Sunday was a sodden day in Ross - the river running high and the doors not always as welcoming as they could be. On the other hand, some were startlingly welcoming with one gentleman greeting me as if he had been expecting me and telling me lots of people were talking about me. He did not respond to my jocular 'kindly I hope', but the general trend suggests perhaps it was.
Another door was opened by two holders of Permanent Resident status, still not eligible to vote, but they were nice and offered me a cup of tea so I actually invested a rather longer period with them than was warranted given their non-voting status.
The conversation ranged from tree conservation (urban trees that is) to whether we needed a Christ-led parliament and covered various realms of political philosophy. Since she at least is involved in the SES hopefully she will say nice things about me to people who do vote.
Another was a lady in a dressing gown (at one in the afternoon!) telling me all about her Liberal-leaning son who is on Maitland Council of whom she is exhaustingly proud.

Today I took the day off and only popped into the radio station to discuss recording my ad. Since 30 seconds only provides two paragraphs we have agreed I will do four ads - which will be broadcast in rotation. 30 broadcasts cost $100.00 so that sounds like a jolly good idea. We will also pre-record the 'authorised by' message and just tack it onto the bottom of the other recordings so I don't have to rapidly speed up to gabble that out after speaking at a more measured pace.

Since I have already given away 250 + business cards,  I have ordered another 500 - I have 250 in reserve for tomorrow's activities which will be Campbell Town and possibly the road over to Bicheno, though unlikely to include Bicheno proper.

the last couple of days have been spent on the road. Yesterday I headed to Sorell and Midway Point to have the brakes sorted on the ute, so decided to do a bit of doorknocking, and calling in on local businesses as I travelled down. Doorknocking the entire district will be impossible, so I have concentrated on a few criteria - places where several houses are close enough together to walk the distance between them and do the others on the way back to the ute; places where I spot someone in the yard and it's safe to  pull up, and places that I know have changed hands in the not too distant past so will have new owners who do not necessarily come from Tassie. So far it has worked and I have had positive responses. One I spoke to today became a bit grumpy because he was unable to find my FB page, but whether that was the vagaries of FB or his own incompetence I don't know. He was indignant that Council did not want to know he had fruit trees (his effort toward biosecurity responses) so perhaps I don't need to worry. I see you found me Deb, so apparently it's not that hard if the weather is right!

On the subject of gun law - the top topic in the inland areas I am canvassing at present - there is remarkable consensus with my own view, which is a relief - ie that the law does need to be reviewed, but that the consultation needs to be considerably broader than it has been to date, and that some of the proposed 'solutions' are unacceptable. I have been surprised as I have discussed it with farmers as well as townfolk.

And while we are on the topic, one place I called into where no-one was at home, I ventured into the sunroom since they could not possibly have heard me knocking at the outer door. In the sun room was a gun safe. In the lock of the gun safe was a set of keys! No, I did'nt peek.

Today was soggy - I am doomed to be doorknocking in the rain. Both my jackets, as well as my shoes are currently drying in front of the fire - I carried a spare.

I can be moderately confident of about six votes from all that effort, very confident of no vote from one, and otherwise they were happy to pass the time of  day but not all that interested in learning anything about me. Oh well.

So things are hotting up in the Electoral situation. I have had my first troll on the page (deleted seven minutes after arrival) and the two major parties have announced they are standing candidates - both also-rans in the recent state elections. The Liberal one is bragging about how many votes she had, but since these were presumably from across Lyons, and not necessarily in the heartland of Prosser one is trying to avoid feeling discouraged. The Labor one has yet to set up her campaign page and was only in the paper yesterday.

If anyone feels like hunting down my FB page it is easy enough to search if you know my name, and I would encourage you to like it. I have prepared responses to certain predictable attacks on my character and political affiliations in advance so as to avoid sounding defensive when they arrive. And apart from battening down the hatches that is all I can do.

One of the local businesses is now displaying a poster in the window for me, my corflutes are ordered - only ten, and two of those will be propped up on the back of the ute when I am parked while doing the rounds - and I continue to await my magnetic labels, business cards and so forth.

I am monitoring several community pages for the area and posting community notices on my page, have responded successfully to my first 'what is your position on ...' inquiry and requested an invitation to the Port Arthur and Tasman Tourism meeting on the tenth of April (which is around about when you will find me campaigning in your neck of the woods Deb, so any hints about public toilets and eateries are gratefully accepted).

