A Very Full Month

Wow what a very full month I’ve had.  On April 1^st, we Australians love a prank and April Fools Day is an open invitation. It was no different for our coffee team on Tuesday.  Chris, who takes coffee over to the North Beach primary school teachers told them the coffee machine wasn’t working so he had brought them tea instead. I would have loved to have seen their faces as they love their Tuesday coffees.  What a relief it must have been to know it was an April Fools Day joke and they did of course get their coffees.

The Lord gave me an opportunity to win back Matt my neighbour’s favour when he had a load of composted soil dumped on the verge.  I saw he had lined up a row of buckets to cart it around his garden and offered him the loan of my wheelbarrow.  He was very grateful even showing me all the plants he had bought to plant, asking my opinion on where best to put them.  Since first taking an interest in his garden, long before he moved in, I would pull out the wild grasses and weeds so they didn’t spread to my garden, then secretly sprinkled flower seeds to replace the weeds.  Then Matt moved in and I planted natives.  Throughout this time there have been disappointments as well as delights.  Some of the disappointments were when I was asked not to water his plants and when some have died or been pulled out.  Then later the praises and comments from neighbours who enjoyed the plants especially when they bloomed.  It has all been worth it to now see Matt take over and become more involved.  I’m sure my efforts have influenced him.  He now tells me that, instead of a vegetable garden (which wasn’t growing very well as he doesn’t fertilise it) he will plant natives and other plants.  This particular part of the garden is along the driveway just below where I planted the Australian natives.  What an answer to prayer.  I am so delighted.  Also, I will no longer need to water as Matt is very enthusiastic about his new garden plan and has bought a new extended hose.  He has since erected a bamboo fence around the stone wall taking down the cheap old one which was falling apart and had always looked ugly.  It has extended the height to help screen his back yard from prying eyes.

A devotional message I read recently said “God knows the full story and your heart.  Focus on pleasing Him, and He’ll take care of you.  What people say about you is opinion, and what God says about you is fact…. Focus on the facts.  What a person uses to harm you, God can use for good.  Trust Him as your protector.”  A timely and encouraging message.  It is God who vindicates. I continue to pray for ongoing peace between us and if necessary to right any wrongs where possible and let people decide for themselves who to believe.

It is such a lovely feeling knowing I will no longer attend TAFE.  It was very stressful and I really didn’t achieve what I wanted to learn.  I don’t regret the time as I have had to really use my grey matter which has been dormant for so long. LOL My last day at TAFE was the Monday before Easter.  I didn’t need to go in as it was a catch up day and as I didn’t have any assignments to do, I decided to go in to say bye to the class, taking a few photos.  I asked one of the students I had come to know, Pearl, if I could take her photo so I could add it to my contacts making it easier for me to remember her.  She said I could take one of her soft toy mascot!  Hmmm, I don’t think that would help me remember her face.  No thanks.

I also had a chat to the head of IT to see if I could sneak into two classes in term 4 which I’ll miss in term two because I’ll be away.  He said I’d have to re-enrol and because I didn’t even know if these classes were going to be helpful to me I decided I wasn’t coming back. While I was there he took a look online to see if he could suggest anything else elsewhere.  He found one in Perth but taking a closer look we noticed it was over $6000 for a one day course!!  When we looked at the contact number it didn’t look right and suspected it was a scam.  Not that I was going to pay $6,000 for a course!  He then told me he was very interested in starting a WordPress course at TAFE either this year or next.  I said if he was I’d be very interested. I’m now praying that next year this course will be up and running and I’ll be able to do it part time so as not to get overloaded and I can learn at my own speed.

The start of term two I was so pleased not to be going back to TAFE, it was lovely catching up with the ladies in my Bible Study Group, many were away and new ones had joined.  Also our Tuesday coffee run across to the teachers.

Update on the challenges I’ve had with our community garden website forms: we hadn’t had it set up properly to receive notifications of new members when they paid online.  Those who had paid received a notification email but nothing was sent to our CCG Gmail account.  In the past I hadn’t been game enough to fiddle with things or explore the backend of the site.  Now with a few more skills I dove in and came across things I hadn’t noticed before including all the names and email addresses of those who had paid.  I also checked out the automatic forms and saw I could blind copy in our Gmail address to notify us of any payment.  Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus.

