WEDNESDAY 8 JULY     TOWNSVILLE

It was another cloudy day.

John was annoyed that, when he did his weekly weigh-in, with the scales we carry under the bed, his weight had jumped up. I suggested we do a few brisk rounds of the caravan park before breakfast, which we did.

He went off to the Ingham Road PO, but no fan parcel was there. However, just after he’d departed from there, they phoned to say there had been a second delivery and our parcel was there. Good service from that PO, we thought. John went back and collected that, then went on to the fridge place.

The man was not there. The office lady pointed out that there was a $95 charge, before work was even commenced – and it would not be deducted from the cost of any subsequent work. It was not a minimum fee, but a fee to start work! There was no way John was going to pay that, so he collected the fridge and left. He asked the lady if she ever got embarrassed, working in such a place, and she said yes, she did!

Back at the van, John installed the new thermostat. He couldn’t put in the new fan, because it needed special welding. But he used our air compressor to blow the whole area out – lots of dust came out. He decided the fan was working fine, so we slid fridge back into its hole. It was awkward manoeuvring, of a heavy object, in the small space that was inside our van. It helped, knowing that we’d done this a few times before, and hence could manage it.

The fridge seemed to work well, through the rest of the day. Fingers crossed!

I had to throw out some vegetables that were frozen – and not meant to be – by both the Chescold of ours and the camp kitchen fridge, but was able to disguise some  part-frozen lettuce and cabbage in the salads for tonight’s dinner.

Seeing an electrical link on the fridge wiring, whilst it was out, had given John an idea. He checked the van  brake controller unit and found two such links there. He then felt there might not be enough power going to the van brakes, so soldered those connections, instead of just having the links. He wouldn’t know if that had made any difference until we were back on the road again, of course.

I had an email from (on behalf of) grandson, accepting the challenge that John had made him – to read fifty books in the coming Read-a-thon at his school, for which we would donate $10.