M is a stress head . For years we 've been trying to figure out ways to help him . Most of his medical problems arise from this . He never stops working or worrying . So last night I made him start a journal . We 're doing it together . I give him a word prompt and we both write for 20 minutes . Then we read it out to each other . It was so much fun and the things we both wrote were so funny . Had to do the shopping to day for Christmas . M 's parents are boycotting it this year , so they came up for a visit a few weeks ago . We celebrated with them then . Some of our friends from M flying up on Christmas day . They 've demanded a roast . M 's put his hand up to cook it , which is fine by me . He might have to work in Christmas afternoon . It 's all hands on deck for the silly season . I 'm trying to stay awake , because I have to pick M up from his work Christmas party . I left early , because I 'm a lazy socializer , plus they were mainly talking shop . I 'm not a night person and lately I haven 't been much of a morning person . Funny , I used to be one of those annoying morning people . I would always get up around 6 am in the morning . As soon as the alarm clock went off I would get up . None of this snooze thing . I can 't stand the snooze button . That 's one of the things M and I always disagree on . He loves the snooze button . Then when I moved back to M and back into my parents for awhile , I became an insomniac . For a year I was living with my parents I was surviving on 2 - 4 hours a night , usually just 2 hours . I don 't know how I survived ( especially since I was driving most days ) . I was on automatic . I managed to complete my degree with really high marks . I finally got some sleep when I moved out of my parents and into a place of my own . I had to drop from studying full - time to part - time so that I could pick up extra shifts to pay the bills but at least I could sleep . I love my family , but I function better away from them . Weird . Dog is scared of the ceiling fan . What a cack ! I turned the fan ( in my office ) on my way to the kitchen and he started growling . It freaked me out at first because I wasn 't sure what he was barking at . I had to abandon my the kettle and go check it out . I had a good chuckle to myself when I realised what all the fuss was about . Then I had to calm him down . Now he 's sprawled out on the floor sleeping . Again . It 's strange though , because it 's never bothered him before . Maybe because he 's never entered a room while I am in the process of turning it on . M likes to play WoW . He tells me it relaxes him . I always raise my eyebrows to this . " Is that why you swear at the computer all the time ? " I ask . " It 's the only time I get to myself , " he replies . " You didn 't have to drag me with you to the doctors , you know . " " I wanted to spend some time with you . " Sometimes I wonder if we speak the same language . The resident diamond python must be back , because the antechinuses seem to have gone . . . for now . According to some of the staff here , the last spotting of it was in our decrepit shed , by the contractors who were doing some renovation work on the house before we moved in . They refused to go into the shed without the accompiment of one of the staff . Same with the telecommunication workers , if they need to look at the line ( which is in the bushes along our driveway ) , they won 't go alone . Diamond pythons aren 't venomous , but the other snakes around here may be . Australia has ( I think ) 20 or is it 10 of the top venomous snakes . I 've come into contact with tiger snakes ( very aggressive and venomous little buggers ) , and that was in suburbia . It was in my sisters house while I was house sitting for her ( that 's another story ) . And of course heaps of red belly black snakes ( at least they aren 't aggressive ) . V stopped over last night to drop M 's keys ( M locked himself out of his office yesterday ) . The antechinuses have been mocking him , so he reckons . A few nights ago , one of them dragged its meal into his bedroom ( dead bird ) . It also had young ones and he could hear them squeaking around all night . He found bits and pieces of the dead bird the next day , near his pillow . Oh the joys of summer . Well , we 're not pregnant . . . it was just gluttony on my part . M is disappointed but I 'm okay with it . His parents came to stay for an early christmas because they 're boycotting it this year . It was fun , lots of eating though . It 's been a very hectic week . We had some friends of M 's from NT stay earlier this week as well . We went to the aquarium with B and T . I don 't know how I feel about aquariums . I 'm not a big fan of wild animals kept in confined spaces ( says the girl who has a rabbit and guinea pig in a hutch ! ) . It was sad watching large sharks swim up and down constantly in a small area ( one sign of distress ) . There 's a fine line between eco - education and animal cruelty . Went to watch the Vienese Classic . It