I will give you some photos tomorrow. Meanwhile I have had my stitches out (after waiting over an hour in Clinic I was steered out for nurse to deal with them) and cleaned the bank and had my last trip into Oatlands for the weekend. I gather the work will be continuing through the night, though presumably won't involve the very big crane they are using.

The detour adds 10 minutes to the trip but goes through some lovely country so was worth the inconvenience. It is only one car wide, so I watched out for approaching plumes of dust and parked up off the road to let them by. You can only do this on one side of the road, however as the farmer seems to be gradually encroaching on the road reserve with his fences.

I have been admiring Vera's roses lately - they are blooming as they have never bloomed before. So this morning I wandered up the road with my trug and started dead-heading them, to collect petals for dyeing. Realising my every movement would undoubtedly be reported to Vera, I carefully picked a large bouquet which has subsequently been delivered to her at the nursing home. We had a nice chat and I now have permission to enter at will and pick what I want. So I went back and finished deadheading, with the result I have more petals than I know what to do with. So I am experimenting.

100g has been added to 50g of chopped rhubarb leaves, water added and 100g of yarn added (this is Patons Azalea in a pale cream colour which I have by the hundreds of grams). I will solar dye this lot. I gather rhubarb leaves give a mordant that does not distort the colour. Another 200g of petals is steeping in water for 36 hours following which I will add 100g of yarn and boil it for 40 minutes to see what happens. Then 50g will be added to some yarn soaked in copper mordant and solar dyed, some more will be dried to see if they retain their colour.

I will ferment some more of them in a 1-2 ratio of ammonia and water to see what colour happens.

The petals are being chopped (bruised) with the pizza wheel to release the colour faster.

I will doubtless continue this process tomorrow (winding off 25 gram balls of yarn into skeins is tedious and takes a lot out of your arms).

So after fasting from midnight the night before, I was finally wheeled into Theatre at 4 in the afternoon. All went well, but clearly the surgeon was in a hurry as his approach to dressings would not have won him a badge in Brownies. A great unevenly distributed glob of gauze pasted to the skin using some sort of surgical gladwrap made for an uncomfortable few days, and did untold harm to the skin of my chest. But after a trip to the local doctor for permission to rip it off, it is now replaced with nice flat dressings of the more acceptable variety. Stitches out on Friday. I was supposed to go to Hobart for this five minute procedure, but the local doctor has endorsed my decision to avoid Hobart in the Christmas rush, and get it done locally.

Meanwhile the vege patch is thriving - a regular 15 minute watering as I take Seb for his 'short' walk of the morning is more than sufficient, and so far the neighbour's chooks have remained on their side of the fence.

I have not got much more to report I am afraid, as I have been taking it easy this week, and doing vast quantities of knitting rather than anything more demanding, and Billy the Limpet has been ensuring I remain out of contact with the wider world by glueing himself to me. I have had to lock him in the bathroom to get to the laptop!

Well, another 39 mm to finish off the deluge - the ground is lapping it up, most of the standing water is long gone and Seb can resume extending the holes he has dug in the oval. He was most disconcerted to find water in them the other day.

The Apricot tree suffered a disaster and lost a branch - suspiciously close to the hostile boundary, but it could simply have been a misfortune. Luckily the tear did not extend to the trunk so I have sawn it off and neatened it up back to the 'healing' ring on the trunk. On closer examination it seems most of the branches have a fairly tenuous grip on the main trunk, some showing signs of sap bleeding. No idea what to do about that, so will check at a nursery while I am in town.

The dog knows something is up and is following me around like a shadow, so packing for my two nights away is challenging, and in the mean time Telstra has disconnected my email as I forgot to pay the bill for retaining the address. I will sort that out when they open their billing service.

And I have had to make a list to make sure I do everything I need to do while I am away, or en route, or whatever. So many things to consider!

I haven't been washed away, but it was a near thing. The roof remained waterproof and if it can survive that it will be good for a few more days.

The gauge held 47.5 mm this morning and has well and truly exceeded another inch today. Half an hour after checking the gauge the tanks overflowed - woohoo! and the rain has been soaking in - not much run-off at all so the trees will be good for a while, as will the new vege patch.

We didn't get the snow they had on the highlands, but there was certainly sleet about most of the morning. I have searched the house and found some dry off-cuts which have been added to rather more soggy bits of scrap timber and are feeding the fire to keep things cosy - the firewood situation is non-existent at present and won't be replenished till the woodshed has moved up from the orchard (after Christmas) as there is nowhere to put wood that will not be in the way of a large container-capable forklift.

And the lake is full.

You will be relieved to know i was not eaten by the CAT scan machine, nor did I fail my pre-op medical this week - I am in fact a major disappointment to them all in that I have good blood oxygen, text book blood pressure, a picture-perfect EEG and all the other things they tested me for. They told me this appoint would take up to four hours so I took my knitting with me, but they threw me out in less than an hour for lack of things to examine. Always a good thing.

I will be going under the knife on Wednesday so will be incommunicado for Tuesday and Wednesday as apparently day cases are admitted at 7 in the bloody morning!

The heat has been horrible - 30 degrees yesterday and humid to boot - we have had some spectacular storms too - almost Queensland quality. But tomorrow will be 13 degrees which will make a nice change.

The hot weather, combined with this cool spell (which is accompanied by rain) has inspired me to plant up a garden of veges - ingredients for Gazpacho as well as a few additional herbs and so forth, so not too adventurous. Having a tap handy to the garden bed makes it easy to keep the water up to them - I can turn it on as I head out to walk the dog in the morning, and turn it off on the way home. Fingers crossed I have enough water to do the job. Also the apricot has fruit on it! lots of fruit. So I must slash a path to the tree so I can maintain its water supply as the fruit grows and ripens. Barring major wind events, these puppies might just see harvest! How exciting. It's been a long 8 years waiting for this to happen.

Knitting wise I am working on the new vest - it has different colours this time, much more my colours too. And between my round and flat needles I seem to have managed to achieve the right tension this time. I don't have size 3 circulars and neither does anyone locally, so I reverted to flat needles and am making rapid progress.

A trip into town this morning resulted in an invitation back to get a fleece - spotted that the Suffolk farmer was shearing (I asked for a fleece last time i saw him) and he has become muddled in his thinking. As a result I may not get a suffolk fleece, but may get a coloured one. I will find out this afternoon. Not too sure how well they will be cut as it looks like the shearer is learning on the job (judging by the amount of blood on the sheep in the paddock) so I will accept it graciously and sort it out when I get it home.

Yesterday was spent socialising as the weather remained sunny but cold. Called into a friend for a long chat then headed into the local restaurant for lunch where I ran into more friends and acquaintances.

Home again, then back in to clean the bank.

This morning I was quietly sipping my second coffee of the morning when I received a text message from the Royal reminding me of an appointment they had not yet told me about. Fortunately it's not till Thursday as I discovered when I rang for clarification. The letter arrived in the mail two hours later.

This is for the CAT scan which seems to be a rather lengthy process not helped by the lack of clarity in the letter. The Scan is scheduled for 11:15 so that is what they told me the appointment time was. But on closer inspection I am to arrive an hour prior. The whole thing is to take 2 hours, but is that from the time of arrival or the time of the appointment? - all very muddling. And no food for two hours prior (but prior to what?) and two cups of water to drink two hours prior (to what?). I will assume it is 2 hours prior to 11:15 since that is presumably when they will actually be scanning me. They do make life difficult for themselves and us!

The fire is again lit as it has once again been sunny but chilly - the forecast for tomorrow is rather more encouraging being 18 degrees.

The problem with a Thursday appointment is that I am supposed to be going to the Uni on Friday to turn in my phone for the study. I am trying to contact the relevant department to arrange one for Thursday afternoon which should not throw their results off too far, but so far no success.

Response sent. First draft direction was rejected and the last version seems to cover all the issues professionally. So I am happy.

Meanwhile we had a lovely sunny, if chilly, day yesterday which resulted in much washing being done. The balance is now out on the line as today will also be sunny, and marginally warmer. I have washed some 'medium' moorit fleece which is drying in the shed, and the calendula petals seem to have dried satisfactorily (with a significant reduction in bulk, which suggests I should collect more.

The Whole Town Garage Sale was yesterday but I did not get out and about until lateish so seem to have missed the bargains and interesting stuff - probably fortunate is I don't have any money anyway, haha.

Not sure how I will be spending the day - spinning calls, but so too does hazard reduction as the forecast for later in the week looks distinctly summerish - a change from having to light the fire at least!

Still working on my draft response - one page should be sufficient to cover my reply and it is presently one paragraph, and signature block into the second page. Thank heaven for weekends, eh!

I have spent the day with my spinning group and we agreed from the outset not to discuss local politics or personal dramas, so the conversation focussed on happier things.

