Hot and humid for the last two days. I went out to dinner last night which was nice. All a bit spontaneous - the artist who opened the gallery had friends who needed entertaining and so I was hauled out from my bunker to do it for her - nice people, nice meal, good thing the cop at the corner did not haul me over on my way home!

Today was stormy as well as hot and humid, so I spent it indoors as much as possible, doing some spinning and generally messing about on facebook (where I seem to have been involuntarily joined to a revolutionary site!! I am suggesting that communism may not be the answer. Some disagree. Presumably very young someones who are in love with the Cuban fantasy.

Two cottages, sewing (well, knitting) and cleaning the bank - so not much done today. It has been raining on and off all day and the tank is already full, so tonight's heavy rain will be wasted (again).

Have almost filled the bobbin of merino - hopefully by tomorrow night.

Christmas Day, in case you didn't notice, was rather warm. In these parts it was forecast for 30 and exceeded that. Luckily I was in Hobart which kept its cool and was closer to 24. It was still 29 in the bedroom at bed time which I had deferred as long as possible. And yesterday was rather warm too, if cooler overnight.

I do hope you all had as good a day as I had sharing food and friendship.

Meanwhile back at the spinning wheel I have been beavering away with my various dyed locks which, as I watched the Dr Who Christmas Special turned into laceweight spinning. A bit disconcerting when the bobbin started off with a yarn that would have plied nicely into an 8ply equivalent. This caused something of a conundrum as I would hate to have to start knitting up such fine yarn.

Fortunately Rowena loaned me some holiday reading in the form of Sarah Anderson's The Spinners Book of Yarn Designs (hoping to wean me from my obsession with Jacey Boggs' Spin Art), and after some consideration I have decided to try for a crepe yarn. This involves plying the yarn together, then adding a third yarn and re-plying. Fortunately I read the instructions before heading into the History Room today so I now have a bobbin of s-twist merino-alpaca to serve that purpose.

This is the yarn I have been spinning and dying

And this is the s-twist yarn I spun today at the history Room. As it contains alpaca it will shoosh up a bit when plyed, which will provide some nice texture over all (it's the same stuff as the orange stuff I  spun a few days ago).

Since it will take me forever to fill the bobbin at the rate I am going, the idea of spinning another for the plying process is too horrible to contemplate, so I will just fill this one up and then ply it end to end. For that purpose I have ordered a yarn winder on ebay which will create centre-pull balls of yarn so I can draw from the outside and inside for my two yarns required to ply.

On the subject of books - while I agree the Sarah Anderson book contains a broader information base and greater selection of art yarns, the Jacey Boggs book contains instructions that are easier to follow and which seem to suit my logic processes better, being laid out as a logical progression that builds skills as you go. So I will probably get both. Sarah is coming to the Bothwell Spin In in March, so I will get hers there and save on postage.

The next few days will be warm and humid, so I am not looking forward to my increased work load at the cottages, but I expect I will survive.

Our Asian guests have an unfair (I think) reputation for being messier than our non-Asian guests. Yes, some of them are messy, but so too are some of our 'john smiths'. Anyway that being the case, Her Next Door took one look at the roster, saw there were seven Asians in last night and called in sick.

I was in the middle of making mud pies with dye and wool when the call came through, so I finished off what I was doing and left it to cool while I went in to see what needed doing. Apart  from some neatly stacked but dirty dishes, they were the perfect guests - they even took their garbage out for me! Nevertheless it was three hours of work once I had dealt with the linen order that had also been delivered (lucky me). Since it was rather warm today, it became a bit of a laborious job, but it was finally finished and I came home to deal with the wool. Another side effect of the warm weather was that the wool had dried out completely and stuck to the pyrex dish I had microwaved it in. Finally worked out that if I added water it would  come free which it did. So it was all dunked in warm water to rinse out excess dye, and set to dry which it seems to be doing at a remarkably rapid rate once more.

The boss had left me a Christmas present. Not the usual fruit cake from his mum, but some jars of home-made preserves. I can not imagine his mum feels much like cooking this year so soon after her husband's death.

I have been debating with myself when in the next four days I will clean the bank. I have decided to do it tonight as per the schedule simply because that frees all of tomorrow up for spinning. And since tomorrow will be at least as hot as today, I think sitting in a darkened house sounds pretty appealing right now.

I have opened the tops of all the windows, and it is amazing the difference having that side window installed has made in terms of achieving cross-ventilation. What was threatening to be a nasty hot night seems to be moderating now, and will hopefully cool down further before bedtime.

I'm with the four year old. Hot today and getting hotter tomorrow, and worse still on Christmas Day. I am a cold weather kind of gal, though at least the two loads of washing I got out after all the whipper snippering managed to get dry in plenty of time. In anticipation of a hot Christmas Day and me being absent, I trimmed all the grass from the fire break up to the house, around the house, down the side of the lane and so forth. So now if a fire breaks out I have some chance of returning to an intact house.

Before I did that, in fact last night, I dyed some more locks. This time I got serious and  mixed up the dyes in batches of 100ml. Since it goes a long way, and I am dying small batches, that was quite a lot of dye. I used the Sun Orchid (blue), Alfalfa (green), wheat (brown) and maize (yellow) but the blue and green dominated the batch this time.

 They look like peacock feathers don't they! Of course I was dying to have a go at spinning them up and fortunately today's heat dried them out rapidly, so they were ready to spin by lunch time. I have tried a variety of methods with them, straight spinning, blending (semi-blending as I seem to get merino all knotted up if I brush it too frequently), co-spinning with plain white and just spinning straight from the lock.

 As a result i am getting a self-striping yarn in various subtle shades which I am rather pleased with. Just one lock before switching to another preparation approach and  so on. The stripy bits are where I have co-spun with the white.

This is the second pass on the bobbin so you can see how much variety is coming out of it all! Now for the challenge of how I prepare the yarn for plying. I am thinking I will dilute the dye, focus more on the yellow and brown with just a dash of blue and green and only use white where it occurs naturally in missed bits as I dye.

Feeling rather chuffed (and tired, the whipper snippering in the heat has done me in!

You'll see I have added a new blog off to the right. It is someone on downsizer forum who clearly is rather more advanced than me. She does have some good patterns, as well as suggestions on dying with natural plant dyes which is something I have on the list for some future happy time when I don't have work to do on the house.

My current attempts at dying are commercial dyes - Landscape is the brand.

I played with it (with a fine disregard for the instructions) yesterday. It comes in powder form, so I took pinches of the powder and sprinkled them lightly on the latest batch of merino I have been washing according to Fran's instruction. I used five colours - lucerne, wheat, mountain mist, heather and something else that I have forgotten. The green happily distributed itself through the fibres but the rest was more reluctant, so I out with a squirrel hair brush dipped in hot water and spread it around a bit. That did not work terribly well so in desperation I sploshed a bit of the water on the various staples and that seems to have achieved a happy result. Once they are flicked and spun it will look quite different of course, but it's a group of colours I am happy with. Not sure at what point I should try to exhaust the dye and cook it, but think I will do it once it is spun and skeined and still wet from the 'finishing' process.

Today, as I was at the History Room once more I did another batch of the bought coloured tops from Ashford. This is called Rowan, and combines that lovely orangey colour with white, beige, green and plum which gives a nice tweedy result.

