A Week Later & It's Still Pretty Damn Good - Mostly

Friday 8 May 2009

We have been invited to lunch at St Erth, Blackwood by one of Ros' nursing colleagues Rosemary. It's a pleasant misty grey trip with Kingsley & Chris taking about 90 minutes. Feels more like winter than autumn and while I'm enjoying the damp outside I'm also wishing that the rain would hold off for a couple of weeks more. The caravan is coming and if there's too much moisture, getting it up onto the flat could be quite a challenge. In fact it will be nearly impossible.

As I've discovered on more than one occasion that I have no control over the weather, its easy to just sit back and hope that at least it won't be raining too heavily at St Erth. The gardens are well worth a longish wander and a light misty rain would be quite pleasant.

Speaking of pleasant, haven't been up this way for about 6 months and the freeway extension bypassing Deer Park is a very useful improvement. I'm not quite sure where I stand on more freeways in general but this one has my blessing.

Lunch was very enjoyable as was the company which also included, Keith, A... , and our most delightful hostess Rosemary who has a soft Dublin accent that I ignorantly mistook for educated Liverpudlian because it reminded me of my best mate's older sister. My trout fillet was enormous and very tender. I'd loved to have caught him but I suspect he was farm bred and had never seen a mountain stream.

While we were enjoying lunch, back at the farm the Grocon team were busily removing dead cars and roofing iron. We weren't certain whether they'd got a start on Friday but it turned out they were working right on schedule. Only a couple of young blokes, a 13 tonne excavator and as many trucks as they could get their hands on.





After filling ourselves to the brim and a little beyond - I didn't order any dessert but was obliged to help Ros & Chris finish theirs, we wandered outside and hastily put up hoods, hats and umbrellas to keep our heads dry. It wasn't particularly cold but I was glad to have three layers as well as my new waterproof outer jacket.

A very pleasant walk around the gardens with a knowledgeable and enthusiastic A... was interspersed with the odd photo-opportunity or two.

By the time we were ready to leave it was approaching 16:00 and no way were we going to be back in time to collect Angus and Phoebe from Fiona's before Cait finished work. A quick call to Cait and she'd organised for the kids to stay with Fi until she arrived. We breathed a grandparently sigh of relief that our failure to recognise that lunch might well be of the extended kind would cause no major drama on the home front.

Farewells concluded, Kingsley once again took the wheel and conveyed us back to Eltham via the wilds of Trentham, Whittlesea and Diamond Creek. "It's a hard life...." and this has been a great end to a very good week. Amazing what a day away in congenial company does for the soul.

Saturday 9 May 2009
Keen to see whether the Grocon guys had actually started as scheduled, I drove up to th efarm on Saturday morning and was pleasantly surprised to see them hard at work. Introduced myself to Jay the supervisor and had a bit of a chat about what they were doing. Also met the excavator operator whose name I've unfortunately forgotten and identified what needed to be left.

Unfortunately this did not include the borrowed giant webber which had already been removed with a mangled pile of roofing iron. I'd meant to move it but had completely forgotten and now I have remembered I need to tell Rhonda that it is no more ... rather a big oops!

It was while I was feeling regretful and not a little guilty about the webber that I noticed that the only thing of value remaining - our cast iron single-piece chiminea was not where Richard and I had left it. Bloody thing weighs a tonne and I couldn't imagine anyone just walking in and knocking it off. So much for my imagination!

Asked the Grocon guys whether they'd seen it on Friday and got a negative together with the information that when they'd arrived, there'd been a log dragged across the driveway preventing access and nothing on the side of the drive, where I'd left several bundles of flattened fencing wire stacked up for Grocon to take.

At this point I got fairly bloody shitty as the realisation that the looting bastards who had stolen it had obviously been watching the site for some time. When I first started going up, upon leaving I dragged a log across the driveway as discouragement to casual passers by. I'd stopped doing that after about three weeks so its pretty obvious that these thieving shits had been looking at the place early in the piece and had returned just before the Grocon team to knock it off, presumably hoping that Grocon would get the blame.

