Census.

So...last week something rare happened at Frogknot...a car came down the drive unexpectedly.It was the Census Man dropping off our Census Form. We told him that we would be completing ours online. He headed off again back down the drive. (We suspect it was he who broke the gate thinking that it lifted up like a car park barrier rather than it swinging open.)Last night was Census Night. Every 5 years, on August 9th, the Government requires everyone to complete a Census Form. Interestingly the last time, in 2011, we were also here and visiting Deranie and Phoebe in Sydney and we had to be recorded on their form as visitors.Two thirds of people were expected to complete it online and people were asking whether the website could cope with all the traffic on the night. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was confident it would be fine...of course it wasn't and the site crashed.We tried a few times to get onto the site to complete our form but couldn't so in the end we completed the paper copy dropped off by 'The Gate Wrecker!'Today the ABS is saying that the site was hacked but the Government is contradicting them and saying it wasn't. If it was hacked the rumours are that it was China getting their own back after Australian Swimmer Mack Horton called his Chinese rival, Sun Yang, a drug cheat.On Sunday while in Brisbane we had Sunday lunch at Wendy and Geoff's with Danny and Xiaoling. Xiaoling was telling me that Chinese people in Australia were 'p*%$ed' with the Olympic coverage here. Firstly Channel 7 went to a commercial break just as the Chinese athletes entered the arena at the opening ceremony and secondly a few days later showed the medal table but some bright spark had put the Chilean Flag up next to China.It seems the Census website was still offline at lunchtime today. People are worried because it has been widely mentioned that fines of up to $180 a day can be incurred by those people who fail to fill in the Census but we have until the 23rd September (Will's Birthday) to fill it in and fines will be incurred after that. Hopefully they can get it all sorted before then.Typical.

The gate rises again.

So...today we fixed the gate and I added the solar LED lights.

Another weekend in Brisbane.

So...this weekend we were back to Brisbane. Ros had booked us tickets to see 'Chi Udaka' for our birthdays.It was a mix of Japanese Taiko drumming and Indian dancing and it was fabulous.Earlier in the day Will and I went down to South Bank in the city and visited the Gallery of Modern Art and the Queensland Art Gallery.

A new camera!

So...I finally have myself a new camera.What is going on with all these new things at Frogknot? Have we won the lottery?Well , no....but Will has finally got his inheritance....and no, we are not spending that either.No, our recent purchases stem from the proceeds of a busy month of work for Will at the Cheese Factory and I at the school.I am loving my new camera and especially the 'zoom'.

Farce and pathos.

So....you may remember that on our last trip to Brisbane we bought a new washing machine only to bring it home and find that the door would not lock and therefore the machine would not start. We rang up about it and were passed onto a repair team who told  us that they could not visit until August 2nd which, when we rang, was a wait of over a week.On Monday we received a phone call from the repairers to say that they were sorry but they would not be visiting on the 2nd as the repairman had done something to his back and needed to go to Toowoomba but they would visit us on the 3rd instead(today).Today is the first day of Will's working week and normally he heads off at 4.30 am to make cheese but today he hung around to wait for the repairman to come. We were told we were first on the list and so we were expecting them about 9.30am.At about 9.15 am I went out to set the washer up. Here at Frogknot is is not just a case of pressing a button. I started 'Jenny', turned on the water and got out the extension lead and plugged the new washer in. It was as I was doing the latter that a thought suddenly popped into my head....'What if the new washer was not drawing enough power for the door to lock properly?'Sometimes, in the past with the old washer, I have had to switch on some internal lights for the inverter to draw more power before the old machine works properly.We had not done that when we first tried the new machine.I mentioned this to Will and we quickly tried switching on something else as well as the machine to see what happened.....and the door on the new machine locked and the washing cycle started! We stopped it and tried again to make sure it wasn't a flue and sure enough it did it again.Quickly Will rang the repair firm and told them what had happened and apologised for our mistake. They were in the area for other jobs too so they had not had a wasted journey from Warwick.We had so much washing to do as it has been nearly two weeks since our last wash, but at last we had a working washing machine. I filled it up with the first load and  switched it on and it started to fill...but then as the drum tried to make its first rotation the power went off.We tried hooking the washing machine just up to Jenny but she couldn't cope and we tried hooking it back up to the inverter as before but it still couldn't cope....there was just not enough power in the batteries. On top of all this, even though it had done it for us earlier that morning, the door was now not locking again!We couldn't understand it and could not believe that this was happening. Will thought we might need a new inverter as the one we have is very old. Perhaps we need a stronger generator? We knew that there was nothing wrong with the machine and that it was a power problem but we were dismayed that what we thought was a more efficient machine...needed more power!Will had to go to work...he had 7 hours of cheesemaking ahead of him and it was now 10.30 and he normally starts at 5.00 am.After he had gone I managed to manoeuvre Dulcie's old machine back out of the shed and next to the new machine on my own. I had to take the weight of it on my knees, lean back and take little Japanese Geisha steps to get it to where I wanted it.I managed three loads of washing today. It was not easy as it is a miserable day here and the Sun is off partying somewhere else and so the solar panels were not helping Jenny at all but somehow I coaxed those  three loads out of the old machine and it is now all hung up under the verandah.I texted Will to tell him. He was pleased but had more bad news....The gate is broken....the post which holds the cross bar up has split under the weight. We will have to replace it.We are not having much luck lately.