The last time I had an agapanthus to deal with I advertised it free - dig it yourself. Fortunately a young couple keen to line the very long drive came and took it all away. What a relief!

Today was a very slow one as I headed down to Hobart with one of my regular patients who has two appointments in one day - so home by 3:30 after an 8:30 start. I filled in time by reading, eating and generally doing nothing in particular, so I should be enlivened tomorrow.

What I did do was find a person to pump out the septic and find out how much it would cost as well as book Poppet in for vaccinations, spaying, microchipping etc. The two will not be happening in the same pay cycle. Depending on how much the spay costs I might be able to order the tiles for the kitchen which may take some time to be delivered the way Australia Post is going at the  moment.

That done I have eased into the warmth of the heater and am planning a relatively early night. The next three days will be rather chilly they say, so plenty of time to work out how to install the door between the kitchen and laundry, paint it, trim it and muck about on a grand scale.

That is indeed the risk of starting a project - I at least managed to decomplicate this today by identifying a solution that does not leave me having to find homes for endless books temporarily while I steal their shelving to house the recipe books. I dealt with the alcove today so I now have the 90m cabinet back in position and its doors rehung, topped with a temporary bit of packing that came with the original kits. The wall cabinet was supposed to come down to provide space for the bookshelves, but once I had the doors off I decided the best option will be to leave it there and  just add brackets to support it so it can carry the recipe books. The downstairs cabinet now houses all the larger appliances (slow cooker, electric fry pans etc) and the cupboard these came out of is now to house the toaster, kettle etc. On top will be the coffee machine and the wall cabinet can hold spare tea pots, coffee plungers, tea and coffee cannisters etc so as to declutter the bench top. That's just a single cabinet to the left of the oven, beside the freezer.

I have also finally settled on the colour scheme basically by looking for tiles I liked and then taking colours from them for the walls and edgings. So it will be mint green walls with milk coffee trims and the cream cabinets and varnished timber benchtops. I may get the person who installs the benchtops to also do the skirting and architraves as every time I look at it I decide it's all too hard.

I'm off to clean the bank sortly and have an early start for a long day tomorrow, so it's nice to have achieved one corner of the kitchen almost to completion.

It's certainly not a one-pot meal is it EMW! But very tasty so worth it. I have spent another day fiddling with the kitchen with the result I have now cleared all surplus items from the place apart from the folding table. Which is not exactly surplus as I will need to balance the door on it as I trim it's bottom off, balance the benchtops as I paint them and cut a hole for the sink etc. I emptied out the preserves cupboard (and not before time!), removed its doors and middle shelf, wiped that down and set it aside and now I have to work out whether I want  to wrestle the lids off the jam jars or just throw them out entirely. I think the latter will be the solution.

The floor has also been given a thorough mopping so looks as it should.

I also discovered my toaster - this has been missing in action since I pulled the kitchen apart three years ago so I have been enduring bread in soup and other such indignities, as well as having to keep bread in the fridge as frozen bread does not make good sandwiches. I had thought it was on the bottom shelf of the 90cm cupboard currently residing in the spare bedroom, but it turned out to be on the bottom shelf of the bookshelves (also in the spare bedroom) and hidden by the heavy shade cast by its housing. So I celebrated with toast and peanut butter for lunch (after checking for mouse corpses and other such nasty possibilities).

I hope to position the cupboad in the alcove I have just cleared out and replace the upper cupboard (where the preserves were) with a book shelf which can do a better job of housing the recipe books than my previous arrangement. I might even be able to find them!

Before I can move the 90cm cupboard into position I will need to clear a path so I can move it with minimum aggravation, and I also want to paint a swatch of the bright lime green I bought some time ago on a part of the wall that will be hidden by the cupboard. So it may not happen tomorrow.

Thursday I have another patient transport which will be a long one, but other than that my time is uncommitted (apart from Bank cleaning) till the following Monday.

