We were away pretty early and made good time, getting to Swanbrook half way between Glen Innes and Inverell, for morning tea. We reached Barraba in time for a late lunch.
The house was in good order but the grass, well mostly clover, had grown calf deep in the back lawn and knee deep in the back paddock.
I went to the hardware shop and bought a weed cutter to get the grass on the Motley parking space trimmed before I parked.
Feeling a well worn, we went to the RSL for calamari and chips to save cooking and washing up.
I was awake early and did the email and the Motley website update and a fair bit of futzing before breakfast.
I went to town to buy the paper and pick up the mail. The mail produced quite a shock. The bill for the first month of the Minimax was a hell of as lot more than I expected. It seems that Telstra charge for time in blocks of 15 minutes and I had been tracking the actual connect time. While I had connected for something less than the 20 hours allowed, the bill was for 44.5 hours and the extra hours (not used but booked) were pretty expensive. I will have to modify my usage quite dramatically but I think it will still be worthwhile. Luckily I found out before I ran up another monster bill for this month.
I decided that we had to get our new fridge in before we finish the renovations so that we can use the kitchen as it is. This will reduce the number of visits to the Motley to one in the morning for showers. We can have breakfast there too. We have to move the food and utensils from the Motley to the house.
A busy morning. The guy from Retravision delivered the fridge before shop opening time. Then the guy from the landscaping supplies delivered the sand I need to finish the tank stand just as I was going to have breakfast.
We both crashed early.
As we were both awake very early, we decided to go to Tamworth to do some urgent things. Jean needed some sewing supplies and I needed to buy some steel. I had seen how the pool installers had levelled the sand under the Procter's pool. They laid a pair of rails at the finished level and used them to control a scraper. The result is a very accurate and level surface. I found a steel supplier in Tamworth and bought some steel sections which I will set up to level both the gravel and then the sand bed.
I cooked dinner in the kitchen in the house. It was a bit of a disaster but I guess I'll get used to it. Perhaps there is some merit in the proposition that one should live in a house before renovating it. I will revise the plan for the new kitchen and might well fix some previously unforeseen problems.