England was dismissed overnight for 436, of which opener, Geoffrey Boycott, scored 191. He was also the last batsman to be dismissed. Australia, in reply, had crashed to be 5-67 at stumps. Rick McCosker is the top-scorer thus far, having been dismissed for twenty-seven.
“Gretel II” and the Swedish yacht, “Sverige”, are locked at one all in the pair’s Challengers’ semifinal of the America’s Cup.
At 9.00 a.m. “Mum” and “Dad” arrived for breakfast. While Tiki and her mother went shopping, “Dad” and I cut laminex to size and glued it at either end of the kitchen sink. After I had sawed some of the dead branches off the stump at the side of the drive, both of us crawled under the house to install a power point in the main bedroom. “Dad” placed it behind our bed but in doing so dirt from his shoes marked the new carpet.
Meanwhile, the pair returned bearing a blind and crossover curtains for our bedroom. The blind had cost twenty-five dollars and the curtains seventeen. “Dad” and I hung both of them before lunch. It wasn’t until we removed the old curtains that we found the power point for which we had earlier been searching.
After lunch we crawled on our stomachs until we were under the lower, rear end of the house. “Dad” drilled through the floor in order to put a power point in the second bedroom. I extended the coil of white conduit to the small black junction box and used a pair of pliers to sever it as “Dad” secured its length to a beam by bending over rusty nails that were already there. With me poking the other end of the conduit up through the floor, “Dad”, who was now in the second bedroom, fashioned a wire coat-hanger which then enabled him to pull it up through the cavity in the wall.
Unfortunately, the soles of his shoes again soiled the new carpet, only this time the mark is right in the centre of the room. Tiki’s parents departed at ten past five, leaving us to watch the remainder of “Jeopardy”, and “It’s Academic”, which are both hosted by Andrew Harwood. A corny “Julie Andrews: My Favourite Things”, with Peter Sellers, followed the news.
I was going to go for a walk, however, the sky held the promise of further rain and so I stood, instead, on our front fence to see what I could see of Tiki as she stood in our bedroom at varying distances from our new, drawn blind.
“The Searchers”, a western movie from 1956, screened at half past seven. It stars John Wayne, the late Jeffrey Hunter, and Natalie Wood. At twenty to ten I turned the dial to watch the live telecast of the Fourth Test. Australia was dismissed for just 103. Only David Hookes and Richie Robinson managed to join McCosker in double figures, having scored twenty-four and twenty respectively. At lunch, Australia, is 2-35 in its second innings. Without wanting to detract from England’s performances in this series, I cannot help but think that their signing to Kerry Packer’s breakaway troupe must be weighing on some players’ minds.