Postman Pat knows our names

The postie has made so many deliveries to our address we are now on first name basis.  Today he delivered the computer hard drive mounting brackets I’d ordered from China after deciding the $12 price from the Australian seller was too high.  They were $1.49 a pair from China with free delivery.

The brackets were mounted to the four hard drives using the M3 machine screws also purchased from China.

This is when I hit a snag.  The threaded holes in the side of mounting bracket where it connects to the computer case were smaller than M3 (smaller than 3mm).  Fortunately I had that Tap & Die set purchased from Aldi whilst in Bumble Hole (The Black Country).  I enlarged the existing holes and then used the M3 Tap to make a thread.  The drives were then fitted into the case

You might notice in the above photo that I’ve numbered the drives 1,2,3 & 4.  I then cross referenced the number I marked on the drive to the unique internal number.  The reason for this is to enable me to remove the correct drive should one fail.  I want to avoid any future probability of having to remove all four drives in an attempt to find the one that had failed.

After that I tidied all the internal cables.  Leaving a birds nest of cables inside the case looks messy and prevents good airflow.  The inside of the case can get rather hot so I’ve added an extra two fans to push air rapidly through the case.  The next step will be to start installing the software.  I need to make a decision about the file system.   Ext4, RFS or BTRFS.  I’m leaning towards the latter as it has the capability of enabling additional drives to be added to an existing RAID array.

After lunch I headed to my brother’s house where he has a bench and engineers vice.  We also have a vice, but it’s in a container travelling to Perth (I hope!).  Anyway, I used his vice to hold the eight long bolts I purchased.  I needed to extend the thread on the shaft of each bolt all the way to the head.  Again the Aldi Tap & die set proved to be a good purchase.

  

With all eight bolts threaded it was time to return home via the hardware store and do more work on our new bed.  Whilst at the hardware store I purchased a metre of 19mm Tasmanian Oak dowelling.  I wanted 20mm but they didn’t have that size.  The 20mm steel dogs for the Assembly Table haven’t arrived and I’d decided to make some.  The shaft of the dowel was increased to 20mm by wrapping insulation tape around it.  Now I had some dogs and could complete the assembly of the four bed side frames.

There was still some daylight so I commenced making and assembling the latitudinal frames.  I don’t want the bed to rock from side to side and to avoid this I cut a 4mm groove in the 42x19 pine framing.  The plywood panel is glued into the frame and acts as bracing (well that’s the theory)

I managed to complete six of the eight panels before running out of plywood (and daylight).

Not a rest break

Reader I know the blog hasn’t been updated for several days and there is a very good reason.  I’ve had a quick trans continental trip to the east coast where I supervised the movement of our stored Australian house pack into a removal container for shipping to Perth.

Things didn’t start too well when the airport security staff selected me for random explosive testing.  Either Jan or I always appear to be selected, obviously we fit the profile!  The testing officer must have thought he had struck gold when I tested positive.  Even more surprising was a positive on the second test.  He then tested himself producing a negative result.  My possessions went back through the x-ray machine without incident.  Eventually they established it was my shoes producing the positive result.  So the lesson is “Don’t wear the shoes you’ve been wearing in the garden as the faint traces of fertilizer can be detected.

The 4.5 hour Qantas flight to Sydney was boring.  I’m not sure which is worse.  Going Qantas knowing you are going to have to eat the awful airline meal or travelling with one of the other airlines knowing you either won’t get anything to eat or will have to purchase it.

I collected a rental car at the airport and drove across Sydney to reach Jan’s brother’s house where I collected both keys to the container and gate into their farmlet.  then it was back on the road heading north to Wyong where I had a room booked at the Central Coast Motel.  The room was clean but noisy from a fridge with tuberculosis and passing trains on the main rail line across the road. 

A two hour time zone change meant my body woke at 4am Perth time (6am Sydney time) and by 6.30am Sydney time I was on the road.  The final part of the road to the main gate was very corrugated and I decided not to risk damaging the rental car opting instead to walk the last 400 metres up the hill.