A nice sleep in to wake to bright sunshine - lovely day, if a little chilly. Today's culinary venture was a lasagne. In a Le Creuset tray designed for a 90 cm oven. It fits in mine if I suspend it from the rails that the oven shelving sits on. It is huge, so another seven meals to be had from that effort. They are now portioned up and frozen for  future reference. Tomorrow I may challenge myself with sausages - what to do?

Apart from that I had a wee trip into town for more capsicums and other such luxuries. And a bottle of red to flavour the lasagne sauce and the balance dedicated to the hare in the freezer.

The last of the Rhubarb Crumble will be finished tonight - once I have sufficient space in my stomach - so I will have to give thought to future dessert options, haha. All this food and so little exercise is probably not the best, but at least it's healthy food from fresh ingredients - beats my frozen dinner of recent times.

You will have noted the lack of updates on the kitchen - that's because I have not made any progress and have been enjoying the newfound food prep surfaces. I expect I will get on with it again in the not too distant future, but for now it is at least workable. Getting the two tall cabinets in to flank the fridge will be good as that will permit me to unpack the larger items. I will wait till the bench top is in position before messing around with the upper cupboards which I want to rearrange into a more functional position.

Not a real fan of podcasts simply because I am not into extraneous noise (a nuisance when it helps block out the noise from outdoors). But the UBI is an excellent idea, though like every other one that comes along, is unlikely to be maintained at a reasonable rate by those in power. Having that set at current NewStart rates would be good however as it would allow me to earn additional income without the penalty that is presently imposed.

I hope your Anzac day was a bit more exciting than mine. I woke at 6:30 and the total absence of signs of life outside led me to conclude I was not the only laggardly one. So I went back to sleep and got up at 7:30 instead.

My only other excitement for the day was going to clean the bank and splitting a bit of firewood for use this evening. And having several pointless arguments on Facebook.

The missing ingredient from the Chicken and Potato casserole was the two capsicums i discovered in the fridge while looking for something else. These have now been added and cooked into the general stew and it has been portioned off for freezing, allowing a nice hot meal for lunch. Tonight I will be less adventurous and eat some Chow Mein. The large dish has been washed in preparation for tomorrow's lasagne cooking and the kitchen remains clean and tidy (if incomplete). I am trying to train myself to make a habit of sweeping the floor and putting stuff away - better late than never.

Couldn't agree more EMW - the present Jobseeker rate is actually higher than that received by pensioners! Go figure. Apparently the Deserving Poor concept has been reintroduced to our outlook. If Junior jobseekers went up to the present rate of Newstart, Adult newstart recipients went up to the current rate of the pension and pensioners were eligible to receive the equivalent of what is now on offer for Jobseekers (including the bonus), then a lot of the poorer Australians might have half a chance of bettering their lives.

Today I headed in to the doctor in the morning and had my jab as well as discussing the letter. He has provided one but has also advised it may take a bit of back and forth before I see action. I then rang my employers and discovered they have done nothing to progress the matter. So I have now sent a second email advising them of the recent developments and suggested they get their shit together.

Then home to put a Mediterranean Chicken and Potato casserole in the oven and back into town to convey my patient for her own shots. Home now, the casserole smells good and I am planning an early night, so no progress likely on the kitchen, masks or anything else I might have considered.

The trip to Centerlink was successful on a number of levels - first being that I got paid. My favourite man served me and I raised with him my concerns about working in the bank but what impact would leaving have. He said a letter from the Doctor excluding me from the work for the duration of the Covid restrictions would do the trick, so I have an appointment with the Doc on Friday.

This has a second benefit - that is, that I will no longer be losing the $20 from my payment that is punishment for daring to work. That, in its turn is particularly useful as I was listening closely to the words chosen by Scotty from Marketting which made it clear the $550 bonus payment will only go to those who are entitled to full Jobseeker payment and that $20 penalty would deny me access to that - so that was a happy ending.

Having arrived home I was busily adding bits to the kitchen when someone turned up at the back door offering me various bits and pieces of sewing and knitting paraphernalia. Most of it was useless to me but the Brother Super Pro II quilters edition will come very much in handy (once she finds the cable for it). So I have been gaily distributing knitting needles, crochet hooks and other such stuff around the neighbourhood and the overlocker (which duplicates the one I have) has gone to a good home also. Apparently there's at least round 2 of deliveries, but this one was very pleasing.

