Well, after Christmas at Alex's and cruising around Tasmania for close to a week
- it was back to Inglewood.
Arrived on the Thursday afternoon - and it was hot and pretty much remained hot the whole time
Vic (our new plasterer) and his partner dropped by on Friday - so he met up with Justin, and I showed his partner around the house, as she is interested in old houses.
Vic thought that he would be able to start in a week or so.
However, later in the afternoon, Justin developed a sore throat. Didn't think too much of it, til the morning, when it was a decidedly sorer sore throat.
Given the omicron variant of covid was raging through Victoria, we asked around our local friends if anyone had a RAT that we could buy off them. No luck, so we went into Bendigo to a drive through covid testing clinic.
Luckily only had to wait just over an hour, and they told Justin that he might have to wait 5 days to get a result, and that he would need to isolate until then.
They wouldn't test me, as I had no symptoms.
I was also allowed to be out and about - as at that stage Justin was not known to have covid, only maybe, and to be honest, we thought it was just a cold.
So, we got back to Inglewood, and I went and did some shopping for food supplies.
And then we just hung around the house.
I watered the garden - as it was very dry. Those poor citrus trees had almost needles for leaves they were so curled up.
I think there must be something wrong with that watering timer, as I had programmed it last time I was there, yet it was turned off when we arrived. The others still seem to work okay.
That said, - the kiwi fruit were looking a lot better (its timer seems to work)
And the grape vines are just going from strength to strength
I also asked Shane to come back as he was going to fix them all up, and also provide us with a plan of where the new paths will be.
Further garden activities were collecting up the latest batch of bindis - about 10 or so
And picking off the compromised/diseased apples from the 3 x apple trees (fruit fly, or some other nasty)
That said the apple tree that Helen gave us years ago was absolutely laden with apples
While the plum tree near the cistern hardly had any plums on it, last year it was full of fruit. It's a pity as I had been collecting nice gin etc bottles in anticipation of making more sloe gin.
And apart from this and the watering in the cool of the morning or in the less hot late afternoon/early evening, we didn't really go outside. It was just too hot.
We had a pretty relaxing time inside, lots of reading, some naps, but also some work. I read a lot of the Australian Country magazines which Clare and Nin had given us a subscription to as a Christmas present the previous year - felt very decadent just lying around.
Justin was sick of all of the dust so vaccuumed/swept/mopped a number of rooms to try and make it nicer/cleaner. I must admit I never walk around in the house bare foot, because there is always a layer of dust/grit, from the cracks in the walls, from the gaps under the skirting and from the fireplaces etc.
Anyway, Justin did a pretty good job - doing the hallway, kitchen, scullery etc
Another of his self imposed jobs was to clean some of the doors.
And given that we were stuck in the house, meal times became very important, and where to eat/drink was almost as important as what to have. We didn't go wanting, particularly as we had lobster on the first night.
I had also put out a bowl of water, and one lunch time we watched a magpie drink from it
Luckily Basil didn't see....he seemed to make himself comfortable on the dining room window sill
I did do some work as - my inside goal was to empty out the bee room, and make it ready for Vic to get started.
It took ages...first I had to remove the books
I had been collecting boxes, so used up all of them, and then had to use some shopping bags
I sometimes had a quick look at the books that I was packing. There was one which said it was lent to Francis Lewis in 1945 (or so), and he obviously never gave it back. I unfortunately didn't take a photo of that fly leaf, so its somewhere in one of the boxes...
I did however take a photo of Frank's law exercise book and notes, as I thought that Madeleine might be interested in them
But now the hallway is pretty clear - and looks a lot better
And that also means that Vic and co can move the very heavy tv cabinet, green couch, huge carpet, and bookshelves into the hallway if he wants to (or he'll just put them in the middle of the room while he works on the plaster)
We were supposed to go to the First Saturday drinks up in Kingower, however because Justin had been tested, and had symptoms, we thought it best to both stay at home.
And as it was - a good thing too, because 6 days later - on the Friday, he finally got a text saying that he was covid positive. It shocked me, I must say, as I really thought it was just a cold.
And that meant that now he was positive that I as a close contact had to isolate for 7 days....
I had already been isolating since Monday afternoon, so we counted it from Tuesday - so Sunday was my day 6 to get tested.
We left Inglewood on the Saturday, and Justin's brother Alex gave us a RAT which I took on the Sunday, and I'm pleased to say that I was negative, so I could go out and about on Monday.
However before we left we took the mantle piece uprights and the corbels from the shed - as Chris had wanted them so he could part assemble the mantle piece back at his place.
And we also took some photos of our old jacobbean lounge suite - as we want to re upholster it - with better colours
