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!

I think there is a very good chance the foal is no longer with us. Today when I got home from Hobart they had the mare out of the stall, applying a rug. She was calmly eating from a bin of feed and not even slightly concerned her foal was nowhere in sight. The door to the stall was open. So sad.

The trip to Hobart was successful with all errands completed, no lottery wins but at least I have cat food again.

A lovely day - the strong winds forecast failed to materialise, so it was a good drive down and back.

Tomorrow will be tip run, and possibly some washing depending on what the weather does.

Last night, (apparently doing horsey stuff after dark is the latest trend), there were screams from the stallion, the mare and a younger horse. I assumed they had brought home the mare and last year's foal with a view to separating them one from the other (they having established a very strong bond). But no. According to gossip from Joan at the History Room a new foal has been born to the mare. God knows what they were doing last night, but whatever it was involved the mare being out of the stall and near my fence, the foal being alone in the stall and the stallion objecting strongly to being unable to protect either.
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I confirmed the gossip by driving by the paddock where the mare and her last year's foal had been paddocked since the foal was a week old and sure enough, that yearling is now paddocked with the younger filly who has till recently been paddocked with the stallion. She is still showing signs of agitation but is otherwise fine.

This year's foal was apparently struggling to stand and suckle and last year's foal was doing her best to prevent that from happening (she has been suckling up till at least 4 months ago). So presumably I have a mare and foal in the stall next door and goodness knows that barbaric things they are trying to do to it. Sigh.

The day in the History Room was leavened by a visit from the travelling curator provided by Arts Council. We had a good long talk about establishing a 'direction' for what we are doing and clearer roles for the individual volunteers - all of which I am fully in support of, but goodness knows how the older volunteers will react. She will write to us confirming our conversation. I have also asked for recommendations for software to use for acquisitions and photos. Our present register is in Excel which works well, but heaven help us if someone does a sort in one single column and gets the details reorganised and chaotic. Since Steph is the only one using it at present that is unlikely, but better to be safe than sorry - anything that will import our present dataset would be useful.

Frozen water this morning but a lovely sunny morning - it clouded over later and looked like snow, but that seems to have blown away and we are only expecting 2 tonight (compare with last night of minus 3.7).

So the fire is on, the chicken soup is about to be reheated and I am girding my loins for a trip to Hobart tomorrow as I have deferred it so long I have run out of prescription cat food (so am feeding roo meat at present as that does no harm, short term).

Today in the History Room I was in splendid solitude all day which was a good thing as I had steeks to cut, and document the cutting so I could post a mini-tutorial on the spinning FB page, which I have now done.

It was all a bit tortuous crocheting chains down either side mainly because my spinning and plying is not all it could be and the yarn would separate at inconvenient moments. Nevertheless I managed it and have now got something that looks a lot more like a vest and to which I only have to add the bands - I am even two thirds of the way through casting on the neck band, albeit having failed to collect sufficient stitches en route (only by four out of 66, so not really an issue - I will pick them up on the next round.

The shoulders are now joined as you can see, and it is starting to look like the real thing - with bands on and a good wash it will look pretty flash even if I do say so myself.















The neighbours have finally had the sense to remove the filly from the stallion's paddock, and while he is less than impressed, at least she may yet be 'empty' as I noticed him having a sniff at her the other day as if she was, perhaps cycling still. Phew. I wonder what they will bring back with them from their journey into town?

I have given up predicting what I might get up to in the following days, as it never seems to work out that way anyway and I then feel I have not done enough. So, suffice to say tonight's dinner will be the meaty chicken and barley soup I made yesterday (accompanied by toast made on the fire due to the toaster being missing in action still.

Phew, end of another day in the History Room but only two visitors - both popping in for a gossip, so a bit pointless really, though pleasant.

I finished the vest body and have cut the first steek - not as terrifying as i had anticipated. I crocheted a chain down each side on the second stitch in, putting a loop into each stitch as I went. Then cut. Not so terrifying after all. Now to join that shoulder together and move on to the next steek (the neck) and repeat the process before heading over to the last steek at the second armhole.

In case you are wondering, the carpet belongs in the History Room. Both un-cut steeks are shown in the photo if you look closely - one is marked at the base with a pink pin (the centre stitch of the v-neck) the other is to the left and has a larger stitch holder at the bottom.

