A short day at work at the end of last week, then I was off to Melbourne. I took some audio books borrowed from the local public library. This was great. I should have done this ages ago. I do enjoy the open road stretching in front of me, but sometimes you get fed up with the same stuff over and over again, and any delights there might have been while driving during the day are lost at night. I found the audio books filled the gap really well. You can get audio tapes as audio books as well as CDs. Some are read by the author, but I gather most aren’t. It sounds a bit weird with the reader trying to take on different accents and voices, and the gender difference can be just a bit too difficult for some readers and is kind of funny to listen to then trying to emulate another gender. But, for all that, I can thoroughly recommend you give audio books a try if you are involved in long distance driving. I was actually looking forward to the trip home when I could listen to the remainder of the book.
Anyway, at home, I had a tour of inspection of the house. The house was looking great. It was strange to see it looking so tidy. And the lounge, with the settee in a new position simply looked weird. Still, if that’s what our stylist thinks is a good thing, who am I to argue.
I experienced a few open inspections while there on this visit, so had my share of cleaning up the house prior to the inspections. There seems to be a virus in the house that keeps blowing light bulbs. It was really weird; perhaps it was just a bad batch of globes, but what can you do. You wouldn’t be very successful going back to the retailer, even if you did have the receipt, saying it’s blown, give me another one. You’d be laughed at. One of the car head lights also went out on the drive down to Melbourne too. We took a trip to one of the local lighting specialists. You’d think it would be easy to buy a fluoro tube, but no lighting shop had any in stock. It was a slim line thing for the kitchen bench, under the cupboards.
Still, we got some stuff done as well as having some fun. Got some rubbish to the dump. The bastards at the dump wouldn’t take our unmarked chemicals or paint tins. They wanted the old paint tins opened before accepting them, but flatly refused the chemicals. What are people supposed to do? This was the Eltham Council. Is the council trying to encourage you to wrap them with the rest of the household rubbish? It seem like they are. I don’t know how a Council can become so short sighted. They have an obligation to accept everything and accept the cost of disposal. Stupid twits. I don’t know what to do with the stuff. Does the Eltham Council want me to dig a hole in my back yard and dump it there? That would be dumb, but this council is certainly encouraging that.
We got some more stuff into storage. Through the garage is still pretty full. I fixed the bathroom cupboard door that threatened to fall off before our first inspection. These modern bathroom fittings are made of crumby materials. It’s a wonder they last as long as they do made out of the stuff that gets used now a days. Longer screws in the door fixed the hinge.
We spent some time tidying up the place. We spread some cream pebbles around some of the plants in the garden to tizzy them up a bit. The ferns growing out of our driveway repair that I’d mentioned earlier were all doing very well and were looking really good, the lawn was looking surprisingly lush too, and despite S saying the vegie patch looked rough, seemed fine to me.
I gave the drain at the side of the house a couple of vigorous pumps with the plunger, and it seemed to drain slowly. There is something mysterious going on down there. If I had more time I could do something better than poke bits of wire down and attack it with a rubber suction plunger. Digging up the place is something you don’t do in the middle of an inspection period. On the positive side, the drain was only to take away a few drips from an overflow pipe.
We bought some new plants and put them around the place, and put some flowering pots around by the water tank. The water tank was not one of the properties best features. It has seen better days and is showing a few rust spots here and there. Interestingly, when the tank is full it doesn’t leak and in fact the rusting slows. However, when the water level is very low, the rust spots grow. I guess that’s because air is circulating.
S’s becoming friends with the wildlife. There always have been a lot of birds (lorikeets particularly), possums and lizards in Warrandyte. The two lorikeets here are being fed with a preparation that’s available in the supermarkets. It comes as a powder and when mixed with water into a watery paste and put out in a bowl they just go mad for it. They figh
t each other off and the pecking order is very evident in their behaviour. But besides their nasty temperament toward each other some of the more bold, like these two, can come so close you would think they were tame. They are so cute. They stick their little tongues in and out to suck up all this nice sweet tucker. Also while I was there, I watched her pick up one of the possums that come onto our block. It was a baby when she first started to pet it, when I saw her I was shocked by what she was doing. It was almost the size of its mother. It probably has some very sharp claws and teeth. Still, if you are kind to animals they may well be kind in return.