Here it is plyed. It combines baby alpaca with merino and once plyed is a glorious soft cloud of yarn. I have a pack of their green (moss) fibre also which, in combination with my merino (white and coloured) will go well with the vortex beanie pattern from the new blog methinks (and since I have tail ends of various brownish grey yarn from beany knitting I will probably throw that into the mix also),

My days at the History Room are enlivened by the company of geese. Council  has recently sown seed to create a lawn (they of course waited till after our steady rain was finished and no more was in sight, so it is a bit patchy). The geese are doing a fine job of keeping it mown which is a good thing as by now it would be well overlength due to the weather we are having still.

The last two days have been chilly enough to warrant a fire at night, but today was shirtsleeves weather and no need to even contemplate a fire. Christmas Day is apparently going to be a scorcher, so my dreams of a white Christmas are shot down in flames.

The NBN may provide a far superior service in regards to speed and download but it seems to disappear from time to time - hence my absence.

Today was spent doing a variety of odds and sods - clearing wood out of the path of the truck that will be delivering the gravel, trying to cut some reo up so it fits on the back of the ute (no such luck - will resort to the angle grinder as I am apparently too feeble to use the bolt cutters), washing wool according to Fran's instructions, a bit of spinning, reading my newly arrive book on spinning (The Spinners Book of Fleece), bringing the bottom half of the future dresser in from the back of the ute (it was heavy so I left it there till I felt a tad stronger), and generally messing around.

I took my free fleece in to Jo yesterday (apparently Thursday is her day in town so I just caught her, but as I had brought up her bin from the street she gave me a few seconds). She took one look and said to throw it out but being the stubborn sort, I have not done that. She did give me the end of a bag of fresh Corriedale to play with, however, so I did not take too unkindly to her frankness. What I had actually wanted, but failed to get was a bottle of Unicorn wool scour so I could play with washing it, but that will have to wait until Sunday now.

Now for the boring spinning bit, so if this does not interest you, switch off now. I will try to explain what I am doing and why.

When I first started, my main aim was to get some twist into a continuous thread. This did not work terribly well, but I seem to have got to the point where I am not often creating non-viable bits and if I do, I seem to manage to catch them before they head into the orifice and over-spin them (core spinning) with a bit of extra fibre so they toughen up. As a result my yarns now look like this once plied and finished.

 The different length skeins result from using the chairs at the History Room for three skeins, and the niddy noddy for the fourth one.

 Here's a close up so you can see I am still fairly variable in thickness, but the overall thickness is certainly up to knitting up the jumper that is the goal of this particular spin (200g each of this and white, 800 grams of a lighter grey colour).

 This is the result of using new greasy corriedale wool, flicked and spun - I am rather pleased with the result and it is certainly a lot easier than the older wool which, as you will see below, did not respond well to flicking. My goal is to have this bobbin full by Sunday to show off to Jo. This bobbin is being spun from the tips, the next will be spun from the cut end to see what difference it makes.

 This is the older wool, greasy. First I tried flicking it to no avail, then I used the carding combs and rolled it into cigars rather than rolags so I could spin from the ends. Carding fine wool I discovered, results in lots of noils, and since some of this has very short staples (as little as one inch), and double cuts it is all a bit messy - but an interesting process nevertheless (and no, I will not be persisting with this particular bobbin).

 Here are some close ups of the older fleece - as you can see the staples are sort of glued together with the lanoline and poor handling, but there are many in there that retain their shape and which have adequate length. which is why I have persisted with them.

 I gave the instructions Fran provided a go today. The first time I did not hold onto the staple and as a result it ended up looking as if I had swirled some cotton balls in warm water until they disintegrated. Oddly enough, despite the wastage when I flicked them, they do see to spin rather well (I tried one that was almost dry).

The others I hung onto them individually, so they have retained their shape and have come up well. I have left a little dirt in the tip end so I can tell the difference and this will come out when they are flicked. Since I am flicking each staple as I spin, I will not lose track of myself.

The soap bar in question has previously been used for the purpose of lubricating screws so had a little 'scrubbing board' effect on the surface that worked rather well. And now it is washed, the wool is as  good as new, so I am a happy person. The really matted tangled stuff I will not bother with, but I am thinking I need a bucket lined with one of the many spare pillow cases I own, so that sort of thing (and left overs from flicking etc) can go in there, get washed when it is full, and felted into weed mats for the garden plantings rather than wasting it.

I think basically Jo and I are on a different page to some extent. I like experimenting and am  not bothered if I have to discard failed attempts. She is of the view you need to get a useful product from your effort. A material one that is. My useful product from a failure is a learning experience so I don't see this as a problem.

This is an example of the more tangled bits with no discernible start and end. They will end up in the pillow slip for gardening purposes.

The man with the digger finally arrived yesterday and set to work with a will. I now have two level spots for rainwater tanks - one up by the house and the other down the back beyond the site of the shed. These will be screeded with crushed bluemetal closer to the date of the tank arrival, to limit the risk of the surface being disturbed before the tanks to on it.

 This is the area up by the house. As you can see in this image, the end of the fence will be the near end of the shed (set 2 metres from the boundary, but in a line with the fence end) so I can install a short section of fence and provide some privacy to the back door. The yellow tank will be emptied into the two new ones and then relocated to the second site (see below).

 This is the area I enclosed with the retaining wall some months back. I now need to build a second retaining wall this side of the cleared bit, so that the shed site can be levelled after Christmas. Since a fair amount of what was removed was actually the stub ends of vegetation and therefore not suitable as fill, that (including the heap in the middle foreground) was dumped on the other side of the retaining wall to provide a bit of back fill at its base - once it has rotted down.

A happy side effect of all this work is that I now have a three metre wide firebreak between the house and the bottom end of the yard - now all I have to do is wrestle the undergrowth under control on my side of the break!

 The whipper snipping below the retaining wall revealed that all my natives are doing well, and the banksia is even setting flowers! This is all the more surprising as I discovered that while I acquired it legitimately, it seems Heather had dug it up from the Landcare plantings along the side of the road! I gather she was seen there industriously removing her plants of choice. I did wonder how she could have possibly afforded the number of plants she put in her garden!

Other gossip acquired courtesy of the digger man is that the man who used to own this place, Dessie, passed away three weeks ago. We were discussing the work I had done, and he asked about the fireplaces which I assured him had been long since repaired (bar one). And now I know where the hole came from that was in the back wall of the place. Apparently Dessie was not averse to pinching his neighbour's firewood, so one day said neighbour drilled a hole in and inserted a detonator......

My day in the History Room was spent spinning and plying. I borrowed the Lazy Kate from our display as I do not have one (the wheel at home has a built-in lazy kate). I have to say the freestanding one gives a rather more balanced result, so I have two balanced skeins, one slightly overplied and one yet to be inspected as I have not wound it on, due to subsequent interruptions.

There is a woman who often comes in for a chat when I am there. Her daughter is working at the local school, so she is somewhat at a loose end during the day. Still, she is good company and we often have quite involved discussions. She had not previously seen me spinning and was enthralled. Our conversation turned to various crafting adventures and my desire to spin some greasy wool and my frustration (well, that's a bit strong, my annoyance) that I have been discouraged from venturing into fleece land just yet.

Since her daughter will not be at the school next year and they are currently in a School residence, they are in the process of moving. Much to my surprise she turned up again ten minutes after leaving and handed me two bags of fleece. Plastic bags. Saying she had been carting them about for years and would never use them.