really surprised me how much I enjoyed it . Although at the beginning I wasn 't so sure . I get distracted easily by people around me . It 's because I 'm such a control freak . I need things to be orderly , otherwise it distresses me ( or am I OCD ? ) . We went out for dinner by the harbour and the service was really bad . It wasn 't the people per say , but the way the whole place was run . Drinks and food had to be ordered separately , and there was only one person walking around taking drink orders and the poor thing was run off her feet . There was no communication between the food and drinks staff , so we waited ages for someone to come around to take our order , despite asking several times . Anyway , I got really agitated ( not mad , but distressed ) and this was after we managed to order . It was because the table behind us were trying to order their drinks but were completely ignored . I managed to take a deep breath ( or three ) and get over it . See I 'm learning . In the past I would have said something or left ( which would have agitated M ) . The show was great , but I had a guy sitting next to me who came late , so he was breathing heavily for the first few minutes , then he started doing smelly burps . The lady behind me kept on playing with her camera , so all we could hear were the electronic beeping of the camera . At first I coPosted by Before M went to his meeting , he went to get some blood tests done . He came back with a bottle of Italian sparkling water ( I 've been craving it for weeks ) for me ( he 's wonderful ! ) . He thinks we 're pregnant . I 'm not so sure . I think it 's just gluttony on my part . We 'll just have to wait and see . . . Ahhhh . . . chooo . . . . the last time I had hayfever was over ten years ago . Now it 's come back with a vengence . I haven 't stopped sneezing all morning . It got so bad I almost fainted . I was supposed to go with M today ( he 's supposed to be on leave but has been recalled for a meeting ) , while he attends the meeting I was going to walk one of the tracks near his office and take some photos . Now I 'm holed up in the lounge wiping my nose . And the weather is so nice today ! ! ! Okay that 's enough of my whinging today . Had a great day yesterday , swimming in the river and exploring the ' burbs near us . We ended up walking one of the tracks , unfortunately there wasn 't enough light to get some decent photos . Last night we had a little camp fire in our back yard . We decided to pull out the chimnea and toast some marshmallows ( I 'm not a big fan of marshies , but it was fun ! ) . Dog was going crazy trying to sniff Pig and Rabbit . It was so funny watching him trying to break into the hutch . I tried earlier that night to check out the smiley face in the sky ( ie Jupiter and Venus above the crescent moon ) but the view of the western sky was skewed by all the trees . I did see Jupiter and Venus though . We got Rabbit another companion yesterday . This time we got a male guinea pig . I had to clean out the big hutch when we got back , because the straw was wet , so we put both in the smaller hutch . M went to check on them later on and found the Pig with a ripped claw . So we cleaned him up and separated them for awhile . We put Rabbit back in the big hutch . In the afternoon I put Pig back in the big hutch , although M protested . I told him it 'll be fine , they need to get to know each other , and they don 't even have to run into each other in the big hutch . I was right . M peed me off last night . He stayed up till 3 am playing his games ( very loudly ) , I let that slide . He crawled into bed and decided to read , so I had the light in my eyes . . . I took my pillow and went and slept on the couch . It was really uncomfortable so I cleared the spare bed and snuggled there instead . Need to clean this room . . . We hosted our first dinner party here last Thursday . Good food , good company , great success . . . only wish the day started out in the same vein . . . Went and saw The Birthday Massacre play on Friday . S and his entourage were there as well , they crashed at our place . It 's the first gig we 've been to see since moving here . I miss watching goths try not to look happy . In M we used to go to see a lot of goth / industrial / alternative bands play . Think we 're getting a bit too old now . . . think I lost another 10 % of my hearing . For the first time I noticed the difference between the headline and support acts . The Birthday Massacre were made for the stage . They were so tight , and the theatre . . . wow ! The next morning was funny ( rabbit incident aside ) , S was trying to teach S & T how to cook eggs . He was instructing them on how to make a complete meal with eggs . It was hilarious listening to him . We lost one of the rabbits on Sunday . I woke up Saturday to find that once again the rabbits had escaped . This time they must of pushed the lid open ( securing it was going to be our next project ) . In a panic I woke M up from his weekend sleep in