The Home of Tom & Morven

You probably haven’t ever heard of free-running, I hadn’t either until several hours before the injury you see here. By chance I happened to watch a movie/documentary called Jump London (refer IMDB).

The goal of Free-running is to “use the environment to develop yourself and to always keep moving and not go backwards”. This is not to be confused with Parkour, which aim is to “move from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body”.

I’m definitely not a Parkour purist as I like to be free to run where I want and how I want, and believe I’m a free-runner at heart (but not necessarily by skill level)! I’m often running over fences (albeit usually only small ones) when I go out running, and have great pleasure in the freedom of turning down one trail and up the other depending on what I feel like at the time. I guess this makes me a free-runner at heart?

Injury from my first ever free-running style of run

To put it to the test, last night after watching Jump London, I went out for a “free-run”. However it was dark, cold, wet, and slippery! I nearly slipped a couple times whilst jumping up onto metal rails (not very far off the ground!) and not long after I clipped my knee whilst trying to jump over a concrete wall, hence the above photo!

Not sure how this seems to have happened, but I haven’t had much time for mountain biking over the last couple months. I’ve been out on little rides here and there but nothing epic. Today was my first epic ride for quite some time, as it was cold, wet, muddy, slippery, muddy, and really slippery. I sort of forced myself to go for a hard ride because I missed out competing in a race today in favour of a social event. What I found was a strong correlation between going for a hard ride in wet muddy slippery mud and frequently losing control. This made it the best ride I’ve done for a long time, also because I didn’t do too badly fitness wise either.

Below is proof to my riding buddy who is currently overseas that I’m keeping up the fitness, and that I should be able to pull my weight for the Foxy1000 100km race with 4km of vertical ascending in October.

Morven and I went for a long winters day walk and got wet in the rain. We chased ducks, and I went down a slippery dip which gave me a very wet bum! We also climbed a giant spider web.

Morven and I recently stayed a night at Aldgate Creek Cottage. We were recommended it by a friend, and would like to recommend it to our friends! It’s only a few minutes up the freeway, right in the heart of Aldgate. The creek is literally only metres away from the cottage, surrounded by a beautiful lush garden - and apparently we went at the worst time of year to see the garden!

We enjoyed sitting on the upper balcony sampling some tasty cheeses that Morven had selected and sipping Piper-Heidsieck, overlooking the lush garden.

We then cranked up the methylated spirits fireplace, and watched a ridiculous movie called Blackball. After the movie, we went for dinner at the Mercure Grosvenor at Mt Lofty so that Morven could scope the place out for some wedding that she’s planning. We had a quick meal and went back to the cottage to crank up the awesome fireplace. I ate the majority of the truffles that Morven made (she’s going through a truffle making phase - and I’m trying to encourage her with this inspiration she has for as long as possible).

Everything about the cottage is so cute, it is really new and stylish with very well thought out highlights such as an old ladder that holds the kitchen utensils over the kitchen sink which is mounted in wood.

The next day we went for a hike on the Eastern side of Mt Lofty, down party of the Heysen trail that I’ve never been on before and always wondered where it went. It took us to the Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, and we walked around the Gardens and back up to the summit. The walk was less than 7km but very steep, so we were both a little tired by the end. What a great way to spend a couple days of leave.

The rest of my leave has been spent mountain biking, finding two pairs of jeans that both look good, fit, AND feel comfortable enough to wear without creating a hernia, AND only cost $99… for both! (This is extremely cheap considering I was nearly convinced to buy one pair of Hugo Boss jeans that cost $229 (it is rare for me to find jeans that fit well). Also have visited a financial planner for the first time (I’ll try almost anything at least once), and been catching up on a bit of blogging, making pesto for Morven only to remember that she was going out for dinner (which I should have remembered about since I was invited as well, but couldn’t go because I wasn’t keen on the vegetarian options offered) and coating truffles in chocolate for Morven.