If it was some homeless poor bastard from Kinglake who needed something to keep them warm this winter then I guess they are welcome to it but my suspicion is that it was just an act of bastardry by some reasonable well organised and opportunistic arseholes. Fuck 'em!

Of course I reported it to a sympathetic policeman at Diamond Creek but neither of us held out much hope for it's recovery. Note to the new police commissioner - add the word "chiminea" to your list of stolen-item descriptors. Chimineas are reasonably common and it would save a few minutes of trying to find something acceptable to the system.

Well on that note - it's time for bed.

Thursday 7/05 - What a great Week and it ain't over yet!

The Caravan is Coming!
It's been confirmed - the caravan has been repaired and will be here not this weekend but next weekend because nephew Simon has a race on and his family are manager/support crew/transporters and cheerleaders not to mention timekeepers and they can't be in two places at once. Simon rides outfits (motorcycle and passenger containing platform) at death defying speeds around a race-track. I think I'm the first member of their official fan club.

The Generator is here! Monday 04/05
Well it's been sitting in the warehouse for a few weeks but today I drove around to Bell & Orders (great people to deal with) and picked it up and brought it back to Cait and Nicco's. By the way if you need any excavating or landscaping done, call Sean at SIR Excavations on (03) 9844 1129.

A Meeting with the Council 05/05
Apparently some weeks ago I registered with Council to meet with their departmental reps regarding requirements for rebuilding. I was reminded of this by Jacqui who phoned last week to confirm and make time and date. I had absolutely no recollection but was very happy to get involved so Ros & I toddled along to the Council offices at the appointed time and met with reps from Planning, Building, Health and Environmental Planning. It was a very useful and informative session. The Council team were well prepared and gave us relevant infopacks to take away. I came away being very impressed, particularly after receiving two follow-up calls regarding matters we'd raised at the meeting.

The second call which I received this morning ( 7/5) was from Graham who said that it might take a while because they stil had a lot of roadside clearing to do but Council would get rid of the tree's in the paddock left by DMR. I mentioned that we'd piled them all up near the barn because Grocon had indicated they might be able to take them and gave him Stan's (from Grocon) phone number. Also asked about the roadside pine trees and Graham said he'd need to get an arborist to look at them but would see what he could do.

Grocon is Coming Soon!
En route to the council meeting my mobile rang and it was about 10 minutes before I could return the call. It was Stan from Grocon who had apparently had a machine available but in the intervening period had re-assigned it. I wasn't particularly impressed that I'd had less then 10 minutes to respond, however I couldn't fault his re-allocation of resources. It means they are very close and hopefully will have got to our place before the caravan arrives.

The Mulcher & the Brush Cutter are Coming Too!
During MIFGS I had taken the opportunity and advantage of "special prices" to order a new heavy duty garden mulcher and a Brush cutter both with Honda engines. The sales guy had asked if I minded waiting for a few weeks as they'd had so many orders, he'd run out of stock and would need to get more from the manufacturers. That was no problem so I ordered them early this week and they will be delivered this afternoon. Yay! Nicco will be happy because we can do their place first.

& Finally a New Vehicle
One of the many things that have contributed to some sleepless nights has been what to do about a new vehicle for me. Ros has (mostly) been very patient in sharing her Volvo but it's not a long term solution and if I keep filling up the back with tools and boots and suchlike, it's likely to be very short term!!

What to get has been an issue - I need something that must be able to carry garden and landscaping stuff, plants, rocks, tools etc., tow La Pirogue on a trailer (two tonne all up) and provide a 4wd for camping/fishing trips.

I'd really like to have a Landrover Ute (Defender 130) but they are almost as rare as hens teeth and a have mostly been a bit higher in cost than I had initially planned to pay for a vehicle. The other choice was probably a Nissan Navara 3l which also started at about the $18k-$20k I thought would be reasonable.

Several weeks of reading the Trading Post and hitting all the car sites on the net were beginning to take their toll when I realised that with very little mortgage, we could probably afford to pay a bit more for a car. Ran this past Ros who agreed so the search started again and almost immediately I found a 130 in Sydney that seemed to fit the bill. At about $29,000 it was at the extreme end of my budget but it was what I wanted. However, by the time I'd done a bit of checking with various friends, land-rover clubs and the web, it was gone. I'd also seen a fairly good Navarra for about $25k but hadn't bothered to chase it up.

