In which we have along day and I need glasses

A 5.20 AM start took us to our dentist - now nearly 3 hours away - for a final checkup. He patched a couple of fillings, told B not to ea until supper - no breakfast yet! and sent us on our merry way, to Mooi, where I was due to get an anti-tet shot they owe me, and collect the post and pick up Pads meds from our old pharmacy. 1 out of 3 is not a great success rate - we didn't have our box key any more (it's er, still on a key-ring) and the sister I had arranged to get the anti-tet from was missing. Anyway, so if you posted us anything... try post restant Whitemark, Flinders Island, Tasmania 7255...

The haircuts were as haircuttish as haircuts can be. My new name is shorn. Matrix did case my hard-drive for me - but as this is a linux machine without outlook - I can't get all the addresses I need off it. Still nice to have it. If you were expecting mail from me... mail me. I can still get mail just not the address book.

James successfully caught his bus off to join mates in Kruger Park.

We got coffee - a success. Then the eye stuff. My vision is great long and even medium -for reading but I can't tie size 22 flies any more - heaven knows if he glasses will be any use as she kept asking me daft questions - is this better or that - they were mostly pretty much the same -rotten or otherwise. Drove the optometrist (and me) up the wall I think. Anyway, eventually I was guessing what was better. I am afraid this will be another buy Dave a cellphone good idea. (cell phones are wonderful for other people. For me they are something 1)off 2) out of airtime 3)in my other trousers - I have some, really. just wouldn't want to spoil them wearing them.4)With flat batteries. Anyway, we'll see.

Frames...I have a very skew nose and broad head and the frames are designed for other things... like looking good. The poor little lady was fluttering around frantically offering me mirrors. If I wanted to like my reflection I'd want something to make my vision worse, not better!

dreams and reality

Went in - on the way to the dentist and then down to Durban to see my mum (who had a really bad day) to the local municipality to collect the rates certificate for the Lawyers handling the house sale. The lawyers are supposed to do this, but we're... shall I say we appear to be more reliable and motivated. Um. Mooi muni's computer system is down, dead. Possibly revived tomorrow, when they pull the stake out of it's heart, but no knowing if they have any records at all. At the same time we went to collect the post - and found a bill and report from the bug - people (who checked the place for borer)... with a note saying Lister and Lister (lawyers) had no record of the sale (AAAAAieeeeeee!). Called them, and they claimed to have been looking for it. We then proceeded to the town of Escourt (which has a dentist (and one that doesn't fill me with cald grue. I am a total woos with dentists) as I'd woken with a nasty dull ache during the night - he squeezed me in between patients and found a filling had 'leaked' and was developing an abcess under it. So we also booked a thorough dental exam for before we go as I gather dentists are my own problem in Aus and expensive at that... and conspicuous by their absecence on the island. We also got the exhaust we'd wrecked on the way off the dirt road fixed. Ah logging trucks - how I love thee and what you do to the road. Drove down with a circuit into the red-brick and decaying Victoriana Pietermaritzburg to drop bug-report in with Legal-eagles/beagles/feegles (you choose). Pietermaritzburg is like Launceston... after exposure to dangerous amounts of radio-active spiders, and toxic growth-hormone, with added mini-bus taxis and pedestrians. Went on down a freeway with more cars than Tas has people (and I am not kidding... much), and saw my mother. She's not doing well today, and talk of a stepdown has been put on hold.

I tried to distract myself on the way home by designing weird houses on land I don't own yet. I have a friend who has done a book on Nature-inspired type architecture... Maybe I need a Roger Dean house, like a mushroom. Or something like a norse longhouse...