Four days in Melbourne

It was 10.15pm when I got back to Canberra, after an eight hour trip. Eight hours seems to be the time it takes me to drive between Canberra and Melbourne. I don’t quite know how I did the trip in seven and a half hours on my first run through, but that was in the MR2. Maybe I was speeding.

The speedo in the EXA reads high – in so far as I can tell 110 on the dial is actually 100, and 120 is actually 110km/hr. The highway speed check systems that are put on the highway every now and again are a great service. Though I have to wonder why so many of them have been installed on sections of the road that are on a slope. This is a difficult situation for people driving a standard car without cruise control. I find I’m forever adjusting the throttle to try and maintain a constant speed to compare it with the over head indicator. The trouble with that is that I could be accelerating or decelerating at the point in the road where you pass the speed sensor, which kind of makes the whole thing pointless.

It was a fabulous trip, and with the new tyre fitted the vibration that worried me on the last trip was gone. I enjoyed it immensely, except for the last couple of hours from Gundagai to the ACT, at night. I don’t have a heater in the car. The return trip contrasted with the run to Melbourne with the sun in my eyes. I have to wonder if when engineers and surveyors are planning highways they consider just how they can annoy motorists, for a bit of mischief. I can imagine them sitting in their site office looking at a topographic map of the district where the road is planned to run, and considering the options of where to site the road. I can just imagine a handful of young civil engineering graduates who might have been sitting around in a site office under a shady tree in a paddock in the middle of nowhere, before the Hume Highway had been built. I can imagine these highway engineers in a conversation, joking around, wondering where the sun sets in the afternoon, and then having the highway surveyed so that at certain times of the year the sun hits you square in the eyes as you top the crest of a hill. Just kidding; this would never happen, would it? Would it? Surely, not.

After taking advantage of an early break from work (3 hours) I got to Melbourne at about 10.00pm. Squeak, one of our cats, bolted out the door as soon as she saw me. Frightened of the stranger at the door. She always was a scardy cat, but it hasn’t been that long since she’s seen me. And Elsa, our other cat, ignored me. What a welcome. S is obviously the only one who loves me.

What a huge house this place at Warrandyte seems. It’s funny how you forget things. Oh, well, there is an excuse for the cat’s behaviour. The polished wooden kitchen bench tops seemed strange and stood out. I guess I was getting used to the plastic bench tops of where I was in Canberra. The lounge room seemed huge. Outside so much had grown; even the weeds.

I spent more time lazing around than I should have, but made good inroads with the list of things to do. There was a stuck key to the back door that had been broken off in the lock, not long after I left. It took me two minutes to get the broken key from the back door lock, and here was S unable to get out the back door for about 6 weeks. A quick tug with a pair of long-nose pliers and it was easily pulled out. We bought a new hand-truck to help get the old fridge and dishwasher onto the street for the hard rubbish collection that the council had planned. So, that was a bit of good luck that resolved a problem and the expense of taking it to the dump. I should have bought a hand truck years ago. I used it the whole weekend, and advocate anyone who is doing a move go get one. They are very reasonably priced at the large hardware stores.

It’s amazing how the wildlife takes over the things you don’t use often. We had an old fridge in the garage. The fuse blew as soon as I switched it on. I hope I didn’t electrocute any of the little creatures that seemed to be setting up home in there. The fridge and a dishwasher had to be dumped. It was kind of sad dumping these two items. The dishwasher was a Bosch. It was a brilliant appliance. We had it for years and it was superb, and it had been in the house when we bought the place. I must get another Bosch as this one gave fabulous service and lasted for years. So, now we have a gap in the kitchen where the dishwasher used to be. Is it better to have a hole where the dishwasher used to be, or have a dishwasher in place that doesn’t work? The punters, when they come walking through, might see there’s no dishwasher, and take brownie points away from their assessment of the property. On the other hand they might think, “beauty, I can buy my favourite brand.” These things are hard to say, really.

The vegie patch up the back looked great, and I saw the new brick path that S had put in. We were sitting under a shady tree having a cuppa, and I was looking around at the house and garden. There were certainly some things that were wrong with this place, work that needed to be done, but by and large it was a nice property. We had put a lot of time and work into this place and it was about to go on the market. Were we making the right decision? At that moment I could have easily stay there for ever. Have you spotted the image at the top of my blog? The garden was an oasis.

I used to go snow skiing. One of the tips the experienced skier will always pass along to novices: Get fit before your ski trip. The same advice can apply equally to preparing a house for sale and or moving home. I began to do some real work that weekend, and discovered how unfit I was. I found myself becoming exhausted after only a sort time.

I packed the car on Monday with another load of things. You can’t get too much into a car that is not more easily left to removalists, but I think it does help. There are some things I’d prefer not to leave to removalists. Delicates and valuables, mainly, and of course, the newly repaired TV went back with me. Tom Kerkhof Television is the guy I've been using and he's good and resasonably priced. Give him a try if live in the area; though it probably is a bit much driving from Canberra like I did, but what the hell.

Our various trips up and down the Hume Highway have fallen into a routine of stopping at the McDonalds come petrol station, service centre, combination that’s not so far from Benalla in Vic for a snack and fuel stop, and then again at the Gundagai McDonalds in NSW to do the same again. I can’t actually stand McDonalds stuff. McDonalds don’t cater for vegetarians in a big way, the serves are meagre, and the thick shakes, while they taste okay, gives me an after effect in my throat like I might need a doctor’s visit and leaves me with a niggling cough for ages after. The fish roll things McDonalds sell are mostly okay, but once again you don’t actually get much of it, and because few other people actually order them, there never seem to be any ready and you always have to wait for them. At least that means they are fresh. Have you ever tried those apple pies that they do? In my experience, apple pies should be baked. McDonalds apple pies seem to be deep fried which makes them the biggest yuk I’ve ever come across. So, I continue to stop at the same places and phone home for a chat from each one. Poor S was feeling flat when I rang from McDonalds. I hope we can sell up and buy a new place quickly.