WEEK THIRTY-FOUR

We had one week until Will was off to the UK, and his plan was to try and get as much painting done before he went, so we spent Monday morning painting the second coat of blue on the side of the house. It looks really good now, and although we had fears of it looking slightly too baby blue, it looks great, and only needed two coats – hurray. It didn’t even take too long doing it, we had a good system, and it we done in a couple of hours. Just as we were finishing it started raining, so even if we wanted to do couldn’t do any more. I was pretty grateful. Instead we tidied the garage. It was an absolute state after all of the sanding and that rubbish, and Will wants to make something so we tidied it up a bit. Not too much though! Ha! No motivation there at all. I spent the rainy afternoon ding some very boring but necessary paperwork, and sorting out all my stuff. So, I emptied the trunk and went through it all, finding all sorts of stuff in there I had forgotten about! All completely necessary though! Haha! God knows how I am going to get it all home though! I once again sat down and tried to plan my trip – I’m getting there, but it is pretty tricky trying to sort everything out though I did contact the people I am going to do my last bit of farming with – they are two of Toni’s friends who have just moved up to Byron Bay and they are just starting up their land and need some help getting their farm up and going. Sounds pretty good, and it’ll be much warmer than it is in Melbourne!

On Tuesday morning I had a plan to go to the wood salvage place in Newport – it wasn’t far, and I was going to take my bike, however, it was revolting weather – not very motivating! In a break from the rain I headed off, with the assurance from Will that it wasn’t going to rain for a while – after a look at the rain radar! I got about halfway there, and it started raining, and then the wind picked up, and the hail started. Not nice! I also had to ride through a deserted industrial estate. It was pretty spooky in the nasty weather. When I arrived, I was soaked, and freezing, and had to try and find good wood in a cold warehouse. Rubbish. But, after a good while of searching, and changing my mind, I had picked a few good bits, and the guy gave them to me for a bargain – even better. It was still horrible weather, and I was pretty glad when Will offered to come and collect me – I had managed to chose the heaviest wood in the place, and trying to take it home on the bike would have been very awkward indeed. By the time he had arrived, and we were on our way home, the sun came out. Typical Melbourne weather! The rest of the day was spent hiding from the weather – it turned again pretty quickly, and I tried to light a fire. I am so bad at them - Will gave me his trick, and I tried it, begrudgingly. It bloody worked straight away. Not annoying in the slightest, at least we had a good fire though. Can’t complain really. We both spoke to Liz in the evening; Will had important stuff to sort out, and I just fancied a chat! And that was pretty much the rest of the day, I mucked about on my computer, and watched some bad TV.

It was sunny again, so we did some painting in the morning. There wasn’t much more to do, so we just did some final touch ups, and then could get on with other stuff. Will finally cracked out the chainsaw, and made rather easy work of the pile of wood in the garden – why do people use an axe? We then did some work on the new wood I have, and did a final coat of varnish on the original bit. Will helped me stick some of my bits of wood together – project number 2, and it is much more work than the first, but I’m up for the challenge – the wood was pretty cheap, so it didn’t matter if I mucked it up too much! But still, I’m turning into a right little carpenter! I also decided to cash in some of the iTunes vouchers I got for Christmas, I finally thought of something to use it for, and after a few minutes was the proud owner of the second Mika album – it only came out about 5 years ago! It is a bloody good album and I was chuffed with my ne purchase! I went to the gym that night to go to a Pilates class – a crap attempt to try and get my back better – only to find out that it wasn’t on, and the programme we had was out of date! Well there goes my one attempt at exercise! I make these big gestures every few months and something always goes wrong, maybe I’ll just stop kidding myself…

