'Evening Everyone,

Well, if I thought we would have a quiet start to our retirement, guess who got it R-E-A-L-L-Y wrong!!!

First off, Pete retired 16 Dec - great!!!

Daughter's (Katie) f-i-l (Brian) was diagnosed with throat cancer week before Christmas - not good.

Christmas was great shared with son (Matt) + d-i-l (Trina) who came up from Canberra, and some friends.

Planned to head to Tsv around 15 Feb to be with Katie & Tony when their first baby is due 25/2, but with Brian heading down to Brisbane for surgery, and Tony accompanying his parents (then off to Melbourne for work), Katie asked I head up earlier to be with her and give her support - no worries, Pete would follow (as planned) later.

Brian's surgery went Ok, and is now on the long road to recovery and learning to eat and speak again, and Tony went off to Melbourne - no worries.

Hmm, next up, a couple of cyclones heading towards Tsv. Helped Katie put things away and shop for some essentials - masking tape, long life milk etc.

Dodged a bullet with Anthony heading further south, but oh my gosh!!! The guys from Tsv that Tony was with down in Melbourne were sent home because of Yasi, and man oh man, it sure hit with an impact!!! Tsv was subjected to around 21 hours of constant roaring wind and rain with no let up. I have never felt so frightened and I was squeezing Crosby (my teddy bear) so much I thought his stuffing might burst out!! Thankfully very little damage to Katie & Tony's place, and his parents place had just a couple of fence panels blown down, plus of course both sustained food spoilage due to lack of power.

Pete decided to come up earlier, and had to wait for the caravan park we usually stay in here to get it's power back - bless his socks, he arived safely this afternoon, and I have never been so glad to see him!! All is good again!

Got'ta wonder how the rest of our retirement will be played out, if this is anything to go by, one could say it will never be dull!!

Pete & June
(edited 'cause I forgot to put our names to this diatribe - got a bit carried away)

-- Edited by Pejay on Thursday 10th of February 2011 09:30:15 PM

OMG, what a start you have had! Hopefully, as it happened all at once, it will be over.

Goodluck with the rest of your retirement. Hope to catch up on the road sometime (we never did catch up for that coffee)

Dunmowin

Geez Pejay! So glad you are here to tell the tale, and so's your family.

Now you understand why retired people say "I dont know how I ever found the time to go to work!"

May the rest of your retirement be more peaceful   

Pejay, never any dull moments mate,good that all is comming along ok.
It's family guys & yes we do these thing because we can to help out.
Its better to be now rather than when you are on the other side of the country.
Cheers
Jim.

That is certainly a busy and scary time Pejay, so glad everyone came through all good. You can sit back and relax (hopefully) and wait for new baby to arrive. Can only get better from here on in.

Thanks everyone for your comments, yep, started to settle down here at the Coral Coast Caravan Park @ Garbutt (Top Tourist) in Townsville - here for a few weeks awaiting our first grandchild. Been out shopping today (stinking hot) and I was pleased to get back to the van for a nice chilly glass of vino!!! Tonight for dinner we are trying out our Pizza Stone on our little 'clayton's' Baby Weber barbie - can't wait, of course it goes down better with the vino, but I couldn't wait. So, if anyone is up this way, would love to catch up at some stage - and no Dunmowin, still hanging for that coffee (that's why I have had to hit the vino!!!! - only joking)

All the best to you Pejay. After all that activity, retirement will be a piece of cake. I'm also pleased to hear you survived Yasi relatively unscathed. The problem with being located on the edge of the cyclone's eye is you get the full impact without the rest as the eye passes. I experienced the same thing in Broome in 2000 when Rosita went around Gantheume Point as a cat 5, and Broome had the impact of a cat 3 or 4 for hours. It wiped out the Eco Beach tourist village/tent cabins and a lot of scrub. Less population over on the west coast. I've stayed at the caravan park twice. On the way north in 2008 and on the way west last October.

Did Rockhampton and Yepoon get any of Yasi? I didn't think they did as further down the state, but an email from my sister last night said she had been talking to her friend in Yepoon and friend said the cyclone was really scary but they were all safe,.

Hi Marj, Rocky & Yepoon would have got the 'far reaches' of Yasi, something around a Cat 2/3, but what amused (?) most people was that places like Julia Creek/Mt Isa & even Alice Springs were basically 'battening down' for the cyclone as it crossed the continent. I guess because Yasi was so big - around 600-700kms across with the eye around 100km across - yeah it was scary, but I forgot to mention in my last piece that Crosby is recovering well from his ordeal!