THURSDAY MORNING 10.27AM

Hello my lovelies

I've just had breakfast.  Washing's out on the line.  Papa's at archaeology class with U3A.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table and can see Molly lying in the sunshine on the carpet outside Papa's office.  Spotty is nowhere to be seen but I know that he is lying near the front gate waiting for Papa whom he adores.  He follows Papa everywhere, and I mean everywhere.  If Papa is sitting having his breakfast, Spotty is sitting beside his chair.  If Papa decides to get up and get something from the kitchen, up gets Spotty too and follows Papa close on his heels.  Back Papa comes, and back comes Spotty behind him.  I imagine Spotty must heave a sigh of relief when Papa finally sits down for a longer period of time, say when he's reading or playing his guitar.

This photograph is of Molly about to go for a ride in a dolly's pram when she was a little puppy.  I love her hat!

We've had a very busy week.  I'm not sure if I mentioned that we decided to give the house a wash with Papa's gurney.  I had 'clean gutters' on my list too, but Papa didn't feel they probably needed cleaning but after he climbed the ladder and had a look at them, they told a different story.  Up he got with the gurney hose with me down below moving the machine along when needed.  He used the force of the water to blast out the old leaves and weeds.  You can imagine the effect on me down below, but nothing a good bath or shower couldn't fix.  While he was up there he gave the solar panels a wash too so I'm expecting a greatly reduced electricity bill next month.

I wasn't able to help with the house part for the whole day as I had something on.  When I arrived back home, poor Papa was looking very wet and very exhausted.  It was late afternoon and some water from the hose had evidently gone into the power point on the side verandah.  This has resulted in us losing all electricity.  Papa had already telephoned the electrician but as he wasn't answering his telephone, Papa left a message.  As the clock was ticking close to 5.00pm it was looking more and more like we would be having an early dinner and an early bed with no electricity until the morning.  Thankfully the electrician's wife telephoned just before 5.00pm and gave us the number of another electrician who came within the hour and fixed things up.

The next day, Papa finished off that side of the house and as we both stood looking at how clean it was we realised that half the paint had been blown off parts of the front door and guest bedroom.  Papa decided that as there was probably a hundred years of paint on the paintwork, it would be easier to strip the architraves off and remake them again.  This has turned out to be quite a job, only finally finishing the repaint on the new wood yesterday.  It looks wonderful and fresh again and we are now ready to start on the next side of the house!

After lunch, we are heading down to Brisbane.  Auntie Emma has a book club get-together on the Gold Coast with her pals.  They try to do this once a year so Papa and I are going to look after the boys.  Michael will also be away as he has a seminar somewhere down that way too.

He will be back Saturday and Emma on Sunday I think.  Papa and I will head home again on Saturday.

Sunday we are going to Bob and Bev's for lunch.  They have been very busy too over the past couple of weeks.  It has been school holidays and they have been helping look after their two grand-daughters, Georgia and Harriet, sometimes known as George and Harry.  They have also had their son Mitchell, his wife and their two children over from Hong Kong for a visit.  It will be lovely catching up with them and hearing all their news.

Well my darlings I must awa'.  The dogs know something's afoot as I have my suitcase open on the bed!

Looking forward to chatting on the telephone.

Love Nanxxxx