One of us brought in some angora tops that they had purchased at the Bargain Centre several years ago and which were gratefully received by those of us who were interested. I may give mine back as many years ago I had a wool/angora/cashmere/silk/and something else blend wool that raised hives all over me, and having handled the angora I begin to feel itchy, so perhaps I have finally narrowed down the source of the problem. Oddly it is goat angora (not rabbit) and I was raised with goats so should not have such a response, but perhaps the longer hair of an angora goat is different to the fluff that grows under the coarser coats of dairy goats.

The weather has been predictably awful with showers and minor hail spots passing through and the temperature barely reaching the predicted maximum of 11. Tomorrow should be marginally better and I will be going to the Whole Town Garage Sale as well as cleaning the bank.

The fire is slowly chugging away - indoors is not that chilly but a fire will be necessary later so best to get it going before I settle down for the evening. And I have finished spinning the dark brown fleece and am now onto the lightest brown (a sort of blonde/brown). Once that is done only one more colour to go before I can start knitting the replacement vest. I am fairly happy with the regularity of tension I have achieved this time - hopefully more consistent with the 4 ply required to achieve the size I want. But for all that I will knit a tension square before starting this time!

And the saga continues. This morning I received a letter acknowledging my resignation then going on to assert that I had stolen property belonging to the Society, containing veiled threats of legal action and stern warnings about the misuse of Society Records. I can only assume this is the at the instruction of the new President who does not strike me as the forgiving type.

I have responded by pointing out that the Society's donations policy requires that if they are unable to use the item for the purpose for which it was provided that it must first be offered to the donor, and only if refused, must be sold at auction. Since my purpose was to improve their engagement with technology, which has demonstrably failed, I have acted in accordance with that policy.

The letter also asserts that I have retained all the files contained on the computer, despite me having on two occasions (one recorded on my phone) indicated that they have been deleted.

My carefully worded response will be slept on before sending as an email (my printer is not working terribly reliably at present, and frankly I can't be bovvered with postage).

Meanwhile I trekked down to Hobart to the Royal who have shortlisted me for 'urgent admission' (ie some time in the next month), and a CAT scan to see what is going on in there. I remain in good health so am not unduly concerned, but it does rather interfere with any plan-making over that period.

It is rather chilly tonight, so the fire is once again lit, and I picked up a bag of logs on my way to Hobart. I have also collected the remainder of my storage kit from Howards Storage as it  had arrived and they were going to send it to me, but I said I would pick it up since I was in the vicinity.

So it seems the result of the meeting was the decision to sell the book, and that this was reached on the advice of the Secretary who informed the committee there was no risk to them of legal action!!! One can only hope she had sought independant legal advice, in writing, before taking such a step. I gather the author also nominated himself as President - not sure how that was received. If he was accepted then Steph has lost her control over the History Room as he seems rather a bully to me.

Meanwhile, I got home from Hobart on Friday and found a letter from the Outpatients department of the Royal demanding to know why I had not turned up for my appointment on the 20th. Simple explanation - they had forgotten to let me know about it. And since on the 20th I had the dog in Kennels and was at a loose end between engagements in Hobart at the time of the appointment, it would have been rather convenient, unlike their present proposal that requires me to trek down this coming Friday.

I had actually made an appointment with the local doctor to follow up on the fact I had not heard from them, which, being on the Monday, I kept since I needed the relevant documents to take with me. Sigh.

We are heading into another cold spell here, but at present it is a lovely sunny day so once i have caught you all up with my news I will head out to attack the back yard.

Heading down to Hobart on Friday I was rash enough to call into Centrelink to drop off the form for the History Room to be a host for volunteers. The girl on the counter over-rode my explanation that it had nothing to do with me, and insisted I waited, which I did. The interviewer made the same error of assumption (that is was my form, not the History Room's form) but was more amendable to reading the 'Purpose of the Form' and so we soon sorted out the confusion, but it did leave me a bit behind schedule for my appointment at the Uni.

On my way back I called in to see a friend who I knew back in Queensland where he served on the Heritage Council. He and his wife have established a distillery on their property (Shene) which seems to be attracting a number of awards. He ran for Council the time before last but his leaflets were not distributed, despite him paying large sums of money to Australia Post. He was busy with development works at his property at the time of the last elections, so could not be persuaded to run, but I asked him if he would do so this time. He has agreed to give it serious consideration and I proposed that if he did, we could each take one end of the electorate and distribute each others' flyers as we did it. Hopefully he will proceed and will not be discouraged by his wife. Actually if he ran for Mayor he would be in with a chance as he achieved some pretty solid numbers on his one venture into politics.

Meanwhile I have been weighing up my volunteering options and they do not look attractive - either the Community Centre (serious political implications there as they are running a campaign against Council), the Medical Centre (and if you think the History Room is a nest of competing interests you have not seen anything yet) or Community Transport seem to be the best options - so I will give them a ring and see what I can get there. Other options are at a considerable distance (eg Chauncey Vale) and would impose considerable travel costs.

A long day today, wondering if I would be called to the meeting and if so how I would respond. It went for hours - it must have been exhausting for those involved. I did see the key players arrive - the author looking triumphant and the owner of the second house looking rather more vital than her usual act of sickly languidness. And I am still awaiting  a call from my inside source to find out how things went. I do hope they saw some sense and at least decided to get independent advice.

Meanwhile I am emptying my freezer of the textiles from the History Room that have been there to kill silverfish infestations. I have to wash out the second bin so that the current lot of stuff drying on the airer in the shed can be stowed safely. I hope to be able to drop it in on Monday when I know there will not be a hostile reception.

Tomorrow I am heading to Hobart for the second visit of the smoking study, and to collect my new labels for my packets - I will be interested to see what they have to say.

Other than that, it was rather nice and sunny, but what with one thing and another I didn't get the sheets washed. I expect they will be done on the weekend since I have no other commitments at present.

Oh Lord, it just gets worse and worse - Steph has proceeded with calling the meeting with all members and the author tomorrow afternoon! I found out because another concerned member rang to beg me to attend. I explained I couldn't since I am neither a member nor the President any more, but suggested he move that they seek independent legal advice before selling the book. Personally I would be urging the author to do that since it would save us money, and would be requiring him to provide that advice to us so that we could form a decision, but i am no longer in charge. For all that, I suspect I will spend the evening marking up my copy of the book to highlight digressions, infamy, inaccuracies, etc so that if I get a phone call requesting my presence I can be prepared.

Apart from that I had a nice chat with our local heritage officer over a cup of coffee over the lake and he agreed it was nasty and we discussed future plans for the History Room. I have indicated to the concerned member that if it is their view I should return I will do so, but that it must come from the committee, not just his desperate pleas. Meanwhile I suggested he take his wife to the meeting as she carries weight with Steph and is also clued up about the issues I have been highlighting - and is a rather forceful personality haha.

A lovely sunny day meant most of my washing is done, dry and put away, but no work has been done on the grass - it's so depressing that the area I slashed already has 8 inch high regrowth. I hate this time of year!!

So I may or may not be at home tomorrow, I may or may not be at a meeting, and if I am at home I am expecting a visitor who I am not that keen on entertaining as I suspect he has motives other than the ones presented. Sigh.

Well after an evening of increasingly toxic emails from my Secretary, refusing my offers to meet with her personally to discuss the matter, I have resigned. I have to say I am feeling rather good about it. My resignation details my reasons for leaving and includes short articles on Defamation and Publishing defamation (only two pages each) as well as my original instructions to Steph. No doubt she will call it defamatory but as my email is marked 'in confidence' and it includes a description of the role of the President (including alerting the committee to potential harm), I am pretty comfortable with that. Besides if she does threaten it I can point out that this would damage her own defence of 'I am just a simple country woman' in the event she herself were the subject of litigation.

So the Ute is full of my possessions removed from the History Room, including the window display, and my paper copies have been delivered to the non-computer people. I can relax - I think.

It will be nice to have a few days off, and I will probably take the opportunity to take to the beach on Show Day, though maybe not.

Then I will have to start looking for other volunteering options so as to satisfy my obligations under NewStart. Sigh.

The game is on big time over the book. Having copied my secretary into my email to the author I subsequently received an email from her questioning why I was acting independently of the Committee, and expressing distress at the 'tone' of my email (formal and polite and acknowledging the excellence of his historical research while demonstrating the points at which he was exposed - the email also referred to my request to Steph to organise a meeting, but that in the absence of this he should consider my communication advisory of my position, not necessarily indicative of the views of the committee).

 I responded to remind her of my request of last Tuesday and to once again ask her to organise a meeting. This morning I had another email threatening to resign, to which I responded with a conciliatory message above my original email - suggesting that perhaps we were suffering from poor communication, and also stressing (as she remains insistent on inviting the author to any such discussion) that as the author  has a demonstrated interest in the outcome of any such deliberations, it is not appropriate to invite him to participate.

Silence ever since.

I went to the hairdresser and had my head shaved - despite being a professional, the job is rather more brutal than the last one, but I can live with it and it will soon grow out. It is astonishing how much it had grown in the nine months or so since it was last done.

