Esther indulged in some payback last night in a state of post-anaesthetic mania. She was bouncing off the walls for much of the night, bringing down stuff and generally making a racket. Both Smidgen and Shadow did their best to ignore her antics, but it did not make for a restful night. So it was 7 before I emerged this morning, to face anothe day of rain.

I promised you a photo of the side wall, so here it is. Wayne knocked the boards back onto the front of the house loosely to avoid any damage to the back of the plaster if the wind shifted with the rain. But so far it has been north-east to northerly winds behind it. Only 8.2 mm in the gauge this morning, but i expect there will be a bit more today as the rain seems to be a bit heavier. Of course, this may simply be due to the winds driving it, but we shall see.

So a slow and steady day of progress in terms of sorting out kitchen cupboards. The one in the alcove has been cleared of all rubbish, recipe books, light fittings, plastic bags and whatever else accumulated in it before it had a counter-top on it, and is now cleaned out to contain the jam jars and makings on the lower shelf, and the plastic containers on the top shelf.

A rabbit stew sent wonderful odours through the place while I worked and will be dinner tonight. The rest will be parcelled up into frozen dinners for future use. Tomorrow it will be a beef stew on the oven top which will ultimately also have dumplings in it.

The rainy weather is not cold - in fact it is downright warm at present. But it does make you feel the need for casseroles for some atavistic reason.

A bit of a long day here today. Firstly it dawned rainy and soggy and Wayne drew the line at doing any outdoor work (and who can blame him). So I left him to his own devices while i took Esther down to the vet (eastern Shore Vet Hospital) where a traumatically dislocated jaw was the diagnosis and she had to stay to have an anaesthetic and closer examination. So home I drove to discover that the rain had cleared.

We were able to finish off the weatherboards on the side of the house and so I now have one more weatherproof wall. Only one to go and all should be snug and insulated (well, except the roof). I would take a photo, but after two return trips to Hobart, and recovering moggy and a dog who had been left behind on both trips, I felt it was all too much effort.

While I was in Hobart the first time, Wayne got on and installed the second door latch, so I now have two doors, each with a handle and the one into the bathroom locks as well!! That, in combination with the weatherboards has resulted in a lovely cosy house this evening despite the howling winds and looming clouds and general gloom.

Shadow is doing an impression of a negative dalmation as he seems to have laid down in the paint splashes and now has a spotty belly. Esther is purring up a storm, relieved to be home (it turned out to be a loose canine, not a dislocated jaw, so I am still solvent, though her tooth removal cost more than mine did) and Smidgen has decided to go to bed already (and i will be close behind him).

I will aim for a lazy day tomorrow if possible, though around here things may change without notice (as you will have observed). Will try to get some photos as well. Then Saturday will have to get the mower out once more as the little rain we had (8mm) has been enough to give the grass further ambitions for world domination.

I passed a train at Colebrook on my way home the second time, and so was rather more than usually cautious at each of the two level crossing on the back road. I need not have bothered. The train finally went past me here 40 minutes after I got home. I see why they don't bother with passenger services if that is all the speed they can attain.

Rain stopped play after three hours this morning. The dog was complaining about being required to supervise under these conditions and kept standing at the door to Wayne's van looking hopeful that someone might open it and let him inside. So we retreated indoors and now i have two doors (one even has a handle on it!) and a plate rack in position. Discovered the reason no-one wanted the plate rack is that modern plates are a lot deeper in profile than oldfashioned ones and so do not fit in between the dowels. But that's OK as I only have cheap crockery (the box of 20 pieces stuff) so will just keep an eye out in second hand shops for attractive older plates to fill it up and for daily use. The others can, incrementally become redundant as the new collection accumulates. In the mean time, the coffee bowls are hanging off the bottom and the bread and butter plates seem to fit OK.

Esther, who had been sulking all night, was sitting out side this morning with her tongue poking out. On closer inspection she was dribbling, but the close inspection also encouraged her to flee the country and so she was not seen all day. I was worried she might have picked up some poison as it is unusual for her to be away all day, but she turned up this evening, still dribbling, but will not let me close enough to have a look. Will wait till she settles down under the soporific influence of the heater which is chugging away and keeping the whole house warm despite us only having two thirds of the side wall clad in weatherboards. The insulation and sisalation is clearly very effective. Shadow did his best to pretend he was Esther once we moved indoors, but he found it hard to fit into the cat's bed.

Jonno's trestles have been a godsend allowing easy access to the higher sections of the wall, so if the weather is kind we should have the side wall finished by lunchtime tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

We had knocked off and were clearing up when Caroline called in for a visit on her way home from Quilting (just to see if I was still alive, lol) and was duly impressed with progress. I would love to show you some photos but it is still a case of kitchen vs workshop so there is a lot of stuff stacked around making it all look a bit manky.

Tonight will see the end of the oxtail stew so I am thawing out the bunny with a view to putting it in the slow cooker tomorrow with some veges, and cider and so forth to make more stew. As more rain is forecast for tomorrow, I am not too sure how much progress we will make. If it is as dreadful as today was, then probably not much at all, and Wayne will head home with a view to returning later on this month to finish things off.

So for today we actually have a photograph. Taken from the same angle as the original pic it shows the weatherboards going into position on the side of the house. The bare wall is now covered in insulation and sisalation, and despite Wayne telling me it is my imagination, I swear that the dank chill has gone off in the lounge room.

Esther has spent much of the morning desperately trying to work out how to get under the house - she has even closely inspected the side of the concrete slab in the hopes that her favourite space might be accessible from there. She has poked and prodded with her paws and become so frustrated she even tried to get the dog to help. Poor girl. Then she curled up on the bed and sulked all afternoon. I have yet to see her emerge ...

