2020     FEBRUARY

Grandson showed no ill effects from his overseas travel, and commenced his Year 11 studies. School getting serious now.

It was rather a strange month, with all sorts of news rumours circulating about this apparently new Chinese virus. I think most people were like us – not sure how seriously we needed to take it, so just continued with our normal lives, initially. The World Health Organization declared there was a global health emergency. Our government banned people travelling from China who were not Australian citizens or visa holders.

Early in the month came the news of a cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, with a rapidly growing outbreak of this virus on board, having to quarantine offshore Japan. After a couple of weeks, passengers were evacuated to their home countries, with the Australians being quarantined at the Howard Springs immigration centre in Darwin.  It did not take much imagination to realize that the environment on such large cruise ships lent itself to the spread of bugs. I wondered for how long now cruising would remain such a popular activity for older Australians?

John’s younger daughter moved back to Melbourne.

Bus had been sitting in its shelter since our abortive trip last year. Our neighbours were planning a big caravan trip to northern Australia over winter. We discussed whether we’d travel this year. Neither of us was particularly keen on the idea. I think we were finding life in our patch of Bendigo so pleasant that the urge to get away for a while was reduced.

Now that we had become less active – and John had given up bowls – there were fewer things to prevent boredom when parked up somewhere. Last year’s trip had shown that. I had also battled to sleep well with the partner’s increasingly loud snoring at such close quarters. I was convinced he had developed sleep apnea.

We decided Bus was just money depreciating in the driveway, and we’d sell it. Big decision…

I suspected the woodworker had his eye on the roofed bus area as an extension of his shed – or did I just have an overly suspicious mind?

Bus sitting in its shelter. Three bare apple tree trunks too

OK – so the process began. Had no idea it would actually take almost a year!

Would need a Roadworthy Certificate. I couldn’t find anywhere in Bendigo that could handle a vehicle of this size for same. John decided he’d take it to our Melbourne mechanic, who confirmed he could do it. We knew he would do a good job of any repairs needed.

But first, Bus had to go over weighbridge. None in Bendigo – really?

Mid-month, John drove Bus to Rochester to weighbridge, then turned around and took it down to Bayswater. We’d arranged for him to stay overnight with friend M, then she would drive him back here and stay for a few days. That worked well.

Bus was actually much lighter than I’d thought, coming in around 3.5 tonnes. The interior timber must have mostly been a lightweight composite, not solid wood.

Then another snag…as I’d suspected, Bus would need the bifold door replaced by one that was outward opening, more caravan style, in order to gain the RWC. Several years ago, I had been requesting John that we get this done – there was a place in Healesville that did this. But he hadn’t wanted to go to the expense. Now, that place had shut down, and it wasn’t easy to source a door that would relatively easily fit a Coaster. After quite a bit of research, I ordered one from a place on the NSW coast, to be delivered to the mechanic.

Next snag…door didn’t fit properly. Inadequate packing – or maybe faulty manufacture in NSW – had warped something. It would need fiberglass work, which M’s neighbour agreed to do, in his factory. Mechanic delivered Bus there. It might take a while, as neighbour fitted it in amongst his very busy work schedule.  The chance of having Bus ready in time to be snapped up for the coming grey nomad northern travel season was rapidly disappearing.

To be turned into frozen apple sauce

When we moved here, had been told the five apple trees planted in two gardens, were crab apples. I wondered why on earth anyone would want to plant even one of those – who makes crab apple jelly these days? Five of the things? It had become obvious, in last summer’s fruit season, that these crab apples had not been properly maintained, and that they had a lot of branches that had grown from the original graft stock, bearing little green apples rather like a Granny Smith. I had commenced a program to prune out the crab apple branches and encourage the feral apple ones. I did leave one tree as a crab apple though, as M was a jam maker.

The selective pruning had been quite successful and we now had a really good crop of green apples. But John had not done any spraying, so we also had a plentiful crop of apple grubs. I was able to pick some of the better fruit, for stewing and freezing.

With so much garden produce being processed, we needed to buy yet another freezer! That made three of them: two medium sized chest style and a tall drawer-style one. There was room in the laundry – just – for the new one.

Another discovery was that the local Eastern Rosellas just love green apples! They spread the word around and we had groups of them battling to get at the fruit. Noisy but wonderful.

Eastern Rosella having its share of apple

 By the end of the month, we were hearing of an outbreak of the virus in Italy, and associated deaths.