Damn, I’m running out of energy.  Early mornings of digging earth, shovelling stones, wheelbarrowing stones through wet clay, moving concrete blocks from one end of the garden to the other, these things are catching up with me.  Amy jokes that it’s like an everyday episode of the Biggest Loser and I hope that it can at least result in some weight loss.  We generally only work until about 10am when the sun breaks through the cloudy haze and starts to sear flesh.  If we are not running around on errands or furniture shopping we can get a couple of hours in from about 5pm when heat tends to dissipate somewhat.

I’m trying to keep my promise to never complain about the heat here and, in fact, most of the time it doesn’t bother me too much, certainly not to complain or moan about.  But it is energy sapping.  I’m at 3-4 showers a day at the moment.  Any effort in the garden is almost instantly rewarded with wet clothes and it’s important to cover up as much skin as possible.  The biggest pain is when bending down to pick out weeds and sweat pours over my glasses, which I’ve also managed to drop on concrete and scratch the supposedly scratch proof lenses.  The next biggest pain is standing upright again and feeling dizzy for a few seconds.

We arrived at our house at about 8.30am this morning, with Amy’s parents driving up too.  We had a small hornet’s nest to get rid of and Dad was going to show me the correct way to use the metal bladed strimmer, which appeared to be just not to use near anything that might smash the blades, which is unfortunately not that many places on our land but at least he got some long grass and weeds cut.  However, as soon as we arrived I was so exhausted I fell asleep for 3 hours, despite all the noise going on around the house and garden.

We’ve started buying various bits of furniture that we need now that we are close to the end of the house build.  We won’t get them delivered until we’re absolutely sure everything that needs fixing is fixed and that seems to be delaying us a bit and it looks like I may not even get to live here before I head off for my course in Chiang Mai.

I’m supposed to be doing a pre-course task before attending but I’ve just been too tired and time consumed with everything else.  This weekend we are driving to Chiang Mai to meet Sydney friends Lekky, Steve and Lena, along with Jessica and her dad.  We’ll drive back to Chiang Rai with Jessica and her dad the following day and then drive up to the Myanmar border the day after and see what goodies we can buy there.  I’ll be driving mostly though I hope I can get Amy to drive on Sunday so I can watch the AFL on my phone.

I’ve had to pay for the AFL app access along with VPN subscription to be able to watch the games but in the end, it seemed to be the easiest option.  There are a couple of Aussie bars in the city that screen the games but they don’t open until 5pm and the early games are already halfway through by then.  Plus I like to have a beer and relax when watching and don’t want to have to drive the 20kms or so home afterwards.  Damn, I can’t wait to sit down on our new lounge with a beer from our new fridge, watching football, overlooking the sun setting over the mountains out the back window, the smell of Amy’s delicious cooking wafting from our kitchen.  It can happen one day, right?

I have more to write but it’s going to have to wait. There are no more 1994 entries scheduled to post either, not until I get more free time to write them up which might not be until the end of May.

What a lovely place to be, what a lovely place to be.