The worst part about being away from home for five weeks, besides missing Puddy, is that by the time you get home, the lawn has become a jungle. Sure, my brother was house-sitting, but as I didn’t list “mow the lawn” as one of the things to do, it didn’t get done. I must admit, I’ve been putting off mowing the lawn this week because I came home from holiday with a broken toe and the thought of pushing our old-fashioned push lawn mower up the hill, battling the long grass, just made me want to cry. Today, however, I was feeling up to it, so for documentations sake, here is the “before” photo:

Notice the cactus in the back which has appeared to keel over and is now being supported by the air conditioning unit? I went in for a closer examination and discovered a monster of a weed had sprung up behind it and pushed it over. I hate that back corner of the yard. The reddish plant is nice but makes it almost impossible to climb through to the back bit which was just dirt when we moved in and is now dirt plus weeds. I pull out the weeds every month and within days they are back. I want to tear up part of the reddish plant to make stepping stones, but when I asked the real estate I was told I couldn’t – apparently it looks good the way it is. Yeah, right.

Puddy decided to come over and see what I was up to. I don’t know what it is about our yard but as soon as we venture out into the grass, Puddy comes bolting over from wherever she was hiding. Perhaps it’s because I often sit out there with her and play with the long grass runners so she associates us in the yard with playtime?

Apparently she disapproves of the length of the grass … or she’s preparing to come and head-bump me because I’ve lowered myself to the ground in order to get a photo of her and am therefore vulnerable to her attack. Which one is it?

Yup, that would be a head-bump right there, silly cat!

Anyway, I got out the lawn mower and that sent Puddy running off. She’s terrified of it and I don’t blame her – it makes a really loud whirring noise. Our neighbour has a similar one and she’s outside at least a few hours a day mowing her (perfect) lawn and after about ten minutes of the noise I just want to scream. Our lawn mower is not my favourite thing in the world, but hey, it’s a work-out, it was free with the house and … it’s yellow. And yellow things are cool.

So, after a lot of sweating and swearing, I present the “after” photo:

TAA-DAA!

Haha, okay so it’s not totally finished (I didn’t even step foot in that back section), at least the grass is mowed.  I did lean over and prod the cactus to see if I could push it back into place, but it didn’t budge, so that job is delegated to Phill for this weekend. Oh, and see that darker green patch in the middle of the yard? That’s where the weeds were the thickest and I had to mow over that section about twenty times. By the end of it, I was completely exhausted!

I love this flower (weed?). I think it is the only remotely-pretty thing that has ever survived in our garden, so I didn’t have the heart to massacre it with the lawn mower. It still stands there proudly, untouched, next to the driveway. Aren’t the colours beautiful? Puddy gave it a half-hearted sniff and decided it was boring.

This weekend, WCB is being hosted at Mind of Mog and the Carnival of the Cats is at Kashim, Othello and Salome’s blog. We’re looking forward to catching up with all our blogging friends – both human and feline!

It is only 8:30pm and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, I’m that tired. Damn jetlag.

I’ve been putting off writing a post on here for the past couple days because for some strange reason, I want to sound half-decent, but I’ve now realised that I can wait as long as I want but I’m still going to sound like I’m on drugs because I am so darn tired and so darn busy, I simply don’t have time to sit at this laptop and string a coherant and remotely entertaining sentence together. I was totally going to re-read that last sentence to make sure it didn’t sound crazy but I can’t be stuffed, so… yeah.

Phill and I returned to Australia in the early hours of Saturday and I managed to fall asleep at around 5am, with Puddy purring away on my chest. Five weeks of separation sure took a toll on Little Miss Abandonment Issues. Three hours later my alarm went off and we stumbled into the bathroom for a quick shower, threw on some clothing and drove an hour to the city for a hairdresser’s appointment.

I can hear you already – what the hell was I doing going to the hairdressers three hours after getting back into the country? Well. Saturday wasn’t just our eventual return from holidays, it also happened to be my little sister’s wedding day. Hence the hair appointment. For me, not Phill. He just whacks some gel in there and he’s done. Damn him.