Yesterday I took one of my regular patients down for Radiation treatment and managed to collect my groceries at the same time (I even scored 24 toilet rolls, haha), but had to give back two of the four cans of tomatoes I have wanted as they had a quantity limit of 2.

Tonight's dinner is a bit of a cheat as it is pre-made tortellini with a jar of sauce. But very tasty for all that. Tomorrow I will be heading into Oatlands to see the doctor and have a flu shot, and collecting a local passenger for the same treatment in the afternoon.  Meanwhile i may have time to make the fabric I hunted out today into masks, but I doubt it. I feel it is a whole day's commitment once I find a pattern, work out how to cut the fabric, sort out the measurements in relation to the strips of fabric I have chosen etc. The majority of these are for a friend who has had a bilateral mastectomy who does not sew.

I did manage to get two loads of washing dry today which was nice, and all the contents of the laundry basket are back in their proper places.

It was raining this morning when I awoke - and rained on and off all day. A good day to light the fire and stay at home, but unfortunately I was transporting a patient this morning and had to gird up my loins and head out. I was supposed to have a phone interview with my Job Service Provider at 2:30 so had plenty of time to get home and be ready for that, but as it turns out they called me while I was sitting in the carpark waiting for my patient to get back. It was a fairly unsatisfactory call as I had had a message from Centrelink telling me they won't be paying me tomorrow and he knew nothing about it. A couple of attempts to call Centrelink resulted in them ending the conversation due to too many calls. So tomorrow I have to head down to Bridgewater and find out what their problem is. Very annoying. Lucky I get paid from the cleaning job so have sufficient funds for fuel to make the trip.

The last of the four drawers has been fitted. It has more holes than are entirely acceptable, but at least it runs properly and looks OK from normal head height (it's the bottom drawer).

Tomorrow I will have a think about what comes next - I suspect that will be the fitting of the fixed panel to attach the door of the corner cupboard which will involve me getting the table saw into action. So I might just think about it a  bit longer, haha. The trip to Bridgewater will certainly limit my options.

But now I have a belly full of roast pork with gravy, spuds and veges, the fire is lit, I have chocolate and I get to choose between listening to Malcolm Turnbull or Doc Martin.

The instructions will only become more user friendly when I use them to light the fire, haha.

Today was another quiet day at home, barring the trip to the tip necessitated by some food that had gone off. That sorted it was back to cabinet making. Not wishing to get a reputation for speed and efficiency I have raised the cabinet beside the stove to the same level as the cabinets along the outside wall, added a door and shelf and cleaned it out before returning some elements of its previous contents. And a third drawer has been added to the set beside the dishwasher. The fourth drawer has been pulled apart, marked up and the holes that are in just the wrong place have been filled with gluey matchsticks which will permit yet another attempt at getting the holes in the right place. I think that one, being near floor level, will hold small frypans of various purposes as well as the smaller wok that is loitering in the spare bedroom at present. I have to say the whole drawer situation looks ever so much more professional now they are all lined up with each other and have level fronts which clear the drawer above.

Tomorrow I have a patient to cart about so nothing will happen then. And apparently my JSP thinks I should be reminded about the appointment for a phone interview they have not informed me about. Fortunately it's mid-afternoon so I should be back in town by the time they call.

And then, of course, I have the bank to clean tomorrow also.

The weather was once again overcast alternating with sunshine, so the fire was lit once my nose started to report being cold.

Today was a bit grey and overcast for the morning, but that provided an opportunity for a tip run and a go at cleaning the bank. Then a quick call into the Roxy for yoghurt and bread and home once more.

