Our little ratbag has surprised us twice in the last two days.
- Sunday was the two year anniversary of The Fielders accepting our offer on the house. Might not seem like much to you lot, dear readers, but it means a lot to us because we love this house. Anyway, I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and, as those of you who have been in the house when we’ve opened a bottle of champagne would know, our two-year-strong tradition is to stand on the back balcony, squeeze the cork off and try to clear the back fence. When we don’t clear it, Max usually finds the cork and eats it.
Well, Maxy boy has obviously watched and learned because when I picked the bottle up off the kitchen bench to open it he bolted out the door, raced down to the lawn and stood look up to wait for us to let the cork go from balcony. We were so amazed that we deliberately popped the cork so that he’d catch it.
The cool thing, we reckon, is that he doesn’t do that at all with normal wine bottles. Our almost-4-year-old dog can tell the difference between wine and champagne. Some humans can’t even do that.
- Last night the thunderstorms were pretty severe down here. They don’t usually bother Max too much, he doesn’t bark or go silly, but last night he went missing in the house. It took us 15 minutes to find him – he had taken himself into our walk-in-robe. The big softy.
Our friends James and Lou bring their puppy Ellie down to the beach most weekends and she has learnt to enjoy the water, but she’s never actually swum – it’s risky letting her get out of her depth in the surf.
So this morning we walked all the way up to the Barwon Heads bridge so that she could swim in one of the small channels in the river. James picked her up, walked out to the middle of the channel where it was thigh deep, and dropped her in. Naturally she swam to the side like she’d been doing it all her life. I guess it’s hard-wired into a dog’s brain – particularly a Golden Retriever’s.
Swimming like a champion
Happy to have reached the water’s edge
Max showing her how it’s done
The channel at Barwon Heads – perfect for a dog’s first swim
So. I haven’t sprayed any more Poss Off since the first time I used it, but we’ve been leaving the spotlights on, the sensor light is still up there working, and we’ve had tarps down for a week to protect the boards.
The good news is that, for whatever reason, he hasn’t been back for six days. Well, I suppose he might have been back but he’s not wizzed all over the boards, and that’s all that matters.
However, today Jayne sanded back the stains and oiled the boards (one of the MANY jobs we’re trying to get done over Easter), so I decided I’d put some flat head nails up there too. I can’t see that they’d hurt him, which obviously we want to avoid, they’re just designed to be uncomfortable and make him decide to stay in the tree.
Fingers crossed. Jayne will be so disappointed if he comes back tonight.
I moved “the office” back downstairs today. Since late 2006 I’ve worked from the ballroom on Fridays, but for some reason I was finding it increasingly difficult to get in the zone up there. It never really felt like an office/den/study, but we were using the downstairs room first as storage for all of Peter & Christine’s boxes, then as a fifth bedroom at Christmas time when everyone was here. Well we don’t need 5 bedrooms anymore so on Tuesday night I moved the bed and other bits of furniture into the garage (I’ll put them away properly at some point), and brought the desk, laptop and monitor down so that I could work from home on Wednesday. Then this afternoon Jayne and I lugged the bookcases down and I brought the rest of the computer gear down and set things up properly.
I’ve set it up so that the desk is adjacent to the window rather than facing it (I can look to my right and gaze dreamily at our garden – but not too often), the G3 iMac that I use as a music and print server is directly behind me, and I even have a 3-piece suite to lounge on if I feel like reading something in a comfy chair.
Also tonight I decided to decorate the walls with some of the CDs that have sat unused in a bookcase since I bought my first iPod four years ago. I reckon they look pretty good!
Just went shopping for some basics and noticed that the Helga’s bread we normally buy is $4.50.
$@*!
The much nicer Alpine one that we don’t buy because it’s too expensive was almost a dollar cheaper. So I bought that instead.
Is the bread Helga’s? Not any more.
I need to sit down and write a proper post about our trip away last weekend but probably won’t get time to do it until this coming weekend, so in the meantime here are a couple of photos and the link to more on our Picasa page ….
Saturday: Near Hotham Heights looking towards Mt Buffalo
Saturday: On the Bogong High Plains Road between Omeo and Falls Creek
Saturday: Walking up the Summit at Falls on our way to find the place where we were married
Saturday: At the little hut near Eagle Chair where we signed our marriage papers
Saturday: Looking down the Kiewa valley from Road 24
Saturday: The spot on Road 24 where we got married
Sunday: Hanging a right in the Wandiligong Hedge Maze
Monday: Fanging it on the Dargo High Plains Road from Hotham to Dargo (Jayne took that shot from the sunroof!)
More photos on Picasa.
Yesterday I had to go to Sydney for work. There are only two flights from Avalon in the morning and the second one got in too late, so to kill some time between arriving there at 7.20am and my meeting at 11 I decided to do the Bondi to Bronte coast walk.
I hopped out of my taxi at the south end of Bronte beach and made my way along the path past Tamarama and around the point to Bondi. It’s just over 3kms and it took me around an hour and a half (there are quite a few sloping sections and steps, plus I was stopping every so often to admire the view and take photos!).
It really is spectacular. All the Melbourne is better than Sydney stuff might be true on some levels but I can’t think of anything that Melbourne has within 30kms of the city that matches this walk. I suppose I got it at it’s best – calm and sunny, early morning before the tourists and the backpackers had woken up so just locals about exercising, big swell up on the ocean – but even on a bad day I’d say it would still be magnificent.
At Bondi I stopped for some breakfast at the Lamrock Cafe (also almost deserted, but good brekky and coffee) and eventually dragged myself away to Surry Hills for my meeting.
I took the camera, so here’s a slideshow. Some of the pics are a bit similar to each other but they all look good. They’re all stored on our Picasa page.
The possum-deterring isn’t going well. He ignores the lights and the Poss Off, and is having no trouble getting himself onto the roof even though I’ve pruned the trees. I can’t cut them back any more – they’ll be too lopsided.
We have a few other tricks up our sleeves but this week’s been busy and we’re away this weekend so we’ll get serious again next Tuesday or next weekend.
Me incredulous that he’d been out there less than an hour after dark on the day we put the lights up
Checking the lights were sensing properly (yes I am up a ladder wearing my bathrobe)
The next night realising that more drastic measures will be required, but in the meantime a tarp will help keep the boards clean
Not happy, Jan (note the plank of wood in my right hand ready to give him a whack if I see him)
The Poss Off didn’t work. Last night the little bugger was back with a vengeance. This is what he’s doing to the three day old merbau boards.
Not good. So today we introduced some new possum-controlling measures.
1. Some tree pruning. There are three access points to our roof: one in the front garden from a neighbours-be-gone and two in the back: one is the tree next to the bricked area and the other is the shrubbery between our house and next door. Today I pruned the branches back on the back garden trees.
2. A sensor floodlight. I fitted it today so that it’s on top of the shadecloth lighting up the roof and the trees rather than the deck. The theory is that when the possum arrives he’ll trigger the floodlights, feel like he’s in a day-nighter at the MCG and scamper off to a different house. You can’t really see it from the garden so it doesn’t look weird that it’s lighting up the top of the shadecloth and not the balcony.
Setting it up this afternoon
Adjusting the sensitivity and timer this evening
If he returns tonight and ignores the lights I’ll have to resort to more extreme measures. Like a sophisticated tripwire network with timer fuses and explosives – Caddyshack style.
To be continued…..
I just wrote a fun post about googling “martin young” on martinjy.com. Try it!
