0011 Christmas in Tasmania

31st December 2019
0011  We drive to Tasmania for Christmas

Sophie & Emily arrive

As were boading our flight home in Perth, literally as we were stepping off the walkway through the door of the plane, Janet's phone rang - And it was a message from son Nick in the Netherlands so she immediately knew the twins had arrived !  Janet walked on into the plane as if on a cloud, and when the flight attendant chased after her to see her boarding pass, I knew he had no hope of succeeding, so I hurried after him to reassure him that she was with me, and that I had a copy of her boarding pass for him !!   Needless to say, Janet didn't sleep a wink all through the night on the way back to Brisbane.

0010 A few days in Perth

18th November 2019
We go to Perth for a few days.

Unfortunately a good friend and work colleague from my Perth days died a while ago in the USA where he recently lived, and his wife arranged a Celebration of his Life in Perth for all his family and West Australian friends.  This was scheduled just before we were due to set of to Tasmania, so was good timing for us, and also provided a good opportunity to catch up with Damien and Meisha and the kids.  So Janet & I flew over there - My first ever flight on Virgin !   A virgin on Virgin, you might say !

0009 The engine comes back

15th December 2019
Lots of things to do before Christmas !

Engine returns

Two days after my heart attack on the 20th October, I got a call from Gary at Conti Motors up near Bribie Island - "Your engine is ready for collection" !  I knew he wanted me to pick it up as soon as possible, so as soon as I could arrange a trailer, I set off up to Gary to pick the engine up and bring it home.  It was just over an hours drive to get there.

Once we had loaded the engine onto the trailer,
Gary told me all the things he had done - Basically it was a new engne.  He had fitted new main bearings to the original crankshaft, new conrods, new pistons, new heads.  There was also a new camshaft that should be slightly better than the standard one, and everything was cleaned up nicely.  He has also tapped a thread into the block so I can fit an oil temperature guage, as being an aircooled engine, it is most important to keep an eye on engine oil temperatures as you have no radiator or water temperature to monitor.