This is a photo taken by Nick on my birthday. It was an epic ride, we linked up many trails, and I showed him a few tracks I used to ride as a kid, including this drop-off. It took me a while to get the guts to do this drop-off even though I did it as a kid. It’s not a vertical drop-off but not far off. the photo doesn’t do it justice, it’s much more scary when you’re at the top looking down! I made Nick feel my heart rate when we were standing around just after riding off the drop, it was stuck on about 120BPM, purely from the adrenaline! What a good way to celebrate a birthday.

Not sure why I didn’t blog about this earlier, I guess I was busy with our engagement party the following day, and now I’m taking some annual leave and cleaning up photos on my phone.

Ever since my mountainbiking buddy and training partner (Nick) buggered off overseas on an extensive around the world journey, I have been left to fend for myself in the big bad world of dirt, sweat, and blood. (Having said that I normally only get the sweat and blood when riding with Nick as I need him to pump me up.)

Unfortunately, just as Nick left I had to bail out from doing a race I was actually going to do (seriously!) because my Pearl Azumi “Juice” MTB shoes had worn out in a matter of 6 months. Again. This time though, I wasn’t going to be happy with them replacing them with a new pair as this was already the second pair that wore out within 6 months. The only problem was the sole tearing off from the shoe around where the pedals are, I think because I have a tendancy to pull up with my feet just as much as I push down (or at least I try to, to be more efficient and stronger in the long term). The Pearl Azumi rep came back with a brand new pair of the new top of the line Pearl Azumi shoes, worth almost double what I had paid in the first place.

I was very excited, until I got to the store and found that my foot didn’t fit in the shoe because the way that they measured sizings had changed from 2007 to 2008. (You would have thought that they would know about their sizing changes from 2007 to 2008 and could have matched me to an equivalent size). It was a size 44, so I asked for a size 45. But then they sent a size 46, which was astronomically too big! The reason they sent a larger size was because the shop had traced the sole of my shoe and faxed it through to Pearl Azumi, to ensure I didn’t get stuffed around. The store was very helpful in this respect. And the store did to the right thing, but the problem was now that although the sole length was exactly the same as the previous shoes that fit, the volume around the toes was now stupidly too big. Apparently Pearl Azumi make them big around the toes now because Australians have big toes or something. The size 46 was the perfect length, just ridiculously baggy around the toes. May however be appropriate for bigfoot.

I tried on alternative brands and models of shoes in the store, but nothing seemed to quite fit very well. So, I asked Pearl Azumi for my money back and they were very happy to. I certainly can’t complain about Pearl Azumi except that they have just one model of shoes that didn’t hold together.

By the time I got my money back you could understand that I was extremely unmotivated about finding some replacement mountain bike shoes, so I just resorted to riding my road bike with road bike shoes (which fit very nicely, thanks for asking) and it took me a couple weeks to start looking at a new pair. So by now it had been a total of about 5 weeks without being able to ride the MTB. Eventually, I went out and tried on Sidi shoes as I’ve heard they’re extremely comfortable and durable, and fell in love with the Sidi Dragon 2 SRS Carbon, top of the line shoe. It is amazing how easy it is to adjust the shoe, you can even adjust the width of the heel! However they were very expensive, so I ended up finding them for sale on an online store in the UK, which of course meant I would have to wait another 10 days until I got them.

So the total downtime of me and mountain biking was about 6 weeks, and for about 3 of them I did absolutely no riding at all. But I’m back on the bike now, with my brand new Sidi Dragon 2 Carbon shoes and brand new Shimano XTR pedals, and have in one ride noticed my feet are much more comfortable, and also feeling much more confident with pedals that behave exactly how I want (i.e. don’t clip out when I don’t want them to, are easy to clip in to and easy enough to clip out when I’m desperately in need). I do still have some fine tweaking to do of adjusting the cleats as my left foot and knee were sore by the end of yesterday’s ride, and did notice that my left foot was working on a bit of a funny angle. Unfortuantely I had two flat tyres in yesterday’s ride so I didn’t really get to test them out as much as intended, but I’m good to go for next weekend! I expect the Sidi shoes to get some very good ratings. The XTR pedals certainly have. The only reasons the shoes might not get good ratings is value for money, as they are rather expensive. I wouldn’t normally spend so much money on one component but in this case given the troubles I’ve had with finding shoes that last AND fit my feet, I think it’s worth it.

