On a dark and stormy day.

Here I am back to the daily grind of doing nothing, but doing it well, we had excellent weather while we were away, late spring can get quite hot sometimes but right up until the last afternoon it was great… I did say right up until the last afternoon!!!!!

As we approached Brisbane from about 100 kms out the sky grey dark and stormy looking, then the heavens opened up and we were caught in the heaviest rain storm either Warren or I had ever seen, with thunder and lightening all around it was all I could do to maintain 40 k/h (25 m/h) and keep a safe distance from the car ahead.

I didn’t really notice that Warren had got very quiet (and believe me he doesn’t do that often) when the rain eased for a while I glanced over to see a pasty faced Wazza, with white knuckles gripping the seat he said he would have died if he had been driving through that rain… Oh well another chance missed.

Turned out to be the worst storm that has hit Brisbane in 25 years and we came through one of the black spots, never mind, no animals were harmed in the production of this report so all is well, there was no damage in Warren's area and Gympie just got rain, no damage.

This will be another quick post before the photos and story of the trip get written, I need to unpack everything, wash heaps of clothes, restock the fridge and learn how to cook and clean again first.

A sneak preview of our Capital City, Canberra.

Please click photos to enbiggen




The Australian Coat of Arms
sitting proudly on top of the New Parliament House



















The magnificent stainless steel flagpole has pride of place.























Our Capital is not just full of political Bull S**t it has a pretty fair coating of Bird S**t too.

Furniture everywhere

There has been some major rearranging going on at holtieshouse.....
I'll run through a few photos that will give you some idea of these changes.

While this one looks very undramatic it represents perhaps the biggest change...
A new entertainment center complete with a 40 inch widescreen TV (this was the
largest screen my livingroom could cope with).

What's the good of a new TV unless you can watch in comfort???
this baby provides the ultimate in comfort for two... wanna come visit???

A couple of views of the now completed wardrobe, the assembly project of my
recent IKEA purchases created quite a bit of interest, I will address the queries now;
Yes I did read the assembly instructions, or more correctly I studied the assembly
illustrations, IKEA have a unique (in my experience anyway) method of instruction,
they rely entirely on illustrations... there are NO written words to explain what
goes with what, nor are similar pieces identified with A, B, C, stickers... its up to
you to sort them out correctly.
Having said that, I found the assembly process pretty simple and in all aspects bar
one I am happy with the results, the single flaw in the IKEA style of furniture is in
my opinion the weight and therefore the difficulty in relocation of finished pieces.
As I said though I am very pleased with both the set of drawers and the wardrobe, I
especially like the hanging rail extensions that protrude from either side giving a
handy place to hang a jacket, dressing gown, or the next days clothes.

The post title "Furniture Everywhere" may have confused some of you;
Let me illustrate how it came to be, my old entertainment unit and TV is
currently residing in the hallway!!!

My old pair of wardrobes has taken up duty in the spare bedroom while the displaced
pair await their fate in the wings, so to speak.

A general reshuffle of lounge furniture brought on by the inclusion of the new
two- seater unit has seen an old couch become a temporary resident of the dining room.

Another casualty is the old set of drawers from my bedroom, currently residing in the
Sun/Junk room along with quite a few other misfits, so until the next big garage sale
the house is sort of overflowing with bits and pieces!!!!

A present for me.

A few days ago those of you who read my sister Merle's blog may recall
that she mentioned having bought a gift for her brother... thats me...
It arrived this morning and it is a lovely image of Marilyn Monroe, it is
an image set in a block of clear plastic complete with colored lighting,
it depicts that most famous pose of Marilyn's standing on the grid of
the subway with her dress blowing around her hips as the train went
through below her.


This is the gift in question posed here in front of one of the many pictures
of Marilyn that I have it was quite hard to photograph, if I used flash it
washed the image out and if I used no flash the image was dark and often
blurred by camera movement.

The other shrine to Marilyn is in a spare bedroom.

These other pictures are in response to a post that Robyn (Kat's Cradle)
did about what adorns your walls, this group in the dining room includes
photos of my Dad and Step mother and my ex, Julie.