Meanwhile Seb has been having a really hard time of it lately as you can see from the pics below - first he has had to find a spare pillow and then he has had to sit by and watch me eat something delicious - it's a hard life.

Dull greyness returned to the fore today. I have been looking into this draft legislation for the purposes of acquiring land on Mt Wellington to allow access to the land (public parkland, readily accessible) for the purpose of preparing a development application by a private individual. The 'tests' proposed for the purpose of the evaluation appear to be fairly intrusive - I understand that the last formal interface between the proponent and Hobart City Council (the owners of the land) was in 2014 and since that time they have been lobbying Government to do this for them.

A brief overview of the Acts Interpretation Act 1933 and the Land Acquisition Act 1993 suggests that this is a gross overreach of Government powers and therefore an invalid act. It also requires the approval of the Governor - a Liberal Party appointee. I will look into it further and be drafting a response! Grrrrr.

Clearly the project is far from 'shovel ready' and this haste is unseemly.

The corned beef hash was not as successful as I had hope it would be, though certainly filling. I will revisit it tomorrow night and see how it improves with age.

Well that was a shock! The fog failed to materialise so we have spent the entire day blinking in bright sunlight! Naturally this kicked the laundry into gear and I now have enough clean clothes to keep me going for a bit longer. I also managed to ply, wash and wind the extra yarn required to finish off the vest - I hope it's enough. The grey certainly is, but not too sure about the white as I got lazy in the subzero conditions at the History Room. Never mind, plenty more were that came from I guess.

Sitting in front of the woodheater counting chilblains seems to be the way I will be spending the evening. The ones on my toes will be immersed in hot water before being laved with ointment - the ones on my fingers are a little more resistant to treatment, so I will ignore them

The deferred snow has still failed to materialise which is surprising given today's max was four and it was raining a fair bit of the day. So much so I gave up on the History Room at two and hurried home to light the fire.

Last night's dinner was corned beef. I followed a slow-cooker recipe that involved malt vinegar, but had to top up the malt vinegar with apple cider vinegar due to lack of supplies. The result was a lot closer to the canned variety than any previous effort - I may make corned beef hash with some of the left-overs. Meanwhile, tonight's serving will involve some slices reheated in the juices and vegetable mash that remains in the pot.

I am having a debate with a school friend who recalls watching the moon landing at home, while I recall being herded into the School Hall to watch it.  As we had our own telly I can not see why that would be - my parents were the sort who would have ensured we watched it live if the opportunity arose.

The fire is working well, fortunately, and I have discovered that running the upright heater in the kitchen for an hour or so warms up the neighbouring air sufficiently to avoid the cold drafts - and thus makes life rather more comfortable. Once the architraves are fitted and painted around the kitchen windows I will be installing some timber venetians that will have considerable thermal benefit, heat and cold wise. I live in hope, lol

Not much happending here - grey miserable weather that totally disincentivises me. I am in a confused state as I can not decide whether to head to Hobart tomorrow or Friday - tomorrow, the 'snow to 400m' has been revised to 'snow to 900 metres' and on Friday there is a forecast of fog and rain - neither is particularly encouraging I have to say. And I have yet to work out why I am going down (well, cat food, dog food, toilet paper - the usual stuff - but what else do I have to do?).

Meanwhile I am reeling from the latest debacle in the Greens - such silly errors! Surely if you were born overseas you would check?! I have to wonder how many others are warming seats in Parliament that they are not entitled to, but not caring to draw attention to themselves right now.

I'm fairly sure the sun was up today, but it certainly was nowhere in sight. So a day huddled over the woodheater in the History Room and a long day it was. Until 3:30 of course, when several people decided to pop in for a chat, to show their friends around, to generally stuff about. Sigh. I did more knitting to pass the time, between heating up soup for lunch which was really very neccessary.

Not sure what it got up to, but the 'feels like' hovered around zero all day - usually on the negative side of the mark! It still feels ridiculously cold, but I am informed we will remain above zero overnight - it's very confusing.

It will apparently rain for most of tomorrow (though I won't hold my breath on that one) so no sunshine to be had tomorrow either. At least, being home all day, I will have a warm house as I will be able to keep the heater going.

Converting to the summer quilt has had a positive effect on bedtime temperatures at least, so that's all good.