Heavy rain this afternoon after a day of humid overcast, but at least Council has mowed that part of the lane that I have yet to get to, so the dog and I can walk with some degree of confidence we will not run into a snake before I spot it.

Update: Had an email from Steph making no reference to whether or not she had received my Tuesday email, but responding to this one with the news that this is not the way we normally do things but that the author wanted to meet with all of us on Thursday.

I responded that this is not a normal situation and that it was essential that we have the opportunity to discuss my concerns in the absence of the interested parties.

Her response - it's all a storm in a teacup.

My response, leaflets about defamation and publishing defamation which I urged her to read - betting she will say she can't download them. I will drop off printed copies to her and to the VP personally in that instance.

Resignation being drafted as we speak.

Having thrown my hands in the air about the book, I took two lovely days off to enjoy myself. A trip to Hobart started with a visit to the University - I am participating in a study to consider the effectiveness of cigarette warnings on smokers (none, in my case I am sorry to say). It involves having a mobile phone on which you record each cigarette and respond to various surveys (all pretty identical as to what you are doing, how you are feeling and so forth. The first day it drove me crazy as it asked these questions every bloody time i had a smoke - as a result its results are not a reflection of my normal habits as its intrusions resulted in me deferring cigarettes to avoid having to fill in the survey, lol.

The reason I signed up was because I thought it would be a good way to focus my consciousness on my smoking instead of letting it be just something I did and in that way would help me to prepare to have the Neurolinguistic programming I keep promising myself. Fortunately it has now become more relaxed and is not insisting I report in at hourly intervals to answer additional questionnaires. This week is establishing the datum, and from next week I will be applying new labels to my cigarette packets to test their effectiveness. That will go for an additional fortnight and then it will all be over.

From there I ran around the northern suburbs stocking up on dog food etc, and had afternoon tea in Bunnings as I couldn't be bothered looking for a cafe with parking and filled in time till it was time to return to Hobart for Divali - which had some interesting dancing and a variety of foods from a diverse range of countries - not much in the way of curry which was disappointing. The Paella was a little out of line, as at least most of the other countries represented presumably have some sort of Hindu presence - but Italy?

Then to Barbara's where no-one was home so I let myself in and settled down to wait for the dog to wake up. Dinner was KFC then to bed.

On Saturday we went to Currency in Lindisfarne which is in the old Commonwealth Bank building and had a poached eggs Benedict which filled me up so much I did not need additional sustenance till dinner time. Picked the dog up and headed home. He smells sweet as he has had a bath, so much so it is a little overwhelming. I can't imagine he enjoys it at all.

Today was the History Room and only two visitors, but I have recruited a new volunteer who can fill in on Mondays while our usual unreliable volunteer is off on sick leave. I took advantage of the peace and quiet to draft my email to the author of the book and have just sent it off to him - basically - what do you hope to achieve? Your aggressive approach is only going to inspire backlash, not a concession that she was wrong. And by the way, here are some serious errors in your own assumptions.

I copied it to Steph as it points out her error in arranging a meeting between him and me before she arranges an Executive meeting, but also points out that it may be she simply confused my request and my discussion paper.

The two days off were a huge relaxation and gave me time to refresh my soul which has been a little bruised by all the drama.

And I have unblocked the toilet which has been playing up a little of late, and flushed out the entire line with a hose down the pipe until everything has gone into the Septic (so many inspection hatches to work out what progress I have made), so now have drains that run freely once more.

I have spent the last two days in a state of anticipation waiting for a response from Steph or her indignant arrival in the history room today, but just received an email from her telling me she has contacted the author who is happy to meet and discuss (so much for being president and getting obedience from the Secretary).

This may be a better result for all of that as I have been considering over the last two days how to deal with the meeting and doing a little more research off my own bat. Basically it's my opinion that I am saving him from making a publicly humiliating mistake as he has assumed the author of the other document was a professional historian (I have since checked this and she is a geologist), which is untrue, and also accounts for her basic rookie errors. Her speciality, on the Council, is mining heritage so her involvement in the listing or re-registration of buildings is zero. His errors of assumption about how the heritage council works, together with his errors of assumption about the effect of heritage listing on property value, together with his demonstrated ignorance of the actual assessment process would make him look very silly indeed if there were a public showdown, so hopefully that argument will silence any bombast.

Personally if i were asked to remove one of the two pubs in the relevant village it would be the first one, not the other as the first one is a dime-a-dozen 1870s version and the other one is a rare 1820s model.

Today being my birthday was spent watching rain pouring down from the History Room. I did complete the 'increase' rows of the sleeve I have been sporadically knitting for some months now. And the dog and I were drenched on our walk on my return. I am packing my stuff together in anticipation of heading off to Barb's tomorrow - I have an appointment at the Uni as I am participating in another study, then a few shops (including Fullers) to visit, and pet food and other such errands before heading to Divali for lots of curry.

So I have emailed Steph - just sent it off, and will now duck waiting for the explosion.

Meanwhile I have spent the day in the History Room where just as I had settled to re-read the book to confirm my first response, was interrupted by a visitor. And another visitor. And a final visitor who stayed long past closing time with the result poor Seb was bursting to go to the toilet when I came home. And then I had to go back to the Hist Soc as I had absent mindedly left my laptop there, with all the draft of my email to Steph and other such things on it.

The first part of my day was spent in a bit of a panic as the copies of the books i had carefully placed behind the counter had disappeared. I found them finally several hours later, in a drawer of the desk where yesterday's volunteer had placed them for safekeeping.

My chat with the former editor this morning confirmed my concerns that we could well be drawn into litigation, particularly if we were the sole outlet for the book, so I am glad I have that additional information to hand for what may well be a fraught meeting (essentially between Steph and me as Charles and Patti will not really come to grips with the issue at all, and Patti may well doze off).

In the middle of this I fielded a phone call from the GM at Council about my proposal of the History Room as a potential venue, pointed out the cost advantages to Council in terms of reducing the 8 staff to one FTE, and the economic advantages to the community by retaining a Visitor Centre.  He indicated he would add it to the list of possible options for Council to consider (one has to wonder why a solution had not been determined before they laid off the staff and closed the VC) and I offered to make a presentation to the next Council meeting. We parted in cordial non-committalness.

So - back at home and jolly hot it is, but only one more day before we return to early Spring weather and the garden is still green.

The day was all they said it would be - simply glorious, and much grass has been cut and Roundup sprayed in the area to be paved which is presently alarmingly green. I hate using the stuff, but it does have its uses and is sometimes they only answer. Also target sprayed are many patches of cocks foot and thistles of various types, and dock.

I have spent the day wrestling with the challenges of the situation at the History Room in between proposing that we host the Visitor Information Centre in the interim, now that Council has come out of the closet and announced they are closing it due to the Mill takeover arrangements. So an email has been sent off the the GM and I have been invited to review a pile of books that Council wanted to off load onto the History Room for want of storage space. I have concluded that the several metres of statutes do not belong with us, but that we would be happy to receive the Tasmanian Annual Report and some smaller items.

Meanwhile I have rung Clive Tilsley at Fullers, whose oldest customer I am (we agreed longest-standing might be a kinder description), to seek his advice as a book seller. While he was reluctant to provide 'advice' per se, he did say he prefers to avoid the sort of situation in which we find ourselves (in other words, don't touch it with a bargepole), so in consultation with today's volunteer I made an executive decision to withdraw it from sale and take down the advertising material. I am on tomorrow which gives me some additional breathing space.

I think I will call an emergency meeting of the Executive to avoid the persons with an 'interest' being part of the  preliminary discussions and then write or email the affected parties - one explaining that it is our view that the book focusses less on historical discourse than on personal attack and this must be removed before we consider selling it, the other letter to the owner of the second building, explaining why we have done this, what alternate options exist for presenting the information and how, following discussion with heritage Tasmania (which I did today also), I can confirm there is no threat to her property in terms of removal from the register (ie it is not on the list of buildings to be assessed for removal).

To the committee I will point out that while the professional historian would more likely launch a legal challenge against the author, the owner of the first building is an unknown quantity and that if she chose to sue us for knowingly disseminating defamatory material whether she could prove her case or not, we would still be liable for costs, which we can not afford.

Gargh! Diplomacy is not my strong point and it is all too much bother. If they choose to vote against my recommendations I am afraid I will have to resign in writing giving my reasons for doing so, which would make me a hostile witness for them and a choice witness for the original parties - not a happy situation since i don't think the original parties have acted with due diligence either.

Oh the joys of presidency. Two years ago a qualified historian published a book about a local building, asserting it was one and the same pub as the one holding a different name - the argument being that it simply changed its name as pubs do. The owner of the other building took umbrage at this as it effectively denied the history of her own building as she understood it, so she commissioned a former journalist to write a rebuttal. We received said rebuttal on Friday and have several posters in our windows proclaiming that we are selling it. The title is somewhat inflammatory but the content is downright defamatory in that it implies shamelessly that the owner of the first building and the historian (of some repute) colluded to retain the heritage listing on that building while the other would fall off the Heritage Register - thus achieving financial gain.

