and so it goes on

We had a bit of a freeze last night with all the pipes solid once again in the morning. So the day began rather late all in all, due to the delay in showering facilities. Still, once dressed I was into Oatlands for the monthly market and to discuss the brochure we are preparing about 'how to build your own wind-proof polytunnel'. The tricky bit was deciding the target audience - Eleanor was more worried about whether they had building skills or not - I was more worried about whether they had a domestic scale garden or a commercial scale garden (hence the size of the finished product). We agreed to assume some building skills (after all the only tricky bit is fitting the door and window) and a domestic garden (with instructions for making it bigger). So that is my task for tomorrow - to draft up a document for her input (and identify information gaps such as size of wire gauge, standard length of sleepers etc). After that it was home to wrestle tablet into Smidgen (now much easier with a tin of fish-flavoured cat food to disguise it), and to defrost some chicken pieces for dinner tonight (a variant on coq au vin that allows for the absence of onions and leeks in the pantry). At least there are plenty of root veges to pack it out with, and olives, and dried mushrooms - so it should end up tasting good. More minus degrees tonight it seems, but with a freshly made up bed and a long nightie I should be snug as a bug.

Frozen

A maximum temperature of 4.1 is never good news. It snowed on and off all day, but the preceding warmer days meant that no snow settled on the ground. More to come I presume with minus 2 overnight forecast. I lit the fire and stayed indoors for most of the day. Tried tracing the pattern onto the base fabric for the needleturn applique associated with the daffodil quilt. Was a little tricky as first I had the carbon paper around the wrong way, then I discovered I had the fabric around the wrong way, so ended up tracing it three times in all. Still it's done now and ready to start work (once there is sufficient light to see to sew dark fabric onto black fabric ...). Smidgen is not taking well to having to take tablets, but I have discovered a secret weapon in the cupboard (a can of wet cat food) and will resort to that as a disguise, since the pea and ham soup is apparently not up to his culinary standards. The digestive tea is just as tasty as the rest, and I have finally worked out why they were thrown out - they are past their use-by date (not that this effects their quality in the slightest - tea lasts for a long long time when stored properly. The digestive tea has peppermint, chamomile flowers, fennel and lemonbalm in it - yum! So I will merrily pursue my tastings further with the green tea next on the list.

fifth July 2013

Strange weather today. Rain to wake up to, sunshine, galeforce winds, then black clouds that seem to have produced about a mm of rain - mixed up with a flurry of snow. The Detox tea is nice, but leaves a bit of an aftertaste (due to the licorice in it I suspect) and is the colour of wee ... not terribly appetising to look at I have to say. Still, it tastes ok and will be good for those occasions when I need to sort out my system. A load of washing, more emails to uncooperative people... but at least I was saved a trip into Town. Aurora's online complaint form fails to recognise the text in the bit where you tell them what you are complaining about, so I was planning to go into town and mail my complaint to them. Luckily for them, they emailed back to advise they are investigating my complaint now ... Fingers crossed. Still, a nice quiet day - the animals remain subdued after their trip to the vet, so happy to spend the day in front of a fire (or in Shadow's case, lazing in the brief sunshine while I cut more firewood.

Thursday 4 July

There you go - already it is Independence Day. Hope the Americans out there are having fun. It is also raining (whoopee) and seems to have settled in to do it properly this time (though it has only been doing it for half an hour, so I may be speaking too soon). It is nice to hear the rain on the roof (rather than the ceiling) and the drips falling outside off the trees. I went to the bank today to see if I could sort out this mislaid money and I have to say a bit thumbs up to the staff at the Oatlands Commonwealth Bank as they tracked it down (it had been rejected as it did not match any accounts) and they have now instructed their colleagues to resend it to the proper number. I hope so at any rate, as said colleagues have not sent me the confirmation email I was promised. So if it is not here by bank-opening time tomorrow I guess I will have to go in again and set Kate onto them!! It has been very quiet around the house for the last two days as the dog and cat recover from their various traumas. And tablet=giving time is always fun don't you think!? I still have my fingers intact as so far I have managed to surprise Smidgen, but I suspect this advantage will have worn off by the time the 10 days are past ... The calming tea is delicious having some more as soon as I log off. No idea if it is working, but who cares, given the taste. Only three more flavours to work through before I commence the cycle once more.