The weather for the last few days has be downright chilly and I have added a doona to the bed now. Having the fire going means this is redundant in the early parts of the night but essential in the early morning, so Seb has had to adjust to the altered circumstances, but since he has taken to sleeping at the foot of the bed since the kitten was unleashed, it is not too bad for either of us.

Gales battering the house woke me at two this morning, but I soon nodded back to sleep and didn't wake till seven. This put me in a bit of a panic as I was due in Hobart at eleven for Estia, the Greek festival and noon at Midway Point to get the brakes fixed. But the mechanical friend messaged to say he had nowhere under cover to work, so that plan went by the wayside and I was able to relax a bit.

My meeting with Tania went well - she was helpful and friendly and told me it is OK to start campaigning now. So once I get the printed material that is what I will do. It will avoid trying to cram it all into four weeks (which apparently only applies to corflute signs, which I can't afford anyway)

The new computer went to the person who knows about these things and he said he had no idea - but while I have been running it today it asked me if I wanted it to delete the earlier version of the operating system (which I suspected all along was the problem), and I said yes, so suddenly have 9 gig of storage back in C: drive. Amazing.

He also offered to load a solid state drive into my old Toshiba (a much more reliable computer, and one I am comfortable with) for $120 (plus the cost of the drive) which sounds like an excellent idea!

This morning's rain overtopped the tanks again - but then I discovered the plumber had not glued the various pipes together when he ran them round to the overflow tank, so the excess was dribbling down the side of the new tanks. I jiggled it all together (not having gone to the pains of sorting out the other end for nothing), and had the pleasure of hearing water thundering into the overflow tank - albeit only for a short while.

Once that was sorted I headed off in the opposite direction to a nice jazz session at the Ross Hotel that I was tipped off to by one of my more recent political connections who was singing there - we have been trying to catch up for some time, so it was nice to be able to do that in such pleasant circumstances.

I am planning to light the fire tonight, but have yet to get around to it.

The ute now has functioning tail lights so it's all good. It was not a very long process and the company in the waiting room was good - we had a nice chat, I did some knitting and the time passed with great speed.
And now the dog has been walked, and the groceries are put away, I have only to worry about the altercations between Poppet and Seb. A lot of swearing happening right now.

My printed materials have all gone off to my campaign manager (who has now recovered from his long weekend with the family) and he is going to see if he can trim the image around the portrait, so more background shows. So it's all good.

I had a bit of a panic today. Tomorrow I take the ute for new lights, and was packing it up to provide two hours of amusement as I wait - the Auto-Electrician is in the middle of an industrial estate miles from nowhere. So the wool, and various needle sizes were packed and then I turned to get the pattern book. No sign of it anywhere! This was panic stations in a major way as I am  not only part way through two patterns in it, it is also the one that contains the pattern for the wool I have just dyed.

Searched high and low. Checked all the bags I have recently used to transport wool, knitting, shopping etc, and nope. No sign. So I messaged the hostess of the last place I had seen it with any confidence and she went through the same process. Still no luck. So I went on ebay and found one and ordered it. Then went into the kitchen to pick up the various bags of yarn and craft stuff I had found during the search, and voila - there it was. In a bag I swear I had actually picked up and felt all over (it's a fairly bulky book, so hard to miss).

Oh well, now I have two copies of the book, so future panics will not arise.

One of the reasons I run into problems when communicating with the natives is that I tend to forget they have a fairly simplistic approach to information. It is either black or white, and there is a risk that it also threatens them in some way. So I really should not be surprised at the conversation I had at the tip today.

A few weeks ago the Works Department of Council turned up at the Recreation Ground at three in the afternoon armed with vast quantities of alcohol, council vehicles, and no booking. The solitary female staff member was there also. Now one of my grievances about a lot of the way Council does things is that they are so blokey and it is not exactly a female-friendly work environment (or indeed client environment). So I watched with some concern as various drunk council employees in hi-vis jackets wandered around urinating like incontinent horses all around the grounds.

Next time I spotted her at the tip I spoke to her, and asked if she felt safe in her work environment explaining that she should be able to do so. She assured me she was fine and so I didn't take it any further. But a week later, today, I returned to the tip and she tackled me. During the course of the week it had processed through her brain and she had reached the conclusion there were only two possible reasons I might have been concerned. One was that I am a butch dyke who hates all men, the other that I consider her to be a slut. Having convinced her I did not think poorly of her character, I put my hand out to touch her on the forearm in reassurance and she lurched backward in horror. I give up. I expect future trips to the tip will have to happen on days when she is not on duty for a while. Sigh.