Things must be looking up a bit or more likely it's really a 130 I wanted, because rather than have a look at the Nissan I said to Ros, "let's give it a month and if I can't find a landrover by June I'll seriously look at Nissans". To my relief she agreed.

Browsing through the web on Tuedsay night with Nicco, I spotted a 130 I hadn't seen before. It was in Victoria (tho' with NSW plates) and apart from having had the rear seats replaced with a tool storage area had a bunch of accessories including ladder racks, roof rack, adjustable airbags inside the springs and a heavy duty alloy tray with tool drawer and a small compressor, Hayman -Rees towbar, looked exactly what I needed - and it was white! Printing off all the details, I stuffed them in my bag as by then it was a bit late to be calling anyone.

Drove into work the following day (Thanks Ros) and after checking with the RACV and booking it in for a 4wd inspection, I rang the owner Alan and arranged to meet him after work. The visit was a bit of an anti-climax with respect to the 130, which looked just like it should, had a few minor dings and dents consistent with its use as a landscaper's vehicle and was generally in pretty good shape. Alan seems like a really nice guy. He's an ex town planner originally from Ballarat, who has been practising as a landcaper in Sydney after retraining at TAFE about 7 years ago. His wife's company has recently transferred her to Melbourne and they've only been in Melbourne for about a week. Alan is giving up hard landscaping and is going to concentrate on design hence the decison to jettison the Landrover.

Alan is very happy to get it RACV inspected and arrange a Roadworthy certificate, so all things being equal I should have what is very close to the car of my dreams about this time next week. I know that Landrovers are a bit prosaic, but I used to own a 1975 series III Safari Wagon with a Holden motor in it and Fairey overdrive, and wished I'd never sold it. Coming from WA I couln't imagine what I'd do with a 4WD in Victoria.

Anyway apart from the fact that growing up in Woomera, there were landrovers all over the place so I've probably got a bit of an emotional attachment to them, I've always said that, "You should never drive a vehicle that goes faster than you can think", so a Landrover and I are admirably well suited.

I am looking forward to it!

A Week's Gone Where? 04/05/09.

I can hardly believe that it's been a week since I last logged in here. I have no idea where the time has gone. Tuesday was work, so was Wednesday & Thursday.

Friday I remember. 06:00 start so I had time for a shower and breakfast before walking up the road to meet Sean with his big Mack truck, excavator and skid steer for the drive up to the farm and a 07:30 start. Sean's been working in excavation since he was sixteen. Initially for his dad Rob in the family business and subsequently himself after Rob retired. I recently got my my skid-steer ticket at NMIT but here's a guy who's been at the controls for 16 years and it shows. Don't reckon there's much he can't do with the damn thing.

While Sean cleaned up around the barn, I busied myself with removing wire and old fencing from the few remaining fence posts and before I'd finished he'd removed all the concrete and crap from the flat as well. Pretty impressive!

He kept going on the flat and worked on some additional landscaping while I started clearing up branches from the home paddock and adding them to the ever increasing pile. Was interested to see today an article in "The Phoenix" that Murrunindi Shire is to allow their ratepayers to burn off provided the piles are no more than 1 metre high by 1 metre wide. At that rate I would need to have a minumum of 10 -15 such heaps about 10 piles and that's just a beginning. I reckon they'll have a revolt in Murrundindi and at the moment I'm grateful to be in Nillumbik.

Speaking of Nillumbik, I was most impressed to be phoned on Friday and invited to attend a meeting with representatives from all the council's departments to discuss issues associated with rebuilding. Apparently I had registered for this some weeks ago. I didn't remember having done so but I am really impressed with this initiative and said so. Hope I'm still happy after the meeting.

While council matters are still close to mind I'm a bit frustrated to have found that we are probably going to have to replace our old septic tank which has worked perfectly well for the last 15 years at least and would presumably keep working for another 15. Apparently the rules are about to change. Why frustrated? Well about seven or eight weeks ago I met with a council guy who for the moment will remain nameless but readers with good memories can look him up.

