On the road tomorrow

I'm back on the road tomorrow, driving to Canberra again.  It takes about 7 hours. Not so bad on Sunday when the B-doubles drivers stay home so they can all go to church and cook the Sunday lunch. Or whatever. This time I've borrowed two audio books to listen to. I'll start with Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", which I'm hoping will make me feel lucky to be living my life, not theirs. I have an Alexander McColl as backup if Steinbeck gets too grim.

Its been a productive week. This bucolic scene featuring cows and sleeping calf (above) was taken at Bowers Cafe while we were in Taree doing chores: Bunnings/Spotlight/Medicare and so on. Every day we sort out a few more details of our new house and life. This week we got the study organised, finally, following the installation of shelving.  David did a brilliant job of constructing them out of the wood from a big old table he made many years ago. It didn't sell in the garage sale, so we recycled it! Let the record show that was my idea. David may claim later that he thought of it, so I am putting the facts on file. The music/art studio has also been set up and is now operational. On the strength of that, David has been practising trombone every day this week.

The weather is warming up. I climbed on the table and switched the fan setting to "summer".

Chris and David have started propagating from the seeds they collected on their Coorabakh field trip.

Banksias cones normally release their seeds after bushfires, but you can induce them to open up by giving them a little go on the BBQ. True. This works.

This block is about 8 times the size of our Fadden block and our income is about 8 times smaller, so growing our own plants is the way to go. Hopefully we can grow some like this astonishing cycad in Chris and Robyn's garden. That Thing, whatever it is growing in the centre of the plant is the size of a large dinner plate. Is it a flower?

 Yesterday, we both got "done" by our new dentist. Young, handsome Fernando (real name) is from Peru and has that Latin charm thing and a big smile. Medical professionals around here are unexpectedly very good. Will you be staying in the area for a while, I asked? (So I can come back next year and get some more of the Latin charm thing while you lean over me paying attention to my mouth...) Oh he's just bought a house, says the young nurse, so he'll be around for a while! So much for keeping his professional privacy. He just grinned. Charmingly.

David needed a bit of a lie down at home after having his teeth waterblasted by Fernando's new fangled descaling equipment. (It was a bit confronting, but our teeth now feel amazingly clean). David is somewhat attached to his iPad, takes it with him everywhere. Plays Scrabble online and checks his political Twitter feed in between doing jobs on the house.

Today, we went to the local orchestra's summer concert in Tuncurry. I went as an audience member and David as trombonist. It was a fantastic program with all the big names in classical music represented in a wide ranging and popular selection.

James Hannah is the conductor. Here he is taking a bow with the orchestra being wildly applauded. David is in the engine room at the back with the rest of the brass.

After the performance it was still hot enough for a swim, so off we went to DB (Diamond Beach, our local).

So its the end of another week. I'm off to bed now!