NB. I wrote this post last night but posted it this morning :)
The boys and I went 10-Pin Bowling on Friday together - and had a blast as usual. They are just so good to be with, so refreshing and revitalising for my soul. But the main thing is we enjoy each others’ company. It’s never a negative for them to hang out with their ‘old man’! heh heh. Anyways, we played two games, and yes, altho I wasn’t mega-competitive [how gracious of me, don’t you think? heh heh], I still got flogged by both JD and SJ! SJ was *so* close to winning the last game, but JD pipped him on his last bowl, much to SJ’s displeasure! But all that was soon forgotten when I shouted them to the racing car video games they love to get into whenever we go there. So, what the heck, they enjoyed it and got a chance to do something the have fun with that they wouldn’t normally get to do, being 30kms living out of town. It aint easy for them to just ‘pop into town’ to do the things other kids in town get to do, so it’s a real treat for them, which is cool.
Actually on the way out to pick them up, I had to drive thru a massive flock [heard?] of freshly-shawn sheep being driven along the road… about 2 kms worth of ‘em! You’ve just got to keep moving or they’ll stop and surround you and look at you with those dumb vacant eyes… they aint the most sensible creatures, the old sheep, you know… it took about 10 or 15 minutes driving in first gear just to get thru them all, but I got there eventually. I took a few pics thru the windscreen of mah car [which I’ll post tomorrow, probably], but they don’t do the *amount* of sheep present there justice! There were thousands! On the way back, the farmer behind them had kinda driven them on so they had bunched up a whole lot more, to about a km deep instead… going the other way we were driving against them, so we had to be *more* careful and not run over the stoopid things, as they were heading towards us this time! If you stop, they’re more than likely to just stand on the road and looks at you blankly… but you’ve gotta keep moving and keep your eyes open in case one of them decides to make a dash right under the front of your wheels too… gagh! The farmer rode by on his quad bike, his three sheep dogs running about obediently, rounding them up at the rear. He was simply moving them to a greener paddock with more feed… the drought sure hasn’t broken around here yet. There are still bare-earth paddocks about the area - and we’re one of the better areas in the state too! Sheesh, it’s still pretty bad out west. Such is life in rural Australia.
Even tho we had some good rainfall last moth, there just hasn’t been any consistent follow-up rain afterwards, to keep the level of the dams up. Even out at Carcoar [where I sail usually] it’s dropping below the 9% again… gagh! Not good. At least they’re not letting as much out now as they were back in January! Even the water level out at Chifley dam last Saturday was down a bit - but at least the weed problem out in the water was gone. Yeah, this week there was virtually no weed floating about to stuff-up my sailing. Crazy how it happens like that sometimes… seems to crop up virtually overnight, then disappears again. But yeah, the water level was down a bit out there, noticeably on the shore where I sail out from, because it’s a shallow beach area, it just shows up the drop in water level from week to week. But it’s all good out there… it’s the water supply for our town, and there’s *plenty* of water there really, it’s about 55% full or something.
Well, things with the Real Estate Agent seemed to go just fine and smoothly, with the transition of the lease of this place from my moving-out housemate to myself. The only time we really had to do it was on Friday when I had the boys with me, but all in all it took only like 10 minutes - and they boys behaved perfectly, checking out all the new houses pics and dreaming of which one they would buy - the best ones to turn into a motor-cross track, naturally! heh heh. But yeah, it’s a relief that the whole changing of the lease thing seems to have worked out OK. Now I’ve just gotta change over the electricity, gas and phone to my name.
I had a thought, and have started a small list for my new housemate [whoever they may be], to tell them some of the eccentricities of the place. Oh, nothing major, just which night the garbage bin goes out, where the side gate key and fuse box is, little things like that. But mainly to warn them of some of the strange sounds we hear sometimes late at night… we have a family of possums in a tree near our front door, and sometimes they make strange hissing noises unexpectedly! I’m in the back bedroom, so I don’t actually hear them when I’m in here, but late at night, if I’m watching some scary movie in the front room with the door or window open, and out of nowhere you hear this weird hissing/gasping sound, it’s kinda freaky - especially if you didn’t know what the ferk it was! [It took us about six months to figure out what it was! heh heh]. Ya, stoopid possums. Apart from that, you’d never know they were there, apart from the rare domestic squabble in the tree some evenings!
Yeah, I’m not gonna change bedrooms or anything. Altho this bedroom is marginally smaller than the other one [and they are *good*-sized rooms], it’s probably the less-noisy one as far as road and neighbour noises. But that’s never really an issue - it’s really quiet living here anyways. I guess the thought of lugging all my bedroom furniture across to another room and starting from scratch is not something I really wanna put myself thru! heh heh
This time I’m gonna change over to a home phone and internet broadband package - it’ll be about the same price as I pay now, so I’m gonna go for it. I’m sick of crawling along using dial-up, as I have been for the past, oh, 10 years or so! Gagh! 10 years? Yeah, when I think about it, that’s how long it’s been since I first started using the internet. In a converted tin storage shed on a property in the middle of nowhere! Wow, now *that’s* going back! It’s not everywhere you surf the internet and find a black snake and a wombat sitting outside the door of the place where you sit, huh? heh heh.