It was with some trepidation I opened the bags as poorly stored fleece can do nasty things if left too long, but both bags smelled lovely, and the wool is nice and clean! The fleece seems to come from three different sheep. One a superfine merino, another from a fine merino and the third from a sheep of unknown breed, but a rather lower crimp count (thank heaven) than the merino. This last lot is not quite in staples any more, so I have washed it with a view to practising carding with it. The merino is apparently a nightmare to wash and prone to turn into felt at the slightest provocation, so it will be spun in the grease after flicking. As my new book on wool and spinning arrived from ebay today, I will be able to refresh my memory of these methods as I go along. And I have a brush that Seb refuses to let me use on him (fine coat, sensitive skin, metal teeth - who can blame him) to do the flicking with. I do not, however, have a canvas apron so will have to ad lib on knee protection.

So a good day was had, despite the heat and wind. It will be 14 tomorrow fortunately, so I will complete the whipper snipping on my side of my new firebreak and then I can relax a little when it is like it was today.

It's almost 12 months since I accepted the offer on the UK house. How time flies. And me with no progress to show for it bar a waterproof roof and a fancy paint job.

Fortunately my lurgy (the allergies segued into a flu and I am still coughing like a choked up motor), seems to be on the mend, though tomorrow's exertions may well change that once more. What exertions I hear you say. Well the planning permission for the shed has finally come through so now I have to get a wriggle on and sort out the rainwater tanks so they have open space in which to build said shed (long story, yet to come). So I chased up the chap who was going to give me a quote three months ago and he turned up just now to say he can start on Monday.

This means between now and Monday (despite a full day in the History Room) I have to clear the long grass away from the area of operation, find a home for the various things stacked on the site to be cleared for the tanks and move them there and generally run around like a headless chicken. I have left a message with the local yard man to see if he can help but if not I will need to don a breathing mask and get stuck in tomorrow (not today - too cold and windy today, so I am staying firmly inside bar walking the dog and cleaning the bank later on).

Also called Council to see if they had made any progress regarding my request they share the cost on the neighbour's tree removal, but no, they had not yet discussed it with higher up, and promised they would do so today (so another phone call on Monday may be in order).

And checking out tank availability for delivery - another task to be dealt with - so an email to them too.

As I mentioned, it is blooming cold today, but it is the first cold weather in a while so I shouldn't complain. Fortunately I remembered to buy a bag of wood when down in Hobart last week, so the fire is going, albeit at a slow rate to ensure the supply lasts the distance.

The shed approval is through - no objectors to my great astonishment. We did not lodge for building approval as the rules change on 1 January and theoretically at least, approval will not be necessary. But we can't start before than as the current rules will apply to anything started before that date. And after that date it still has to go to Council's building inspector to determine whether it is an exempt development (the new, 'simplified' approach) and so forth and so on. The kit can not be ordered till after Christmas anyway, so it still looks like a February start for building the shed. Not such a bad thing as progress on the earthworks, tanks, tree etc has lagged somewhat and given the impact of Christmas, the tendency for Australian companies to use Christmas as an excuse to close for a month etc, I will still have to stay on their cases.

Meanwhile I have been doing my usual stuff and doing it slower and slower due to the progress of the allergies/lurgy and running out of energy to do anything other than turn up where I am expected to be, doing what needs to be done and staggering home to walk the dog before sagging into a chair.

That and pandering to the more peculiar behaviours of guests at the cottages who apparently can not find their way to the Reception area (three signs directing them there) and once there, can not find the envelope with their names on it which contains check-in instructions, or who get huffy because there is a power outage of 2 minutes duration which was clearly aimed at them personally. It is actually quite hard to explain this one convincingly as half Oatlands is served by one power source and the other half by another. Given the location of the cottages at the intersection, they do find they are surrounded by dwellings which still have electricity, but I know what is going on as I too am affected by such outages on that particular line.

Another week has flown (and almost another year!!), and I have been busy doing all manner of things once again.

The History Room Garage sale garnered $580 for our depleted kitty, and I have finally found the relevant grant  but am struggling to fill in the online form as I don't have anyone's contact details here at home, and at the History Room I don't have internet connections - quelle horreur.

Still it does not close till 20 December so plenty of time to sort that out.

I am now in there Sundays as well as Tuesdays and managed to spin two bobbins of yarn between interruptions yesterday. Tomorrow I hope to be knitting something. The cloche style beanie seems the way to go as it is easy to knit, knits up rapidly and does not use excessive quantities of wool. And now I have once again found my pattern book, I can vary it with different edgings and cables which, in combination with different fleece colours will provide variety and interest. The other beanies I knitted - one I gave to a friend to inspire her to get going with her own spinning, the other will need someone with a rather large head as it does not appear to have come out quite the right size despite using commercial wool on the bit that really had to fit. Oh well.

So spinning, doing the washing, keeping busy in the History Room and generally running around like a headless chook have occupied yet another week.

Annie called around with the spare bobbins and two large carding combs so I am well set at this stage despite sharing myself between two wheels. I have even loaned two bobbins to said friend who is being lagardly with her spinning as her present excuse is that she has run out of bobbins and doesn't know how to ply...... So now she can fill two more bobbins and we can sort her out on Saturday when we all come together in the same room once more (and I can learn how to ply rather more scientifically than my present approach that involves holding the two strands apart and letting the tension pull them into the orifice, which works, but unreliably so).

Sorry - I have been busy - not productively busy by and large, but busy nontheless.

Highlights!

After spending a nervous Thursday in the History Room with a forecast of 28 and high winds (fortunately an inaccurate forecast), I spent much of Friday attached to the whipper snipper reducing the firehazard in the back yard. More to go, but at least it is no longer near the house.  The bottom end of the back yard is still rather soggy, so any attempt to slash that resulted in pureed tips and flattened lower sections and was abandoned as not really a fire hazard just yet. Actually not much of it is as it is still  green, but a few days of heat and wind such as we are enduring at present will soon change that. We seem to have skipped Spring and moved straight into summer and today it is so warm I have a fried face (forgot my hat).

The reason I was in the History Room was because another volunteer was not available. But as the President has resigned (she is moving to Longford), we no longer have someone for Sundays so I will be taking that over as well as Tuesdays. I quite enjoy my time in there and now my spinning wheel is in residence it gives me a good excuse to knit or spin to my heart's content.

The spinning ground to a halt as Jo/Rowena was away one Sunday, and was sick once she got back so it was only today she re-opened the shop and I was able to restock. She is impressed by my progress and even bought the second beanie I had knitted to on-sell in the shop!

The plan is that I will now sell my beanies via the History Room, donating that part of the proceeds not required to cover my costs as I am using their space to do the work (well some of it). I will be happy with that, and given the price Jo is charging for them, it will be a good little money earner for the History Room too. We agreed I would not undercut her prices as we are all on the same team.

Yesterday I was in the shower when Seb started barking. Turned out there was someone at the front door. Since it was seven in the morning and I did not recognise the caller so decided to return to the shower and finish dressing. But she was persistent which turned out to be a good thing as it was Round the Bend from ALS. So I reluctantly invited her into my dirty smelly kitchen (I had cooked a lamb roast the night before and you know how that nasty smell of lamb fat lingers on) and we had a catchup chat. She was off on an expedition, having sold up on the mainland and moved to Tassie. She lives up north, so hopefully I can catch up with her.

The obligation to be social at that hour in the morning rather threw me off for the rest of the day, so once my work obligations were dealt with I came home for a nana nap.

Today was the whole town garage sale and the History Room had a stall (hence my sunburn as we are on the sunny side of the street) and made some good money in the process. I personally bought (at another sale I found yesterday quite by chance) a set of china which looks rather more appealing on my dish rack than did the motley collection of cheap modern stuff (this is also cheap modern stuff but a little more cottagey). And today I also purchased two more dinner plates (Meakin Ware) that will complement it and make up the numbers. Motley is good on such open display racks, but it does have to be marginally aesthetically pleasing.

