Nice Sunday morning.

Relaxing watching the Curling gold medal match.
I think the Canadian skip Kevin Martin (in the foreground) will be glad when it's all over so he can finally relax a bit after a fortnight of tension. I think he's done his job superbly and can pass the job onto his 3rd John Morris for the future.

Grace likes the Norwegian skip and would love to have him in the family, and who doesn't love the trousers the Norwegian Curlers wear? they're great.

Just over, Canada wins Gold, well done boys.

Panic time.

Oh no! next door Peter must be tearing his hair out, he's scheduled to mow with his timetable and it's raining. If his timetable allowed another 30 minutes yesterday he may have been able to complete the front yard, but I guess his timetable only had 90 minutes listed for doing the front yard.
Of course he couldn't possibly mow on the fine days we had before yesterday due to them not fitting his schedule even though he's free to do whatever he wants every day.

This reminded me.

I transferred these plants here a while back and they seem to be doing pretty good. The TV room air conditioner drains into their pot, so they should be comfortable, but looking at them reminded me that I can buy fertiliser and weed killer again now. It would have been a waste of money if they drove a bulldozer through everything.

Normal life resumes.

This new tap magically appeared downstairs yesterday. Since it's a crime in Queensland to replace a tap if you're not a licenced plumber (dunno what the punishment is but luckily we don't have a death penalty anymore) I would never do something like this myself ;)

It's nice to play catch up with our life again as I'd put off replacing the dodgy old tap for a year while we were waiting to hear if we were going to lose our house.

The final bit.

They put in a new water meter yesterday and hopefully that completes the work they've done putting in the new main.

It must be working as we'd already used 100 litres when I checked it today.

Usual luck.

I had another Peter Sellers moment when I went up the street the other day, the street GPS wobbled a bit and then fell off, D'OH! The thin plastic had been overstressed and had enough sense to give up.

At least my luck changed when I realised the thread on its fitting was near enough to the same as a common 15mm plumbing thread and remounting the gizmo became a simple exercise.

Goodbye sleep.

We shelled out $50 for the subscription TV package of the Winter Olympics, and while many of the sports are non-events the coverage in High Definition is brilliant.

I suppose I'll get my life back in another week or so.

Concerned.

The drain across the road is taking too long to empty, we had a bit of rain last night but it should have run away by now. I wonder if the work they've done recently has affected it, if so it bodes poorly if we get some real rain.

The brown specks in the background are kangaroos, they love the sports fields but I do wish they'd stay off the road, we often have vehicles trying to set new land speed records outside our place.

I've moved the webcam.

It's now on my personal space with my ISP.
http://users.beagle.com.au/jimhodge/
I should be able to keep it running as long as I like now. I've been using Beagle for a fair while now and find them a very good ISP so hopefully no great dramas are in store.

It must have been easier.

To dump the tree in the ditch rather than fill it properly. At least the new crew appear to have done everything right. That log must have been there 50 years.

I think that brass tap in the other pic is our new connection.

This gang is good.

They laid the new water main past our place yesterday and I have been very impressed with them, they know their stuff and their machinery is nowhere near as noisy as most local stuff, perhaps their mechanic doesn't remove the muffler as a matter of course.
Since I haven't seen any of them smoking they will probably find it impossible to get a job with the council but the plus side is they were able to continue digging and laying pipe in an consistent orderly manner.

The chap in the long pants was Mayor here when we moved here, back in those days our rates only rose a minimum amount. My guess is the council workers must have hated him because he seems to work well in this efficient team.

Perhaps a win?

EBC must have come back from holidays and have finally posted a draft list of the road deviation plans, the piccie shows their choice of options to cross Fairford Rd, we're in the yellow and look safe.....for now.
Politics may come into play later and move it but we can relax a fair bit now.

Torture.

I dunno if the workers this morning had anything to do with the new water pipe that's about to be laid, or just fiddling with the drain that appears blocked but their noisy machinery had our nerves on edge for 4 hours this morning. Somehow or other it managed to be almost as hard to endure as next-door Peter abusing his lawnmower, oops I mean mower because his grass isn't lawn.

I might have to go away for a few days if they come back with more machinery that resonates the house.

Some action next week.

Finally years after the old water main passed its use-by date the council is replacing it. The last few years it has been common to see repair gangs patching the old ruin, it had got to the stage that it broke every time a truck pulled to the side of the road to use their phone. The only sad part of this job is the savings the council will have in repair costs will have a close to zero chance of flowing on to the ratepayers.

Still usable.

I inspected Tru's sparkplugs today. Being a used car I have no way of knowing if they were changed as per the schedule so I checked them to see if they were worn out.

They don't look great but are still serviceable so I'll pull everything apart again soon enough when they're due.

The plugs have individual coils which is a splendid idea but by heck they were all a bit stuck and hard to get out. Number six plug is also a bear to get out due to the bodywork overhanging it.

More fun.

Rhonda gave Grace a lovely ring for her birthday, but as per the usual rule of life it was a tiny bit too small. Jimmy ordered this re-sizer which arrived much quicker than usual and made a speedy job of improving the fit comfort. Played with a few more of Grace's rings too and brought them back into service, so it's a happy household today.

There's always something breaking.

Rhonda flew up for a few days visit on Wednesday and sure enough the switch on her bedside light decided to play up. I felt real lazy and rather than go to the effort of replacing the switch, just gave it a spray of DW-40. Much to my joy that seems to have worked.

A time to remember.

It's our wedding anniversary today, 13 years. Here's a nice little piccie I found amongst our scans from our early days as a couple in the late 1980s.

Jim also has his 53rd birthday today, but he's just taking it easy.

Hope it was fun.

I noticed this brave camper(s) in the rest area at Rollingstone when we stopped for a lavatory break on a trip to Townsville on Saturday.

It rained like stink for a few days.