The container was moved here two years after we had departed for the UK.  It’s on reasonably flat ground and partially shaded by a large gumtree.

The road journey down from Coffs Harbour had shaken up the bottom layer of boxes and we have suffered some losses.  But after six years of living on canal boats one thing that has changed with both of us is our attitude towards possessions.  We’ve been minimalists and now view possessions as “stuff” that frequently clutters up your life.

The removal truck (lorry) arrived on time and by midday everything worth retaining had been transferred into their shipping container.  This will be taken to Newcastle and then railed to Perth.

I spent another hour cleaning up the interior of the container and its surrounds.  The container has to be removed from the site so we will try and sell it.  Hopefully one of the local landowners is looking for a secure lockup. 

There was just time for a photo of the farmlet buildings sitting in their parched surroundings before I headed back to Sydney.  We are both rather pleased our possessions are on the move because the entire region has been in drought and is tinder dry.  Ideal bushfire conditions!

My route back to Sydney Airport was almost the reverse of the previous day with a brief stop to return keys.

I managed to book a cheap flight back to Perth with Ryanair.

 

That’s me in Ryanair business class.

It’s a 5 hour flight going west (don’t ask… I don’t know why there’s an additional 30 minutes).  After opting for the revolting pasta the previous day I selected the chicken curry and rice which was just as tasteless.  Sometime in the last six years Qantas changed their meal service and hot meals now come in a cardboard box.   Forty five years ago I would fly with the Royal NZ Air Force and their meals always came in a cardboard box.  Little did I realise at the time how progressive they were!

Now I’m back in Perth and have commenced work on the bed making project.  Photos to follow in the next post.

Projects Progress Report

Jan used the repaired bread maker today.  She doesn’t bake the bread in the machine as it leaves a hole in the bottom of the loaf.  Rather, the machine is used to kneed the ingredients which are then transferred to a bread pan and baked in the oven.

The repair appears to have been successful with the machine standing level and not vibrating around on the bench top.

After buying some high temperature bearing grease from the local Supercheap Auto shop I reassembled the first free wheeling hub using an old paintbrush to apply a thin layer of grease to all the components.

The second hub was then stripped down, cleaned and masked ready for painting.

All the exterior surfaces then received two coats of silver enamel paint.

The next step will be to fit them to the front wheels of the 4x4.

The holes have now been drilled in the top of the woodworking assembly table.  The top is a matrix of 20mm and 10mm holes.  20mm steel ‘Dogs’ (dowels) fit into the larger holes and are used to secure pieces of timber which require joining.  If I do this right I should end up with perfectly square corners and exact duplicates of components.

The purpose behind the 10mm holes is to fit an 8mm Tee Nut on the underside of every hole. 

Tee Nuts

A 160mm long 8mm dia bolt will screw down from above.  The top of the bolt will have a handle and I’ve made securing brackets from eight old steel joist hangers I found in the garage.

Old brackets to be modified

I used my Aldi angle grinder to modify the brackets

There will be a round knob at the top of the bolt.  The actual bolt will be longer and go through the bench top and screw into the Tee Nut.  The angle bracket will be used to secure timber to the table.  Well that’s the theory!

The Greek helped me with the Assembly Table

It didn’t rain until late afternoon and with that knowledge in the morning we drove 20km east to a tree nursery where Jan carefully examined their selection of fruit trees.  The plan is to be as self-sufficient as possible in the consumption of fruit.  Jan was particularly delighted when she noticed they had three Bramley Apple trees.  Unfortunately they were all too big to fit in the back of the 4x4 which means we will have to borrow a trailer to collect it.  Actually we’ll probably take the opportunity to purchase a few more trees whilst there.

After lunch I worked on the woodwork assembly table completing the framing by mid afternoon.

Frame on its back with the Aldi casters fitted.  I’m fitting the last of the horizontal framing for the drawer slides.