Getting back to spinning, I was spinning in the History Room the other day when two Chinese tourists spotted me and became enthralled watching it happen. They clamoured for things to buy (which I did not have, of course) and so clearly this will work well all round.

Tonight I have been asked to draft up a grant application, but the information provided has failed to find anything on Google so I will have to find out a bit more (the search did turn up something of that name but it does not appear to be targetted at what we are applying for, so further discussion will be necessary).

Not sure about you, but I am beginning to wonder if a bunker in the back yard (fully stocked) would be a good idea. What an astonishing result in the US! Mind you it was a choice between a rock and a hard place, but at least with Hilary we would only be facing more of the same......

Stunning sunny day today - warm and light breezes. All the washing done and dry and most of it put away already. Just in time as it turns out. I did notice that my sheets have a tear in them as I put them on the bed. I have already repaired this set once, and I suspect they are now to thin to bother repairing again. Still, I have had them for at least 12 years so I guess I shouldn't complain. This is why I buy high thread count sheets after all. That will leave me with two sets for the queen size bed, but I will not buy more as I plan to retire it, albeit in rather longer than planned.

Council has decided that my application should be a notified application with associated increases in costs and delays in decision-making. I have paid so they can get on with it but will be lobbying one of the newer councillors who has a background in planning law and also writing formally to Council to request a reimbursement of the on-costs. Why? Because they are solely due to the heritage overlay on the place - the application itself would otherwise be a straight forward tick and flick. I may even seek permission to address Council on the unwisdom of this approach - it goes against the advice I have been giving to Councils for decades - those who listen find that managing heritage places is rather more relaxing than those who ignore me as their ratepayers feel their contribution to maintaining heritage values is recognised by Council.

Have finished knitting up the second beanie and as suspected, it turned out several sizes smaller due to the reduced girth of the wool. The first one fits me perfectly, the second one will suit most other people (I have a ridiculously large head).

Time to go work out where to start digging that bunker.

Yesterday we went to the Brighton Show. I have not been there since I was a child and we were exhibiting goats. Oddly enough we found ourselves sandwiched between the winning fleeces and the goats so I had a chance to catch up with the latest breeds. There are two I have not seen before - Australian Brown and Australian Black which look remarkably like solid-coloured Toggenburgs and British Alpines respectively. Not sure what the point was as their milk and  butterfat production seems pretty consistent with the black and white/brown and white versions. Unfortunately the handlers were not terribly forthcoming in response to my inquiries, so I am no wiser than I was before.

Six hours of spinning seems to get through a heck of a lot of wool, and I am now bereft of tops. In desperation I got out a long sausage of fleece that was a very early failed effort, and have respun it into something a little more 'like'. At least all that spinning seems to have ironed out a lot of the issues I was having, and we got to meet fellow-spinners from South Hobart who were good company.

Between us we had electric, traditional, and various other wheels so it was a good display. And one of us was knitting up home spun and dyed wool also.

Today being overcast, showery and windy I decided to skein up two more bobbins worth of yarn - the earlier of the two will be set aside for use in that distant future time when I am no longer able to spin chunky yarn without trying extra hard, the other will be knitted up using the same pattern as last time to see what changes are apparent. I will probably do that tomorrow while at the History Room.

All good fun, but it seems to be a little  bit obsession-making.

Glad you like the beanie - not quite the snug chic image of the original but it is certainly good at keeping your head warm - it tucks down well over your ears as the band section is shaped to be a snug fit.

Today was supposed to involve trimming grass, but as it was a very strong wind I stayed indoors and messed around with some minor chores instead. The dishwasher was purged, and some of the pots and pans examined to assess their future use. Unfortunately the latter good intentions were sidetracked a I realised that throwing them out was a bad idea when I might want to use them for something crafty in the future (boiling dyes, melting beeswax, that sort of thing), so they remained in their shelves for another day.

I also rummaged in my knitting patterns, discovering to my great surprise that I had a duplicate of a 1930s pattern book for scottish fair isles (in 4 ply!!!). I took it into town to the local knitter to see if he could use it as inspiration for some of his designs. There is at least one pattern in there that I had previously knitted but I doubt my body shape these days would make them look quite as perky as they do on the models!

The strong wind seems to have blown the warmer weather away as predicted, and tomorrow we are heading for around 10 degrees, so I also cleaned up around the heater and installed a stockpile of wood to keep me cosy then. Today I suspect a jumper will be all I need to keep going for the evening.

And having packed up my sample bag for the Show, I gave the wheel a good oiling so it is no longer making dry scraping noises, and one push on the pedal keeps it going for a surprisingly long period of time (not that I am spinning, I just pedal away to distribute the oil in the more remote parts of the machine). I am told I should oil it every time I change the bobbin, and I am afraid I have been a little slack in that department.

We seem to have a new gallery opening too, which will house local products, so if I get ambitious and it is still open by then, I will see if I can sell some beanies through it as I work my way up to being a competent spinner - if I can cover the cost of tops, then I will be a happy woman.

I have finally worked out how to download images from the new phone, so will provide a little entertainment for you. Basically I had filled pretty well all my bobbins with spinning of various quality, and the last two bobbins actually looked marginally good. So I felted them, rather than plying them (they were way too thick to be plied), and knitted them up.

It was a salutary process as using the yarn gave me a better feel for how things were progressing. The last spin is considerably more even than the one before, and so forth. These two skeins were the third and fourth last spins.

 The first challenge of course was getting them off the bobbins. I do not yet have a niddy noddy (a long stick with a short stick attached at right angles at each end off set from each other also at right angles).

I tried a long stick with some screws in it, but it ended up being a bit too tight, so the second one I wound around the handles of the grain trolley I used to cart stone and other heavy objects with. Worked much better and will continue in that function for some time I suspect.

Then the wool was soaked in warm water for half and hour, with occasional proddings on my part, then microwaved for 8 minutes till it started steaming (at which point the kitchen started smelling like wet dog).





This is the pattern I chose - it is from the same book I have been working out of for other jumpers. As you can see, the first (most recent) skein knitted up surprisingly evenly.

Not so the second skein which was considerably more over-spun, and had large sections of unspun wool worms that became a little lumpen. Oddly enough, all the lumpy bits ended up in the same quadrant of the hat! And the overspun, ultra-skinny bits turned up in the Irish moss stitch at the crown of the hat!

The other side looks quite respectable, so will become the front of the hat!

The current bobbin is actually building on the abortive attempts to start spinning on the two-pedal model (Kiwi2), but seems rather more respectable again. I do have a bobbin with an even better spin on it, but no photo, sorry.

On Sunday we are heading down to the Brighton Show where we will be parked in the Sheep Pavilion to spin for the mob. Such exhibitions provide an opportunity to chat to other spinners, and perhaps to amuse passers by, but i realised that a we are all spinning 'natural' tops, it would be a good idea to have some more brightly dyed ones on display also, so today I took advantage of a day off and headed to the Moonah Wool Shop (the owner of our local shop is en route to Deloraine for the craft show), and bought some tops that have been dyed in other colours. I won't spin them till I am better (one is a luscious cinnamon blend of alpaca and silk from Ashford), but they will make a nice display. I also picked up some catalogues for wheels (the Moonah Shop is the Ashford dealer for Tassie) so anyone who is interested in taking it up can see the variety of wheels and looms available.

Tomorrow we are headed for 18 and on Saturday for 10, so clearly the weather has yet to calm down into anything resembling Spring.

