Committed Travellers

I went with a friend to see a Gladys Knight concert at the Star Casino. We were given free tickets as we would not have paid to go to see the show. Gladys will turn 80 in May so was careful in her movements around the stage. Her singing was good, but a subdued. There was a seven piece band and three backing singers, who unusually sat down when singing for most of the show.

Gladys wore a white suit and has vivid white teeth, which are probably falsies!

I have been building a cabinet using recycled laminate boards from old cabinets. It has been time-consuming cleaning and salvaging boards, then cutting them down to size. Cutting laminate requires a 2mm score cut on both sides, before completing the final cut, so that also is a slow process.

Two of our elderly male neighbours died last week, including my friend’s defacto partner of 28 years. She was upset at not being mentioned at all on his death certificate. One of his children is the executor of the will, so he was named as the person reporting the death. The Death Registration Form allows describing the deceased’s relationship at the time of death as “death facto” but specifically states only marriages and registered relationships are to be listed. I immediately sent a complaint to the Justice department, which manages the register of births, deaths and marriages.

The two remaining upstairs patios have been cleaned, paint spots have been removed, excess grout sealer removed with paint remover, the ceiling patched and painted, and external doors washed. I still have to touch up a couple of spots on the wall paint, replace the door seals, and touch up the paintwork on the doors.

Yesterday I made a start repairing the damage caused by the Suntuf roof. The scaffold platform is much better than ladders and can be set at a good working height. I removed the last bracket screwed and siliconed to the outside wall. Sections of the cement wall sheeting peeled off with the silicone. I painted the bare patches with primer paint, but will have to patch those areas to match the undamaged areas.

There is a lot of silicone to be removed. Vinegar may soften the silicone, but heat will also be needed. I can only do this work when it is not raining and not too hot.

For a more relaxing time, I spent time in the garage working on a couple of projects.  I am making a cross cut sled for use on my table saw. This will allow wide boards to be cut on the table saw.

We had a friend to dinner with her poodle.  The dogs played together on the beach, but at home Bluey just wanted to sit on the couch or a lap. Tilly was securely locked in the garage.

I lifted up one of the lounge room blinds and discovered this crack in one of our windows. It wasn’t there when the window film was applied, and we have no idea how it happened. Access from the outside for this window is challenging, so we put the blind down again!

Today the rain stopped further work on the patios, so I worked on various projects in the garage. My apprentice enjoyed a rest  watching me work, then fell asleep.

Much of my weekend was spent preparing an Application for a Tree Dispute to lodge with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT). Our rear neighbours have grown a hedge along their back fence, which of course grows over our fence, and we have been paying for it to be pruned on our side. It is now over 3.5m high and possibly 1.5m deep. It is dangerous standing on a ladder to reach that high, so we have stopped all trimming on our side.

QCAT has jurisdiction to order the hedge be reduced to 2.5m, and order the neighbours to pay for regular pruning on our side. I have provided all of this information to these neighbours, but they are refusing to cut the hedge and accuse me of being a  “bully”. The filing fee is about $380, which we are unlikely to recover. What a waste of my weekend!

I drove past a cat cafè in Southport that I didn’t know existed – the Supermarcat. From the decor I think the cafè is Japanese owned. The coffee was not brilliant, and I resisted paying $15 to spend time with the cats.

When I got home, our cat was sleeping on my pillow!

When I took Bluey for his walk, there was unusual light on some of the hi-rise buildings at Main Beach at the end of a rainbow.

The critters enjoyed lots of play time today. They had a couple of chasing and wrestling games on the carpet, then unusually they played in the pet enclosure.

While their play looks aggressive, neither of the little ones has ever had a scratch. At the beach Bluey got the wind in his tail, but the only other dog on the beach was a big boxer. Bluey finally persuaded Bromley to chase him, but it was a short game.

With all of this activity, I still managed to finish patching and painting the garage ceiling. Cleaning the small patio in the humidity was challenging, but it is ready for patching the ceiling. I rearranged and tidied the garage to make room to work on projects.

I had several jobs on the go today. The scaffold platform was positioned under the location of holes in the garage ceiling where a fluorescent light was removed years ago. It was so much easier working on the platform instead of going up and down ladders. I patched the holes, sanded when the filler was dry, and applied a coat of primer. Tomorrow, I will touch up with ceiling paint, then move onto the other side of the garage. Tilly is happy to supervise garage activities.