Required field - apparently

It seems that Blogspot has once again fiddled with the system and I am now obliged to provide a title for each post - hence the heading. I will think of something more appropriate tomorrow. There was me thinking i had finally sorted out the situation in England when I discovered the bank has sent the funds to someone else's account (or so it seems). I will have to ring them tonight in the UK and find out if it is floating around in limbo, or if I will need to ask someone to give me back my money. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Anyway, today was quilting and to top it off nicely the fabric I ordered from the US a couple of months ago has finally arrived!! Yay. It is the last fabric I need to commence work on the daffodil quilt, but I have already encountered the difficulties associated with trying to trace onto black fabric - even with a light table it does not work. So I will rummage for the sewer's carbon paper I have somewhere and try tracing it on over the top instead. Bother. I did, however, pick up my new second hand Bernina 430 Aurora (don't mention that name around me) which is so superior to my current machine I have to wonder why I didn't buy it in the first place. All this trouble i have had making scant quarter inch seams is down to the tracking mechanism on the old model. So from now on I should be better equipped to make for a decent quilt - great news. The Byron Bay teas are lovely = so far I have tried the peppermint and the energy drink - -both taste fabulous. I will try a relaxing drink this evening and see if that works too!! Off back into town in an hour to phone the UK ...

A day in Hobart

What a long day!! Up at 6 to leave at 7:30 for various errands in town. First the dog and the cat were dropped off at the vet and then into Hobart to drop the ute off to be serviced. Smidgen had a recurrence of his bladder infection and Shadow had a suspicious lesion on his ear. Both now sorted, but the vet agrees the lesion was probably cancerous. Hopefully they have excised all that was needed, and Shadow now looks vaguely piratical with a triangle missing from his ear that is about 3 cm on each side. The piratical effect is further enhanced by the blood dripping slowly off the wound (despite stitches) which is an inevitable side effect of ear surgery on dogs who shake their heads... When we got home, however, we discovered a nice black gift bag hanging on the back door handle which turned out to be Shadow's prize-winning blanket (very handy as he is now dripping blood on that, rather than the oriental hall runner.) Since I was faced with several hours in town and didn't want to spend any money, I had worked out a regime that involved a trip to the newly re-opened Tasmanian Museum, and to the library. I also wanted to catch up with a colleague for morning tea. This worthy plan was thwarted almost immediately as I happened to wander past Spotlight and they had the perfect mustard tones for the daffodil quilt I plan to make, so I bought the necessary lengths of these and wandered off down Liverpool Street. Sadly this led me directly to the Needlewoman where the fabric is considerably more expensive. They had the perfect fabrics for the other bits of the quilt though, so I parted with a bit more money... By this time I felt it was appropriate to retire from the shops and so went to the smokers cave behind my former workplace to catch up with whoever happened to be there. There is a skip kept there and imagine my surprise when I looked into it and found a box of Byron Bay Tea Company teas. All with their lids opened, of course, but some almost full!! So six of those found their way into my spare shopping bag (the one I had taken to get library books) and came home with me. I have tins of 'energy' 'digestion', 'detox', 'organic sencha green tea', 'organic peppermint' and 'calming' tea. The peppermint is lovely - I am drinking it right now!! From there I went to morning tea and caught up with a colleague and chatted about the state of the nation for a bit and then on to the museum. They have just done a fairly spectacular refurbishment and opened up buildings closed to the public for many years. As part of this they revealed various archaeological features which have been displayed very tastefully. Unfortunately they did not consider it necessary to provide labels so the common mob know what they are looking at... Their worst error, to my mind, was the partial removal of the two layers of dirt flooring in the basement of the Bond Store. In itself understandable as it provides additional display space, but the remaining floor (about a centimeter higher than the tiled area) is left exposed and uninterpreted, with the occasional sign asking people not to stand on it. Judging by the wealth of footprints, the staff are not enforcing this terribly rigidly, with the result on of the earliest surviving floor surfaces in Australia will be destroyed in a year or so. Not terribly intelligent conservancy practice to my mind. A new hard disk to back up the laptop (I still haven't found the other one) was the end of the spending money, as I had no idea how much the animals would cost. Fortunately, both they and the car came in under budget! Then home. Knackered, with two animals both feeling a little the worse for wear. The fire is lit, the soup is about to go in the microwave, and I am off to bed early tonight I think.

Yay the water man was at home and understood my plight so dropped off a load this morning. He has gone upmarket and now all four of his 1000 litre bins is connected to the others with pipes, and he has a new diesel pump so no longer has to festoon the place with cords, wander off and come back each time a bin is empty to connect to the next one and all the other bother that was associated with his efforts in the past. Good thing too, as the promised showers still loom as a green shadow on the radar - conscientiously stopping before they reach the midlands highway and my place... So the mountain of dirty dishes has gone through the dishwasher and the second load of washing is now festooned around the loungeroom and things are CLEAN!! once more. Yay. Tomorrow I will get to have a proper shower as well - such luxury!! It is hard to imagine being without water for those of you on town supplies - apart from the odd interruption to service for a few hours while they do maintenance. But being on tanks sure does remind you how precious a commodity it really is. Into town tomorrow - ute to be serviced, cat and dog to the vet - it will be an expensive day... But a chance to go to the City library for a wider reading range, and the museum which has now re-opened following the refurbishments. So should be an interesting way to spend the day...