Sue versus wildlife

No more Mrs Nice. I had to get out the weapon of mass ant destruction, the vacuum cleaner.  You see, for four days I had been relocating outside, with zen-like calm and before breakfast, dozens of large ants hiding in the kitchen. I think they had been marooned by my spraying their entry point from outside, and they were huddling in various quiet dark places in the kitchen. The first group was in the utensils drawer, then the next day, a group was hiding in the cavity in the base of the juicer, the day after that it was the fruit bowl. But when the last of them got into the pantry on day 4 and started running around the jam jars and sauce bottles, I got fed up with the gentle approach and sucked 'em up. Not an ant to be seen today, peace.

There is a pecking order to the outdoors wildlife. The rabbits chase the crested pigeons, and the wallabies chase the rabbits. In turn the wallabies are very timid of us, although getting less so.  The other day I rushed outside to shoo off a rabbit that was eating one of our new plants and the wallabies just gazed at the spectacle in a mildly interested way then went back to grazing the grass. But everyone and everything gives way to the masked lapwings, even Dude the horse!

David has been in Canberra this week, having adventures in Hardware Land. He had taken upon himself the challenge of repairing Mae and Nick's ancient, superceded garage door mechanism so it could be opened and closed. Don't start me about the failings of their Luton's property manager. Easier to do it yourself. So the broken bit was left, weeks ago, with a metal fabrication firm to be duplicated. Nothing happened. David went to see them in their dark satanic workplace, to enquire. Mr Tattoo Goatie claimed the job was underway. When he went off to ferret about in the catastrophically filthy back workshop to confirm, David found the essential bit, in a chuck-out box of assorted metal bits. So, a new bill of work was entered into and here is the result. A thing of beauty.

Which allows this (below) to happen:

That's not too much to ask of a real estate agent in charge of a ridiculously overpriced property in a shocking state of repair, is it? Apparently, yes.

Its been a heat wave in NSW like everywhere else over the last week or so and the railways have been affected. Yesterday David was in the XPT from Sydney to Taree and it was a nightmare trip. All was well to start with, on time and not too many other passengers, so he was able to move into a solo compartment,

put his feet up and relax. Then the train ahead on the line got into some kind of emergency and a cascade of problems followed, ending up with David's train limping into Taree three and a half hours late after a trip in which the air conditioning progressively failed in almost every carriage, with passengers enduring extreme heat. The dining car registered at 45 degrees and was giving out free food as compensation.

Back at Diamond Beach it was a relatively pleasant 30 degrees, much cooler than Sydney at its record breaking 45, or nearby Taree, over 40. Thank heavens for the sea breeze. Mind you, I did use the Samsung that all the locals told us we would never, ever need.

Some artistic photos to finish.

This weed emerges from the bitumen spray treatment, like something emerging alive from La Brea tar pits. An image symbolising the sinister survival power of introduced species. Almost seems a shame to yank it out. But we did. That's what you get, weed.

Evil, psychedelic laughs. David has been playing with photo processing effects on the computer.

 Extreme ironing? The centrality of domestic work? Woman power?