Upright with the front towards the camera.  Eventually there will be nine drawers in the front.  At the rear will be a long compartment to store timber offcuts.

I bought some cheap(ish) construction plywood for the top.  The 2400-1200 sheet needed to cut down to 1800x900 which meant the Makita plunge saw and guide rail system got used for the first time.  The plunge saw did an excellent job.

I’m using the ‘Parf’ CNC measuring tools and template system to create a perfect grid on the worktop.  The steel rulers have 3mm holes at 100mm spacing.  After creating a baseline of holes I had that Greek fellow assist me with getting the matrix exactly square.  (the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides).  Yes, Pythagoras and his 3 – 4 – 5 Triangle

Having drilled the holes on three sides of the square I double checked the sides to ensure they were square.

Then I drilled all the intermediate holes before repeating the process at the other end of the worktop.

Once all the pilot holes had been drilled I used the drill to start making the holes larger using the supplied template.

After drilling the first five holes I realised some fine oil to lubricate the flange in the template block might be a good idea.  We don’t have any which meant I needed to stop work before damaging the flange.

With some daylight left I cleaned down the body of one of the free-wheeling hubs and gave it two coats of silver paint which will hopefully match the paint on the 4x4.

I’ll need to get some bearing grease before I reassemble the first hub.  Notice how I optimistically state I will reassemble it. 

Suddenly we’re busy

The last couple of days have been so busy I’ve not had the time or energy to write a post. 

First the NBN (National Broadband Network) technician arrived early and set about installing our new hybrid fibre network connection.  This means we have fibre to the end of the street and a copper coaxial cable to the house.  Not as good as having fibre to the house, but certainly better than our previous ADSL.  We opted for a Tier 2 connection which means we theoretically should have 25Mbs down and 5Mbs up.  We’re actually getting around 20-23Mbs down and 4.7Mbs up.  That’s better than our previous ADSL connections which was 3Mbs down and 0.7Mbs up.  Of course the router had to be reconfigured which I managed to complete OK.  However the VPN isn’t working properly and I’m into a long email chain with the provider attempting to fix it.

We borrowed my brother-in-law’s trailer to collect some timber for the assembly table and our new bed base.  His reel lawnmower, strimmer and edger were already in the trailer so I mowed the lawns today.  After 66 years I finally got to use a motorized lawn reel mower.  Well I actually had to hang on for grim death whilst it attempted to sprint around the front and back lawns chopping up everything in its way!

We took the trailer to two timber merchants and purchased a mixture of dressed pine and plywood sheets.  Either I was lucky or have tougher hands because Jan tells me she has splinters in the palm of her left hand. 

I found an old saw horse behind the garage which I’ve repaired, saving us the price of a second horse.  These have been used to make a temporary stand for the combination mitre drop saw.

All the timber for the table has now been cut to length but I couldn’t commence the assembly after discovering I needed an allen key.

Moving on to the next project I placed both the free-wheeling hubs I’d bought second hand into an old ice cream container full of petrol.  Then using an old paintbrush I gave the first one a clean before disassembling it.

You might be thinking “Why didn’t he do the second hub?” Well I’m not 100% sure how to reassemble the components, so I decided to refurbish each hub separately.

Meanwhile Jan is using her new Remoska to cook dinner.  She is still experimenting with it.

I should really do more explaining about Perth.  Obviously you will have realised the photos on the blog banner are of our 4x4, Perth city skyline and the Roundhouse at Fremantle.  Ade, it’s not a castle.  The roundhouse is the original prison build by the first convicts as their accommodation.  It is the oldest original building in Perth (link to history here).

Perth is built on the banks for the Swan River.  Actually at its lower reaches it’s more of a harbour with a narrow exit to the Indian Ocean at Fremantle.  Whilst the lower portion of the river is quite wide, it’s also shallow, which is why there are no wharves inside the entrance. 

The area was first explored by the Dutch in 1697 who considered it unsuitable for a settlement.  The French explored the area in 1801 leaving with a similar perception. 

