I’m nearly finished the western wall, however I can only work on it until about noon at the latest because that’s when the sun finally makes an appearance.

Today is very warm, it’s already 30 C and we still have two weeks left of winter and so I would assume that temperatures of 40 C will not be out of the question this year. Next door has the air conditioning on as we speak, their house has no insulation whereas mine has and for me it’s OK.

I was a bit nervous up on the trestles this morn, it feels a long way up and I’ll be very happy to get this wall done. I’m now working with the large aluminium trestle and I have to move it a metre at a time and so I’m getting quite the workout running up and down umpteen times. I’ve got the barge cap left to do and the top half metre of the wall.

After that’s complete I’ll move to the south western corner to finish the gutter and downpipe and then everything I think is in reach from the ground.

After breakfast I gave the high section of the wall a second coat, this means that tomorrow I will do the remaining bits that already have two coats once more and then I can move to the apex which I can only reach using the aluminium trestle. From here I can also access the barge cap, however it also means walking the big trestle along the side as I go.

After lunch today I thought that a stroll was in order and so I gave the legs a workout by doing a lap of Ipswich via the many hills. The Sky was blue and the UV strong so I covered up from head to toe but due to the low humidity I hardly broke a sweat.

I think that this circuit will be one I’ll do again, it’s not that long but the terrain is fairly challenging and I think I’ll give it a go on the bike next week.

Not sure why the tracker didn’t go all the way to the start point, mind you there is a lot of interferences in the centre due to the many surveillance cameras.

I got my stitches out today from my ear where the doctor removed a BCC skin cancer, thankfully all is well and he won’t have to remove anymore of the ear. I now have a notch mid ear, very fetching……..but I don’t care because as long as the cancer cells have been removed I care not a jot that I might resemble some hideous monster.

I took the dressing off three days ago and that was quite the adventure. The dressing was so so sticky and I thought my ear was going to be ripped from the side of my head whilst removing it. Cleaning all the gunk from it was very painful due to it being tender of course but also because the stitches were well and truly in place.

I got the stitches out today which is exactly one week after they went in and that certainly brought a tear to the een. I usually count in my head in another language while I get anything like this done, I’m trying to get my brain to ignore the pain by concentrating on a challenge. It works sometimes.

I’ve started painting on the western wall. Moving the trestles from the front to the western side took most of my energy for the day. Because the retaining wall is on this side the access is limited just to make it more fun. They are all roughly the same weight, heavy, however the aluminium one has a bigger footprint which made it a bit more difficult to maneover.

I washed the wall using the pressure cleaner and the run off turned the ground to mud. There’s a fair bit of black soil exposed and it stuck to my boots making them feel like dead weights.

I let the wall dry for a day to get rid of most of the moisture, it gets fairly hot when the sun finally makes an appearance.

I let the mud dry for a day too, big mistake, and then this morning when I got around to actually doing the painting I literally had to chisel the mud off the soles because it had set like concrete.

I’ve done about half the wall today and I’ll give it three coats in all before moving the planks up higher. It felt very stable today compared to the other day, possibly because I tied the two shorter trestles to the house to stabilise them 😁

A Basel Cell Carcinoma, well that’s what I got removed from my ear today and as I write this my ear is still under the influence of the anaesthetic and so is quite happy just being an ear. I am not looking forward to when it wares off, not sure how much pain I will receive but I guess I have all that to look forward to.

He gave me about three injections, however they felt no worse than an insect bite and it was very strange feeling with my ear being pulled and prodded and when he was doing the stitches ,well that was just weird. I have to keep it dry for about three days, so maybe no shower and I might be quite smelly by then. I could always put a bag over my head when I’m having a shower…………..

Sleeping will also be a challenge I am sure, I’ll no doubt wake up screaming in the middle of the night as I role over to my right side and flatten my ear against the pillow. I’ll put down a towel on the pillow just in case I lose some claret.

I only have a quarter of a bottle of whisky left and so that could also be a possible catastrophe, I’ll just have to wait and see……

As they say in the song wear sunscreen…..

I got home yesterday from Armidale and it was a good run home. I stopped at Stanthorpe for lunch and was surprised at the difference in temperature there compared to Armidale. It felt almost tropical and I was thinking that this is not a good sign for when I get home. I finally had to use the air con on the last leg of the journey.

All went well and I got home around 5pm and I was hanging out for a coffee which went down a treat. It’s good to get back in your own bed and I was in bed before 9pm.

This morning I got up around 6:30am and had a lazy breakfast before getting ready to go for an interview for a job in Ipswich for a parts interpreter at a trailer company and I think it went well, well I thought it went well until I saw the job readvertised. I got interviewed by an English lassie and we got on really well and I thought I had a shoe in, but I will have to wait and see. Never count your chickens!!

Came down to Armidale yesterday to see Catherine and Stuart for a few days. It’s mid winter but it’s not too cold, although when the wind blew it cuts in a bit.

I popped out for a walk after lunch and went into the art gallery which I haven’t been to fir years. I did help with an exhibition here over thirty years ago mind you and I got my picture in the paper.

The retaining wall and the painting are moving along quite nicely although being at the top of the gable is a bit hairy.

I’ve slept like a log every night this week, my body has been absolutely worked out everyday. Climbing up to the top of the trestles many times over the day certainly makes for a good workout.

I’ve also tackled the garden. There is a very large plant that’s been in the front garden and it has slowly advanced over the years but I decided to give it a bit of a trim and open up the front of the house a bit more, mainly because of the amount of moisture that seems to be present and I think this has been contributing to the greening of the front of the house.

Hopefully I’ll move onto the front of the house by Tuesday and get the trestles set up. I think the front should be a lot easier to do because it’s a bit lower.

The trestles wobble quite a bit when you’re at the top and it’s a bit disconcerting to say the least. I’ve started the second coat on the eastern wall but I haven’t got to the gable yet simply because it’s just out of reach and using the ladder is just way too scary.

Yesterday I cleaned the front of the house which was quite the task fighting the plants and the uneven ground while I hanging from the step ladder holding the pressure washer, but I got it done and had a free shower to boot.

Today Doug and Rodney came to begin work on the retaining wall, finally it’s getting done, I’ve put it off for way too long. They also brought with them a six metre aluminum trestle which will allow me to reach the gable without killing myself, well hopefully!

Today the new post holes were drilled out and the posts have been made ready for the concrete which should come on Friday and then it will cure over the weekend and they’ll come back next week to finish it all off.

On another note, this one not so good. Two days ago I went to see the skin doctor and he took a bit of my ear away to have it tested and unfortunately I got a call today from him to tell me that the biopsy has come back positive and I’m going to have it cut out, I just hope I don’t end up like Van Gogh, I mean what will my specs sit on? I’m definitely not looking forward to that procedure 😔

It’s time to paint the house, on the outside. I bought the trestles last year but due to the rain and the local flooding I lost complete interest in the whole thing. So after nearly nine months of being in the shed I dragged them out and set them up. I can’t believe just how heavy they are and it took a big breakfast to enable the old body to move them and set them up.

After doing so I decided that I would do all the cutting in first and tomorrow I’ll get the roller out and try to do the first coat on the eastern side of the house.

Earlier in the week I cut down the Frangipani trees in preparation for the fixing of the retaining wall, it was a bit of a workout and I ended up hitting an old war wound in the process. A few years ago I cracked the cartilage or bruised my ribs and I’ve aggravated it a couple of times and I did this the other day which put me out of commission for about three days and so I was quite pleased to have managed to manhandle them into position. Mind you I forgot just how scary it can be when you first climb up onto the 250 mm wide plank whilst being two metres above the ground.