I haven’t been out on the bike for nearly two months or so, today I went into Toowong and rode from there to Hamilton and back. It’s around a kilometre to the river from the car park and you have no choice but to use the main roads but as it’s well travelled by bicyclists it’s usually pretty safe but it does have challenges from time to time.

As I passed the park on the left of Sylvan Road I was approaching a black BMW coming out of the car park. He was becoming impatient because he could not get out into the traffic and so as a gap appeared to his left he decided to go and then he saw me coming from the other direction and slammed on the brakes and then waves me round, how kind……….

An omen for things to come.

The bikeway along the Brisbane River is great, it’s well used and the road markings telling everyone where they should be and leave you with no doubts. There are many “Tour de France” wannabes out and about today, full lycra and racing colours and riding like fucking idiots. The first one that passed me on this really wide bike path first of all rings his little bell and then says “Passing” Fuck off ya fuckin’ numpty……….I fuckin’ hate these pricks.

I had a rant as I watched his lycra clad arse disappear into the distance and then before you know it I’m at the Botanical Gardens. Lovely place and the trees are just magnificent. The plants here have all had their DNA taken so that they can try to trace them if there is any theft……clever.

Down to the Storey Bridge and on to New Farm and all the way along the riverside we are still on a shared path, bicycles must give way to pedestrians…………..however the problem with the TDF numpties is that they ride as if they are the only ones on the path and are often doing in excess of 35 kph which is way too fast for here.

It’s around 18km’s to Hamilton and along the way I had a few more “Passing” and I said “Fuck off” They didn’t hear me but it makes me feel better.

After the Wool Store you have no choice but to leave the riverside and head up to a main road for a few hundred metres and then turn right back to river. Some cyclist will still use the narrow pavement instead of either using the bike path detour or the road. I used the detour and as I came back down to the pavement, which you need to ride on for about 20 metres before rejoining the new bikeway. I look left and no one is coming, I look ahead and to my right and there are two people walking and as I pull out and head towards them two fucking’ Lycra clad degenerates are powering down towards me and shouting at me. They were behind the two pedestrians on a pavement no more than two metres wide and they must have passed them doing around 40kph and they have the cheek to give me an expletive and a dirty look…………areseholes!!!

These fuckers have no respect for other road users or pavement users for that matter, how dare they travel at that speed along such a congested narrow pavement. Today was busy, there were many families out, people walking dogs, children running around shouting at the Ibis and of course other cyclists that just want to ride along the side of the river for a bit of fun and not to knock two seconds off my best time. Fully clad Lycra cyclists are a problem at the best of times but just now it seems that they are just impossible. I used to go out very early in the summer months mainly to avoid the heat, it can be 26C at 6am in Queensland and so it’s good to get a ride in before the heat of the day, but I stopped going so early because you would often meet a Peloton consisting of at least 30 riders which used the whole path and just didn’t want to give way to an old guy wearing an old cotton business shirt that was flapping about in the breeze. I hate these fuckers and so do many other folk. They are a nuisance to other road users and they believe it is their god given right to be arseholes and to show absolute contempt for other road users. No wonder most of the time that you hear of a cyclist being killed or injured it is the fault of the cyclist, although there are many car drivers that are a hazard. But this is why we use the bikeways because it is supposed to be safer but when you get these fuckers on it, it can be absolutely deadly.

Oh and I got drookit on the way back just to cool me down a wee bit. I was hoping that maybe the TDF numpties might end up skidding all over the place and landing in the river or better still under a bus. A huge black cloud could be seen in the distance and so as I left Tenerife I thought I could make it back to Toowong but as I crossed the Storey Bridge I felt the first drops of rain and by the time I got to Kangaroo Point it was belting down.

When I got back to the car I cranked up the heater as I sat in the car dripping all over the place and then decided to order a large pizza which I would pick up on the way home, well I think I deserved it after today………oh and I scoffed the lot……………….

Every year I go for my check up with the doctor, get an MOT as it were. Over the last few years that’s been easier said than done simply because of my travelling, but when I return to Australia I will see my GP and get a full service. This is usually routine as I’m lucky to say that my health has always been pretty good apart from the left nostril of me nose which is completely fucked…………

I’m not really keen on having a blood test but I’ve tried not to be such a big Jessie over the years and just to get on with it. The young girl that has replaced the “Old Girl” is equally as good and after a sharp intake of breath the needle was in stealing my blood. Mind you even although it was relatively painless I bruised quite badly.

