Saturday, 20th August …..

I thought I’d be over my sore hip by now so, when one of the Rotarians pleaded for some help in moving some boxes of books, I put up my hand. He said he had 85 boxes, culled from the Devonport Library and he wanted to put them in a storage container until they could be sent overseas. The plan was to do it on Thursday but the weather was foul so we postponed until the first sunny day, which turned out to be Friday.

The boxes were in a Rotary shed in Deloraine. Not all of them were packed well; some were in manageable sizes, others were just thrown into loose boxes of all odd sizes, so packing them neatly was a problem. Someone had carefully marked the weight on the heavier ones and I was surprised to see how many were over 25Kg. Surely librarians shouldn’t be asked to move boxes as heavy as that. And neither should elderly Rotarians.

Anyway, we had two station wagon-type vehicles and a small enclosed trailer. We had to move the books to a spot about 30Km away so one trip was our goal. We packed the wagons until we thought the springs were sagging just enough and started on the little trailer. We had enough volume to get in all the remaining boxes but weight was always going to be the problem, especially as we noticed half-way through that the trailer had a flat tyre. By this stage, we were beyond unloading what was already in place so off we went to collect a compressor.

The trailer did take all the books and there was enough clearance to get our fingers between the wheels and the arches and Steen, who was pulling the thing was happy. He must have been worried all the way because he never got over 80 Km per hour and the other drivers on the highway were not pleased.

The container was half-full of old school furniture which will eventually end up in the Philippines but there was enough room for our books as well. I did my sums: 85 boxes at an average of 20Kg per box is 1700 Kg and only two people to move it. No wonder my leg is just as sore today as it was last week.

We’re still perusing available cruises. The Asian cruise I wanted to do on November 11th turned out to have one or two problems. Although it was listed as sailing from Beijing, the port is actually at Tientjin, 180 Km from Beijing airport. To join the ship we would have to fly into an airport we had never visited before and meet up with a limousine driver booked via the internet, and then find our ship in one of the busiest ports in Asia. What could possibly go wrong? We decided that there must be an easier way to go on a cruise. We’re now looking again at cruises leaving from Sydney, and sooner rather than later.