After a successful session on ebay, we take the trailer down to Melbourne to pick up 3 chests of drawers. We've also succumbed to the lure of Treats From Home, an expat-Brit shop in Melbourne which specialises in those goodies that you just can't get in Australia... yeah, sad, we know, but we were desperate after finishing off the bread sauce packets Mike Hearn so valiantly smuggled through customs, I mean brought over for us. Here's the haul:
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They didn't have any bread sauce! Visitors from the UK are kindly requested to smuggle, err, bring at least one packet of bread sauce and one packet of Bassets jelly babies for each week of their stay : ) We can make a good crumble topping pretty easily, and the local Gravox is not too bad even compared to Bisto, but Delia's bread sauce recipe is too damn fiddly, and jelly babies over here don't have that naughty coating on them. |
Kyneton Botanical Gardens is celebrating its 150th anniversary, with a "Musica Botanica" so it seems only fair that after plundering seeds a few weeks ago, I load up the esky and trundle over to sit in the shade of its glorious trees (its stinking hot outside at 39 degrees C - autumn, huh!) with Jo and Ted. We get through 4 bottles of bubbly and some salads whilst listening to various local musicians, and I ask a school string teacher whose string orchestra played one set where the nearest orchestra is, as I've been unable to find any locally. Apparently Bendigo Symphony is the best\nearest, so I resolve to check it out.
After our by now almost weekly pilgrimage down to Aldi's in Sunbury (irresistable bargains, blast 'em) and a visit to an off-road camping specialist and an electronics store, David has assembled his test rig for playing with solar power.
He's testing what we can get from a 10 watt solar panel, charging our old 12v power station (the one with a built in compressor and jump leads, which we took everywhere the Triking was likely to play up) and a new 12v deep cycle gel battery (specifically for solar and wind applications, where it discharges slowly, unlike an ordinary car battery, and is recharged often). He has a bank of 12 volt lights that will run off the batteries overnight, or with a 600 watt inverted plugged after either of the batteries, that 12 volts direct current is turned into 240 volts alternating current, to run "ordinary" appliances. The keen-eyed amongst you will notice the essential Strongbow element to all this.
There's something immensely satisfying in getting "free" power. Well, "free" after you ignore the initial capital outlay. The plan is to try and run as much as possible of the new workshop from solar and\or wind charged battery power. We'll also be fitting the house with panels to alternate with grid-supplied electricity, but that's a much bigger outlay.
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Meanwhile, Jaynee is a bit less ambitious at the moment, simply recharging her AA batteries from a nifty little unit from Silva, which is basically a box for the batteries with a tiltable solar panel lid. Yes, I know its a crap photo, and my hair got in the way, but I'm not taking another one, so there. |
For a week now, its been cold! No, really, don't make tutting noises, it got down to 7°C overnight in the house, there was a frost outside and everything! Let's bear in mind that before we dragged them across the world and inflicted weeks of 40°C heat on them, these cats were used to central heating, which this rented house does not have (not many Australian houses do - more commonly they'll have reverse-cycle air conditioning in the main living room area, which the new house has). To make it up to them, we provide cushions. Honor's OK with one, Greebie wants more (sorry, Richard & Vic - the shipping guys packed 'em without Jaynee realising; she was going to leave them to match the curtains, honest!), and then decides it would be better to borrow David's sleeping bag.
Also, whilst we're negotiating for the big shed (4 bay 12m x 6m), we've bought a little one (3m x 6m) - from buyashed - good value, huh? The big one needs planning permission, which we can't apply for until we own the property title, but we'll need something to put all the boxes in, so we'll bung the little one up, then apply for planning retrospectively if we have to, or take it down once the big one's up. The big shed is in pale green colourbond steel, has 2 full bay sliding doors, 4 rooflights (just transparent panels, not veluxes), a personal door and is going to be more like $AUS 7-8K for supply only, or 11-12K if we get someone else to do the groundworks and assembly.
Oh - and Jaynee is going along to her first rehearsal with the Bendigo Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday night - fingers crossed! Musos - check out the Players Info page - good idea, huh?