A few days later I went to the Doc’s and got the results, always a little bit tense at this stage. We went through the first page; all OK…..second page, all Ok and then on the third page a red flag. Fuck, that’s not good me thinks………. it looks like my Iron levels are slightly high approximately 0.02 whatever’s higher than it should be. “What’s that” I say……..Doc “it’s your iron levels that have been flagged and they are just above normal”

He sends me for another blood test to check out if one of my genes is broken or to find out if I’m in trouble. This is not the kind of news that I was expecting or wanting to hear. I’ve always had a sense of dread going for medical tests and the older you become the more broken the body seems to get and so it’s only a matter of time before they find something……….isn’t it?

Don’t Google anything like this because it throws up more information than you can comprehend and it only leads to anxiety and despair. So I Googled anyway…….There are hundreds of possibilities, too many to mention and my mind is in turmoil. My whole future is up in the air and there ain’t any happy ending me thinks. Doc tells me that if there is nothing to worry about I’ll see you in 12 months, however if we need to discuss the results of the new blood test he will call me.

A week passes and nothing and therefore I’m breathing a sigh of relief. “No news is good news”, that’s what the Doc said. Two days later the phone rings and it’s the Doctor’s surgery telling me that the “Doc” wants a word about my second blood test, when can I come in? I put the phone down and my heart is racing and I’m thinking that’s it life as I know it is over and I’m fucked. Now I’m angry at Covid for upsetting my travel plans this year, I knew that I should have been travelling this year. The year of the “Rat” is still throwing punches…………

I don’t sleep well and I wake up at 5am. The appointment is for 9am. I sit out in the car my heart racing, pondering scenarios…………”What’s he going to say?”

I like my doctor, Dr Muhammad is from Pakistan. Over the years I have always had an “Ethnic” for a doctor, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, India and now Pakistan. We both have to wear masks and so there are no facial expressions to read and the body language is minimal. He is methodical and does not rush with what he wants to tell me. He prints off a few things and then says to me “I will explain everything”

So this is where I hear for the first time Haemochromatosis. He tells me that you can be a carrier and in which case I personally don’t have to worry or I could be suffering from this and then it would be a different story he tells me. I’m a carrier…….

This means that if I had children then they me be at risk of something more serious developing in the future but to all intents and purposes I am OK. I have to ask him a few times before the relief washes over me and I realise that this blip is only a blip and life for me will go on as normal.

I sat in the car and dried my eyes, listened to the radio and pondered what to do with the rest of my day. The news was good, no need to worry and yet I felt that I had just dodged a bullet. I can’t go back to the house. I fire up the old Ford and we head west towards Grandchester and Laidley driving on the back roads and keeping away from the highway. A Radio 2 podcast is playing and I’m listening to the protest songs of the 60’s and I wind my way down the open road not knowing where I’m going and to be honest I don’t really care, I just want to drive and to relax and to realise that this scare that I had was just that and nothing else. Life can go on as it always has and I can still make plans for future travels without a dark cloud hanging over me.

200 km’s later I pull up in the drive bursting to go to the loo and feeling like I could eat a scabby headed horse, it’s just turned 1pm. Luckily I have leftovers. I plank myself in front of the TV, after going to the loo of course. and watch “Wheeler Dealers” After coffee it’s time for a siesta…………life is good.

I changed the oil in the old Ford yesterday, it hasn’t been done for at least four years so I thought it was about time, well I’ve been out the country for a while. I bought the car in 2002 and yesterday was the first time I have done an oil change by myself as it turns out.

It’s not that I don’t know how to do it but when I bought the car it was under warranty and so I used to get it serviced on a regular basis. After the warranty ran out I just could not be bothered getting my hands dirty and I would take it to my local mechanic who would not only change the oil but do all the other preventative maintenance. Time was short and I had more money then.

Now I have more time and not so much money and so I thought I would do it myself, I mean how hard can it be? I hate crawling under cars, I have never liked it. To reach the sump plug I had to jack the car up a little. I have a trolley jack so it’s quite easy.

I then went to remove the oil filter but as usual you have to be a cripple or contortionist to do so. I could not access it from the top so I jacked the car up a bit to try to access it from underneath. Easier said than done. I fought with the filter for quite some time before I decided to call a halt and have lunch.

