retirement's a cruise, right?

When our daughter Helen leased out her unit we thought that all the work I did there repairing and sprucing it up would be the end of it....wrong!

She had a call from the managing agent to say that the tenant wanted a few things fixed and Mr fixit Kev volunteered to do the job.

I loaded the car up with all the gear I thought I needed and headed off at the arranged time. I was given a mobile number to ring if anything else was in need of fixing. That mobile number was to the woman's husband on a mine site somewhere up north. The reason I was given his number was that his wife of about 18 years (of age) cannot speak any English.

I replaced tap washers in a shower recess, replaced a toilet cistern valve and replaced a security light at the rear of the unit. At that stage she had called her husband and she passed the phone over to me. He wanted me to replace a toilet/ laundry door lock as it wasn't locking. I suggested that as there were only two bedrooms and no other occupants that it probably wasn't necessary. Our Indian friend demanded a new door set. He also advised me that the light switch in the main bedroom was a bit dodgy. I went to Bunnings close by, bought a switch and changed the light switch. Unfortunately I installed it so that the on position was reversed. This is not a biggy as in rooms with two switches one is inverted anyway. The wife still motioned that she wanted it fixed and that was reinforced by another call from the husband on the company phone. Phone calls must cost mining companies thousands of dollars.

I went home a little frazzled, but satisfied, until I received a call from the agent saying that the toilet was leaking still. This toilet is a single flush oldie and the only way to solve the problem was to buy a new cistern and install it, which I did today. Whilst I was in the midst of a dunny repair my nemesis from minesite somewhere rang to remind me about the locking 'privacy' door on the toilet/laundry. Shit!!! For once the installation of the new cistern went well and I bolted before Sanjay, or whatever his name is, gave me more tasks. I'll go back on Monday to do the door lock job and repaint around the cistern which is smaller that the old one.

We purchased a small car for our son today. I think that will be number 8. Nuff said!