before 8 in the morning . We hunted around our house for over an hour before giving up . M got a bite from a tick for his efforts . After that we gave up and went back in the house . By the time M had his chiropractic appointment , we still hadn 't set eyes on them . I had a feeling that they were in the bushes between the garage and road , because Dog spent most of the morning sniffing around there . We found the first rabbit soon after we got back . She was in the Wisteria patch , but not for long . She hopped away when we approached . M and I ended up chasing her up into the bushes near the road . After a few embarrassing mishaps we finally managed to catch her . We 'd left Dog in the fenced off yard . Later that afternoon , I let Dog out the front yard . Right away , he jumped the ledge behind the garage ( it 's quite a jump , taller than me ) , from my vantage point on the porch I could see the missing rabbit . I called out to M , and he came bounding out . He and Dog spent over an hour , trying to search the area . Unfortunately we discovered it was filled with hollows and burrows that she could easily escape into . Dog spent quite a while at one particular spot . We decided to set the possum trap in the area , hoping to capture her before nightfall . I was worried about foxes and snakes . A few hours later , Dog was hanging around the back door . I had an inkling that Rabbit might have come back , but was in the middle of something and promptly forgot to check . We decided to go for another walk later that afternoon . We spotted her in the fenced off yard , so I ran through the house and out the back door to see if I could tempt her back in the hutch . Unfortunatly Dog had also spotted her from outside the fence and was whining and growling . So we ended up chasing her around , M and Dog on the outside , while IPosted by Since M worked the weekend he got today off , which gave us the opportunity to run some errands . We parked the car at H station and caught the train into the city , so that he could exchange one of the lens for his camera and pick up some other accessory for his new toy . I don 't mind public transport , but let me tell you , things are a bit backwards here . There are no bins at all in any of the stations . . . what 's with that ! On the way back we ended up ( I 'm a freak magnet ) in a carriage with a drunk man , who had wet his pants and had become very aggressive towards other passengers . Luckily for us , he was in the carriage above us . I must say , one good thing about the service here is that they are well patrolled . The transit police got on ( I thought it was hilarious when they all pulled on their black gloves ) and dragged him off the train . The drunk guy must of been a well known character because they called him by name . I 've had some horrifying experiences on public transport . When I was living in M , I use to finish work late at night and catch the tram home . One night , I was sitting at the back of almost empty tram , when a guy boarded the tram in a notorious drug surburb . He ended sitting between me and the only other passenger in the carriage . We both watched in horror as this young man , got out a spoon and starting heating his drugs and then injected himself right then and there on the tram ( while it was moving ) . He got off the tram at the next stop . Another time , I was catching the same tram home a punk couple got on . The guy was tall and really aggro . I felt sorry for his girlfriend because she was trying to be friendly to the other passengers , maybe to compensate for his behaviour . Just before they got off the tram , he for no known reason , head - butted a guy who was sitting next to the door , then jumped off the tram . The tram driver did nothing , he added to the situation by keeping the door open . Meanwhile the girlfriend is trying to hold her boyfriend back , and hitting the tram telling the driver to close the door Posted by M came back from his after work hours adventure last night all sweaty and exhausted . They had to do a two hour walk in an hour to get to the campsite . Turns out it was a case of he said - she said , with the cabin owner pitted against the campers . M parked himself on the couch , trying madly to take down notes in his incident book , when he felt something on his arm . It was a tick attempting to dig its way deeper . He removed it and we took some photos because I wanted to identify what species it was ( this wasn 't the first time we 've had ticks ) . I was a bit worried in case it was a paralysis tick ( for Dog mainly , because it could kill him ) . Interesting fact : there are around 75 species of ticks in Australia . I 've always been worried about lyme disease , but when I was trying to identify the tick last night I found that the disease is mainly confined to the northern hemisphere . There have been no confirmed cases in Australia , which is strange because M and his mother have been telling me that his grandmother contracted the disease from a tick