My plans for Wednesday went agley when I found that in addition to three cottages, I also had a load of clean linen to stack away, so by the time I got home at three in the afternoon, all thoughts of cutting grass had fled.

Thursday being rainy, I headed to Hobart and collected prescription cat food, catalogues from Bunnings and K&D on kitchen options and visited the pellet fire shop to check them out. You can get ones that fit into fireplaces and would look fairly appropriate in the house, so I am thinking (funds permitting) that i will get one put into the spare room/office space as a back up for those occasions when weather, funds or health limit my access to fire wood (and for chilly mornings leading to hot days, chilly evenings when it is too late to light the fire etc).

The kitchen catalogues provided hours of amusement redesigning the kitchen, then working out the most cost efficient solutions. Of the two suppliers, the Modina corner pantry from K&D is far superior to the Kaboodle one in terms of internal layout (and it does not come on legs, so you can actually step into it), so that will be the first purchase. The rest can be done incrementally if needs be, though of course, the blind corner unit is also an essential when I refit the kitchen, to avoid having to mess around once it is all in place.

Yesterday I discovered we have a new art gallery in town, landscapes and seascapes mainly, and some rather nice (though not all). I spent a happy two hours in there chatting to the owner and picking over the offerings.

Our spinning group has been asked to amuse the mob in the sheep pavilion at the Brighton Show, so I got the wheel out and had another go, producing two bobbins of marginally acceptable wool - overspun, thick and thin, but generally hanging together. I have skeined it and lightly felted it rather than plying it together, and will knit it up in to a beany once it is dry.

After two rather lovely days (if a little windy today), we are heading back to Antarctica tomorrow with snow forecast to 600 metres, and similar on Tuesday, then back to Spring for a few more days before another descent to the pit. I have the last of the firewood indoors now, and will get the docking saw onto some of the longer bits i have lying around the yard to supplement supplies before that second chilly spot.

The email constipation continues which is a pain as I had to send info to the shed people today, and that required recourse to my Hotmail account as it was time-critical. Hopefully it goes.

I have had a  nice quiet day in the History Room, with little to report other than a nice woman from Cypress (via Newtown, Sydney) who was writing an article (subject unspecified) while holidaying with her two children. I even stirred myself to show her the cottage in the back yard as it was safe to go out there (no sog or bog or rain or gales).

Apart from that, I have found, scanned and sent the relevant planning documents for work on my place, and discovered to my pleasure that I do in fact still have a set of the approved plans (I had thought i had given the last set to the plumber some years ago).

So now i know what I was supposed to do and have discovered that insulating the ceiling of the original cottage was a requirement. But I don't actually want to do that due to excess heat in winter, so not too sure what to do about that. I will rely on them not bothering to climb through the manhole and show them the bales ready for distribution I think.

Corned beef hash for dinner tonight - just have to dice the beef, fry up some onions, mix it all together with some mashed spuds and cook it.

It seems one of the side effects of switching service providers is that they stuff up your emails. I can receive them, but sending them is apparently a step too far!

Telstra has still been providing a service to the dongle on the grounds that as it was a mobile service they were not required to switch it off when I changed ISPs. I called them today and established that this was the case, and that my email is alive and well, but still I am unable to send any. So sorry to those awaiting a response. I will call my new service provider tomorrow and find out why their server does not recognise a bigpond email. By the way, for a small fee, Telstra (masquerading as Bigpond) will continue to provide my email address so nothing will be changing in that department. It seems that although I still have a Telstra phone, with internet connectivity it is not possible to link my Bigpond email to that service, so I must pay them. The inter-relatedness of Telstra and Bigpond seems only to work in terms of making profits (and saving printing costs on envelopes).

It was a stunning, warm and sunny day today, which made a nice change. And what is more I was not working. So I did a load of washing, and set to with the whipper snipper (which I discovered is not fond of long wet grass). The front yard has once again emerged from the jungle and so too has the back yard, though further down the block is still long, lush, green and sodden (probably something to do with the 34mm that have fallen over the last two days).

History Room tomorrow, so I will hopefully get some knitting done (when not calling people to find out what happened to my email service, etc).

The absence of dripping on the loungeroom floor means I apparently now sleep through deluges - the world was awash this morning and more has been falling during the day. Twenty seven millimetres was the last count.

So walking the dog between deluges was the order of the day and dodging out to get bits of wood from time to time.

I finished off the front of the aran jumper however and have now commenced the pattern on the first sleeve. As it is the simplest of the patterns - the branching bits on the sides of the main panel of the jumper - it will not take all that long, though as they end in 'saddles' that run up to the neckline perhaps that is unduly optimistic.

Corned beef, boiled spuds, carrots and parsley sauce for dinner - perfect comfort food!

Another couple of busy days - no rest for the wicked. Not even on my birthday which was spent getting four loads of washing done, cleaning a cottage, taking in the washing and putting it away and was also supposed to involve cleaning the bank, but as today was a public holiday I gave myself the evening off and did that today.

Running a bit low on firewood after a few days of sleet and high winds, but I refuse to buy another load as it will simply complicate life too much further down the track. I did get a quote to cut down the bits of the neighbours' tree, but it has sent me scurrying to find out of Council will share the burden (it does, after all, obstruct access for emergency vehicles down the lane, or that will be my argument). If they can go halvies it would be a great help - $1300++ was a bit more than I expected it to be!

I bought myself some vacuum-packed precooked lambshanks for dinner last night. The idea is you just pop them into simmering water and they heat up and then you serve them. Unfortunately the seal was not all it could be. I noticed bubbles emerging and went to fish it out, but the entire end opened up and they fell into the water! Managed to save a bit of the juices, to go with the meat, but it was a bit of a disappointment. Served with couscous made up with the diluted juices, it was nevertheless a luscious meal, and the sticky orange cake to follow was the perfect end to the meal.

Well a few rather tiring days were had here. The boss agreed it was time to clear out the store room at the cottages and agreed to come meet me there to do it on Friday, bringing a spare set of shelves so the contents could come up off the floor. So I turned up, and found his car there but not him. But I got stuck in removing things so I had a clear space to work and after that was done looked around for the shelves he had promised. Not finding them, I messaged him and was advised they would be coming up next week! So I pointed out that would be a little futile as I would then have to return stuff, take it out again and then re-install it, so I went home and got a spare set I had in the loungeroom after extracting his solemn promise they would be replaced. Finally got it all sorted out, but was left with one large pile of stuff that had to go into the shed (paint tins, brushes, tools, drop sheets etc) and another large pile of stuff that belonged in the linen room (currently filled to overflowing with the last laundry order) and three surplus vacuum cleaners. No wonder it was difficult getting in the door! Left-over clothing from guests came home with me and has been washed with a view to taking it to the Bargain Centre (as none of it fits me or suits my taste).

Saturday, apart from cleaning the bank which I had been too tired to attend to the day before, was spent loafing as I was really very tired, then Sunday I had all three cottage to deal with (one of which had not only had four guests in it - real comedians who hid stuff in unlikely places for no apparent reason) but a tradesman who clomped around for several hours fitting two metres of coving (hope the boss was not paying him by the hour! It would have taken me half an hour to do the job).