Apart from the short MTB ride yesterday, I went for a half decent road ride with Ben on Saturday, and started my morning training sessions on my trainer this morning, which I hope to do 30 minutes every morning.

Every once in a while I go out on my mountain bike and get reminded why I stopped mountain biking for a few years. Today is a good example. I got to work super early (just after 7am) so that I could leave super early and go out on a good mountain bike ride. My team member (Nick) advised me that it might be a bit hot, but my standard response to remarks like that is mountain bikers do it in the dirt, regardless of weather and terrain. It was 38 deg C and not at all cooling down when I left, and after 20 minutes of riding mostly uphill I started vomiting from heat stress. I’m disappointed about this, I think my body partially adapted to the Scottish winter as I normally wouldn’t suffer from the heat so quickly. Not a big deal, just sit in the shade feeling dizzy for a few minutes sipping water before I ride home. Not so easily. About 4km from home my pedal broke off! I had heard a slight rubbing sound as I was going uphill, so I guess that’s what this problem was. The axle snapped right through, see in the picture below. They are Look brand 4×4 model (copy of eggbeater brand) pedals. I bought them second hand from a mechanic in the store, so I may possibly be able to get a warranty replacement, but regardless I will probably just go back to SPD pedals because I’ve never really liked this eggbeater style - they seem to be too loose with the shoe and make me feel insecure when for example I’m about to attempt hopping over a log. Also I’ve read lots of reviews about this brand that the axle brakes, and people recommend to go for the authentic Eggbeater brand of eggbeater style pedals if SPD just isn’t your style.

Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can zoom in on the broken axle.

I may have spoken too soon about today being an epic mountain bike adventure. We kicked off for our ride before 9am, but it was already about 30 deg C. Usually I could ride up to Eagle Park and do a few laps before being hammered, but today I struggled to even get up there. After a few rests in the shade Nick had motivated me to finish the one lap of the park before continuing our journey South from Adelaide. We only got to the point we got to last time, but had to head back as we were out of fluids, and I was exhausted.

I was also very disappointed about my bike which wasn’t performing too well. I got a “full service” which involved the store replacing the chain, cassette, and re-aligning a bent derailleur hanger. I don’t know why, but although it seems to work beautifully on my work-stand at home, it rides like crap when you’re actually applying pedal force. The bottom half of the chain (closest to the ground) shakes madly up and down when pedalling, which means either the derailleur isn’t aligned (i.e. the derailleur hanger wasn’t realigned correctly) or the front chain-rings are too worn for the new chain. I reinstalled my new derailleur hanger when I got back from the ride, degreased that cheap grease crap that comes with new chains to apply decent lube, and took a bit of slack out of the rear derailleur shifting cable. It seemed to make the shifting work well again but the chain still shakes madly up and down. I think I might have to take it back to the store when I get back from my holiday. The chain fell off the front small chain ring twice during my ride today whilst shifting down from middle ring, which stuffed up a couple hill climb sprints. I was changing from the second easiest gear at the back to the easiest, and then the chain slipped right off the cassette down toward the derailleur. I think I’ve resolved these problems by using the decent chain lube and adjusting the rear derailleur cable tension, but I definitely think the chain shaking is from the chain being too new for the chain-rings.

