The weekend with Mike back

 Hi,

In the best news, Mike is back. Woot! He landed safely in Chc yesterday morning and after a slightly unusual visit to Chc compared to what he thought he'd have, he made it back to Wellington.  Touched down at 20:00 last night.

I had a busy weekend. Friday saw me water blasting the steps and putting the trim back on the car. Two jobs I had on my list of things to do. They were on my list of jobs while Mike was away - along with the carpet on the stairs. So - yay for getting them done.

Friday lunch goodness

I caught up with Andrew between jobs on Friday. And enjoyed an iced latte and lunch with him - planning for trap line the following day.

Water blasting dirtiness

Water blasting cleanliness

The steps look amazing now I have used the water blaster. They were starting to look pretty green - and not in a good, sustainable way. More like a green sludge that formed the habitat of algae that could be the basis of new lifeforms in a primordial soup fashion. Yes, a Sci-fi novel on our doorstep, in the making. But - no longer. 

Off to bed early and up for trap line Saturday. Picked up Andrew a tad later than my suggested 8am. But we were parked at the road end and off walking by 8.50am. So not too late. And I did get lots of petrol - squeezed in just over 50l of it. Obviously necessary.

We start the trapline

Up on the tops

In the stream

Another trap checked

It was a slightly cloudy and a tad drizzly (well - barely drizzling) day and fairly cool. I took off my fleece on the walk up - because that is hot work. But by the time we got to the top of UTS line, I pulled it back on. It takes 1 hour from the car to the top intersection, then an hour from the top around to the start of the ridge down to UTS. We got two rats in SG trapline on the way up - Andrew cleared and reset those. Then we found one rat in the top UTS trap - and nothing else. UTS 5 has an A24 next to it - and that had a lot of dead rats under it. 5 of them! One super fresh.

We finished at 2.30pm. It took 5 hours and 40 mins. Not bad. Dropped Andrew back and headed home. Up for my first AFL game of the season on Sunday. Lovely conditions. 7 a side. A lot of running for everyone. My team lost by 2 goals. Waaahhh. Next time!

Off to see Sally and Andrew next and a bike ride up the river with Sally. We did 15 km - which was just the right amount. We bumped into Sreejith as we were out riding. I got a huge hug from him - it's been ages since I saw him. We are going to sort out some bike rides together soon.

Lovely Sunday morning for the first AFL game for me

We get ready

Sally and I have a bike ride

Lovely day on the Hutt River trail

After we did that, I headed home and popped into the supermarket to stock up on goodies for Mike's arrival.

Shopping for goodies for Mike

Mike has landed in Chc at about 10am or so. And met up with Toby and then promptly tested positive for covid. He got a PCR test to be sure and implemented some isolation. But with advice and the understanding his symptoms had been present for a week by this stage, he was able to fly home to me. He had a great KN95 mask from the PCR test people.

Waiting at the airport for Mike

There's my bear!  It is also Bruce's bear from his 1st birthday in 1964.

We stayed masked up in the car and at home and we've divided the house into upstairs and downstairs. Hahah. Let's hope I can dodge this close covid bullet. It seems as though he is not very likely to be contagious at this late stage.

Mike unpacks with Moxley's help

We slept in separate beds - OMG! Mike had a great sleep - loved our bed. Hahah. I made him brekkie this morning. And two cups of coffee.

Monday brekkie for Mike

Welcome to the working week, Mike

And his test yesterday

I am so happy he's home, safe and sound. Hopefully he gets over covid and is back into the swing of Wellington routine before not too much longer. I will keep an eye on any long covid signs.

Take care of yourselves. Wishing rural Victoria the best of luck for these floods they are having. Terrible news.

Love,

Angela