We travelled to Canberra and set up at the Showground in time for lunch. One of the power boxes was doing strange things. I diagnosed a neutral fault and arranged for everyone to move to another box. Phillip asked the lady in charge of the Showground to have an electrician check it out and her response was a begrudging acceptance. The electrician soon discovered that the neutral line between two power poles was broken but that nobody had thought to make the box safe. He arranged for the electricity supply authority to repair it tomorrow.
I spent the afternoon washing the outside of the Motley with my new Karcher high pressure spraying machine. It didn't work terribly well and it is clear that one has to scrub the walls with a mop or brush using detergent before using the machine. Still, its good for getting mud off the underbody and tyres and, I hope, for cleaning the awning.
One of the Solos who had stayed here last night had some problems with the electrics in her Coaster so I spent several hours effecting repairs.
In the afternoon, I went to the airport to pick Jean up after her flight from Brisbane. It was so good to see her and to have her back home. She said it was good to be back home.
We had happy hour under the Homeless Network flag.
We went into town to do some shopping and to collect the mail in the morning.
I had received a random questionnaire from the UK Pensions people which had to be returned within two months on penalty of cancellation of the pension. The letter had taken six weeks to get to me so I had only a little time left to fill out the form, find a suitable witness from their list of suitable witnesses, and post it back the Newcastle on Tyne. The only suitable witness I could easily contact was a police officer so I reported to the Police Station where a very nice lady Police Officer did the necessary. I then had to go to the Post Office to send the letter winging its way back to the UK. Unless something bad happens, it should reach its destination in time. I can ill afford to be abandoned by both the Australian and the UK Government in my retirement,.
The Highway Wanderers Annual General Meeting took up a little of the afternoon, Sadly, we only had a dozen members present so I suppose most of the active members are not coming to the rally. The general excuse is "It will be too cold in Canberra at this time of year." As it happens the weather is beautiful during the day if it's not raining.
In the morning I did the laundry and in the afternoon I washed the awning with the Karcher. It came up looking quite new!.
Jean Helene and Pat spent the afternoon making costumes for the Chapter skit. This is a reprise on the successful Townsville skit. The Corps de Belly will this time do The Dance of the Seven Veils!.
By popular demand, we will all go into the rally on Monday instead of Tuesday.
In the morning, we went to the markets ay EPIC but no-one bought anything. We also went to the rally office to revise our arrival dates. The arrangement had been that the big rigs would not go in until Tuesday because the oval would not be available until then. The situation now is that the oval is not available at all so we need not have delayed our arrival. We will now get what ever space is left so we decided to advance our bookings to Monday.
After lunch, I packed up all the stuff I could to make an early departure easy. We also did the first run through of the Chapter skit
Happy hour was short because the chill of the evening comes on fast as the sun drops; I guess this will be so throughout the rally.
In the evening, we took Philip and Helene out to dinner to celebrate the end of Philip's term as President of the Chapter and as a thank you for their help and friendship over the last two and a half years. We went to a Singapore Malayan Restaurant and had a very good meal which included seafood lhaksa!.