I sat in the chair while the hairdresser chopped and styled away at my hair, large coffee in one hand and a McDonalds’ cheesebuger in the other, and tried not to fall asleep. It would be hard explaining to my sister that I am missing a chunk of my hair in all her wedding photographs because I passed out at the hairdressers.

At 2:30pm, I watched my little sister get married in a beautiful church, surrounded by family and friends. It was a really lovely ceremony and my sister looked absolutely stunning in her dress. I didn’t cry but I did have to blink back some tears. It’s strange to think that the little girl who once ate a boiled egg whole – shell and all – because my brother and I told her that’s how you eat it, was now a woman becoming a wife. And yes, even though she’s only 13 months younger than me, I still got the sympathetic, “So how do you feel about your younger sister getting married before you?” and “Do we have a 27 Dresses thing happening here?” questions at the reception.

I was so jetlagged, the best I could do was, “Uh, yeah, no,” which ended up thoroughly confusing everybody.

We got home really late Saturday night (well, it was technically Sunday morning) and had to take some sleeping pills to get to sleep, damn jetlag. We’ve been waking up at 3am bright and alert as if it’s 9am – I didn’t even know 3am existed.

Then yesterday, out of curiosity, I logged into Bloglines … and saw that I have over 5,000  new posts to read. Needless to say, I closed the browser and curled into the fetal position. Which is why I haven’t visited your blogs yet. I don’t know where to start. I promise I will be around to your blogs soon to say g’day.

So yes, I’m alive, I’m tired, I’m back. Did ya miss me?

Oh and hello - apparently the latest Harry Potter movie is out and I haven’t seen it yet! What is the world coming to?!

* Okay, so I started this post with full intention of making it a dot point post but that didn’t happen because I guess I’m not as lazy as I thought I was. I can’t be bothered changing the title, so you’ll just have to pretend these sentences have dots before them, or whatever.

Where are Katie and Phill? They’ve been gone for so long. I looked under the TV cabinet but I couldn’t find them. All I could find was a big cobweb which got stuck to me and I couldn’t get it off for ages! Katie’s brother is babysitting me again but he doesn’t always let me outside like Katie does. I think he is worried I will run away, but I won’t, I’m a good girl! I just want to, err, play with that new cat across the road. Promise.

I’m so lonely. When are Katie and Phill coming back? I wonder if you guys figured out that these posts are scheduled posts?

I promise I will be a good girl if they will come home SOON!!

Purrs,

Puddy

Sounds like the title of an upcoming horror film and let me tell you – it felt like I was in a horror film this morning as I sat in my doctor’s waiting room for 30 minutes, surrounded by sick people.

I’ll start at the beginning – I’m not sick. I just had to go in to get another prescription, so I booked my appointment for 11am and arrived nice and early. I don’t know why I do that – force of habit perhaps? – because everybody knows that doctors always run late. Anyway. I went over to the desk to “check-in” and noticed a large bottle of hand sanitiser sitting there, half empty. Next to that was a sign stating that if you had flu-like symptoms, you were required to wear a mask during your wait in the waiting room, and you weren’t allowed to sneeze or breathe on people.

Oh, that’s right… swine flu chaos.

I went and sat in a seat near the door. Absent-mindedly, I reached for a magazine … and something stopped me. I suddenly saw, not magazines, but the millions of germs people have left on them. I slowly sat back in my seat, arms carefully folded across my chest.

A man to the left of me was sniffling into a tissue. A woman across the room was yawning without covering her mouth. An elderly lady on the other side was scratching her arm.

I had a sudden urge to turn and run.

I’m not a germaphobe. I get that you’ve got a certain level of germs in everyday life, but at this point in time I was starting to debate whether or not I really needed this prescription. Every time I breathed in, I could almost see the germs entering my body. I was starting to freak myself out.

I talked sense into myself and, while I left the magazines alone, I began to breathe normally again. This was ridiculous. The whole swine flu thing is ridiculous. But just to be on the safe side, I helped myself to a nice dollop of sanitiser before I left. And I used my shirt to open the door, without even thinking.

How do you feel about this whole swine flu thing?