Early April my cousin’s son, Nat and his partner visited Perth.  We had a lovely afternoon catching up.  Picking them up from Hay St, Perth, we stopped off at my favourite Asian food hall en route to City Beach which is Nat’s favourite place in Perth. After a quick dip in the ocean we travelled up the coast to Hillarys for an ice-cream and a look around the harbour before coming back to my place where we had a chat to his Mum in the UK via WhatsApp.

I had been flat out that morning plus the power company had informed us that our power would be off from 7:30am to 3pm so this planned a day out worked in well.  My first stop was the flute repair place, then on to Joondalup further north to pick up a fancy new toilet roll holder with a shelf to put things on, something I had seen at church.  From here I stopped off at Dawson’s Nursery to catch up with Monica who unbeknownst to me was visiting her homeland, Italy.  I called into the discount pharmacy which was opposite before heading to Bunnings to pick up some Potash then called in to the community garden to measure where we wanted to put up shade cloth on the fence as a windbreak.

Coming home I was stopped by traffic control personnel before entering my street.  They were there due to the guys putting up new power poles.  I parked a little further down my street not happy as I had a load of things I needed to unload from the car.  My mood also wasn’t good as I hadn’t slept well, waking at midnight and not being able to sleep till after 4pm then waking at 6am when I forced myself out of bed to go jogging. This inconvenience after a morning of running around didn’t help my mood.  I was questioned as to which house I was going to and then escorted to my driveway.   While I was home (with all power off) I organised a few things before contacting Nat to say I was on my way to pick them up.  I was exhausted by the end of the day!

Having completed my TAFE challenge and with my guests gone I now looked for something else to stimulate my brain to help improve my memory.  First I resumed my Indonesian language studies which I had started through an app called Babbel.  After returning home and two months into it I was getting more and more frustrated because there wasn’t enough repetition on the words I’d learnt.  Once I put it down I didn’t pick it up again till now.  I also started learning from another app DuoLingo which Kat suggested having started herself to learn Japanese.  Because I already knew quite a few words I was quick to do the lessons, except that there were sooooo many ads!  Most of the ads were for games which I’m really not into but found myself looking forward to the games, it was like an addiction!  Then my friend Mim, from ShareIn and now on the committee of the Community Garden, said she had the family plan of Duolingo and would I like to join her group. I could just pay a portion of the price and still be able to learn without the pesky ads and with extra benefits.  What a bonus. Before signing up I decided to accept the one week free trial.  This was a bit of a mistake as I then had to wait for that to expire before being added to Mim’s family plan.  Jen too accepted Mim’s offer so she can use it for her Italian studies.  I find it much more user friendly compared to Babbel.

I have been hearing one of my neighbours playing or was it just listening to flute music. It sounded as though they were playing an instrument so next time I saw the young girl two doors up I asked if it was her.  She apologised thinking she had disturbed me.  No, I said, it has inspired me. About 40 yrs ago I was given a flute and told I had a natural ability to play it.  However, life happens and I put it down never to pick it up till now.  I asked Lana if she had any beginner’s music which she did and also encouraged me to have my flute professionally cleaned, which I also did.  I then had to go on line to see how to put my flute together and where to put my fingers.  Once I had accomplished this I started to practise every day till after two weeks I had learnt 9 notes which I could string together to play Frere Jacques. So, besides learning a language I’m now learning to read music and play the flute.  There is one more thing that Michael Mosley suggested to help your memory improve and to stave off dementia.  I’ve been watching his series ‘Just One Thing’ where he suggests that learning three new skills, practicing for 20mins a day will help renew your memory.  I had started both the flute and a language (which are two of the most challenging things for memory) before watching this series. I have now taken up the third challenge; juggling.  I’m starting with two balls and working up to three.  I’m sure I can find some balls while I’m in Bali.

