplies are left in the room, allowing us to start cleaning the floor properly. The spare pool tiles are scattered everywhere, tile glue has been torn open (the dogs, of course. For some reason they love the stuff) got wet and then turned into this big lump that’s stuck to the floor.

I actually need to apply the pick ax to get it loose, but in the end a full wheelbarrow of the white stuff is removed, leaving only the original red floor behind. It’s still messy, but at least we can move around without breaking our ankles, hah.

Next come the tools and supplies that need to be put away into the closets. While little brother sets to hanging the eclectic selection of tools on the boards we’ve put up for this purpose, middle sister and I sort through all sorts of boxes, bags and whatnot to put it into the suitcases that hold the home improvement supplies.

Several hours pass, and somewhere in the middle, little sister departs to head for the kitchen and start on dinner for the night.
We’re about two thirds of the way when dusk arrives and it’s time to call it a day and head on inside to have dinner. We’re all starving and the meal gets devoured in record time.

Afterwards I spend a little time to do some mending on my pajama pants, after which I set up my computer for tonight’s session of edits.
It’s slow going again, but we mange two pages of “Saving Nina” in the end. Twenty-five pages to go and we’ll be halfway through. Yay.

It’s cold by the time I need to head up to my cabin–it’s half an hour later and since DST is starting tonight, I’m an hour and a half late, drat–the air is moist from the low hanging clouds, and rain is still weighing everything down. Luckily the rain doesn’t actually come down until I reach my cabin and have dispersed the dog food for my hungry pack.

Another day has passed, and though I would have liked to be able to get some more editing done, on the overall it wasn’t a bad one.