First Week

I've been in the house for 8 days now.

Unfortunately I was not able to shake off that bad cold that I got a couple of weeks ago and when I got so lethargic that I could not do anything useful I ran up the white flag and saw Dr. Broun in Glen Forrest.  I had not seen him since that extensive physical examination just before my departure on the circumnavigation in 2008 and it was like a reunion of old friends.  He had followed my blog for a while and we exchange accounts of our boating adventures.  The good doctor and his wife were sensible enough to savor the canals of France in a house boat rather than experience the wilder side of boating.

Anyway, Dr Broun diagnosed an infection in my right lung so I am on a 7 day course of Amoxycillin.  This has stopped my renovation efforts in its tracks and I will be "vegying out" for a few days until I feel better. 

Nevertheless I managed to accomplish several things before my capitulation.  I had a look at a bedroom dresser that was stored in the garage, liked what I saw, and manged to move it into the house by totally dismantling it.  It is a well designed and constructed piece of furniture that I am pretty sure that my close friends and neighbors shipped from England when they migrated from Australia in the 1960's.  The all wood core has a timber veneer on top, and the drawers have dove tail joints and all have an amazingly smooth travel action.  Surprisingly, the dresser had the effect of making the room bigger, probably because of the mirrors.

I also finished off the kitchen cabinetry by finishing off the peeling of the plastic protective coatings and fitting of handles.  The loaf of bread in the accompanying photo is cooling off after being baked by the bread maker.

Handles Fitted

In the office I did a lot of work in tidying up the file system on the Toshiba laptop that saw me around the Horn then transferred the necessary files and photos to make the newer Toshiba my office computer.  I will soon start looking for a wireless router to replace the USB router that was stored in the garage.

I am also including a photo of the waterfall that Simon took yesterday on a visit with Stephen and Teresa.  He used a 6-second exposure with the camera on a tripod.