bite . She died a fews years later from heart failure , but they maintain that her decline began as a result of the tick bite . Maybe she had underlying health issues , because all my text say that it 's a curable disease . Now I 'm not so worried about them . M 's family is full of tropical diseases . His uncle suffered from Ross River virus for years . Every year he 'd be down and out for a week with fever . The fevers would occur at exactly the same time each year . Then he got encephalitis from a mozzie bite on his property . The good news is that his annual ross river virus fever disappeared but now he 's lost his balance , and can 't cope with vibrations ( ie driving for long distances , mowing etc ) . Back to the tick . I think it was a paralysis tick , not 100 % . Ixodes holocyclus M and I were planning to go swimming in the river this afternoon after he got home from work . I had just changed into my cosie , and M was standing around in his underwear when we got a phone call from the duty manager . There 's been a report of 20 or more illegal tents up at E , and from the sounds of it they aren 't a friendly bunch . They 've been drinking and some of them are vandalising the empty cabins which are privately owned and heritage listed . So M has been trying to ring around to see who 's available to go with him to check out the situation . I 'm really worried because there isn 't much one or even two people can do against that many . At the moment they 're just going to observe to see if the police need to be called in . Sometimes I hate living so close to all the action . Nature might be beautiful , but people always have to screw things up . Bugger of a start to the silly season . . . Drove dad to the airport today . It 's been great having him here but at the same time tiring . Dad gets bored easily and needs to be fixing things , so he took it upon himself to fix the rabbit hutch ( with my blessings ! ) and removed the empty bird cage that 's attached to one of the outside walls . I wanted to take him for another tour of where I live , but it was too hot and muggy for him . Dog really took to my father and followed him around everywhere ( maybe because my dad was constantly going outside for smoko ) . I took him plant hunting , he 's a medicine man , so he was on the lookout for some medicinal plants . We didn 't find the plants that he was after but I did find some other useful plants ( ie edible as well as medicinal ) . I have to wait for M ( he has a plant collectors permit ) before I can do anything . M and I are being eaten alive by the midges . I have so many bites that itch to high heaven all over my body . I should start using insect repellent more often , but I hate the smell . I 've got an Australian bush roll on , but I 'm too inconsistent in my usage for it to be effective . Today I drove 2 . 5 hours to pick up my dad , from my uncles place . Dad will be staying with us for a few days before flying back home . What a ride . . . M was concerned because I had planned to stay only a few hours before driving home again . I hated driving through the city , that took ages but once on the highway , the speed demon in me just took over . I was dodging and overtaking cars and getting frustrated at other drivers . I understand why M speeds now ! The drive back was a nightmare . We hit the start of peak hour traffic once we were off the highway . Dad complained about my speeding , then kept on asking how long till we got home and then complained about the traffic jam . So all up the trip home took over 3 hours . Hope I didn 't get any speeding tickets . M will be so mad ! Another morning of chasing Rabbit around . This time , she had managed to dig her way out . I let Dog out the front because I couldn 't be bothered dragging him out the back ( it had been a long night . . . more later ) . I went back inside to fetch my shoes , and when I went back Dog had disappeared . I wasn 't too worried because I was gone less than a minute . However , I see a flash of brown run pass me in the direction of the outdoor dunny . I run around to check and there was Rabbit . I chase her , and she runs under T 's car ( he was up for the weekend trying to catch some waves ) . I leave her there and try to get Dog back in the house . He smells Rabbit and refuses to budge . So I give up and enlist his help . I leave him to guard one end of the car , while I try to scare Rabbit out from under the car . I manage , she runs to garage . Dog chases her . I chase them both . Dog corners her but he doesn 't take a bite , just sniffs . Somehow she escapes and the farce is once again back on . Dog and I chase her around the garage . Finally she manages to hem herself in , and I pounce . Then Dog pounces , he tries to take a bite and ends up with a mouthful of fur . He smacks his lips and looks satisfied . I run into the house with both Dog and Rabbit . I wake M up . I need help because at this stage I 'm unsure if Rabbit2 has also escaped . Poor M , he was involved in a