Today I headed down to Hobart. Barbara is moving into a new rented house and has been culling her possessions. She had promised me a set of bookshelves and a chest of drawers (both fairly flimsy furniture). I had said Monday, probably, but had, it turns out, failed to follow up with a confirmation. So after I had been to Affordable Furniture to look at their beds (very nice solid timber, Tasmanian made and yes, affordable), I called around expecting to find the pieces in the garage. But of course they were not there as I had forgotten to confirm my arrival. So I popped off a text message, expecting her to be at work and headed home, stopping at Bridgewater to get some groceries. Discovered a text saying she would be home at 1:30, and backtracked once again. Furniture safely loaded I headed home and just had time to walk Seb, unload the ute and head back in to clean the bank, again.

Now having that conversation you have with yourself when it is half an hour to bedtime and it really is a ridiculous idea to light the fire, but it's a bit chilly so perhaps ..... but no.

Yesterday I spat the dummy with my technology. The obstacle to getting onto the NBN was apparently the predisposition of my computer to default to a non-functional log-in address, and my phone, which was on its last legs was doing all manner of odd things. So after I had finished up work commitments I headed to Hobart in the face of snow, sleet and strong winds, and bought a new laptop (all $299) and phone, then returned to clean the bank and finally get the poor dog out for his evening constitutional.

The new lappie, of course, has Windows 10 for an operating system, so while I am still able to use the current one I will continue to do so, and keep the new on in reserve for when this one gives up the ghost (or goes in for a service since I suspect it is riddled with viruses that have eluded my protection software). Windows 10 does not appear to have any of the intuitive features of seven (my current operating environment) and so is a pain in the butt. I did, however, purchase some new Office software so will have to load that some time this evening as these days you get a bit of cardboard with a code on the back instead of the big box of DVD and instructions, and I am afraid I will either destroy, lose or obliterate the bit of cardboard.

Anyway, having armed myself with a virgin computer unsullied by corrupted software, I sat and awaited the promised phonecall which failed to eventuate (though to be fair, I had not expected them to be punctual as I am sure i am not the only person with issues right now). So I called them - I have the direct number for tech support which is handy. So we went through the same frustrating process yet again, but finally did crack the problem and managed to log in! So the new computer was set aside, and this one opened up in the expectation I would have to repeat the process, but no!! it is now also operational, as is the new phone! So very happy camper here at present.

Meanwhile yesterday's vile weather was followed by a frost this morning and a rather nice sunny day that was spoiled by the need to go in to clean a cottage that had not been used. So that will be to do tomorrow, I suppose (the tradie was supposed to go in and fix some stuff and I was to clean up after him, but he had not fixed anything so there was no mess).

So tonight I will go log into my Pinterest account and see what I have been missing for the last 8 years and explore other worlds as well.

Today was the History Room once more and as I had not had any communications from any of the relevant parties I approached in some fear and trepidation. Fortunately it seems the debate has been resolved and i am back in sole charge on Tuesdays - phew. As my punishment for making a fuss I was assigned responsibility for going through our card index, identifying the names in a recently received family history and writing on each card that anyone looking into that family should see this family history. Given the complex interweavings of marriages in the district, there were only two letters of the alphabet that did not have at least one representative. And one of them was X!

That done, I settled in and got a bit of knitting done, between entertaining the six visitors we had during the course of the day (four arriving after 3:45), and finally getting the doors shut by 4:15.

I forgot to mention that I have bought some dyes for the cream wool i was given. Since some of the skeins will be used for a jumper I have admired for some time, but never bothered to knit as it was five ply and I don't keep 5-ply in my collection. I am thinking one of the nice mustard yellows will be the go. The rest will be applied to a more complex multicoloured fair-isle (probably a vest), and so I will be able to play with all of the colours in the kits. They are a brand named Landscape, and the two packs I have are 'Rural' and 'Mountain' or some such thing and so are nice earthy colours  with some blues and greens mixed in.

Weather today was rather nice, if a little chilly and windy, but tomorrow will be 8 degrees. Hard to come to grips with the idea of Spring under the circumstances. I will see what turns up - snow to 600 metres forecast so cleaning the cottages will be interesting.

While Annie is away on her honeymoon, she had nominated a friend to take her days. Her friend has decided not to bother, so now I am on duty for 6 days a week till she gets back. At least it will be more money. Meanwhile I will keep Tuesday's free for the History Room.

I have been having a few challenges logging into the NBN - the password does not work and calling tech support has been problematic due to the wild weather which is impeding the phone signal. I nice young man patiently called me back regularly as I dropped out but it was a problem getting on with it.

The party was great fun - I finally discovered that Steam punk is about some dystopian other place where people have become integrated with clockwork and steam engines (instead of electronics), so while my Victorian outfit was sort of appropriate, it was not quite on the mark. But it was fun getting dressed up and spraying red dye on my hair (all washed out now). On the way home I took a short cut over the hills. As I turned a corner an on-coming car prompted me to dip my lights. I accidentially turned them off entirely, then repeated the process when I got them back on and they were still on high beam. Not unreasonably the police car immediately behind me turned on its blue and red lights and whooped its siren to ask me to pull over. I did so with a clear conscience as I had only had two glasses of unadulterated Coke during the evening. Sitting in the ute waiting for him to arrive at the window, I became impatient and got out as it had occurred to me he might be worried I was drunk and violent (I mean, I do drive a ute and the back road in question is used for drug running). After a pleasant exchange and an unexciting breathalyser result, I headed home with no further incidents.

Meanwhile there was snow last night, but today while windy is sunny. More snow forecast, but first the sun has to go away and some clouds form themselves.

EMW you are right. It turns out my particular  contact in the society is the person who made the arrangements. As I had not had a response to my email by this morning and was still fuming I called in at the History Room having spotted her car parked outside. When we had a moment alone I raised my concerns about the way things had been handled, and also pointed out that as the person in question has clearly not been doing Tuesdays for the seven months I have been turning up, that her demand to have 'her' roster slot back seemed unreasonable. Particularly as she clearly wanted to retain her flexibility as part of the proposed arrangement is that she can phone me in the morning and let me know if she is unable to come in (thereby leaving me stranded without any lunch or having to lock the place up, trek out and find some food and return to duty).

I suggested that it would be a good idea for her to recognise that personal family research does not impose an obligation to volunteer, and that she was welcome to as much privacy as she felt was necessary if she found Tuesday to be the only day on which she could do it. Poor Steph seems stuck between a rock and a hard place, but did have the grace to hear me out and promise to talk to the person again. I explained that as I have arranged my entire life around my volunteer commitments that other days would be very difficult for me to do so again, after having had my roster upset once already.

That aside it has been rainy and windy all day, but i managed to get my sheoak off the new neighbours, as well as a bonus banksia. Both are safely in the ground, mulched with newspaper and surrounded by a tyre.

Walking the dog this afternoon proved hazardous as strong gusts of wind came out of nowhere. I mean tree-felling strong. A section of fence fell over, and bits of tree were flying everywhere. The dog took shelter in the lee of the remaining fence so missed the gust that blew me off my feet, and we scurried home with rather too much assistance from the wind. He does like a good towel-down, and is now drying out in front of the fire.

Another day of volunteer disaster. Turned up to the History Room this morning to find a note saying someone would be working Tuesday afternoon. Actually I already knew she was coming in to do some work on her family tree so thought no more about it. But it turns out that the anonymous note-writer has in fact reassigned my afternoons to this person, something that only became clear when she told me herself.

I have emailed my main contact in the society and suggested it might be best if we had one go-to person to manage the roster (volunteering to do it myself if no-one else was willing) and pointing out that this was a serious impact on my obligations as a jobseeker.

As is always the case when I am upset, I locked myself out of the house when I took Seb out for a walk, and had to climb in a window, using the sawhorse as a ladder. Fortunately Seb stayed attached to the clothesline while i did this and was glad to come in.