The figs have finally finished as have the pears which is a huge relief as I was getting so annoyed with the rats and the apparatus I had bought to try to keep them away which was not at all successful.  As the weather cooled down I took down the shade cloth, cut back the grapes and generally cleaned up ready to leave on my travels.  I had bought and been given some young banana plants which I potted up hoping to keep them till we had prepared the garden at the bottom of the driveway. Unfortunately all bar one didn’t survived.  It was devastating.  I suspect I had overwatered them even when the soil looked so dry, when I probed it with a water detector it showed they were really wet.  I’ll have to try again next year.  I don’t’ think they do well in pots!

This year I wasn’t going to pickle any olives as firstly there weren’t many on the trees this year and secondly I felt too pressured with TAFE. But then having finished TAFE, I decided to go ahead. My street tree only had about 25 fruit which surprised me as last year it was heavy laden.  Praise the Lord I was able to pick more from the other street trees making up a 2Lt bucket which I soaked in sea water for a week before coring and pickling them in a sealable glass container.  I picked some more and made a second smaller jar, both of which will be ready to eat on my return.

On one of my morning jogs, later in the month, I noticed that people were putting out garden rubbish for the council pick up.  It took me awhile to get around to cutting the trees I wanted trimmed. The big acacia out the front which was over shadowing my Australian Christmas bush as well as a few more shrubs.  I also noticed my pawpaw needed some drastic cutting back.

I had been meaning to clean my gutter under the pawpaw which had been dropping unripened fruit and leaves onto the roof.  Once cleaned, I put in some gutter guard which I’d found in someone’s skip bin.  I hope it will help keep the gutter clean.  While I was at it I noticed how the pawpaw tree had started to lean over with branches nearly leaning on the roof!  I was really concerned as it could topple over in the winter storms. I asked a friend, Paul, from the community garden if he could give me a hand cutting off some of the overhanging branches which he did.  The branches needed to be cut right back to the main trunk as this was the only place the hollow centre was closed over.  These areas I sprayed with a tar like substance which I had bought for the fig grafts.  The pawpaw tree was still very high and although we had basically taken off everything on one side it was still leaning terribly.  I didn’t really want to remove the tree all together as it was still very healthy and producing fruit but it was too high for us to tackle safely.  I decided to call an arborist to see what he suggested. He checked it out one day then came the following day to do the work.  Unfortunately that morning the council also came and removed all the vegetation we had piled up on the verge.  Praise the Lord the arborist, who lived a few streets away, mentioned that the council hadn’t come to his street yet and he would take the extra branches home with him. Unfortunately, while climbing the tree (which I didn’t think he was going to do as he had also brought his extending ladder) we heard a loud crack as a large limb broke off and fell onto my pavers.  Praise God not into my garden and even more praise the Lord the arborist didn’t fall.  After reverting to the ladder and using a long pole to extend his mini chain saw, it didn’t take him long to lop off the top. Unfortunately this time it landed on one of my remaining branches which is covered with large fruits.  I thank God, it didn’t do much damage and all the fruits were saved.  Another amazing thing was, that just at the section where this main trunk was cut off, the stump was not hollow.  I had thought I might need to cap the cut trunk to stop the water getting in and rotting the tree.  I was so relieved I didn’t need any capping just some tar sealant.  I’m also grateful that now with the height reduced there is less likely to be a hazard of falling.  I was still thinking it will need propping up just to be on the safe side.   Paul came back later that week and gave me a lift to Bunnings Balcatta to buy a 3mt pine pole.  I had hunted around at other Bunnings but none had what   I had previously seen at Balcatta.  While I was at the Joondalup store they had rung around for me to see if another store had them in stock.  None did; they were showing all they were out of stock even the Balcatta store.  Later I called them and asked them to check as I’d seen them that week.

It has been a bit of a challenge deciding if the support was needed or not and what exactly I should do as it’s in a tricky little space with nowhere to anchor the pole.  I prayed for inspiration and during the night I thought if I hammered a metal strip into the gap between the pavers and screwed it to the pole, it should hold in place.  I could then screw the pole onto the pawpaw trunk.  Paul was very gracious, sawing the pole at either end so it sat flush to the pavers and trunk. I was so relieved it worked, I can now go away knowing it should hold firm and not be blown over in any of our winter storms.  Praise the Lord for answered prayer.