Apart from getting the sheets washed and dried and the bed re-made, and cleaning the bank and bringing in some wood, not much was done today - I also washed the winter quilt and replaced it with the summer quilt, now recovered from the History Room window.

A lovely sunny day, with a breeze helped it all happen.

Last night was about 8 degrees warmer than the previous nights have been (or tonight will be for that matter) and as a consequence I was hot - so hot. And got next to no sleep. Woke at 2:30 and so on it went. As a consequence I was still in bed at nine which surprised me as i would have expected the dog to be desperate to go out before then. Still, we sorted that out and I had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the tip and getting rid of a the accumulated packing from the machine. Then visited a few people and headed home to get some wood in for tonight (minus degrees once more). With the fire chugging away I am looking forward to my bangers and mash, and will be off to bed once again.

Devastated by the news Scott Ludlam has resigned. When we know all too many serving politicians are bald-facedly serving in Parliament without addressing such legal niceties (and actively obstructing access to proof of their behaviour) it demonstrates the high standards of personal integrity that have been a hallmark of his service. I can but hope he sorts it out and stands for re-election at the next election.

Another day in the History Room - this time dressing the window. As a consequence the Ute is full of all the materials used in the last window - to be sorted and rehomed tomorrow when I am more in the mood. The new window uses various photos, a chart of plane silhouettes from WWII, a paper kite and some paper planes as well as a page of my Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia showing how to make a model aeroplane (1950s style).

A group of five wandered through en masse and were followed by two women researching family history. Both were generous which made it all worth while.

Apart from that, I have some bangers and mash to make for dinner and then I will be falling into bed.

A fully functional dishwasher was a great start to the day - and I have to say I wonder how much grime I have been consuming when I see how clean it gets things!! Plastic containers come out transparent - I have assumed they were murky because of the grit of the washer soap tablets, but no! And having a half-load option is a great thing especially in summer when filling it up can take a few days and associated smells! (Sorry, have I put you off your dinner?). And the low water consumption is amazing - takes very little time to drain - which at 11.6 litres for a full wash is, I suppose, not that surprising.

Also done was two loads of washing - that which did not dry was taken into town with me as I went to clean the bank, loaded in the drier at the laundromat on a half hour cycle, and collected on the way home.

The various parts for the kite are prepared and will be put together tomorrow at the History Room. I also have the sheets of paper for the paper planes, some photos I printed out and for which I will prepare labels, and so forth.

Apart from frozen taps once again, it has been a fairly productive day, but I will also  be busy tomorrow - not much knitting likely to be done!

Various suggestions from male friends on FB resulted in me spending this evening contorting my body to remove the u-trap, disconnect the hose, drill a hole in the spigot (which is apparently the proper name for the nipple on the side of the u-trap) and reconnect it all. At present the machine is finishing the cycle it stopped in the middle of, and after it has had a rest I will have another go at starting it from scratch and see if it was the machine or my incompetence that made it not work before. There seems to be a lengthy pause between the setting of a cycle and the light illuminating which I may have missed first time around.

Meanwhile Hardly Normal has called and suggested I might like to bring it back for a replacement. I pointed out I had paid for 6 years of them collecting and replacing it for me and also told them I was still working through a trouble-shooting exercise, so would call them tomorrow if I needed further help.

Today in the History Room was surprisingly busy with 8 visitors in total, so well worth going in. Which is a good thing as apparently no-one else has been turning up for their shifts for a week!!

Tomorrow I will print out some photos for the window display, so that on Thursday I can set it up for this month (a little belatedly) and will make a kite and some paper planes as well.

Got to the Mens Shed and cut the timber down the middle (discovering a few warps en route), and it is now lying on the lino in the hope it will help redistribute bubbles. Then hooked up the new dishwasher having installed a bit of skirting along the base of the wall.

That has presented a few problems - firstly the hose clamp required a star-headed driver and of course, no-one has one of those do they! But then I remembered my spanner set has a set of weird things that turned out to include one of these so I fitted this to the ratchet handle and fitted it to the nipple on the side of the u-trap. So far to good, and I put a tablet and rinse aid in the appropriate compartments then tried to make it work. I think there is an electronic problem but other problems were me turning the tap off instead of on, and discovering the nipple thingy actually needs to be drilled out before it works - who knew! So at present it is sitting with a belly full of water that can not drain away. And I have a tummy full of irish stew so am unlikely to contort myself to the extent necessary to remove the hose clamp, drill out the hole and get it working. Meanwhile I have a technician due to phone me tomorrow so I will tell him what has happened so far and ask him to come sort out the electronics (it won't let me select half-wash, the reset buttons do nothing and so forth). So irritating!