My thoughts on building a fence have hit an obstacle as the cast iron wood heater that is to go into the shed is on the wrong side of the planned fence location. And the small concrete slab it is sitting on is on the wrong side for the tap to be accessible from the front yard if I built the fence elsewhere. Sigh.

Tomorrow, with any luck, I will be digging holes for a new sheoak, and the pittosporums that have been patiently awaiting attention for rather too long.

 These two photos are interesting. I found them at the History Room today. The first shows the Butcher's Shop alongside the house and the presence of a front fence (no trace there at present). It also explains the appalling condition of the wall on that side - I am surprised the house is still standing given the amount of water that must have poured through the walls as a result of that roof junction! Unfortunately the photo is undated, so not terribly much help in determining when the structure was still there.

This one is dated 2004, and shows the rear wall (remnants of which were still present on arrival here) still clinging to some semblance of life and serving as a side fence. The photo threw me off initially as there are two trees planted in the front yard, so I assumed it was taken after I had arrived and planted the crab apples. But I was puzzled my some of the other details, and the apparent location of the trees (rather further forward than my own planting).

NBN installers have struck again. Apparently when I took them up on their early appointment that they failed to turn up for, they cancelled my pre-existing appointment for the 13th and so now they have rescheduled it for the 25th. Another call to the MP is in the wind.

Speaking of wind it has been rather turbulent again of late, and this morning was horridly rainy for my trip to Hobart. There are lots of roadworks en route - both on the Highway and the Brooker so it can be a long and irritating journey. The good thing about the GPS is that it has calculated that all the delays (combined with my tendency to drive under the limit in this sort of weather) loses only 3 minutes in total on the trip (it tells you the time you should arrive and recalculates that along the way based on stops and starts and speed of travel).

First stop was the shed place to pay the deposit, sign lots of paperwork and clarify a bit of mutual confusion. Then over to Eastlands to check out shops, fill in time before heading to the dentist. You will recall I had tried to get an appointment at another dentist but had been unable to do so as they were all ill. Since the dentist I didn't like had left I was happy to go back to the practice, but not again. Yes, painless, efficient and all that. But money hungry in the extreme and no backing down when told they could do the work but only if they wanted to work for free. So I am off to find a new dentist. First I will do as my various friends suggest and get the 'extras' cover from a private health insurer, then book elsewhere for a clean and checkup. I declined to book for one today.

Finally to Bunnings for a new shovel (a very cheap one till I have a lockable shed), and home to walk the dog before cleaning the bank. The new neighbours were out the front planting a couple of trees (Heather has filled the front garden with enough natives to start her own forestry industry). They plan to get rid of a fair number of the trees already there, so I have bagged the sheoak, on condition I can get it on Wednesday when I am not elsewhere. It can go down the back with the existing sheoak - they are two different varieties - the one I have at present has large flowers in mid-winter).

At Animal Barn I found they have a wide range of chook runs/sheds. Most of these are the cheap and nasty timber ones that fall apart in the weather, but they have similar sized ones in Aluminium for a reasonable price. They would really only hold two hens, but have an accessible living quarters (with slide out floor for easy cleaning) and a laying box which is all you need really. The only criticism I have is the perch is a round bit of hollow aluminium, so would have to be replaced with a bit of timber to give the girls a decent perch.

They also have a rather larger run (up to five hens by my calculation) but it would be hard to fit it on the back of the ute!

Since I have now ordered the shed I have parked the balance of those funds in various monthly term deposits so I don't accidentally spend it.

The new lads up the road have offered to dig some post holes for my front fence so I will take them up on that when life it a little less hectic!

There is a certain unkind pleasure to find that some of those who have sat uncomprehending when I commented on my line of buckets have suffered some flooding of their own as a result of the recent rains. I of course, have been rather more sympathetic about their problems as I know how it feels.

The advent of daylight savings was a little unexpected - I did have a half-heard comment yesterday to suggest it was imminent, but it seems to be a little earlier this year for some reason - perhaps because the year is passing so rapidly.

Lots of running around, but not much achieved - though I did remember to clean the bank today, so presumably still have a job, lol.

Well that was a good way to test the reliablity of the new roof! 40mm overnight and the place is awash. Indoors however, the only stray drops have come down the chimney as is their right. Such a nice feeling! It was disconcerting last night listening to gushing water in certain parts of the extension as the newly installed guttering discharged onto the roof of the skillion, but after one panic-stricken trip outdoors I came to enjoy that too - think of all that extra water heading into the tank.

The winds were not as dreadful as I had anticipated, and from the East at that, so the iron was never in danger, though the back door has swollen once more. If these winds keep up it should be back to normal by tomorrow.

My trip to town started at 8 as i had to drop off a bicycle that is to be transformed into a yarn-bombing exercise, then headed down to have my head read. It turns out her original hypothesis was that the task would be more difficult for older people. Her 'youth' participants were Uni students, so a self-selected group of older people basically gave her parity as people with an academic background are more likely to put their hands up for this sort of thing apparently.

Turns out age has no impact on performance (well no surprises there) but actually it is related to one's ability to complete various cognition exercises. These were partly those shape progression things (circle with hexagon in it, etc) but some were rather more challenging for this innumerate being. Repeat a string of numbers back to her in order, then in the next set, in reverse order, and in the final set, in numerical order, and, where a number is repeated, repeat it in the recitation also. Talk about a tough call before coffee!

From there to the sandblasting place, and then on to Bunnings where I was able to get the coving I need to extend the dimensions of the triangle that is to mounted above the door (under the central gully gutter), and two pieces of square section to finish off the openings for the hearth stones, before they are rendered.

I also checked out their corner units that I had fallen for and found they are 1 metre long which presents problems on one of the lengths of benches I was thinking of inserting it into, but which may fit very nicely in the other section. Basically there is a stove on one wall, and sink on the other and of course these are immutable, so it has to fit into the available space (with minimum need for fillers, and no waste of existing space). But from the corner to the oven has a filler in it at present which can be swapped out with the other narrower filler and so it should all come together (there being no law that says the corner cupboard has to run all the way to the wall in the corner). Anyway I will get some graph paper and play with shapes for a bit. I actually want several units from the Kaboodle range to retrofit into existing cabinets, but they don't come cheap. The corner thingy I want is $499.00 and that does not include the cabinet or the door (plus door furniture etc). I did discover that they have pull out garbage bins for around 50.00 so they would be OK once I move the relevant cupboard to its intended location.

My strategy of taking a scarf with me to the experiment was a good one, but by the time i got home it had glued itself to my head and had to be soaked off in the shower (along with copious amounts of shampoo). So I didn't feel like going in to clean the bank tonight and will do it tomorrow when I go to clean the cottages. Meanwhile dressing gown and ugg boots in front of the fire sound like a much better idea.

Consider me peeved. No show and no call either. Becoming a bit of a farce really. And they didn't even have the weather to blame as the wind and rain did not pick up till after lunch.

Mind you it has been nice to sit inside while all that wild weather has been happening outside and staying outside. No rattling iron, no dripping water - quite civilised in fact.

Given the constraints of sitting in to await the non-existent antenna installer, and subsequent weather conditions have limited activity to knitting for much of the day, so not much to report.

The call to the local member's office seems to have paid off, as I had a message saying they will be installing my antenna tomorrow. Of course the forecast is for galeforce winds and heavy rain, so that may be being unduly optimistic on their part, but as I noted that the newly arrived occupants of Heather's place, here less than a week, also have an antenna attached to their house, I will be rather peeved if it does not happen. Fortunately I have no work tomorrow so it will not really matter either way.

