May 28th, Brian and Julie arrived from Brisbane and after settling into their Motel, at the Hoey Moey, Brian walked down to the Caravan Park to meet us. He had left Julie at the Motel having a granny nap. After a coffee and a chat we went to the Motel, had a guided tour of the Hotel/Motel complex and met Cameron (The Manager and Julie’s nephew). After a couple of drinks we went to The Coffs Harbour Ex-Services Club for dinner and a flutter.
May 29th, We all went to the Markets this morning, one was in the Car Park under the Harbour Shopping Village and the other was at The Jetty Park. They both had some interesting Stalls, I ended up with some socks and a few westerns. We all met at The Coffs Harbour Bowling Club to watch the Sunday afternoon League game between Balmain and St. George. We hoped for a Balmain win but St. George was too good. Brian and the girls went off to play the Pokies and Brian won an $860 Jackpot, well Done! Val and I went home for dinner and Brian rang us later to say he had just landed another $400 Jackpot, his lucky day!
May 30th, Val had an appointment at The Denture Clinic at 12 noon; we thought it was for a quick look to decide what he could do for her. The decision was to make her a new top plate, so he went the whole hog and took impressions (much to Val’s dis-pleasure) and her next appointment is the 8th June. He quoted $1900 for the whole job, so we went to HCF to find out how much they would cover. The sad news there was that Val had already used up most of her allowance for Denture work and we would only get back $167. What a shock, had to go for a strong coffee and some lunch to settle down, then to the Coffs Ex. Club for another coffee for me and some pokie therapy for Val. We picked up a “What’s On” brochure from the Club and found out that they play Table Tennis. So a few enquiries and I found out they play just down the road at “The Museum”.
May 31st, It rained and the wind blew fiercely, all night. When I got up this morning and walked outside I found the Park Workers cleaning up, at the front of our Van. A 1.2 metre square Perspex Canopy Cover had blown off the roof of the Amenities Block and smashed into pieces on the road in front of our Van. Luckily there wasn’t any damage to any Vans or Cars.
June 1st, Went to “The Museum”, bat in hand, and found that from 1pm the Coffs Over 50s Table Tennis Group play and they have 7 tables. I was made very welcome and for a cost of $5, could play until they all got tired and decided to go home. I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and played almost continuously until 3.45pm. They play Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday afternoons. The RSL Group plays Wednesday, Thursday, Friday nights and Sunday. I found out that the Coffs Harbour Council had provided the venue for both groups to make use of.
June 4th, I went to Table Tennis with my new over 50s friends and had an enjoyable afternoon. Brian and Julie came down to the Caravan for afternoon tea, Dinner and Tiles. Val cooked a Pork Roast Dinner (compliments of the Urunga Bowling Club raffles) with baked veggies and gravy and it was delicious.
June 5th, The Sunday Markets were on again to-day, at the Harbour Shopping village, so I took my collection of “read” Westerns down to swap with the Book Lady, only to be disappointed as she didn’t show up. I’ll come back next Sunday to try again.
June 6th, Today is my 71st Birthday, so I started off the day with a trip to the local Barber for a haircut. After an early lunch, I went to Table Tennis and met a lot more new friends to play with. Brian and Julie came down to the Caravan for afternoon tea and gave me a very nice T- shirt for my Birthday and Val took us all to the local Bowling Club for dinner, drinks and a flutter. The phone ran hot with Birthday wishes from Steven, Greg, Dianne, Jessica, Annaliese and Barbara (my Sister in Melbourne). I rang Sandra, in Urunga, to wish her a Happy Birthday, as we share the same birth date. The highlight of the night was to listen to my Granddaughters, Jessica and Annaliese, singing Happy Birthday to me on my mobile phone “voice message” bank.
June 8th, I helped Brian and Julie move from the “Hoey Moey” down to the Tahitian Apartments, where they are staying for the next 4 days. Val had to visit the Denture Clinic for a look at her new teeth and to get the bite checked. Val prepared spaghetti bolognaise which we took it up to the Tahitian Apartments for dinner with Brian and Julie.
June 10th, We got a call from the Dental Clinic, this morning, to come in for a fitting for Val’s new Denture. While she was there they removed the housings from her old denture, to re-use them in the new one. This meant she had to “Polygrip” her old teeth in place until her new plate was finished, on the 15th. This method didn’t work, as we found out when she tried to eat tonight. I looks like Val is going to spend 4 days in bed without teeth, hiding from the world.