A mild night last night but back to minus 3 tonight.

A much more satisfactory day in the History Room today. A family of four who were really very pleasant, and a solo young man who was a bit weird, but interesting lol.

Also an unexpected visit from my friend Barbara and her daughter. They were on their way back from visiting her mum in Ulverstone prior to heading off to SA to visit her son and his wife. So a brief chat but a good one.

And loads of knitting done though still a long way to go. I think I finally have the hang of these steeks and resuming the pattern at the other side, it just requires a bit of concentration.

Tomorrow the Men's Shed is open so I am going to give the Meeting of the Historical Society a miss and go there instead. I have a very long bit of wood I want to cut down the middle to make window sills from, and what with the shed being full of kitchen contents, their table saw is going to be more accessible than mine.

We are actually heading for a plus degrees night tonight, albeit only one, but back to the minuses for the rest of the week!

Collecting myself seems to have occupied more time than anticipated, and together with a trip into Oatlands to clean the bank I didn't make much progress on architraves other than to decide the order in which they should be installed (eg, the one in the laundry needs to go in before I can hook up the washing machine, and the one in the kitchen against the outside wall has to go in before I can install the new dishwasher or I will have created dual jobs. So I cleaned down the sides of the oven exposed by moving it, and pushed the oven back into position (using the little trolley feet I bought at Bunnings last time I was down. These are four separate mini-platforms that go under the corners of the item to be moved, and which roll in one direction only, so need a bit of fiddling but are generally useful as long as you can lift the corner in question - a challenge with the freezer.

Other than that I was sweeping - it is astonishing the amount of stuff that comes into the room from all directions, and moving stuff about and causing more dust does not help. The dog failing to wipe his feet does not help, and some of the 'stuff' has sharp corners so it is important to keep on top of it to avoid damage to the vinyl. Sigh.

It's all good though, and I expect I need this incentive to stay tidy and clean!!

Freezing again this morning and more tonight. And History Room tomorrow so no progress to be had.

Because the lino was rolled in a sausage for a long time, and does not have glue under it, it retains a few bumps and hollows that will go away once it is warm. Since it was minus 3 this morning and overcast all day, that has not yet happened. Tomorrow I will be at home all day (finally!) and so will run the fan heater in the kitchen to warm things up a bit. I will also have to lift the odd heavy item to let the rolls spread out and reach the wall. Other than that, Seb is fascinated by the sound his feet make on it and so spends large amounts of time walking around in circles in there, lifting his feet with care when they hit a high spot and shaking them! The cats are taking it in their stride.

History Room today and a mixed bag of five visitors - two nice, three not so nice. The nice ones stayed too short a time and left me with the one who asked lots of questions then changed the subject as soon as I opened my mouth to respond. The last two arrived at 3:40 as I was just getting up to close up. They wanted to do family research so I explained we would be closing in half and hour but gave them the file. They didn't want to have to pay for photocopies so got their camera out and photographed about 50 pages. Then gave a ten dollar donation under duress. He would ask a question that I would answer, then she would ask the same question. I left them to it and went about shutting up shop around them. At two minutes to four I was herding them to the door where they stopped and asked for directions to the Church yard which I provided, then they started disparaging the quality of information in our folders, so I suggested that if they wanted to see the cemetery they had best be getting along as we were losing light. They agree and made as if to leave then stopped once more for directions to the nearest public toilet, moving back into the building in anticipation of me offering them ours. I usually would be happy to do so, but in this instance directed them to the ones by the side of the Lake. They were still parked outside when I left. Horrible people.

I have however, made much progress on the vest - rounds being somewhat shorter due to decreases, and have only 70 rows or so to go before it is finished. Phew. That is, of course, before I have to cut steeks and pick up stitches for arm and neck bands. I ran out of white just as I finished the row that required it, but am pretty sure I have a spare ball of white around the correct size. Not the creamy white of the Shetland, but near enough and that is the merit of fair isle, as long as you don't change in mid-row it is pretty hard to spot!

