While Not Working

Belair is on the edge of Adelaide, in the fringes of the Adelaide Hills. As the name implies, it's on the top of the hill: a pretty, leafy suburb with lots of trees and torturously winding roads that have limited visibility, lots of blind corners, and no shoulders to accommodate bicycles. Fortunately we live a very short walk from a railway station, which means that we don't have to ride our bicycles along the terrible roads or, indeed, up the hill.  From Belair we can use bike trails and back roads down the hill to the delightful flatness of Adelaide, and when we get tired of riding we can catch the train all the way up the hill and home again. Roger is still recovering from his tussle with the pool deck.  His leg shows an astonishing array of bruising colours and he is reluctant to get on his bicycle just yet.   Off I went on my own then. Down the hill with the city below and far away the sea.   Through Centennial Park, Adelaide, which had quite a different vi...

For the next seven weeks or so we will be living in the leafy suburbs of Adelaide, not that far from Belair National Park and with responsibility for one cat and a swimming pool. "She's a hot-and-cold cat," said the owners when we met them to pick up the keys. "Sometimes she's really friendly but the rest of the time she doesn't want to know you."  That didn't worry us: we managed to make friends with George so we consider ourselves capable cat-coaxing cleversticks. The cat had not read her own instruction manual, demonstrating fickle loyalty and strong cuddly tendencies the second she had a new lap in which to sit. Roger, who had the enviable task of moving us from the Air BnB to the house sit while I worked, had no sooner sat on the comfortable couch than the cat was on his lap and there it stayed. He sent me regular photos to update the cat situation. "I want lunch but I can't get up because the cat is on my lap."   "I need to g...

We packed the car and polished up the flat, making sure the bunnies' cage was spick and span.  The bunnies knew something was afoot and made themselves as underfoot as possible.  I tempted them with my 6-day-old Valentines Day rose.  After the rose I tempted them with traitorous treats and locked them back into their cage, saying a final bunny good-bye and heading out the door.  Our time in Melbourne was over and we were on the road again. A four-lane highway delivered us north-west via a conglomerate of road works, detours, and far too many impatient drivers for a Sunday morning.  We came across the small town of Dadswell which is reknowned for the Big Koala.  We stopped to say hello, as you do when you come across Big Things. Hello! We had lunch beside the lake at Ballarat, expecting peace and being sadly disappointed due to the Ballarat Cycling Classic taking up a good half of the road and all of the picnic tables being used by the (I presume) supporters...

 We rode our bikes some more.  We found Albert Park and cycled around the lake.  It was pretty. Much to our delight, we discovered that Albert Park hosts the Formula One track, the surface of which sent Roger into raptures of asphalt-induced delight. And on the way home we pedaled past the best house in Melbourne. I rode my bike to Mordialloc for coffee and lots of chat with an old friend.  On the way back I played dodgems with the waves crashing up onto the path.  I had fun. In between bicycle sojourns we had some quality Daughter time, and learnt how to be rabbit parents.  Don't tell anyone I told you this, but rabbits aren't the most exciting of pets.  Sure, they're cute and have twitchy little noses and when I carry food they can be very affectionate.  They lollop around the floor when let out of their cage and because they are so quiet you don't know that they are right underfoot. Let me tell you, I'm just glad that we still have two healt...

Our new house sit, which shall henceforth be known as The Rabbit House, is close to both Melbourne City and the beach.  All we have to do is pedal down our street to where a convenient set of lights allows us to safely cross the Nepean Highway, and then pedal a little bit more along the Elster Canal path and there we are at Point Ormand Lookout. Which means that we've been indulging in a spot of first-thing-in-the-morning cycling.  First of all heading north toward the city: Morning sunlight on Melbourne City. St Kilda Marina Lighthouse, and a happy dog playing a solo game of fetch in the water. Melbourne City from the St Kilda pier. The Spirit of Tasmania at dock, busy loading and unloading.  And then heading south, all the way to Mordialloc Beach via... Point Ormond Lookout, the perfect vantage point for posed cycling photos. Where I met these two happy (puffing and panting) chappies. "We just finished a marathon! We ran 6 km and that's a marathon for us! Can you take a...

 Last night's sunset may have been an anticlimax, but it was still quite pretty to sit on the balcony, looking out over the river and watching the lights flick on in the high rise apartment blocks over the water. We went for a short bicycle ride to fill the space between leaving our AirBnB and arriving at our next house sit. We pedaled along beside the Yarra, stopped to say hello to the swans, watched a boat sail under the Westgate bridge, and were astounded by the number of rowing crews that inhabit the bends and straights of the Yarra. Then we found a nice spot out of the wind for lunch. According to the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries Queensland (DPIFQ), the maximum penalty for keeping a rabbit as a domestic pet in Queensland is now $30,000. I've never kept a rabbit as a pet, not having had the odd $30 000 to set aside against pending fines.  I've seen a lot of rabbits, most of them scampering far and away across the paddock and the occasional one (in my...

 For the past 6 months we've never parked the car anywhere that didn't allow us to exit in a forwards direction.  There were a few stressful exceptions to this: that clifftop lookout on the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula; the dead-end street behind the cinema in Semaphore, Adelaide; and the driveway outside Daughter's house in Melbourne where the stupid piece of machinery just flatly refused to go into any gear at all and had to spend the night on the street in disgrace before it decided to behave. We knew what the problem was, but part of the problem was that the requisite part would take 3 months to come all the way from France (presumably on a boat, via Siberia).   "We have to do something about this," we said.  "Melbourne surely has a decent mechanic who won't panic at the sight of an elderly Citreon with gear issues."  We got out our trusty Google maps and were amazed to find that not only did a suitable mechanic exist, but that he existed jus...

Well the pool is cleaned, the house is vacuumed, the floors are mopped and the towels are washed.  Roger did a great job tidying up the place while I was working, and while he does the final spruce up tomorrow morning I will have to slave away in an Airbnb in Melbourne's Docklands, trying to concentrate on work while looking out across the water and counting luxury yachts. It's a rough life, but someone has to do it. It was a bit of a challenge getting into the Airbnb, given that the car refused to provide reverse gear.  Roger ended up driving slow laps around the block, parking illegally for me to quickly grab a bag or two, and then heading off on another lap while I lugged the bags into the unit and came back for another trip.  We had a severe talk to the car: it has until tomorrow to decide to behave, as tonight it is back with Roger at the house so that the SFDs can be suitably fed and farewelled tomorrow morning. I have to spend the night here so that I can start wor...