Sandgropers

We have my sister Shirley staying with us for a few days. She is up in Perth from Esperance. Esperance is a nice seaside town (is it a city?) which is a day's drive south. The airfare is $400+ return. She is up here for a 70th birthday celebration of a long time neighbour from when she and her family lived in Wattle Grove. She is also here to buy lots of clothes, shoes and bling.

We loaned her one of our cars and a SatNav to get to the party house which was a further 37 kilometres north of here. I gave careful instructions on how to press the Home button to get instructions to return home today. I guess we will get a phone call if she can't work that out.

This morning I removed a passionfruit vine from a large terracotta pot. It hasn't had one flower and there were many root stock shoots crowding the pot. As I was pulling it out I found a gopher cricket, or as we call them here, a Sandgroper. They are an amazing little animal and their tunnelling is done with two very strong 'paddles' each side of the face. Read about these beauties here. We have another two Passionfruit in large pots and although they are both healthy, only one of them is setting fruit. One of the vines has flowers but very little pollen and unfortunately both vines flower at different times.

Residents of Western Australia are colloqially called 'Sandgropers'. I guess each state has similar, but I can only think of another two at the moment......Crow Eaters are South Australians and Banana Benders are Queenslanders.

Epilepsy

Sister Shirl is visiting us here. She lives in Esperance on the South coast and flies up rather that driving the 735 kilometres. The plane fare is expensive as there is only one carrier to Esperance, however in her case, Medicare pays for the fare as there is no specialist medico in Esperance.

Shirl came up here to see her specialist as she is mildly epileptic. The visit went well, but this morning she had a turn. She doesn't 'fit' as most people think is the norm for epilepsy. The episodes are quite rare and when they come on she knows what is happening because they start with a strong unidentifiable smell, then a feeling of Deja Vu and usually some nausea.

This morning's episode was accompanied with a loss of memory of the event. She is resting now and should be OK in a couple of hours. I have to get her to the airport for a 6.00am flight tomorrow morning.