I expressed alarm, having read it, and have been told by Steph that she had a conversation with the author who claimed it was not actionable. My concern is that the History Room might become embroiled in a very nasty fight as the owner of the first building is rather litigious.

Sigh. Fortunately we have a former editor of a Western Australian newspaper in town so I have messaged him for a confidential meeting to seek his views on our position (frankly I don't care about the author who is an arrogant piece of work.

On the plus side, the rebuttal does provide evidence that the professional historian appears to have overlooked some considerably important documents regarding the age and prior existence of a pub in the town which does not meet the description of the one to which she refers, so at least historically it is reasonably accurate, if incoherent.

Friday was a cool day with strong winds and general chilliness, and yesterday dawned with a hard frost, but warmed up to a rather delightful spring day. As a consequence I made a start on reducing fire hazards and also did umpteen loads of washing which have yet to be put away (tonight).

Tomorrow the temperatures will continue to rise (today was somewhat warmer than yesterday), but will remain in the moderate range so more slashing will be done. This trend will peak on Wednesday which is forecast to be 25 so I doubt I will be doing anything energetic then, but we will see how much progress I make.

I did have a rather nice visitor at the History Room today (who I just remembered I failed to note in the book), who has moved into town - his family comes from here a couple of generations back and not much of the family remains here at present (but I gave him an idea of how to get in touch as I know the bloke and he is a good chap). He is a carpenter so I talked him through my plans for the HR which he approved, and he made a couple of sensible suggestions that we can implement if we don't get our grant for the roof. The cottage he bought previously belonged to a hoarder whose three sisters took one look at the contents and piled a lot of it in the back yard and simply set fire to it. He found the burn scar and poked around a bit and discovered undischarged munitions among the debris. I suggested he gets a  metal detector and involves the police in a yard clearance, haha.

And I sorted my way through about half another filing cabinet drawer, archiving most of the contents and adding a few additional labels so that things are easier to find.

As a result of his visit I did not get a chance to go to the Lucky Ewe which is probably a good thing as there is nothing I actually need at this point in time.

Gah! Sorry - busy all the time lately. Not always doing work, but spinning as well. I have two balls each of the first three colours of the jumper and one of the dark brown. Only one more of the dark brown, and two each of the light and mid brown and I can start knitting.

My period of extreme lethargy (wanting to have a nana nap by ten in the morning) seems to have been a subclinical expression of the flu, and is now replaced with a cough, but that seems to be manageable so no worries there.

We are to have a dyeing workshop after Christmas courtesy of the Guild, which will be fun.

I am going to Divali in Hobart on the 20th as my birthday treat, so Seb has been to the vet to be vaccinated ready for his sleepover at the kennels, and Billy is finally putting on weight and feeling more like a cat than a bundle of sticks.

The grass is growing out of control but between History Room, galeforce winds and occasional rain I have not managed to deal with it - it is on the list for Saturday which will apparently be fine and dry and mild winds. Tomorrow will be 12 with 30-45kmh winds, so clearly a non-starter.

I think I will plan a sleepin for tomorrow morning.

The History Room has a new window display - 'A woman's work is never done', featuring our horrible old mechanised washing machine (manual labour involved) and a wringer, some pickings from my button box and lace collection, a clothesline and a bit of patchwork hiding the Mobil flying horse that is permanently attached to the back wall.

It was a rather warm day today (a nice change from yesterday's snow) so I found myself falling asleep in the sunshine, but I did manage to get some spinning done and make nice with the visitors. The last one was less welcome, being he who has taken a fancy to me, but I managed to scoot him out the door and scurry off to the Lucky Ewe. There I spent my two gift vouchers (won at the Campbell Town Show) on a bag of grey fleece, some scouring liquid for washing fleeces and a pot of Landscape Clay dye.

And home to walk the dog, light the fire and heat up yesterday's pizza for dinner.

EMW, thanks for liking our page! I am actually sending invitations to non-page followers if they like a photo or post, so hopefully will be able to build numbers further.

We had the draw for our raffle today and inevitably it was a local who won, so I drove her up to the History Room to make her selection and have brought the rest of the beanies home to avoid others selling them off for half price! haha.

We also received confirmation from Council that our grant for the front windows has been approved - so that's laminated UV resistant windows for us! It will be rather longer before we find out about the larger grant for the roof - I believe they let you know in December.

I have not been sleeping well (I think I need to remove the light blanket again) so have been rather weary, so I hope tonight I get a good night's sleep. Since they are forecasting snow to 300 metres tomorrow a day at home sounds like a good idea. And since it is daylight savings on Saturday night I will need to get some extra zzzzzs in I think.

I stopped en route to the History Room and took a photo of the Mill to be our profile picture on the FB page - the one we had was pixilated low resolution and not terribly well composed. The one we have now has spring blossoms, blue skies and morning sun on sandstone.

The activity on the page has stirred Steph into life and she responded promptly to a post this afternoon - just after I did in fact! So that is good. Perhaps with a better idea of how to interact she will be a good support. Before her posts were inclined to be 'we need this' followed by lots of helpful posts from others and no response from us.

So I seem to have started something there. I also sorted one of our admin drawers today. We have four filing cabinets, three contain some admin files, some history files. I figure we should be able to reduce our admin files to two drawers and free up at least three more for use for our actual history stuff. Today I went through the drawer called Grants and found tourism, financial records, presidents reports, internal consultation, external consultation, visiting curator reports, information about another local museum, proposed display options and floor layouts, oh, and grants information! The grants information largely consisted of multiple copies of 'how to fill in your application' and letters of recommendation in various stages of drafting. So now the grant files are in order of current, acquitted, unsuccessful but we will have another go, and a general background information folder for people filling in grant applications. The old grants are archived. The tourism information is filed or archived if it belongs to a now defunct tourism organisation, and so forth. I have left the survivors in the same drawer pending finding space for them as I go through other admin drawers, and left a note to Steph so she does not panic when she sees what I have done.

Council's heritage officer also called in but was called away before we had a chance to chat - he wants us to hold spare keys to various buildings open to the public but not staffed - it will involve a bit of admin on our part (take and return deposits when the key is returned) but if we don't help Council we can't complain if they don't help us.

And speaking of Council, a councillor has threatened to resign (he needs to think it through) over the Mayor's shenanigans and failure to resign himself. So that will mean a casual vacancy which will be filled by a recount. Not that I will get in, fortunately I am not really ready to take on another full time job until I get the History Room sorted.

And now I am feeling more than a little knackered once more - hopefully I will get a decent sleep tonight.

The application was lodged with three hours to spare - thanks to the sterling efforts of my treasurer who provided three years of figures, and the roving curator who managed to get the letter through to me in time. I had to go into town to collect the figures because apparently email is a mystery to the treasurer, and was about to head out the door when I received a panic-stricken call from today's volunteer because someone wanted to buy a beanie but she didn't know how much they were. I panicked too as the winner of the raffle to be drawn on Friday might choose the same beanie the prospective buyer might want. So I told her to stall them for ten minutes till I got there.

Turns out it was a local expecting a bargain so no sale was made, but in the mean time I photographed them all in case someone accidentally sells one between now and Friday (unlikely as I will be on tomorrow) and I have to knit another to please the raffle winner (tricky if they choose one that I designed myself or which requires wool to be dyed).

My Facebook exploits have gleaned a number of new followers, so we are now over 400. And at least 150 people have seen the new photo, so that's all good - and I have also be liaising with Tasmanian Light Horse to see if they will do a parade in Oatlands. Turns out 11 November is a Saturday this year so that would be good if we can organise it. I have promised them a spinning exhibition, and two local groups have already indicated additional support - woohoo if that one comes off!

Typically, when I am about to release the second last bundle of funds from the house sale, I have woken to spit out a bit of tooth. So a trip to the dentist is being added to the list - I have forgotten to chase one up today, so will have to do it tomorrow. At least it is not tender, and I can track down some dental wax to fill in the gap to avoid sharp edges.

And the 'late showers' arrived at two this afternoon, and became a continual downpour, so I have great hopes of the rain gauge in the morning. Fortunately I had already brought in the one load of washing I had put out earlier on the principle it was so windy it would be mostly dry (and it was!).

And the fire is once again lit - chilly for the second half of today and more chilliness forecast for tomorrow.

Still waiting for the letter of support which was due this afternoon, but it may have been sent to Steph instead of me, and if not, I at least have the phone number to call. Turns out she was ill last week so was unable to do it.

A frosty morning was a good start for our Garden Tour, which happened today. I didn't go as I was on duty at the History Room, but as it started there, I got to meet all the participants. I headed in  at 8:00 am to ensure I had the fire lit, the slices I had taken cut up and on a plate and so forth before people arrived to distract me. They worked well as a team and the feed was  enormous! And that was only morning tea. I have some bits for snacks at home as well.