stakeout at G beach last night and had only crawled into bed at 3 am . Lucky for us , Rabbit2 was resting in her hidey hole . We had to lock them in their smaller hutch . This morning we were woken up ( except T , he slept through the whole thing ) by sirens and ambulance and rescue vehicles tearing down the road . It went on for over an hour . M called the office to see what was going on . Turns out there was another car accident . Someone had slammed their car into a wall ( cliff ) , but the driver was nowhere to be found . I suspect it 's one of the drifters . They were out racing last night . I hate the silly season here ! We found out last night that the driver involved in the motorcycle accident was one ofPosted by I got a call from my lovely cousin this afternoon , giving me an update on how my aunt is doing . She just got off the plane on Sunday ( back from her second honeymoon ) , when she got a call from her parents informing her that our aunt in QLD is ill and the prognosis wasn 't looking too good . So suffering from jet lag she had to drive 3 hours to her parents place , and then with them to QLD the next morning . She asked if I wanted to come , but I had to meet her at her parents . She wasn 't really sure of the travel details yet . As usual no - one in my immediate family had bothered to tell me anything . So I spent the afternoon calling my parents and sister . My dad and his younger sister , were flying that afternoon to QLD . My mum opted to stay ( she 's recovering from eye surgery ) and wait for further news . I decided to stay put , because I know my family . There 's always trouble when we all get together , and the kids were already stressed enough , so I didn 't want to add to the chaos . So back to the phone conversation . She told me she 's back at her parents house , but now she 's flying back up to QLD to escort her parents back like naughty children . Her dad was involved in an incident last night . She doesn 't know all the details , but the men were drunk last night and her dad threatened to smash his car window . Well he did smash the car window as well as his hands . My dad being the oldest , and the medicine man as well , had to clean up the mess and reset the bones . So now my cousin is flying up to escort her wayward parents back home , despite her mother insisting that her dad is alright to make the drive back . You have to laugh , my family are so predictable . Meanwhile my aunt was improving , but she had a seizure last night . So I 'm hoping and praying very hard that she will get better . I had to call M at work ( he was in the middle of conducting a panel interview ) and tell him the news . He wants an exit clause in our marriage contract now . As if ! I did warn him . Also asked him if everything was okay , because I could hear sirens all mornPosted by A new day , another morning of chasing Dog and Rabbit . This time Rabbit stayed in the confines of the fencing . I didn 't have to panic that much ! Though early in the morning Dog decided he wanted to go out , so he sat waiting by the front door . In my morning haze I let him out ( it 's only supervised walks if he goes out the front , just he case he wanders off down a track ) . Most of the time I drag him out the back door , which involves a lot of bribery or physical dragging by the collar . Today I let him out and was about to follow him out , but discovered that I 'd left my shoes near the back door . It was wet from dew outside , and I couldn 't be bothered getting my feet wet today . By the time I found a suitable pair of shoes Dog had disappeared . I 'm not worried until I hear voices coming from the track below our house . So I had to go bush bashing in my pj 's once again to try and find him ( I wasn 't in the mood to fend off leeches ) . Ten minutes later I spy him walking merrily a long the track below our house , luckily there wasn 't anyone ( that I could see ) around . We started laying out elliot traps for the antechinuses again . M discovered a hole in the kitchen where they are getting through . I removed the drawers near it ( they had started making a nest in the drawers , so everything had to be thrown out ) and replaced them with traps . We caught a female , luckily with no babies this time . Imagine that you 've come home from a busy morning running errands . You come home , hoping to have a little rest before picking a friend from the station . Before you can even put your feet up , you have to fix the rabbit hutch , move the rabbits back in and entertain the dog and of course find that elusive spot in the house that will give you mobile reception , just in case you get the pick up call . Oh , did I mention it 's blowing a gale . So you unload the car ( you 've just picked up some straw and lucerne ) . You manage to fix the hutch with the help of the dog . It 's time to reintroduce the rabbits to their home . You lift the hutch that they have been temporarily kept in but someone hadn 't locked the bottom . One escapes . Dog chases it . You