Day 15 Wednesday

Yesterday just disappeared in a cloud of frustration. My good but old colour laser printer said “Code 100.” After downloading the manual and going to page 189, it said ‘printer dead’. Emails to Xerox in the US did not get a response – funny that. However, the local Cairns Xerox repair man said ‘I’ll ask a tech for you.’ His response was ‘It’s fucked, mate.’

So off to Officeworks for a cheap $120 Brother mono laser printer. Place was packed and a bit of stressed social distancing going on. No service as usual, so my new best friend and I just picked up a printer in a box each and headed for the perxiplex screened-off, cashless check out. Now, I bet you know what I’m going to say next?

Having unpacked the printer, read the quick install guide and gone to the Brother web site for the print drivers, I discovered that there was no printer cable. Of course, they haven’t supplied them with printers since Adam was a boy. After two hours of not being 1) able to download the drivers and 2) not able to connect to the wifi, I head back out into COVID territory to buy a fricken cable. 

Guess who was in the line with me? Yep my new best friend from before. Neither of us were able to buy a cable because they had sold out. Then our newest best friend whispered ‘Jaycar!’ – so out into Indian territory again and off to Jaycar. Much better social distancing there and success – an $13 cable!

Back home and another frustrating three hours getting nowhere, I gave up and made dinner for our Hump Club Greek night. A delicious pumpkin, SD tomatoes, garlic and olive mash wrapped in filo pastry and a Greek salad. 

Meanwhile, Lady P arrives home and fixes the printer to work wirelessly in less than half an hour. Stop grinning you lot!

The Hump dinner was good with excellent internet connection for all seven participants.

Day 16 Thursday

I have to prepare one of my dinner parties today for delivery at 6 pm, so I’ll sign off and get to work. More later. Ok, the dinner all boxed up and delivered and everyone deliriously happy, plus I got paid.

Lady P decided that my recipe for orange sauce was not to her liking. So, I said, politely of course, "Why don't you cook the dinner then?" She did and the duck fat potatoes were delicious. The duck breast tasty and the orange sauce as expected.