An Easter Weekend Away.

Brisbane birthday date.

So...we are in Brisbane for Andrew's 50th birthday ( he doesn't look it!) We had a lovely gyoza lunch then a wander over to the Roma Street Parklands, gelato in the city and a moonlit ride on the Brisbane Wheel! Tomorrow we are off to Ashby for the opening of the exhibition that Tracy has been working on since I was recovering there. It is all go...but we love it!Happy Easter everyone!

Houdini and Orazio.

So...Will was off at 4.30 am as usual and I was awake too. After he had gone I heard a scratching and gnawing sound and got up to investigate and found a rat on the bookshelf in the corner. It was trying to hide behind the books. Surprisingly, for someone who has been fastidiously releasing his captives into the wild, I shocked myself when I rammed some books against the wall trying to squash it. I failed and went back to bed after it disappeared. I checked the rat trap was still set and noticed that the bait had all gone. Pesky Mice!I went back to bed and at 5.15 the rat trap clattered. We had another trapped rat. I took it outside and left it and went back to bed. I could hear its distant rattle before I finally dropped off to sleep.At 9.00 ish I got up and discovered that the cheeky thing had escaped. The trap was completely empty! How had it done it? It must have squeezed out under the door pushing hard against the spring.Damn! It will probably tell all its friends now to avoid it or how to escape!We had Roxy booked in to the Car Doctor today. Her clutch has been very loose. I was going to head into town to do some washing this morning, (Yes, I know that you thought we had solved that problem with Jaxy's charger cable and we did but now said cable is no longer working due to overuse.)I couldn't get Roxy in gear at all and was wondering how I was going to get her to the mechanic later when I remembered something about pumping the clutch pedal to build up pressure and it worked and I got her in gear. I started off for town and then came to my senses and thought 'Heck! What if I can't get her going in town?' so I reversed back to the house.At the appointed time 2.00 pm, I headed down to Glen Aplin and to Orazio, the mechanic to get the clutch sorted. He was running late and had not had any lunch so I asked how long it would take to get it sorted after his lunch. He didn't seem to know but his wife butted in and said "Come back at 4.45." We know who wears the overalls in that relationship!I had to walk home and had not brought a hat because it was only a 30 minute job apparently and I was expecting to wait. To say we live in Glen Aplin and the garage is in Glen Aplin it just goes to show how distances here in Australia are inflated compared to the UK because it took me over an hour to walk home. There were a few clouds to give some respite from the burning sun but all I had was a hanky which I knotted at the four corners and wore like some be-vested chap on Blackpool Beach. I whipped it off every time a car approached or I passed a house in case I was spotted looking so very British and like a Gumby.Luckily Will was back just as the time arrived for me to set off back on the hours walk to collect Roxy and he took me on Jaxy.It turned out that Orazio didn't do it in the end but the other mechanic, Nick did."I fixed your loose belt too, " he said.No more squeals from Roxy. Yay!We have booked her back in next Wednesday to get the radiator and water pump looked at. She needs to be shipshape for when the boys arrive next month as we are going on another road trip.

We were Lumberjacks...and we're OK!

So...over where we are hoping to build the new Roxy shed there looms a large dead tree. It suddenly died about two or three years ago. It is in such a position that should it fall it would either crush the loo, the chook shed, the garden or the house and so it had to go.Having cleared the VW and the trailer out it opened up a whole new felling zone behind the house but there were some smaller trees in the way and we were worried about the bottle wall.I have never felled such a big tree before but Will had. He climbed a ladder and tied a rope around it about a third of the way up which I was to pull on when he gave me the signal.He then set about cutting out a wedge on the side of the tree facing the direction which we wanted it to fall, then I took up the slack on the rope and he started to cut in on the opposite side of the trunk towards the cut out wedge."We have to call out 'Timber!' " I said, but as it started to topple that went out of my head.It looked like it was falling more towards the house than we expected and I shifted right a bit to try and pull it over but it was a huge tree and it was going where it wanted so I got out of the way sharpish.It came down with such a crash! It fell slightly nearer to the house than we had hoped, it's top most branches breaking on the guttering and one lower branch snapped two of the bottlenecks on the bottle wall but that was the only damage.It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time as it came down and then I suddenly felt very sad...that all those years of its growth had come down to this moment ...but it had to be felled, it was too much of a hazard.

I Believe in Miracles!

So...after languishing, open to the elements for 20 years....yes, that's right... 20 years today Will drove Raphael, the VW Beetle round the dam and to the front of the house after getting the engine started. It beggars belief but I saw it with my own eyes...

We also had some decent rain today....7.5 mm in about 10 minutes as a storm built up nearby and passed over us on it's way to Brisbane.