Something else I was annoyed at, which I blame the bike store for, was that when I got my bike home from being serviced, I put the front wheel on only to find the disc pads were rubbing pretty badly. What I realised, is that when I took the bike in I just popped the wheels on but didn’t worry about doing them up tight because it was about to be serviced. When they put my bike on the stand they noticed the disc pads rubbing, so they “fixed it” without checking that the wheel was tightened correctly in the fork drop-outs. So the first thing I did when I got my bike home from the store was to readjust these brake pads. Also, I noticed that they cleaned the bike frame, cleaned the rims and tyres, cleaned the suspension fork outers, crown, and stanchion tubes, but didn’t clean the seals around the stanchion tubes! So they wasted time cleaning stuff that doesn’t matter, and left dirt on my suspension fork seals. Bizarre. And overall, my bike worked better before I got it serviced! I’m positive that they’ll sort out my chain shake when I take it back in and explain the situation (even if it does mean replacing the chain rings) but it’s just annoying that it doesn’t seem to have been taken for a test ride.

Today is Friday, I have knocked off work for the week, and planning to go on an extra long mountain bike adventure with Nick in the morning - but I’m still slightly sore from last weekend! Last Friday, I went for a reasonably hard road ride after work. Not an ultra long distance by any means (40km) but quite a hard ride due to the gradient of one particular road I rode up. I came to have to ride up this darn steep road because I firstly road down it which was quite an adventure in itself. I’ve riden past the turn-off to this road but never gone down it for the fear that I’d have to ride up it again, as it was labelled as a “no through road”! The gears on my road bike are considerably harder than my mountain bike (and I’ve grown up using mountain bike gear ratios not road bike gear ratios), so this is a genuine concern for me. I decided the hell with it, I’ll give it a shot. Because I haven’t riden my road bike for a few months, it was difficult to let myself hit high speeds without getting scared, so I was holding the brakes hard all the way down. There were many turns which I had to slow down for too, so the brakes really got a hard workout. Eventually I got down to the bottom of this “no through road”, and there was a dirt driveway with a big fierce “private property” sign not letting me continue. This was at this point:

So I stopped and put my feet on the ground for a few minutes to stretch out. Part of my “on bike stretching procedure” involved my leg rubbing against my front wheel, which was an incredibly painful experience as the rim burnt my leg! It was so hot from all the braking, it actually burnt my leg! Not believing how hot it was, I touched it with my hand. Steam from the oily sweaty sunblock hand confirmed the suspicion that it was in fact bloody hot! I was worried that the tyres were going to pop, so I just span the wheels in the air for a while to let them cool down, before I commenced the gruelling ride back up the hill. I came only about 50m from the top (probably 500m total length back up) where I had to stop as my heart was going double time, and my quads were about to explode with strain. So this is what made Friday’s ride so hard! The total vertical ascent for this ride was 1350m.

On Saturday, I just went for a 64km ride through the hills and down to the beach (total vertical ascent 1270m). Some random cyclist yelled out to me at Stirling to get my help to find out how to ride back down into the city. He was from Melbourne, here to watch the Tour Down Under cycling race, as it was the first year that the Tour Down Under is part of the Pro Tour international cycling calendar.

On Sunday I was a little sore but went cross-country mountain biking with Nick. This ride was ridiculously hard because I decided to make us ride up and down all these valleys, which totalled 2080m of total vertical ascent in only a 35km ride! If you exclude the riding on the way to the trails, the average gradient of the trails was very close to 10%. Overall the ride was really difficult because we just didn’t have enough fluid to safely continue, and we were really hungry!

On Monday (public holiday) I ran 23km around the foothills, and then to Mt Lofty and back via the main walking trail. I ran through a park in the foothills and found this lizard. Can you see him? He’s very camoflauged:

I had only intended on doing an 8km run around the foothills, but I bought a Powerade at the Waterfall Gully cafe, and found a tap in the car park by the creek to fill up my little drink bottles that strap onto a waist-belt I use for long runs. So that’s when I decided to just run up the hill to the summit. I bumped into a colleague from work at the summit, and a couple friends from school on the way down. ….Adelaide…. The really painful part is running back down the hill, and because I was really bending my knees to avoid damage to my feet and knees, my quads suffered a huge amount of pain. I ran down the hill hard, using my quads as suspension, and could really feel my quad muscles consuming themselves for energy as I had very little left. Three Weet-Bix just doesn’t cut it for this sort of run! The total vertical ascent for this run was 2630m!!