This is the very first of my Son Marcus' paintings, he has experimented
with many different styles but this and the next one are my favorites.


This is a tapestry that Julie did for my Dad many years ago, his love of
horses was the inspiration for this.

These are "bark paintings of two of my favorite Country Music Artists
which were done by a friend here in Gympie.

A glazed plaque of a vase of daisies that I like.

A picture of the "Duke" that adorns my living room wall along with the
previous two pictures.

A pottery hanging vase filled with imitation daises.

My dissappearing neighbors

To all the Mothers everywhere,
I hope you have a lovely day.


There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.



This is the rear view of the service station which
was next door to my house.


There was a BP Service Station located next door to my house in Gympie when I bought it, this never worried me in the slightest, in fact they were very good neighbors, closed at 6PM... no wild parties, they offered very good mechanical repairs and were ultimately convenient.

Strangely I didn't have a front view of it, I say strangely because I'm the sort that points a camera at just about everything I see.

About 1 month before my last trip to SA/WA the business closed down, not good I had to find an alternative workshop to service my Subaru for the trip, shortly after the site became vacant a contractor arrived to remove the petrol pumps and BP signage.

Sometime during the month that I was away they removed the building and erected a fence to keep people out, just why they thought people would want to come onto the now vacant block I'm not sure.

Fast forward another month; one night at about 8.30PM there was a lot of noise outside when I went to investigate I saw a HUGE excavator had been unloaded from a truck and was trundling into the empty site, an hour later peace returned to the hilltop.



Looks like a noisy morning coming up said I to myself and sure enough at 7.30 next morning the excavator started clunking and bumping away at the concrete forecourt not very far from where I should be sleeping, not that it was exceptionally loud but it was not something I could easily ignore.



I glanced out the window a few times over the next couple of hours and eventually noticed that as well as the operator aboard the big Hitachi (which BTW made my Hitachi electric drill with 1/2 inch chuck look very puny) there were 3 spectators, well 4 if you include me.

They are fairly well hidden behind my palm tree but if you enlarge the photo you will see 1 man on crutches and 2 more in safety vests.
I'm going to assume the one on crutches may have been the boss so he had two excuses not to do any work, the other 2 however did not lift a finger to help the operator even when he would climb out of his cabin and stack the pipes he was unearthing against the fence





as shown in this photo.

One can only assume that they
were some sort of workplace
health and safety employee's,
I'm sure the guy in the
excavator would have been only
too pleased to get a hand every
now and again though.

He finally unearthed the petrol
storage tanks and one of the


spectators sprang into action
marking them with a spray can
of pretty pink paint, shortly
after that they all departed
leaving just the operator and
me to finish up the day










The big Hitachi is still on site
with another full days work to
do I'm sure but we had a little
rain overnight so will be a day
or two before he comes back to
finish up now.

A five minute job. (refers to the taps)

I felt I needed an introduction to this weeks song, how's this?




Leaking taps... no worries, I can fix that... easy... YEAH!!!

I hope Bloglines don't mind me borrowing their resident plumber,
seemed to good a chance to miss when he showed up on my
plumbing day.


When I turned the Hot tap off in my shower this morning it wanted to
keep running fortunately my bathroom taps are the older spigot type
so I can simply replace the tap washers, no worries.

Now this decision was made in the morning, and as anyone who knows
me will agree, mornings are not my best time of day, I normally try to
defer any decisions until way past noon.

Please also bear in mind that I haven't even turned the computer on
or checked a single blog, you can see that already my day was in
chaos, I just hadn't realized it yet.

After inspecting my supply of tap washers and finding them wanting I
visited the local hardware store and bought some "special compound
rounded seal" super tap washers, real state of the art I was told.

So far so good, now I'll just turn off the mains water supply (yes I do
know this much about plumbing)so that I can safely remove the
offending tap innards and replace the faulty washers, yes I decided to
repair the 4 bathroom taps while I was at it, as all of them were
needing just a little more pressure to turn them off.

After removing the cover from the mains supply box I found, to my
surprise, that it was FULL of soil, seems it offered a nice dry place for
a colony of ants to live in when we got that rain a few days ago.

