FRIDAY 27 MAY     PUNGALINA

Mail plane today. The pilot did not make any adverse comments about the size of my order. However, it was minus the watermelon and 2 kg of zucchini I’d ordered. John’s plant seeds didn’t come, either, though his grass seed did.

After the garden watering – now including the new paw paws – and being distracted by the mail plane routine, it was lunch time, so we went back to the van for that.

Because John had planted the paw paws in long trenches, watering of them could be done by leaving the hose run into the trench, and going off to do something else while it filled. The water pressure in the hoses was not the greatest – gravity fed from the tank on the hill behind the machinery shed, which in turn was filled by pumping from the river.

Then it was back to the house, where we worked on the garden shelter. Progressively unrolled a section of the shade cloth, then John would nail it into place, then we would do the next bit. O’s nail gun was invaluable for this work. John had not used one before and was learning on the job. He managed to misfire it whilst doing an early part of the mesh, and nailed through his glove – fortunately between his thumb and first finger, missing the flesh. But it was a bit close and made him a lot more cautious with the gun.

John’s improvised stand for working on the nailing was rather precarious – boards across the top of old, rather rusty, 44 gallon drums. Very wobbly. Probably ill advised for a guy with a replaced hip. But trying to use the long ladder didn’t work, because it poked up through the roof where John wanted to put the shade cloth.