Captain James Stirling explored the area in 1827 forming a favourable decision about the quality of the soil, rainfall and vegetation.  If he had looked harder he would have realised 95% of the soil is actually sand.  Stirling’s exploration was also conduct during the winter which gave a false impression of the availability of water and the quality of the vegetation. 

Stirling’s report and rumours of a French intention to establish a penal colony in Western Australia led to a decision by the Colonial Office in London to establish a British colony without any further exploration.

In 1829, just two years later, the first settlers arrived.  No advance party had been sent and no survey work completed.  When the first summer arrived it dried up much of the available water and most of the native vegetation died.  Many of the animals the settlers had brought with them also died.  The settlers were fortunate the local aboriginals showed them how to live off the land thus saving them from extinction.   The British repaid the aboriginals in their usual way by giving them diseases for which they had no natural immunity and shooting them.  The aborigines did try to fight back against the invaders who were taking their land, but wooden spears were no match against muskets and cannon.

After 20 years the settlement hadn’t grown much and was in danger of failing.  The solution was to do what had been done in every other Australian State except South Australia; establish a penal colony.  This provided a cheap source of labour, thus enabling the settlement to grow.

The Kiwi Shop

My sister kindly gave me a copy of the eulogies from our mother’s 2015 funeral service which had taken place whilst we were in the UK.  Like dad, mum wanted to donate her body to science, however my sister and niece felt they hadn’t had closure after dad died and pressed mum to accept a funeral service.  Mum rather reluctantly agreed but only on the condition there was to be no “weepy or sobby stuff”!  My sister agreed telling mum her opening words would be “DING DONG the witch is dead!”  Apparently mum laughed so hard her false teeth fell out.  So readers you now know I’m not the only one in the family with a wacky sense of humour!

Before continuing with this post I have an announcement for Australian TV news reporter.  The word is “hour”, not “ourwaa”.  And commencing almost every sentence with the word “Now” is superfluous.  Leave it out and I won’t need to grind my teeth!

Work on the media server has come to a halt.  The five 3.5 inch hard drives won’t fit in the 5.25” hole.  Yes, they are too small and a bracket is required.  The brackets are very expensive costing approximately $12 each.  Being an absolute cheapskate I decided to make my own from some steel framing strapping I found in the garage.  Google Sketchup was my friend.

It looked OK so I made two and fitted them to the hard drives.

The other side of the hard drives connects directly to the case.  It seemed like a great idea but I discovered having all the drives pre-connected prevented them from being inserted into the case.  PLAN B.  I’ve bought mounting brackets via eBay for $1.39 a pair.

We had the police helicopter hoovering over the neighbourhood in the early hours (ourwaas for the news reporters) the other night.  Apparently there had been a large gathering of youths which had turned into an affray.  Our temporary accommodation is located in “Old Ballajura”.  Local history has it that the estate was designed and built for a large American mining company, but the project didn’t proceed and the homes were all sold privately.  Immediately south of us is “Summer Lakes” where we once owned a house.  This area is slightly more “up-market” with more expensive homes.  To our South-east is “New Ballajura” which has cheaper homes and tend to have more social problems.  To our west are the suburbs of Koondoola Girrawheen and Balga.  In the short time we have been back in Perth there have been a couple of shooting in this area.  Some people who live outside these suburbs refer to the gangs of youths who live in these suburbs as the KGB (initials of the suburbs).  Southwest of us is the suburb of Mirrabooka which has our nearest large shopping mall.  We’ve heard Ballajura locals refer to it as “Little Somalia”.  This is a rather interesting place to live.

This afternoon we drove 13km NW to Joondalup where I purchased a trailer plug adaptor from Jaycars (Maplin equivalent).  we have borrowed my brother-in-laws trailer and it has a round plug whilst our 4x4 has a rectangular socket, hence the need for an adaptor.  Next we drove to Dawson’s Nursery where Jan bought two thornless blackberry plants which will hopefully survive long enough to be planted in our new house.  After that we went to a special shop.

