Sunday the 2^nd of May 2021, Caboolture.

Can you believe that this is the second Sunday in a row that I have been sitting here typing? I am probably looking for an excuse for a rest at the moment though, as we are now a fair way into the house packing ready for the big move next weekend. All that we can think of has been booked, power, NBN, Cleaners and most importantly the removalists.

I am due to book the settlement inspection for Thursday, and hopefully pick up the keys on that day, we then have a couple of things planned for the Friday like move a heap of shelving for the shed, after a check of the shed size on Thursday to make sure they will fit. Power should also be connected on Thursday. We must check on the size of bedroom 3 to see if the double bed will fit in there, and if so, it will be renamed bedroom 2. This will give the kids the larger of the bedrooms to spread out more and give more storage? We may have to be there on Friday anyway as we have an appointment for NBN that day.

Linda is the one that still has some packing to do, which she insists on doing on her own apart from box sealing, so I will be looking at my usual trips to men’s shed and museum this week to give me one final break before the big move.

I still have a job to do on the roof putting aerials back to what is normally standard to make things a little easier for the new tenants. I have made a few rearrangements to suit myself, but now I have lost my nerve and will not climb on the roof to fix it myself. Plus, the last thing I want at the moment is to have a fall and break something bones wise, so I will have to find someone else to do it for me.

Sunday the 25^th of April 2021, Caboolture.

I am going to try to allocate late Sunday afternoon for putting down words on this site, maybe every second week or so.

I have a reason for not putting anything down lately as the house buying process has taken a turn. Not long after I wrote the last report Narrelle came up from Melbourne one weekend with the intention of meeting some real estate agents and talk to them about the processes. We picked several open inspections and went looking with this in mind, and would you believe, the day after Narrelle went home she got onto a house in Morayfield. Linda and I went for an inspection the following day and decided on a yes. The current owners accepted Narrelle’s offer before the house actually hit the market, and that is the only way to buy with the market as it is at the moment. The house misses a few nice features we currently have, like the sunroom and its scenery, it also lacks a garage so storage may be a little tight for a while. We are most of the way through the buying process with Settlement Date on the 6^th of May. This will give us a week to move in before our current lease expires on the 13^th.

Linda and I are totally worn out at present as we have now almost completed the box packing so we are not pressed for time when we get closer to move date.

I am currently relaxing for the rest of the day after another busy one, so more to come later.

While I am at it here is another Men’s Shed Newsletter 032_Newsletter April 2021

Tuesday the 30^th of March 2021, Caboolture.

It has taken a COVID lock-down to get me back to this. I guess old age must be catching up with me because I have had every intention of keeping this blog updated but I for some reason don’t find time. I don’t know why this is, as I am not fully busy all seven days per week, but I guess I still have those old travelling ideas of resting every other day, so the three days I don’t work/volunteer must be rest days.

As usual I have been kept busy with the men’s shed and the museum as I seem to continue to put my hand up to accept different chores. Last year, as we were talking about buying a house, I gave up the treasurer’s job at the museum, but with COVID hitting I kept up the job as our new recruit didn’t get a start at taking over the role, hence I have now retaken the job once more. Unlike the museum, which closed for over 12 months, the men’s shed was only closed for a few weeks. We were fortunate at the shed to survive the COVID crisis because we had adequate funds in the bank to tide us over, but other organisations were not so fortunate. Even though our income was down $30,000 odd dollars last year we still have the intentions of going ahead building the third shed for storage.

Back to house buying: – COVID also set back our chances of buying that house as it would be almost impossible to successfully achieve the goals as Narrelle and Matt live in Melbourne, and there were no flights. Now that everything is back to somewhat normal, we are finding that the housing market has now gone totally ballistic. Everybody seems to be wanting to buy houses and the prices have sky-rocketed, so we have had to apply some changes to the finance tactics to be able to achieve our goals. We have become aware of some possible shortcuts in getting into the market, so it is now just wait and see what the future brings.

I have been a little short on Men’s Shed newsletters, so here is another Number 031_March 2021. Maybe one day I will get around to putting all of them on the blog.

Wednesday 26^th August 2020, Caboolture.

Well, I tried to get to this a bit earlier. It is the same as when we were travelling, I don’t seem to do a great deal, but I never seem to have any spare time. Relaxation, especially in the big sunroom in front of the house, which I refer to as our annexe, doesn’t come too difficult these days. I am still rather busy with the men’s shed though, especially when we have had new COVID restriction put in place in SE Queensland, and I have to find out how it will affect us at the shed considering the new rules limit meetings to 10 people. It turns out that because we are running under a COVIDSafe Checklist the changes do not affect us at all. Shed AGM tomorrow, which will be interesting depending how many members we have turn up, as we can only permit about 36 in the lunch room, so if we have any more they will have to sit outside under a gazebo.

Considering I am doing it lately, here is Men’s Shed Newsletter number 25 for August.

Saturday 1^st August 2020, Caboolture.

Here we go again with the same excuse for not jotting anything down, but it is hard to use the one that states there was nothing happening. I have actually been quite busy as the rep for the men’s shed in checking the COVID Safe rules so we could re-open.

Anyway, I had a reminder today that there are people still using and reading the web site so I really should put more down more often.

We in Queensland, as you are probable aware, have not been so badly hit with the virus as other states, but back when all was looking good and restrictions were eased somebody had to try to sort out the sometimes ambiguous rules from the health department, especially where men’s sheds were concerned. Sitting at home quite a lot I apparently unknowingly took on this task and have become known at the shed as the one that has done this work. After it had been found out that we, Burpengary and District Men’s Shed, were the only shed in the area to re-open because the others could not make head nor tale of the rules, or it was just simply too hard, but we did manage to re-open with the phasing in of stage two on the 12^th June, being able to have twenty attend. We had to run a roster system as there were too many requests, but this only had to last till 10^th July, Stage 3, when we were able to allow numbers in excess of which would normally attend. We have had a good turnout since and yes, I have been kept busy. Now that the second wave is causing dramas we will have to wait and see how bad it gets and just follow the rules as they change.

I started doing it so here is another Men’s Shed newsletter, 024_Newsletter July 2020

The Telstra museum is still closed as when the CEO said all Telstra buildings would be closed until at least September he meant it. One of our main concerns is that we have over 100-year-old working artefacts in the museum that are now just sitting there gathering dust and rusting, and we are not allowed in to maintain it. Just another ‘we will just have to wait and see what happens’.

Other than all this, Linda has had a few hiccups with a couple of health problems, but these are now being worked on. They became a problem when we could not get in contact with her specialist to discuss treatment that was not fully working, so we went to our GP and told him our woes, and requested he make some changes to her meds. He did this and then rang the specialist, leaving a quite vocal message as she didn’t answer him either, which did have some desired effects. The specialist rang back in no time and started rearranging appointments for further treatment. In the meantime, her ailment has improved a little, so she is not so bad off for the moment.

We will now see how long it is till next jottings.