The heading says it all. Have been in Melbourne for four days, and only returned late yesterday.

Friday was my birthday....I've hit the dreaded 69....and Sunday was Father's Day, and I wanted to spend both with the two children and grandchildren. And on Monday I saw my sleep man.

The sleep went well during the past 8-10 days, and I had two nights of 8 hours sleep. Might not seem like much to many of you, but when you have tended to have 4-5.5 hours sleep for the past 8+ years a couple of decent nights of sleep are great. Can't put it down to anything in particular, but maybe it has been my tightened regime of going to bed earlier, getting up earlier, having a 30-45 minute nap in the late afternoon, and taking up my exercise again. If you recall, I overdid the exercise regime when I started it some 3 weeks ago, and after four days ended up spending the 5th day flat on my back lying on the bed.

Sadly, however, the stiffness/spasticity has been getting progressively worse. All I can do to ease it is to continue with my stretching exercises, and walking every other day for between 30-45 minutes......plus gardening and carrying wood indoors for the fire.

I had good news today, however. The funding submission I wrote for the Kyneton Men's Shed was successful, and we have scored a government grant of $60,000! Add this to our current funds, and we have a little over $90,000 ...... so a new shed is now well on the way to becoming a reality. Hopefully it will be ready by June 30, 2017!

Mind you, the way in which this news was released was exceedingly amateurish and ham-fisted......and very surprising considering it came from a State government minister. I got the news when a local newspaper rang and asked for comment, and even as I write this d have yet to be advised by email, letter or media release!

I watched a documentary about US architect Frank Gehry tonight, and it has set me thinking...... I have always had a way with words and being cheekily optimistic (Australia and Adelaide in particular has me to partly thank for winning the World FormulaOne Grand Prix) and the new Shed will prolly be build from colour bond. But, I thought, why not write to top Australian architect Glenn Murcutt - renown for his galvanised/corrugated iron constructions - and invite him to design a shed for us free of charge, and which can be built for $100,000? It might look a damn sight better than an off the hook colour bond steel shed!

I reckon it's worth a punt!