Wednesday...13 February 2013

Himself has been very busy doing all sorts of maintenance to our caravan while we have the opportunity to make us ready for whatever travels we undertake this year. He has put new tyres on the ute and then put the tyres that came off the ute onto the caravan. This works well for us. The last lot gave us nearly 100,000 km by doing this. Mind you they are good Cooper Discoverers so I would expect to get some seriously good mileage out of them. He and his mates also spent a day looking for the leak in one of the air-bags on the rear of the ute but could not find it. A few days later Himself and his brother took the air-bag completely off the ute and located the leak on the underside of it and had it welded so there is another thing taken care of. While they were at it they moved the air-bag nipples to the inside of the numberplate so that they cannot be knocked as has been happening. They also discovered that the air-bags had been fitted back to front when they were first installed! We have also borrowed a ladder and cleaned our slide rubbers which now gleam. On a roll, we washed the caravan and the ute! And today Himself will take the big back day/night blind out and rethread it so that it works better. At the moment I can only put it up about half way as the thread has been shredding. Another job was to have another aluminium bracket welded to the nudge bar so that we could put our big driving lights back into service after the original bracket broke off on our trip to the top of Australia last year. We have also organised to borrow a shed which has a pit so that Himself can back the caravan in and change the springs from left to right to share the wear on them.
While we are in Bendigo we are staying with Himself's brother who owns a motel. It is rather nice to sleep in a bed that does not rock and roll if you turn over! Most days I sit and watch the activity around me. It is interesting to see what happens in the average day of a motel. There is always someone moving around the place. Today there was a Speed Queen mechanic servicing the big washers and dryers. Most of the linen comes from a linen service but there is still heaps of other washing that has to be done to keep a busy motel functioning. The cleaning lady is quietly going about her job servicing and cleaning the motel units. The owner is doing a myriad of maintenance tasks, some big some small but all very necessary to the smooth running of the business, and tucked away in the office, his wife is making sure the accounts are paid and the bookings are organised and that all is ready for the arrival of the new batch of guests each day and somewhere in between all that she cooks and cleans for her own little family (and personal visitors!). They do have office  hours but the reality is the phone rings all the time and they are never really off duty. Their daughter has just opened her own fitness business in the front rooms of the main building and that has meant more comings and goings as her clients attend their personal training sessions.  Never a dull moment!