July 9th - a few more days in Florida

Tuesday 7th July

Today we had a pretty quiet day in, this morning Baggage and I had a swim then she got on with some schooling and I made myself busy around the house. This afternoon Baggage spent most of the time on-line with her friends, they were playing hide and seek in Fantage which is a virtual world that they play in, Kids imagination is so great.

The weather is still pretty wet, we had planned on fitting in a few visits to theme parks before the British schools break for the summer and it gets really busy over here, but it has just been too wet, raining almost every day, some days raining on and off all day.

This evening we went for a drive up #27 to find a dark patch of road and see if we could see the International Space Station, it should have been visible to the naked eye for 5 minutes from 21:29. We could not see it there was just too much cloud cover.

Wednesday 8th July

Today Katie and Rachel are going to Kelly Springs, an area at Lake Apopka where there is a boardwalk and a fast flowing stream that you can ride in an inflatable hoop. Baggage has schooling to do and is not very impressed that she has to stay in. They are out all afternoon and do yet to ride the stream, though only just as when they got there the skies opened up and it poured, with intermittent thunder and lightning so they had to wait for that to pass before they could get in the water.

Baggage and Lisa did go out this afternoon, they went to the library where there was a craft session and Baggage came back with a tambourine she had made.

For dinner tonight we have roast beef, a good ‘ol British home cooked meal, though I did try to make Yorkshire pudding from a recipe I found on the web with a general purpose flour and that was a bit too stodgy! Never mind when I bought the beef it was buy one joint get one free, so I can have another go at it later in the summer and this time I will make it with self raising!

Whilst I was cooking Roy dropped in so that I could show him the alarm system, I now have to write out a set of instructions so he knows how to change the code as it is not like any system he is familiar with.

After dinner we all played cards, Baggage had bought herself some poker chips when she and Lisa stopped off at Win Dixie on the way back from the library. After Baggage had gone to bed we watched America’s Got Talent, then Lisa Rachel, Katie and I played a few more hands of cards.

I have now moved onto the case of Sam Adams White Beer, when I opened it I noticed the best before date was May ’09, but it tastes OK so I am not going to bother returning it.

Thursday 9th July

First job this morning, after a quick swim, was to clear the rubbish out the back of the house next door. I would not normally clear up someone else’s rubbish. but it seems as if the occupants moved out last weekend and they have left a couple of dustbin bags full of food outside their patio door and the smell has already become offensive, add to that the fact that in the night something rummaged through the bags and spread the rubbish and I had to do something.

Whilst outside I also replaced one of our sprinkler heads which was no longer popping up. Yesterday when it started to rain the sprinkler’s came on, could be a fault in the rain gauge that determines if it has rained and thus you do not need the sprinkler’s to come on, I will have to keep an eye on that.

Baggage and Lisa got on with Baggages school work, today was a role reversal day, so Baggage was the teacher and Lisa the pupil.

This afternoon the girls took Baggage to the cinema to see Ice Age 3, Lisa and I took advantage of having the afternoon off and went food shopping (exciting!).

Before we went out I had to phone the people we rented off in Hawaii as they had returned our deposit less $100 to cover the cost of getting out a plumber to unblock their drains, a problem that they blamed on us. When we were there we were aware of this problem however at the time were told we were not being blamed for it, so I was somewhat surprised to learn we were now being charged $100. After a debate on the subject they agreed to refund the $100, I do not mind being charged for something if it is my fault but in this case I am not sure it was and also do not like the way it was dealt with, they had plenty of time to tell us they would be withholding the $100 whilst we were there, after all they only lived downstairs. Even though we are getting our $100 back I am not satisfied with the outcome, it seems a pity that the memory of us left with the people we rented from in Hawaii is not a good one, guess we will not be renting from them again!

For the last few days Katie has been complaining about pains in her shoulder and abdomen, tonight Lisa had an idea that it might be related to a collapsed lung which has been prevalent on her side of the family and once she had that idea could do nothing but take Katie to a doctor. As I am writing this I am waiting for them to get back from a visit to a paediatric care centre, I have spoken to Katie on the phone and she tells me they gave her a pretty good check over and they do not know what is wrong with her, they have suggested she takes herself down to the hospital in Celebration in the morning. We have to wait to find out what is wrong with her.