Anyway I met with this representative of the health department to talk about what was required in order to live in a caravan on the site. One of the items we discussed and I remember it quite clearly was whether or not the septic tank had been damaged and whether we would be able to continue to use it. I was left with the clear notion that provided it wasn't damaged then there would be no problem.

It now seems that the rules have changed. If it's less than 3200l then it aint big enough and needs to be replaced. This information is apparently about to be published by council. It's a bit too obvious a pun but I'm so glad they are going to do this, I could really have been in the shit!

The council gives with the left and takes with the right. I will try to maintain a sense of balance and remind myself once again that this is an unprecedented crisis and our local government representatives and their staffs can't possibly have been expected to have anything like a contingency plan for something so unusual and unexpected as a bushfire. Enough irony... but I am still astonished that they were so unprepared.

Back to Friday and the farm. Ros was supposed to be bring us morning tea about ten but when I called her at about 10:45 she and the coffee were still in Eltham as there had been a minor altercation between Angus and a footpath on the way to school. The footpath won but it was only a temporary victory. Hot coffee and cake arrived with Phoebe and Ros was gratefully consumed.

We were just about to get back to work when Cait and her friend Nicole arrived with lunch and so there was nothing for it but to have lunch.

Can't really claim to be real farmers but the work ethic is pretty strong so we all went back to work. I spent nearly three hours digging out bits of the gate posts while Sean cleaned up the front yard with the skid-steer and Nicole and Cait moved branches, bricks and dug up a vegetable bed.

Sean very carefully and delicately manouvered the biggest log on the property into position and then watched in disbelief and anguish as it rolled away from the front of the bucket, over one of my newly planted Manchurian Pears, straight over the top of a star picket, paused then headed straight for the dam before it swung sideways and rolled ponderously towards the Western fence, stopping about 10 metres short. Apart from the horrified look on Sean's face it was the funniest thing I've seen in years.

After catching our breath Sean and I removed a couple of star pickets and undid the tapes so he and the ski-steer could roll the bloody thing safely down the hill to the monster log pile he had already created. Hopefully, Grocon will take the lot.

It's 11:59 and I'm outa here! Cheers

Two More Goals Achieved - Monday 27/04

Can't believe I didn't have the mother of all bruises this morning. Not a mark to show for all the pain and uncomfortable night. Still hurts but we'll talk about that later after I finish the weekend. Just thought its probably less confusing to go and edit the Weekend blog so its back to the weekend and I'll rejoin today soon or as its turned out tomorrow.

Well it's really Tuesday evening now and still before midnight - think I'm going for a record!

Monday was a brilliant day - cold but not raining. Although the sky constantly threatened to let loose whatever was hiding in the dark grey clouds, it never did, instead providing bright contrasting swathes of sunlight at add odd times throughout the day. Somewhere in all of this I need to learn how to properly operate my new digital slr. "Auto" is terrific but I know I can get much better depth of field because I've done it previously. Trouble is I stumbled across it rather than reading the manual so it hasn't stuck yet. A fairly convoluted segue into the fact that I really love the light that happens in these sorts of conditions and took out quite a bit of time from work to try and capture some of it.

If I can crack the technology, I think there's an opportunity for an exhibition at some time in the future.

The tasks for Monday were to remove all of the dead Manchurian Pears along the drive and plant their newly purchased replacements. Took me most of the afternoon because I wasn't hurrying and kept wandering off to pick up branches and in one instance a $20 dollar note caught under some eucalypt branches tangled with a dead pear. It went into my pocket and the branches went onto the pile. Can't believe I didn't take a picture of the dug in and mulched trees but that's the way it was so we'll have to make do with a before shot.

Had to replace a jubilee clip on one of the smaller fire hoses as it had come off at the T-junction. Fortunately Nicco had found a brass fitting attached to a bit of the right diameter poly pipe on Saturday and I knew just where he'd left it, complete with an almost new clip. Job done I fired up the pump and gave the newly planted trees a good soak as well as watering all the other new plants and the remaining plants in the garden.