June 11th, Rebecca, Nigel and Sophie arrived during the early hours of the morning and moved into the Tahitian apartment with Brian and Julie. It was good to catch up with them and we couldn’t believe how Sophie had grown since we had last seen her, very cute and full of beans, as most young kids are. The whole family came to the Caravan Park and Sophie had a great time playing on the jumping pillow and playground equipment. Val came out of hiding and glued her teeth in to go up to the Apartment for a farewell BBQ, as Brian, Julie, Rebecca, Nigel and Sophie are going home, to Brisbane, in the morning.June 15th, Finally, the big day has arrived, Val has come out of hiding and is off to the Dental Clinic at 10.30am, to get her new teeth fitted. Who’s that “happy” girl with the big smile and sparkling white teeth?? For an extra $200 Val bought a “Whitening Kit” to bring the colour of her own bottom teeth up to match the new top plate. To top off our day, we watched the Mighty Blues beat the Maroons in the 2nd Rugby League State of Origin game, now making the series one game all, with the decider to be played in Brisbane in July.
June 16th, Val developed a huge ulcer in the roof of her mouth, from her new denture, so off to the Dental Clinic we raced to have the offending section removed.
June 17th, It’s Val’s Birthday today, so I went to Table Tennis from 1 to 4pm (as one does), then we drove to Urunga to pick up Sandra and go to the Urunga Bowling Club to celebrate Val’s Birthday. Val received all her family birthday phone calls during the day. We had a lovely meal, won a meat tray in their raffles, at the Club, and went back to Sandra’s Apartment where Val and Sandra reminisced, with a few Father O’Leary’s Butterscotch Cream, till 3 o’clock in the morning.
June 19th, We went to the Coffs Harbour Caravan and Camping Show today, to check out the latest design changes and to criticize where I felt it necessary. I went to the Telstra Stand to see if they had any suggestions for improvements to our roaming Mobile Phone and Internet use and left with a Telstra Elite Wi-Fi with a free months trial, plus the promise of a new phone, at the same cost, with twice the allowed calls.
June 21st, I dropped Val off at the Belarama Nursing Home, in Bellingen, where Val met Sandra and visited Dulcie (Sandra’s Mum). I had a look around the Old Butter Factory, which is now housing Shops and a Café, before driving back to Sandra’s Apartment at Urunga. After a nice lunch, Sandra and Val walked up to the Bowling Club, for a flutter, while I relaxed, enjoyed the view and waited for them to return. We arrived back at Park Beach just on Dark.June 22nd, Val was back to the Denture Clinic this morning to get adjustments to her new top denture. We had found out that the Terry White Chemist at North Coffs had a “Sleep Apnea” Test Program that is done at home. They required a Doctors referral, so Val dropped into the local Medical Centre, and after a “not too happy” reception from the Doctor, left with a signed form. After signing up at Terry White’s and paying $130 (the balance of $680 is covered by Medicare, thankfully), we went home with a box of equipment and instructions to wire Val up for the night. I have been telling Val for years that she was a candidate for Sleep Apnea, she had all the symptoms and now the results from tonight’s test is finally going to tell the story. It took me 1 hour to hook Val up to this equipment, she was definitely very unhappy and distressed with all the wires and connections covering her from top to toe.
June 23rd, After a very restless night for both of us, I disconnected Val with her help! That was a job in itself, as in Val’s panic to get it all off quickly, the wires were all tangled and wrapped through the armhole of her nightie, so it all had to come off in one tangled mess. It took me another 30 minutes to untangle the mess and get it all repacked into its transport case. I was hoping the test data was good as Val vowed never to go through that night again. We dropped the machine back with Erin, at Terry White and now have to wait for 10 days for the results from the Sleep Services Laboratory in Melbourne.
June 26th, I took my collection of read Westerns down to the Sunday Markets and did a swap deal with the book Lady, plus a few extra. That will keep me in reading material for a while.
June 27th, I joined the Coffs Harbour Library, as a temporary member, which allows me to take out 3 books at a time. We expect we will be here for some weeks yet, so I’ll be able to conserve my own book stash.
June 29th, I took the Territory in to the Ford Dealer for its 105,000 klm service today, so $260 later, it had a clean bill of health.
