More of the past, How to house train kangaroos and clumsy visitors.

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White ants and kangaroos had shared the Varna house for many years and neither were prepared to leave quietly. At night kangaroos would pop up into the house through white ant eaten holes in the floor. If they had kept quiet it would not have been so bad but they kept waking us up at night – They had to be house trained. The solution , like all good solutions was simple, effective and relied an the very latest in kangaroo training technology. I kept a pea rifle (a single shot .22 rifle for those that don't understand Australian english) and a handful of ratshot cartridges beside the bed. I could wake up, fire ratshot at the roos, drive them outside and go back to sleep without getting out of bed. Ratshot was ideal. It could do little more than sting the roos, there was no blood to clean up in the morning and the stray pellets would do no harm to the house. After three or four weeks the roos worked out that they were no longer welcome and departed to find a home of their own.

There is a common belief that white ants won’t eat cypress pine but someone forgot to tell that to the white ants at Varna. The termites found sections of the house that were to their liking and ate the lot leaving just the paint behind. The very fact the house was standing was testament to the strength and resilience of load bearing paint! We eventually packed large holes in the floor with layers of newspapers and covered the lot with a roll of dark green lino we found. Looked a lot better but still a no go zone for walking. It is amazing how quickly you learn to step over or around the holes, even half asleep in the dark. It just becomes an unconscious reflex. Visitors on the other hand proved to be a clumsy lot of bastards; seemingly hell bent on stepping into holes and tearing holes in the lino. Never did work out how to train them, obviously less intelligent than roos. 

To be continued ???????