Possum Problems

Returned home from our flying trip to Adelaide at around sunset yesterday. Quickly set about warming up the house, then I went out for a torchlight check of some of my gardening projects. I swear the Westringia has grown noticeably bigger over the course of the weekend. Won't be long at all until the hot water service is hidden at this rate.
The parsley is recovering from it's possum mauling, but now the garlic chives have been neatly mown in their pot to be about 2 inches high. I thought possums weren't supposed to like garlic...

Inside, I was rather surprised to find the bathroom had collapsed while we were gone. Actually, it was just the vent over the shower, and a bit of dirt from the ceiling cavity above it falling in to my recently cleaned shower, but it was surprising. Our first thought was possums, but this is the downstairs bathroom, so they couldn't possibly get in there, right? David, my tall handy hero, clipped the vent back in place and I told myself just to be grateful it didn't happen while I was showering.

Last night we got woken by a possum party. Worse, a change in the quality of the noise suggested that they had indeed found their way past our defenses and into the ceiling space. So we're back to the possum theory of bathroom vent displacement, and instead need to be grateful we didn't come home to find a surprised possum had run amok inside the house for the weekend.

Wandered around this morning and found the entry point. A piece of board that blocked the end of the section of roof near the vine-damaged balcony had fallen off, leaving a nice possum doorway into the space over our bedroom. I guess tonight we will have to check that the possums have vacated, and stick it back in place. Probably a sign that we really should have repaired that vine damage during the summer like we planned.

Edit: Cheeky things! One of them sauntered across the top of the back gate as I was about to unlock it this evening.
I guess that means it's not in the ceiling, at least.

Weekend Road Trip

So yeah, we were in Adelaide for the weekend.

David went fencing on Saturday, while I stayed in bed and caught up on sleep. I followed that up with a little reading, a walk along the beach, lunch, and a little more reading.
Sadly David did not fence as well as he would have liked, so there goes my theory that he might fence his best when I'm not there to annoy him. Guess I'll have to go along next time to give him a warm-up lesson, watch him with the video camera, and give coachly advice.
Giving your significant other coachly advice is always a bit risky, and in our case David doesn't like being told what to do, and I don't like people not doing what I tell them. (And vice versa, which is why we normally stick to vaguely-worded suggestions;)

Sunday we emerged in relatively good time to attend brunch with various people David had managed to get in touch with. Hours passed very quickly, as did my hot chocolate and the following spiced chai latte.
Next stop was to visit mireille21, where we distracted the toddler for a couple of hours. Hopefully we will be forgiven for teaching him new ways to make noise and developing a taste for fast rides.

By the time all parties were exhausted it was time for us to head home for dinner and pack for the return trip. A very short visit, but hopefully we'll back again some time this year.

The actual road trip part of the weekend was quite uneventful.