So here is my draft poster for shop windows - I have finally worked out how to get the computer to talk to the printer - the rest of the printed material is, as I mentioned yesterday, still on hold at VistaPrint till I hear back from my absentee Campaign manager, who is working full time and dealing with two children under 3.

Yesterday was spent in Hobart - first stop the auto-electrician to book the ute in to get the indicators and brake lights fixed (not a good look for a candidate to be driving an un-road-worthy vehicle) and to pick up a replacement printer - the last one has clogged jets, and a quick trip to someone who repairs such things for a living established it was junk. Also picked up some spinning stuff and the odd bit of groceries, pet food etc before  heading home.

I called into my childhood home on the way back. Sunny Acres is unknown to any of you, but it was the place where I spent ten years of my life and was the most important place in the world to me. Our parents sold it when I was sixteen as they were both suffering health issues and felt both my sister and I would be flying the nest so it would be too much for them to cope with. We begged on bended knee, but they proceeded with the sale. The new owners are still there. The parents have built a new house on the former goat paddock, but their son continues to live in the main house.

I have known this all along so was completely unprepared for the emotional response I experienced when I actually turned up at the gates. Gates in the same place as the ones we had, leading to the same curving drive and the house hidden behind the trees. The gates are now high security gates with remote access so I was unable to get in, but fortunately the mother spotted me and, after some reluctance, came over to speak to me. While we talked the son drove down our driveway and I had to move the ute so he could drive out (without acknowledging us standing there) and headed on his way. I started to well up as I was talking to her, but realised she would think I was a raving loony so held it in till I got home, when I wept floods of tears for the years we lost from our lives once the house was sold. Silly isn't it.

Today I had to find someone to take my photo, so I baled up several strangers and asked them to do so. Each obliged, and one of the photos is tolerable so I will use it for the posters etc.

So, all the printed material uses these two images. The portrait overlaid over the seascape (Orford) with VOTE 1 etc on it. The window posters are A4 landscape and will be printed at home, along with a brief candidate profile which will be distributed with it.

Then there are business cards to be left as seems appropriate with these on one side, and my contact details on the other (contact details are an outlook email address made for the purpose, a phone number from a pre-paid SIM, and invites them to follow me on Facebook (the candidate page, my normal page is getting turned off at the end of next week), and a note book so I can take notes of any conversations I have and look interested. I am also getting a magnetic panel for the side of the car so when I am out electioneering I am easy to identify. Since I am standing as an Independent I don't see this as a risk.

I have a brainwave and checked out the boundaries on TheList, the Tas Govt Land management website, and it seems it goes all the way up past Bicheno, but that really only means another day of driving - I will cover the coast and peninsula first as I am not known there, and deal with the further bits in Southern Midlands later.

So that's me all set, and now to wait for them to call the election (which won't be till after Easter).

I will also have to record a radio ad and place something in the Muckery etc, but the time frames make local newspaper (published monthly) a bit of a non-event.

Hot for the last two days, so getting a load of firewood was a surprise, but it was welcome for all that. Typing with a kitten sleeping on your left arm has its moments, so I hope this is all coherent!

Well it's going to be a very tight timeframe on this election - four weeks if you are lucky! Apparently they don't accept nominations till after it's called, and then you have four weeks all up. And of course, till you have nominated you can't campaign.

I am shutting down my FB page, in case any of you are still on it - I will let you know my new guise once I have done that. And in light of recent developments locally, I will not be commenting politically for some time, haha. I will also start a Page for the candidacy - which will, of course, be in my actual name. So given the time and financial constraints my plan is as follows - ad on the local radio (which broadcasts out to the coast), and any local newspapers (if you know of any, please let me have their contact info), and print off numerous A4 posters to fix in the windows of shops, community noticeboards etc. I might laminate a couple at A3 if it seems desirable. Apart from Sorell, the majority of the area is small hamlets, and as I request space in the windows I can also chat to the shop owners. The poster will direct people to the FB page and provide a gmail address for inquiries.