That done it was time to look for the elusive gate posts. I'd made several previous attempts by guessing where I reckoned they should be but without success. It was time for a slightly more scientific approach. As fence posts are roughly 3m apart and I had the line from several that had not completely burned below the soil, I got out the tape measure and kept going in a straight line, and digging up the soil about every 3100 - 3300mm. Should have been a piece of cake but obviously near enough had been good enough for the original fence builder.

I found the first gate post at about 17:00 and was almost prepared to call it a day but being bloody minded decided that the other couldn't be much more than 3500mm radius away because that's how long the gate was. Just a passing thought - how hard would it have been for the Main Roads guys to have removed my gates before they chopped down the bloody tree. Would have saved me the cost of two gates and taken them about two minutes.

Anyway they didn't and it took me about another ten minutes to find the second gate post. I dug around them and stuck a couple of gate fittings next to them so they would be easily visible in future. Very pleased with myself, I called Ros and headed for North Warrandyte and a warm shower.

What A Great Weekend! 25-26/04/09 with updates

Well it's 22:12 and 5 minutes ago I thought I'd broken my hip. Didn't but had a bloody good try. Christ it hurts. Wearing socks and slipped on the carpet and just measured my length sideways. Wish I'd been able to watch it happen. I think I will be very sore tomorrow morning.

Hardly the way to begin a blog with such a positive heading but that's the way the QDa crashes. QDa is what my grandchildren call me.

Saturday was planned to be busy day and so it was. Began the day in bed, writing up 3 x A3 pages (in texta) of the work areas and detailed description what was to be done not forgetting OH& S of course.

Ros and I got up to the farm about 09:45 and immediately set about cutting down dead trees and stacking them against the chook fence. It's a shame to have to cut them down but after 9 weeks with no sign of life then there's no question, there's no longer any life support to take them off.

Must confess I take a certain amount of pride in being able to drop a tree pretty much where I want it.

Losing a tree certainly changes the landscape and I think that Ros is not altogether happy with the resulting emptiness.

Shortly after we got started Cait Nicco and the kids arrived, bundled out of the car and after perusing the jobs list, started work in the vegetable garden. It actually took a bit longer than that. There seemed to be some confusion over what was required to be done and it wasn't until I'd explained that there were about four pages of instruction that the problem seemed to go away. I never did get to the bottom of that.

I'd like to keep going but I'm a bit over this hip and subsequent headache so I'm off to bed. More on the weekend tomorrow. - Cheers

Well it's been tomorrow for some time so back to Saturday. Cait and Nicco finally went off fully tasked to the vegetable patch and got into some serious work.

I cut down the third and final tree which I had been going to leave for Grocon as it was very close to the house and apart from the bloody leaves had been gaining a few degrees of slope each year.

Once again it fell exactly where I had anticipated and those who are wondering about hubris need be concerned no longer. It fell smack on top of the giant webber I had borrowed for Xmas and moved out of the way so it wouldn't get removed by Grocon. Of course I'd forgotten the bloody thing was there. It's only a fairly small dent, but I felt pretty stupid, particularly as it took me about 15 minutes of branch trimming before I noticed.

Jamie arrived shortly thereafter - it was beginning to look like a Volvo convention - probably not a bad collective noun - a "convention" of Volvos and after a quick look at the task list fired up the chainsaw and that was just about the last time he stopped except to refuel and re-sharpen the saw. The pile of logs against the fence just kept getting longer and higher only beaten by the pile of branches we were both creating.

Not to be outdone Nicco had created his own pile of grevilliea branches - nearly enough to mulch the whole paddock.

Cait in the meantime had got a bit dispirited about working on the vegetable patch, presumably because Ros had started thinking aloud about not wanting to spoil the view up the valley from the windows of the new house - not that we have a final design by any means. Wanting to give Cait something meaty to do, I took her down to the flat area below the tank where Macca & I had dumped a large number of barrow loads of bricks a couple of weeks earlier and explained that they all needed to be neatly stacked at one end so that we could snuggle the caravan into the side of the hill. The idea is that there will be some protection from the wind unless it comes howling in from the south west. All I could see of Cait for the next hour or so was her head bobbing up and down above the cutting as bricks went from scrambled shambles to an ever-increasing wall you could just about march a legion on for a short distance anyway. Hadrian would have been proud!

