Lemons & lawns

 It took all morning to get the cavernous tooth repaired.  This one broke two yar back and it seems the next step will be a root canal if it breaks again anytime soon.  The Sun was out so I lightened a load of lowly lemons away from the posing possums pooing and peeing under the tree.  The lawns had not been touched for some weeks but running the mower over them didn't seem to do much.  A lady parked her car just out front and she interrupted my mowing to ask if it was ok to park there. Now this was a turnup. She said she felt safer parking it there yet was happy enough to wander off by herself for an hour or so.  I finished off  walking down there myself but could not be bothered picking any thing up as it was fairly clean anyway.

Tooth trouble

 Todays drama is a broken tooth which seems to happen every six months or so. There is nothing worse than that loud cracking sound from inside your mouth and I was only eating some soft raisin toast.  I have mentioned this before that there is one thing about country dentists as you can get in to see them in a hurry. I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. At least this did not happen over the weekend. I was considering some lawn mowing but that will have to wait. The grass here has not moved much in two months but the lemons have.  The tree is dripping with them. 

Fishing Village

 Time to go inside after two good days. However does that apply to tradies? I mean aren't they supposed to be tough workers, outside toilers and weather foilers.  Our maintenance man said it was too wet so  will have to finish another time.  Do we get a discount?  Debbie has been drawing, sketching and shading via an online instruction course. Maybe I should watch over her shoulder. So I tried another stamp design. There must be some reason I am picking out stamps from Africa lately. This country has been changed but the fishing village is still there on view.  Now exists as Malawi.  You can play spot the difference with this one.  I should time the effort, I'd say around 30 mins.

PS stamp is worth $11.

Blue Moon

 This is another Jack Reacher  "Don't mess with me or else" book.  I have no idea how the book's title relates to the crime gang clean up that goes on in this book.  It's not as if what Reacher does happens "once in a ..."  as he regularly messes up bad guys in an enthusiastic way.  The interview of Lee Child by GRRM  printed in the back, opens up a few more authors I can chase.  It seems Lee Child, Michael Connelly and Harlen Coben were in a startup writing class whom I have read lots, however there are others like Denis Lehane and George Pelecanos to check out.

Fog Dip

 It took a lot longer than the other day but eventually around 1:00pm the Sun broke through and the fog melted away.  Now that normally means there is no breeze to speak of, so going in the water was a possibility. I have been working up to this however in the end I went waste deep. The water was so clear and calm I could see every ripple on the sandy floor. Which means that there is an absence of sea grass.  Most of it seems to be balled up on shore but I have seen this situation before. I went out about 50 metres to get waste deep but the grass can grow quickly. It is a good clear expanse right now but in five months with warmer water it could be a jungle out there.

Three grounds walk

 There is a circuit in Willie that we have done numerous times and along the way there are three playgrounds.  Now mentioning this to the grandies is like dangling chocolate they just have to try it. There was the small matter of having some lunch first but with party pies and sausage rolls that was easy. Life is good at nana and pa's. Also all the bikes were present so they did not actually have to walk. Kaia is a speed demon and she does not have pedals. Estelle is a bit hampered by training wheels and Asher is fully competent.  It was a two hour exercise but they worked off the party pies.

Double Session

 I received a note saying google will automatically put links into my text that the AI deems interesting enough. I have turned it on to see what it does. This AI business is turning up everywhere. While the Willie haircut was going on I took myself off to the gym.  I started on the bike machine for 20 minutes then finished on the rowing machine for 10 minutes. The biking was 8km and the rowing was 2km so I took myself into the pool area for a warm down, which was more like a warm up. It takes me 10 strokes to get from one end of the pool to the other and I kept that going for about 10 minutes then got into the spa tub for another 10 minutes.  The whole session was at least an hour.  Look at all these links. I wonder where Willie haircut will take me.

passing Tassie boat

bike machine

rowing machine

Bird Flew

 Another day another sign, its magpie bombers.  I have had magpies chortling and chorusing in the early morning lately, say 6:00am, often earlier. Now they are swooping in right out side the garage door. I must have had just 10 pedal strokes when one hit. It was just a one off but I have been a target there in previous years. After that I was looking at every bird and every shadow as I had a bad crash a few years back on the down hill.  When I got back there were no birds to be seen, maybe becuase a neighbour was on his roof. 