Cottage done and dealt with today, and most of the new linen stowed away, then home to apply  large rocks to the tops of sheets of iron around the yard, and to tie ropes around the corrugated iron in the hope that several sheets tied together will be less likely to go jetting around the neighbourhood. Sheet lightning this evening on the way home from the bank.

Much to my surprise I was offered a dental appointment this afternoon! Sadly, since i was in the History Room today I was unable to accept, so they offered me one on Friday morning, which I also had to decline as I will be having my brain examined again at that time (something some of my acquaintances might suggest has been put off for far too long!). So at present I am on their cancellation list, in case something comes up before my scheduled appt on Monday. Meanwhile I am eating soft food - bangers and mash in onion gravy for the next few days thanks to bargain pork sausages at the Roxy. Fortunately, apart from the sharp edges, nothing vulnerable has been exposed, so I am quite happy with that.

I also managed to track down a tree lopping service so have lined up a chap to come and quote to get the trees next door chopped back to their boundary. I have discussed this with them and they are OK with that, and will make sure they do a tidy job as I am the one who will have to look at it.

The neighbours are down to three chooks now as the fourth was destroyed by me (since Seb had maimed it rather badly) this evening. I had already chased them out once this afternoon, and had only take Seb for a walk, but they were silly enough to come back in and hide out of sight till I had an armload of firewood. Once Seb spotted them I had no choice but to let him go as I would otherwise have dropped the wood on his back which didn't seem at all reasonable to me.

Tomorrow will be the last fine still day for a bit, so I will go around the yard and ensure all the loose iron removed from the roof is suitably stable and weighted down. The bigger pile I will tie a rope around also, just to be on the safe side. On Thursday we are expecting gales and rain, so it will be a good test for the new roof.

I have been in touch with the local member about the NBN fiasco, so will wait to find out what he has to say.

Hopefully I don't have any work to do tomorrow as it will be nice to catch up with myself a little more.

Don't you hate how just when you have a bit of money to play with, your teeth decide to have an emergency! I just broke a cusp of one of my pre-molars eating a pizza! Not even a crunchy crust - just there one minute, gone the next. Bother.

I had hoped to have a lie in today to make  up for yesterday's which was interrupted by the alarm I had forgotten to turn off. But this morning my internal alarm decided waking at five thirty was a really good idea. I guess it was the sunny morning (mild frost).

Still at least it was a sunny day, so I did a bit of tidying up after the so-called gardener (who appears to have appropriated my gardening fork, long-handled shovel and flat bladed shovel) and called in to visit a friend to drop off a pot of paint (the charcoal colour I used on the finials) as she was saying the other day it was just the colour she wanted for her front door. She is under strict instruction to return it as I also plan to use it on the kick plates in the kitchen when I get around to having any (post lino-laying).

But apart from that, I have done next to nothing all day as I seem to have pinched a nerve in my back and so have sciatic pain. So lifting and heaving seemed inadvisable. Hopefully it will have sorted itself overnight and all will be well tomorrow.

The NBN saga continues. Having cancelled my appointment on the 16th, they assured me they would contact Dodo and reschedule for me. A week later, having heard nothing, I contacted Dodo who were surprised to discover I had not been connected. An appointment was arranged for 13 October, with the justification being that they had lost  the connection and would not be able to resume work till then. So you can imagine my surprise when I came home on Thursday and spotted them installing an antenna next door! Another phonecall did not result in any useful outcome so I will be calling my local member tomorrow and see if he can sort them out (or at least frame some pointy Questions On Notice in the House).

Meanwhile the painter and the roofer have finished up so I allegedly have a leakproof house (though in the absence of rain it is hard to know), and it is a pretty house as well.

 The painter got a little carried away and talked me into engaging a 'landscaper' of his acquaintance. This turned out to be a long-termed unemployed lad who has set up his own business in gardening. A great idea - pity he is not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination. He did some useful stuff for me like demolishing the roof of the shed i had demolished a couple of years ago (but could not find the pinch bar, and when I did it was too hot and snaky to be playing with it and ...), and laid the remaining retaining wall blocks (which he did well, but with a fine disregard for my instructions to drop down a course so naturally ran out of materials before he was done). Then he ran out of work, and since I was out at work myself he asked for further instructions from the painter, who suggested he showcase his skills as a paver. As a result i now have a new back step, but he used the handmade bricks I have been carefully garnering over the years and two of them have now broken as he did not fill the centre terribly well. On the plus side he turned out to be an excellent joiner, and I asked him to come back on Saturday to finish fitting the mouldings on the front door (which are now visibly missing as a result of the highlighting paint job). Unfortunately he decided to throw a sulk and did not turn up, so he is no longer working for me. The painter (also a renderer) will be back some time in the not too distant future to provide me with hearths for those fireplaces whose hearths have disintegrated, and meanwhile I will get a friend to come in and fit the mouldings and architraves that require it.

On Friday I headed down to Hobart to have an EEG - nothing to be alarmed about, I am participating in a study on the Aging Brain and they were trying to work out which bits of my brain are used when I am learning something new - in this case a sequence of moving dots. I will be heading back there next Friday for the second part of the experiment. I will take a scarf with me next time as the gel they use dries into large white lumps on your head.

The windows and new roof have made an astounding difference to the internal temperatures of the house and the temperature variation (much reduced). So for the last two nights i have not had to light the fire (though I have tonight as we are heading to zero). I will be interested to see if I have as much condensation on the windows tomorrow morning as have usually been the case.

I bought two sets of shed shelving as Bunnings was having a sale, and I have spent the last two days wrestling them into shape (turns out you really should read the instructions, even for such apparently simple objects!), and they are now laden with my small power tools, painting stuff, paints, fixings etc. A sheet has been hung on the back of them so as to avoid passing intruders from spotting things through the alarmingly revealing window on that side. I will progress that tomorrow so I can find my way around the 'spare bedroom' without risking life and limb again.

It also helps to be able to move additional stuff into that space and out of the main house.

The quote on the shed came as a bit of a shock to the system, so the rear awning will be a distant dream I am afraid, if I want to line out the two remaining rooms and have a vaguely civilised interior. Sigh. But the shed is essential whereas the awning is only highly desirable, so thus goes the budget.

Both the roofer and the painter turned up today so a time was spent marshalling ladder space and priorities before they set to work. The painter was an hour ahead of the roofer though, so he got precedence. Despite the potential for chaos, the roof now has flashing on the chimneys and on one gable, and the guttering that has been loitering in the grass down the side of the house for the last five years is now finally mounted in the brackets that were positioned for its use way back then. Not plumbed in, but still a huge improvement.

I fled the scene and went to the men's shed where I made up a piece to mount on the bottom of the front door to provide additional rain protection. I do have a storm seal, but despite this in particularly high winds and rain there are puddles indoors. This should sort that out once and for all.

The painter puttied up the window to be repaired which was nice of him, and makes it look rather more substantial, but it will all have to come out again when I pull the window apart to repair it, so I rather wish he hadn't.

The starlings who have been lodged in the roof are still making attempts to get in at the side of the house, but so far have not succeeded, and once the other length of guttering is in place will have no hope. Meanwhile the cats are lurking at their entry point in the hope of catching them!

First coat of the main colour is now on, and looking good, much nicer than the rather buttercup yellow that the last so-called 'stone' colour was. The grey undercoat represents the 'oxblood' and the white will be 'antique white' around the windows - the door will be all three colours, and the reveals in 'antique white'