There were over 30 people milling around the place and Steph kept telling me to talk to them. So I circulated wildly and chatted endlessly and returned to the heater only to be told to talk to them again. This happened three times (and anyone who knows me will know how exhausting all that social chitchat was) when it was drawn to my attention that as President I was expected to make a welcoming speech! OH! So Steph gave me some headings to talk to, and I stood and did my bit which was apparently well received.

I had donated a choice of one beanie as a raffle prize and tickets sold like hot-cakes - in fact we have sold so many we have more than covered the price it would be sold for! And bookings for the tour brought in over $600.00 (which included morning tea and lunches for participants). In all we raised over $700.00, which included sales of leftover food (a stroke of genius at the end of the day).

Once they had been herded out the door, Steph and I did the washing up and removed the tables to their accustomed places then I took control of her phone, logged into her FB page and made myself an admin - so now I have control of the FB page. Pity I am exhausted and have not the energy to do anything other than send requests to all my friends to like the page. Have had a good response on this too, as some of my friends are advisers to politicians and so if they are following the page there is a good chance we can get all manner of perks!

We also talked about building relationships with other community groups and perhaps inviting their members to wine and cheese evenings - I like Steph - she is a hard worker and has good ideas as well as connections into parts of the community from which I am excluded simply because of differing interests.

We also talked through what to do with the rear of the building, and have agreed an extension is a good idea, so we can move the workshop, storage etc out the back and open up the multi-function space for gallery space. So a good day.

Now I am so knackered going to bed at 6 is a very attractive idea, but instead I will force myself to stay awake till nine so I get to sleep through.

well the grant application is all but done. It does not help that our key Letter of Support is to be written by someone who is part time and not available in the remaining days - despite my email to her a couple of weeks ago. Sigh. But fortunately a colleague will be on duty so hopefully I can persuade her to write one for us. She is to ring me tomorrow after 11 but I will be frantically dealing with a crowd of visitors at that time, so here's hoping I get the call.

I dropped down to the rec shed today to check on conditions and found  one sticky table, a sticky countertop and no dishcloths to deal with it. So I appropriated the urn and drove out to Patti's with it, and picked up some cloths on my way back so I could deal with the stickiness.

Then into town to clean the bank between showers, and now I am home in front of the fire.

I had to call Centrelink today as my phone app would not let me do my reporting, but was only on hold for 20 minutes and had a very helpful person on line. How helpful will remain to be seen when I check my bank balance tomorrow, but hopefully she did what she said she would.

There was a party down at the Rec Shed last night that was a little louder than usual - what with fireworks and all. I was a bit worried how those would affect the stallion but he seems to have coped. Some slept over and this morning they were taking pot shots at the hares on the oval - life is never dull in the country. I decided to ignore and just walk the dog in the other direction.

Then into the History Room for a very long day as it turned out. Had a few visitors from Hobart then a bloke pulled up on a push bike and came in an announced he was in the process of buying our two pubs. As far as I am aware, only one of them is for sale, but I humoured him and he settled in for a long yarn. He's the sort of big-talking bush whacker type - currently digging spuds on one of the properties out of town, but (according to him) so loaded he is not only planning to buy half the town, but also a large property out of town that he plans to set up as a Hereford stud apparently. Though later in the conversation about its irrigation systems, the ideas turned to small cropping of root vegetables, garlic and so forth. By the end of the chat he had convinced himself I was deeply enamoured of him, so getting rid of him took some doing without laughing in his face.

You might remember also that I had a talking to from one of our members re the window display and she insisted I talk to the chap who was son of the original proprietor - something I have not bothered to follow up as the display will be going down in a couple of weeks. Anyway, at around 3:15 I spotted him peering in the display window so called out to see what he thought. He came in and gave me a very interesting oral history of the place and I showed him the sources I had used for the bits he did not personally recall (which he accepted). Did you know that Oatlands once had a Nettlefolds outlet? Selling cars to the public! Neither did I.

Anyway, long story short, we then went on to his  career in Council, my own aspirations in the History Room (which he approves - at least to my face) and so forth and by 4:15 I was beginning to think I would never get rid of him. So I pointed out I needed to get the sign in and the flag down which he took as me shoving him out the door. I assured him this was not the case, just me taking precautions no-one else came in and wanted to start 3 hours of research, so he followed me around, still yacking till 4:30 when his wife (god bless her) who had been in the car all along, demanded his presence. Sigh.

Good thing the evenings are staying lighter now or the dog would have been in all sorts of strife. But as it is he has had his walks and I am now contemplating dinner.

I do love Fridays, for all that I don't have a job - time to catch up with myself and spend some time at home doing things I should have done but didn't. Today it was starting to fill in our application for grant funding for our new roof. So many questions - and so many with the same answer required. Again. And difficult ones like how many visitors do we get in a year? I dunno and I doubt anyone else could say either. Going by entry fees is not much help as we have 3 different prices for adults children and family groups. So I just divided the total by 5 (our fee for families) and multiplied by two (at least two family members) and hoped for the best. Since the income was derived over a period when we had entry by donation and frequently had visitors paying one gold coin for the ten visitors, that is pretty unreliable too. I will probably have to count up the numbers in the book on Sunday when I am sitting there with nothing better to do.

But. All my washing is done. I have had a happy day on FB chatting about the former PM getting headbutted outside a bar while we all continue to ignore the death threats made to a 14 year old yes campaigner and now I have lit the fire despite it actually still being relatively warm. Must be the rain in the air.

The stallion has moved in to the paddock nearest the lane, but is a transformed beast since he was taken off a high grain diet. We chat and he pretends to be frightened by the dog.

I will resume grant application filling in a little  later, but first the dog and I must go and re-acquaint ourselves with the stallion.

Yesterday's lazy day was spent sorting out paperwork and generally trying to get organised - so I chased  up some letters of support for our application for funding and drafted one such item for the lazy person who couldn't be bothered doing it for me, and sorted out of a few other things.

Today was the History Room and an early start as some researchers wanted to be in the road by the time we usually open, and wanted to spend a lot of money, so of course, I let them. Two other lots of visitors garnered less money, but did give me a chance to find out where some stuff was located. And the screens that the Community Centre is donating failed to arrive due to lack of spare carrying bodies.

I managed to spin a bobbin of green yarn which was good but the yellow yarn is still rather yellow (stale dye solution I suspect), so I will spin it up and then redye it as there is a limit to how many times you can dye tops before they become a felted mass that is unspinnable.

You can imagine how less than impressed I was when I received an invoice for the visit of the concreter from the shed company, along with an 'overdue' account for the wrong amount. So I have just sent off a response telling them to get their act together as the pads were indeed in the wrong location, and the fact I agreed to redesign to suit their current location is not grounds for billing me. I also reminded them that the amount of the final invoice has yet to be calculated as I will be returning the Extenda-brackets as discussed, at length, with two senior staff members. So they had best get their act together or I will be running complaints on two fronts which is not my idea of fun.

My hopes of getting any washing done tomorrow have been dashed after seeing the wind forecast - seems it would end up at Triabunna if I were to put it out. So I will satisfy myself with a little dyeing instead. I bought some yellow tops today but want to overdye them with some 'wheat' landscape dye at least in patches, to make them a little earthier. I will also have a go at dyeing some grey tops with some red dyes and see what happens to them. I feel the red I present have is a little too bright for what I want to do with it, and the grey over-dyed with green looks fabulous, so the red should work too (I hope).

The day in the History Room was rather slow as only two people arrived and that in the morning, so a long slow day getting a bit of progress on the second sleeve which I can't take too much further as the pattern is in a book that I loaned to someone local and am now chasing. As I am increasing I need to know when to stop - I think I still have a fair way to go, but get nervous if I am unable to refer back to the pattern (or at least the other sleeve which I left at home).

So a fairly relaxing day tomorrow, except for braving the gale when I walk the dog.

A day of sunshine, showers, snow, hail a bit of everything really - must be Spring, though it doesn't feel like it right now. The fire is chugging away and is barred from access by various bodies who object to being moved, even if it is to add wood.

A pot of curried sausages is in the oven and will be served in an hour or so, and there's nothing on telly. Sigh. So I did some spinning, bought some petrol and headed home.

Last night there was a visiting takeaway at the Footy Ground in Oatlands - smoked barbecue burger, and some chicken wings with a dill dipping sauce. The wings went in the fridge for today's lunch, and the burger and  wedges was consumed yesterday - rather tasty way to end the day I have to say.

Seb's registration went overdue due to the failure of council to remind me, so I headed in and obtained his new papers. They have decided to get rid of the plastic tags and go back to metal ones - allegedly 'lifetime' medallions. Since the inscription is embosssed ink I can well imagine they will be blank before too long, but much nicer than plastic. Seb was less than happy with this tinkly thing under his neck so spent a couple of days sitting looking sullen, but seems to have become used to it now. Good thing he's not a cat and needing a bell!