So now that is sorted in my head, I will have to get someone to take a current photo of me, to affix to the poster, and the FB page, sort out closing down my current FB account and opening another, and trying to get some sleep. The lurgy remains persistent - it goes away and comes back and goes away and comes back. Irritating.

And EMW, after that last election, everyone should stand up - nothing special about me doing it. Anyone who hopes for anything resembling democracy needs to stand up now because otherwise it will be lost until a revolution, and no-one wants that!

Poppet is getting bigger and bigger and seems to be in charge of everything except the bed. Seb still maintains precedence there. But there is no ignoring her, whatever you are doing!

Oh what a glorious day - weather wise at least. I did spend a fair proportion of it indoors however phoning the Clerk of the Legislative Council, picking his brain about candidacy, commitments etc. It seems a fairly generous package in the event you are elected - $135000 pa plus $35000 electoral allowance (for making donations, buying raffle tickets and so forth), a car, an office, an office assistant! Quite astonishing really - no wonder the State is going broke. And that is the base line package - more if you have particular duties!!

What this boils down to is that I will be running for the seat of Prosser in the next Leg Council election (that's May for those of you in Tassie). The area includes the southern half of the East Coast, Tasman Peninsula and Sorell as the major town, and then staggers over to Oatlands before turning into MacKenzie - both of these are newly created districts, with MacKenzie being held by our sitting member for (formerly) Apsley, and the new district, Prosser is not currently tenanted.

My team is a Green-leaning Kiwi from Sorell who I know via Facebook and have met personally, and a former campaign manager for the Greens. But I will be running as an independent because some of the issues require the capacity for independent thinking and I am more inclined toward Labor's position on others. I probably have a sufficient wardrobe to survive the campaign period as budgetary constraints mean most of my campaigning will be done via local media (radio, newsletters), school newsletters and local markets (take a stall and hold a salon, previously advertised in the school/local newsletter) rather than flyers, posters and such.

Meanwhile another load of firewood arrived and I have just finished helping unload it. Very nice to see the pile growing faster than I am using it (fire last night, but it only used one middling log).

Post election hangover - not too much booze, just so distressing watching Tassie willingly buying into the Federal/Farrell dollars. A pretty thoroughly disheartening result and most of my friends are in a state of total shock. As for Mr Hiddings' commitments to a small, pro-gun, religious extremist group, leaked to the media hours before the election black out - well I am horrified. And goodness knows what other squalid agreements he has negotiated in those 200 'policies' they forgot to mention on their website prior to the election. Democracy in Tassie has been lost in the face of full on, blatant plutocracy.

Poppet doesn't care of course. She is perfectly happy with life, taking over the household and generally arranging (and re-arranging) things to suit herself. Neither Seb nor Billy is safe and both are clinging to me for reassurance in this newly defined world of theirs.

The lurgy hit hard and fast and seemed to be clearing up nicely, but today was a relapse and so to add to my woes  I am stuffed up, coughing, and generally feeling rather weary as I field the various responses to the results and various other matters arising therefrom. Many of the Labor pollies on my friends list seem to feel I am one of them which is amusing, so am getting lots of invites to meet up and chat which I am happily accepting as they arrive, they seem like nice people for all that I feel they have a rather strange and unreasoned antipathy to the Greens.

Having finally set up the new laptop I have discovered there is only 54mb left on C: drive after the operating system is installed, so I have thrown my hands up in the air for a few days and will remain with the old lappy which seems to have decided to deign to respond to the external mouse now.

It's the day before the election,  and I woke up to find a news splash that had to be shared and no means of doing it - flat phone battery, uncooperative computer and a new computer that runs Windows 10, and is 12 months behind in updates. So having installed virus software, worked out which buttons to press, started installing updates (a way to go yet) and so forth I have been a bit busy for much of the day.

So having broken the news to the relevant parties the shit has hit the fan and it's all to do on the internet. I may even work out how to get the back up to run on the old computer so I can run a setup on this one (new one, voila! It works - sort of).

In my wisdom I installed a UK keyboard configuration on this so I can access things like £ and such like, but that does mean my @ sign is a bit hard to find till I remind myself how that worked.

This all means I have no access to photos or other such embellishments but suffice to say that Poppet rules the universe now, the dog seems to have retreated in confusion and even Billy is showing a bit of spirit. I on the other hand have been suffering the lurgy (the abridged form, fortunately but it did stop me being able to do a run on Thursday), and my computer now wants to restart - see you!