A long weekend

Thank God it's Tuesday! At about 1 p.m. I finally managed to descend from my bed in the loft other than by crawling backwards on all fours.

(I had damaged a tendon in my left heel trying to sprint after 18-month-old Harley at Blueys Beach on Saturday afternoon, managed to take him home using the stroller as an improvised Zimmer frame, barely managed to drive home and park the car before I crawled up my stairs to the loft and whimpered in agony.

(Since then, I got up only rarely, limped around using an umbrella for support... I must get myself a pair of crutches for my old age, I can see that now!)

Just before the little mishap, I had inspected the sand-bottomed pad for the new 13,500 L water tank we've ordered, complete with electric pump to ease Bianca's garden and orchard watering: as expected the chickens had used it as a scratching and sand-swallowing pit. I'll have to compact it again before the tank arrives...

Expecting an imminent series of downpours, I had also dug a drainage channel from the very bottom of the pit to a likely drain field (the remains of the gravel I'd used for concreting the retaining walls of the first tank and the lintels for the shed), put in a slotted pipe and refilled with gravel and earth. Since then it has only managed a sprinkle or two, so I can't judge the efficiency of the drain. Nor could I assess the new rainwater plumbing that I installed earlier Saturday after dashing into town alone to fetch a stack of plastic bends, junctions and the like.

The enforced hiatus in outdoor work was used to update Jacques and LeMaitre with the latest patches for SuSE Novell Linux. I also burned a number of French, Spanish and Italian movies - captured with the Dvico Fusion digital TV card to a new, ample (160 GB) SATA drive. This should ensure continuity of viewing pleasure when our ethnic broadcaster SBS reverts to endless coverage of cycle, footie or cricket contests...

My political life remains on ice, except for the odd comment on topical news items: I just can't be bothered to maintain either my letters-to-the-editor campaign nor my persiflage in The Augur's Well.

Nailed to my once comfortable office chair by the tendon trouble, I give free rein to my tendency to watch the figtree grow leaves outside my office, or to admire at least two species of agile honey-eaters drink from the pendant purple blooms of a small bottlebrush tree. Sic transit furor mundi...

My outdoors partner may come inside if the sprinklings of rain get more persistent - we'll then have a glass of Wynns 2001 Coonawarra Riesling and may watch the strange opus Samsara that I just burned to a dual-layer DVD.

Ate jà!

P.S.: I forgot to mention that in the night to Satruday we caught another black cat, as wild and dangerous-looking as the first one, in the 'heffalump cage'. A few telephone calls later a couple arrived with their daughter, a hopeful cat owner, and I managed to trick the cat into entering a smaller cage, for transport to the Animal Welfare League's patient Barbara...