And another chilly blast from down south! Snow to 300m or so they say. I will be staying indoors at any rate.

The vest is officially sold and the cash will be in hand by Sunday (possibly tomorrow if I get impatient to spend it). I have decided to put it toward a set of carding combs so I can play with the new fluff that arrived in the mail yesterday. 

This was from a Seasonal Box offer that has been started up - lovely stuff it was too, albeit not quite enough to make anything useful. But the surprise inclusions (other than the chocolate which was eaten promptly) was a pack of rose fibre which is gloriously lustrous. The little multicoloured pack is English Leicester locks and I have yet to learn to have sufficient control to use them effectively - you let them pop and spring out of the yarn as you spin/ply it apparently.

And I finished the pair of socks I have been working on for some time. Though 'pair' might be optimistic as one is larger than the other. I have sufficient yarn for another pair, so may well do just that. That way I might get two actual pairs, haha.

The problem with being President is that it comes with a whole bunch of bells and whistles that make life difficult - for example actually having to chair a meeting make decisions, attend other meetings as representative for the History Room (which unfortunately is regularly held the evening of the day of our monthly meeting so any reporting back to my lot is a month behind the times and I have a whole day of meetings also (their meetings are not so well chaired and so go on for two hours and then I have to clean the bank).

The positive is that I get to call some of the shots around the place, so most of my proposals were supported by the Committee and (hopefully) I am therefore able to pursue some ideas. Obviously I still have to obtain quotes from two more roofers (I left my note book at home so had no idea what their names were), but I am also considering a layout to provide additional space for storage and conservation activities. Of course I suspect that would all go to custard as the remaining membership do not understand proper conservation approaches and resist all efforts to change (eg someone is still creating and working on documents on the old computer despite my note to please stop doing that). I have narrowed down the most likely suspect and will just drop in for a chat on her day and see if I can change things. I am afraid my approach will be 'the old computer is being put away at the end of the month so if you are haing difficulties I am happy to provide training', rather than, please don't do it.

The shed company, which you may distantly recall were going to replace my concrete pads in the correct position, called today and proposed arriving this afternoon to do the job. I pointed out I was not at home and they assured me they could go ahead without me. I assured them that no they couldn't, so we parted with assurances I would get a call from the bloke who was in the district. Shortly after the weather went to custard, but since that was the arrangement I was becoming concerned by 3:30 and so knocked off early (having fielded only two visitors all day) and shot home, only to find no-one there (which was a relief but annoying at the same time).

The weather has convinced me that wildly fluctuating is the new normal - lovely day yesterday while in meetings all day, today was so warm this morning that I almost forgot to take my jacket with me. Good thing I remembered though as it was jolly chilly by knockoff time and will get worse at the evening progresses.

I took a few measurements for the proposed extension to the building to house conservation area and storage and will transfer the to graph paper tomorrow to take with me when I go chat to Council's person. I am told our original proposal (built to the boundary) met with resistance from the neighbours. This one is the standard 2 metre offset, so while it will still be a discretionary application because of our zoning, will make that objection redundant. the fact we have a new neighbour now does not mean they too will not have problems with such an arrangement (though since its alongside their driveway and would be a vast improvement on the dilapidated industrial fencing I struggle to understand their problem, but will get no further with questioning the volunteers as they don't grasp these matters sadly. The two meter strip can be planted up with something hedgey to shelter the side of the extension (which would be windowless and opening into the interior of the current building).

Once i have something worked up I can take it to the next meeting for pre-approval as the subject of some future grant application (I have found that grants tend to have very short lead times so getting something like that sorted in the usual period would be unduly optimistic).

After yesterday's exertions I am hoping for a lazy day tomorrow but suspect I will either be going to Kempton to look at plans for the new pool, or heading to Oatlands to chat about conservation matters.

It was snowing when I woke up this morning - and snowed again this afternoon (well, it was mainly fine hail, but some of it was snow) and it snowed again a couple of nights ago - all very odd weather as in between the blizzards and freezes, it is mild and sunny. I guess it will sort itself out in due course, and better than the weather they are getting in America at any rate.

The TasNetworks guy called me and we had a fairly heated exchange with him trying (unsuccessfully) to talk over the top of me. Then he called around and we had a rather more civil exchange. He refused to accept responsibility for the damage to the path due to the pre-existing cracks, but finally settled on giving me a $50.00 Bunnings voucher which will come in very handy. Less success with the pump refund - apparently the warranty is voided as I fitted it myself. I will be disputing this in writing as I clearly stated my intention to do so (in fact that was the basis for choosing that particular pump) at the time of purchase and was not given any cautionary advice at the time (amazing the loopholes in consumer law - that makes it unfit for purpose).

And we have had a quote for the roof at the History Room, so am waiting for that to arrive (hopefully ahead of Monday's meeting).

The inclement weather has made a rather large hole in the seriously diminished wood heap, but the other night I saved a lot of wood as it took me four hours to get the blooming fire going. By the time it was burning freely it was bed time so I just went to bed. Fortunately that was one of the days when it had been temperate (though was freezing overnight) and so the house was not below 12 degrees by bedtime. Since the thermometer on the phone tells me I rarely get above 16 in the loungeroom (to my great surprise as it feels quite comfortable), this was not a great hardship.

Nearly time for QI so bye for now!!

Yesterday was sunny but rather windy - for all that i did several loads of washing, and despite having to regularly remove it from the ground and put it back on the line, it was all dry and still intact by bedtime. And after minus four on Thursday night, last night's two degrees was rather mild.

Today was spinning and we had a room full as we were invaded by various Guild members from Hobart. The President arrived with various boxes of tricks and gave us all one-on-one blending lessions, so I have now a large batt of blended fibre to spin, in addition to the six other methods we tried which are already spun. So it was using the cards, faux rolags, drum carder and so forth and all good fun. I am instructed I must use the yarn I produce to knit a mini-shawl (it will be very mini as there is only about 40 grams of yarn) to display on their stand at the Royal next month. I will also be lending them various knitted garments for the purpose.

After such a full day the idea of cleaning the bank did not appeal so I headed home and have lit the fire, for no apparent reason, but I expect I will appreciate it later.

Three days of fending off freezing weather and other such fun. Yesterday was fortunately sunny so some washing was done, and today was mainly sunny so I spent my day at the History Room moving between the sunny spot and the woodheater depending on the presence or otherwise of clouds.

The highlight of the day was chasing a kamikazi sparrow around the building as it knocked itself silly against windows and skylights, but still managed to dart behind bits of furniture when I approached to throw a tea towel over it. It is now in the office with the door shut so will hopefully be a little more amenable when tomorrow's volunteers arrive.

Apart from that, not much to report and I am tired after all the exertion! haha

Centrelink appears to have finally transferred all reporting to the MyGov website, with the result i was unable to report in today. Fortunately they also have an on-phone app that still permits such things. The problem with MyGov is that it has my old phone number and my numerous attempts to remedy that situation have failed to gain any sort of response from them (thanks Mal). Still, problem solved and on I go.

Today is glorious sunshine with a light breeze so some washing is happening at present. Also the fire is lit as it is also rather chilly for all the sunshine. The new pump and relocation of the sensor seems to have resolved the frozen pipe situation which is a nice bonus - so a hot shower was still possible despite last night's ice. The promised snow failed to eventuate once again which means we will probably get through this entire winter without a good dump - not sure what that means in terms of soil health, but i am not happy about it at all.

Still pottering around on the History Room's computer (which seems to have goodness knows how many generations of software on it) and have now upgraded all the relevant documents to the software that is on the replacement computer. I suspect that the old computer would be good for rather longer than has been the case if all that old rubbish was deleted, but I am not game enough to do that when is is someone else's material.

Opening, re-saving and adjusting minor formatting issues occupied much of yesterday, and will no doubt keep me off the streets again on Tuesday.

Meanwhile I have phonecalls to make to chase up quotes for our new insulated roof.

A happy day interfering at the History Room. I took my computer in to transfer the contents of the overstuffed computer into it. It took four hours to download one folder, so it may take some time to complete the task! My computer is running XP, but one of the reasons the download took so long is because the folder (also containing documents, excel files, photographs etc) contained the Windows 6 Operating system. I have offered to install that instead  but will check with others first to see if this is a good idea. The XP is an oldy but a goody and compatible with most software that we are likely to be using.

I had one visitor whose companion spent most of her time in our loo. I suggested she see the medical centre as there is a flu going round, but she wanted to tough it out, so I directed them to the pharmacy.

Two other visitors and I was off home - to write a letter of support for the grant application of another group (who plan to establish a 'community' website with a page for each of the various organisations - an eminently sensible idea as it will save us  having to pay for a service provider).

And now the fire is lit and it is heading toward the end of another day.