chase it . Your fencing is inadequate to keep a rabbit in , it 's a deer fence after all . You realise that if it escapes you 've just released a pest species into the wild . You panic . Dog thinks its a game , he chases the rabbit . You chase the dog . Rabbit runs towards the fence . You chase the rabbit . Dog chases the rabbit . You chase the dog . Finally you make a decision . Chase the dog , drag him into the house and lock him in . Meanwhile , rabbit has managed to escape the fence . . . she 's outside ! You run back inside the house , grab the keys to the gate and chase her around . Luckily she 's on a ledge . The problem is , it 's a narrow ledge . You stalk her along the ledge . Up and down . Finally you manage to grab her . . . just . Back in the house , you 've had a missed call on your mobile . You can 't read the message , because you no longer have mobile reception . You run around , trying to find that elusive spot again . The wind is howling outside . You run outside , down the long driveway . Finally you get one bar of reception . You return the call . She 's been waiting at the station . You think , because the phone cuts off . . . so you decide to drive to the station . . . what the heck . . . luck might be turning your way . . . . I finally received my degree in the mail . Everyone 's been telling me that I should have gone to the graduation ceremony , but obviously people don 't know me that well . I hate formal events , and moving to another state has given me the perfect excuse for not attending the ceremony . Although M threatened to put me on the plane himself , but I beat him to the punch and ticked the graduate in absentia box . Though I think I should take a photo of it and send it to my parents as proof that I did graduate ! It 's taken me years ( not that I failed anything ) because I have committment issues . Three years in the one area is enough to give me itchy feet , and I rarely do anything full - time ( always working or doing something else ) . The degree came in a post - pack tube . M was excited for me when he handed it over . Dog was excited too for another reason . I put it away in the bedroom . I was talking to M in the kitchen when we heard chewing sounds coming from the room . I went to check it out and there was Dog on the floor happily chewing the tube . The little bugger . The antechinuses are back . They 've crapped all over the kitchen cupboards and even made a nest or two in the drawers . It 's a losing battle we 're fighting here or more to the point we 've been a bit lax in laying out the traps . So I guess we have to start all over again tonight . Dog ignores them . We started letting him in at night in our room ( he has a bed on the floor ) , 1 . to stop him waking us up with his barking ( at the deer , wallabies , possums etc ) , 2 . to chase the antechinuses . It 's obviously not working , he just snores his way through their nightly raids . That 's right Dog snores . He is so much like M , they both snore ( though not in a loud obtrusive way ) and they both sit there and sigh a lot . Dog was feeling morose in the heat yesterday . So I let him in the house where it was cooler . The heat and humidity seemed to suck the energy from everything around me . Well not the birds though . They were out in full force . Dog was woken up from his afternoon nap by the laughter of four kingfishers on the gum tree . I took him out to the yard ( the deer fence free section ) to check out what all the noise was about . Dog went ballistic at the kingfishers . They took a break from their gossiping and sat high up in the tree watching him . Dog wasn 't happy . To vent his frustration he lept off the ledge and ran into the bushes . There was a frenzy of activity . I wondered what he was up to the little bugger . Then I realised he was up to his usual no - good , chasing goannas . The little bugger had chased a goanna up another gum tree . One of these days they 'll realise he 's all bark and no bite , then we 'll see who 'll be chasing whom . Living out in the bush , we get our fair share of wildlife , both inside and outside the house . We get the occasional antechinus invasion . So once in awhile we do an ethnic cleansing . We set elliot traps at night and release the little buggers into the bushes near our driveway ( which is the farthest we can get without crossing the road and without the need to go bush - bashing ) . Last week , early in the night we caught one in one of the traps laid out on the kitchen floor . As we had just come back from wildlife spotlighting around our yard , we made the usual decision to wait till morning to empty the trap . The next morning I went to empty the elliot trap , but found to my dismay that the little bugger had managed to escape . But the poor thing had lost three of her babies in the process . So we had the hard decision to wrap them in paper towel and hope the mother came back for them or euthanase by freezing them . We decided to give the first one a go first . That night we