Tuesday 11th August

Another day winds slowly to a close, homeward plods the weary cowherd etc etc. Apologies to Grey for misquoting.

I spent most of the day with Andrew and Vincent making another compost heap, shredding branches through the shredder and stacking the heap up. We’ve got orders for 60 bags of garden mix already this month, so most of what we made today is presold, it will take a couple of weeks to rot down then get fed through the little mulcher and into the bags. Nice work for $1200 for what is almost free apart from wages for the crew.

Steve arrived back from Wellington, he’s got me a few months at Don Bosco School teaching Welding in the technical dept there, so he’s managed to save my sanity for a while. I’ll start there in a couple of weeks once all the paperwork is completed, and my work permit gets altered. That is if we bother to tell anyone I’m altering my work conditions.
I must have had a thought about the welding, I sent an email to Roses this morning asking for my welding helmet and stuff to be sent up, then Steve arrived a couple of hours later with the news. Not that I’m all that keen on actually going back to it, 30 years of it is enough, but it’s something I can do almost blindfolded, and easy, and I’ll be doing something finally.


I can’t see any major progress being made with the stalemate over the Gardens for a few more months, so some time spent actually teaching again will be good.

Tiffany is coming down with the same thing I’ve got, so I’m hopeful it is just another throat infection or cold, it feels like I’ve been dropped from a great height and left to recover. Every joint aches, and I just feel washed out. Boredom isn’t helping either.

The American warships have gone cruising the rest of the archpelago, they were on Malaita yesterday at Auki, I think they are going to Western Province and Gizo for the rest of the week. Well, one warship, and it’s only a small training one, and the supply ship.

Al the Illinois Florist was going to the Milwaukee Irish Festival last weekend, I haven’t seen him since. He was hoping to meet up with the Screaming Orphans, www.thescreamingorphans.com and Una Flanaghan if she was there. I’ll have to chase him up over that this week. I’m after Grainnes autograph, or something. I warned Al not to go throwing his underpants on stage when the Orphans were on, it’s not a good look.