Building fences

I had a week off over Christmas as my employer had a mandatory shutdown between Christmas and the New Year.  But did I just sit back and relax?  No.

Being the industrious person that I am, I helped my neighbour build a new fence between our properties.  Two and a half days in heatwave conditions constructing a new fence.

We ship-lapped the palings (ie attached 2 palings and then a third over the top covering the join, and screwed each covering paling with 6 screws.  So hopefully the fence will stay in good condition for the next 20 years.  A much better job than our other fences done by professional fencing companies - in my opinion.

So now our dogs don't threaten and bark at each other through the fence because they can't see through it.

It was also worth it to stop Karyn complaining that I was just sitting around the house doing nothing.  She didn't complain for the whole following week!

Girl talk ....

Di and Donna came over today for a Christmas drink or two.

We were sitting outside chatting, when the talk turned to shopping and the great bargains at the shops.  I think that Coco aptly demonstrated my mood.

Ok so far.

Oh no, they're talking about shopping.

My head is starting to hurt.  I'll just close my eyes for just a moment.

If I prop my head up maybe they'll think I'm still interested..

Don't talk to me about apprentices

This weekend we went to the races at Adaminaby to see Diamond Jay race.

While we weren't expecting her to win, we were quietly hopeful.  Because of our two recent wins we had a large weight penalty allocated by the handicappers, but we still thought that we were in with a chance.  To offset the extra weight we were using an apprentice that could claim a 3kg reduction.

The weather turned out to be great, which was a nice change from the previous weeks where it was wet or cold or both.

I should have mentioned that Adaminaby is one of those small country towns that has a race day once a year that is always great fun to attend.  The whole town turns up, I reckon.  Here are a few miscellaneous shots I took of the early races; being a smaller track meant that you are closer to the action, especially compared to other tracks where you can't get very close to the winning post itself.

 Our strategy for Diamond Jay's race was to stay at the back and run against the fence all the way until the final turn where we would run wider and race down the outside to the finishing line.

Here is a picture of the horses just after the start.  Ours is in the centre of the picture with the pink and dark blue check.  Can you see where he is racing?

Not against the rail, and not at the back.

You see, our rider was an apprentice, who despite being told what to do, decided to run his own race.  And this meant running the horse mid-field, and 3 horses wide,  All the way around the track. 

All the way around, the racecaller kept saying things like "Diamond Jay is working hard running 3 deep around the bend ..." "Diamond Jay is having a hard time of it overtaking the other horses running so wide ..." etc, until we heard "Diamond Jay is dropping back in the straight.."

That's why this guy has been added to our "don't use again" list.

After the race he said that the horse jumped from the barrier so quickly he was taken by surprise.  He then said that she was running so strongly that he didn't want to pull her back (like he was supposed to) because she would lose her head of steam (like she was supposed to).  He stayed 3 wide because there were other horses against the fence and he would have to drop back (like he was supposed to) to get to a position near the fence.

The big downside of apprentices - they don't listen, and if they do the either don't do as they're told or they can't.  Or maybe I'm being unfair to other apprentices.  But it's not the first time that an apprentice has messed things up for us badly.

A new roof at last

I’ve been nervous about rain for a while now, ever since we had a big storm and the rain poured down through the downlights in the ceiling.  So every time it rains I start listening for the sound of water dripping onto wet carpet.

Several times we’ve had roof tilers in to repair the tiled roof, and yet each time there’s another large storm we get more water in.

So finally we decided to replace the roof with one made from Colourbond steel.  Lovely large sheets of unbroken steel from the ridgecapping to the gutters.



The installers also added a sheet of R1.5 insulation between the metal and the roof battens, so that it is actually quieter in the rain that the old tile roof was.  On  the one hot day that we've had so far this Spring, the upstairs bedrooms were also cooler.

Pardon the mess, but Matt had some mates around, so wet towels, etc, were strewn around waiting for someone else to put them away.

Two in a row

This week we went to Moruya for its Melbourne Cup Day races.

This time Diamond Jay was in the second race.  It’s a nice change from normal where we seem to be always in the last race.  For me, that means that I get the chance to take better pictures because there will be more light around.  At Bombala a fortnight ago I was battling rain and dark clouds that made taking a high-speed photo difficult.

We decided to get there early because the racing club wouldn’t allow us to book a table in the Members’ Area, and we thought that if the weather was awful we wouldn’t want to be stuck outside.  So we got there early enough to get the best table near the windows.

It seemed to drizzle the whole way to Moruya, which was worrying.  But when we arrived the rain stopped.  The sun even came out after a while and there was even a large spectator turn-out.

It turned out to be a great day, with Diamond Jay winning by 2 lengths.

The crowd was deafened by the screams of delight from Karyn and Penny who then raced down to give DJ a good pat.

Karyn, as usual, gave a speech at the trophy presentation.  Unlike last time when the crowd ran away as she spoke, this time they hung around.

A final pose for the photographer… As usual, we couldn’t get the trophy away from Penny for the rest of the day.

The Bombala races for real

Since the abortive trip to the races at Bombala last weekend, the weather has been great, with lots of sun and blue sky.  It was a great contrast to he horrible weather last weekend, and we heard that the races had been transferred to the following weekend.

Unfortunately the weather on Saturday was again rotten - an island of unpleasantness in otherwise nice days.  I reckon the people of Bombala were being punished for something.  Maybe serving warm beer or overcharging tourists.

All day the black clouds came rolling over us, bringing more and more rain.   The only races that weren't rained on were the first and the last.  Which was very fortunate for us.  You see, the Women in Racing association that Karyn is a member of was sponsoring the first race, and because we were the only ones making the trek back down to Bombala this weekend, Karyn got asked to make the trophy presentation to the winner.  She did a fantastic job.

