How are you filling in your day in lockdown?

[old man emu]

This week I'm rearranging my garage. I wasn't happy with the new workbench being outside, and I know my Beloved would not be either, so I've unloaded all my steel shelving units and dumped everything on the "entertainment area". Another reason to do this was that the gyprock ceiling in the garage came away from the rafters and stopped the roller door from opening. So a handyman is coming tomorrow to redo the ceiling, and by moving everything out, he gets a better run at the job.

 

My gas bar-b-que has seen better days. I found a reasonable one put out for the Council to pick up, so I scored that and now I'm looking at taking the gas manifold off the one I found and putting it on my old one. 

 

From the same place I scored two really good wheel rims with tyres, but when I got home I found that the holes don't match the layout of the stubs on the hubs I have.

 

School's back, so I'm in to home schooling again. Tomorrow's lesson is about the paddock to plate journey of bread. I'll have my grandson and his best mate with me, so I'm going to get them to make a loaf of bread each. I'm going to try to video them doing it so that the video can be uploaded to their schoolwork pages.

 

Later in the week I'm going to bake a batch of Chocolate Brownies and a batch of White Chocolate Blondies to take to the hospital as a present to the nurses who have been doing so much for my wife.

 

Strewth, I don't have time to get bored.

[onetrack]

I must agree, this has been a long wet Winter, even here in W.A. Spring just doesn't seem to want to burst out, the cold is lingering, and the rain is keeping up. As with others, we didn't get away this Winter - nor last Winter, as well. We normally head North for a month in Winter - Darwin or Broome, or Cairns.

 

This year, we made plans and bookings to go direct to Cairns in late August for about 10 days, then down to the Gold Coast to see the wifes sons family and grandson, then back home.

But within a couple of weeks of booking everything, COVID-19 exploded again in QLD - so we cancelled everything, and stayed home, and endured more cold and rain - and ended up with $1800 in travel credit stuck in Virgins Travel Bank.

 

We were going to head to the Northern Wheatbelt for a few days, to check out the outstanding wildflower season - but we can't even seem to get that organised. It always seems something blocks us, anytime we try to get away.

 

The stepdaughters boyfriend had his Falcon wagon nearly written off by a driver who turned in front of him in late August - and he's ended up in constant pain and unable to do much physical work.

So I lent him a spare Hilux of mine, so he could keep mobile and rebuild the Falcon (which he decided to do, after he got a $4000 payout from the crash drivers insurance company, and got the wreck for $100) - but he's been unable to repair it because of his constant pain. The docs don't seem to be much use, one even told him his dislocated collarbone from the crash, was "an old injury"! 

 

I've got a swag of repair jobs that I can't seem to progress, because of rain and cold, and interference from other requirements taking up my time. I'm really looking forward to longer days and warm weather, I really hate cold and wet weather.

The upside is, that today we ordered a new 6.6Kw solar system, because our 10 yr contract for the W.A. Govts generous 40c feed-in tariff, ended last June - and our current 1.5Kw system is barely making a dent in our (increased charges) power bill. 

 

The downside of course, is that we're now $5000 poorer - but it's money we had in the holiday account - so at least we don't have to finance it, or struggle to find it, or put it on a credit card!

Hopefully, the outlay will be recovered within about 3.5-4 years, and from then on, we'll be laughing.

When we installed the 1.5Kw system in 2011, it cost us $4000 then - but we recovered the outlay within 3.5 years, and the other 6.5 years during the contract duration, were years of only tiny power bills.

[red750]

Here's a way to spend m-a-n-y days in lockdown.Takes care of social distancing as well. Enjoy the accent.

 

 

[onetrack]

Good to see rampant OH&S regulations alive and well in old Blighty. The mining industry OH&S managers would be using that clip to show everything you MUST not do, at height!

 

Nary a hard hat in sight, not a single safety item I could recognise anywhere on the job site. It's like a clip out of an early 1800's jobsite. Just watching him climb the chimney gave me the heebie-jeebies.

 

And the struggle to climb off the ladder, and over the planking at the top, was just unbelievable!  

