Saturday 20th July
Today is a bit
more leisurely. Pete has done all he can
manage on his own and none of the workers he is expecting will come near Spot
On Marine again until Monday. I’m not
sure why he wants them to come at all… The engineers charge $110 per hour…(each!) And as
far as I can tell, they have arrived several times with increasingly large and
fearsome tools, with which they have banged and crashed at the offending boat
parts. Then they have packed up and gone
back to wherever they came from, leaving Pete to do the very difficult tasks
all on his own…
We slept in
till way past eight o’clock, which was very nice indeed, and then ate eggs and
bacon with beautiful sourdough - yes Pete is persevering; and I think #12 is
the best one so far.
And then we had
a most beautiful visitor – a dear little azure kingfisher, which sat calmly on
the railings not far from 2XS.
In the meantime
a squadron of big brown hawks wheeled about our little corner of the river,
mightily attracted to the bacon scraps I had thrown into the water. And right across from the boat – our jabiru!
All of this –
sleep, food, birds – has cheered me up no end.
I am not very happy right now because the midgie bites are driving me
insane. Every time I started to fall
asleep last night, I would wake up feeling as if acid was being trickled onto
my skin – this is SO unpleasant! Those
midgies are just ghastly, and they are a totally unseen enemy – we have never
seen them, they are tiny! (They are also
known as noseeums, with good reason.)
We have been
staying up quite late watching the Tour de France. Beautiful scenery, as always, and lots of
slightly baffling competitions along the way. Sprints, King of the Mountain etc. Which
leads me to…
Today’s birthday greetings go to my brother
Chris. Still as fit, strong, competitive
and generally wonderful as always.
Here he is, outside Castle Zayee in Hobart, with
his darling family – Karen, Kate, Max - and Pete, on the left.
I was eleven when Chris was born and I don’t think
I have ever seen him angry, or even mildly perturbed. He has always had a very nice nature, which
is a good thing considering what a formidably competitive and successful
sportsman he is. A great combination of
virtues!
Last year Chris celebrated his 50th
birthday by doing some of the more difficult mountain stages of the tour
immediately after the Tour proper had passed by with a group of equally fit
friends. It was VERY grueling but he was
up there with the younger keener fitter riders.
Of course!
Pete has gone
shopping, to light industrial zones, with kind Jason, our Tasmanian
friend. I am staying on the boat where
there is a bit of a cool breeze blowing through…I am coated with layers of
aerogard interspersed with anti-itch stuff and I smell very… chemical…
And just in case you didn't appreciate the full glory of our kingfisher...here is a close-up!
Felix certainly appreciated the close up of the kingfisher although he said 'it looks like something we need to fix'...I didn't tell him you probably didn't need to add it to your list x
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