I removed a blind from one of our upstairs verandas as we no longer use it. That job involved two ladders, a battery drill to remove screws, a chisel to force off one section of sail track, and pliers to extract a broken screw. Tomorrow, damage to the ceiling paint job will be filled, sanded, and painted; and the flyscreen and floor tiles will be scrubbed clean. Any paint spots will be removed, and the French doors washed. The upstairs door trims need to be removed before new ones can be fitted, but that is a longer-term project.

A couple of rust spots on the front veranda were cleaned off with oxalic acid. We will have to move the heavy table and place plastic protectors under the cast iron table legs.

I brushed another dose of 30 Seconds Off along the path from the laundry door, cleaning moss and dirt from the grout lines, resulting in that path looks much cleaner.

Bluey was off colour today, but he was happy to run on the beach chasing one of his friends. He ate his dinner and is now sound asleep on the couch.

My scaffold platform arrived from Sydney four days after it was ordered. There was a long weekend in Sydney, so that was an impressive delivery service. I enlisted my apprentice to help with the assembly. Fortunately it fits in the garage.

I don’t fancy standing on the platform without any security rails, so I cut up two old swimming pool poles. These are 30 mm diameter aluminium, and fit inside the square tubing. I will drill a couple of holes in each pole to be able to secure them in place with bolts or tent pegs.

Yesterday, a family of swans and signets paddled up the river in formation, stopping at the end of the beach for some R &R. Today, another two adults came ashore hoping a group of people would feed them – they didn’t.

We had dinner with friends at Vivo at the casino. Our food and the company were great, but the service was hopeless!

With rain squalls keeping me inside, I disassembled, cleaned, resized and reassembled the Suntuf roof structure taken down last week. I will either give it away or try to sell it on Gumtree.

This is taking up garage space, so I was limited in what else I could do. The marble topped cabinet cannot be reinstalled in the dining room as the doors and drawers would be blocked by the vertical lift support. I will have to buy, make or modify a cabinet with sliding doors. to fit in the space and cover the floorboard joins. This original cabinet needs some work but might be usable in an updated laundry.

The marble top has been resting on my workbench, so I needed to find a new home for it. The vintage sewing machine base has a tabletop from an old desk – it now has an additional marble top secured with gap filler.

I was on the phone talking to friends, when both Tilly and Bluey had to be on my lap.

Later, the critters were in a stand-off, with Bluey desperately trying to entice Tilly to jump off the bed and play chasey. She wasn’t in the mood!

We were getting ready to go out, when Bluey started to make himself comfortable at the front door. I moved the bed behind the baby gate, so he decided to hide in my study with Tilly who had already claimed the doughnut bed.

After the critters were settled, we picked up our friends and drove to Coolangatta to Siblings for lunch compliments of our London-based friend who sent us a gift voucher. We were lucky to score a space in the nearest carpark.

The location of this restaurant is an attraction in itself – right beside Kirra Beach. We were seated with a perfect view of the beach. I erased the rubbish bins that were spoiling this photo!

Our drive there and back was slow through the roadworks for the construction of the extension of the lightrail, but was otherwise uneventful.

When we got home I went to the critters’ outdoor enclosure, which gave Bluey incentive to exit through the doggy door. He was very excited to see us and burned off excess energy chasing Tilly.

After being on ladders to get the Suntuf roof down, I decided to research the cost of hiring or buying a scaffold platform to finish the repair and repainting jobs. The hire cost was absurdly high, so I ordered one of these for $389 plus a $45 delivery fee. This will be a great help for other jobs, and a friend has already expressed interest in borrowing it to allow her to reach the top of her camper.

I set up ropes to hold one end of the roof section, while trying to lift the other end off a supporting bracket. Anita helped by using a broom handle to ease it off the wall. We could easily lower it to the ground as it was not heavy.

The damage caused by this structure is significant, with rust, holes, and silicone to be removed, before we can repaint.

We drove to Harris Farm Markets for sourdough bread, but the bread slicer was not working at its peak. There are warnings not to slice warm bread, but I had problems with bread that was not warm, with slices sticking together and leaving little balls of soft bread. It still tasted wonderful!

I drove to Spotlight at Ashmore and spotted this fabulous mural on the wall of the bike shop.