Before all this I had put some of the pawpaw cuttings on the verge and noticed a day later that someone had collected some of them.  After a bit of an internet search I found that pawpaw can be grown from cuttings so I collected some and planted them up.  We’ll see if any will take.

One of our family friends from Christmas Island, Jeanna Powell, recently celebrated her 90^th birthday. There were a few people from Christmas Island who were there including her grown children, except for her youngest who was unwell and unable to return from the UK. It’s a reminder of those distant memories of when I was younger and that the days of catching up with friends from that era will soon come to a close.

On May 3^rd the same day as voting the City of Stirling Council had one of their plant give-away days.  We had been asked to set up a stall to promote our community garden.  We had also organised a raffle and signing up of new members.  It was a lovely community day, I met people from the neighbourhood as well as from my bush jog and the beach.  We signed up 27 new members and raised nearly $1,000 in total.  It was quite funny asking people if they wanted to buy a raffle ticket, they thought their excuse of not having cash would give them an exemption but we surprised them as we have a card reader.

The last two weeks before my overseas trip I like to take it quietly so that I can get things done around the house; like spreading out all the things I’m taking with me on my spare bed, tidying both the house and the garden (a big job), I’ve organised all my bookings in advance, received my visas and then have done a final clean, including washing and vacuuming the car and house so I can return to an organised home. I ask neighbours, while I’m away, to keep an eye on my place, to water my plants indoors and out, which are not on retic, and help themselves to any fruit that are ripe.   During the last week my friend, Janice from Newman came down and asked if she could use my house while she did an online session for her chaplaincy course.  She had to come down as she had booked her ute in for a service in Joondalup.  She arrived at 6:30 (while I was out jogging) and let herself in.  After my jog and dip in the ocean and a quick breaky, I drove her ute in for its service then tried calling a Uber.  The app kept twirling and whirling with no success.  Maybe I was too far out!  Praise the Lord there was a bus stop nearby.  I waited 20 mins then stopped at the train station and took a train to the next station where I was able to get an Uber home.  Janice was still online.  At 2pm I drove her to pick up the ute.  This is when we called into Bunnings Joondalup where I asked about the pine pole while she did some shopping before we both drove home.

After a bit of consideration I decided not to close this at the end of the month as I often do but instead close this update just before I take off on my new winter avoidance adventure.

I couldn’t believe it!  Two days before leaving I didn’t sleep well and woke up knowing I had a UTI!  I was due at the dentist at nine and although trying to do a telehealth call to my doctor couldn’t get through I even asked my neighbour if her doctor would help me out.  He was fully booked.  Then I remembered Mia from church, her husband is a GP. I called her and not long after sending him my details he had sent through a script and a pathology form for a urine sample. What a relief. It wasn’t long before I was on antibiotics and ural and cranberry juice.

Photos:  1. Spear leaf frangipani     2. Orange just about ripe    3. Kelly and I at the Community Garden    4. Nat’s visit    5. Overhanging paw paw    6. Pine pole supporting paw pay     7.Jeanna’s 90th Birthday
Prayer & Praise Points:

Praise the Lord for all the answered prayer during some challenges this month.

I praise the Lord for all the wonderful catching up I’ve done with friends and family from near and far.

Praise the Lord for answered prayer for Gayle, who returns to Perth this month, staying with my friend Dorothy T from church.  Please pray that this visit she will get everything done that’s needed and good results from her tests and a diagnosis can be made.

Praise the Lord for answered prayer for wisdom for my neighbour Matt.

Continue to pray for the world.  For peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia, for Thailand and Myanmar and other countries dealing with major disasters, wars and the unbelievable hardships they cause.  Pray for all those caught up in the suffering these events have caused.  Pray that God’s peace may be known by all people especially for those who live with despair, that they will find hope in Christ Jesus.

Please keep my sisters, Tricia, Jen and Kat, in your prayers.  Pray that they will come to know the love of Jesus.  Jen is off again on her adventures in Europe, please pray for her safety.