Retaining walls and rainbows

I can't believe today is Tuesday (or Wednesday, depending on where you are relative to the international date line; here it's Wednesday) because only yesterday was Friday. That is how it seems. The case of the evaporating days.

People ask, "What have you been doing?" and I never have an answer that doesn't sound lame. "I hung out two loads of washing and chopped wood." The wood cutting might pass muster, but I detect the subtle body language, the raised eyebrow. "You don't have a clothes drier?" Yes I do. It's called sun and wind. Defensive but true, apart from it being winter and we've been having a cold wet spell.

So I spent the weekend finishing construction of about five metres of curved garden retaining wall to slow down the erosion of my neighbour's orchard by degrees into my driveway. It merely continues the twelve metre strip which runs along the foot of a new steel-posted Colorbond fence, made necessary a while back after removal of the giant Tuart tree which beetle-activity did for. Another tree of that species, on the opposite side of the garden but on that other neighbour's side of the fence (also a replaced or rather repaired strip, completed  last week) has died from the same cause and is becoming a danger. It will squash his house when it falls, as I tactfully pointed out. I said, "It will squash  your house and your tenant when it falls."

Note that most of the jobs I refer to are done by other people. This is the best sort.

As for my new garden bed, this morning I visited Lee-Anne at the  Garden Centre and bought four punnets of border seedlings which I will plant after priorities such as the next cup of coffee. As part of preparation, I already (pre-coffee) "planted" some limestone rockery rocks salvaged from other parts of my block where they had become overgrown and invisible to the passer by. The reason for the choice of limestone rocks is that there ain't any other kind around here. Good choice. The house, 100 years old, is built of them. The early settlers just called these field rocks, and a big chunk of pioneer farming labour was devoted to gathering the smaller surface stones into vast cairn-like heaps, to make way for ploughing.

Singing rehearsal on Tuesday was productive and especially pleasant with Denis returned and looking well, if slowed down from his normal very  active self; almost the whole gang present; and enough constructive bickering to keep things interesting. Next week will be unusual with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all accounted for by this one music-related activity: namely the rehearsing day, a performance, and then Don's 86th birthday bash. We'd a collective card of appreciation from Aileen for the chocolates and the DVD of the mock wedding event about which she enthused. In fact, the appreciation was due from us to her as the (real world) marriage celebrant who conducted the ceremony with lively Irish humour.

There was a spectacular rainbow as I drove eastwards and home from Warooka. What characterized the experience was that one end of the rainbow seemed to be only about 50 metres from me, and a tree was visible just beyond, viewed through the (double) rainbow. Nice to see. Maybe there was a crock of gold, but I left it for the leprechauns. Didn't you know that we have immigrant Irish leprechauns in this part of Australia?