Dumpster diving Flinders island style

It's been an... odiferous pongwifforous day. With part happy endings... I was rather down in the dumps yesterday. Today I was deeper in the dumps, or rather the tip. My bread-maker's paddle was AWOL, and we figured it had to have ended up in the rubbish -Barbs took that to the tip along with a load of cardboard just before the tip closed (this is Alice's restaurant country. The dump is closed on thanksgivin' - well all public holidays, and open at specific hours about 4 days a week. We're going to be reliant on that piece of machinery, so we went int to the council office, got hold of the works foreman, and got the key (I don't think they could believe these crazy South Africans. But our bin-bag was right on top, and was mostly (we thought) full of paper and cardboard scraps. It was fairly gross, but the fly hitch-hikers we'd picked up at the gate thanked us for taking them all the way to fly Shangri La. Thank heaven for big rubber boots and having worked in a hospital (you learn to turn your mind off revolting smells and sights.)

I was quite glad not to have found it though, as the environment was not salubrious. On getting home, washing boots and hands outside, and then inside scrub down - I thought of checking behind the stove... and then just for thorough the new bin bag, which had nothing more in it than a bag of carrots that I had had a jelly (dessert not jam) accident with and had put in the sink to wash, and B had thought was for throwing and had tossed. Two electrical SA plugs... and the errant paddle. B must have picked it up with the carrots. That jelly mold has some explaining to do! (it leaked in bottom of the fridge)I think all it needs is a good wash. So we had no need to Dumpster dive but ended well. Still a smelly day... and it didn't stop. B -brave girl had had it worse than I had as she had bucked grey water out of the sludge trap to try and find what was blocking it this morning. No joy so we called our landlord who came just after we'd found the paddle. So we had a team go at it with a hose, and wire and going in from the septic tank.

No joy there. John-boy is calling the island plumber. Anyway we had a few laughs doing it. It's only shower and washing machine water (not even sink) so not too gross. On a final mission for the day I had another go at B's computer (another at mine this morning -no luck) and... we have that working.

So win some, lose some.