We had the Winnie serviced yesterday. It involves getting her to the Iveco service centre on Great Eastern Highway. The service cost was $766.90, not bad for a yearly service. It was a level 1 service, next year will be a level 2 which is more expensive. The service times are 12 monthly or every 40,000 kms. If it was a commercial vehicle that would probably mean 3 services a year, but leisure vehicles typically do a lot less kilometres.
The other interesting thing was looking at the new vehicle brochure and seeing that the Warranty period is 5 years or 200,000 kms. We are still under 200,000 kms after 11 years, and would be out of warranty on time alone, but it is interesting that our vehicle is still within new warranty in terms of kilometres travelled. We hope that we get to travel at least another 80,000 kms in our time with her, but there should be no problem with doing more. This is a very sturdy vehicle indeed. We have spent quite a lot on the ‘house’ part of our motorhome and it seems to be well worth it in terms of how long we can expect the ‘car’ part to last.
We will keep the Winnie at our house until after our Dunsborough gig with Working Voices, then it may be time to take it to its normal home in Roleystone.
My study area at the Victoria Park Library, and a quick view of the sitting area in the round
We went to the the Spring Convocation Meeting at UWA last night. We have been before, but this one was interesting as it was given by the person who runs the libraries at UWA. She was talking about the digitisation of libraries, and what it now means in terms of what a library actually is. We have noticed that our local library, the new Perth City library and the State Library are much more than book collections these days. We often attend little Friday night events here, whether jazz, opera or a talk by the Greenpace Australia CEO. Stephen spends a good deal of time here as well. (I say here, because I have come over to the library to write this blog post.)
I wanted to get some items to take with us on our 11 day holiday next week, especially for the first couple of nights when we won’t have the internet. I’ve bought a little DVD player to use with my laptop as there is still a need for a DVD player sometimes when we go away. It’s a small cheap option and the laptop can output the DVD to a TV over HDMI. I also wanted to log into the library digital collection. I prefer reading on my iPad to physical books, even though I still love actual books. The reading experience is easier on the iPad because I can adjust the backlighting and size of print to suit me.
When we were at the writer’s festival at UWA earlier this year we wandered into the new entrance to the library after walking over to a new cafe. The old entrance is on a walkway, and although as a lover of books and reading you would expect that I would like the library, I always used to feel rather trapped. I would spend time in the more open section at the bottom where the cafe was located rather than in the pychology and anthropology sections, where you would expect to find me.
The new entrance leads to an enchanting place of open study areas, where students can work on their projects individually or in small groups. There is also a large lecture area in the middle, which was not being used when we visited. There are comfy armchairs with footrests where I guess students can nap or read in great comfort.
Which is why I decided to try out our own library as a place to write. We have a little sitting area in the round, plus a couple of booths, as well as more open desk areas. These areas have power points and USB ports. There is free wifi, but it is not password protected, so I prefer to use the internet via wifi on my phone. It is noisier here than in a traditional libary, but I’ve been able to filter it out, apart from when a child was grizzling.
I was feeling tired yesterday and didn’t really want to go to the Convocation Meeting. Stephen is a member, as a graduate of UWA, I have to go as a guest because I didn’t actually graduate there, although I attended for a few years. I actually enjoyed the meeting as the speakers were interesting and there were a couple of people there from our past, including one who was receiving an award for her services to the UWA community, especially Grads, over many, many years. We talked with her afterwards. We had met her husband when we were with Grads as we occastionally went back to their place for after show partys.
The supper and drinks were well done, and the balcony area where we were standing was so well heated that we looked for a place away from heating as soon as we could.