For us this means incredible levels of convenience and service: we don't have to travel more than 100 metres to buy a new lounge suite, get a tooth drilled or service a car. It is this wonderful atmosphere that led me around the corner to get my "dead" motor-scooter attended to through the week. Battery was indicated from the chugging protest from the starter motor but my little mate confirmed it for me when I kick-started "Blackie" and motored around. The front tyre was also bald and stretched so he replaced that as well as changing the oil. I'd had a rattling exhaust guard for months as well, but tightening it didn't do the trick: instead, he folded up some cardboard from the battery box and shoved that in the gap....fixed!
While I was in automotive mode, I decided to take the car over the pits for its six monthly inspection. The garage where I keep the car was immaculately clean as usual and I trundled through some peak hour traffic to the checking station, ran the car through its succession of tests on exhaust emissions, braking etc., then with a clean bill of health, I negotiated the car back to its underground home again. Rejuvenated "Blackie" was awaiting my return, so I hopped on board and whizzed home. Vehicles fixed: tick!
The kids in Grade 8 do various community service initiatives through the year, one of them a park clean up morning followed by various follow-up activities in the afternoon. We divide into a few big groups (about 70 kids in each one) then navigate to areas of public parkland in walking distance from the school. Despite the fact that these parks are fastidiously maintained by local government professional cleaners, we encourage the kids to "go a bit further" and delve into bushes and various nooks and crannies. It's always amazing to see the bulging bags of rubbish they manage to retrieve. It's not our most entertaining day of the year, but it was fun to get outside in some gorgeous autumnal weather.
We're in the middle of yet more grading, this time, guided paragraphs. It's not really the academic intensity of the work but rather the sheer volume: when you have to do nearly 100 each it becomes an exercise in logistics. Just how many can you grade in one session before losing total focus? We've discovered that the number is not that big, so we need to carefully plan a number of sessions over a number of days: oh, and we still have to teach...annoying!
The kids we teach are still an absolute delight, so this is some salve for us as we slog our way through: it astounds us how receptive they are to our tutelage and we are thankful every day that we have the opportunity to teach this crew and not be in some other situation! My period seven class is pictured above sorting out the nuances of Fahrenheit 451. Other pictures are of the clean-up day, my little scooter mechanic champion and some very expensive apples ($3 Au each!)