Today's job was installing the new kitchen cabinet's innards - a metal frame which slides and magically produces baskets of contents when you pull it the right way. It took considerably longer to install than was feasible as the instructions and the illustrations were at odds with each other. But logic and patience won out eventually and I now have the innards to the corner cupboard operational. I have decided that the corner cupboard and one of the overhead cupboards in that corner will be the key pantry area and the two tall pantry cupboards will be reassigned as a broom cupboard and a pots and bowls space. And a grid on the wall near the freezer for saucepans and fry pans. Should work, but I will see how things pan out. The delight of this exercise is that I don''t have a time limit to force me into finishing things and thus making errors of judgement.

It should also be easier to keep organised as it will be logical rather than doing what the cupboards say I should. I do still need to resolve the kick plate issue but I expect I will be fine.

The splash back, which is the one barrier to me finally getting my certificate of occupancy will be stick on tiles - apparently Bunnings has a large selection. I will use real tiles around the oven as that will be heat sensitive, but the rest of the countertop really just needs a wipe down surface on the walls, and the stick on ones will be fine for that. A bit of beading along the top to finish them off should do the trick.

Meanwhile another chilly (if less windy) night here and it will be early to bed for me. More trips to the tip for me tomorrow and finding a piece of the cupboard I pulled apart that has holes in it for a door fitting (long story).

Yesterday I met the son of a former class mate who has borrowed my incubator in the hope of raising some chickens. I offered a rooster disposal service but apparently he works at Bonorong so any roosters will be food for the birds of prey. Bother. A couple of carcasses would be a useful addition to the kitchen.

The kitchen is slowly making progress - the corner cupboard is in its final position as I found the 200mm filler following a major search of the house. It was hiding in plain sight, naturally. Today I pulled out the door and searched for some undercoat. It seems I don't have any, or if I do it is not in anything resembling an accessible location, so I used the clear varnish I bought for the countertops to cover the door. It looks rather interesting as they have used two different colours of MDF to make the door, but I think that now it is sealed, I will cover it with some gloss paint that's a closer approximation of the rest of the kitchen. Besides natural timber tones would make the floor and cabinets run together.

I was sitting in the kitchen trying to decipher the instructions on the tin when a local knocked at the door. After much gesticulation I managed to persuade him to back away from the door to a safe distance before I emerged. He had been to the tip and ran into a man who was throwing out a bag of fleece. He thought I might like it.

Now anyone who spins knows that the results of this sort of offer can be highly variable! So I fixed a look of polite interest on my face and went to have a look. He's a good spotter - it is a rather nice merino with 7-8cm staples so eminently spinnable.

So that was set to one side in the kitchen after profuse thanks to encourage similar offers and I returned to the varnish tin. This being able to cook meals in your own kitchen is a rather novel experience after the last few years, but it is definitely encouraging. A second drawer now holds my kitchen knives and the larger of the two cutting boards is a temporary bench top so it's all making very encouraging progress. I anticipate installing a third drawer tomorrow in between tip runs and bank cleaning.

Meanwhile I am enjoying the warmth of the fire as a rather chilly wind whistles around the house - snow on the Mountain, but just the odd drop of rain here.

It is sort of a major revamp as I found the earlier layout not that useful and so have taken advantage to rearrange stuff instead of just putting things back where I found them. Today it was the brand new blind corner cupboard that I bought several years back which comes complete with a fancy metal pullout basket arrangement. It is marked up for me to start that tomorrow, but in the mean time it is constructed and loosely in position. I say loosely because there is supposed to be a 200mm filler somewhere around the place, but I have not found that yet. I expect I will if I have not pulled it apart in a fit of impatience.

It became necessary to clear off the work table (a folding laminex table showing serious signs of having been painted upon many times), so I can now bring in the door which will ultimately be fitted on the cupboard and paint that prior to installation. While I am about it I will probably paint the spice rack I have never installed, and the dish rack which I will be relocating once I have a benchtop I can lower it to as I rearrange the cupboards in that corner. So yes, a bit of a remake to ensure greater functionality and better flow as well.