2 days later was the sorest, but I’ve pretty much made a full recovery now and ready for tomorrow mornings epic cross country mountain bike adventure!

I didn’t stop blogging, I’ve just had higher priorities in the last few months. Since I last posted anything substantial, I’ve been doing a lot, and I will attempt to catch up with what I’ve been up to in this post. SWK will be proud!

In my last post I mentioned I was going to do the Foxy1000 cross country mountain bike endurance race with Nick. We did the 100km race (50km each) but it was much harder than I anticipated. The fact that I had to ride 50km was okay, and the difficulty of the terrain wasn’t too bad although the track did include the Fox Creek downhill trail which I found doing very scary, but was proud that I only dismounted I think at two spots on this downhill track. The reason I had to dismount twice is because at one spot there was a drop-off which you had to negotiate whilst doing a corner on a slope (hard to explain) and another spot where there was just a massive drop-in. When I say drop-in, imagine a slope that’s about 60 degrees below horizontal for several metres! I would possibly attempt these obstacles if I hadn’t already ridden flat-out for about an hour, and didn’t have arms that were worn out and/or had time to stop and adjust my seat-post such that my centre of gravity was more reasonable. But at the end of the day, the idea of a race is to get from A to B as fast as you can, and if it’s on average quicker to get off the bike than to attempt something you’re not confident doing and risk injuring yourself or your bike, then you might as well! (However this hasn’t stopped me on at least one occasion recently which I’ll get to later!) Nick and I took turns at doing 2 x 25km laps each (100km total) and each lap involved 1000m of vertical ascent. Half way through my second lap, I had major cramp in my legs from dehydration. I don’t know how I got dehydrated because I was drinking by the bucket loads after my first lap, and was well hydrated before the first lap even started. I guess it was a hot day. The last 10km was very painful and difficult because of the cramp, but eventually I finished and we came 3rd in the category of Men’s Duo so it was very much worth it! We have been riding together on most weekends usually doing at least 30km rides, and recently becoming closer to 50km rides on some occasions. We hope to do quite well in the 2008 Foxy1000 race. Who knows, maybe in 2009 we might even both race solo! But I much prefer the team idea - besides, Nick is faster than me… at the moment I say “at the moment”, because I’ve been riding my road bike a little bit lately on my trainer to try and build up my leg muscle which is my major weakness from several years of endurance running which stripped me away from leg muscle.

Since the Foxy1000, apart from weekend rides with Nick (mostly from the city, up to and around Eagle Park) we’ve also been doing the Summer Series races. I find the night races much to fast-paced for my liking, because for my category (Sports Men, which is “C” grade) I generally do 3 laps of about 5km. It sounds like a lot, but it’s all over within 45 to 60 minutes. Since my strength is endurance (i.e. 50km+) I struggle with the sprinting, and my heart rate averages 180bpm (minimum 170bpm, maximum 187bpm). When riding up a hill at 185bpm+ I feel like my heart is going to explode! For this reason I don’t look forward to doing the race, I look forward to completing the race! And it is a good feeling to achieve finishing. The first night race of this summer season was at Flinders Uni. My tactic was to go easy at the start to avoid any 185bpm+ activity in the first two laps. Unfortunately this meant I was stuck behind a couple slow(ish) riders who didn’t let me past. After the first 5 minutes there was an opportunity for me to overtake on a downhill section on a fire-track (i.e. a track designed for a 4WD vehicle to access) which was covered in blue gypsonite crushed rock. Because I built up a lot of speed in an effort to pass the guy before the bottom of the track which turned back into a single track, I wasn’t able to take the corner at the bottom. I think a combination of me going way too fast, my tyre pressure too high, and the rebound dampening of my suspension all worked against me, and although I sort of made the corner after turning right on to the bridge, I was sliding sideways off of the bridge, and in fact slid off into the rocks which formed the bridge. (I call it a bridge, but it’s really just a pile of boulders with finer gravel on top to allow the water to pass through. I snapped the buckle off of my shoe so wasn’t able to continue the race, and I seriously gashed my hip and elbow which I was paying the price for over the next month.