They were certainly an industrious bunch I must say, however they
were no match for my trusty little shovel and my, at this stage,
unbridled enthusiasm, having emptied the ants nest and turned off
the water I hastened off to repair the leaky taps.

Starting out with the shower taps there was no problem so over to
the vanity unit, wow somebody sure tightened these ones up....
larger spanner.. no worries.. replace the tap washers and go and
turn the water back on.

Test the shower taps, perfect not a drip with practically no pressure on
the taps at all, check the vanity taps... Yeah... working perfectly... wait
a minute... why is the floor wet?

Hoo Boy those taps were tight I've moved the pipes a bit and now the
cold water is leaking from the pipe work that's hidden away in the
bowels of the vanity.

Realign the pipes and tighten the fittings... no worries... that's fixed
them... hang on that water is now coming from the drain... damn...
another trip to the hardware store, get new seals for the S bend
fittings and install them... no worries... wait on the floor is wet again.

Now the water is coming from the drain again but this time from the
base of the basin not the pipework... mumble, mumble... lets see now,
it looks like the neoprene washer has stretched and twisted...

Back to the hardware store, where we are now on first name basis, get
another washer and the exciting news that most plumbers throw that
washer away and just use a bit extra silicone around the fitting.

Well I'm no plumber (this is becoming more obvious by the minute) so
I'm gonna use that washer... and I did... three times... before I finally
gave it the heave ho and loaded that sucker up with silicone.

By this stage I am not brimming over with confidence so each time I test
for leaks I'm pretty sure I'm gonna find some... Eureka... not a drop of
escaping water anywhere... no worries.

Now I'm assuming from past experience that a visit by a plumber to fix
my dripping shower would have cost around $50, they don't work cheap,
instead I have made a colony of ants homeless (the plumber would have
done this too) I have had three trips to the Hardware store (made some
new friends) spent $22 on bits and pieces and whiled away 5 hours, not
too bad for a five minute job.

The sad part is that the offending shower tap was so easy to fix, if only
I had stopped there!!!!

Here we are all finished, floor mopped up just got to put the vanity
back together and everything back into it.

A closer look at the offending supply pipe work and drainage pipework,
Oh... did I mention my aching back from clambering around on hands
and knees for about 3 of those hours?

What is the cost of a visit to the Chiropractor? now let's see I should
know that... when was it that I fixed the lawn mower???

Holtieshouse Pets

I promised Judy I would post my frog collection sometime, well
here they are.

They are a little more "blokey" than Judy's and I guess that is to
be expected.

By The Way; I learnt a neat trick this weekend, if you are at a
blogsite where the typeset is small and hard for you to read,
go to "View" on your toolbar, select text size, and increase.
This will make it easier to read and works on any page on the
web as well as blogs, (Yeah, I was probably the only one who
didn't know this already!!!!!) Ctrl+ also works the same magic.

This little guy just hangs about on the little planter that I've never
got around to planting anything in, but he seems very patient.

These guys are the comics of the squad, they like to sit around with
their comical expressions and poses, happy little fellows aren't they.

The trio of good guys who"Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil"are cuter
than the monkeys who are usually entrusted with these tasks.

This one is my "Watch Frog" his job is to croak a warning if any
intruders threaten my castle, problem is he became too good at
his job and an insect or even a shadow crossing his line of sight
became enough to send him into a frenzy.
He has since had surgery to remove the battery which used to
make him misbehave so, if you look closely you will notice the
remnants of a wasp nest in his mouth where his sensor lived so
maybe the surgery wasn't needed?


These Cool Stools with their current sitee's reminded me of a
good story I heard recently.

Sitting by the window of her convent, Sister Barbara opened a
letter from home one evening.

Inside the letter was a $100 bill her parents had sent.

Sister Barbara smiled at the gesture.

As she read the letter by the window, she noticed a shabbily
dressed stranger leaning against the lamp post below.

Quickly, she wrote, "Don't despair. Sister Barbara," on a piece of
paper, wrapped the $100 bill in it, got the man's attention and
tossed it out the window to him.

The stranger picked it up, and with a puzzled expression and a
tip of his hat, went off down the street.

