Apart from a four-day trip to Sydney in January – where we hadn't been for 20 years or so - we have been at home in Castlemaine for the past few months.

It has been a hot summer, either hotter than usual or I'm feeling the heat more. We had a couple of days away in the motorhome – not far away at all – after we'd lent it to some friends to see if they were happy to drive it to Darwin in July. As it turned out, they had no problem with the vehicle at all, but didn't want to drive it there.

So I wondered in my mind what we'd do about that. But now, after Israel and America's war on Iran disrupting the world's oil supplies, everything is doubtful. So it's all on hold.

What is not on hold is our Auswalk trip to the Flinders Ranges, booked months ago. The motorhome is full of diesel, giving it a range of ~1,000km; we hope to be able to access a bit more to get us there, and then enough more to get us home again.

But.. it's been a good few months, despite lots of watering and the fruit crop (both at our house and in Castlemaine generally) being poor. Why? Probably the weather. I find fruit trees a bit of a mystery.

We did manage to have Andrew the plumber come and move our hot water service, which had been sited so the little recess of the house behind it was completely inaccessible. Now it is much better. And to follow up we put in a drainage pit with a pipe down to the creek, which needed a trench dug ~ nine metres long and 600mm deep by the time it got to the creek edge. Thank goodness we have a jackhammer! Now we wait for heavy rain to make sure that the problem we had (water seeping into a corner of the pantry) is fixed. I can't see that it wouldn't be.

We also put drains in at the bottom of the creek to stop it washing away down into next door's property. And have begun resurfacing the terrace at the Melbourne flat. Been quite busy, really.

Visits to Melbourne have been not quite as regular, thanks to Elsy sending us to “Siberia” after Gae's visit (why? Unknown!) and Alice and Sidharth having their next daughter, Samira. An elective Caesarian a few days early, so I ended up driving them down to the hospital, while Alison looked after Rose till Liz and Steven came up from Geelong to take over. All went smoothly and so far they are having a much less stressful time than they did with Rose, two years ago.

Simon's Sydney Journal