I think there is a very good chance the foal is no longer with us. Today when I got home from Hobart they had the mare out of the stall, applying a rug. She was calmly eating from a bin of feed and not even slightly concerned her foal was nowhere in sight. The door to the stall was open. So sad.

The trip to Hobart was successful with all errands completed, no lottery wins but at least I have cat food again.

A lovely day - the strong winds forecast failed to materialise, so it was a good drive down and back.

Tomorrow will be tip run, and possibly some washing depending on what the weather does.

Last night, (apparently doing horsey stuff after dark is the latest trend), there were screams from the stallion, the mare and a younger horse. I assumed they had brought home the mare and last year's foal with a view to separating them one from the other (they having established a very strong bond). But no. According to gossip from Joan at the History Room a new foal has been born to the mare. God knows what they were doing last night, but whatever it was involved the mare being out of the stall and near my fence, the foal being alone in the stall and the stallion objecting strongly to being unable to protect either.
..
I confirmed the gossip by driving by the paddock where the mare and her last year's foal had been paddocked since the foal was a week old and sure enough, that yearling is now paddocked with the younger filly who has till recently been paddocked with the stallion. She is still showing signs of agitation but is otherwise fine.

This year's foal was apparently struggling to stand and suckle and last year's foal was doing her best to prevent that from happening (she has been suckling up till at least 4 months ago). So presumably I have a mare and foal in the stall next door and goodness knows that barbaric things they are trying to do to it. Sigh.

The day in the History Room was leavened by a visit from the travelling curator provided by Arts Council. We had a good long talk about establishing a 'direction' for what we are doing and clearer roles for the individual volunteers - all of which I am fully in support of, but goodness knows how the older volunteers will react. She will write to us confirming our conversation. I have also asked for recommendations for software to use for acquisitions and photos. Our present register is in Excel which works well, but heaven help us if someone does a sort in one single column and gets the details reorganised and chaotic. Since Steph is the only one using it at present that is unlikely, but better to be safe than sorry - anything that will import our present dataset would be useful.

Frozen water this morning but a lovely sunny morning - it clouded over later and looked like snow, but that seems to have blown away and we are only expecting 2 tonight (compare with last night of minus 3.7).

So the fire is on, the chicken soup is about to be reheated and I am girding my loins for a trip to Hobart tomorrow as I have deferred it so long I have run out of prescription cat food (so am feeding roo meat at present as that does no harm, short term).

Today in the History Room I was in splendid solitude all day which was a good thing as I had steeks to cut, and document the cutting so I could post a mini-tutorial on the spinning FB page, which I have now done.

It was all a bit tortuous crocheting chains down either side mainly because my spinning and plying is not all it could be and the yarn would separate at inconvenient moments. Nevertheless I managed it and have now got something that looks a lot more like a vest and to which I only have to add the bands - I am even two thirds of the way through casting on the neck band, albeit having failed to collect sufficient stitches en route (only by four out of 66, so not really an issue - I will pick them up on the next round.

The shoulders are now joined as you can see, and it is starting to look like the real thing - with bands on and a good wash it will look pretty flash even if I do say so myself.















The neighbours have finally had the sense to remove the filly from the stallion's paddock, and while he is less than impressed, at least she may yet be 'empty' as I noticed him having a sniff at her the other day as if she was, perhaps cycling still. Phew. I wonder what they will bring back with them from their journey into town?

I have given up predicting what I might get up to in the following days, as it never seems to work out that way anyway and I then feel I have not done enough. So, suffice to say tonight's dinner will be the meaty chicken and barley soup I made yesterday (accompanied by toast made on the fire due to the toaster being missing in action still.

Phew, end of another day in the History Room but only two visitors - both popping in for a gossip, so a bit pointless really, though pleasant.

I finished the vest body and have cut the first steek - not as terrifying as i had anticipated. I crocheted a chain down each side on the second stitch in, putting a loop into each stitch as I went. Then cut. Not so terrifying after all. Now to join that shoulder together and move on to the next steek (the neck) and repeat the process before heading over to the last steek at the second armhole.

In case you are wondering, the carpet belongs in the History Room. Both un-cut steeks are shown in the photo if you look closely - one is marked at the base with a pink pin (the centre stitch of the v-neck) the other is to the left and has a larger stitch holder at the bottom.

Meanwhile Seb has been having a really hard time of it lately as you can see from the pics below - first he has had to find a spare pillow and then he has had to sit by and watch me eat something delicious - it's a hard life.

Dull greyness returned to the fore today. I have been looking into this draft legislation for the purposes of acquiring land on Mt Wellington to allow access to the land (public parkland, readily accessible) for the purpose of preparing a development application by a private individual. The 'tests' proposed for the purpose of the evaluation appear to be fairly intrusive - I understand that the last formal interface between the proponent and Hobart City Council (the owners of the land) was in 2014 and since that time they have been lobbying Government to do this for them.

A brief overview of the Acts Interpretation Act 1933 and the Land Acquisition Act 1993 suggests that this is a gross overreach of Government powers and therefore an invalid act. It also requires the approval of the Governor - a Liberal Party appointee. I will look into it further and be drafting a response! Grrrrr.

Clearly the project is far from 'shovel ready' and this haste is unseemly.

The corned beef hash was not as successful as I had hope it would be, though certainly filling. I will revisit it tomorrow night and see how it improves with age.

Well that was a shock! The fog failed to materialise so we have spent the entire day blinking in bright sunlight! Naturally this kicked the laundry into gear and I now have enough clean clothes to keep me going for a bit longer. I also managed to ply, wash and wind the extra yarn required to finish off the vest - I hope it's enough. The grey certainly is, but not too sure about the white as I got lazy in the subzero conditions at the History Room. Never mind, plenty more were that came from I guess.

Sitting in front of the woodheater counting chilblains seems to be the way I will be spending the evening. The ones on my toes will be immersed in hot water before being laved with ointment - the ones on my fingers are a little more resistant to treatment, so I will ignore them

The deferred snow has still failed to materialise which is surprising given today's max was four and it was raining a fair bit of the day. So much so I gave up on the History Room at two and hurried home to light the fire.

Last night's dinner was corned beef. I followed a slow-cooker recipe that involved malt vinegar, but had to top up the malt vinegar with apple cider vinegar due to lack of supplies. The result was a lot closer to the canned variety than any previous effort - I may make corned beef hash with some of the left-overs. Meanwhile, tonight's serving will involve some slices reheated in the juices and vegetable mash that remains in the pot.

I am having a debate with a school friend who recalls watching the moon landing at home, while I recall being herded into the School Hall to watch it.  As we had our own telly I can not see why that would be - my parents were the sort who would have ensured we watched it live if the opportunity arose.

The fire is working well, fortunately, and I have discovered that running the upright heater in the kitchen for an hour or so warms up the neighbouring air sufficiently to avoid the cold drafts - and thus makes life rather more comfortable. Once the architraves are fitted and painted around the kitchen windows I will be installing some timber venetians that will have considerable thermal benefit, heat and cold wise. I live in hope, lol