The trip to Hobart was slowed by the rain and greasy surfaces on the back roads. Fortunately I had few followers, and those that did turn up, did so at points were I was able to pull over and let them pass. The log truck on my side of the road added a few moments of excitement though!

The ultrasound suggests a lipoma as expected - I will make an appointment for a follow up consultation though. The man got quite excited as I could not get him to grasp that the fact I had only noticed it two weeks ago did not mean it had grown that large in two weeks. Living from the neck up means that most of what happens to my body is left to itself unless it impedes normal activity and medical folk assume we pay attention 24/7 apparently.

Our mayor made an apology at the Council meeting today. Television crews were present but were not permitted to have sound on, so we will have to wait till the mayor provides a copy of the text to the  local newspaper. I did notice that our Uniting Church minister was present and sitting immediately behind the mayor's right shoulder, so I guess we know who wrote (or at least inspired) the apology.

The rest of the trip was fairly succesful but i seem to have a fight on my hands regarding a refund on the pump. They seemed to feel it was significant that I had installed it myself (like fitting a unit between two widgets and tightening them is rocket science), so I am awaiting a call from their customer service unit. If that is unsuccessful I will refer it to the Fair Trading as I have a good case for all their weaselling.

The rain appears to have eased now, so it should be a nice sunny day tomorrow.

I  have spent the morning delving into a drawer in the History Room that I had previously ignored as being documents relevant only to members of the Executive. It is utterly chaotic, but I found two files of interest - the first being the saga of how we came to own the building, who owns it and who holds the mortgage - Council. So at least I now have a clearer idea of the commitments to which we are held. I also found other financial documents and useful stuff but when I tried to redraft them on the computer I discovered that the drive is full and it is impossible to save anything. Sigh. So my priority now is to clear out my home desk top and take it in. Transfer the contents of the office computer onto mine (which has considerably greater storage, and working out how much some external discs would cost so that we can store the photographs off the main computer as I suspect it is they which are occupying the space. Unfortunately the setup of the office computer seems to be missing some vital links so I can work out what its present storage capacity is and how to defrag it.

Once that's done, then the database of our inventory can go onto the main computer instead of the external drive it is presently stored on, and we can be a bit better organised. Steph called in during the afternoon as her son was going to drop off an item of furniture for us, but he failed to turn up so we just stood around and gossiped. It turns out that there is a majority of Councillors who want Bisdee gone, but they are not acting on this. I suspect this is so they can keep going to the point where it will not be necessary to recruit a new councillor (not sure who is next on the list, but suspect it is one they don't want) and they can get rid of him without any problems. Alternately they may have a deal with him to serve out his term but not run again - not a deal I would rely on personally.

So having solved the problems of the world (or at least the district) I headed home and am now contemplating dinner.

It was sunny today! Astonishing! So the rest of the washing that didn't make it into the machine on Saturday was finished. Now all I have to do is put it away.

The second round of using just hot water and a cloth at the bank has been more successful but the two damp cloths are now hanging in my cupboard where they will doubtless remain damp and unloved till I go back on Wednesday. It will be needing rather more than the four I have to keep up with the routine they have in mind I suspect as damp cloths in the cupboard in summer will start to smell. And how, might I ask, is one supposed to keep a toilet clean with that sort of limitation?

I did a few Trove searches to find articles about movie houses in the district and have saved some to print out tomorrow when hopefully I will manage to get the window display sorted. I am hoping it will be another nice day to stir me along!

Another sunny day in the History Room with one couple coming in to do family history research and who spent rather a large amount of money doing so. She was a pest with a butterfly mind that had her talking about the next three items on her list while i was still looking for her first request. He wandered off to look at the museum and sent her off when he got back. So he and I had a good chat about managing volunteers and the difficulties of recruiting younger and more useful ones, as well as security and the pros and cons of security cameras.

They shuffled off and I sat in solitary splendour till three when Joan popped in for a visit. We discussed her health issues, the pros and cons of frozen dinners, the effect of salt on one's water retention and then she wandered off to leave me to shut up shop.

I am eating pizza for dinner - one of the fresh ones from the local shop.

After yesterday's icy blast, today's sunshine was a surprise. Still freezing, still breezy, but at least sunny, so the washing went out and is now largely dry.

I had a call from my employers late last week to tell me that CBA has decided to go chemical free and that we must in future achieve all cleanliness with the application of plain hot water and a microfibre cloth. The problem with this instruction is that the cloths currently use are already soaked in chemicals as I have used them several times. It also results in smears on the glass. To address this today I used one of their teatowels, which is also now clean and dry and ready to be returned to them. I have worked out an alternate strategy for Monday but there are obvious flaws in this approach. I will address them in an email to my employers after I have had another go on Monday night.

Spotted Brad at the Supreme Court Building today and called in for a chat about a closer working relationship between his heritage team and the History Room to which I gained general in principle agreement. I will have to pursue it with them once I have a clearer idea of our needs and assets. He also passed on the news that my former Boss at Heritage Tasmania has suffered an aneurysm of the brain. While it is not something I would wish on my worst enemy, if it did have to happen it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. The only mystery is that he had a brain to be affected.

sigh. I managed to label the boxes and shelves that we sorted the other day, but otherwise got not terribly far today as the breakfast wrap I bought reduced me to the loo for some time, and recovery afterward. Between all this I had visits from various committee members either checking up on me or wanting to talk about things of concern that have not been progressed in the past. So I now have to write to Council and give them a rev up about a few things they have been going to do but have not.

Ron, our 80++ handyman called in also to discuss his present work in progress and we resolved that particular problem so he went off happy. I dropped his lawnmower into the Servo as he has complained it is hard to start with the pull cord. I suspect it is Ron who is failing rather than the lawn mower but I have asked the servo to have a look and if not something they can improve, then to suggest alternatives (second hand flymo for example). I will call back later in the week to find out what they have come up with.

Well done George Brandis - pity the Speaker did not throw her out for a breach of Parliamentary rules.

A bit blooming chilly here today - cold winds off higher snow I think. The sun was out, but it was the wind that won. As a consequence I remained indoors, venturing out only to seek some lunch and go to the chemist for some Senega and Ammonia (the local shop having apparently decided to no longer stock it).

Not a single thing done, not even a scrap. Though I am involved in a long debate about the date of Australia Day on a FB group dedicated to the over-sixties who have apparently got very conservative views and a fundamentally flawed understanding of Australian History.

My first act as President has been to go through several shelves of crap and throw out two wheely bins full. I mean, how many past-used by empty folders and picture frames do we need? In self-protection I had Steph on board and working with me. I also contacted DPI and managed to convince them they needed the discarded office documents from Graeme's office (in fact they were a bit peeved they did not already have it). Having said that, we have appropriated a large number of rubber stamps with the names of local towns and/or properties on them, and some various 1080 poison laid documents. There were so many I doubt DPI will notice!

We found three boxes containing some pretty valuable stuff that has yet to be accessioned, and some that has, but has never gone anywhere since then. We now have sufficient space to move stuff from the other side of the room onto those empty shelves as we sort through that lot. Some stuff, the material from Graeme's house, has been set aside as it is clearly of some value but apparently he and his sister had no close relatives, so finding a home for it is problematic. It seems he had a girlfriend (sneaky bugger) but she refused things when the house was cleared out. But I suspect she will want the charm bracelet if found inscribed with both their names.

So I am now exhausted and planning an early night.

Hooohooo - naughty Barnaby! It will be interesting to see how the High Court views this one!

The AGM of the Oatlands District Historical Society was held today. I attended to avoid being nominated for positions on the Committee, but came out as President for all that. Oh well. There are worse fates and I get along with most of them. We are at least agreed that there is a need to make a job list to guide our grant application process, so that is something.

Other than that, I got home to discover psycho-neighbour carrying out a not-so-controlled burn in her back yard. Fortunately the relatively strong breezes were blowing away from my place, but for all that I spotted her frantically throwing water onto my side of the fence. I remained indoors with the fire brigade on speed dial, haha.

Tomorrow at the History Room Steph and I will be sorting through the contents of the shelves out the back and getting rid of superfluous stuff, inherited from Graham and the contents of which are unknown to anyone and unlikely to be of interest (he was DPI officer here for years and we seem to have inherited the contents of his office. This will clear off some shelf space and allow us breathing space to sort the remaining boxes. Two large plastic bins of Christmas decorations seems excessive, for example, when our window display area is fairly small.

So, all good here at present.

The rain produced the grand total of 8 mm which is not terribly impressive, and the hot water remains hot. So that's all good.
Today in the History Room I had a lovely elegant old woman and her country grandson from Yass (the grandson, that is, she is from Launceston). Keen spinner on her part, and keen wool producer on his part - a marriage made in heaven. She was wanting a fleece to blend with the merino the grandson produces, but corriedale is not in stock in Oatlands - too early for this shearing too late for that last one.

