Copyright 2013 P.J.Croft   Venice

Aaah, Saturday, a day off at last. This is the end of the first week at my friend’s place in Scarborough, and the end of the toughest week, in the toughest month, in the toughest six months I have ever had.

I took the last car load of my stuff to the lockup yesterday, and today, for the first time in about 21 days, I don’t have to go there again. Bliss!

In fact I was thinking, when I reach the stage of moving into my new house, I may just tell the removalists, here’s the PIN (for the gates) and here are the three keys (for the three padlocks on the storage units) – just bring everything (except the rat baits) to my new address and put it in the garage. I don’t want to be involved, except to tell you where to put the beds and desks etc. I never want to see that lockup again.

I saw my bathroom scales there yesterday so I retrieved them and this morning they show I’ve lost nearly 5Kg compared to last week. That’s without taking my diuretic, which I forgot during the week. Resuming that will drop even more weight.

It’s hardly surprising – I’ve had to push myself hard to keep going in the heat all week, perspiring like hell, eating a lot less than usual, skipping meals. I’m tired as hell now, but sleeping well. Sciatica has got me in the left buttock. I can’t find a pain free position. Pain in the arse. It’ll pass.

Pain in the ar…  I am sick of trying to get fast internet!

My Vivid wi-fi modem’s battery has swollen  so much that I dare not use it. Figuring that a new battery will cost me at least $50, I bought a Telstra wi-fi modem dongle yesterday for $59, which includes 2GB of data. So they told me. Will it work at Margaret River? Of course, sir, Telstra is everywhere!

I plugged it in here yesterday at about 5.30pm and it worked great, for about 15 minutes. Then it slowed to frozen treacle speed, and that’s how it’s stayed!!!

I’ve gone through the registration process, waiting about 5 minutes for each page to load, and it said please wait, it will take up to 4 hours for the registration to complete. What??? I left it and went to bed.

Now it’s next morning and it’s still frozen treacle speed. I can’t access my email to get the confirmation message – all I get is the spinning wheel. I can’t access Telstra’s page. The modem lights are flashing but there’s nobody home.

OK, I’ve rebooted and now I can get email etc. But why should I need to reboot?

I tried going back to my Vivid modem. It was working fine yesterday, but now it dies after I turn it on and it goes through its boot process. This is crazy! Maybe the charger wasn’t fully plugged in. I’ll try again later.

Geoff and I are going for a drive to York and Beverley today, Geoff to revisit his parents’ grave in York, and in Beverley, to revisit the old town. It’s just for the drive. On a cool day, it should be nice, and without needing to worry about all the work I had to do, that’ll make it nicer still. Aaaaah.