Mariah Carey has a vocal range of five octaves (trivia courtesy of Spicks and Specks which I watched while cleaning the cottage today). The lad next door has a vocal range of five notes - none of which he quite achieves. Unfortunately he rather fancies himself as a singer and is presently wandering around their paddocks strumming on a guitar and regaling the neighbourhood with his dubious talent. Let this be a warning to all parents that, while it is all very well to encourage your children to have faith in themselves, you must also teach them what bits to have faith in.....

Tomorrow will be 25 which will be a bit warm for getting the chainsaw out, but since the following day will be 10 I feel I have no choice. Meanwhile the rain they promised has been hanging around all day but does not want to take the plunge.

I spent more time in the bathroom today - waxing the bentwood chair I put my clothes on, clearing out the vanity unit, throwing out ten year old mascaras and such like. I now have sufficient cosmetics to do my face, and that is all. At the rate of consumption they should see me out so that is good. Another cosmetics bag contains all the tiny tubes of sample stuff you get, and that will get hauled out for use when I feel the need to moisturise. Meanwhile the remnants of Dead Sea Salts have been poured into a bath and I had a nice long soak. I am amazed at the number of cakes of soap I own - I seem to acquire fancy soaps at a far faster rate than I use them - and yes, I do bathe daily!

A load of washing was the last on the list and that is now tidied away for use, and I am. most unusually, sitting in my pyjamas at this early hour enjoying the aftermath of my bath.

I rubbed in a bit of polish today which is a good way to become familiar with a new piece of furniture (and it now smells rather nice too). The panelling on the door is actually the fine plywood you find on the back of mirrors. Since it is clearly cut to shape and the depth of the timber surround is sufficient unto the task, I have to assume there was once a mirror there too. Still rather chuffed with that one.

I have had a day in the Garden today - well, part of a day as Syche once again failed to turn up and there is a limit to what I will take on if I am working by myself. I came back in for the kids but it turned out they were having a Halloween day at School (since when did school become a holiday camp instead of an educational institution?) and only three of them turned up. One of them was mucking around with the hose so was put on a warning, but eventually settled down.

Bank to clean after I have had my dinner (I am feeling a bit peckish as I forgot to have lunch) and I will pick up a pizza while i am in there in case I am still feeling hungry when I get home. If not it will do for tomorrow's dinner - actually it will do that anyway as I will only have a couple of slices if I am still hungry tonight.

 well here it is installed in the bathroom - it will, of course look a lot nicer when there is floor covering, and the architraves and skirting boards are in place, but I am rather pleased with the piece, for all it is a bit of a hybrid (thin ply side walls and shelves made with masonite!). I suspect it is the door off an old wardrobe that has been adapted for the purpose, but it suits me nicely.

I have emptied the cardboard box that has sat at the foot of the bath for several years now, being regularly rummaged in for supplies, and the stack of tissue boxes is inside as well as the three dozen toilet rolls that I tend to buy when I am down in Hobart.

I will have to find something suitable to ornament the top - perhaps the Epsom Salts box I have in the kitchen at present for want of a better place.

I quite like the folk art someone has adorned the top of the door with - I think it gives it character and it ties in with any colour schemes I am likely to implement in this area. And as you can see it is quite capacious - perhaps toilet cleaners in the bottom shelf, and I have out the cleaning rags on the top shelf so will probably use that for other cleaning stuff as well.

The drive up did not start till after midday as I had two cottages to deal with and one of them failed to check out punctually. I also had a carpet cleaner to contend with who was supposed to be in cleaning the carpet in the occupied cottage, so it was all a bit fraught for a while.

Then up north via Longford again as I was hungry and thought a nice roll from the bakery would be good. Especially so as i was able to sit under a silver birch in the grounds of the Anglican church and eat it in the shade - very nice.

I called into Bunnings too as I had spotted door knobs for $10.00 - with keys! So I chose two that have matching keys and will, eventually, install them on the back doors to solve the Seb problem with the lever handles and also the on-going problem that resulted from one of the original locks not having all the relevant parts when we went to put it in. That means both doors will be operational for the first time in recorded history when I finally get around to installing the new locks.  The reason for not rushing ahead with this is simply that I might combine it with painting the doors and that will take some planning as of course I will need to keep the dogs inside somehow while I have the doors unoperational for several hours. It never ends really, does it?

You might recall that my big plan for today was to get the washing done (especially now i have water). I was just contemplating getting onto it when my boss messaged me to let me know there were two cottages to clean today (and another two tomorrow, not to mention the big one on Saturday), when my diary told me I had nothing to do. Seems he got the roster muddled and forgot to tell me. Sigh.

while I was in there dealing with that lot (and the linen delivery he had forgotten to mention) I called into sewing to let them know they would have to live without me, and then headed home to finally start the washing around one thirty. The last load (actually the last one I did - there is still more to be done) went on the line at 3:30 so I had little hope it would dry in time as the shade from the neighbours' pine trees tends to come over the line fairly early in the afternoon. To my great astonishment it is all dry, however, and now folded away for another week. Phew.