Refreshed from lunch, left over stir fry, I preceded to tackle the problem at hand. If I could just get more purchase on the filter I would be ok. I decided to remove the air filter box which is on the nearside of the car which allowed me more access to the oil filter. I was able to reach the filter but could still not get a grip on it to turn it. I put on my fancy rubber coated gloves which have more friction than my hands and I was able to finally release the filter and I felt the strain through my arms and stomach when it finally gave way.

I was pretty chuffed that I had gotten it off, even although it put up quite a fight. I’ve been watching “Wheeler Dealers” on TV and this has given me the inspiration to tackle such jobs, next job will be to add an oil cooler to the gearbox but I will have to watch a few more YouTube videos before I tackle that.

The air filter was replaced, new engine oil and filter and when I went for a drive today the old girl seemed to rejoice.

Well hopefully, I spent most of a Friday up on the roof installing “Gutter Guard” around the solar panels. It’s a plastic mesh which is fairly resistant to UV and I am hoping that the “Gaffa Tape” I used will also last for a fair bit of time. There is no way to fix the gutter guard securely apart from using the tape, I mean you can’t screw into the solar panel in any way.

The wind was terrible on Friday and even worse yesterday. I nearly got blown away a few times along with my materials and tools. The end result looks not too bad and I went back up on the roof today to see what damage if any had occurred from the extremely high winds but thankfully it all looks intact.

I think I got too much sun on Friday because yesterday I felt so lethargic and my heed wus nipin” Dehydrated and maybe even a bit of sunstroke although I was covered up from head to toe but the glare off the roof was pretty intense……

But if this solves the pidgeon problem then it will be all worth it. I haven’t seen or heard them today. Maybe they have done a few fly buys to check out the situation but as yet I haven’t seen them……….Happy Days.

This morning I thought I would have the day off, I’ve been climbing on the house roof for two days and before that the garage roof and so I thought that today I would have my feet planted firmly on Terra Firma and so I went for a bit of a bush walk to the White Rock Conservation area which is only about 20 mins away. The app called “Alltrails” is great because it allows you to locate these walks quickly and easily.

This walk was fairly easy and about 40% of it was on firebreaks and fire trails but the rest was off through the bush. it was not a difficult walk although there were a few sections where you had to take care with your footing.

White Rock stands proudly mid walk and is easy to climb to reach the top. Funny thing is when I neared the top of the rock I could hear voices and as I looked up there was a young black couple as black as the ace of spades descending White Rock, I thought that was funny for some reason.

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On top of the rock the wind was howling and you had to be careful not lose your footing. it obviously been a very popular place over the years as the abundance of rock carvings can testify, although this ain’t no Aboriginal dream time cultural stuff, this is just the usual Tom.Dick and Harry graffiti brigade.

Not much wildlife on the trail, mind you there were a few large Bull ants, only a few birds were braving the winds and I was lucky to see a Goanna or some kind of lizard which was around one metre long. it casually strolled across the path in front of me and then walked through the bush parallel with me for a bit then disappeared. I haven’t seen one of them for donkey’s………..

This walk was around 7km but there is another which is nearly 18km which I might work up to, but will have to take lunch with me and plenty of water for that adventure.

They were not happy, I wasn’t that happy either having to climb onto the roof which is over 5m above ground level. I bought a new ladder which folds into many different shapes and forms. It stands at 1.5m to begin with but can extend to 5.8m which is just enough to get me onto the roof.

I tied the ladder to the house but I still wasn’t brimming with confidence, but once I was up on the roof and getting down to business it felt a bit easier……..it’s just the getting on and off the ladder which is a bit dodgy.

I have 6 solar panels lying flat on the roof and another 5 in a row behind angled at 40°. There are three pidgeons in all that frequent my roof and they have made a nest right under the flat solar panels where there is a gap of about 140mm. The amount of shit that was under there was disgusting. There was also a large nest made from mud,sticks and plenty of shit by the look of it. it was in such an awkward place that I could not really get at it and so I had to use some old tongs, small shovel and a stick to try and break it down. I then got the hose and blasted it as best I could. I would have removed about 2 bucket loads of nesting material and the remains of a bird. There were at least two eggs which got washed out onto the lower roof and were then keenly eyed by “Magpie” The debris got washed out onto the lower roof and made it’s way to the water tank where I then had to scrape a few inches of shit and crap of the strainer, much of it over flowing onto the garden.