Called Ben on the mobile to see if he'd like to bring Willo up. The exercise would be good for them and I'm a bit concerned that it will all be cleaned up and Willo will have missed out. As is often the case I get the answering service and no Ben then or later.

A short while later Richard arrived with some tracing paper for me and an hour or so of willing labour which was quickly directed to increasing the size of the branch pile. If we ever set fire to it, they'll be panicking in Kinglake and Marysville.

I can't believe it's after midnight again and I haven't even finished Saturday.

Problem is I've spent several hours turning my newly acquired MacBook into a windows machine so I can continue to run some useful applications. More of Saturday and Sunday later - its bed time.

I'll publish this now and update again tomorrow - Cheers - Q

Cath - Jamie's wife arrived with their two girls Molly & Lea and lunch at about 2:00ish and were quickly followed by Sean another of Cait's school neighbours and his dad Rob. Sean has his own earthmoving business and had offered to help move whatever needed moving and this was the first time we'd had as chance to meet and inspect the site.

While the others ate lunch Sean, Rob and I wandered down the dam paddock and looked at the bloody great logs the Main Roads Dept had carefully parked just below the flat. I wasn't sure if Sean's skid-steer was big enough but he explained he had an excavator as well so it wouldn't be a major drama. A bit more of a wander around and over the flat to see what needed doing and then back up the slope to have a look at what I call the home paddock which is where most of the garden will be, where we stood about and yacked for a while before they headed off and I went back to work.

Somewhere in here the kids discovered the black mud at the bottom of a largish puddle in the driveway and just had to do something useful with it like painting Jamie's trailer. A great deal of fun was had by all.








The last thing I had on my agenda was to finish cabling up the electric fence for the goat who will hopefully not have discovered how to swim while holidaying at his temporary home. The much threatened rain must have been getting close because the temperature took a sudden drop. So much so that I decided to stop toughing it out and put on a long sleeved polarfleece - Thanks Stephen - before getting on with the last row of electric tape. Just got that done
and was walking back to the car when the rain started to get serious. I threw on my rain jacket and walked up to the area behind the chook shed where Jamie and Cath were still stacking wood and yelled, "Hey it's OK to knock off you don't have to work in the rain!. To which Jamie replied "Aaah we just thought we'd better keep going until you gave us the word to stop." I hope he was joking.

A couple of photos later - the rain wasn't quite pelting down and we packed into the cars and drove away leaving Jamie to change a stop light bulb before he too followed. Cath and the kids led the way with Ros & I behind her the first of the Volvo cavalcade.

We stopped in Research to order the biggest lot of fish and chips that I reckon they'd had to deal with for a while and Cait & Nicco went in to Eltham to top up on lubricating fluids. I took Ros home for a shower and returned to Research for the food.

Food and drink downed, we all headed for bed and an early finish to the blog. What a great day!

For me, very much in the spirit of ANZAC. A bunch of disparate people, working bloody hard together without expectation of reward, to help a mate.

Sunday 26 Well it's only supposed to be Autumn but it feels like deepest Siberian Winter or pehaps just a normal day in the Antarctic. Eventually dragged myself out of bed got breakfasted and after a bit of dithering around which generally means I can't remember what we were doing, went down to see if I could borrow Jamie's trailer for a couple of hours. CFA had arranged a "Wholesale Price Day" for all CFA members at PlantMart and I thought it would come in handy if we hade more than we could fit in the car.

The trailer was freely given and after pumping up the tires on route we wombled our way to PlantMart at Thomastown which was chock a block with CFA bods, not a few of whom were from St Andrews and other local brigades.

