How many telstra employees does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Im sorry, I can't answer that question, Hold please and I will transfer you to the correct department...

Update on my little telecommunications saga - I HAVE PHONE SERVICE AGAIN!! (touch wood)
Trevor never did show up - he may indeed have gone back to prison. Instead a very lovely older gentleman who I will call Peter, came and determined the problem and (get this!) FIXED IT!

It turns out thrifty old Jack who used to live here must have accidently dug through the phone cable at some point and then taken the liberty to fix it again all by himself and avoid paying someone to come out bush and re connect it properly. The downside being that everytime it rained the wires would get wet and short out.

This is what it looked like:

electrical tape won't fix everything...

So now I have these two fancy looking orange star-pickets on the edge of my driveway to mark where the cable is too shallow and will eventually need to be dug in to regulation depth.

Peter admitted that although there has been a work order placed to do said repairs it could quite possibly take 2 years or never actually happen so in the mean time it might be an idea to add some decorations to the star pickets and jazz them up a bit.

I took his advice:




After- A Work of Art!

Before - Boring:







So now that I am able to make phone calls again I will call the aforementioned telecommunications company and tell them I am under NO circumstances paying the bill they just sent me for the last month with no service. If they don't accept my terms I will put them on Hold and divert them to my mobile and back to the home phone... And repeat.

Jack

There has been much chatter among friends and townsfolk about the old man (We will call him Jack) who lived here before we did. When old Jack passed away, it was revealed  that he had infact been living a bit of a double life.

Old Jack had told his friends and neighbours that his wife, the love of his life had died years earlier and that his two sons had grown up and moved away and this was what had prompted his move from an affluent area of Sydney to the 100acre bush block in tiny town. "A place to get away from the rush of the city".

Jack missed his wife very much and often told people how they used to go dancing together each week, he told them about his boys and their antics as they had grown and of the things he planned to do for them with all his money.

One day Jack fell ill, and his best mate Tom drove him to the hospital, it was cancer and Jack sadly passed away a few days later. After his death, Jacks sister arrived and met Tom and they cried on each others shoulders for their loss.

Tom asked Jacks sister if she had contacted his boys yet as they needed to know and he didnt have their phone numbers.

That was when everything came undone. After some shock from both parties, it was revealed that Jack did not have any children, infact he had never been married at all. He was simply a pensioner and a loner with some odd habits who had escaped his demons and the city.

For 10 years, Jack had lied to his best mate and all of tiny town about his entire life.

Of course in a small rural community such revelations inspire much gossip and the big question of WHY? has been filled with speculations regarding his mental health, his sexuality, and of course the fabled existence or whereabouts of Jacks supposed buried millions.

As I pluck the infinate weeds from my gardens and the surrounding bushland, one of them is let to grow and bloom then another...

Opium Poppies.

Sprouting from every available gap in the ground, hundreds of them.

Perhaps his double life was in the drug trade and we will oneday recover 'Jacks Millions'? 

All those mysterious trips back to Sydney to see the sons he never had...

Or perhaps, it was all just a load of poppy cock.