I had concluded overnight that the corner cabinet is a must have simply because i have been looking for something like it for years and it is not going to sit in the shop till I get myself organised. So I tracked down the owner and have to call once more tomorrow morning to check if it is still there (he was at an auction). If so, I will head up to Launceston either before or after I clean cottages and collect it. Woohoo!

Another lovely sunny day I have to say, so it was quite warm with all the running around. Tomorrow, fortunately, will be marginally cooler as I hate driving to Launceston in hot weather - the more open landscape up there seems to make you feel too hot for some reason.

An odd day today - bits and pieces of good and bad. I woke at midnight having a horrible dream. I was on a coach trip with a bunch of friends in outback Australia. I stopped to take photos of a particularly lovely roofscape and returned to discover the coach had left early, leaving me without money and with a mobile phone with a low battery. I phoned one of the people on the coach who wanted to have a nice chat but it did not occur to him to stop the coach and come back and get me. I was getting frustrated and angry and very very annoyed as you can imagine. Since it was a magical mystery tour I had no idea of the coach's next stop and neither did the person I was talking to. At that point I woke up and got out of bed for an hour to cool down (it was a hot-sleeping dream), returned to bed a slept wonderfully for the rest of the night.

Woke at six and hopped into the shower with started hiccuping water - oh dear, no water left in the tank. So I turned off the shower, wiped the rest of the soap off with the wet face washer and dressed.

From there things went rather better and I called for a water delivery which was scheduled for 10 in the morning. I was heading out at nine so removed the screws on the filter and left the money in the filter to pay for the delivery. This of course meant that my carefully hoarded funds for our shopping spree were no more.... sigh.

 Our destination was the Longford Tip Shop which it seems is not open on Tuesdays. We had another recycling centre to go to but that was in Invermay which Heather did not realise is in Launceston.

Longford has a rather nice bakery so we stopped off there for morning tea (coffee and a berry frangipane) and bought some salad rolls for lunch. Over our snack we discussed our next destination and finally agreed to continue on to Launceston where we took a wrong turn and ended up at the huge new Bunnings they have recently opened. Turns out that particular Bunnings also stocks wallpaper, so we checked out their selection and discovered that they stock the one I have taken a liking too. I am even more fond of it now (though it has a very long pattern match so it's a good thing I have only one wall in mind), and here it is!

The background is not a solid colour but of varying intensity (like sponging) which I think works particularly well, especially as I am planning to use the Porters distemper paint on the walls around the rest of the room. A nice chintzy fabric for the curtains and the bedroom should look pretty schmick in twelve months time!

We finally backed out of Bunnings and found the location of the next shop on our list, but it was not there. Seems it is no longer in business but has not shut down its website - very annoying. We did find another salvage yard however and that had some beautiful things (and very expensive I thought). The door that came very close to the desired measurements for my bedroom was $220.00 which seemed a bit rich as it was painted (not such a problem as I intend to paint it), and had been added to top and bottom using some pretty poor craftsmanship. I do have a suitable door for the opening which needs work, so I felt that my own workmanship on my existing door would be preferable to that cost.

From there we went to a couple of second-hand furniture shops, both of which had some really nice stuff in them - and so cheap! A blackwood three door wardrobe with very appealing braided beading around the doors and a central mirror for around $200.00 and in the second shop, a beautiful corner cupboard with folk art garland over the top of the door for only $160.00. Now if I had not had to pay for water this morning that corner cupboard would have come home with me straight way (Heather drives a ute as well, so we had the means of transport), but as it was, it stayed in the shop.

Then on to the Salvos where I found a pair of jeans and a  pair of shorts to fit - eight dollars the lot! lol. Much more my price right now.

On our way home we stopped off at Campbell Town for an icecream in the park and a dip into the St Lukes second-hand shop where another pair of jeans (five dollars this time) was added to my wardrobe and so home.

Quite a long day so the dogs were pleased to get out for a walk, but now I am recovering and deciding what to do about tomorrow - do I go to sewing or do I get some washing done?

All incentive to get productive went out the window after I lit the fire at ten this morning. The forecast for 12 degrees was downscaled to ten degrees and it was raining on and off this morning. Mostly off, I have to say with only two mm in the gauge, but better than nothing i guess.

Now the wind has picked up somewhat, presumably to bring in the eighteen degrees that is supposed to happen tomorrow, but between now and then we are expecting minus one, so who knows what it is all about.

Heather popped by to check out my corrugated iron collection as she is building a woodshed, and that was the sum total of today's activity. Bank to clean tonight then off to bed which is a strangely appealing destination considering how little I have been doing.

I did check out wall paper online - there is a chinoiserie one that appeals for the bedroom - lemon backdrop with pink paeonies (small) trailed across it in sort of a diagonal lattice. I am thinking that might be the easiest way to deal with the fireplace and the wooden rails down the corners of the chimney breast.

But the main interest was in the lining paper which can cover up cracks - a very appealing option all things considered. That you can paint over as well, so it provides a number of options all up.