So Hall materials have been dropped off at the Hall, a cheque posted for a bill and the letter box cleared. And I then took advantage of the greater accessibility of the kitchen to shred a red cabbage to boil to death to make a blue dye. I know, sounds weird, and sadly was unsuccessful. Having read widely I discovered that the blue relies on an alkaline base. But my copper mordant is made using vinegar. So I added some baking powder, and some more, and some more to achieve a pale mauve. After leaving it to cook for a while it was still a pale mauve, so I threw in quantities of washing soda and now I have green yarn. Oh well. I'm sure I can find a use for it.

Another happy productive day in Fortress Tasmania. Some wood was brought up to the house for evening fires, and a cupboard was returned to the kitchen. It even has stuff in it - like the long-lost slow-cooker and electric fry pan. Still looking for the toaster, but I dare say it will emerge eventually. And a counter top will have to wait a little longer as I pluck up the courage to start cutting the benchtops I have, and then have to varnish them before use.

Then the one drawer that I have been using has been supplemented with another. Not terribly successful as at least one of them doesn't belong in that cabinet. So the contents of the drawer that was in use have been transferred in a rather more orderly manner into the new clean drawer and the remains will have to wait till tomorrow when I find another drawer that fits that cabinet.

By the end of tomorrow I hope to have all the drawers in that cabinet returned to their place and filled with their proper contents. I may even unpack the parts for the corner cabinet and start putting that together so it can be positioned before I install the second set of drawers. But then again I may  not. Who knows?

Dismantling the drawers in the loungeroom means I will have to find somewhere else to mount my ball winder and skein winder, but I gave up before I reached that point because we don't want to rush things do we!

In the process I discovered my stash of teatowels - I was beginning to wonder whether I had thrown them all out! So they went into the washing machine and are now on the line on the off-chance of a frost overnight (unlikely).

The fridge is moved to its ultimate destination and I am beginning to get some elbow room to move around in. I can even open the chest freezer with minimal aggravation. And I sewed a peg bag too. I know! I had one, but it rotted out, then I bought a plastic one but that perished and so I took the frame of the original bag, sewed a calico bag to sort of fit it, and it is now on the line and in use (though the opening probably should have been larger).

Lovely sunny day too.

Happy Easter all

I have been having a fairly relaxed time if you count moving furniture around as relaxation. The rediscovery of the kitchen continues as does the rediscovery of the bottom of the Le Creuset I irretrievably burnt some months ago. It is now devoid of charred bits but I suspect the enamel is also not quite what it once was. I will find out tomorrow when I cook Easter Lunch - a rolled pork roast slow cooked with sage, apples and cider.
The Freezer is in its final resting place which is grounds for great excitement, and I will be doing more tomorrow. It is strange, but moving the freezer to the proper place should have made the kitchen seem bigger, and instead all it did was make me aware of how little space there is between the uninstalled dishwasher and the temporary folding table which will be used to prop the various bench tops as they are coated in varnish.

It is good to see the progress made though.

I have had one drive to Hobart with a patient. To save time they decided that I should also drop off the vehicle to be serviced. This left me in the rather tricky position of having to fill in time without spending time in the waiting room at the car servicing place while avoiding arrest for breaching shut down, haha. So I took a walk to Collins Street and explored Cracked and Spineless, bought a book, bought a slab of Coal River Farm Chocolate and headed back to collect the car - great timing as it was ready before I had time to find myself a seat. A trip up to the domain and I found myself chatting to a rosella through the window, before collecting the patient and taking her back to her home.

Apart from the lad up the road playing at being a rally driver, it has been remarkably quiet and restful. And I am really enjoying my solitude.

Today was pay day and I was rather excited at the prospect of having an additional $550 to spend. Unfortunately it turns out they aren't starting to pay that till the 20th of April, so the same usual minimal amount to eke out, sigh. But since I didn't find this out until I was already at Bridgewater, I spent a little time in Shiploads finding some pipe cleaners, a pack of paper masks, and a pack of baby easter eggs.
Then to the supermarket where I made sure I will never run out of coffee (at least for a couple of months) and bought some chicken legs, a lamb neck (for soup, most of the meat is cut off) and various other basics. It's nice to have the highway to yourself other than the road workers, but still quite busy at the supermarkets (they have railed queuing paths like at airports now, and insist you take a basket even if you don't want one, so you can fend off space invaders) so I used one of my new paper masks - I plan to actually just strip out the flat bendy metal bits of them to incorporate into proper cotton masks with replaceable filters.

