This week...

On Thursday, I had to do some quick shopping for Mum...Woolworths in Nambour was CHAOS! Silly me, I forgot that the following day was Good Friday and thus the general populas cant function if the stores are closed for even one day! :( So my 'small' shopping list, which only had 6 items on it, turned into a 30 minute dodgem car ordeal which culminated in another 30 minute wait at the checkout to get out of the store! Thankfully, Dad finished up with his haircut when I was about halfway through the list, so I was able to leave him with the trolley (getting one item) while I swiftly and skillfully (in my burgeoning 36-week-along state) collected other items and returned to him to drop them off. Not long after he got there, I only had a few more items to get and I had unfortunately glimpsed the HUGE line at the checkouts, so I sent him off there, while I continued the shopping. (Try balancing 3 loaves of bread and two 6-packs of bread rolls on a huge tummy without squashing anything!!)
As I swung around the final bend, after collecting 4 x tins of puppy food for Mum's new puppies, I came across a young Down's Syndrome man and his carer :) He looked at me and came straight over and asked me if I was going to have a baby.

I said: 'I sure am!'
He said: 'When will the bubby get here?'
I said: 'In 28 days.' :)
He said: 'Ooh! That's soon!' *As he rests his hand on my tummy - so sweet*
I said: 'It sure is - my Husband cant wait!'
He said: 'How will it come out?'
I said: '...pardon?'
He said: 'How will the baby come out?'
I said: 'Ummm...hopefully the doctor will cut it out, so that will save me some labour pains.' :)
He said: *Fully accepting my answer* 'Ok then, good luck!'
I said: 'Thanks matey'

Can anyone say awkward?! LOL :) It was really sweet and funny though, and his carer (who at this point I hasten to add, did NOT save me from this conversation) was obviously finding it really funny too :)

On Friday, Dad and I had the day off (my ankles say 'YAY!!') But at around 4:30pm, we got a call out (dang it! but terrific pay!!) from one of the ladies at Park Lane Nursery. They are a mother/daughter team who run the only plant nursery in Gympie and are regular customers of ours. Thankfully we have a really good relationship with them and the daughter's husband, and they are really down-to-earth people, so that meant that they didnt take offense to any of the things that were said/done when we got there.

Siabhon (the daughter) called to say that her husband, Sam, had been guerney-ing the house and had just gotten a zap, and that the RCD had tripped. Dad suggested (to save them the money on a call-out fee) that they wait half an hour, then re-set the RCD, and to call back if there were any other problems. At 5pm we got another call...the sub-board had caught fire when they'd re-set the RCD!

So we hopped in the car, and thankfully they live only about 45 minutes from us. I say 'thankfully' because my heavily pregnant body does NOT like being in the car so much anymore, and I was really looking forward to having 2 days to stretch my body out. On the way, one of the tyres we drag on the road periodically, (to make it smoother), caught on a tree, so the set of 6 broke apart but we didnt have time to fix it, so we left the broken tyres there and dragged the remaining ones to our 'turn-around' point. I've been meaning to write a post on what it looks like when this exact thing happens, but havent quite gotten around to it yet.

Anyway, we got to the job and Sam was very sheepish-looking! Turns out he had also guerneyed the sub-board itself!!! (What was he thinking??) And this was one of the old-style ones - the ones that were hand-made out of wood with two screws and some hinges holding it together, with all the RCDs external to the sub-board. Not like one of the modern plastic ones that at least offer some protection from this kind of stupidity.

So, we replaced two of the RCDs (as they had literally melted!), spent ages cleaning off the carbon (as its a conductor!), and then switched the power back on. Success!! While we were working on the sub-board, Sam was telling me that a powerpoint we'd put in about a year ago (in a carport with solid walls) should really have been an 'outdoor' version. While he was telling me this, he was touching the powerpoint in question. I laughed at him and pointed out that there was no chance of that particular powerpoint getting rained on.
He also laughed (while still patting the offending powerpoint) and said: 'Well, yeah, but when I guerney it, the water goes right into it'
...*facepalm* Dad then got really cranky and told Sam off for touching a powerpoint that he knew had water in it.
The power RCD tripped a couple of times (due to the water still in some of the powerpoints Sam had also guerneyed) but after a while, it held. We also had a recurring fault on one of the light circuits. When questioned, it turns out that Sam had also guerneyed the verandah ceiling...which had several lights on it! When we went around the back to take a look, it would seem that Sam did a very thorough job of cleaning the house. Inasmuch as he took the glass cover off the oyster fitting, cleaned it, then left it off and guerneyed the light fitting directly!!! He is one lucky boy his house even had RCDs, as most houses this age use fuses. So we then had to pull all the light fittings apart to try to dry them out. After forever, we managed to dry them out sufficiently, and the RCD for the lights stayed on.

Siabhon was then given a stern lecture to not ever let Sam do the guerneying again (its usually her job) if she intended on keeping him around for a while. She wasnt too bothered. Turns out she has a life insurance policy out on him LOL! :)

On the way home we were lucky to remember about the broken set of tyres (as it was dark and they had broken off on a bend in the road). But there was only a small delay while we collected the two pieces and dragged them both home. Im pretty sure Dad spent today replacing the tyres (long overdue), but if not, we'll do it together on Tuesday night when we get home from work :) I really should get on to writing that other post about these tyres - the photos are pretty funny! :)