Our day of sunny 20 degrees with light winds (ideal day for doing the washing I hoped) turned out to be fairly strongish winds, overcast and not 20 till four in the afternoon. Oh well.

We had our local market today and so I trotted up the road in the hopes that since this one had had a big buildup there might be a few more tables than usual. But no. the usual suspects with the usual tat. There was a rather nice flowering currant on one of the tables which I duly bought, but as I was carrying it home I was waylaid by someone else who claimed to have bought it before me. So rather than argue the toss I took it back to the stall, got my money back and gave it to her. She is not only one of our more emotionally unstable people, she is also a close friend of psychoneighbour, so the concept of debating the matter at psychneighbour's front gate was just too wearing for any benefits I might gain (besides, it would probably suffer the fate of my  hawthorn hedge and disappear one day when I am not at home).

Turns out the house over the road is for sale at long last - not terribly surprising. What is surprising is the  price which I would have expected to be higher. At $175,000 it is a snip as all the major work has been completed (fully insulated new roof, new wiring, plumbing huge tanks etc - underpinned and good workmanship in the rebuild of the falling down bits). So I am guessing she is going for the quick sale.

It will apparently be only 12 degrees tomorrow so I am rather glad I have some firewood indoors and won't have to rush out and cut any today. Walking the dogs is my only reason for being outside.

Another cool sunny day and two cottages to clean. We have been getting some feedback from unhappy clients who are unimpressed with the standards of cleanliness. Some complaints legitimate, some not so much (eg the one whose complaint was probably prompted by the lingering odour of cooking oil rather than the cleanliness of the place). That said, I took a little more time and looked more closely in drawers and such and did find the cutlery tray had accumulated invisible grime which responded favourably to a dip in hot water and suds, and the waste basket in the bathroom had some scuff marks on it and so on. Not really acceptable when you are holidaying I have to agree, but easy to overlook when you are doing the same places day in day out. Since neither Annie nor I would ever win any housekeeping awards in our own homes, I guess I need to up my game a bit. Still, if I get any complaints about the two I did today there will be a dead traveller somewhere.

I also called in to visit a friend en route to the cottages and had a cuppa, a gossip and a sit in her garden (a thing of beauty) before heading into the fray - her own standards of housework are an inspiration (or intimidation depending on my frame of mind).

Oh well, another day of chasing chooks, gardening for the masses and generally running around. Had a phone call from a nice man wanting to book the oval for a family picnic day. A couple of his friends turned up to check it out as I was walking the dogs so we sorted out most of the questions he had asked and they took the photos he had requested, which is a relief as the camera on my phone doesn't seem to be working right now.

Dulux has come back to me about the paint - apparently the warranty only covers you if you use their entire system and since I used Taubmans undercoat the warranty is void. However they have nevertheless requested photos and details of bar codes/batch numbers and such like so I will pull it together and get back to them tomorrow (once I recharge the battery on my camera and take the photos).

The 12 year old next door was inaccurate in his assurances that the dog yapping for half an hour the night before last couldn't have been one of theirs. It did the same last night so I got up and went to investigate. If it does the same tonight they will be getting a phone call. They would have had one last night but by the time I found their phone number it was already back indoors.

The chickens remain on the loose, though thanks to Seb one of them is minus a few chunks of feathers. The door to the shed is closed, but none are visible in the sun-drenched yard and some are visible in the bottom paddock. I guess I will be calling Council again tomorrow.

After cleaning the cottage this morning (an easy job as only one room occupied), I had planned to go to town to bank the money for the garden, collect some seedlings for ditto and to get some dog food. I was also planning to get some cat food, but a mention on the radio that it was Show Day soon changed that plan - and my projected route. So I headed down the back roads and went to Cambridge Park, Animal Barn and Mornington and then to Bridgewater via Back Tea Tree Road - anything to avoid getting tangled up in the chaos that the Show brings to the roads of the Northern Suburbs.

On the way home I picked up some chicken drumsticks and stopped at Dysart to eat them. Lucky I did as I had failed to notice the temperature gauge on the motor was shooting through the roof. Fortunately I carry a bottle of engine oil with me, so I was able to deal with the problem before it became a disaster.

I found some maple bacon at Cove Hill which I will try out for dinner tomorrow night (OK bacon and eggs is not standard dinner fare, but when you have fresh free range eggs - given to me at Sewing yesterday - and maple bacon, I guess that is a good enough reason) ;-)

I am informed by the 12 year old next door that the reason they are letting the chooks out again is because they don't escape any more and some of the hens are laying under the barn.............. I pointed out that I had chased them out of my yard three times yesterday so he has told me he will be letting Robin know. One hopes with some change in behaviour.

Predictable the five roosters they have are fighting and this is another incentive for them to let them out once more. I suggested they either get rid of all bar one of the roosters or consider building them separate runs. One can but hope.

The cottage I had to clean today was unoccupied, so when I rang the boss to see if I had got it wrong he assured me he had forgotten to tell me. Still - it will be occupied tonight so I should get some work tomorrow. As it is I will be cleaning the bank tonight and putting out the garbage at the cottages so can check to see if anyone is in there.

