Eleven Days of September

My last post was on the morning of August 31. That same day Lib and I left for Lakes Entrance for some R+R primarily, notwithstanding that my motive in the main was to work on the house, painting and whatever else was needed.

We arrived about 5pm to a cold but familiar house. I can't remember what we did for dinner and it is obviously not important. I do know it was Abatacept injection day and I had taken one with me and I performed the jab and we had an early night.

The next morning we slept in, although as usual I was up about seven to feed Pip and let her out for a pee, after which I went back to bed in blissful awareness that I had no usual work routine and could please myself. About 10am after doing the breakfast routine I was still in my PJ's when a bloke pulled up out front and made his way up the stairs. He was tall and lean and wore a hat and looked all the world like something from 'Old Australia', which those of my vintage would recognize as 1960's or before. A Chips Rafferty resemblance. He introduced himself politely and said he was a handyman doing a job soon on a house above ours and needed to get an excavator in from the road above our block. Could he get the excavator in by going through the bush at the top of our block, through the fence at the top, so that he could get it across our next door neighbour's place and into the yard where he needed to work?

"No objection from me," I said,"but I'm not an owner, my wife and her two sisters own it. They'll need to give the OK. My wife is in the shower and sisters could be anywhere, but I'll contact them and let you know. My main concern would be that we don't want anything that will increase the flow of water in storms from the road above into our property as we have serious problems with storm water in the past." He gave me his card with the contact details.

Lib had no objection but couldn't understand what the guy was talking about so I said "Let's go up and have a look." The scrub was thick and we had to push through it  to get to the road above and examine what we thought 'Chips' was talking about. I rang 'Chips' and he offered to come back and show us, and arranged a time, an hour ahead. So i had an hour to kill and started sanding down the back wall in prep for painting. The back of my head was itchy and I had to struggle to get my hands free while up the ladder to scratch it. It kept up itching, I repeatedly scratched, then found a scab on the back of my head. I picked at it and managed to lift a corner. It would not come. I picked and picked, carefully, in the knowledge common to us all if you go too hard at a scab it hurts. This didn't hurt, but I picked and picked and it would not come, till I made a decision to go hard on it, hurt or no.

It didn't hurt but it came away, and as I brought it around on my finger to observe it I could see that it had legs, and was in fact a scrub tick. Now this gave me some concern because I had heard the horror stories of Limes disease from tick bites, an immune system thing, and my immune system had been giving me trouble with the RA business for two years, and that after a trip to Qld and northern NSW when I was attacked by sand flies and suffered severe allergic reaction which to this day I suspect was a trigger to my troubles.

Lib looked closely at my head and said it didn't look like the head of the tick was left behind in my scalp but without cutting and digging she couldn't be sure. There was swelling almost instantaneously. 'Chips' came back and we sorted that, all that was left was to get Pat and Marg's approval, which we subsequently did. I got the back wall sanded down.

The next day the weather was not good but I did a bit of painting in the morning and at Lib's suggestion as rain threatened we went for a drive. We had lunch at Metung, a delicious pumpkin soup and bread and I made calls to P and M re the excavator guy, leaving messages for them to call me back. We drove out to Sarsfield and visited Shirley Hughes's daughter Debbie's place which is now a B+B named Rural Retreats. Graeme Blakewell, Deb's hub, showed us around the amazing property which is in effect an underground house on top of a hill with wonderful views of the Gippsland Lakes.

We made it back to the house in time for me to give the rest of the back a coat of paint before dark. An hour or so later it started to rain and it rained all night, fortunately the paint had just enough drying time and did not wash off.

The next day I went to Bairnsdale and watched the prelim final between Orbost and Lindenow, a lacklustre game really easily won by Lindenow. I met Phil there and watched the game with him, having learned on the phone the day before that he and Marg had had a blue and he didn't know where she was and he hadn't seen her or heard from her in three and half weeks.There's not much I can say about that situation except that it seems almost unbelievable that people who have been married about 40 years can have a blue a few days before they are going on a planned holiday to Qld and a month before they expect their first grandchild. And this in their comfortable retirement. Weird.

Sunday I sanded and painted the side wall. Monday I painted other stuff, rails and beams, and cut the grass at the back and pruned back encroaching trees on the east side. Monday arvo Lib started the big house clean. She had been crook for a couple of days with nausea. Tuesday we did a final clean and packed and left at 9.45 and were home shortly after 1pm. i went picking bay foliage for wednesday's orders. Wednesday Thursday and Fri were flat out. Friday night I was exhausted and knocked off a bottle of red quick time and fell asleep and missed the the second half of GEE/Haw. So glad with Gee winning result. Hope like hell the Bulldogs can finish the job next Friday and get rid of the bastards.

It has taken all of ten days, but the swelling and soreness from the tick bite has eased right off so I think I'm in the clear.