Today I headed down to Hobart to meet up with my colleague and discuss progress. She gave me sheaves of information she had found on Trove (which I have yet to learn to navigate successfully) and I found the annual reports for the critical years so have rather greater clarity of who was doing what to whom now. I still need to find the Tasmanian Year books so I have a picture of how the grain silos fit into things, as they seem to be a separate entity. And Crown Lease folks require that one writes to them for details on previous leaseholders, so I have to draft a letter to send them tomorrow. That will presumably mean the information is not to hand by the deadline Council has set, so will just have to say that the information is on its way.

From there I went to Spotlight and picked up a couple of metres of 2.5 metre wide calico for backing the quilt (we have our own supplies of cotton wadding in my group, so will get that from them) and some curved safety pins to hold it all together (though I think I will use some basting spray to position the fabrics initially). Had lunch with my colleague and headed home via Gormanston Road in search of Woolstores to photograph. If they are there, they are very cunningly hidden. I drove both directions along the road and could not see them anywhere. So I will go with the aerial photos of them (taken in the 1960s) for illustrating the document.

Got home not too late and was greeted at the drive by a rather embarrassed and ashamed looking dog, dragging his chain The running wire has snapped off at the base of the star picket, so clearly I need heavier wire. It is a good thing he stayed at home, and i can only hope he did that all day once he was free to move around. Will check with some of the friendlier neighbours tomorrow to see if he was out and about (the only real temptation being Kips dogs which regularly wander the streets and come into my yard).

Dinner will be last night's beef and dumpling stew, reheated, so I am rather looking forward to that.