In Print

 I received the 2nd instalment of my article about maps on stamps. This is the printed magazine version. They do have a website at  www.mapsonstamps.org but there does not seem to be a digital copy anywhere there, although I do have the digital version as well.  These mags are quarterly and I originally sent it in last year so I have half forgotten the jist of it.  I tried to mix it up with some facts and with some fun, like find the hidden map on the stamp. It must be the first time they had a game page in their magazine. The whole printing effort is very slick with high quality imaging and paper.  I got in just in time as the editor is retiring, so might the mag if there is no one else.

Two Books

I am reading two books concurrently.  How clever. The second is another Jack Reacher mashup where in the back of the book, is an interview of the author lee Child by our old friend GRR Martin.  I think we can dismiss any chance of ever getting those last two books for Game of Thrones. He is busy everywhere else.  The other book consists of anecdotes from last century of a stamp dealer, like the time he got a letter from a lady who found an old stamp. The first stamp ever printed was in 1860 but she found one that was older with a picture of Columbus dated 1492.  She was convinced it must have been worth a fortune and wanted to sell it to him. However dealers being untrustful types, she tore it in half, writing that when you send me the money I will send you the other half.  She was all in for a half measure.

Door Man

 We have a new door at the side of the garage. It still needs more work but is lockable and secured.  I assume the old one will be taken away. In the meantime I have been casting around for travel options next year as we need to make up for lost time.  Holidays have been hampered due to covid, ailments and other general mayhem.  I think my skills of being my own travel agent, navigator and travel guide may have lapsed into disuse.  So perhaps it might be time to consider the tour option where the decision making is all done beforehand.

before

after

Sunday Oneday Paella

 1st Sunday of the month is paella day at the Oneday estate.  Since we have moved here, 77 1st Sundays of the month have gone passed without trying the huge dish they cook up of seafood paella. The last time I saw a dish this big was on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. It also helps that we are in perfect sunshine here while further North seems to be covered in snow.  There was also some art to see on the premises which was not making much of an impression especially with a $3000 price tag. 

Fence Me in

 Rain and rot go together. If you can keep plants away from houses and fences they would last longer.  The fence section has been replaced however we still have a new expensive door to be installed in the side of the garage. The metal frame here is rusted out but with some grinding and metalling (new word?) it can be saved.  We have painted the fence previously but the very bottom still holds the water and softens the wood.  So it is getting a trim from one end to the other leaving a bigger gap.

does not look much different from here

Bubble Pools

 Two days in a row of stillness and sunshine has to mean something. I went further than yesterday across to the Dell area where I haven't ventured all Winter.  There are two barrels with a form of oyster trap spilling shells everywhere that have washed up.  Getting closer to the walkway the seagrass has been completely cleaned out from under there so that you can see the minerali water bubbling up again.  The wrack piled up was jammed as high as the boardwalk but so is the shifting sand. 

A delivery of wood

Last year  we cleared some bushes and trimmed back some rose trees from the side gate area revealing the small section of fence there to be wobbly, rotty and grotty.  It has taken this long to get something done which should be happening in the next few days.  I went across the way seeing the weather was favourable. I picked up a decent bag of junk, including insulating foam which boaties use everywhere and pump into everything. Also a length of black tubing and my least favourite, a nicely fermenting bag of dog poo.