I’ve got a bit of the cleaning bug here lately, what with the move and all. I pulled all the flyscreens off the windows and gave them a clean… the first time in four years, if the truth be known! Gagh! The windows we do fairly regularly [OK, like every six months…], but if you looked at the flyscreens closely enough they were thick with dust! heh heh. So now - clean flyscreens. I’ve been kinda just sponging down like a interior door-a-day, just keeping on top of things, really. This place is really easy to keep clean, but I’m gonna do some of those ‘once-a-year’ kinda jobs for the next week or so, just so they’re done, you know? Like, today I cleaned the actual blades of the ceiling extractor fan in the bathroom… sure we do the actual cover, but the blades haven’t been done since we moved in… now it’ll work a whole lot better, heh? heh heh. It’s like - let’s clean while the weather is so kind.
Today I got a whole lot of flattened boxes out of the garage storage ready for my housemate to use for her packing, and rediscovered four rolls of packing tape as well. All of my mum’s furniture has been stored in our garage as well, all covered up. So I kinda pulled things out and checked it all out to make sure it’s all still safe and clean and fine - which it all appears to be. On the random off-chance, I thought I’d better measure the height and width of my fridge, to make sure that it will actually *fit* into the fridge space here! Yes yes, it’s a much larger fridge/freezer than what we’ve got now, but it’ll fit quite snugly, thank you! Whew!
When I think about it, the only thing I’m gonna miss is a small table in the back room, and maybe a small 2-seater sofa in the backroom… I might take a look around the shops for a simple one, nothing expensive. I don’t wanna pay like $1,000 for something that’s just gonna sit there and be covered with a few pot plants [the table that is, not the sofa!] I’ll be able to pick up a cheap small sofa for the back ‘sunroom’ easily enough for very very very cheap. Yeah, I don’t wanna spend a lot of money for stuff. Plus I dunno what furniture my next housemate might have - if any at all. If it works out, I might try and find a second-hand outside furniture set as well, so I can sit under the back awning in the shade and eat and read and play guitar, as I do now. I’m gonna miss that old battered plastic white table, I think! heh heh.
But as far as other major appliances of mums stuff I have a fridge, washing machine, microwave, TV/video/DVD, and assorted couches and bookcases and cupboards, so I’ll have enough furniture to be able to use about the place, without cluttering the place up. I enjoy my space inside, so yeah, I’m not gonna fill the place up with useless pieces of furniture. It’ll be just fine. Oh yeah, and I’ll grab another tall bookcase - my other two are literally overflowing at the moment! Now I’ll have some space to put another bookcase up! Yay! Oh yeah, and also a new ironing board! Just those little things I don’t have that I’ve been using of my housemates, you know? Like some carving knives! heh heh At least I don’t need to rearrange my bedroom at all… you know how you get comfortable they way things are in your own ‘space’, especially after four years! heh heh
Actually, one of the things I rediscovered this morning, searching thru piles of things, was my old song lyrics folder! I had a good look about for it about a year ago - I knew it was somewhere, but it seemed to have vanished! Gagh! After that I hadn’t really thought about it since then. Well today, covered in dust, slipped down behind somewhere I’d never considered looking before, there it was. So out came my guitar and started going thru some of those old songs I hadn’t looked at for years! Good for a laugh tho. Yeah, when it comes to playing and singing songs, I can usually remember how to play them, but I can never remember lyrics! Yeah, this folder is full of words to lots and lots of songs, a lot of which I wouldn’t have copies of the words otherwise. So yeah, I was kinda glad to find it again. I *knew* it was around somewhere… I guess we all have things like that hiding in our homes from time to time… you know they exist, but where oh where would they be hiding, huh? heh heh
I finally received my “Yachting Australia” membership card today! Not bad, considering I applied about 2 months ago! heh heh. It’s just funny to think, actually belonging officially to the National Sailing organization - and a plastic credit-card-sized card to boot for mah wallet! Weirdness! Who would have thought it, all those years ago, sailing 16-ft skiffs around Manly as a teenager, huh? Stranger things happen! rofl. At least now whenever I sail in regattas I can just produce the card and sail virtually anywhere an organised race is on! Whoo hoo! Now all I have to do is actually keep sailing… but it’s getting too cold! Damn winter months! I know they attempt ‘frostbite’ sailing over in the Northern Hemisphere mid-winter, but I just don’t think I’m that insane! heh heh
Actually I went for a sail last Saturday out at Chifley Dam, virtually on my own - there were only about five water ski boats out there, and two canoes, that was about it. The weather was *perfect* - brilliant blue skies, quite warm, yet the winds were very light. You would have no idea that there’s like six weeks until winter starts! It was like Spring. people were out having a picnic, and even the water was rather mild, not cold as I anticipated. Simply gorgeous. Twas the better day of the weekend to go out, as Sunday here was rather overcast and even an occasional storm-shower.
