2nd may 2012

2^nd May 2012

How time fly’s when your having fun here it is May already and a couple of weeks since my last entry.  In the interim we have honoured ANZAC day, quietly celebrated my birthday and now we are coming up to another long weekend with Labour Day Monday. Note I said quietly celebrated my birthday which is quite true, we had decided that with the caravan going in for repairs, us either staying at Nancy’s sister’s place or sleeping on the floor here in this little rented cottage and building a house next door wasn’t exactly conducive to having a big birthday celebration and then on top of that we had both been sick as dogs for quite some time. Beside with the uncertainties of unforeseen costs when building a new house while trying to maintain some resemblance of a budget becomes a bloody nightmare. When we can eventually move next door into our new home, hopefully by the end of July, we will have a house warming and birthday bash then. So on my birthday Nancy and I drove up from the Gold Coast where we were staying and went out to dinner with David, Lisa and a close friend of Lisa’s who has been like part of our family since their school days and had an enjoyable but quiet evening.

In the past couple of weeks while down the coast I managed to catch up on a bit of reading. “Monsoon” my first Wilbur Smith novel of Bryce Courtenay proportions and not a bad tale, easy reading set around the 1600’s involving seafaring, family feuding, anger and passion, action and romance.

Peter FitzSimons novelised account of the “Batavia”, a chronological account of that famous historical shipwreck just off the west Australian coast, the events leading up to the disaster and subsequent murderous tyranny driven by power and greed of miscreant crew inflicted on other innocent survivors until their eventual rescue.  Using well documented and extensive historical records of the shipwreck, FitzSimons has pulled together a great yarn of a dark past that although is part of Australia’s history was well before settlement, well worth reading.

 “The Ghost” Robert Harris, a novel featuring a successful author contracted to ghost write an ex British Prime Minister’s autobiography with plenty of mystery and intrigue and food for thought.

“Hornet Flight”, Ken Follett. Set in Scandinavia throughout the 2^nd World War through German occupation it centres mainly around a particular young man and his escapades it encompasses the lives of various people that eventually have a common link, British MI6, Danish resistance, espionage and over zealous national police under German control. Very easy reading to fill in a few hours including a few known facts enhanced with a degree of poetic licence.

“The Last Pearling Lugger”, Mark Dodd. Dodd is currently a journalist with The Australian news paper based in Canberra, this book is basically an autobiography of his early adulthood recounting the halcyon days of pot and wild drinking sprees and a five year stint in Broome working on pearling luggers in the late 70’s to early 80’s. As Dodd recounts his past it’s obvious he was a fairly loose cannon, unsettled, irresponsible and a smart arse with the lip it would appear, living rough and spending any earnings in the local watering hole and wild drinking parties, but they worked hard. One assumes after eventually embarking into a long held ambition of journalism he straightened himself out. It’s an interesting read depicting some colourful characters, draws a pretty good picture of what was once a remote frontier town with a multi cultural population and a good insight to the harsh life and conditions in the world of pearling luggers. Not bad reading.

And I’ve just started another epic by Ken Follett (that I purloined from my sister in law) called “Fall of Giants”.

We pick up the caravan tomorrow Thursday 3^rd, let’s hope it has been repaired satisfactorily and they have eliminated any leaks, they admitted on the phone there was a problem around the front window somewhere that was their fault so it doesn’t sound as if we are going to have any drama with them.

House is coming on well, all of the downstairs windows are now in, a temporary front door and cladding to the lower section. Scaffolding will be put up next to access the top section and on Friday a contractor is coming to raise the sewer inspection manhole at long last.   

All wrapped up 

External foam cladding ready for installation

Cladding installed on the bottom section

Up close of cladding held in place by long screws and large washers the joints are then sealed
later it will be rendered including two layers of fibreglass cloth in sandwich form and then later still it will be painted.