More exam marking in the morning gave me permission to stop working and watch the AFL game between Hawthorn and North Melbourne Kangaroos. This was an important game because North were on top of the table while Hawthorn were down in 5th place. However, a good win over North would see the Hawks leapfrog North and go to the top of the table (at least until other teams played their games on Saturday!). A customary slow start by Hawthorn for 2016, and North going the biff to try to entice the Hawks into retaliating, saw North jump out to an early lead. But, while not playing their best, Hawthorn plugged away and eventually took the lead to go on to win by 9 points, with new player James Cicely kicking 5 goals and taking out the NAB Rising Star Nomination for the week. While it was a win, it was not a big win, and so the Hawks stayed marginally behind Norths on percentage, and by the end of the weekend were firmly in 4th place - an important place to be to get a double-chance in the finals in September.

After lunch, we went out to Weldoms to get a variety of thing for finishing the gates and doing some of the lights in the house. When I got home, I mixed some concrete and got to work re-setting the hinges in the brick pillars. After closing the gates and setting some spacers between them to get the right clearances, I rammed concrete into the hinge holes to fix the hinges firmly in place. I then tied the gates together and put a sign on the gate to stop people from trying to open them for a few days (until the concrete had firmly cured).

Having finished with the gates for the moment, I turned my attention to installing some solar lights on the verandah to illuminate the front door, even when all other lights are off. I brought these solar lights with me from Melbourne, since we would no longer need them there and they had worked so well for many years. I installed the small solar collector on the top beam of the rose arcade and then threaded the leads through to the lamps on the inside of the posts on each side of the path, pointing at the doorway. I will leave them for a couple of days to recharge and see how they perform.

That evening, Rita and Jackie went to a late concert at the Pigeonairre Restaurant, while I got back to marking exams (ho-hum!)