Estelle hits Five

 At last Estelle has made it to 5 and she let us know in no uncertain terms. Kids parties are hard work and we have been to a few lately. I think the highlight this time around was the face painter who also doubled as a balloon engineer. She was working solid for 2 hours with facial masterpieces everywhere. I think if she was asked to stay longer then I bet other skills like paper folding would have come out.  When did Pin the tail on the Donkey get replaced with stick the Hat on the Cat?  There is something wrong there. These days parties go off like clockwork, 11am til 1pm and everyone out by 2pm. We had to get the great grandparents home so it was a big day. Now Estelle has to work thru the mountain of presents.

face paintind

balloon queue

Dear Daffney

 We have had two daffney's one on either side of the front entrance.  Last year I cut one out because it was dying off. It's just what they do we are told, they die prematurely.  I took out the other one this morning as it was turning a moldy shade of yellow. The ground did seem a bit dry but the root system was all fresh and moist so basically we are giving up on those plants. Debbie turned her attention to another plant out the front which has the opposite problem. She tried to kill it off. Cleared the whole thing, digging out roots and shoots but up it comes again. It is some sort of daisy that invited itself. So now it is being coralled in a metal enclosure and will be severely cut back and shaped but not with the new gizmo which does not actually cut anything. We are not too cut up about it.

yellowed

a cutter NOT

after

on the level

Flotsam

 It was so calm and clear this morning you could see the cross on top of Mt Macedon. When you looked at the water there were formations on the surface. I have seen these before and I think they are grasses that have clumped together but I have never waded out to have a closer look. So in the afternoon the cloud was burned off and we went across to our secret bay which is largely protected in most directions. We thought we would check out the floaties but there were none to be seen. I waded out a bit into clear water but could see no sign of any jetsam. Beach was clean as well although we did do a snap and send to get an old garden seat removed.

secret cove

40,000

Another grey day so I have spent some time tidying up loose ends, by that I mean stamp loose ends or just loose stamps. When you have thousands of these lying around you have to keep on top of it. Some people take every stamp that ever comes their way and place it neatly into an album and to make sure they all fit, the stamps are placed ontop of each other. There are so many crammed in they cannot even be seen and the albums are weakened by the volume.  I have just cleared some old books where multiple stamp copies are poring out onto the floor, as the book is bursting. This approach never makes sense to me. I have been using tubs to hold the overflow and I have just filled one with the Australian variety. It weighs over 6kg and I am now coming to the top of another much bigger tub holding stamps of the world. Good thing I don't collect cars.

how many aussie stamps

Calm Morning Session

We have had two days of socked in light rain, mostly enough to annoy and not enough to fill the tank.  There are some people who have arranged time to go fishing and dam the weather. The guy below was out there for hours.  After it cleared this morning I went across equipped with a few ideas. I took the rubbish bag and did two laps of the sand as a warm up. It is a clean place lately with only one bottle, one butt and a few small plastics to pickup.  I have not thrown the shot for some weeks as my feet were wrecked.  I did maybe 10 throws this time around without over doing it.  Lastly I finished off with a dunking in the water. The temperatures are still ok but the low tide would not allow for a snorkle round the rocks. 

but are there fish

Small Pain Dental

I pushed in to see the dentist because a week ago I could feel something but it was vague. He prodded and poked in the area, tapped and scraped, also applied a cold torture device to check feeling was normal. In the end there was nothing to find. OK cheap visit let me out I will see you next time. Just before you go I may as well check the rest of your mouth. OK then.  He did more pokes, cleaned some plaque, applied some fluoride and said all clear. OK I'll be going then.  There is an X-Ray we could do as one section is now two years old. Right let's be doing that then.  Bad news I am afraid. There is a tooth with a large concealed hole under a filling,  sooner rather than later it will break. You're not going anywhere overseas are you? Derr.  OK I suggest you get it pulled out and replaced by an implant tooth drilled into your gum bones. How did I go from a faint pain to a $7000 tooth replacement. 

PB CleanUp

I started this a while back and in one of those fits of energy, Debbie got years of back dated PB records seperated from the folders where I had previously filed them.  Back at the start we were selling  information on paper. So to get on board you also filled out paper forms with all your details, bank accounts, addresses no holding back.  I can remember spending a lot of time in a spreadsheet that recorded this stuff then filing it all away for a rainy day.  Well that rainy day is today.  It has all been tranferred to an online database so this paperwork has to go. Three large boxes were emptied and I literally tore the papers up for added security.  My hands need a rest.