Monday 26 to Wednesday 28 September

It was a fairly arduous drive back to Canberra from Newcastle; by the time we left it began to rain heavily, and in the gloom Bob misdirected me to follow the Pacific Hwy around Belmont instead of directly onto the Freeway.  

More storms coming into Canberra complete with dramatic bolts of lightening brightening up the sky.  Heavens knows we needed the rain.  Lucy the wonder cat was surprised but pleased to see us home, and keen for us to go to bed and cuddle her as soon as possible.  We pulled the bikes and gear in from the car, and I prepared Bob a meal of Indian chickpeas, potatoes, spinach, and the traditional kangaroo.  

The next morning the wheels started to fall off – there was possibly a lightening strike or power surge during the night, for Bob woke me to turn off my computer, or phone or whatever was beeping.  It turned out to be the household cordless phones.  My bedside stereo lost its presets and time, and that morning the Bose system upstairs turned on, but nobody was home.  A quick check of the cables failed to display anything.  Too tired to be productive, I turned it off at the PowerPoint and we attempted to survive on a tinny radio for our morning Radio National news hit.  Walking down the stairs to the lowest level to the bathroom, the central light failed to light.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to fix these, without success.  The light bulb seems to have fused into the socket.  I will need to move the components and sub woofer of the Bose to carefully check the system, and it’s the way I have set up the cables at the moment this is quite a task.  I will wait until I am feeling fully lert so that I don’t stuff it up further.  The microwave had a hissy fit and failed, however after fuming by itself in its cubby hole for a couple of hours, it came out with a guilty smile on its face and asked to be forgiven and have its time reset.  

Spent an hour pulling out grass and weeds from the wet ground on Wednesday afternoon, and planting a couple of Callistemon in the bare garden that was ravaged by storms a year ago.  It started to rain heavily almost immediately.  

My attempt at the Lake Ginninderra Handicap on Tuesday was not a raging success, having eaten over the weekend didn’t agree with me, and although I knew I was not in fast form and couldn’t stop yawning at the start line I thought that I may as well go off my correct handicap.  Not a good idea in retrospect; I started feeling fine, however after a few metres I slowed right down and was jogging at around six minute pace.  I considered turning around and helping with the finish – the legs felt OK, however my heart wasn’t in it and I felt really tired.  Plodded along fairly happily for the first k, then required an urgent toilet stop before the 2k mark.  This pattern continued for the next 4kms of the 7k course, as I knew that I was well and truly set well back at the rear and holding people up.  With one kilometre to go, my gut was in great pain and my slow jog turned into an uncomfortable limping walk.  Thems the breaks.  I did enjoy eating though!