A 12 month anniversary and a leave of absence

I fly out early this morning for Australia. Because of all the time I have been away over these last few weeks, coupled with the terrible phone lines and my sick computer, I am unable to put that many posts into draft, so I will leave you with a long post and hope you will pop back and visit me on my return on July 21.

I will celebrate my 12 month anniversary while I am away. Gosh time flies when you are slumped for months over a hot computer and cold phone lines!!! I have been unsure what I should post to celebrate, so I have put down some links to my favourite posts over the 12 months ........

Celebrations

Sky Watch Reflections

Deck hand framed

Porky palpitations

Baining Fire Dancers

Moon Series

Blue

A pier, a sunny day and friends

Dolphin escort

Women with melons and greens

..........and I leave you with a new one that I hope you will enjoy.

I had trouble getting into my room the first night at the hotel in Goroka, so the desk clerk sent for security to help me with the lock. It was unable to be fixed and I ended up in another room.

When the guards arrived I was amazed to see a young man with a huge bow and a handful of arrows. Beside him was a very old man with a huge bow and handful of arrows, a bone through his nose and……an Ipod. I could hardly believe it. I was unable to communicate with the elderly gentleman – he obviously had his Ipod up too loud or couldn’t understand my broken Pidgin.

I asked the young man what his name was and he told me “Geoffrey”. I then asked him why he carried a bow and arrow and he looked at me quite quizzically as if I had come down out of the sky the day before.

“To shoot rascals!” he replied vehemently.

“Oh,” said I, “Do you have a problem with rascals round here?”

“Oh yes, they come and steal things.”

“Do you shoot them with your bow and arrow?”

Again he looked at me as though I was really weird. “Yes.”

“Where do you shoot them…..in the leg?” I asked hopefully.

“Wherever I can,” he said quite smugly.

“Oh….have you shot many rascals?” I asked timidly.

“Yeah lots,” he answered quite gleefully.

He was so sweet and assured me he would guard my room all night. This was very reassuring as the door had no security on it.

I didn’t have my camera handy that night, but the next night I sent out a message to Geoffrey and he visited me in my new upgraded room (with a deadlock), to get his photo taken. He had another friend with him, who although very short and stout, was also heavily armed.

I slept well all week knowing Geoffrey and his band of Merry Men were roaming the grounds, bow and arrows at the ready, shooting rascals ....wherever they could!

(Luckily - no reports of rascals being shot were reported all week).

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Thanks for all your support and friendship. Cheers!!