Another beautiful morning. Perhaps I'll get some more work done on the kitchen. The day didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Apart from a walk into town, I veged out all day.
It was much warmer today. I had nearly run out of clean clothes so I had to do the laundry. This and the walk into town took fair bit out of me so I booked an appointment with the doctor to find out if I have some underlying infection.
In the afternoon I found some energy and washed the Motley. I tried to use only a bucket but I had to hose it down to get rid of the truck wash. I used tank water both to limit our use of town water but also to ensure that the rinse didn't leave streaks.
I had been checking our water consumption. We have used 3300 litres (870 USgal) of town water in 30 days since we got back home; that's 110 litres (30 USgal) per day. We have used 1800 litres (475 USgal) of tank water in 30 days; that's 60 litres (16 USgal) per day. That amounts to 62 kilolitres (16,400 USgal) per year altogether. I think we are doing pretty well, the recent reports said that Sydneysiders spend on average $800 p.a. on town water which means they use about 800 kilolitres (210,000 USgal) per year. We do need it to rain in the next 240 days if the rain water tank is not to run dry.
I went to the doctor and told her that I had been suffering form tightness without any pain in the chest when I walk. She checked my blood pressure, my pulse and my chest. She notice that my pulse rate was a bit low. She ordered a blood test, an ECG, a chest X-ray and an antibiotic. I went to the hospital for the ECG and the nurse postponed her lunch break to attend to me straight away. I'll find out the results of the tests on Friday.
I chose not to do any energetic work today.
If we are to go away this weekend I'll have to load the Motley today. That observation led to a decision to stay at home this weekend. We have to go away next weekend because I am joint host of the Chapter Gathering. We also plan to go away for ten days in three weeks time so I will have to equip the Motley for these trips. As we have a Wine Club lunch on Sunday, not going away solves a problem of when to come back to Barraba.
I did a few small jobs that needed attention but no energetic tasks.
I went to the doctor early. She said that both the blood tests and the ECG showed no major problems and no underlying infection. The ECG had shown one ectopic (mistimed and shallow) beat. This would explain the problem I sometimes have when taking my pulse, I sometimes miss some beats and record a low value for pulse rate. I had noticed that this effect is pretty transitory and the doctor said it wouldn't be a problem unless they occur in big clusters, She wants me to wear a Holter monitor which records heart activity continuously for 24 hours. She also wants me to take a stress test. She said she wasn't really concerned but she needs to be particularly careful because I am a diabetic.
The good news must have activated some hidden reserve of energy because I spent some of the afternoon cleaning windows.They look better but I felt a bit bushed.
Jean had to go for a walk by herself. I drove into town to do the shopping and picked Jean up on her way back home.
Just after lunch I set to work on the kitchen. I had decided that I needed to fix the wal lining where the old doorway used to be. I had to remove some more concrete and some timber off the old door frame. All this took three hours and I was happy to stop.
We had a Wine Club lunch at the Central Hotel. It was a really good affair. The Wine Club had been inactive since last Xmas and it was good that someone had made the effort to get us together again.
We had a delicious lunch, good wine from Mille Park Winery, and a film called "Sideways". We chatted a lot, caught up with people we hadn't seen for many months, and met some new people.
The film was about a couple of guys having a week away prior to the wedding of one of them.The theme of the film was centred round wine and it was set in the Santa Barbara Valley. I had to say "I've been there" when they drove into Solvang. I had been there when we were visiting our customer in Santa Barbara. I remember our winery visit very well. We were given the wine tasting by a young French lady who was on a sabbatical year learning about the Californian wine industry. The wine was very pleasant if a tad mild. One of my Australian colleagues remarked "Its got no guts!" The French lady looked startled presumably because "guts" didn't figure i her wine vocabulary.