The next day, Will managed to wake me up early, by saying he would help me sort out my new wood project, and it actually worked. He somehow did convince me to help tidy the garage – partly because I had covered everything with a think layer of sawdust, but it still wasn’t the most appealing job for the day, we did manage to make a set of shelves out of a palette though. I say we, Will thought of how to do it, and did a majority of the drilling, but I had a go too, and held bits of wood where necessary. An integral part of the production process! After a good few hours it was looking amazing,! It looked almost as good as new – apart from all the crap still being in it! Once we had finished I got to use the plane, only to gouge strips out of it – so, I tried my best, did most of the job, and then let Will finish it off, and make it look good.  And that was pretty much all we could do on my stuff for the day – but it had made a massive difference. Now all I have to do is full all the gaps with resin, then sand them back. It’ll be done in no time – ha! That evening I helped Will make a clothes horse, which was very necessary. I’m not sure we needed to make one 6ft high, and 4ft long, but that is what we ended up with! It’s enormous. But, it has now been made, and assembled at the end of the hall. A productive day all round I think! That night Will and our flat mate had decided to go and see Thor at the cinema, and I wasn’t too keen on the idea of the film, but I did like the idea of the cinema., so I scoured the internet trying to find something else I would want to see, and it turns out there was nothing, so not wanting to be a tick in the mud, I went along. It was actually better than I thought tit would be, and kept me pleasantly entertained for a couple of hours – shouldn’t really ask much more of a film, but I won’t be buying it on DVD!

The next day I got on with more woodwork, the only thing I could do was the resin though, so after about 15 minutes, my job was done for the day! That was simple. It’s a pretty boring process at the moment – there doesn’t seem to be much progress, but once all the boring stuff is finished, I don’t think it will take long to make it nice! At least I’ll know what I am doing at that point. In the afternoon we finally gave in and decided to go to Coles and buy some proper food, and I had found a recipe for a pumpkin and feta quiche, so got the stuff I needed for that. God knows how it’ll taste, but it’s worth a try – I had something similar in Tasmania, and it was amazing, so I’m hoping for similar results! And that was pretty much the day – the rest of the time was either spent in front of my computer, or the tele. Ah well!

On Saturday I had plans to meet a friend from Edinburgh, and, given our financial situations, quickly decided that Bimbos would be our place - $4 pizza, cheap drinks, and comfy seats. Perfect. The plan was to meet at 2pm, which, of course, meant I turned up at 2:30pm  - I’ve been later! We spent the afternoon and a bit of the evening just talking, drinking, and eating pizza. Perfect! It was really nice to meet up with her, before now, I’ve only seen her whilst I’ve been at work, or just finished – not really the best situation to have a catch-up! Many hours later, we both headed back to the train station, and I had 1 minute to get on the train, so, ran. I think I said some kid of goodbye, but it wasn’t longer than about 5 seconds! I ran down the stairs (aided by my slight drunkenness) and managed to jump onto the train whilst it was pulling off! Success! Not sure why the driver didn’t close the doors first, but, for this one time it was to my advantage. Will had already had dinner, so I got a chippy with a pineapple fritter when I got to Yarraville – perfect to offset the amount of beer. What a lovely day.

Sunday was the day Will left for the UK, and I was going to be left in charge of the dogs. Turnip is limping too at the moment, but I was shown how to give her medicine – she seemed very compliant when Will did it, lets see how awkward she is with me! We did a finally bit of wood stuff in the morning – and finished everything I couldn’t have done on my own, or didn’t have a clue how to do, now I can sand it all when Will is away. That’s the plan anyway! I wonder how well that’ll go? As it was a lovely day, and I think Will was feeling a bit bad about leaving the dogs, we took them for a run around on Williamstown beach – they ran for miles, and we came home with 2 very happy dogs! We both sorted out some paperwork when we got back – Will really will do anything to avoid packing! So, he got a taxi at about 9pm, and weirdly, Turnip’s limp got much better pretty much instantly! What a little madam. With Will and Toni gone for a while, it meant I was going to get their bedroom for a month – hurray. So, I tidied it all up, made my new bed, and it looks lovely – very luxurious!

So, then there was one. I have 4 weeks on my own, and I have many plans for my time – sadly most of that is writing, but I also had a series of the Apprentice to catch up on. And, I am now proficient at lighting the fire, so at least I won’t get cold….