I picked Minnie up from Ian’s place this morning and brought her home. She was zonked! I don’t think she slept well last night and the car trip was too tiring. She’s slept all day today, but by 6pm she’d perked up and was looking for food, so that’s a good sign.

But it indicates that a long plane journey would be very hard on her. We agreed today that if she stays with them for a while, it buys time and it’s possible we could get her into Bali legally, either by a change in the regulations or some other way. All I can do is hope.

The house has been open for inspection twice now but there have been few people through. It’s too early to worry, but it’s just my luck to pick now to sell. Can’t be helped. Don’t panic, don’t panic.

How about this? I left the sliding door to the main bedroom open this morning at 10am to let the cooler air in while people came through, then went out to Ian’s place in Darlington. I got home again at 1235pm and only then realised that my wallet was still on the bench and the bedroom sliding door was still open! No fault on the real estate agent – I didn’t mention the door, but phew! If that wallet had disappeared, I would have been a bit upset! It contains your life, these days.

Now I’m seeing clear progress in clearing the clutter. All the CDs and DVDs are gone. I estimate over 1200 CDs and over 250 DVDs. Amazing. All have been either copied to hard drives or transferred to soft wallets.

Many, many books are now in boxes for delivery to the Save the Children Fund book depot. Many still to go, but the clearance is visible.

Most of my clothing went last week. Next is household appliances, crockery, cutlery and glassware. Orrefors, Ittala, Bormioli, all the top brands – can’t give it away so it goes to the op shops.

Then the slides and negs! Thousands in about 40 ring binders, covering 30 years of my photography. I do have most of them scanned, but scans can always be done better and I’m reluctant to ditch them. I might have to, though.

Then the workshop! So many tools! So many screws, nuts, bolts, timber, metal, garden implements, plumbing bits, power tools… overwhelming. I think the only way is to get a dealer in to give me a price to take the lot.

Then all the rest goes into the big steel bin at the front. I have 5 days left to fill it before it’s taken away. Out, out damned spot!

My complaint to the bin hire firm resulted in returned phone calls and a return visit this morning from the young guy to fix the problem.

Full credit to the young guy – he wasn’t grumpy and just did what I asked, which was to move the bin forward about 1m and closer to the wall by 1m. It took two tries, but it’s now accessible and I can drop the door down.

If only he’d listened to the customer, he would have saved us all a lot of time and trouble. But it’s fixed, so I congratulate Affordable Mini Bins of Mullaloo.

It was the first Home Open today from 2-4pm and I had to vacate. Strange feeling to know that people are looking through your home. I have no idea what happened – out of mobile phone range at my brother’s place in Darlington, so I didn’t hear the result. No Under Offer sticker on the sign, though!

Minnie’s at my brother’s place overnight as a trial. She seemed very happy, so I was able to make my departure with no traumas. She can’t negotiate the stairs, though, so…

Oh my Dog, how long will this heat go on? Today was 34C after 34C yesterday and tomorrow is forecast for another 34C and humid. This must be a record. It’s been a month now of above 30C and there’s STILL no end in sight. People ask me how I’ll cope with Bali’s heat. Are you kidding? Bali is cooler than here.

The first home open is tomorrow at 10am to 12 noon (I think!) so I’ve been desperately working today to try to tidy the house. Ha! A hopeless task, but I’ve made an improvement. Even vacuumed.

I had a big bin delivered today and got another example of the “attitude” of young guys. He wouldn’t put it in the car space where I wanted it – and I could see why. The truck was just too big.

So I said OK, put it at the bottom of the drive, a straight backing path. But it ended up across my gate and too close to the fence. I asked him to help me (help me!) move it across, but he just said, “Yer won’t move it, mate.” Meaning it’s too heavy. OK, I said, but I want it across a bit. Nah, too much trouble, not his problem! He wouldn’t do it!

Grrrr!

So there it is, blocking large objects through the gate and too close to the fence to drop the door of the bin. But his attitude was, “Not my problem. Can’t do it.” I can’t handle these young guys any more. The lack of manners, the lack of politeness, the don’t care attitude. Reason number 107 to leave Perth. I’ve had enough.

No op is a computer programming term, but I’m claiming it. No op is what happened today.

What a farce! I presented at the hospital at 10am, having had no breakfast and nothing to drink, so I was hungry and thirsty as hell. Got admitted and settled down to wait. I was well down the list, maybe 2pm.

I spent the first two hours dreaming of food and ways to solve the Minnie problem. Worried as hell, I can tell you. I was so thirsty! It amazes me that they will allow you to become dehydrated. I asked the anaesthetist if I could just suck an ice cube, but he said no! Any other time, they warn you NOT to become dehydrated. How can water cause a problem?

Anyway, about 12.20pm I was moved upstairs to “my” room, and at last I could set up my CPAP machine. I’d been so worried last night that I woke at 2.30am and never got back to sleep, so I was pretty tired.

I donned the stupid backwards gown, had the stupid stockings forced over my feet (and had the circulation cut off as a result!) and was lying there waiting for 2pm when the surgeon breezed in. I didn’t recognise him in his cute mob cap, but I said, “Oh, Gordon, g’day. How cute.” He has a sense of humour.