Sewing today was a bit of variation - they had a presenter there who was selling cookware. I had hoped I would resist temptation but they had a really lovely knife set. No I didn't buy the entire set,, but I did buy a little version of my East West knife with a curved blade which will be great for chopping things up. I left early as the loathesome one had invited herself to the presentation despite having already been to several of them (anything for free meal apparently). The presenter cooked us butter chicken in the pressure cooker (way beyond my budget right now) and steamed some lemon sponges for dessert in the wok (another gadget I already own and never use). They also had great kitchen shears which I have put on my wish list and since another of the group will be hosting a party I have indicated I will order them at hers. I have always wanted some kitchen shears - I used whatever scissors come to hand at present, and they do not necessarily do the job you need.

Lovely sunny day today but quite a lot cooler than we have had recently (and a pleasant change that is). It will be zero tonight so I will lay the fire before heading out to the bank and light it when I get home, to reheat my leftovers from our lovely lunch!

Well keeping the chooks in their run lasted for what? Three weeks? I guess Council has told them they will now only be calling in on spot checks, because they were out again today. Not ones to waste time, they spread themselves around generously and shared their destructive powers with all of the neighbours.

 I noticed her next door marching down the road with murder in her eyes, so I assume I am not the only person who is getting more than a little tired of this fecklessness. If they have left the door open again I guess it will be another call to Council - who must be heartily sick of them by this stage - I know I am!

It was supposed to be 24 degrees, overcast with a low risk of late showers (as in late tonight) today. It hovered below 15 for all of the day. The showers were already falling when I woke up and scuttled off after lunchtime. At three o'clock I cracked and lit the fire. At four o'clock the temperature swooped up to 20 degrees so it is a tad warm indoors and out at present. You can't win. At least it reminded me to cut some additional firewood as we have two days of 12 degrees for the next couple of days. Since the temperature has to drop fairly precipitately and there are a lot of black clouds about I am assuming those 'showers' later tonight will be a thunderstorm.

Since the weather was not quite gardening weather I simply planted one of my new grevilleas in the spot where the correa died, discovered that the apparently dead callistemon still has one green leaf so may actually just be a bit frost-bitten, and so all the rest of the plants are still waiting to go in. I also cut a large barrow load of firewood, some of which is keeping us all overheated right now, and called into the Men's Shed to provide specifications for a plant trolley they are making for us for the Garden. We have a couple of frost-sensitive fruit trees that we want to be able to shift in and out of the hydroponics shed during inclement weather.

When the sun is out, the temperature is moderate and there is no wind, it is nice to be able to spend the day in the yard getting the fire hazards reduced. Not that cutting the grass down the back does that - I seem to be accumulating a thick layer of cut grass that is drying out rapidly. Still at least it will not leap up if it catches fire. And since they are forecasting rain for later in the week, if it eventuates it will hopefully beat it all down to form a mulch. At present any snakes in the yard have a nice hidey hole that has the added benefit of being warm. Sigh.

I have limited myself (given how hypnotic the process is, and my tendency to over-do it) by allowing myself three tanks of fuel then stopping. Between tanks I come in for a drink of cool cordial to rehydrate.

Once I have done the lot I will back the ute down there and remove all the various obstacles I am encountering, but that will not be any time soon. Also the various bits of fence I have constructed over time, to recover the star pickets for more useful purposes, and get rid of the cheap bird wire I bought that has rusted uselessly. Heavy gauge chicken wire will be on my list of purchases once the house is sold - albeit a long way down.

One bank to clean tonight then home for a nice pork chop with apple fried alongside it, peas and mash.

The one down side of yesterday was the hard frost that unexpectedly happened. The overnight forecast was for four degrees, but the ice on the chooks' water and the crunchy whiteness underfoot suggests that it was rather colder. The walnut leaves, that had just started to unfurl were hit rather badly and are now black and nasty looking. There are still more to unfurl and they look healthy enough, so hopefully it will recover in due course.

It was relatively calm today so I was able to get all the washing done, but not much else as I was feeling lazy. Add to that a visit to my voluble friend in town and that was the day gone before I had a chance to blink. Still, it was a nice, relaxing and generally pleasant day and I have all my washing done and dusted for another week (though what happened to the two odd socks that disappeared remains a mystery).

I also had a brain wave. My shopping list for post-the-sale of the house in the UK included a new mattress. But then I remembered that I have been yearning for a King Sized single bed for some time - if only to reduce the effort involved in turning the mattress. I found that the suite I have now is still available, and so a king-sized single to match the rest of the bedroom furniture is not out of the question. Hopefully I get that far down the list - time will tell.

Well what a fabulous day we had today! OK, there was a galeforce wind that made driving down to Richmond an exciting experience, but once I got there I discovered there are two parks by the river. I was in one, and Barbara was in the other one. I finally joined her in her spot which was a bit more sheltered than the one I had chosen (I had no idea it existed or it would have been my first choice). For entertainment we had a wedding party with a light-weight wedding dress with train that was just not quite coping with the wind, lol.

