A Busy Weekend Indeed

Lots happening this weekend. Stayed up late on Friday night and had the luxury of a sleep in on Saturday. Woke up about 10 mins before the shops opened and had to get dressed quickly, fill up the washing machine with clothes and get that going, and head down to Carousel to do my shopping as Bakers Delight were giving away a free loaf of bread - no purchase required. And it turned out to be one of their more expensive, and tasty, items on offer. I expected there to be quite a queue and that turned out not to be the case.

Shopping done I returned home. Did a bit of tidying up, hung out the washing, set a new load of washing, journeyed to Dominos to buy four pizzas at the ridiculously low price of A$3.95 ea. Yesterday I had one pizza for lunch and one for tea. Today I had another for lunch and there is one left for tea.

As the day was fine I went to Bunnings, my favourite shop, to get some plasterboard, plasterboard cement and all the tools required. Also picked up some pipe to fix a split pipe in the backyard retic underneath the pavers. Once I got home I noticed that the pipe was the wrong size. Bugger. Returned Bunnings' trailer, which they provide free of charge should you purchase something requiring it, and took my tap with me. I explained to one of the shop assistants that I wanted to replace the guts of the tap as I thought that it was stuffed. He said that there wasn't anything wrong with the tap and suggested a valve to purchase. The valve is recommended for sufferers of arthritis and I swear that it does the job beautifully. The tap is so easy to turn off or on now.

Fixed the pipe fairly quickly and then spent the rest of the evening putting the plasterboard up in the living room. Managed to catch a few episodes of Seinfeld while doing the work. It's handy having a job to do in the living room. Nearly finished it but ran out of plasterboard cement with only one small piece required. Another late night. Interesting French movie on SBS.

Up early this morning - the day of the Bathurst 1000 - the greatest race for V8 cars in the world. Ford vs Holden. Six and a half hours of full-on racing. Ford hasn't won since 1998. Got dressed quickly to ride down to Bunnings to buy some more cement. It started raining just before I reached Bunnings and continued for my bike ride all the way home. A quick change of clothes and then onto work. Finished the plasterboard, the suggestion of my mate Phil, fairly quickly but had to put cement over the butt joints. That will take a few days to do with a few coats and sanding of the surface to be done once dry.

A split pipe under the pavers - what a bugger.

Close up view of the problem.

Fairly easy to fix as I don't need the other pipe any more.

The finished job.

In the meantime I managed to replace the paver after filling in the hole. When Bathurst was over, damn Holdens won again, (hope you're happy Phil and that you managed to have your pyjama day) I watched some cricket and the Formula 1 race in Suzuka, Japan. Then, amazingly, I decided to do some exercise and went for a half hour bike ride. Talk about a strong breeze to push into, at least for half the journey. Once I arrived home, I don't know what came over me, but I weeded the front yard. It's a sickness, I know. Even the inside bins got emptied and I put the other bins out for collection. It's like having alzheimers. I go to do one job and find something else to do on the way to the first job and it's neverending. Had a few phone conversations with the missus and the boy in between jobs. Gosh, I'll be looking forward to going back to work tomorrow so that I can have a rest.

The blank canvas.

The (almost) finished canvas.

Maybe you'll have to call me Hammylopithicus - Hammy the Handyman.