Here she is with the President of the Bombala Jockey Club - Graeme Payten.

We were surprised later when Karyn and Penny were asked to help judge the "fashions on the field" competition.  I reckon that anyone who gets dressed up for a country race meeting in the pouring rain deserves a medal.  Here is Karyn and Penny with Barbara Joseph who formed the judging committee.

Here was the final winner.

 Our horse, Diamond Jay was running in the last race, which was brought forward 15 minutes to try and avoid an approaching stormfront.  Here is the result.

Diamond Jay won by a long neck.
It's not the best photo because of the need to use a fast shutter speed in very poor light.

This time Karyn had to accept the trophy instead of presenting it.  Unfortunately just as she took the microphone the rain poured down and the crowd ran away.  But she and Penny didn't care.  It's always the win that counts.

Just a few miscellaneous photos.

Rain closing in before the last race.

A trip to nowhere in particular

Today we were supposed to go the races at Bombala.   Bombala is a small town about an hour south of Cooma, which itself is about 2 hours south of Canberra.

Bombala has a single race day each year as a major fund-raiser for the local schools, emergency services, rural fire brigade, etc.  The racecourse is actually just a pub with a racetrack attached.  This is what it was like the last time we went in 2002.

Anyway, Karyn is in a club called “Women in Racing” that does regular trips to events like this, so we decided to go along and avoid having to drive ourselves.  However, when we got to the bus at 7:30am we were told that the races were cancelled because of the recent heavy rains and the predictions for further rain during the day.  It was a further disappointment for us because one of our horses, Diamond Jay, was going to be racing there.

Nevertheless, the trip was still on they said.  They would find somewhere for us to go – like a kind of mystery bus trip.

It was a great trip, with lots of alcohol involved, starting at around 8am.  I took pictures of Karyn all day and night with a champagne glass in her hand at each time.  But she refused to let me put the pictures up here.

So we ended up at a little place south of Bombala called Delegate.  It can’t be too far from the Snowy mountains because it was so bloody cold.

Here are some pictures of the place.

As you can see, the town is really just a pub with a few other buildings for company.  Most of which seemed abandoned.

So we spent the best part of the day in the local pub, which fortunately had its own TAB and plenty of TVs showing the Sydney and Melbourne races.

All day the weather changed from sun, to sleet, to snow, and back to sun.  The temperature was close to freezing all day.  And the wind was about 50-60 km/h – so the snow and sleet was blown horizontal.  I was only about to get out once for a walk, and even then I couldn’t go far because the next sleet/snow shower was never more that about 15 minutes away.

But the group of people we were with were fun and we had a great day.

There be dragons

I was walking near the Canberra Centre today when I saw a fire-breathing dragon.

Although you can't see it in this picture, there were flames coming out of its nose.

Cockington Green

While Mum was down in Canberra we took the opportuntiy to visit Cockington Green.  This is a model village on the outskirts of Canberra that I haven't been to in maybe 20 years.  We went there regularly when we first moved to Canberra to show visitors, but then we just stopped going when they'd all seen it.

I was surprised at how much it had grown and in some ways hadn't changed from how I remembered it.

I took the wrong lens for my camera (the 50-250mm one) so I was limited to photos that I could take from a distance.  But maybe the photos worked out anyway.

The big challenge was to take photos without someone standing in the shot to upset the sense of size.

We really enjoyed the place and would recommend it to people of all ages.  There were a lot of families there on the day that we went, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.

Floriade

Mum came down for the weekend, so we took the opportunity to visit Floriade, the annual Canberra flower show.  It was a good time to see the flower display as nearly everything was in bloom.  In previous years, by the time we've got there, there had usually been a big storm, or torrential rain, or some other natural disaster that damaged the flowers - but this year everything was ok.  The weather was good too - the temperature had climbed enough that I could get around in shorts.  Mum, however, was covered up to avoid any more skin cancers.

I realised now that I must have a thing for flowers with a red/orange/coral colouring as I can see that most of the photos that I took were of tulips of these colours.

There were a group of people in traditional Polish dress that put on a display of Polish dancing and music, and some hung around for photographs afterwoods.

We were just turning back to the entrance when we looked into a little glade that had interesting decoration.

Spa awning

Last month we decided to replace the old pergola at the lower back side of the house with something actually useable.

I've never quite worked out the purpose of pergolas - those strange wooden frameworks that just sit there and do nothing.  Except need painting.  Ours was also dangerous.  You see, Karyn liked to hang plants from it.  Big ones. Right at head height.  Right where the the unwary face could walk straight into them. 

So we decided to get rid of it and replace it with a clear perspex roof that extended outwards in an "L" shape to cover the outdoor spa as well.  I hate sitting in the spa and getting rained on.

So we had someone come and measure it all up and install a roof.  The only problem was that the roof they constructed didn't actually cover the spa.  You can see from the following picture how the roof misses about a foot of the spa.

 When I rang them up, they said that there was no problem because they had built what we asked for.  I said "it doesn't cover the spa".  "But it was supposed to be 2.6 metres wide" they said.  I replied that the measurement was theirs and that I had asked them for a roof to cover the spa.  They claimed that they had no idea why we wanted the roof, so how could they know it was supposed to cover the spa?  They were desperate for any excuse by now.

Anyway, I insisted, so they came out and fixed it, and now it covers the spa properly.  And to be fair to them, they replaced the whole spa roof at no extra charge. Even though it was now several square metres larger than what they had quoted for.  Karyn offered them extra for it, but the boss turned her down.  I reckon they knew that they'd measured it wrong as soon as they started erecting it.
 

The roof is nice and high and I can sit in the spa and watch the stars at night.  And not worry about getting wet in the rain.

And no, that's not the same washing on the clothes line.

How could they claim that they didn't know that the roof was supposed to cover the spa?