But they managed to get the deed done, the bridesmaid did not fall off her heels and they all seemed to be having a lovely time.

 I doubt their wedding feast was any nicer than our joint birthday feast - all that Stilton was for me as neither Barbara nor Emily like it, but the cheddars and brie had to be shared Pickled onions, spiced pears (that strange pinky red thin in the middle of the box), olives, quince jelly, walnuts - mmmmm! And a  particularly nice red to go with it all, given to Barb by one of the teachers at her workplace.

We ate these and a few additional bits and pieces contributed by Barb, then set off around the shops. First stop was of course the candy store where we each stocked up on a doubleheader icecream cone. Mine was toffee on one side and cookies and cream on the other - very nice combination I must say. We sat in a sheltered spot in the sun while we ate these, then wandered into some of the many delightful shops in Richmond.

Lafayette on Bridge (the shop with the $12000 giraffes I admired last time) had a superb selection of jewellery and handbags and scarves. I particularly admired one that was exactly my colours and style, but at $89.00 I decided to leave it for another day, wandered into the next part of the shop, then upstairs to the Christmas decorations (they have an all year round Christmas store upstairs which is to die for!) then back to the cars via another few shops.

When we got to the car, Barbara presented me with the shopping bag she had acquired while I was upstairs and there it was! My beautiful wonderful handbag! We have agreed it is my Christmas and Birthday presents for the next ten years as we don't usually exchange gifts, but .... wow!

 This is it in all its glory! Mustard yellow (the colour reproduction is not that good) leather with leather handles, zip closure topped by two pop button closures for added security. Inside it has a special extra present - another handbag! Slightly larger than an evening purse, so that will give you an idea of the scale, it comes with a shoulder strap so you can use it together or separately. I am the happiest little camper this side of the black stump right now as you can well imagine. It has been placed carefully out of sun, and reach of dogs and cats to ensure I get to keep it forever!

A day in the Garden today. The protracted absence of the whipper snipper showed as some of the paths were waist deep in weeds. Since the little darlings were back at school today I had the whipper snipper going all morning to find their garden beds for them and make them accessible. Fortunately I was done before they put in an appearance.

After several attempts I did finally get in touch with the person I want to supply me with an antipasto platter for tomorrow - apparently she has not been checking her phone messages for several days .....  strange way to start up a business, but at least I can be confident my order is in and will be available for collection tomorrow at 11.

The cool change has been brought forward a day which is a bit of a disappointment - still 16 here, may translate as rather warmer in Richmond as we had a max of 21 today and poor Hobart was sweltering in 30 degree heat! It is the kind of weather that the wind cools you down, the sun goes behind a cloud and it gets nippy, then it comes out once more and you sweat like made. It is going to be a very long hot summer by the looks of things.

Still no idea who phoned me - perhaps my email sorted out whatever it was they were calling about. I turned off both phones before I headed to bed last night just to be on the safe side and had a great sleep - partly because the overnight temperature was a little more tolerable. Not that it will be tonight. Seb got the fright of his life when I turned on the stand fan today for the first time since he has lived here. It was a necessary cruelty and I am still enjoying its cooling effects (Seb has taken himself into the bedroom).

I had only one cottage to clean today, and some linen to pack into the laundry. If I tell you it took 2 and a half hours all told that will suggest to you the degree of chaos they left. To be fair they washed up - then put everything away wet and in no apparent order - and that was the first of many things. The two burn rings on the dining table, the wet towels on the antique furniture .... you get the picture. Still it is all looking rather better now.

I will be turning off the phones again tonight as there has been a suspicious silence for the last 48 hours and I have a hot day in the Community Garden tomorrow so will appreciate any sleep I can get tonight.

This dealing with the other side of the world has its down side as I discovered when a ringing phone summoned me from the depths of sleep at two this morning. I was very tired after yesterday's exertions and so really deeply asleep, so by the time I got to the phone I could barely grunt a hello. Whoever was at the other end (and it was certainly the agents) had a strong regional accent and a tendency to gabble so I had no idea what they said, but grunted hello again at which they hung up. I sat and pondered whether to call them back, or wait for another call but eventually went back to bed again, to lie awake and wondering for some time.

This morning, as a consequence, I did not get up till after eight and was barely into my second cup of coffee, still in PJs when a knock at the back door announced a visit from Heather. Now normally I can get away with a quick chat and send her off, but this morning she was insistent on coming indoors and being given tea and chattering away at a million miles an hour while I tried hard not to nod off once more. Finally sorted her out and logged onto FB for a quiet read while finishing off my coffee when I received a message reminding me there was something i had to do before noon today. So I did that, printed it out and finally fell into the shower which failed to refresh.

More coffee, two walks with the dogs and I was still barely coherent by the time i got to sewing. So after stitching one row of counted cross stitch I gave up and came home for a wee nap. This lasted for 45 minutes before Seb realised the house was too quiet and I was prone on the couch, so of course the only thing a dog could do was half climb onto my chest and lick my face enthusiastically.