Wattle Do

 We are trying to keep rides regular and also extending the distance in small increments. This time we got it out to 15km, hopefully the pembro does not require us to wind this back.  It was sunny enough but cool. I attached the gopro to the handle bars for a good result. I tried this on a hotter day 6 months back and it kept turning off but not so today as the whole route was recorded.  I have a short clip attached and it seems fairly smooth even on the dirt sections. Are wattle blooms a sign of Spring?  We stopped beside a bright yellow beacon.

Another Pembro another walk in the Park

Yes we are back on the medicine band wagon. In the cause of being thorough there has been a renewed dose.  How many more rounds seems to be in the balance, as this stuff can get body parts to complain. They have a manufacturing facility in another building so if the Doc says it's a go then they make the dose on site and vacuum tube it pronto for delivery. In the meantime I did a lap of the park which was 3.2 km or 4,000 steps in 34 min. Not sure if that is faster than last time.

birds eye view

Sherlock Stamp Collector

 I have been reading my stamp short story book and I found that Sherlock Holmes was a philatelist.  He was always a guy with attention to detail and used it to solve a crime. It seems someone tried to defraud the Tatts guys with a perfect football pool entry. However from the envelope and stamp he could see that a first day of issue stamp was used three days before it went on sale, so the cancellation was wound back the three days. This meant a postal worker was the culprit. Sure enough he tracked down a cleaner who had access to the post office after hours. His mistake was to grab a stamp that wasn't yet for sale. Elementary.

Tide Lines

 I have not had a beach cleanup for a while and there have been a few windy storm bringers during that time. Sure enough there are a few tide lines to be followed which always yield a good supply of crap. I have also been placing some jetsum branches at the back of the beach. Todays winner is the humble plastic straw. I would estimate 20 of these closely followed by the 15 or so plastic bags I extracted. There were also rope pieces and many small plastics like bottle caps.  Rocks are becoming more exposed as the sand shifts around and it seems to be piling at the Western end.

The Target

 I have read one of these from Baldacci previously. There is a whole shelf of them at Willie. This one has the same shoot em up, terror plot, save the president theme as goes around a lot of the time. The main characters are different from the last book and it seems these two have a series of adventures so no doubt there will be more of them on the shelf at Willie. I need to find a new direction, oh yes a book about small paper squares arrived in the mail, consisting of short stories.

Unnamed Creek

 We got out for a walk along the clifftops in an Easterly direction toward Port Arlington. We have done this before and you come to a deep canyon like creek with eroded sides. Some years back we have used this to get down onto the beach here but it is a hazardous descent. This time we turned upstream never having followed this part before. It is quite clear with a good track but we stopped after going up there for around 800m.  I checked the map and this creek comes out on the Port Arlington Rd near the Whiskery. Now I need to get the bike out and see if there is a way to approach from that main road.

cactus 

Calmer Ride

 I rode to the doc's the other day and it was windy city compared to today.  We took it at a slow pace and added 2km to last weeks distance. Hopefully the weather will let us ride more than once a week or go anyway despite the weather.  I also got into the lemon tree this morning.  Another way to tell that lemons are ready to pick is spotting when the possums start eating the rind. I can't think of anything worse than noring on the outside of a lemon.

exposed flesh

frondly view

fruit bread

Swinging the Prop

 We have retreated inside again. There were good intentions of walking today but it is snowing somewhere. Instead I tried drawing another stamp design. This one has an aviation theme which took my fancy. I also used a HB pencil which was fairly blunt so I need to sharpen it for next time.  They always seem to look better on paper compared to the scanned version. Its all Greek.

Old Post

 It's an indoor day here. I did go outside and face down the lemon tree but retreated when my previous scratches complained.  The tree is way over stocked at the moment so I do have to tackle it soon. Instead I waded thru the literature library and got out two cards that were sent in 1983. One from Maggie Carruth whom we initially met in Tassie but who went holidaying to the US of A and stayed there permanently. She was living it up at the time, in San Francisco. The other describes skiing at Mt Hutt by Carol Tamburro (nee O'Rourke).  Seems going to NZ for skiing is not a new thing.