The Lions had offered to provide collectors for the Salvo's Red Shield Appeal so I was out at 8.30 to participate. I was given a couple of areas on the edge of town. The first turned up five houses all with no-one at home so I left "Sorry we missed you" cards. The other area started slowly with a 60 cent donation but by the time I had finished the area I had collected over eighty dollars, a very pleasing effort. I reflected that if 100,000 collectors achieved the same result on average across the country, the Salvo's would have exceeded their target of $7 million. It is frightening to think that this one charity needs that much money every year to take care of some of the people in our society who cannot survive on their own.
I did some more small jobs before taking to my bed for an afternoon siesta.
In the evening we had curry and rice.
Another cold night but a bright fine day.
I planned to get some more work done but though the spirit was willing, the body was definitely weak.
I found an error in the last update of the Highway Wanderers website so I had to rectify that.
Another very cold night and I had to un-freeze the plumbing in the bathroom in the Motley before we could shower.
In a burst of enthusiasm, I started work on the major task mending the floor of the bathroom. I have to fill a hole in the floor where the bath once stood. It is only 30 mm (1.2 inches) deep but it is 1.3 square metres (13 sq ft) in area and requires about 9 or 10 buckets of cement. I managed three buckets today before the back began to complain about the maltreatment.
We went to Tamworth to shop for stuff which isn't available in Barraba.
We called into Fantastic furniture to see if they had armchairs which suit our requirements. We were surprised to find that they had what we wanted and we bought a pair. They will be delivered in 4 - 6 weeks.
We had coffee at the Homestead and I downloaded some software and some new EV-DO coverage maps. I noticed that the coverage in Brisbane has been extended to cover Ferny Hills and Lawnton and there is now service in Tamworth.
We found a standard lamp and stocked up on several weeks supply of groceries.
We had to wait quite a time for the water to come on after a severe frost. After doing some laundry. I got the Motley out to change a big gas bottle. I took the opportunity to take some detritus from the renovation to the tip.
In the afternoon, Jean had an appointment with the Physiotherapist.
In the evening I went to a Lions Club meeting. I was invited to join and will be inducted at the dinner meeting later in the month.
I didn't do any heavy work because I didn't want to do my back in before driving 600 km to Brisbane.
I spent most of the day futzing. I found that lots of photos in the iPhoto library had incorrect dates so I had to review them against the Motley website to find the correct dates. All this in preparation for doing a thorough backup onto the G3iBook as a safety measure against something bad happening when the G4iBook gets repaired in Brisbane (the DVD drive refuses to allow a disc more than half way into the slot - no there isn't a CD in the drive). Al has organised the repair at Next Byte.