Many years ago I landed and departed the UK from RAF Brize Norton in a RNZAF aircraft and I haven’t forgotten the noise of the many military turbo prop aircraft. Wind the clock forward several decades and Jan and I were moored on the Thames at Windsor. Why do I mention this? It’s all down to the toilet. The ceiling extractor fan has been steadily getting noisier to the point where it sounded like a C130 Hercules winding up for take-off. Then yesterday it suddenly stopped. The bearing had finally seized. Removing it wasn’t very difficult, but it did leave an ugly 250mm hole.
Moreover we are experiencing another week of temperatures hovering around 40°C which meant without the fan the temperature in the toilet was rather hot.
We made our way to the hardware store; where we are probably now part owners; and purchased a replacement fan. This is where the problems started. Apparently not all 250mm diameter fans are the same size and the original fan was obviously smaller than the one we purchased. I found myself up the stepladder holding the already wired in new fan in one hand whilst simultaneously attempting to enlarge the hole with my trusty pocketknife. During this process I discovered I can no longer raise my arms above my head for very long. Suffice to say the fan was eventually installed.
However Jan has now mentioned the noise of the new fan reminds her of our mooring at Windsor where we were under the Heathrow flight path. Apparently we have a jet aircraft in the roof cavity.
For the last eight days Australia has been free of COVID community transmission and we were almost back to free movement of people. This morning we woke to discover there has been a community outbreak in Sydney. Several days ago a couple experienced COVID like symptoms and went for testing. However they didn’t self-isolate whilst waiting for the test results, instead visiting nine public venues. Now NSW authorities are scrambling to contact trace in an effort to stop the spread. Of course it’s entirely possible some of the people this couple came into contact with have travelled inter-state. Borders may again close just before Christmas.
Four months ago it was reported there were 26,000 Australian citizens stuck overseas attempting to return. The Federal government committed to having all 26,000 return before Christmas. Arrangements were made; flights and hotel quarantine organised. Both the flights and hotel quarantine had to be paid by the returning citizens. Air travel was via commercial airlines and obviously the returnees had to find the money for the fare before being accepted. Returnees were required to refund the state governments for their 14 days of hotel quarantine. 61% of them have not paid for their hotel quarantine and some State governments are now handing the debt to debt collection agencies. 26,000 citizens have returned. But now there are a further 37,000 wanting to return. 10,000 of them are in India. Therein lies another story!
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