Today has been a day of fun and excitement which started with cleaning the Bank. The plan had been to go from there to Hobart, but I remembered that a) I had left my chilly bag at home, and b) it is stonefruit season, so I backtracked to collect the chilly bag (and take the dogs for another stroll) and headed down the Coal River Valley toward the orchards. Unfortunately none of them was ready for sales, but my favourite one nevertheless sold me 5 kg of apricots (not Moore Parks, these are called orange and red which aptly describes them). The are smaller than my preference but very tasty and now are rather ripe as they sat in the back seat of the ute all day as I went about my other errands.

First up was meeting my old class mate for coffee. She is the one whose mother I tried to visit in Hospital on Christmas Day but she had done a runner. Unfortunately it does not look good, so Lynne is staying on for a few weeks to see her out. She has talked me into going to the reunion/combined 60th birthday party (sigh) later this month as she assures me there will be more people there than the ones I was aware were going.

From there I went off to buy a pump for the hot water system as I doubt the pipes would have survived tomorrow's forecast heat. That set me back a fair whack, but it is the right size to fit the gap in the pipes where the other one has come out. And from there to various other destinations to get cat food and litter, some groceries (including provisions for surviving  a hot day) and a kilogram of cherries to go with the apricots.

The homeward journey was rather hot (glad it is not tomorrow yet!) so I stopped en route and had a bottle of coke (I know!), before continuing up the highway. Home, I unpacked the pump and discovered it did not have a cord - you have to supply your own. So I thought 'I can do this - just follow the instructions!' but when I opened it up the place where you attach the various wires did not look at all like anything I had seen before so I threw my hands in the air and phoned the husband of a friend. He suggested I come up in an hour so I sat and read for a bit, then realised I needed to remove the first pump. Was in the middle of doing that when I glanced out the window and saw three sheep happily grazing in the back yard. I would have left them there but they discovered the currant bushes, so they had to go. Which they did. Around the house, back down the other side and into the back yard once more!!  Chased them out onto the street and went back to what i was doing.

Finally got the wiring sorted and came back to discover they were still there, so I wandered up to the local farmer who assured me they were not his and had been reported wandering down the railway reserve from Stonor. So I left them to their own devices and started re-installing the pump. This was not as simple as it looked as the new washers meant it did not quite fit. But i worked it out eventually and turned on the isolation taps and water gushed everywhere. So I did it again and this time it worked. So I now have a pump happily purring away on a permanent basis (unfortunately the regulator also seems to have died, so I will have to get another one of those - and that will involve a plumber as it has sensors that go into various locations that remain a mystery to me. Sigh. But at least the pipes won't sound as if they are about to explode when the heat gets up tomorrow.