The next day, Sister Barbara was told that a man was at her door,
insisting on seeing her.

She went down, and found the stranger waiting.

Without a word, he handed her a huge wad of $100 bills.

"What's this?" she asked.

"That's the $8,000 you have coming Sister," he replied.

"Don't Despair won and paid 80 to 1"

Stop and smell the Coffee.

Hi all, we are having a late run of summer weather, (I believe you call it Indian
Summer in the States,) as is usual we also get a fair bit of windy weather in
Autumn, today was such a day, quite warm and with a strong breeze, or a light
wind.

Behind my house, about half a mile away as the crow fly’s, there is a Nestle’s
factory where theyproduce Golden Roast coffee, quite often I get a wonderful
coffee aroma coming through my backdoor, if the breeze is right and they are
running a particular process at the factory.

Today they were obviously running the process and the breeze was briskly
bringing me the coffee aroma, for the first time in the years I have lived here
this became over-powering today, I had to close the back door and keep that
lovely Autumn breeze out as the coffee smell was too strong.

Our 2006 football season has started, from my point of view not very well
as my team, The Lionswere beaten badly and to make matters worse, it was
by The Cats, the side my son Marcus supports, while there have been no barbs
as yet I fear there will be, we take our “Footy” very seriously here, early days
yet, but I didn’t see a lot to make me feel confident in that first game.

We have been promised an Easter present by the oil companies, a 16cpl,
(that’s about 60cpg) increase in the cost of fuel, one of the busiest times of the
year for traffic here, it just MIGHT help to keep the road-toll down if less
people are using the roads.

I hope these jokes don’t offend anyone while a bit risqué, I think they are
also funny.

These have been voted as the top 5 adult jokes for 2005.

Don’t ask me who voted, hope you haven’t heard them all before.

Number 5:

A man bumps into a Woman in a hotel lobby and as he does, his elbow goes
into her breast they are both quite startled.

The man turns to her And says "Ma'am, if your heart is as soft as your breast,
I know you'll forgive me."

She replies, "If your dick is as hard as your elbow, I'm in room 221."

Number 4:

A businessman boards a flight and is seated next to a gorgeous woman.
He notices she is reading amanual about sexual statistics.
He asks her about it and she replies, "This is a very interesting book.
It says that American Indians have the longest penises and Jewish men
are the best in bed.

By the way, my name is Jill. What's yours?"

"Tonto Goldstein, nice to meet you."

Number 3:

One night, as a couple lays down for bed, the husband starts rubbing his
wife's arm.

The wife turns over and says "I'm sorry honey, I've got a gynecologist
appointment tomorrow and I want to stay fresh."

The husband, rejected, turns over. A few minutes later, he rolls back over
and taps his wife again.

"Do you have a dentist appointment tomorrow too?"

Number 2:

Bill worked in a pickle factory. He had been employed there for a number
of years when he came home one day to confess to his wife that he had
terrible compulsion.

He had an urge to stick his penis into the pickle slicer.

His wife suggested that he should see a sex therapist to talk about it, but
Bill said he would be too embarrassed. He vowed to overcome the
compulsion on his own. One day a few weeks later, Bill came home. His
wife could see at once that something was seriously wrong.
"What's wrong, Bill?" she asked.

"Do you remember that I told you how I had this tremendous urge to put
my penis into the pickle slicer?"

"Oh, Bill, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"My! God, Bill, what happened?"

"I got fired"

"No, Bill. I mean, what happened with the pickle slicer?"

"Oh.. she got fired too."

Number 1:

A couple had been married for 50 years. They were sitting at the
breakfast table one morning when the wife says, "Just think, fifty years
ago we were sitting here at this breakfast table together."

"I know," the old man said, "We were probably sitting here naked as
jaybirds fifty years ago."

"Well," Granny snickered, "Let's relive some old times."

Whereupon the two stripped to the buff and sat down at the table.

"You know, honey," the little old lady breathlessly replied, "My nipples
are as hot for you today as they were fifty years ago."

"I wouldn't be surprised," replied Gramps.

"One's in your coffee and the other is in your oatmeal."

