AAAaaarrrrggggghhhh.
I have to apologize that this week's entry is posted late, but our internet access at home has been down on and off for the past five or six days. Which means that work has slowed to a near standstill and we have felt cut off from the rest of the world. Since D's access through the university only seems to work through a browser (and this blog is done through a Linux interface), and Chad cannot hook his laptop up to the university network (and the computer he has at the uni has been hacked), we are reduced to using the free, very slow, wireless access at the Broadway Cafe down the street.
In 1997, when D spent four months in London, she used to trek a mile down the road to use computers to telnet to a Pine email system. The connection was so slow that she would type two or three lines of text before they appeared on the screen. All the incredible growth in internet technology in the intervening eight years not withstanding, this morning's blog-writing is just as frustrating as those email sessions in London. So, forgive me, this will be short.
Our microwave doesn't work. The shower still floods. The Irish couple moved out of the house this morning and the landlord was supposed to stop by last night to return their deposit. He didn't show up until 6:30 this morning. That way, you see, no one else was up to complain to him about the state of the rest of the house.
We want to move, but the half dozen or so places we've looked at in the past week have been nearly as unsuitable as where we are. So, we whine (or "whinge" as they say here) and try to ignore how miserable we are. Keep our eyes open for better places to live, and try to get some work done as best we can.
Saturday we managed to get out of town for the day, so that was a nice break. There was a traditional woodworking festival at an Historic Houses Trust property way out in the rural suburbs. It threatened to rain all day we were there, but it never did. The house was built in 1813 and belonged to six successive generations of the Rouse family until they went bankrupt and the HHT took over the property. Instead of restoring the place to a particular period, the HHT has decided to preserve the estate exactly as they acquired it in 1978, disrepair and clutter and all. The idea is to preserve the layering of history in order to tell the story of this family who lived there... but it makes for a very strange experience as a tourist. You go in expecting to see a well cared-for home and in truth it looks kind of shabby. But slowly you start to realize that the shabbiness has been "frozen" that way for almost twenty years. Strange.
On the grounds of the estate there were various booths set up by traditional craftsmen and women, soe giving demonstrations, some selling their wares, some a bit of both. We didn't buy anything, but we had a nice time watching it all, drinking fresh fruit smoothies, and even getting a brief tour of the house and gardens. And we're getting to know the suburban train network rather well.
(Hopefully, next week our connectivity will be restored and the blog will be back to its usual, entertaining, footnoted self.)
;)
- D
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