Pat's river mouth

Found another little gem of a spot about two km away, at edge of the airfield for those looking on Google earth. I'd had enough of spending another beautiful day at my desk slowly making progress so we went to look at another potential flounder place - which has fantastic views of the mountain.



James spotted the clams - in thick exposed beds mostly tiny, but we picked out the better ones for having with pasta.

And sundown over the flats was stunning.

Well B's been Wheeling-and-Mealing (meals-on-wheels) to some of our more senior citizens, and John and his son have been around for 'tea' and we've sampled the Lark single malt, (which was really excellent, with hints of apple - appropriate to the apple Isle - but may have more to do with the wood used. Very good though! And we were so warmed we had some of the liquer on ice-cream which was truly scrumptious. I've pushed the book on to 95K. The boys are still a bit Jet-lagged and have collapsed. Tomorrow they go to work on a stall at the fair/market thing. Island life continues...

Up with the Lark

Well, after a brief (I hope) re-run of the Saveloy-lurgy-from-hell (really opens the sluices at both ends - to put it in Monty-Python speak) I'm back - on a diet of rice and chicken breast and yuk yoghurt for a few days... I got some anti-nausea stuff and a charming little sample bottle from the Doc. Anyway, enough of these delights. Everyone else seems OK which is a relief.

We go another postal surprise welcome to Australia gift today which will warm the cockles of my cold hard heart. Whiskey does that to me. And single malt does it better, and this to be truly original is Tassie-made Whiskey from Lark Distillery. Despite me being on baby-food and fragility we tasted the Slainte liquer. B and James pronounced it superb, and picked up hints of aniseed and honey. I'm not a sweet drink person but I did like it. When I feel slightly less like death warmed over I'm going to taste the single malt. An incentive to recovery!

All together now...

We're all here. B is quite sore but back home. We won't know the results for some time but the haematologist was competent and re-assuring. I was underslept with zero focus (surprise) and the lads jetlagged so we took a long walk.



All the way to the little river that comes in next to airport, and past some very tasty looking turkeys (I love fish. Love seafood. but I want a little more bird and meat in our diet. B and I have been talking about the need for some form of firearm, because it seems that they are not really jumping into the cooking-pot all by themselves. In SOuth Africa that involved a million hurdles, and there really was little opportunity unless you were rich or well-connected or a large landowner... none of which described us too well. So we never bothered. Here it is different. I'm a forager. I will do what is necessary. I thought we'd probably trade stuff 9as we did back in SA - It's early days yet of course, and we're still building networks of people to swap things with.)

Then we went down to the point where the black swans were gliding on the water. See those dirty marks on the lens? Those are elegant swans on the calm sea. I really need a slightly better camera to get those sort of pics - on that list of things we need someday. Ah well. We got this far.



And then we walked back with strange grinding noises - aka Paddy's back-bone and belly-button rubbing on each other. The pic of the boys in a windcut arch on the sandy track next to the beach, where we saw the oystercatchers (I am trying to teach Pads all the few birds I know so that if a certain august personage gets here he can point knowledgably at birds and say 'Green swan. Black rosella. Oystercatcher pie...')



Paddy spent the afternoon writing a programme to calculate the minimum number of moves 'Knights'(a little chess-type logic boardgame) can be done in. Other people might just try and do it in the fewest and count moves... (the programme is fiendishly complex, and James crashed and snoozed, and I spent the intervening time trying to stay awake and work, to fetch B when she flew in, failing, and then racing the plane to the airfield.
I won.
Just.

Chimney Sweeps

Having taken on board the warning from Quilly and Silverdrake I got a local in to do the chimney today. What a racket!

By the time he flew out of the stove he was spotty young starling doing the sooty crashlanding into windows curtains and furniture... but I believe he was a snow white dove at the top of the chimney before he fell from grace, or the chimney top.

As you may gather I had bird down the chimney today. Much chaos and excitement trying to get the silly noisy bastard out of there squawk, scratch, scrabble flutter, squawk, shower of debris... I finally gave up trying to reach around the baffleplate into the chimney - like cray hole but warmer (the fire was long out, so not warm enough to be a problem) and was trying to work out if I could get a gaff or something down to what I was convinced was going to be a chimney-block dead bird, when it found its own out into the fireplace of the burner itself - fortunately the door was now open, and a manic, very scared and very pissed-off sooty starling was trying to find his way out of the house... I got him out of the door.