Having sorted that lot out I broke social isolation and called in to a friend's place. We usually spend Easter together so I wanted to drop off an Easter Egg. We cut through the house and sat on the back verandah at appropriate distances, drank a cup of tea and reassured each other we were doing fine, exchanged gifts and gossip then I headed home to pack away my purchases.

Then down to the wood heap to pile up some logs to return the barrow load to my usual wood man, which I dropped back after a cup of tea.

I now have the fire lit (though not entirely necessary just yet), and am aiming for an early night because I am really tired.

EMW I too love having layers on the bed - I suspect I am borderline autistic or something, but the weight of proper bedding makes for a better night's sleep.

It was rather chilly overnight. So much so that the added quilt and autumn weight PJs were nearly insufficient to my needs. But we survived and it was at least 11am before I lit the fire, haha.

I had been informed, informally, by my JSP that I would be having a phone interview today but as I had no phone signal I rang him. Turns out he is no longer my JSP as the decision to make Sorell my reporting point has been revoked in the face of Covid19 and I now have no clue whatsoever who I am supposed to report to (or indeed contact in need). Never mind. He freely answered the questions I needed a response to so I am fairly happy all is well in paradise.

More clearance of surplus materials from the kitchen  - at this rate I should be able to reorganise some of the furnishings and (perhaps I err in the side of Optimism), tile the backsplash at last. And that, of course, provided an opportunity to play (albeit briefly) with the new machine. Two short seams, but beautifully neat and the problem I have had with both Berninas (the top fabric migrating as I sew so that that I end up with uneven seams) is now where in sight! I have also discovered the one flaw to the machine - you can not adjust stitch length. Otherwise it's perfect, and I can do that on the treadly so no problem really.

Mainly sunny today so I had one load of washing through the machine - planned to do more but noticed massing clouds (which produced nothing) on the southern horizon and decided against.

Tomorrow I will be heading into the wilds of the Northern Suburbs to get supplies as my one transport this week coincides with a service for the office car and I will therefore not have access to free transport for my own use. I will go to Office Works while I wait and take a bit of a wander around the streets.

I think I feel better knowing you are also having focusing difficulties. You always to seem to serenely pass through life doing lovely things and creating preposterous amounts of quilts. I actually did manage to remain focussed for much of the day - not doing what I had planned to do, but being productive for all of that. I am removing all the clutter in the kitchen that has accumulated and provided an excellent excuse not to progress the return of the cupboards to their proper places. But I am now only three major obstacles away from being able to do something productive in there which will be great, as i would quite like to do some advanced cooking amongst other things.

Apart from the kitchen I had the bank to clean, and only just remembered that in addition to the increased rate of sanitisation involved (which is giving me a cough as it's highly perfumed), I had to take the bin home to clean it thoroughly so my sanitisation of that is not simply smearing fingerprints. It is now back in its proper place and in the process I realised it had become so cold that snow seems imminent.

Nice to have ready access to firewood, and it seems to burn well (slow and hot), so lasts well. And it's nice and cosy in the house (yay).

The end of daylight savings has my body clock awry, so I am following it's promptings given that time is not really all that relevant at the moment and have already eaten dinner. Going to bed a bit 'earlier' that usual as I am rather tired from the unaccustomed exertions of housework, haha.

Shortly after I logged off yesterday the wood man arrived with five tonne of wood. The plan was I would start stacking it today and that sort of worked, but due to another 17.5mm arriving it was a fairly piecemeal and uncommitted effort. I did pop some in the trolley and take it up to the back door where it has a better chance of drying out.

It's a huge mound in the back yard. You might remember I once ordered a load from a chap who insisted on only doing 8 tonne loads - same bloke, but he has downsized. It's still an enormous and overwhelming pile to deal with, but if I do it a bit at a time it should be fine. He is not as good as my usual wood man in that he seems to lose interest half way through cutting the wood, so there's several rather long bits with a cut three quarters of the way through. Those and other odd lengths will be set aside for an afternoon playing with the chainsaw when I am in the mood.