"Holtieshouses"

74 Duke Street Gympie

Once the decision had been made to sell “The Palms” I began to search for my next place of abode.

A friend who had been renting this house for 5 years told me it was up for sale and suggested it might be what I was looking for.

This proved to be true as I have always loved old Queenslander houses and could see the potential with this one, (those renovators eyes.)

The transformation from “then to now” has been very satisfying, if a bit more costly than anticipated.

Opening up the front verandah and a new coat of paint has improved the appearance beyond my expectations, some little surprises like the dozen stumps that needed replacing, and the new front steps, these had seemed to be serviceable but proved not to be, all added some spice and cost!!

The internal changes have included a totally new kitchen, it is now super efficient and “almost” a pleasure to work in.

A new bathroom, new carpet through-out air conditioning, new electric wiring, new plumbing as well as lots of personal touches so that now it feels like “home”

I initially got all enthused with gardening, maybe because Margaret had enjoyed it so much, but I quickly found it was not for me, the problem is I now have all these plants, that I really don’t care much for, dependant on me for survival, and weeds that I care even less for, trying to take over the lot.

I should have listened to my Dad!

Well that's the finish of the walk down memory lane to visit all the places I've called home over the years, this is the current, and who knows maybe the last holtieshouse.

"Holtieshouses"

Holtieshouse #20
Lyle & Margaret's abode


Deans Road The Palms / Gympie

The Palms is a pleasant spot 5 miles from Gympie, It had a 2 bed roomed house and lots of sheds, the largest of which housed my caravan and annex moved in from Tin Can Bay.

We converted another of the sheds into an en-suite and guest accommodation unit.

The property had an almost park like look to it, 5 acres with lots of trees and a large dam, my aim in life was to keep this “Park” mown and pretty.

There was also an extensive garden areas which were Margaret’s delight.

We shared an evening meal, the cooking of same, and washing up, but for the rest of the time lived quite independent of one another.

Everything in the garden looked rosy, but once more we found fate had not quite finished with us, Lyle’s health suffered a major decline, and within 12 months he was permanently confined to a wheelchair.

Now while the surrounds had been idyllic for mobile people, they were much less than perfect for someone in a wheelchair or the electric powered scooter that was also tried.

The upshot of this was that after 5 happy years, once Lyle’s health deteriorated so badly, we reluctantly sold up our dream.

"Holtieshouses"

Golden Trevally Caravan Park Tin Can Bay

So suddenly, here I am, back in Tin Can Bay (we had visited and liked it on a previous trip) with a 4WD Nissan Wagon, towing a 13 foot aluminum boat, a tent and a heap of camping gear, all I own in the world.

The Gods were really pissed with me for some reason, because a week after I got there and set up camp, it began to rain, we had 9 inches of rain over the next 4 days.

I very quickly learnt that totally saturated canvas doesn’t keep the water out, so I urgently needed alternative living quarters.

I found some people with a caravan (trailer in the US) and solid annex for sale, I quickly bought it and this became my home for the next 3 years.

I relied on the caravan park lifestyle to keep me sane for most of this time, I was lucky enough to fall in with a group of lovely people, most of whom are still my friends, who with their warm hearted manner were able to lift my sagging spirits when needed.

There was a couple that I became especially attached to, Lyle and Margaret, with whom I teamed up and jointly bought the next property.

"Holtieshouses"

Natte Yallock Road Maryborough

This period was covered fairly completely under “Self Sufficiency” during September, so I will include only a thumbnail sketch here.

Once the trip was finished we took a job with Pacific School Photography and began searching for a small property.

We came across the Maryborough one that consisted of 200 acres of pretty rough land, a dilapidated house and some rough sheds, but for some reason we both liked it!

We were to continue taking school photos for 11 years, the last 3 operating on a profitable franchise basis we had made with Pacific.

Eventually we quit taking photos, sold our land to a neighbor, after annexing off the house block, we made an annual pilgrimage to Queensland, and a few visits to WA during the cold Victorian winter.

This seemed the ideal life, and short of a desire to find somewhere to live with a kinder climate the whole picture looked perfect.