Then came a party of 12 people who had had a family get together to clear around graves in a cemetery in Jericho. Two stayed on to do some family research and have a chat. As a consequence I dropped several stitches and had to unpick several rows of the sock before resuming. For all that it is now almost 3 inches long, so not all is lost.

A mild night forecast for tonight, but it is jolly chilly right now so I have stirred up the fire and settled in for some tagine and couscous for dinner.

The wild winds that have been wreaking havoc up north (and in Hobart, apparently) have mainly passed us by - though we have had some strong gusts, we have also had prolonged periods of calm. And the rain, though persistent, has not been all that productive. Last time I waded down to the gauge it was at about 5mm, so nothing to get excited about.

Despite this there have been sunny patches and the pump seems to be doing its job. The water was hot enough this morning that I needed to add cold water to the shower (unheard of!) and so presumably everything is behaving as it should. And last night was cold enough to trigger the frost cycle from time to time. It will get more practice tonight though as it is supposed to be minus 3!

It also seems to take less time to get hot water to the kitchen for some odd reason, but i am not complaining.

As a consequence of the weather, not much happened here other than getting the casserole cooked. It is still cooking as the potatoes seem to be heading to mush and so will provide thickening of the sauce, so I am letting them go - I will pick out the skins before eating as they will be a rather odd addition otherwise.

So all is well here, if somewhat lazy!

Gawd, still hyperventilating from the plumber's bill, but an extra hour's work plus a new pump soon adds up. Hopefully I now have a fully functioning hot water system. If not it will be cheaper to buy a new all electric one that to have that guy back! Oh well, hot water reliably delivered via Mr Sun will hopefully claw back the costs given the increases in electricity prices.

I had hoped to have a casserole on by now, but that was not dealt with due to the ongoing presence of a plumber who talks as he works (and runs around like a headless hen to reduce time costs, to be fair), but that did not happen, so instead of leaving bank cleaning till tomorrow I will go in and collect something for dinner en route.

And spend tomorrow revelling in a functional hot water system and cooking casseroles.

 Despite the relatively mild weather of late, the fire has been lit every evening at least. The dog and the cat have taken to relaxing in front of it (when Seb is not comfortably curled up on my bed). He has found he needs a pillow for comfort and Smidgen is apparently happy to oblige. Billy, on the other hand, tends to attach himself limpet like to my lap and give them both the evil eye.

 This is the new Jumbo Flyer I bought - it came with four bobbins so plenty of spools to fill. The remnants of the previous owner's spinning have been discarded as I could not work out what she was trying to achieve.

 Here is the infamous vest - such a pity it does not fit. Oh well.

And this is sock one of two - the other is on the needles with a cuff and about six rows of knitting done. It is a simple six stitch repeat - K1, K2tog, YO, K1, YO, K2togTBL, and repeat. Alternate rows are knit. But all the YO and K2tog one way or another really slows down progress. I expect I will persist until I have more yarn spun so I can try making another vest - one that actually fits.

Today in the History Room saw two pairs of visitors plus my hypochondriac jolly chap who keeps me updated with his diary dates and health issues as he researches madly while failing to make a donation. I planned to mention it today but his wife turned up with four books for us to sell (four dollars worth in total) so it seemed churlish - I will speak up next time.

Steph came in and we discussed the need to tidy up some of the displays - she will come in next Tuesday and we will have a go at one bay, thinning out, making it more coherent, considering interpretive signage etc.

The vest is finished (well, I have concluded I will need to blanket stitch the edges of the steeks to avoid bitty edges), and is at least two sizes too big for me. Bother. I have a male friend who already expressed interest, but he only knows his size in mens sizing and I only know sizes in women's sizing so it is all too confusing - he will call in next time he is passing and may buy it.

Meanwhile I went a little silly with spinning stuff and ordered a second hand jumbo flyer which arrived on Tuesday and has been installed on the Traditional Wheel in the History Room. I think I will uninstall it and put it in a box for use when I want to spin thicker or Art Yarn. I thought they had multiple whorl sizes, but apparently not. How annoying. It does however have a large orifice so ideal for when I want to push through trinkets and baubles.

On the home front some washing was achieved today, the plumber will be coming up on Friday and yes, I still have hot water, it is just supplied by the electricity, not the sun.

A rather brittle start to the day with the hoarfrost extending to almost a centimetre from the stems of the grass. And of course no water. Oh well.

So it was off to the History Room where I failed to make any proogress on the knitting as I had not brought the colours I needed. So I dug out the sock I started some time ago and made several inches of progress on that instead. One more inch to go before I start shaping the toe.

The sock was stalled because I had lost the fourth double pointed needle. I found it the other day while walking the dog - lying on the grass down on the oval. Apparently I had shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans one day and it had fallen out while removing poo bags. Still, at least I found it!

And home to find the valuer general had been to call to check out my new shed. I rang them to remind them that it is replacing a previous shed and will send them an email with the photo of the old shed as proof. Hopefully the rates won't go up!

The plumber emerged from his stupor this afternoon and phone me - missing me as i was out walking the dog. After further dark mutterings about costs and charges I finally got him to admit he was talking about $300.00 which seems a pretty cheap solution to a problem that has dogged me since the thing was installed. So he is now watching the weather and planning a trip that involves sunshine coinciding with my presence. It turns out the senser is in the wrong part of the tank - should be 1/4 of the way up from the bottom, but is 1/4 of the way from the top. So after further efforts on his part to avoid coming i pointed out that since that was a problem, it was possible other problems existed in the installation and having him come up could avoid this sort of thing at two yearly intervals. Finally got him to agree - I have to assume he hates the country!

It was a lovely sunny day so the woolley jumper that has been loitering in the shed for a couple of days, trying to get dry was draped over the clothesline and I decided to go for a drive. I have been longing for a pot roast for some weeks now, but the local shop has not been ordering any in and I was unsuccessful at Cove Hill. So a trip to Campbell Town was in order to the butcher there who does what you ask him to do if he has the stock in the fridge. Since I was there I called into Zeps for lunch and dined on salt and pepper squid with Thai salad in the sunshine in the park. Then off to the butcher for my roast (a fine looking beast) and a stop at Ross to check out what was on at the Wool Centre (still no decent fleeces - the same tender ones I rejected last time with increasing piles of rejected samples on top. You'd think they would have a better try!)

Then I took the turn off to York Plains and wandered home via back roads (which are in excellent condition at present) through wintry countryside. All very nice.

Home and dog walked it will be off to the bank in a short while, via a friend's place to drop off some knitting patterns.

The day did not start well as the hot water system has once again broken. The pump is not operating and so yesterday I had superheated steam entering the pipes and last night was the steady clunk clunk clunk of pipes slowly chilling. I rang the plumber (the Apricus specialist plumber) who entered into his usual moan about not wanting to come all the way to Parattah only to find he wasn't going to get paid (so insulting!) and perhaps if I had bought a pump from him it would be heat rated. So I sent him photos of the manual for the existing pump (German made, heat rated) and have not heard from him since. I will chase him up tomorrow. Turns out the pump is 6 months out of warranty, but I have read up on the Consumer Law and will be demanding a refund in full as it is not 'fit for purpose' in that it should last more than 2.5 years in ordinary use.

That sorted, I headed into the History Room and spent an entire day alone. As a result I have all but finished one arm hole of the vest and should be casting off tonight.

Our Mayor had his day in court today, finally - he has been dodging and weaving for some months now, and it turns out this is because he has been trying to talk Council into paying legal fees to dispute the charges. As it is, he pleaded guilty and was given a minor fine and a suspended license. No doubt many a user of the Midlands Highway will be watching closely to spot him driving during that time. Meanwhile we will have to watch Council like hawks to ensure he does not demand a driver and vehicle at ratepayers' expense - if he does I for one will be making complaint to the Local Government Association.

Yesterday was cold and miserable, so the less said the better really. I did manage to get in and clean the bank, drop off some garbage at the Tip and visit Jenny at her latest new home. It's an interesting building - the ground floor was once part of a long 1940s timber bungalow that was remodelled into two separate dwellings with a very small footprint but an upstairs attic space. It has been on the market for several years, and I am hoping she did not pay the asking price, but it is still a lovely place - the galley kitchen upstairs has views to the lake, and the downstairs kitchen is more compact, but it works well as one or two houses and is presently being used as one. Basically downstairs is being kept for day to day use and upstairs (which has excellent head height) for crafting and spare bedrooms. The back yard is a lot deeper than you first imagine and has been done rather well - they have excavated down to bedrock and mounded soil around the resulting hole. The mounds are planted thickly with silver birches and lavender. This is in the centre of a turning circle and flanked by outbuildings on three sides - it will be lovely in summer. It backs onto public open space, so is rather nice altogether!

Today at the History Room my morning was interrupted by my only visitors of the day, and so the rest of my time was spent finishing the neck band for the vest. Two arm openings to go and some sewing back of various bits and I will have a new garment!