The temperature went down pretty much in inverse proportion to the number of plants we bought. By mid afternoon when we had filled three trolleys with fruit trees, lemon, navel orange, blood orange and mandarin. A Wollemi Pine that Ros has wanted as a Xmas tree for some time, as well as a new Waratah to replace one that hasd not survived. Groundcovers including myoporum parvifolium, the last three trailing rosemary they had, unfortunately only in 100mm pots, grevillea gaudi chaudi, several pots of herbs, a whole range of correa including one called "Little Cate", Dianella tasmanica and revoluta, Eremophila maculata - spotted Emu bush, Santolina chemaecyparisus - Lavender Cotton, a beautiful brown foliaged shrub the name forgotten, a couple of sets of grasses including lomandra "breeze", eight Sea Lavender and not least of all but certainly last, seven Pyrus ussuriensis - Manchurian Pears to replace those along the driveway killed by the fire. Subsequently discovered that I'd miscounted or lost one more and it should have been eight. Another example of what I'm calling "bushfire brain". Talk about a child in a lolly shop - apart from a car and a boat I don't think I've ever spent that much in one go and the great thing was I enjoyed doing it.

Car and trailer absolutely stacked to the gunwhales we drove up to the farm and very quickly offloaded everything into sheltered spaces among the trees and behind logs for additional protection and raced back to St Andrews at 40kph and then maxed to the speed limit because we had to get home, get changed or at least put on a clean pair of trousers in my case, pick up Angus, Phoebe and Lena one of our German daughters who was back alone in Melbourne and head back to the St Andrews Hall to attend an event which had been organised by local St Andrews people who'd formed a very effective committee to arrange a public thank you to St Andrews CFA and a presentation to members who'd been involved on Feb 7 and beyond.

We arrived at 16:50 just before the presentation began at 17:00 and despite the large crowd manged to find some space at the back of the hall. I made the mistake of going for some drinks for the kids and the adults, by which time the speeches had begun and I was stuck outside with three glasses of sparkling red. What a dilemma. I moved around to the side door and was able to hear most of the speech by Lex de Man CFA Regional Manager and only drank one of them.

Between speeches, a gap opened up again at the back so I squeezed in and handed them to Ros.

It was actually pretty hard to hear at the back of the hall but CFA folk were requested to make their way to the stage for the presentation. I asked Angus if he'd like to come with me but shyness overwhelmed him and he said "No thanks." Phoebe immediately put up her arms and said, "I'll come", so we struggled our way to the front of the crowd and up on to the stage. She was pretty happy until the crowd were asked to show their appreciation for us CFA wallahs and then it all became a bit much as she made herself tiny and snuggled into my shoulder.

I was the first to receive the cheers and my Thank You Certificate which was very nicely printed and framed, as well as an engraved Selangor pewter goblet. Asking if I could have the microphone for a second, I said, "That after the North East Fires in 2003/2004, I had marched with CFA through the centre of Melbourne, but nothing was as good as being thanked by your own Community!". Phoebe and I returned to the back of the hall via the side door and joined in the cheering and clapping as the presentations were made.

A great celebration is seldom complete without food and drink and as Phoebe pointedly asked, "Where's my dinner - I'm hungry?", the presentations were completed and we joined the queue for a barbeque dinner which certainly seemd to fill most of her spaces and mine. Dinner over, the kids joined with a bunch of others who were doing laps around the hall while we chatted to friends, acquaintances colleagues and neighbours. I was particularly chuffed to learn that Angela who we had met at the Royal Commission Briefing Day had really enjoyed reading the blog which she'd discovered via the article in the Leader.

As I've mentioned once or twice, its very gratifying and encouraging to receive such positive feedback so after everything else good about Sunday, Angela pretty much put the icing on top of the rich fruit cake which had been my day.

One Day I'll Learn How to Juggle

Friday 24/04/09

Hello Bloggees - it has been rather blank in the blogosphere. I'm hoping that you haven't all given up and gone away. I've been hiding inside my head for a few days struggling and juggling with  more balls than I know how to handle. 

Over the years I've tried to teach myself to juggle and even had a few lessons.  I can do it for a while but it doesn't seem to stick. I'm fascinated by what seems to be the zen of juggling, I can do it when I stop focusing on it but as soon as I realise that I'm no longer concentrating of course I start to try and control it, the rhythm goes and so do the balls. 

