My plans for Wednesday went agley when I found that in addition to three cottages, I also had a load of clean linen to stack away, so by the time I got home at three in the afternoon, all thoughts of cutting grass had fled.

Thursday being rainy, I headed to Hobart and collected prescription cat food, catalogues from Bunnings and K&D on kitchen options and visited the pellet fire shop to check them out. You can get ones that fit into fireplaces and would look fairly appropriate in the house, so I am thinking (funds permitting) that i will get one put into the spare room/office space as a back up for those occasions when weather, funds or health limit my access to fire wood (and for chilly mornings leading to hot days, chilly evenings when it is too late to light the fire etc).

The kitchen catalogues provided hours of amusement redesigning the kitchen, then working out the most cost efficient solutions. Of the two suppliers, the Modina corner pantry from K&D is far superior to the Kaboodle one in terms of internal layout (and it does not come on legs, so you can actually step into it), so that will be the first purchase. The rest can be done incrementally if needs be, though of course, the blind corner unit is also an essential when I refit the kitchen, to avoid having to mess around once it is all in place.

Yesterday I discovered we have a new art gallery in town, landscapes and seascapes mainly, and some rather nice (though not all). I spent a happy two hours in there chatting to the owner and picking over the offerings.

Our spinning group has been asked to amuse the mob in the sheep pavilion at the Brighton Show, so I got the wheel out and had another go, producing two bobbins of marginally acceptable wool - overspun, thick and thin, but generally hanging together. I have skeined it and lightly felted it rather than plying it together, and will knit it up in to a beany once it is dry.

After two rather lovely days (if a little windy today), we are heading back to Antarctica tomorrow with snow forecast to 600 metres, and similar on Tuesday, then back to Spring for a few more days before another descent to the pit. I have the last of the firewood indoors now, and will get the docking saw onto some of the longer bits i have lying around the yard to supplement supplies before that second chilly spot.

The email constipation continues which is a pain as I had to send info to the shed people today, and that required recourse to my Hotmail account as it was time-critical. Hopefully it goes.

I have had a  nice quiet day in the History Room, with little to report other than a nice woman from Cypress (via Newtown, Sydney) who was writing an article (subject unspecified) while holidaying with her two children. I even stirred myself to show her the cottage in the back yard as it was safe to go out there (no sog or bog or rain or gales).

Apart from that, I have found, scanned and sent the relevant planning documents for work on my place, and discovered to my pleasure that I do in fact still have a set of the approved plans (I had thought i had given the last set to the plumber some years ago).

So now i know what I was supposed to do and have discovered that insulating the ceiling of the original cottage was a requirement. But I don't actually want to do that due to excess heat in winter, so not too sure what to do about that. I will rely on them not bothering to climb through the manhole and show them the bales ready for distribution I think.

Corned beef hash for dinner tonight - just have to dice the beef, fry up some onions, mix it all together with some mashed spuds and cook it.

It seems one of the side effects of switching service providers is that they stuff up your emails. I can receive them, but sending them is apparently a step too far!

Telstra has still been providing a service to the dongle on the grounds that as it was a mobile service they were not required to switch it off when I changed ISPs. I called them today and established that this was the case, and that my email is alive and well, but still I am unable to send any. So sorry to those awaiting a response. I will call my new service provider tomorrow and find out why their server does not recognise a bigpond email. By the way, for a small fee, Telstra (masquerading as Bigpond) will continue to provide my email address so nothing will be changing in that department. It seems that although I still have a Telstra phone, with internet connectivity it is not possible to link my Bigpond email to that service, so I must pay them. The inter-relatedness of Telstra and Bigpond seems only to work in terms of making profits (and saving printing costs on envelopes).

It was a stunning, warm and sunny day today, which made a nice change. And what is more I was not working. So I did a load of washing, and set to with the whipper snipper (which I discovered is not fond of long wet grass). The front yard has once again emerged from the jungle and so too has the back yard, though further down the block is still long, lush, green and sodden (probably something to do with the 34mm that have fallen over the last two days).

History Room tomorrow, so I will hopefully get some knitting done (when not calling people to find out what happened to my email service, etc).

The absence of dripping on the loungeroom floor means I apparently now sleep through deluges - the world was awash this morning and more has been falling during the day. Twenty seven millimetres was the last count.

So walking the dog between deluges was the order of the day and dodging out to get bits of wood from time to time.

I finished off the front of the aran jumper however and have now commenced the pattern on the first sleeve. As it is the simplest of the patterns - the branching bits on the sides of the main panel of the jumper - it will not take all that long, though as they end in 'saddles' that run up to the neckline perhaps that is unduly optimistic.

Corned beef, boiled spuds, carrots and parsley sauce for dinner - perfect comfort food!

Another couple of busy days - no rest for the wicked. Not even on my birthday which was spent getting four loads of washing done, cleaning a cottage, taking in the washing and putting it away and was also supposed to involve cleaning the bank, but as today was a public holiday I gave myself the evening off and did that today.