I was after some genuine Kiwi red saveloys.  None of those insipid UK or Oz saveloys for me.  I want the big fat, bright red, spicy saveloys unique to NZ.  Well they don’t import them <boo hoo>!! 

Yes Ade,  that’s our new silver Isuzu MU-X in the middle of the photo.

Next project is to make a temporary stand for the compound mitre saw.  Once that’s complete I can start making the woodworking assembly table.

Back to the maths

Yesterday I purchased a metal file which enabled me to do some ‘fine tuning’ on the cheap snow foam gun bought on eBay and sent from China.  The recommended gun cost approximately $100 and the supplier was in the UK.  However the Chinese replica was $20 and I’m hoping it will do the same job.  This morning was all about the maths in calculating the ratios for car wash mixture in the snow gun bottle.

The first step was to fill the snow gun bottle with water.  When using the gun this will be a mixture of car wash and water, but it’s the ratio I wanted to calculate today.

I also need to use two buckets to catch the water that passes through the gun in order to calculate the total amount of water passing through the gun until the snow foam bottle is empty.  We have two new buckets but there is nothing on them to indicate capacity.  So my second step was to fill one of the buckets with water using a container with a known capacity.  The capacity of the buckets was calculated at 15 litres.

The third step was to empty the bucket and then refill it I used the pressure washer and snow foam gun.  The purpose of this was to establish the volume of water that must pass through the pressure washer to empty the snow foam bottle.  Actually this turned out to be a relatively simple task resulting in the snow foam bottle emptying at the same time the water filled the bucket.

So the total water usage was 15 litres.  The snow foam bottle has a capacity of one litre resulting in a 14 to 1 ration.

Things became slightly trickier with the car wash.  It’s American and the ratio was provided in US imperial.  1oz to 1gal.  (Actually the instructions stated 1oz or 1 cap) This was converted to metric

1oz = 0.284131 litres

1gal = 3.785 litres

Calculate number of gals in bucket = 3.69 (14÷3.785)

Therefore the correct ration is 3.69 caps or 105mm of carwash to be added to the water in the 1 litre foam gun.

Why be so precise?

Using less than the required amount of car wash is likely to result in an inadequate density and coverage of foam on the vehicle.  Using too much is a waste (and the car wash is expensive).

Having completed that task I went on to crimp the terminals on the 12V fuse box I purchased from China.

There are a total of six fuses divided into two banks of 3.  The box has two 12V supply input cables and six output cables.  I crimped male spade connectors onto the input cables and female connectors onto the output cables.  The logic behind this was I wanted to ensure any “live” terminal had an insulated female end. 

I think I might have found a location for this fuse box under the 4x4 steering column.

Another small task was to assemble the switch assembly which has been made up of very cheap components purchased from China via eBay.

The three switches will be for the LED Light Bar on the front of the vehicle; the Tyre Pressure Management System and the Two-way radio.  The Dash Cam will be permanently on and therefore won’t require a switch.  I think I’ve found a location to hide these switches.  There is a small, flat cabinet with a lid on top of the dash.  Each switch has an LED which will illuminate when on but because the switches will be inside the cabinet almost no light should escape.