So he said, no operation, because you weren’t told to stop taking Clopidogrel and there’s too much risk of blood loss due to the thinness of your blood. (Who wants fat blood, yeah?)

So I said, OK, no worries, I can have lunch! I was relieved. I don’t care if it happens or not. He wants to reschedule for 3 March, but that’s too close to my next trip on 6 March, so I’ll just say, no, wait until I get back after 12 March…. sometime.

So I caught Blue CAT (and got jerked back and forth by a maniac bus driver! Accelerator, brake, accelerator, brake), then train from the Esplanade to Stirling and bus from Stirling to home. The bus driver stopped right outsdie my house for me. Very nice of him. A bit of respect for age from a mature guy. Cost to get from home to The Mount – $33.50 and 25 mins. Cost to get home — $0 and two hours. Oh well.

The taxi driver this morning was from Dubai, by the way. He has a six bedroom, three bathroom house in Ballajura and a $350,000 mortgage (and a demanding wife.) He’s 30 and already paid off one house and this is his second. His father in Dubai has two wives and a 17 bedroom house! So he said.

On the train there was a big pushbike parked right across two disabled seats. I saw this and thought, hang on, this is not right. Then the train stopped at Glendalough and a huge, young, muscly guy (with huge steroid type boobs under his T shirt, I might add) retrieved the bike and got off.

But he’d stopped anyone using those clearly marked disabled seats with his bike on the train. I WOULD NEVER HAVE DONE THAT! Never have dreamed of it. You just don’t. What is going on??!! They don’t care. Yet another reason why I want to get out of here.

A solution to my dog problem may be at hand. I won’t count my chickens, but it would be ideal. More later after I’ve discussed it properly.

I am knackered!

I’m afraid my hopes have been dashed.

The Indonesian Consulate sent me all the information, which is the same information that’s on their web site. When I read it closely, I realised it’s been there all along:

(I added the colour.)

In other words, I could fly her into Surabaya (East Java, 370Km from Bali) but it’s still illegal to bring her into Bali. If I were prepared to fly her to Surabaya, pay er, pocket money, then drive from Surabaya across Java to the ferry at Banyuwangi, ferry across the strait to Gilimanuk, then across Bali to Sanur, all the while avoiding police inspections and paying pocket money, it might work. And it might not and she might be traumatised and probably shot.

I think it’s too traumatic even for me and too difficult and dangerous. I have two last options, but I think I have to resign myself to leaving her here.

Not too happy. About to leave for the hospital.

The news about dog imports is a bit better today, but still a worry.

I got through to the Indonesian Consulate and they have no knowledge of any ban into Bali. But neither can they say positively that I can import Minnie. It seems to be a mystery why Jet Pets has this knowledge.

OK, I said, I’ll ring Garuda.

Garuda were very helpful. Catherine said she had gone through this with her dog from HK to Mauritius and understood my distress. She said Garuda carries people, and that is their prime focus, but she knew of no reason why they wouldn’t carry a dog.

Full credit to her, but she just Googled dog transport firms and said, “Try these”, so I was back on my own again.

The local Perth firm I tried was very sympathetic and very helpful. They had heard there was a problem, but didn’t know for sure. They are checking and will get back to me. But the suggestion was, I may have to go via Surabaya in Java and then go by road and ferry to Bali. Payment of moneys may be required.

OK, I understand that, but I dread the thought. Surabaya’s a BIG city and is 370Km from Sanur, Bali. Minnie’s going to be traumatised enough, let alone a long road trip. Not to mention me! She can’t jump up into buses or vans and I have trouble too.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I’m in hospital to have my gastric band removed, so it all has to wait. I’ll know more on Friday.

Phew! This is hard going. That little bit of rain we had this afternoon on our 39C day wet some of the cardboard cartons of belongings I had out the back! Dammit. Not too badly, but who would have thought we’d get rain? Ha! I should have…

Kantor KRI (Konsulat Republik Indonesia) di Perth hari ini tutup untuk public holiday di Indonesia.

Saya email untuk informasi menganai impor Minnie ke Bali. Kembali besok, harapan.

Meaning: I phoned the Indonesian consulate in Perth to confirm the ban, but they’re closed today for a public holiday. I left an email enquiry and I can only wait in hope until tomorrow.

I am in despair.

Jet Pets has just told me that the Indonesian government will not allow the importation of any animals into Bali, due to the rabies epidemic. The ban has been in place for about a year and there is no sign of any change.

All my plans are in ruins. What am I going to do? I can’t leave her.

I may cancel the whole deal. Don’t listen to me – I’m not thinking straight at the moment.

Co-incident?

The more time goes on, the more I’m noticing coincidences.

I’ve just been reading the ABC News web site at the breakfast table and it mentioned a Telstra announcement at a conference in Barcelona.

At that very moment, the BBC Radio news said “Barcelona” in an item to do with Real Madrid football team.

I can hardly write an email or a blog post without the same word that I’m writing being heard on the radio at the same instant. These coincidences are happening over and over again. I guess it’s just that we’re reading and hearing so much more information than we were 20 or 30 years ago. Unnerving, though.