I had mentioned earlier that the car had kept smoking following the repair to the turbo. On the trip back to Melbourne this had gradually cleared until there was no smoke at all from the exhaust. All it needed was a good drive. And the extra power was great too.
But on the way back the car began jumping out of overdrive. If I lent on the gear leaver I could keep it in gear. The teeth on the synchro must be wearing round edges. I got fed up with it after a while and stopped using overdrive and left it in fourth gear. It its not one thing it’s another.
Anyway, at home, I had a tour of inspection of the house. The house was looking great. It was strange to see it looking so tidy. And the lounge, with the settee in a new position simply looked weird. Still, if that’s what our stylist thinks is a good thing, who am I to argue.
I experienced a few open inspections while there on this visit, so had my share of cleaning up the house prior to the inspections. There seems to be a virus in the house that keeps blowing light bulbs. It was really weird; perhaps it was just a bad batch of globes, but what can you do. You wouldn’t be very successful going back to the retailer, even if you did have the receipt, saying it’s blown, give me another one. You’d be laughed at. One of the car head lights also went out on the drive down to Melbourne too. We took a trip to one of the local lighting specialists. You’d think it would be easy to buy a fluoro tube, but no lighting shop had any in stock. It was a slim line thing for the kitchen bench, under the cupboards.
Still, we got some stuff done as well as having some fun. Got some rubbish to the dump. The bastards at the dump wouldn’t take our unmarked chemicals or paint tins. They wanted the old paint tins opened before accepting them, but flatly refused the chemicals. What are people supposed to do? This was the Eltham Council. Is the council trying to encourage you to wrap them with the rest of the household rubbish? It seem like they are. I don’t know how a Council can become so short sighted. They have an obligation to accept everything and accept the cost of disposal. Stupid twits. I don’t know what to do with the stuff. Does the Eltham Council want me to dig a hole in my back yard and dump it there? That would be dumb, but this council is certainly encouraging that.
We got some more stuff into storage. Through the garage is still pretty full. I fixed the bathroom cupboard door that threatened to fall off before our first inspection. These modern bathroom fittings are made of crumby materials. It’s a wonder they last as long as they do made out of the stuff that gets used now a days. Longer screws in the door fixed the hinge.
We spent some time tidying up the place. We spread some cream pebbles around some of the plants in the garden to tizzy them up a bit. The ferns growing out of our driveway repair that I’d mentioned earlier were all doing very well and were looking really good, the lawn was looking surprisingly lush too, and despite S saying the vegie patch looked rough, seemed fine to me.
I gave the drain at the side of the house a couple of vigorous pumps with the plunger, and it seemed to drain slowly. There is something mysterious going on down there. If I had more time I could do something better than poke bits of wire down and attack it with a rubber suction plunger. Digging up the place is something you don’t do in the middle of an inspection period. On the positive side, the drain was only to take away a few drips from an overflow pipe.
We bought some new plants and put them around the place, and put some flowering pots around by the water tank. The water tank was not one of the properties best features. It has seen better days and is showing a few rust spots here and there. Interestingly, when the tank is full it doesn’t leak and in fact the rusting slows. However, when the water level is very low, the rust spots grow. I guess that’s because air is circulating.
S’s becoming friends with the wildlife. There always have been a lot of birds (lorikeets particularly), possums and lizards in Warrandyte. The two lorikeets here are being fed with a preparation that’s available in the supermarkets. It comes as a powder and when mixed with water into a watery paste and put out in a bowl they just go mad for it. They figh
t each other off and the pecking order is very evident in their behaviour. But besides their nasty temperament toward each other some of the more bold, like these two, can come so close you would think they were tame. They are so cute. They stick their little tongues in and out to suck up all this nice sweet tucker. Also while I was there, I watched her pick up one of the possums that come onto our block. It was a baby when she first started to pet it, when I saw her I was shocked by what she was doing. It was almost the size of its mother. It probably has some very sharp claws and teeth. Still, if you are kind to animals they may well be kind in return.I had mentioned earlier that the car had kept smoking following the repair to the turbo. On the trip back to Melbourne this had gradually cleared until there was no smoke at all from the exhaust. All it needed was a good drive. And the extra power was great too.
But on the way back the car began jumping out of overdrive. If I lent on the gear leaver I could keep it in gear. The teeth on the synchro must be wearing round edges. I got fed up with it after a while and stopped using overdrive and left it in fourth gear. It its not one thing it’s another.
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