Anyway, the boys are home, full of flathead and chips.

Sleepless...

Well, the boys are safe in an Airport hotel in Melbourne. Getting them there has been well, shall we say rather like Sleepless in Seattle only not involving Seattle, or RomComs or large cities. Actually I suspect it'd take a fair amount of effort to get as far away as Flinders Island from Seattle with our 0.6 people per square km and gum trees and wallabies... but the sleepless part is about spot on.

You see we asked the boys to drop us an SMS to say safely ready to board. A simple cheap excercise... we were worried because James had a late Maths exam, and had to fly on a later plane to Johannesburg giving him very little time to check in and board. And Paddy had his cell-phone stolen a few weeks ago. I hate close run things, especially with ropey communication. So - figuring they couldn't call before 3AM we went to bed around 10 ish. Me- I wake and look at the clock, and a tissue I put on the table obscures the 3 of 23.57... so I wake up. See the time. Go check my computer. Put more wood on the fire in slow combustion heater. go back to bed... not sleeping. 3.30 AM get up. Check computer -find Paddy tried to skype at 1. What do I do about Visa?

Now Australia in its wisdom issues a small (very small) number of visas to people of creative and intellectual and sporting ability that they think will add avalue to their country. It's a clever policy and one other countries might start taking exception to. Ok, every now and again even clever ideas may be applied less-than-cleverly because we were granted one of these. (They're unusual to the point that the very large bank in Hobart had never heard of them, and very politely asked us to wait while they checked... and came back and were very nice to us. The same was repeated when we registered for tax and medicare - "I've never seen one of these," telephone...) It's a generous visa allowing 5 years of unlimited entry for me, B and and our two boys despite their being over 18. And here is the real kicker - it's a label-free visa. It does not appear on your passport - your passport number is linked to it and the immigration guys scans it gives you a smile and say "welcome to Australia."

Which means, de facto, that the source country doesn't actually know you've been poached... and some can be nasty, and I think it is merely a matter of time before South Africa - bleeding skills and education fleeing its corruption and crime - starts to get nasty too (easier than fixing the problem, persecute the symptoms...)

There is just ONE downside. The airlines don't like transporting people back because they don't have visas. And they too don't know much about visa class 124. So they ask for your ticket and passport at check in... and check to see if you have a valid visa.

I of course (when we left SA) had the visa grant letter with me. I still have it in electronic form and of course in several copies on paper.

Oh dear... you see the problem. Anyway, Paddy is a child of infinite-sagacity-and-resource - or at least determination, goes to see the Australian ambassador (I quote - I assume he means the office and consular rep) and gets a clearance (which he is entitled to) and finds out for his brother.

I am sending copies frantically over skype and e-mail and sms. NO REPLY.

Now... somewhere in all this the geniuses (and they are, both of them) decide that an e-mail to their mum's gmail account will do just fine. Why SMS and wake us...

My sister Skyped me at about 5 AM to say she'd heard a few hours earlier that they were going through passport control... at which point my knotted stomach untangles a little... not enough to sleep, but I had bath and made porridge.

At about 11.30 this morning B checks her post (on her computer)... 'We're in the departures lounge, no major hassles.'

Anyway... they're in Melbourne, in their hotel.

B flies out tomorrow morning to Launceston for her bone marrow biopsy (which we've been avoiding mentioning because they read the blog sometimes, and well, they were writing exams and could do nothing except worry. And I am doing that well enough for all of us.) And they will find her at Launceston Airport.
Sagas.
Our lives are never just simple.
After a 2 hour sleep my writing has been bloody awful, and I ended up cutting most of it, but the end is louring.

Borer beetle in wooden fence

Now for the next question. But thank goodness it is not our problem.

Our landlord's mother has become our most frequent visitor, and she is a real honey. She lives in 'town' and so shares a fence with her neighbour. They put up a new wooden fence about 6 years ago, and now at least 3 of the planks are disintergrating into white powder. I think she has borer beetle, and I am convinced there is something simple that you can paint onto it, to kill the beetle. Methylated spirits, or paraffin or something like that.

I learned it at school, in my 8th year, when we did a subject called "Household and hygiene" or domestic science. We learned what to use to get bubblegum off clothes etc, and I am sure borer was in there, but I just cannot bring it to mind.

Probably because the boys get here in less than 2 days, and the whole of my small mind is taken up with them, and hoping that all goes smoothly for their flights, 3, and their overnight accommodation.