The second night race of the season was at Eagle Park, and I did okay physically but had a flat tyre towards the end, so overall got a poor time. The third race was again at Eagle Park last night, and I think the training I had been doing has only just started to pay off. Unfortunately, I had a small crash due to my front wheel sliding off the track in a sandy patch on a corner. I was okay and didn’t lose too much time, but I bent my rear derallieur which meant that my chain kept slipping into my wheel between the spokes and rear cassette.

This happened about 6 times during the remainder of the race, and meant each time I had to get off and pull it back on again, costing about 20 seconds each time. Also I kept losing the gear I was in on most climbs, which made me lose traction on many occasions which cost me a few more minutes overall. Overall I came 6th in my Sports Men category, which was fairly satisfying, even if there weren’t many more than 6! I will take my bike back to the store on Monday and get a yearly overhaul done, even if I can fix it myself. It’s probably about time I had the suspension serviced anyway. After the race last night I went to the Lotus Lounge for going away drinks for a mutual friend of Morven and myself, Monica. It was great to see lots of our friends all together in one place having a good time, but it’s weird going out without Morv! (I’ll explain later in this post where she is at the moment). After the Lotus Lounge, I headed over to The Worlds End bar with a couple uni mates (including Nick who I raced with). Good times were had, but I went home before everyone else because my elbow was oozing yucky stuff from when I slid on the dirt in the race. It is mildly amusing that the scrapes I have from last night are in exactly the same spot as the first summer series race where I stacked it, but nowhere near as bad as the first stack!

In October I went to an 80’s night a HQ Nightclub with Morven and her friends. It was to celebrate the birthday of FreshFM radio station. It was a good night, but we were the only people that actually dressed up in 80’s gear! Okay well there were probably about a dozen others that made an effort to dress up, and I can’t really say that I dressed up myself but Morven and her friends did so I felt ripped off and we sort of looked silly. Every now and then you would see someone from the crowd of people dressed in classic 80’s gear. I misunderstood what a barman said at one stage and ended up accidentally ordering 5 different cocktails instead of one! I didn’t mind, we drank them all!

Really the main reason I haven’t been blogging in the last 5 months is because my server hasn’t really been working anyway! Apache (the main part of the webserver) just kept crashing, and not loading after the computer rebooted like it always did before I upgraded to this new computer. Over the last week I’ve updated Wordpress, Gallery, all of my Wordpress plugins, and the webserver software XAMPP. I found it difficult to upgrade my XAMPP installation, and I will write about this upgrade process in a seperate post at least for my own future reference! I took me a VERY long time to work out why Apache wasn’t booting on startup, and I’ve found that the Apache service under Windows Vista doesn’t load under the LocalSystem or Administrator account, I had to create a seperate user account to run it under. This is a problem attributed to the UAC (User Account Control) system of Windows Vista. I will also write about this in a seperate post.

I had a really nice break from work between Christmas and New Years. Christmas was mostly spent with Morven’s family and family friends. For Christmas Morven gave me a bike chain bracelet. I was so happy to unwrap that gift, as I used to have one as a kid (that I had found on the ground with a broken link and repaired it myself) but lost it somewhere along the line and was really upset. Our family was fortunate to receive a CD from my younger cousin in Melbourne, who is manager and website guru for a band called Men Without Pants. We were given their debut album GhosTrain. I don’t know how to describe it but I’ll give it a shot: very cool jazz! Really not very descriptive, but I like the sound effects they use, coupled with the cool, semi-philosophical chilled-out lyrics/vocals. You can listen to my favourite track by clicking on the play button.