July 1st, Went to the Office and extended our stay for another month, to allow us to get Val organized with her Sleep Apnoea equipment before moving on. I joined the Over 50s Table Tennis Club today, as we are going to be here for a while, that will save on fees and I will be covered by their Insurance. We took Val’s results to Erin, at Terry Whites Chemist and hired the equipment to start trialing machines and masks. The results from the data collected will be analysed weekly. It’s been a long day, so on the way home, we went to the local Bowling Club for dinner and a flutter. We set up Val equipment ready for her 1st night with the headgear that was fitted with a nasal cushion which sat gently into her nostrils, the machine had been programmed at the Shop, so was ready to go.
July 2nd, Surprisingly, when I got up in the morning, Val was still wearing her headgear and although she took 2 hrs to get to sleep last night, was feeling refreshed and even had a piece of toast for breakfast. We had 2 hours of entertainment in the Park, from 3pm, with a Father/Son duo called Rino and Jade Morea, from Tasmania. They were “fantastic”, great renditions of songs from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Reno’s Mum and Dad were with them and also sang for us. It was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon and easily the best we have heard in any Caravan Park.
July 5th, I woke up at 7.30am, so decided to grab my fishing gear after breakfast and try to catch a flathead in the Coffs Creek, just in from the sea entry. It was sandy and , I thought, definitely a flathead area. After 1 1/2 hrs with only a few nibbles I gave it away and drove down to The Jetty Wharf. One of my Table Tennis friends, Grahame, had told me they were catching good bream down there and sure enough he was there with a bucket of bream. It was too late for me to have a fish, as they had gone off the bite. He gave me 3 of his bream for Val’s dinner, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Val had the start of a head cold to-night, which isn’t good when you are trialing breathing machines.
July 7th, Went fishing at The Jetty Wharf this morning with Grahame, and we caught 7 Trevally between us. Val had some Trevally fillets for dinner and enjoyed them.
July 8th, We took the SD card from Val’s breathing machine up to Terry White Chemist, to get the results for the first week of testing. Erin was very pleased with the results, a massive improvement. 38 arousals/hour, from the initial test, was now 7 arousals/hour and we now know that people without Sleep Apnoea normally have between 1 to 5 arousals/hour. We celebrated with dinner and a flutter, at the Coffs Ex Club.
July 10th, We went to the Jetty Markets this morning, just to get Val out for a bit, as she is still choked up with her head cold. We even called in to Spotlight on the way home but that didn’t even help to cheer her up.
July 15th, Would you believe it, we have now been in Coffs Harbour for 7 weeks. I’m not complaining, as I have been fishing at The Jetty with Grahame (one of my new Table Tennis friends) and playing Table Tennis 4 times each week. Unfortunately Val has been miserable with a head cold and still trying to get sorted with her breathing machine and mask. We went to Terry White Chemist today, with the second weeks results from Val’s hired machine and the SD card was blank. No data collected for the whole week and the only explanation for that was that I didn’t insert the SD card properly. Very upsetting but there was nothing I could do about it. Val was given another type of mask to trial this week and I was instructed on how to fit the SD card properly. We rang Brian tonight to wish him a Happy Birthday for today.
July 21st, We went to the Park Beach Surf Club for lunch, with a group of 15 people from the Over 50’s Table Tennis Club. We had a very enjoyable meal, with great company and a good view overlooking the Beach.
July 22nd, We went back to Terry White Chemist today, with the machine in tow. Erin was happy to find we had data on the SD card this week. The results were slightly better than the first week, so Erin reset our test machine to a fixed pressure, determined by the average taken over the total results. Val still has a head cold which is making it difficult to gain the benefit of using the breathing machine.
July 27th, We returned the hired test equipment to Terry White Chemist, with this week’s results. The results from the fixed pressure machine were very good, so on Erin’s recommendation we bought Val’s own machine and mask. We can now leave Coffs Harbour tomorrow and head toward Brisbane. I had to completely remove the stove from the Van, to remove the cooktop lid so that I could remove the shattered glass from the lid and then re-install it. What a job! I’ll worry about a replacement lid later.
July 28th, It was strange, towing the Van again, after 9 weeks in Coffs Harbour and we drove as far as Brunswick Heads, with a stop for lunch at Grafton McDonalds, and booked into the Ferry Reserve Holiday Park. Not a huge Park but very good and it’s on the waterfront, well worth a return visit. Tomorrow we will move on to Brisbane.
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