Rain stopped play at 3 this afternoon, but as we started at 7:30 setting out levels and so forth, it was not so bad and we got a fair bit done. Tomorrow has a forecast for heavy rain, but I still had to water the veges today as there is no sign of the rain actually becoming more than a drizzle at this stage and things are drying out.

It's been a busy day today starting with priming featherboards and the stop post for the end of the weatherboards. Wayne got busy with the bottom plate while that was going on and now I have a sound bottom plate all the way along the front wall. The front wall is tied to the floor joist at the corner to stop the corner post wobbling (this will be reinforced once the weather boards are also attached and that corner will be stablised (meaning I can then, once the house settles down, repair the large crack in the new plaster in the bedroom which resulted from the movement).

Along the side wall the insulation and sisalation is in for the bottom weatherboards, but the original boards are still in place on the upper section of the wall. This is because the weather has been threatening rain all day and the forecast does not bode well for the week's work.

Amazingly enough, neither of the cats managed to get themselves shut in under the floor (a source of some concern, as they frequently go under the house hunting). Esther was most put out the next time she wandered along and tried to get in - she hunted all along the wall for access and looked very puzzled.

I will put the dog kennel under the laundry window temporarily so they have an easy escape route if they need one.

The phone rang hot today - first Jenny called. They are cleaning out the rental property they own in Colebrook and she found two nice retro vinyl chairs she thought I might like. I reluctantly declined them as I have nowhere to keep such items I have to say, especially if the container has to go.

The next call was rather more surprising. It was a courier calling to deliver the jam pan and stuff that i ordered from the UK - that was amazingly rapid turnaround as they only dispatched it on the fourth!!! Unfortunately the courier does not dispatch to Parattah and the BP does not sign for packages, so I had to make a mad dash into town to meet him and collect the package - what fun!!

The electrician also turned up to do a few more things prior to the arrival of Aurora, so that should get sorted within 10 working days of last Friday. Hopefully some time this week given the number of Aurora vehicles that drive past here daily, but I am not holding my breath.

So,pleasantly weary tonight. Wayne is decidedly impressed with the shower and the various amenities the place now has on offer and seems to rather like playing with the microwave, lol.

Shadow is, of course, exhausted from all that supervision, so I imagine we will all sleep well tonight.

Extremely late tonight - sorry ... Wayne did not arrive until after five this evening so by the time he was settled in and we had our dinner and I turned on the computer, the signal had decided to go AWOL completely. But it seems to be back now.

In the mean time I finalised the draft of the letter to my neighbour regarding the fence, and am planning to print it out in the morning for delivery to the post office.

During the day I sorted out cupboards in the kitchen to a fair extent.It is a bit of a muddle still as all the cupboards were full already so had to be emptied out shelf at a time - the right stuff put back onto the relevant shelf and the rest stowed out of the way before I could empty out the next shelf and so on. Still ... the left hand pantry cupboard is now big cooking pots on the bottom, bowls on the next shelf (amazing how many bowls I have) and so forth. The top shelf is vases and various junky bits of stuff that have no apparent use but which have sentimental value. And the right hand cupboard has foodstuffs and cooking pans, casseroles etc.

I also finally found my tiny gravy saucepan and .. ta da! the mixmaster!!! So now I can mix cakes by machine instead of hand. And make small batches of white sauce and gravy when required. Made some dumplings for the oxtail stew and so am now set up for meals while Wayne is here.

The weather forecast is not so good for the latter half of the week, so we may only manage to get the bottom plate of the front wall sorted and the side wall weatherboarded. Still, it will be progress and that's a good thing. Will also have a look at the window to see what needs to be done apart from the sill and Wayne rather hopes we can get away without removing it, which would be a good thing.

Weather was rather more tolerable today. The wind was slow for much of the day, but there were occasional gusts, quite out of nowhere that blew once and then went away - all very odd.

They forecast a hot one and it was indeed a hot one. 28 degrees!!! Fortunately by the time the wind picked up the temperature had dropped considerably and is now around 18. I say fortunately as the guy has yet to be in touch about clearing the long dry grass for me. I phoned him this morning and left a message suggesting a degree of urgency but he has not called back. If he doesn't call back by Monday I will seek alternate options.

Jonno, my lovely plumber, turned up yesterday evening with the scaffolding Wayne and I will need to access to the top of the walls. The trestle - also required - will be dropped off on Monday evening as it is presently in use. He has shown me how it all fits together (cleverly colour-coded) and the two platforms, together are big enough to waltz on (not that there will be time for that).

I spent much of the day fitting drawer fronts. They went on, but they were skew-whiff. So they came off and the holes plugged and then refitted. They are still slightly skew-whiff, but it will not be obvious once the dishwasher is in position, so I don't care really - as long as they work.

I had planned to move on from there to sorting out the kitchen cupboards (presently stuff just shoved in where it will fit so as to look like I am not occupying the space) as it seems I have to have the container moved 30 days after consruction is completed (i.e the certificate of occupancy, not finishing off plastering internally or roofing). Alternately I will have to apply for Planning permission to keep it where it is - an expense that is totally out of the question I am afraid. Jonno has expressed interest in the past in buying it off me, so will see what he reckons he can organise by way of a forklift to remove it. This will mean having to remove all the contents and find a place for them indoors which could prove challenging with the tools as well. So will need to give some considerable thought to rearranging things indoors. Removing it will free up space for the clothesline and for a new, smaller, shed which does not require planning approval, just more work for me at some distant future time.

Am sitting here in a sleeveless frock hoping the heat dissipates before bedtime or it will be 'orrible.

Will pop into town in the morning for some more supplies before Wayne's arrival so I am not having to dash into town while he is here. He is due at lunchtime, so if he gets here while I am out, at least it will be easy to back his caravan into the drive.