So it came as quite a shock, some 12 years after we bought this property, when we returned from one of our winters in Queensland to be informed that it seemed like a good idea if we split up and went our separate ways.

Now in all fairness that’s an over-simplification, but there really wasn’t a problem that warranted the destruction of a 24 year marriage.

Having said that, I plead guilty to agreeing to dismantle the marriage too, instead of fighting to salvage it as my instincts were telling me to.

"Holtieshouses"

Gentle Street Toowoomba

After six years in the frontline we were looking for something a little less full on, we found this in Toowoomba.

We bought a run-down, but sound, Queenslander and spent a couple of years renovating it.

To keep the pot boiling we also bought two small business’s, a school bus run for me and a shop with the plant required to manufacture “Rubber Stamps” for Julie.

This house represented our biggest renovation project to date, when we eventually sold it the agent listed it as “One directly out of the glossy magazines.”

As well as the renovations we also planted a “native garden” which I’m pleased to report has come on a treat in the years since planting.

When we sold this house we actually traded a cheaper house, but as we never lived in it I haven’t included it.

During this time Marcus attended Toowoomba High School, it was here that he first showed up as a good student, he finished his schooling in WA when he chose to return to Perth and the rest of the family.

His schooling was finished at Carine High School, a few years after leaving there, he returned as School Chaplain, a position he held for 12 years.

As our family commitments had now changed we decided to fulfill a dream and do a “Round Australia Trip.” So after a few months of organization we were off again.

Around Australia Rig 1

We bought a Ford F100 utility and an 18 foot pop-top caravan, loaded them up and off we went, this combination was very good for the first 5/6 months, but then we found ourselves in the outback and severely restricted by the size of the outfit and it’s lack of “Four wheel drive ability.”

Rig 2

So yet another change was made, we bought a Toyota 4X4 and a 12 foot caravan to complete the trip.

In all we spent 13 months traveling and did about 30,000 miles, it was everything we had hoped for in the way of an adventure, one day I may post some of the highlights of this trip, who knows.

Suffice to say, we went, we saw, we enjoyed to the full and were ready for the next step down “our road.”

“Holtieshouses”

BP Cavendish Road

Fork Street Coorparoo

As I set out on a new adventure, with the lady I loved but without the children I loved, there were obviously mixed emotions.

Julie and I arrived in Brisbane with only a vauge idea that we should use our skills somehow to make a living.

I had spent the major part of my life in the motor trade and Julie had office skills also associated with the motor trade.

I also had a good relationship with BP, so we applied for, and got, a service station to lease in suburban Brisbane, this venture and the renovation of the house we bought filled in the next three years.

We also had my kids for visits during school holidays, so in fact the time flew by and we were quite successful and happy in our new life.

Our trading hours were 7am to 6 pm Mon to Frid and 7 am to 12-30 pm on Sat, so this left us with some time available for pleasure and renovations.

We inherited two employee’s when we leased BP Cavendish Road, these two became friends rather than just employee’s.

There was a spate of petrol strikes during this time, twice we took advantage of the fact that we had no fuel to sell, left Noel and George in charge and drove 1000 miles (each way) to Victoria to visit Julie’s family and my kids for a few days.

John Street Rosewood

Another one I haven't been able to find a photo of!!

After the success we had at Bp Cav. Rd. we began to look around for a freehold service station from which we could make a living and a capital gain when we sold out.

The chosen location was at Rosewood, about 40 miles west of Brisbane, it consisted of the service station, a couple of large sheds, and a house all on a large block of land in the main street of town.

The site had been developed and operated for 12 years by a man in his late 50s, he had long since soured of dealing with the general public and was now regarded as a bit of a nut case.

We estimated that if we offered good service and really looked after our customers we would be able to build the site to acceptable levels in about 12 months.

In fact within 3 weeks of taking over we had about 80% of the town business, so in next to no time we had exceeded our target set for 12 months.

While we were here my number two son Marcus came to live with us as his mother was having some discipline problems with him.

Marcus spent four years with us and returned to Perth a changed lad and a delight to both his parents, meanwhile our next move was approaching fast as we had found a buyer for the business.