Not sure that it has the same root cause but I'm not very good at dealing with a bunch of  competing priorities particularly when it comes to spending money 

Over the last week or so I've agreed with my boss at IBM that my desire to work a three day week in IT needs to become a reality so that I can start to build up the Garden Design business and also continue the farm rebuilding process. It means a fairly big salary reduction at a time when we need all the money we can get to replace the house and other farm buildings. Concurrently I've started my first garden consulting assignment which is really exciting but I've been putting off for no good reason, calling the other potential clients that I met at the flower show and booking time to see them. My son has asked for and been committed a reasonable chunk of money so that he and his partner have the best possible chance of affording a house before the first home buyers grant gets halved post June. The insurance company asked for a statement from our bank allowing them to pay us the amount insured. It came as a bit of a surprise but after I talked to the bank  and discovered that while we would have significantly less cash in hand for building, we would have practically no mortgage and would be able to draw down on the money in the mortgage account if it was required. Apart from Ros having an instant meltdown it meant that we had to reprioritise our building strategy. $38K for a wooden barn now looks like a hell of a lot of money, particularly when a metal similarly shaped building is about $8k - $10k. Either way we need to ensure that we have sufficient for a house first. Checked with Nillumbik to see what was the biggest size shed I could build without permit. If you guessed 3m2 then you were spot on! However you can have several of them as long as you don't join them together. The caravan which we had expected to see  this weekend has a mechanical problem that will most probably resolved by next weekend. In the middle of  all  this, Ros suggests that one option might be to get the farm cleared up and then just let it sit, slowly appreciating in value and use the insurance money to buy somewhere else where the sailing was closer. I got quite excited at the prospect and began to think Gippsland, Perth, SA and especially Tasmania where they have trout fishing too. Head swirling I was still considering the possibilities when the Phoebster came into bed early one morning for  snuggle between us and I knew that it was going to be too early for a long distance break from the grandchildren and so it proved. I think I've committed to 5 years and then a check point. And of course there's the decision about the kind of vehicle I need and how much I will have to pay for it. Red ball, yellow ball, blue ball, green ball, multicoloured ba.. bugger there it goes again.

Somewhere in there I had two days sailing with Ian in La Pirogue from Yaringa Marina at the NW corner of Westernport Bay down around French Island and across to Newhaven Marina at the eastern end of Phillip island  where we spent a very pleasant evening and sailed back the following day. 

Tomorrow we're having a working bee up at the farm - cleaning up fences, finishing the goat fence for Woodie, moving more bricks, cutting down the vegetable garden hedge, cleaning up the veggie garden and more timber clearing and then we'll have lunch!  We'll have quite a crew with Cait, Nicco and the kids, Cath, Jamie and the girls from down the road in Valias St and of course Ros & the blogger. Richard will be up for an hour or so and we might see Ben, Em & Willo.

By the way, I liked the photo that was published in the Diamond Valley Leader so much that I'm going to see if they'll let me have it to use on my business card.

Busy day ahead - time for bed. 

 

Positive Things

Sometimes in the chaos which passes for life at the moment, it is difficult to remember that just being alive is a pretty positive thing. I've just re-read that and it sounds a lot more negative than I intended. This piece is meant to be a celebration of some of the good things that have happened.

There has to be a clever way to get better quality pictures in here but in the mean time try this link.
Link to picasa

Well the link works but as is so often the case, one finds out the easy way after the fact. It turns out that the pictures are loaded in "small" when one is in edit but if you click on the image when viewing the blog, then they expand to fill the screen. I refuse to tell you how long it took to discover this simple fact. Instead I'm going to bed very shortly as once again it is past midnight!

The pictures here and in picasa were taken at the farm a few days ago and feature butterflies in the Buddlea - several shots trying out my camera, and one each of the now famous plum tree and the Ginko which will most probably be just approaching maturity long after I've mouldered away into obscurity.

A poor segue way into something I've been meaning to chat about but haven't until now found an appropriate place. Far from being hidden and obscure, following my 15 seconds of fame on Better Homes & Gardens a week or so ago, NMIT produced a press release in which I featured and the local Diamond Valley Leader sent out a photographer to capture the aforementioned plum tree with me looking mostly tired but happy. Actually that's how I felt - I'll have to wait for this week's Leader to see what I looked like.

And now it's really time for bed.