Internet Woes and a Cottage Update

It seems that all I ever do lately is grumble about our internet issues.

We seem to have internet connection for about 24 hours, then it goes down again...

Ah well, at least we have more positive things to focus on.

We have 80% finished the cladding on the outside walls of the cottage. So now we are going to turn to the interior.
As you can see the place is a shell at the moment this is the lounge room. The grey sheet is tile underlay for the bathroom floor.

despite the  incompleteness Deb and I are hoping to move in soon.

You see at the moment we are boarding in my Mum and Stan's (my step-father) house down at the front part of the farm. As lovely as it is in many ways, Deb and I are ready for our own space again.

This next piccie is of what will be the bedroom, as you can see there is a way to go!

Thank goodness my new job means I will be able to spend four days a week here soon...

Rainforest Fungi

My piccie of the day is a rainforest fungi that I took some time ago.
They are delicate bracket fungi growing straight out from the host tree's bark.

I did a bit of contorting to get my camera underneath so I could catch the light shining through from above.
Each was about the size of a 20c piece (like a 10p in England  or a bit bigger than a US quarter).

Cool, uh warm, lizard

Our internet is back up tonight after about 36 hours off-line. It has been windy, windy, windy so I guess something was damaged somewhere.

Well, there were a few more guesses around the tail in my WIIW.

Kittie, guessed: “Hmm, it's a marsupial of some type . . . kangaroo?”
Unfortunately although Oz is a land of marsupials this creature is from a group that are arguably more dominant Downunder… 50% for being on the right continent.
Linda G tried to build on her 50% with: “Hmm...stingray, maybe?”
I can see why you might guess that given the shape, but although this is a critter that is associated with water it isn’t a fish.
Our closet guess was Susan with: “A skink? Horseshoe crab?”
A marine creature it ain’t, but like a skink it is a lizard so I guess that earns 70%!
SO here is the critter, an Eastern Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii).

These guys are common up and down the east coast. This fellow is about average size at about 60cm (2 feet). You will sometimes see males up to about a metre long (39 inches). Usually they hunt small creatures around rivers and up into trees over hanging the banks, when they get a fright they will jump into the water.
I have to say these guys are one of my favourite Oz animals. Further north they are active all year round, normally in sub-tropical Port Macquarie you wouldn’t see these guys in winter. But this fellow has worked out that the central heating of the hotel I stayed at is warm. So he/she hunts moths and other insects that come in to the foyer and hangs out by the inside fish pond!

Cheekiness pays off again

Well tonight I am back home from Port Macquarie having finished the induction for my new job.
Our internet is playing up again (one of downs sides of living in the sticks) so I will keep this comparatively short.
So what about last night’s WIIW? Given the look of the mystery object I put in the misdirection of the boats in the Marina outside the hotel.
Kitty took the bait with a guess of :“It's the bit of rope tying a boat to a dock!”
Nope it is not rope.
Linda echoed with: “I agree with Old Kitty.”
But then Linda got surprisingly close with a throwaway line of: “Either that, or it's the tail of an extremely tense rat.”
You have done it again a 50% score, it is not a rat. But…
It is a tail!
SO does anyone have any guesses as to who this tail might belong?

What to do for a WIIW?

Well, it is day two of my 3 day job induction course.

It happens to be at Port Macquarie which is one of the more popular tourist traps on the NSW (New South Wales) coast.

As you can see from this piccie taken out my hotel window this far north in NSW is a sub-tropical climate. For those of you in the USA think about New Orleans in terms of latitude.
 

So in answer to Marcy's question of a few weeks ago, we don't get a lot of snow. Not even at 3,500 feet where our cottage is. Down the road a bit where it is over 4,000 to 5,000 feet there is snow most winters but it usually only stays on the ground a day or two (at the most).

So on the whole it is much warmer here than it was where we used to live in Victoria. Mountains that high in VIC have a permanent snow cover in winter, and end up being ski resorts which is a whole other story...

Now it is Wednesday, but I left my hard drives with my piccie archive at home so I have had to take an image this evening to use for my What is it Wednesday.

I'm hoping this one will flummox you!

So with out further ado, what on earth do you think this might be?

 

Away from home

I am away from home for three days at the moment. I am at a three day induction course for a new job.

For the past few months I have been working in a case management job in a homeless service four days a week.

Quite important work, but not what I wanted to do forever. Most importantly it allowed us to move back up to this area and to begin preparing our cottage to move in.

Well an opportunity has come up for another, more senior, job. It will pay more but only be three days a week.

That is right three days a week.

Which means four days a week to work on the cottage and ultimately when I get that done...
 more time for writing..
and more time for photography.

Now to my piccie of the day this is the 1963 Land-rover that featured in my WIIW a few weeks ago.

It is getting a bit long in the tooth, but still gives sterling service as one of the family farm vehicles.

Not so cute (or arachnaphobes beware)

My piccie of the day is one taken this afternoon.
A "baby" wolf spider, only about an inch long.