The Dreamwidth Account

1) I have caught up on all my assessments for Pleasure, Power and Popular Culture. Given the next one is due to come out tomorrow (weekly Pop Culture Consumption Challenges, which we are supposed to perform and blog about - the blog is one of our three pieces of assessment) this is not the massive reprieve it sounds like. But it's something I've achieved, and that I'm going to be pleased about.

2) The house is just about completely cleaned for the rental inspection happening on Tuesday morning. I just have to scrub the loo, sweep my bedroom floor, and sweep the front verandah, and it's all done. All of which are within my capability tomorrow morning.

3) It is somewhat annoying to discover the difference taking iron supplements for a week makes to my ability to brain and cope. All of a sudden I'm capable of a lot more than I previously was, and what's more, my Muse has apparently returned from a long hiatus and is giving me ideas for stories again. Seriously, the difference one blinkin' element can make to one's biology is slightly startling. And frustrating.

4) According to the calendar, it is Spring here in Perth. According to me, Spring isn't due to start until we hit the equinox, on around the 21st of this month.

5) This week's assessment load includes one forty-five minute "short answer" quiz for Making Meanings, and writing up an essay for Making Meanings which is due on the 14th. Because the fun never really ceases at university, it just insists on getting everything properly referenced. (Thank gods both of my units use the same referencing style - I only have to know APA 6th for this semester, which is a positive joy).

The place we're renting at present came with two massive old Cape Lilac trees, one out the front, one out the back. You'll note the past tense there. This is because during some high winds (about 60 km/h) on Saturday night, half the back tree snapped off, and fell downhill (fortunately all into our garden, not onto the neighbour's place). So we now have one-and-a-half massive Cape Lilac trees.

We've reported it to the real estate agents/property managers, and I'm going to be giving them a phone call on Monday to see whether we can get firstly a tradesperson or similar to come out and deal with the task of removing the half-a-fscking tree from the back garden so we can get at the washing line again, and secondly a tree surgeon to have a look at the remaining half-a-tree which is still standing and recommend whether it can be left alone (doubt it!); whether it needs to be trimmed or lopped (so if it does fall over it won't cause major structural damage to the neighbour's house, the house we're in, or the car parked in the driveway); or whether the blasted thing is so unstable there's no chance of it remaining up safely, and it needs to come down completely.

After clearing a few branches away from where the clothesline access was, we've discovered the clothesline frame has been bent down and forward to the point where the poor thing ain't usable (I would not be wanting to try and straighten out the gorgeous gentle curve the support strut has been bent into, quite frankly - the thing is so old I think it would snap instead). So we have to report that to the real-estate people as well. It also took one tile from the roof of the lean-to shed which contains the laundry and the exterior toilet. Given the size of the blasted thing, I'm almost surprised by the amount of damage it *didn't* do - if it had fallen directly to the right (facing toward the back fence) the blasted thing could have taken out the entire wash-house in a single thump, but instead it fell to the lower right, which means it clipped a single tile from the wash-house lean-to (and given we don't use the exterior toilet anyway, a leaky roof there isn't really an issue) and mostly hit the clothesline.

But either way, I get to call the real-estate people and find out what's going to be happening. I sent a couple of emails through their web-page over the course of the weekend to let them know the state of play; I'll be following up by phone today to see how fast we can get things moving. I may just mention that the longer they delay on this, the greater the chance the passionfruit vine I planted last year is going to regard the whole lot of fallen lumber as fair game for growing into!