A Day of Mixed Feelings

It’s been a very emotional day for us.  Our lovely Waiouru was sold today and whilst we earnestly hope her new owners love her as much as we did both of us grieve for our loss.  Jan believes the five years we spent on board were some of the best in her life and it’s hard not to agree.  The canal community can best be described as a genuine caring community and we both miss it.
We treasure both our memories and photos and what great times we had!  But there is little point in spending all your time looking back and dwelling on the past.  That’s how you walk into lampposts!
One thing I have done is to change the blog banner to reflect our new direction and future. There are a few things on the ‘bucket list’ and time is starting to get tight.  Shortly I’ll commence the modifications to the 4x4 which I will include in the blog posts.  I’ve also started more detailed research into outback camper trailers.  The cheap trailers don’t meet my criteria and the expensive outback trailers are……… just too expensive.  My latest plan is to complete some major modifications to a basic Chinese manufactured 7x4 trailer thereby keeping the cost down.
This morning I checked the Araldite repairs to the damaged bread maker and everything looked fine.  Reassembling the appliance was considerably easier than disassembling it.  Obviously because I knew how it went back together!  The attempted repairs to the headphones hadn’t gone as well and consequentially I’ve done some further work on them.
There was yet another quick trip to the local hardware store for a further five 3 pin plugs.  these were fitted in the afternoon and completes the changeover from UK to AS plugs.

More Rain and Repairs

We’ve been experiencing more rain, thunder and lightening, hail and local flooding.  The local primary school pupils were observed playing outside in the hail.  There must have been 2 centimetres on the ground and I guess it must have been the nearest thing they have seen to snow.  We are fortunate our house is on high ground and so avoided being flooded.  It’s also been cold, but then you would expect that during winter.

I’ve been back to the hardware store for more 240V 3 pin plugs and some Araldite.  I’ve used the latter to repair the bread maker with the broken foot.  It’s a two stage repair and it glued the larger broken portion yesterday.

The second, smaller part was Araldited in this morning.  I used one of the long screws and duct tape to hold the piece in position whilst the Araldite set.  The red arrow marks the small white plastic chip.

Hopefully the Araldite will be sufficiently strong to repair the foot.  If not I’ll make another foot.  I used the remaining mixed Araldite to start the repair of the head phones.

I also replaced another ten 240V 3 pin plugs on appliances and power tools.  They were the cheapest plugs I could find and I’ve discovered it takes some force to assemble them after the wiring is connected.  Consequentially I have sore hands.  There are another five appliances requiring replacement plugs but that job might be left for a couple of days to allow my hands to recover.

Reason for the delay – Christmas came early

All those good intentions of writing yesterday came to naught when the Pickfords truck arrived at 1pm instead of the advised 5.30pm.  Fortunately we hadn’t gone out and were present to take delivery of our fourteen UK boxes.

The boxes are looking considerably more “worn” than when we last saw them in Manchester.

Our plans of unpacking the following day were set aside and with the afternoon free we promptly got to work unpacking.   I knew the two large boxes contained the Kipor generator and the Engel freezer but discovering the contents of the remaining boxes was a pleasure.  Particularly now our wardrobe has increased.   We had purchased ten AS/NZ style 3 pin plugs for the appliances however we’ll need another nine plugs after incorrectly calculating the number of appliances we had purchased.

Breakages have been relatively minor.  The two crockery side plates with colourful canal scenes on them are smashed.  That would be my failure to adequately wrap them.  The securing bracket on one earmuff of the TV wireless remote stereo headphones has broken and Jan’s Aldi bread maker has a broken plastic foot.  It took me some time to work out how the clever Chinese had assembled it, but I got there in the end.

I’ll need to visit the hardware store for some Araldite to glue the foot back in place and fix the headphones.  Whilst there I’ll buy another ten 3 pin plugs.

The Black Bar

Yes I know the blog header is a black bar.  Please bear with me whilst I endeavour to fix the problem!

Normal service will resume shortly......  I hope!

Facebook

Readers you will know how concerned I get about protecting my personal data and today I finally had enough of Facebook to take further action.  I rarely post on Facebook and primarily use it to keep track of friends and relatives.  I never click ‘Like’ on shared links or articles knowing Facebook use the data to build a more detailed profile about me.

Years ago; before Facebook tightened up their requirements; I declared my year of birth as 1901 and my status as single.  Consequentially Facebook displays Ads for viagra and meet young Russian ladies looking for love on my main page. 

When I logged into Facebook today I immediately realised they had been “harvesting” the browsing data from Chrome.  I then went into the Chrome setting and deleted all the historical data and blocked the cookies.  That prevented Facebook from access my history.  Consequentially Facebook now refuses to allow me to login until I reactive their access to cookies on my browser.