I expect I will manage to stay awake long enough to clean the bank, but after that I will be turning off both the phones and going to bed. If they want me they can send an email.

The forecast frost failed to eventuate which was a good thing as I forgot to close up the little mini-greenhouse the seedlings are in. Instead we had a bit of a dew and then the sun came out.

Him next door has worked out that he needs to irrigate his tiny patch of pasture so has been running a pump for the last two nights to operate a knocker sprinkler for several hours at a time. Since he doesn't move it, after a few hours it falls over as the ground gets saturated. Not sure it will do the very young pasture any good, but at least he is trying (if running a pump until 9 pm counts).

I have the opposite problem and so have been out for much of the day with the whipper snipper hacking into the undergrowth. I seem to average a strip two metres wide across the width of the block in an hour, so it will take some time. This is mainly due to obstacles such as loose wire and bits of timber - a large rock, that sort of thing. I have to get rid of all of these and will do so, but it all takes time.

A local farmer just called in on committee business. He is green with envy about my grass. I told him he needs to whack in some electric fencing and bung some sheep in for me. Strange, but apparently not.

I will go nurse my blisters now and wait for Sunday before I resume operations - busy for the next four days so they will have time to heal.

The fog moved in again last night, but was gone by morning - not that you could notice as it was very dark and overcast. When I got up at 5:30 it was still quite dark, but there was a bright glow on the eastern horizon - bit early for the sun and not quite in the right place. Not in the right place for headlights on the Inglewood Road either. Had me puzzled till the train came round the bend. Not a peep out of it till it was out from behind the hill - how odd.

I was glad of the firewood I cut yesterday and remain so. The fire is chugging away merrily and we are all snug inside at present. I filled in the relevant paperwork for putting the house on the market and then headed into town to get the Doctor's signature that I am me. That done I called in to see a friend and chatted for a while before returning to the cosy little house. I had intended to get some housework done today as well, but you know how it goes. Another good book.

Bank to clean tonight and then feet up. Tomorrow will apparently be less rainy (not that much has fallen, but plenty has threatened) so I hope to get some more whipper snippering done. Or not as the case may be.

It was a very heavy fog this morning, but when it burned off I looked out the kitchen window and spotted this:

It seemed like a good idea to spend the day cutting grass, so that is what I did. Since the dew was very heavy I used the whipper snipper which is now back in service and cut a fairly broad swathe across the back yard. The bit in the picture still looks like this (minus the dew as it has been rather warm), but I guess I will do that some other day.

Not tomorrow as they are telling me we will go from hot and dry to nine and raining. As a result I spent part of the day self-consciously cutting firewood in anticipation of my need. It felt very strange to be doing it in short sleeves and a sunhat.

A quick trip to the tip disposed of all the buried treasure I unearthed in my whipper-snippering (I am being fairly radical about dumping stuff that I have been keeping 'in case') and I ran into our local doctor, so asked him if he would sign a piece of paper saying I am me (a necessary stage in the process of selling the house). He laughed.

I will be printing that, and various other bits of paper out tonight so I can complete them, scan them and email them off tomorrow so we can get the show on the road. Gargh. Fingers crossed. I will be sorry in one sense as it has been handing having that little self-filling account over there for emergencies, but the headache of dealing with the place will be a welcome loss.

I am still calming down after that very aggressive call from the manager at the bank. Such a wild over-reaction to a letter providing constructive feedback on effective communication. Since I need the job I guess I will just have to lie back and take it, but if I didn't I would be providing some fairly strong feedback to her supervisor as she was way out of line in her approach. Comes of putting young inexperienced people in positions that require management skills I guess.

I was cleaning the bank last night when I spotted the proprietor of the local garage standing at the window trying to attract my attention (why he did not just come in I have no idea). Turned out the whipper snipper was fixed and ready to go and he wanted to know if I would be finished in time to collect it. I was.

The house situation rapidly escalated as I sent a courtesy email to the tenant to assure her that her privacy and needs would be considered at all times (and to let me know if they were not) and she panicked, raced down the hill to the property agents and I received a panicked phone call from them at 10:30 last night wanting assurance I would not kick her out before time (the lease expires on 13 January and two months notice is required). So I shot off another email to the property managers and one to the tenant assuring all concerned that I would not be prematurely evicting them. Sigh. Such a juggling act!

Cleaning the cottages turned into a bit of a shemozzle this morning - the guest had vacated in time, but appeared not to have left the keys. Since her car was still there I was not that bothered and thought she would be back before I had finished cleaning. But as I neared completion I began to worry so rang the boss who said he only had a landline number for her. I scoured the town (I knew what she looked like) to no avail, went to collect spare keys from the visitors centre (and found they did not have them....), went back to the cottages and found the keys safely in the key deposit (phew).

Home once more I considered doing some Whipper snipping but decided against it - it can wait till tomorrow when I can spend an entire day in the garden - I read a book instead.

Still continuing unseasonably warm and will be more of the same tomorrow. Monday will bring us back down to more normal temps for this time of year (13) and Tuesday will be only marginally warmer. I really don't want to know how hot it will get after that!