caught another one . We checked to see if it was the mother . It turned out that it was another female with a litter of her own . Her pouch was full , so there was little chance of her adopting the babies . We tried though . We put them together in a container , even though we knew that the likelihood for a positive outcome was low . The next morning we found out how low . The mother had killed and partially eaten one of the babies and then she escaped . But in the process she lost one her own babies . So then we had to make the tough decision to euthanase . It 's been quiet in the kitchen in the past few days . No droppings all over the kitchen of late , but that could all change soon ! What a magical day it has been . M and I went kayaking for the first time together . We borrowed the double kayak from P , who also came with us on his individual one . It was absolutely beautiful . There were so many fish in the river , as well as jelly fish and stingrays . We paddled to a small waterfall , where it was so quiet and peaceful . The only thing marring the day , was our team work issues . Towards the end , we started getting better . After kayaking , M and I went for a swim in the river . Or rather I swam and M did his usual wade in , wait an hour for one part of the body to acclimatise before moving on . One of my pet hates are parasites . Personally I don 't see the evolutionary purpose of most of them . I concede that some like tape worms , hook worms etc play a role in stimulating our immune system , but leeches and ticks how do they fit in the scheme of things ? Unfortunately I live in a place where leeches and ticks are common . I guess living in paradise does have its downs . I was taking photos of our house and yard to send to my friends . I decided to try my hand at nature photography while I was at it . Meanwhile M was bush bashing with Dog and calling out for me to join them . No thanks , I was in my sandals and I had a feeling . . . M and Dog head back to house and catches me in the process of trying to take a photo of a flower on a vine . M suggests I should also take a photo of the African Lillies that are growing in the bush as well . I agree and still standing in the driveway focus the camera . M insists that I should take a macro photo , so I wade into the bush . Suddenly I feel something moist and cold land on my toes . I look down and see something black and yellow , looking suspiciously like a leech or caterpillar between my toes . I start screaming and jumping up and down , trying to take off my sandals . While M is telling me to stop jumping around so that he could get to it . In my panic I 'm kicking my legs about and trying to thrust my foot towards him . Finally he calms me enough for him to check it out . He wasn 't quick enough for me , I 'm trying to shake the thing off while yelling at him to grab a stick to flick it off . At this stage the thing has crawled deeper between my toes and closer to the sole of my feet . Finally he manages to flick it off me . I run out of the bushes , convince it was a caterpillar . M follows at a slower pace . I asked him what it was . He tells me it was a leech . I immediately jump into his arms . Gross . I feel so violated . Lucky for me the leech didn 't have a chance to sink its suckers into me . It was a lovely day today so I thought I should try and meditate . So I locked the dog in the house ( leaving the back door open in case he wanted " out " ) and picked a nice spot under the shade of the lillypilly tree . Since I love the outdoors , and I am very " airy fairy " I like to be around earth because it grounds me . Therefore this was the perfect spot . I lay my yoga mat down , and started off with some exercises to open up the hips , ready for sitting in the lotus position . I close my eyes and start to meditate using a breathing exercies ( mouth slightly open , tongue on roof of mouth , and breathe through both mouth and nose ) . I am aware of some noise in the background . All of a sudden Dog runs out to the backyard and starts barking . He doesn 't stop , so I take a break from my meditation and go see what he is barking at . I walk to the edge of the hill and look in the general area that Rusty is barking at . I hear something go crashing through the bush and spy a large monitor climbing the eucalypt tree . I rush in the house to get the camera but when I get back , the monitor is nowhere in sight . I wait around for a bit , hoping to see him again , then give up . I get back to my lotus position and start meditating again . Something crawls up my leg , I try and breathe through the discomfort and send a plea out to the universe to get rid of the bug for now . It doesn 't work , I get bitten anyway . So I kill it ( I know not good karma ) . I don 't miss a beat , and continue to breathe slowly . Then another bite , this time on my foot , then another and another . I open my eyes . There 's ants all over me . I jump up and realise I had put the yoga mat on top of an ant nest . Good one !