The first day they did not come too close to the house but did a few laps doing fly overs to see what was going on. Last night however just around dusk I heard them come and land on the roof but I was ready for them. I blasted them with the hose and the three of them took off in hasty retreat and flew west to another roost, but I don’t think the battle is won just yet……..the pidgeons are determined creatures and will try to sneak back when I’m not watching. When I first moved in many years ago there were a pair of pidgeons here and these could very well be the same ones. it took a long time and many hours of fixing shade cloth to areas of the house to prevent them from taking up residence so I am expecting that this will take more than two days of work to discourage them but it is a start. But I’ve been away from the house for four years and so I guess they thought it was as good an opportunity as any to move back.

I am not too keen in getting back up on the roof all that often, especially at this time of the year when the westerly winds are very strong making it difficult to be climbing about and exposed roof, but I think I will have to get back up later in the week to put some shade cloth around the edge of the panels like a skirt to try and prevent them from returning. I don’t want to have to climb up here week after week as it’s not the safest place to be.

If I could maybe make a deal with “Magpie” to patrol the roof top for a small fee, I would be happy to feed him if he sorted out those blasted pidgeons because I have seen him taking a few pot shots at them in the past so it would be a good deal for both of us……………………

So I’ve just about got to a point where I can sit back and enjoy the house. The house feels a lot better now that it has some life back into it. I have done most of the big jobs in the house and most of the heavy lifting has been done. Yesterday the dishwasher gave me a hard time when I replaced the outlet drain hose, it was a lot easier than I made it. I stripped to much of the machine trying to gain access but then worked out that there had been no need, but anyway after several hours and worn out finger tips I managed to get it running.

I grabbed all the plastic containers, plates, cutlery and anything else I could squeeze into dishwasher and set it to “HOT”. I feel a lot happier using these things now that they have been through the heat of the dishwasher rather than just soap and water in the sink.

For the third morning in a row the winds have been strong and cool. Today I walked to the shops to pick up a few supplies and then came back and vegged in front of the TV for a bit, I just don’t want to do anything today and I am trying not to feel too guilty about it.

I have much to do, the garden will take a long time to put right but I feel that the house is nearly up to speed and so I will sit back and be a couch potato for the day, crawl into sloth mode and enjoy with out having a guilt trip at the same time. I’ve been so busy that I feel I’m about to be shouted at to get off me arse and get back to work and then I’ll just tell myself to Fuck off………..

The 23rd of July was the day I moved back into my house and it was also my birthday, my 60th birthday to be exact and I had not planned to be here but I was planning to be in Scotland. It seemed fitting to me to go home for this birthday because I was now eligible for my UK bus pass and I thought well I might just apply for that and then I can get cheap travel around the UK, but it looks like it will be next year at the earliest before I will be able to go.

I felt quite sad coming back into the house, the house looked sad too because it had not been cared for by the tenants. The house and I were in a kind of symbiosis I think. She was battered and bruised, marks on the walls………door jambs chipped……….curtains looking very sad……….fly screens rotten through, although they have been here for many years.

The garden is also a barren wasteland. When I left there were many colourful plants, many drought tolerant and easy to maintain but all were gone. All the bark and mulch that had been put down over the years had also gone. It is going to take quite some time to get the garden back to anything like it used to be. Mind you the Poinciana is thriving.

As I stepped in through the front door I also felt a sense of failure at being back……..the last four years had disappeared in the blink of an eye and I was wondering if it was all a dream.

I opened up the shed at the bottom of the garden, I had stored all my possessions here. I had come here three weeks ago to pick up the car but didn’t spend much time looking around. Most of the furniture was stored in the first bay and then I had stored all the household item in numerous boxes stacked up all over the place.

First job was to find the kettle so that I could at least make a cup of tea. I then moved onto uncovering the furniture and getting ready for tomorrow when the removalists come. As it turns out they were shite and as weak as piss and I had to help several times or they would have damaged things.

Everything was covered in Gecko shit, Cockroach shit, dust and cobwebs so it took quite some time to clean the things and it’s ongoing. 4 Years of dirt and grime and the insect rebellion had caused havoc.

The tenants had to leave the house today. Two weeks ago I asked if I could get back into the garage to pick something up, they told me that I can wait until today.

They left the house just after lunch but did not return the keys until 5pm, inconsiderate bastards. That have done this deliberately for some reason and I have no idea why. When they owed me money I never pressured them, I let them keep the government electricity assistance payment of $200 and have always treated them ok.

I can’t move back in until the inspection is done and that won’t happen until tomorrow.

If there are any defects at the house tomorrow when I do the inspection then I’m not going to be lenient, fuck them!!!!