I lost 1Kg in one day yesterday. This obesity thing is weird, as well as being frustrating. There are days when I swear I gain more weight than I’ve eaten in weight of food. Yet yesterday, I lost 1Kg without really doing anything different. It must be water retention and loss. Frustrating. I’m taking a diuretic and it certainly has its effect.

Minnie is on a diuretic tablet now, too, and is visibly losing weight. She still only nibbles at the Euthanasia dry food, so she’s hardly eating anything. No wonder she’s losing weight. She’s drinking a lot more water, though, so something’s having an effect.

My mind has partly been put at rest by finding JetPets. They are a company which specialises in pet transport, and they advertise that they handle everything, from collection at your house to delivery at the other end. I bet they charge a pretty penny, but they must know that they have we pet owners over a barrel. We’ll pay anything to be sure our pets are looked after. Vets know that too.

However, I phoned them at 4.30pm yesterday and got an answering machine quoting Eastern time. I left a message asking them to return my call, but nothing so far. Doesn’t bode well. I think there are Perth local firms that do the same, so JetPets had better call soon.

My mind at the moment

After my experience at the Aston Hotel in Denpasar on New Year’s Eve, when they charged me for a party ticket I never received, I contacted Expedia, the booking agency, to complain. They immediately replied, saying they would email the hotel asking them to refund the amount ($55).

That was a month ago, and surprise, surprise, no refund has been given. Did I expect anything different? That hotel stubbornly refused all my requests. Despite promises, the manager never contacted me.

So I’ve emailed Expedia again saying this and I await their response, but my next move is to post black reviews on web sites and complain to the Bali Tourist Authority. I’ll try to have their star rating downgraded. See how they like that. Worst overall hotel experience I’ve ever had!

The stress of this house sale and clearance is building. I dumped a huge quantity of clothing yesterday, and I’m ordering a bulk bin today to take all the stuff I simply can’t get rid of. I’ve tried and tried to give it away, but no-one wants anything much. Everyone already owns everything! No-one wants for anything in this country. I’m as guilty as anyone – I’ve bought so many things and never even used them. Crazy.

First, how awful is Ian’s wife’s situation. That’s not a question, it’s a visceral sigh. I cry for her. We know something of the stress and pain from our Dad’s passing, but it’s very, very hard on everyone. So sad. So hard.

Today, I’ve started scanning another set of old glass and film negatives from Uncle Darcey in Brisbane. After he died a few weeks ago, his sons found another few boxes of glass negatives and some film negs from around the 1920s and 1930s.These are big negs, about 4×5 inches — 100x125mm. Unfortunately, they’re not in good condition and not as sharp as I’d like, but the shot below is a section of one:

1927 Hubmobile. Our grandfather is on the left, I think.

Enlargemment of the middle. Click on it to see full size.

 Last year I scanned the main set for them, 140 negs, put them onto a DVD and made them into a DVD slide show. I just did a count of these new glass ones – there were only 13. Not so many this time —

Uh oh!  The other box has lots and lots of film negs, maybe another 100? I’m not complaining – far from it, I love doing this scanning. Each neg is a new discovery.

I can’t emphasise this enough – these are history. YOU should be out shooting pics with an eye for your legacy. It’s so easy now compared with the old days. Even in my street, so many things have changed in the past 25 years. I’ve got a lot of photos of the street, but none of the former shopping centre that I used for so many years, now demolished. I can remember it in my mind, but I have nothing to show, and I wish I had.

Our environment is changing all the time and we should record the old scenes. That’s the point — in these negs, it’s seeing the old way of life that’s so interesting. One shot shows my uncle with a newspaper in his hand and it’s open at the Ginger Meggs page! I love it. It’s fine to see people I know in the shots, but I get a bigger thrill seeing scenes of life at that time. What amazing changes we’ve gone through:

Party in Sydney, 1930s

Notice how all the boys are wearing ties!

Jack and Bill, about 1933, maybe.

That’s our Dad on the left and his younger brother Bill on the right. He passed on recently, too. So get out there and shoot for your kids’ memories. Not just of the kids, but what surrounds them. And for Dog’s sake, make notes on the prints or the files. It’s so frustrating when you have no information about who, what, where.

I managed to clear all the stored programs off my TV DVD recorder today for the first time in about three years! I sometimes have 30 or more programs lined up waiting for me to either watch them or copy them to DVD, but rarely do I get it done. I doubt I’ll bother with TV reception in Bali – there’s not much I want, and I’ve got hundreds of TV programs and more hundreds of commercial DVDs stored up to watch, so I don’t think I’ll be bored.

Minnie’s definitely losing weight, but she still won’t eat that dry food. I weakened a little and mixed in about 1/6th of a tin of canned food tonight, about 100g, so that she had to eat the dry food to get it. She ate it with relish, so I hope I haven’t buggered things up.

I loaded the car up with old clothes and CD cases today, but it was too hot to go out and dump them. I’ll do it tomorrow. But I think it’s time to get a dumper bin delivered. Time to get ruthless.

Malam.