Phew - the house in the UK is now officially on the market! fingers crossed it sells before the tenant panics and moves out! lol

Well, if you have not yet divested from the Commonwealth you might like to consider it. Having waited a week for the promised call from the bank manager I found that, rather than being thanked for my constructive feedback, or for my honesty, I was being dressed down for wanting to know about internal bank security. The conversation did not go well - I pointed out that I was, at the very least, entitled to be informed about that aspect of security that touched on my interest in the found money. For future reference - if you find money in a bank and hand it into the tellers, they keep it, regardless of whether it is claimed by the original owner - what is in the bank is the property of the bank! So if you do find money in a bank, I suggest that you hand it in to the police - that way if it is unclaimed you can get it back. Grumpy. The various disinformation was dismissed as being a 'he said, she said' so I am less than happy with that lot right now. Once the house in the UK is sold, and I have a sufficient amount in the account to make them feel it, I will close the account and move my business elsewhere I think.

Glorious day here today and since Syche once again called in unavailable for the garden I took the day off myself and did several loads of washing (all now put away nice and fresh and dry). I also decided to carry out a purge in the bathroom but discovered I actually don't own any cleaning spray - so a trip into town solved that problem and the bathroom is now clean and contains only what a bathroom should (apart from two buckets of tools which I have yet to put in the 'tool shed (aka spare bedroom).

I have been merrily making a list of all the stuff that I want to do, and prioritising it, so that if and when I get any funds available (first sell the house, second sort out UK tax issues associated with that, then Australian tax issues associated with that) and what fun it has been. Measured up the building site for a shed and generally pottered around in the yard between dog strolls.

Now i have to head off to the scene of the crime and clean their mess once more.

I had a phone call from the property managers in the UK last night (amazing!) which was all easily sorted. Apparently their email to my hotmail account bounced. Somewhat alarmed I logged in and discovered that they had closed the account and deleted all my emails (silly me for not logging in for ages). So now I have to get copies of lots of financial statements that I had not downloaded for some time. Sigh.

On the plus side this prompted me to check how property values were chugging along back 'Home' as we used to say. And the news was excellent so with any luck I will be putting the place on the market toot sweet (as they say). Yay! That will be a huge load off my mind and will also sort out the outstanding work needed here if I get anything approximating the price they suggested.

Today we went to Buckland Nursery with the Garden Tour, then next door to a rather lovely native plant garden open to the public (you really do have to make the effort if you are up that way). From there we went to Design in Stone (the place where they sell lumps of sandstone etc) where I was rather pleasantly surprised at the price sandstone is, and the cost of delivery to these parts (not that I intend to lash out on sandstone any time soon). Finally we went to York Plains were a couple have been developing their garden for nine years (they have bore water and he is ex Sydney Botanic Garden) into something quite amazing in the environment in which they are operating. It is not yet open to the public but they are aiming at being part of the Open Garden scheme when they feel ready.

So here's a little tiki-tour of the various destinations - without commentary, sorry - and apparently in no particular order!

A lazy couple of days so not much to report. I did manage (finally) to complete the applique central medallion for the black and yellow quilt I started ages ago. I put it aside as nothing seemed to fit, and I was getting in a bad mood, and the stitching was (still is) too visible and ... well you know when to put a project down. It lurked in its box for months and months and only came out again when I took the fabric up to Jean's the other day. Looking at it again it was quite easy to see where the problem lay, so I unpicked that one piece, re-sewed it and finished the thing off today at sewing (there being no cottages to clean).

So here it is (apologies to those of you know know what applique should look like), and now I have four more to make (but a simpler layout with only two flowers and some spread leaves to go in the corners of the quilt).

It was a pleasantly cool still start to the day, but what with the forecast I was not game to put any washing out. Good thing too as at noon the heat and the wind arrived in a rush. It will be 12 degrees tonight! Horrible.

I spent a lot of the day trying to work through the grant application which became more and more nightmarish as the day progressed. I finally sorted it all out, had all the relevant letters of recommendation etc but then the scanner started to play up, so it was not till 3:15 I finally had something I could email off. I cc'd it to E and to the school so we all know it is gone and that it contains all that it should (unless another page was lost in the scanning process, but all the important ones are there).

I also dropped the whipper snipper off at the servo once more so had the perfect excuse not to go out into the heat and wind once the grant application was sorted. I called in to check on progress this afternoon and it seems that while the spark plug is firing, the spark is not going anywhere useful. He is still trying to work out why so I left him to it. Tomorrow will also be hot and horrible, but a cooler change is due on Wednesday (just in time for me to be busy doing other stuff and unable to take advantage of it).

Rather more pleasant sunshine today, though I failed the transition to Daylight savings due to not getting to sleep until late last night as a result of the heat.

I spent much of last evening thinking Esther must be feeling particularly pleased with the baby starling she had in the roof due to her constant calling (she does this when she has live prey she wants others to admire). Turned out I had locked her in the wardrobe, but fortunately she was very forgiving.

