Welcome to Burra Despatches

I retired in 2013 and, for any number of sensible and arguably misguided reasons moved to Burra in South Australia. We are not far from the notable wine regions of the Clare Valley and the Barossa Valley. And the Riverland is less than an hour away. It's all good, as they say.

So far its been better than expected, with a couple or really weird moments along the way. A blog to document the experiences and observations seems perfectly sensible.

Kicking it off, here's a rewording of an an email to friends just after we got here last year. However, I will omit my observations about the dress code of the locals who walk past our house on their way to the town shopping precinct;

Last Sunday was "Open Gardens" day in Burra. Unfortunately our house let the team down,with its overgrown garden that hadn't received any TLC for three months. It's a work in progress, but I confirmed three thoughts I have always held about gardening; 

1. I still only know one weed and one smokes it, 
2. gardening is NOT  therapeutic
3. concrete, painted green, seems a sensible alternative. 

There are starlings nesting in one of the chimneys. Very annoying... 

(NB: I have since found out that the starlings are in fact native blackbirds. Shame on me)

Telstra continues to stuff me around with my ADSL connection, despite the fact that we are less than 400m from the exchange. 
NB: four weeks without the internet, countless phone calls, much frustration verging on anger. They then sent a text saying that the ADSL was fixed. They certainly fixed it; they killed the phone line altogether! It took another 10 days before they finally got it right. Then they billed me for the services not delivered. More phone calls, more hypertension.

So, those are the beginnings for this blog. More soon....