Days 10 - Sunday

How do I do this with a dog on my lap...can't - bye,bye puppy!

Late Saturday night brought high winds and what sounded like fireworks or was that someone spotlighting for rabbits? Fireworks? Cygnet? Event? Could hear that wild wind and see it out the window but the house was impermeable. Floyd did his usual barking act with the bangs but with little enthusiasm and gave up on it pretty quickly.

Good Samaritan Mike, dropped by on Sunday ready to take to our yard with all sorts of equipment with his mate Arthur. His saintly wife, Gail, ,was concerned that I might have been scared by the firecrackers that the local hoones let off in the main street on Saturday night. Thankfully I am made from sterner stuff (or grown a thick city skin). Mick took out a fence panel to get his ride-on mower into the yard and in an hour (would take me a week with a hand mower) - when the whipper snipper fell apart; the place was transformed. Now we saw dead trees and Mick introduced me to trees in our yard we didn't know about...2 cherry trees - YES! A lemon tree with a ripe lemon. How did I miss it? In my defence, I haven't had the time yet to investigate the garden and the temptation is huge - especially when it is a bit cool, just to get in there and transform it. Strange really, as I'm such a non-gardener. But this is robust tree pruning and branch loping, no fiddly flower beds and weeding, this is no nonsense, skin tearing, boy pruning. Must control myself. Took the liberty of releasing the arbour from the overgrown mass that enveloped it and though it was a thorny and ripped my hands to bits, it felt great...just remember the bloody gloves next time!

Rewarded Mick and Arthur with a beer each. They were so impressed they were offered Crown Lager - means nothing to me. They even souvenired the bottles for the collection as they were engraved with: to Winsor, thank you for your support in 2009.They were already overwhelmed with Winsor's importance, and off he went now, into the stratosphere! Funny how we're impressed by people who can do things we can't. I think Winsor would be equally as impressed by their skills with tools as they are impressed with Winsor and his tools. Today I was told that 20% of Tassie's population
is illiterate. What they lack in formal knowledge (from what I have seen so far) they make up for with heart.