The Insurance Well

These guys are going to put us on a list if we keep going to the pot for insurance money. Each time we do this it seems to take a different path. This time we have left it largely to the travel agent (for a fee) to get the paperwork ready for an insurance claim.  It has taken six weeks but we should be able to send it off today. It seems that all the medical out of pocket costs are not claimable because they did not happen in a foreign country. There are always fine print clauses hiding there.  We have two medical reports, a travel agent report and a stack of bills and receipts.  I have scanned everything but I will add a tracking number to the envelope.  Insurance on insurance. 

Night Boat

 It is not often we see the Tassie boat going passed in Winter. The schedules change with the seasons and maybe we are just rugged up inside at night.  Although we are noticing slightly longer evenings as the Sun heads back towards us for the last five weeks. The acoustics were so good that the ding ding ding of an announcement came to us across the water. For a second there we thought that the new replacement boat was in action but those are not due to start service for another few months. 

PopUp

Debbie spied a notification saying last minute popup concert for Queenscliff.  Five minutes later we are registered on their website and are going to the Jessica "wowboy" Mauboy show.  We have no idea what this is but there are three stages being erected at different times on the day. She was sent an email on the morning of the popup with more info. We got to town for lunch at the Esplanade Hotel, featuring steak and pies. Now that is a hotel lunch, not to forget two bottles of champagne.  We missed two of the staged areas but did wander along to the ferry terminal in time to see the stage set up outside.  So here we are standing on a sand dune with music on one side and the Rip behind us.  Now that is something different.

dune tunes

Stanley's Books

 I opened a box that was delivered yesterday from the auction house.  The hammer man describes the lot in a few sentences but you never really know what you are going to get from an auction until you have looked inside. There was the usual old albums but also two books. One of them an ancient looking catalog from 1954. Now this has happened previously as well, as I was sent another edition from 1984. So with the catalog I bought in 2019, I have an historic record to compare stamp valuations over time.  There is a theory that stamps only ever go up in value and I can prove it. Let's take the first ever stamp, which I can see was worth £3 in 1954. In 1984 for it has gone up to £125 and in 2019 it was valued at £375. So maybe it is around £400 by now.  Who said diamonds never lose their value. In my lifetime that stamp has increased in value by 13,200 %

1954

1984

The Taxman

 I have been retired for 11 years but never seem to be free of the taxman. For various strategic reasons we have just put in two years of returns one after the other. There is an amount we owe the Guvna, followed by an amount the Guvna owes us and throw in some Pay as you Goes that I got foisted with and a long standing payment plan then what we are hoping is that it will all balance out in the washup and one day pigs will fly with butterfly wings.  While I was in the Guvna's website I found the health card section which said the claim had been processed and there was an outcome except I couldn't find what the outcome was.

and we live at the beach as well

Clean Out

 It can't be called a Spring clean, maybe an almost Spring clean but a lot of paper has just gone into the bins. Last week two bins were needed for paper and a lot of it was shredded which can block up the bin quicker. There were files there going back 20 yar. I read somewhere that shredded paper was good for landfill as it promoted bugs. This week is no different two more bins filled with paper, mostly magazines and old stamp albums. I also notice the pesky possums are back now that the tree has lemons again. Why would the gnawing of lemon rind leave red marks? Unless there is some bleeding going on. I need to get a few off for the sidewalk market.

lemon chews still on the tree

Source Cachat

The Tour de France had the individual time trial yesterday and I am remembering the time we did our own three day ride around Lake Geneva. It was 14 yar ago and the first of our Swiss lake circumnavigations, the second one being Lake Constance.  They showed the drinking fountain and the Evian source yesterday.  We rode into Evian Les Bains a bit late but spent some time in the morning looking around before riding out.  The cachat gate was closed but at least I saw inside via yesterdays drone this time.  

Castle de Chillon

smoke on the water

a fork in the lake

source cachat