I seem to be struggling to committing to doing anything, so the sewing machine has been admired and stroked again, the fabric stash inspected, the counter top cleared and the oven top cleaned, but nothing really effectual has happened. I did cook some chow mein from a rather sad half cabbage in the fridge so that is sitting aging overnight with a view to portioning up for freezing tomorrow.

And that's about the sum total of my day, haha. This isolation business is supposed to provide me with an opportunity to be productive. I wonder when that will start?

Yay - I have finally sorted out the raffle and funds for the Hall, and now my only job is to call one of the nine winners because no-one knows who they are. I suspect they may be the bikies who I browbeat into buying a ticket at the last market.

The down side of this is that the only current time-critical commitment I now have is cleaning the bank. The result is that I spent much of this afternoon convinced that Daylight savings had ended. Doh.

The raffle draw was supposed to be filmed, but my limited skills means that we have two still photos and a brief few minutes at the end when the General Manager and I are discussing my technical incompetence. Fortunately I took the time to pan over to my written record of the draw in that one bit of moving picture.

Results are now posted on the FB page, the Southern Midlands Regional News FB page, and will presumably get posted or reported on 97.1FM radio to ensure everyone knows.

My arch nemesis on the committee remains recalcitrant. I rather hope she will resign during the lockdown since she is unable to get down here, but given the tone of her recent communications I guess I am out of luck. The good news is that despite her consistent obstructive behaviour we are going into this crisis with sufficient funds for the bills over the next three quarters (which I suspect is perceived as showing her up and the cause of much angst.

Whatever, there is more to life that her pettiness.

I keep on playing with the edges of doing something with the Machine but having read the various instructions for face masks have concluded I will wait till I can order some Hepa vacuum cleaner bags.

Rain yesterday produced 30mm which was a nice change, but after all the running around about the raffle I am afraid gardening is not on the list of proposed activities.

Despite the fact it is grey and raining today it is not all that cold, so I have deferred lighting the fire till I need to. Wood is at a premium at present as the phone has been out of order for two days (and continuing) and my message to the wood man has not hit a window of vague signal to be transmitted.

The actual Treasurer of the Hall committee called around this morning to make plans for how we organise the raffle as the information has been being relayed to her via the President who tends to get things muddled. We sorted that out and agreed to catch up later this afternoon to finalise the bits we needed to.

On her way out I checked the letter box and found a parcel notification - astonishingly enough Spotlight, who I had phoned at lunch time yesterday re the machine, had managed to get it delivered today! Now all I need to do is find a flat surface so I can unpack it.

That's next on the list.

This afternoon the Treasurer turned up again and we counted money (which she is banking along with the contents of the Float Tin), screwed up raffle tickets for the draw, all at a suitable distance from each other and were spotted parting company outside the Hall by the local police, haha.

I am keen to get on and cook some chow mein now, so that I can freeze it too, and then I can sort through my fabric stash for the makings of masks.

My $750 economic booster arrived today. It didn't last long - $550 to the woodman, $99.00 to Spotlight for a sewing machine to make masks and toilet squares, and $100 at the supermarket (but I now own 24 new rolls of toilet paper!). The woodman has been advised I am solvent so I await his advice as to when he will be delivering.  The Sewing Machine is somewhere in transit with Australia Post, but should be here in a week or so. It will be good if I can find time to settle down and do some more precise quilting in the days to come.

It was a day of getting used to not being able to get in the car and set off into town as I willed, so the shopping was done on line or as part of my trip to clean the bank. I was going to do a bit more gardening but there was a chook roaming my yard, so I decided against it. It comes from across the road and there's no chance that bozo will keep it under control.

Ran into Josie who runs the post office and she has sold all the raffle tickets so I will collect them tomorrow.

So, some knitting done, some messing around arguing with people on FB and generally gathering my scattered thoughts as I adjust to this new and exciting world. Hope you are all well where you are.