Looking forward to a day to collect myself, cut some architraves and fit the door back on the laundry. I will leave the skirting till the lino has settled down a bit. It does show marks, unfortunately but it has inspired me to be busily mopping daily, if not several times a day, so that's not a bad thing. I will have to get a mat for inside the back door to pick up stuff that is brought in from outside by me and the dog. I am thinking cotton crocheted mat I can make myself, if I borrow Jenny's jumbo crochet hook. I certainly have no shortage of cotton strips.

Today was the day the installers were due at 9:30. At ten I called to see how far away they were, and was informed they were 'just leaving' Hobart. So I allocated an hour and a half for them to arrive and popped into Oatlands to put a notice on the door of the History Room saying we were not open today, sigh. I also picked up some sandwiches and a bottle of coffee milk on the principle that food preparation would not be an option while they were working. At eleven I called again and was informed they were five minutes away. They turned up around noon......

Still, at least they were there and worked hard and well installing the vinyl  - though I was a little surprised at the pattern they installed. You will recall I had opted for an off-cut of pale beige crazy paving. And that it certainly is not! But I like it, it is good quality and it is down.

I have always been partial to the diagonal square tiling look, so it is not at all disappointing, if a little darker than I had anticipated. This means the next several days will be involved in installing architraves, trimming the laundry door so it swings, fitting skirting and finally getting around to installing the kitchen once more (after I have done the architrave and installed a sill on the kitchen window). Tomorrow I am in the History Room as is the case on Sunday so it will take a while.

I sent the installers off with a bottle of beer as they worked hard and well and it was not their fault that the useless sales people in their head office give them odd jobs to get done en route that take rather longer than they should. I explained this to the base camp who were prepared to blame the installers. I pointed out that as they are semi-skilled labourers it is probably better if the sales staff take responsibility for ensuring they understand the priorities and not blame the installers.


Anyway, I have a floor. I was surprised to discover they do not glue it down (possibly a good thing since getting all the grease and dirt out of the concrete proved impossible), but simply lay it over the surface. It is the skirting and architraves that hold it in place! Glad I had it taken all the way to the walls and not just to the edge of the cupboards as the sales person suggested.

Another chilly morning, but moderated by the dense fog that burned off by lunchtime with the result I was able to wash (and almost dry) the things that needed doing (after reconnecting the machine, remembering to turn the taps on, remove the stabilisers etc). Otherwise I have been locked in debate with a bunch of angry old men for daring to express sorrow that Yassmin has been driven off shore by the harrassment from the press. I do love showing up their idiocy - I can be mean at times.

Other than that, I got a wee sleep in, have walked the dog, comforted him after he was frightened by the roller blind spontaneously going up and scaring him off the bed, cleaned the bank and achieved absolutely diddly squat.

I spent the rest of the day on line trying to log into Centrelink which was having technical difficulties. I have to wonder, if I had been unable to report due to their problems, if I would have been paid tomorrow. Somehow I doubt they would have given me me the benefit of the doubt. But fortunately they finally sorted themselves out so I shall be able to get the gas bottle filled tomorrow.

The vinyl remains a distant dream - they cancelled due to the forecast of snow to 300 metres. While we did indeed get snow, it would not have been sufficient to impede installation. Still at least I found out before I disconnected the dishwasher.

Meanwhile most of the kitchen is in the loungeroom so preparing a meal involves a fair bit of exercise (herbs and spices in the shed, cutlery in the loungeroom, pots in the garden shed - you get the picture), and this has been compounded by running out of gas, so no stove top cooking till Tuesday.

The vest has passed the point of commencing all three steeks, and the introduction of three openings which interrupt the pattern, combined with reductions either side of all three steeks means that working out where you are in the fair isle pattern can be something of a challenge that involves looking down to the panel below to work out what you are doing. Not sure I like it, but I guess I will get into the rhythm, just have to be in a space where interruptions can be avoided.

The debacle that is the Greens is a serious worry. Fortunately I am not currently a financial member so can distance myself to some extent, but basically there is a set of airy fairy political strategists who want to drag us far too far to the left, Lee Rhiannon is suffering the early stages of alzheimers and can be manipulated by that group and the NSW membership has based their instructions to her was based on a strategic desire to attract Union membership rather than promote Greens policy. So until they get their act together they have lost a supporter I am sorry to say. And no, we have no right wing element, just left and far left, and it is the latter that is causing the unrest.