Running a bit low on firewood after a few days of sleet and high winds, but I refuse to buy another load as it will simply complicate life too much further down the track. I did get a quote to cut down the bits of the neighbours' tree, but it has sent me scurrying to find out of Council will share the burden (it does, after all, obstruct access for emergency vehicles down the lane, or that will be my argument). If they can go halvies it would be a great help - $1300++ was a bit more than I expected it to be!

I bought myself some vacuum-packed precooked lambshanks for dinner last night. The idea is you just pop them into simmering water and they heat up and then you serve them. Unfortunately the seal was not all it could be. I noticed bubbles emerging and went to fish it out, but the entire end opened up and they fell into the water! Managed to save a bit of the juices, to go with the meat, but it was a bit of a disappointment. Served with couscous made up with the diluted juices, it was nevertheless a luscious meal, and the sticky orange cake to follow was the perfect end to the meal.

Well a few rather tiring days were had here. The boss agreed it was time to clear out the store room at the cottages and agreed to come meet me there to do it on Friday, bringing a spare set of shelves so the contents could come up off the floor. So I turned up, and found his car there but not him. But I got stuck in removing things so I had a clear space to work and after that was done looked around for the shelves he had promised. Not finding them, I messaged him and was advised they would be coming up next week! So I pointed out that would be a little futile as I would then have to return stuff, take it out again and then re-install it, so I went home and got a spare set I had in the loungeroom after extracting his solemn promise they would be replaced. Finally got it all sorted out, but was left with one large pile of stuff that had to go into the shed (paint tins, brushes, tools, drop sheets etc) and another large pile of stuff that belonged in the linen room (currently filled to overflowing with the last laundry order) and three surplus vacuum cleaners. No wonder it was difficult getting in the door! Left-over clothing from guests came home with me and has been washed with a view to taking it to the Bargain Centre (as none of it fits me or suits my taste).

Saturday, apart from cleaning the bank which I had been too tired to attend to the day before, was spent loafing as I was really very tired, then Sunday I had all three cottage to deal with (one of which had not only had four guests in it - real comedians who hid stuff in unlikely places for no apparent reason) but a tradesman who clomped around for several hours fitting two metres of coving (hope the boss was not paying him by the hour! It would have taken me half an hour to do the job).

Today I headed down to Hobart. Barbara is moving into a new rented house and has been culling her possessions. She had promised me a set of bookshelves and a chest of drawers (both fairly flimsy furniture). I had said Monday, probably, but had, it turns out, failed to follow up with a confirmation. So after I had been to Affordable Furniture to look at their beds (very nice solid timber, Tasmanian made and yes, affordable), I called around expecting to find the pieces in the garage. But of course they were not there as I had forgotten to confirm my arrival. So I popped off a text message, expecting her to be at work and headed home, stopping at Bridgewater to get some groceries. Discovered a text saying she would be home at 1:30, and backtracked once again. Furniture safely loaded I headed home and just had time to walk Seb, unload the ute and head back in to clean the bank, again.

Now having that conversation you have with yourself when it is half an hour to bedtime and it really is a ridiculous idea to light the fire, but it's a bit chilly so perhaps ..... but no.

Yesterday I spat the dummy with my technology. The obstacle to getting onto the NBN was apparently the predisposition of my computer to default to a non-functional log-in address, and my phone, which was on its last legs was doing all manner of odd things. So after I had finished up work commitments I headed to Hobart in the face of snow, sleet and strong winds, and bought a new laptop (all $299) and phone, then returned to clean the bank and finally get the poor dog out for his evening constitutional.

The new lappie, of course, has Windows 10 for an operating system, so while I am still able to use the current one I will continue to do so, and keep the new on in reserve for when this one gives up the ghost (or goes in for a service since I suspect it is riddled with viruses that have eluded my protection software). Windows 10 does not appear to have any of the intuitive features of seven (my current operating environment) and so is a pain in the butt. I did, however, purchase some new Office software so will have to load that some time this evening as these days you get a bit of cardboard with a code on the back instead of the big box of DVD and instructions, and I am afraid I will either destroy, lose or obliterate the bit of cardboard.

Anyway, having armed myself with a virgin computer unsullied by corrupted software, I sat and awaited the promised phonecall which failed to eventuate (though to be fair, I had not expected them to be punctual as I am sure i am not the only person with issues right now). So I called them - I have the direct number for tech support which is handy. So we went through the same frustrating process yet again, but finally did crack the problem and managed to log in! So the new computer was set aside, and this one opened up in the expectation I would have to repeat the process, but no!! it is now also operational, as is the new phone! So very happy camper here at present.

Meanwhile yesterday's vile weather was followed by a frost this morning and a rather nice sunny day that was spoiled by the need to go in to clean a cottage that had not been used. So that will be to do tomorrow, I suppose (the tradie was supposed to go in and fix some stuff and I was to clean up after him, but he had not fixed anything so there was no mess).

So tonight I will go log into my Pinterest account and see what I have been missing for the last 8 years and explore other worlds as well.