[old man emu]

He's got the easy job. Hit the bricks and let gravity do the rest. Imagine how hard it was for the blokes who built it. They had to lift the bricks and mortar all the way up..

 

It was a beautiful bit of bricklaying.

[octave]

I have recently been using my time in lockdown to digitize all of my photos.    One of the benefits is that it has made me look at photos I have not seen for years.  This picture was my first ever flying lesson in 1989 I think.   The confronting thing is that the fit young man in this picture bears  little resemblance to the decaying human wreck I see in the mirror these days!

 

 

[old man emu]

I finished rearranging my garage today.

 

This is what I started with:

  

 

And this is what it is like now

 

I don't even have to move my bike to get room to work

 

  

[Fliteright]

Don’t see any difference😂😂

[facthunter]

When you tidy up you can't find anything. It's all in drawers. You know what they say about People who have tidy  workshops?  Nev

[nomadpete]

My cluttered workshop reflects my cluttered mind. And I like it that way.

I'd show you all a pic, but I don't think you'd understand.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

You know what they say about People who have tidy  workshops?

They've got nothing better to do.

 

But it's OK. I went out after dinner and made a bit of a mess and left stuff on the benches.

[Marty_d]

5 hours ago, old man emu said:

I finished rearranging my garage today.

 

This is what I started with:

  

 

And this is what it is like now

 

I don't even have to move my bike to get room to work

 

  

 

Thinking of coming down to Tassie any time soon?  I've got a shed that needs your attention.

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, Marty_d said:

 

Thinking of coming down to Tassie any time soon?  I've got a shed that needs your attention.

Honestly, if the missus was OK to travel that far, we'd be there like a shot. I'd love to see Tassie.

[Fliteright]

If you go to Tassie make sure you carry two masks each😉

[nomadpete]

Why would you want to take a mask?

Thanks to effective controls and widespread vaccination, (So far), there is no lockdown in Tassie and a mask is only required when walking through the airport.

[willedoo]

6 hours ago, Fliteright said:

If you go to Tassie make sure you carry two masks each😉

That's only if you were born there (if you believe all the jokes, that is).

[willedoo]

5 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Why would you want to take a mask?

Thanks to effective controls and widespread vaccination, (So far), there is no lockdown in Tassie and a mask is only required when walking through the airport.

I think he was making a Tasmanian joke, you know, the old inbred two heads thing.

[nomadpete]

Statistically, most Tasmanian citizens are now ex mainland, climate refugees. And therefore are all single headers.

The remaining minority of true Taswegians might still be double headers, but I'm not sure. Does that make me half as smart?

[pmccarthy]

Climate refugees? So has there been a measurable change in climate? Tassie has always had a better climate than the mainlanders gave it credit for.

[onetrack]

Quote

Tassie has always had a better climate than the mainlanders gave it credit for.

...As compared to inland Victoria? Yes, I guess so. Both are unacceptably freezing cold, to me. 

[nomadpete]

9 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

Climate refugees? So has there been a measurable change in climate? Tassie has always had a better climate than the mainlanders gave it credit for.

Let's not start that again.

There HAS been a measurable change in population in Tasmania, due to humans relocating from the mainland.

Regardless of the cause, even the fish are feeling warmer down Tassie way. We're now getting climate refugee fish relocating here from up north, and they are decimating the big kelp forests.

Edited October 13, 2021 by nomadpete
spellcheek

[Marty_d]

We're certainly feeling the impacts in housing prices.  A friend of ours is going through divorce and looking for a home of her own.  Yesterday she looked at a 2 bedroom fibro cottage in Huonville - probably worth under $200,000 a couple of years back, now they're after offers over $500,000.

 

So no... the weather is shit, the prices are expensive, the forests are all cut down and there's no fish in the ocean.  So there's absolutely no need for any mainlanders to come here!

 

(Special exemption for OME, if he cleans my shed.)

[old man emu]

10 hours ago, Marty_d said:

(Special exemption for OME, if he cleans my shed.)

I'll do it for accommodation and all found

[nomadpete]

I don't let anybody come to stay with us unless they show me their return ticket. Especially relatives.

[old man emu]

My Dad said that he never went to Tasmania.