For the very low price they are asking for the CD (AUD$10) I can’t recommend any more just buying a copy or three or more (for gifts). You can listen to their music on the website too, so go check it out! (Please note I have special permission to play this song on my blog, it is copyright. Please go to their website if you want to hear more.) The band is two of my cousin Carl’s high-school classmates in Melbourne. Two very talented musicians whom I’m sure will go a very long way with their music careers. My cousin Carl is pretty talented too with maths and website technologies, although I have to question his sense of humour given he just sent me this URL to a comic as I’m writing this paragraph which is quite bizarre. Having said that I did laugh profusely after reading it. It’s disturbing how similar Carl and I are!

Over Christmas, I decided that my computer wasn’t performing well enough for my liking (even after upgrading it) with playing Colin McRae Rally Dirt, so I did my research, learned how to overclock my computer (which I will also write about in a separate post). Doing this, and adding a soundcard (instead of using the onboard sound) and adding more RAM has significantly increased my gaming experience, as has purchasing a Logitech Momo steering wheel and pedal set! There is so much enjoyment that can be had driving rally cars in such a realistic rally car simulator game, with amazing visual and effects, using a reasonably realistic steering wheel and pedal set! I’m looking forward to getting Morven “behind the wheel” as she has been known to enjoy a bit of the rally car driving game. She doesn’t like driving using the keyboard, but I haven’t had any alternative up until now. Maybe she’ll perform better using the wheel set and stop using the hand brake so much - who knows! She hasn’t actually seen it yet because I only got it recently after she left.

Morven is doing part of her work placement in a hospital at Stoke on Trent, England. She left nearly two weeks ago (such a long time to be without my lady!) and I will be going and meeting her in London on her last day of work. We will spend two nights in London in an expensive hotel right slap bang in the centre of London, then four nights in Paris again in the slap bang centre of Paris in a very expensive hotel! The last night of Paris will be Valentine’s day, so it should be a very romantic holiday You can check out a map of where we’re going and staying.

Today, after from updating my blog I’m taking it rather easy. I’ve done some odd jobs including fixing a shower-head mount, a shower curtain rail, our letter box lid that had broken off, and a rail for a window blind that had popped out of the wall. I’ve been keeping our lawn (Santa Anna Couch) in admirable condition despite the drought. It’s surprising me how little water we can get away with for watering our lawn and keeping it amazingly lush green despite the fact we’re going through a drought. Despite the current water restrictions of a maximum of 3 hours watering per week, we only water the lawn for 1 hour per week. I think the trick to keeping it lush green is to let the lawn grow longer when a heat wave is happening, and cut it back to normal length again after the heat wave. The other trick is to use fertiliser as recommended to keep the roots of the lawn strong, but use organic fertiliser because it won’t burn the lawn if you don’t water it in very well. This way you can apply the organic fertiliser just before rain (if you’re lucky enough to get any). A week or two after fertilising, check for weeds in the lawn. The other reason for using an organic based fertiliser over chemical fertiliser is it is better for the environment, and requires less water to manufacture it. So if you are using chemical fertiliser to keep your roots strong to save water overall, think again! Chemical fertilisers require ridiculous amounts of water to manufacture. Also any weeds will suck out water from the topsoil, so use a cover-spray appropriate to whatever weeds you have. I’ve also been regularly coring the lawn, and using a “Wetta-soil” powder which holds water in the soil after the rain, increasing the time it takes for the water to evaporate back into the heat of the harsh Australian sun. I’ve noticed that the Windsor Green couch has died off in the drought, whilst the Santa Anna Couch has stayed strong! Paul Munn personally recommended to me at his store to use Windsor Green Couch because it tolerates drought conditions better than Santa Anna, but I suspect this was just a sales pitch (unless we have an uncommon soil type/mixture). I would highly recommend to anyone in Adelaide to use Santa Anna couch over Windsor Green (update: discussion continued in a later post.

I should also write about my latest batch of black boys. After a few months now, my latest batch of black boy seedlings (xanthorrea’s) are about 3cm to 10cm tall. Unlike last time where they all died after leaving them in the sun, I’ve been keeping them mostly in the shade, and always constantly moist. I don’t have much experience with growing seedlings of anything but I expect this is a requirement for most seedlings. I am surprised though that black boys in particular are so sensitive to direct sunlight.