Although the wind was pretty light (as they have been all week), there was just enough to get around in. Almost enough every now and again to get complacent enough to almost capsize (well, kinda…): there was one good squirt that came out of nowhere, with a radically totally different change of direction [fairly typical for inland lake sailing], and altho I saw it coming and was prepared for it, when it hit from the totally opposite direction I had anticipated, it knocked me right around - before I had a chance to uncleat the mainsheet [norty norty boy!], and I leaned over and… but no dramas, as I was able to lean across and uncleat the mainsheet before the water got too close for comfort! But I was annoyed at my own complacency in such light conditions… Rule No. 1 is always “never let go of the sheet” - and I did! Silly boy! heh heh. No damage done tho… I mean, it was such a *huge* gust of wind… oh, all of 10 knots! hahahahaa!
Yeah, it was a brilliant day just to hang out drifting about on the water, enjoying the sunshine and warmth, peace, quiet and solitude out on the water. Beautiful. There’s really nothing quite like it, anywhere!
One thing that happened made me laugh out loud… the pair of shorts I was wearing while I was rigging my boat literally split asunder - from crotch all the way around! Gagh! I knew they were old and well worn [perfect for pottering about on the boat with], but they just split in two as I was wearing them! It was so funny… I’m thankful there was no-one else nearby to see my blue undies poking thru for all to see! Luckily I was able to slip on my actual sailing pants in their place, so all was not lost! You’ve gotta love my sailing pants - and old pair of swimming shorts I bought for like $1 when I was at Kiama a few years ago on holiday, with two HUGE thick padded patches right across the butt, to give a bit of padding to my bony butt when I’m out sailing! heh heh. Not exactly a fashion statement [but well covered when I put the spray-jacket and life jacket on - they cover my butt!], but practical! Thank goodness for the slow Test Cricket back in November - sitting in front of the TV with a sewing machine putting those big patches on the butt, watching cricket! Heh heh. Practical shorts, but not exactly high fashion! lol
And yes, those old ripped shorts were beyond repair, and added to the ‘rag bag’! heh heh
On another thought, it looks as though I might have a buyer for my ‘Solo’ sailing dinghy too! He’s all the way from Brisbane, and he wants to go with the fair price I suggested. I also suggested I meet him half-way on the road - at Armidale, and we exchange boat and money etc there, so that’ll be good good good. Armidale is about a six hour drive [with the boat and trailer], so that’s not too bad. I really enjoy the drive anyways. I stayed overnight in Armidale last time I went thru to Brisbane that way back in November, so I kinda remember the place. Now we’ve just gotta sort out a time and place to actually meet, and put the boat from my trailer onto his! heh heh. It’s all good.
The cricket is on TV tonight, starting at like just before midnight. It’s the World Cup in the Caribbean, so that’s just the joys of living on the other side of the globe, ya know? It’s no biggie. it’s getting down to the exciting part of the series now. We’re playing Sri Lanka tonight, which along with the Kiwis will probably be our major competition from here on in. The Aussies are playing well - let’s just hope they don’t get too complacent this far into the series, huh? Yeah, I’m glad I had a bit of a nap earlier this arvo, so getting up at midnight to watch a few hours of cricket won’t be a major hassle for me. Gives me a chance to write this up as well, which I’ve been putting off for a few days. Not to worry.
One thing that’s happening with me recently is some interesting health things… nothing major, just funny in retrospect! After years of knocking the high-fibre drink called ‘Metamucil’ [which the boys’ mum used to take when she was pregnant], I myself am on it for a while! Gagh! I used to despise the stuff, but upon reflection that’s because we never had large-enough glasses to drink the stuff down with! We’ve got some schooner-glasses [not quite a pint in size], and the stuff slides down a whole lot more easily with that much water, rather than just a tumblers’ worth! Gagh! No wonder we used to struggle with it back then! Those big glasses will be going along with my housemate, so I’m gonna have to hunt around and ‘acquire’ a few schooner-sized drinking glasses of my own soon! There’s nothing quite like having a *large* glass to drink out of, rather than a little tumbler, you know? Oh, don’t worry, I’ve seen schooner glasses for sale at Big W here! heh heh
And yes, the dreaded Metamucil is having the desired results [polite cough]. heh heh.
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you've had some eventful days.
ReplyDeleteThe bowling, the sailing, splitting your pants, sheep, your roommate moving, signing your lease.
I'm suprised your awake!
speaking of sleep...i gotta get some.