27 February 2014

Summer’s End

When it’s 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), there’s only so much you can do in a day. For weeks, we were waking up sweating at 8am to 30 degrees and suffering through the day only to fall into bed still sweating in 30 degrees. We camped by a river most of this summer, beating the heat with fans and swimming. One night was so hot and still that some of us went for a dip in the river around 10pm so we could be cool enough to sleep. So we didn’t really get anything done. We sat on the bed soaking wet in front of the fan, watching movies on the computer most of the day. The only exercise anybody got, except crazy Freya, was walking down to the river, swimming, and walking home again every few hours.

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Tomorrow is the last day of summer. We finally hit the road again on Monday and there’s about three weeks until the Blayney Show. The heat is slowly going away, dropping ten degrees which is still too hot, but at least now the mornings and evenings are cool enough to work. Training has started up again. Sparkie and me are working on a new trick, which will hopefully be ready in time to use it in competition.

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17 February 2014

As Time Crawls By

The past few weeks not much has been happening. The biggest thing we’ve done is dragged the scrollsaw out and made a bunch of puzzles and various wooden arty things. You can see them on the Wheel Education Facebook page. The weather’s slowly cooling down again (for this week, anyway). We’re still parked in the same camp by the river, and we’re all starting to get itchy feet again.
 
We have just under five weeks until we compete at the show in Blayney, NSW, on March 22. We had such a blast last year that going back again was an easy decision. After that we have the Gympie Show on May 15-16-17. Sparkie and me have been competing there every year since 2009, so this will be our sixth time. The day after that – the 18th – we’re going to perform at the Million Paws Walk again. After that, there’s nothing really solid. Some other shows are keen to have us, so we’ll see what happens. Keep an eye on the team’s website or Facebook page for updates.
 
I’ve also taken to writing stories about my favourite movie/TV show characters – “fanfiction.” Well, actually I discovered fanfiction when I was eight and reading Watership Down, and started writing my own not long after that, but only recently have I started posting some of my stuff online. If anyone’s interested in reading them, I could probably post some links here.
 
Some random photos from the past couple of weeks:
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