Wachindy

For us 1^st worlders access to water and power are just simply taken for granted.. right?

At Sally Supreme we have no power except what our blue Gennie supplies, no town water – our water supply is pumped up from the Grosses Plains creek below up to our very small tank and then gravity fed to Sally – there’s our ‘running water’.  Hot water is via the Rinnai gas hot water system which of course relies on there being water available in the first place.

So, here we are – tank is empty – probably due to the fact that the tap connection has a leak, has had one for quite some time, hence the water runs out rather quickly – can’t understand that at all!

There has been an ominous smell of gas for some time – the gas cooker is slow in lighting up –not a good sign – not good for us humans either I’m sure.

So, for water to wash up with and have a wash with it means a trip to the creek with a bucket, fill up the largest saucepan in the cupboard and wait for it to heat up. Heating is via hotwater bottles – so keep on heating those saucepans.

Have dug out the ‘solar’ shower bag purchase a while ago – fill it up with the hot water and hang it up in the shower – except of course you can’t get enough height to hang the shower bag so that you  have to almost sit on the floor to get a water flow out of the tiny spout…sigh!

After the saga of the flooded cupboard some months ago (water hose kept on leaking and coming apart and therefore flooding the shelves and cupboards and soaking the carpet) I had pulled up the carpet to try and dry it out. Since then the top layer has crept over to the cupboard every day and everyday I’ve pulled it back. Consequence of this is that the cupboards won’t open because they are blocked by the curled up carpet…grrrr

Now, to get the water up to the water tank means getting the red water pump down to the creek to connect with the water pipe so it can pump up the water. It’s a heavy red beast and the incline is covered with nasty rose hips and rocks. I have spent quite some time cutting back the rose hips as the blisters on my fingers will attest to! A recent purchase of a 4wd ‘golf cart’ (actually an UTV) which has been a great thing to explore unknown pockets of our property with has also decided to play dead, refusing to start… we used this to transport the heavy red beast down to the creek… more very audible sighs here, plus some expletives have crept in…

Yesterday I spent sweeping up the house – full of gyprock dust!  I did this a couple of times and a consequence of this was a head full of hair that felt like straw and was impossible to brush, eyes that felt like sandpaper and no number of eye drops instilled could alleviate that problem…covered in dust and ready to scream – knowing that the only wash would be some boiled water drizzled over my dusty face and arms! aaargh!

That’s it, I cried – tomorrow it’s off to  H & I’s to have a shower and fill up our drinking water containers.. (I didn’t mention that the only drinking water is what we bring with us and that has been used up in triple time). C thought it might be time to be the soothing and agreeable hubby and off we went to the big smoke (joking) to visit our friends. Blessed relief – a hot shower and clean hair – nothing like feeling like a human bean, as our friend Dougy used to say (RIP). He would have laughed at us and exclaimed that next we would be wanting portholes in our coffins!

Next stop was the hardware store to buy fittings for the leaking tap (are you sure you have the right size elbow joint dear… yes dear… I measured it…. famous last words.. sigh!)

Today has been a good day.  Even though the wrong size pipe fitting was bought another was found in a box of goodies stored under Sally Supreme’s seats… yay! pipe fixed. The big red beast was put in the back of Big Blue Bessie and we managed to get her pretty close to the creek – the red beast started first time, yet again.. amazing!  Water was pouring into our tank.  Next the gas leak… the regulator and hose was replaced with another found in yet another box of goodies stored in the deep bowels of Sally Supreme… fabulous! Gas fixed, water fixed… turn on the tap and then a scream of ‘turn off the water NOW…’ as water gushed out of the gas water heater.. sigh…. the pipe had blown off and water was pouring everywhere.

Well, that at least was an easy fix – just needed a shifter for that problem.

So now we have hot water yet again (and cold) which comes at our beck and call by turning on a tap! and best of all – no leaking gas.

Back to shed and lots and lots of expletives can be heard echoing around Avalon House  - the plans are a useless waste of paper (we did spend an extra $60 to get them even…) and the job really requires at least 2 to 3 muscle bound males and not a husband and wife team…. let me tell you….!!!

Still, the frame of our 12x12m shed is up and standing somehow (only because there were 3 strong males to put it up I might add) and thanks to Kk aiding dad to put the roof purlins in (mum was off doing most important things like shopping for Toilet disinfectant and food and fuel for Blue Gennie (the generator) etc  etc etc… and of course taking way too long.

The good weather has also come to an end. Our glorious blue sky days with light breezes and lovely temperatures are turning into very windy weather with promise of more snow again…