Today was the monthly market which I managed to attend without spending a cent. However this was soon undone as I decided to have breakfast in town and so went to the Pancake Parlour for toasties and a coffee.

On my way home I called into the home of the woman who is planning to open a providores at the former Roberts's site on the main street (a really wonderful development is proposed for the site, but the work seems to be going rather slowly at present). I had noticed at the last market that she had small boxes to pack her pork pies in and it set my mind to work. So I wanted to suggest to her she use them for small boxes of cheeses with pickles and biscuits that people could get when they stay at the B&Bs in town to accompany their wines. Turns out she is already doing this and was selling some last night at the choral event at The Barn at Rosny, but she had half a leftover which she gave me as a thank you for the idea and interest in her business. I have therefore been happily munching on various meats, cheeses, pickles, slices, breads and biscuits all afternoon in between whipper snippering the back yard.

Unfortunately the whipper snipper is still playing up (it cuts out when I bang it on the ground to feed out more cord), so is going back to the servo tomorrow for another go. I did manage to make some progress out the back but unfortunately did not make it down into the long stuff which is what I really want to deal with (but i thought it would be good to hack down anything en route as I worked my way down there. Oh well. Tomorrow will be back to hot and windy so I won't get anything done then, but at least by the time it is sorted out again I will be able to get stuck in as apparently there is not much happening at the cottages this week.

I can't recall the last time I spent the fourth of October in a shortsleeved shirt (worn out, not tucked in) and a skirt and still sweated. Granted I was cleaning the cottages at the time. The nice people in the main house left behind an unopened packet of coleslaw, so all I needed for a healthy lunch as the dressing which I collected from the shop on the way home.

Once home, dogs given a wee stop and me fed, I piled some fabric into the car and headed up to Jean's for a cuppa, and to see if it suited her needs (it didn't). A nice chat then home once more to give the dogs a better walk (against winds gusting up to 95kph), dodging branches etc and home to relative saftey once again. There seem to have been a few hazard reduction burns that picked up and got overheated as a result of the weather, but fortunately none near me. Tomorrow will be 18 and the wind will drop so I should get some washing done which will be good. No point doing it today it  would have been in Cygnet before it got dry!

Still waiting for the promised phonecall - perhaps she had a busy day .....

It was 21 degrees today which was a bit of a shock to the system all of a sudden. I had to wear a hat while in the Garden, though we spent a fair bit of our time indoors packing seeds for Sunday's market, and messing around with the grant application. It is all a bit complicated this time as the funding body is based in Victoria, and the ABN for the School is actually that for the entire Education Department. I rang them to get some guidance on our best approach but they are all off watching the footy on a public holiday in Melbourne so I didn't get very far. We are now pursuing the School Association which is run by a woman whose husband recently died leaving her to run the farm by herself. She is, quite reasonably, out of contact during the day due to lack of phone signals etc, so we are still waiting to find out what to do. Meantime I have left two messages with the funding body as well, and will call them once again on Monday morning.

Daylight savings starts on Sunday as well, so we will be back to gloomy mornings, but facing bright sunshine in the evenings. It is of limited usefulness when your gardening activities generally involve power tools and you can't use them after six, but at least it will be sunny to go with it.

I have been approached by someone in the UK who needs someone to clean their rental property in George Town. EMW if you are interested (not sure precisely where up north you live), comment below and we can work out a way to get in touch off-line.

Well I got to the bank last night and found a note asking for my phone contact number (I am actually their client but apparently looking up my records did not occur to them). So I left my number and offered to call in today while I was next door doing the cottages. But instead I had a phone call which merely informed me their big boss would be calling me tomorrow. So I continue to await developments on that front.

The cottages were busy last night so I had all three to deal with. This is not necessarily as bad as it sounds as the big one had one had one bed slept in. And I get to watch television while I am cleaning so caught the news and various other items of interest.

Once home I erected the ladder under the manhole to let the cats into the ceiling to deal with this year's nesting blackbirds. Smidgen has not been seen since, but Esther seems to be in two minds as to how interested she is. Seb can't stand the excitement so has gone to bed - my bed.

I will be collecting my whipper snipper tomorrow from the service station - I am told it was overheating which I already knew, but we have discussed fuel mixes and I will be taking my jerry can in tomorrow to get something better than I have been using to date. Syche is once again unavailable for the Garden which is becoming a bit too much of a habit so I will need to talk to her about it - she always has a good reason though which makes it difficult.

The next few days will be building up to a heat wave with 26 forecast for next Tuesday - Wednesday will be 13 however, so it will be short-lived. Between that and the winds that are also building, we may see our first bush fire of the year before too long. Definitely time to have the whipper snipper in action full bore. All I have to do is find some time to do it in, which will certainly not be the next two days.

At least Council, for the first time in recorded history, mowed the lane for me today - I was astonished. I don't know how many years it is since they came down it, certainly not for the seven odd years I have been here, and probably not for a lot longer than that as it was horribly overgrown when I moved in. I wonder what prompted that?