The ****** don’t defeat me that easily.  I have both Chrome and Firefox on the computer so I’ve configured Firefox to only have Facebook and will only use it to look at Facebook.  All my other internet browsing will be done using Chrome.  That seems to be working!

Actually I’m starting to get annoyed with Chrome and Google.  Google is really starting to concern me.  They appear to be getting very selective about the order in which the results of any search appears.  Moreover they are also “harvesting” my personal data, albeit slightly less intrusively than Facebook.   I may shortly start using DuckDuckGo instead of Google and Opera instead of Chrome.

More rain

The temperature nearly reached zero at dawn yesterday and the locals we met considered it was freezing.  Probably was for Perth.  However we are still sleeping under a summer weight duvet and haven’t turned on any heaters.

Reading boaters blogs today made both of us quite nostalgic looking at photos of Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Liverpool.  This wasn’t helped by Facebook displaying some photos I’d taken of lovely canal scenes during the previous 5 years.  Oh well…. life moves on!

I rummaged around in the 4x4 engine compartment and think I might have found a small space for the Voltage Sensitive Relay (VSR) and relay for the LED bar.  There is a small gap behind the left headlight.

The VSR would be better located on the other side of the battery, closer to the bulkhead where these is more room.  But vacant space is at a premium so I’m attempting to squeeze everything into the smallest of spaces.

I’m thinking of using the larger cavity on the other side of the battery for a secondary fuel filter.

Some of the fuel available from outback tanks is of questionable quality and I think a secondary fuel filter is probably a good idea.  Fortunately I have small hands which will (hopefully) fit into these confined spaces.

I also need to consider fitting extensions to the differential, transfer case and gearbox breathers.  that’s a total of 4 breather requiring extensions.  Why extend them?  After the vehicle has been running for 30+ minutes the oil in these gets hot and expands.  If the 4x4 then fords a stream the differential/gearbox might be immersed in water and rapidly cool.  This will cause the oil to contract and water could be sucked into the differential/gearbox through the breather.  I plan to extend the breather hoses so they terminate higher.  Probably on the bulkhead in the engine compartment.

Some good news.  Our UK boxes are scheduled to be delivered on Monday.  No longer will we have just one change of clothes!

It’s official

Since we arrived back in Perth it has experienced some of the worst weather since the 1970’s.  You can count the days it hasn’t rained on one hand and the weeds are certainly making the most of it!

Yesterday I arrived back from a walk to discover a van parked on front of the house and a man walking around on our lawn with a probe.  The neighbours had reported they could smell gas and it appeared our lawn was the problem area.  Late in the afternoon a large truck (lorry) arrived with a digger and gas leak repair crew.  The beautifully manicured front lawn had a deep trench dug across it before the crew discovered the precise location of the crack in the pvc gas main.  The roots from one of the large gumtrees in the front lawn had pushed the pipe to the point where it had fractured.  I’m guessing the growth in the tree was a consequences of all the recent rain.

Of course our house is at the end of the gas main so no other house was affected when the supply was isolated.  However the crew were cheerful and quick completing the repair by 8.30pm.  We now have a large bare sand patch in the middle of what was a bowling green lawn.

Both my brother & sister-in-law and my sister and brother-in-law have separately headed to Bali Indonesia for a seven day holiday.  My guess is they wanted to escape the cold and wet weather here.  We’ve been dog sitting for my sister.  Well actually it’s dog lying when it comes to Jan.

Jan is now on first name basis with the postie.  Our eBay purchases are arriving daily and the postie on his electric bike has the job of delivering 90% of them.  the remaining 10% are delivered by contract courier.  Jan’s pan arrived poorly packaged and with a broken handle.

I’ve written to the seller asking them to send a replacement handle which I will fit.  Most of the items for the 4x4 have arrived however I’m still waiting on my tools before I can commence the modifications.