13 For Luck

Not sure if I have read Agatha Christie before although I have seen the odd film. Maybe it is "13 for Luck" for a 13 year old. This book has a plain cover almost like it is missing the pictorial dust cover. Instead the prim and proper thing to do is cover it in plastic.

13 Stories

Man U

The birthday that keeps rebirthing. The Manchester Unity building was built by some odd fellows. They wanted art deco and with a tower to make it Melbourne's tallest building in 1932. It was for the elite with a rooftop café and a basement restaurant with crocodiles. It has been refurbished by Australia's richest dentist so you can get your tooth fixed as well.  The tea party moved around the city to other rooftops and restaurants. You can spend days exploring the city centre.

Almost Gothic

into the Tower

Members of the Board

The bar

Wedding & Gourmet

These are becoming the regular Chiltern weddings, every two years or so someone is getting married and we make the 2.5 hour drive. This time to the Brown Brothers Winery but before that the lunch was had at Snow Road Produce which looks to be recently built. Directly across the way is the Milawa Motel. It was sunny enough to try the pool but we didn't get to it.  The ceremony was in the grounds of the Winery then it was a wander across the road to the big shed. I assume barrels would have been stored here years ago. The food came out finger style and was a high quality but it wasn't until the last hour that a large selection of platters was placed on tables.  The king prawns were huge.
After the dancing and speechifying was completed we fell into bed at 1:00am ish. Next morning was the big breakfast at Milawa bakery next door.  We got back at 1:00pm ready for an all afternoon barbie over in Mont Albert.

Produce Store

JarHead

Wedding Crowd

Brown Brothers Shed

Outer Circle Route

This route also has the name of Anniversary Trail. I have ridden the Inner circle route but this is the first I have seen of the outer circle.  Years ago I remember waiting for trains to cross Heidelberg Road at Chandler Highway. The bike follows the old route down to the Camberwell line. I went as far as Burke Rd but you can do a circuit joining up with Gardiner's Creek. The hailstorms didn't help today.

No trains today

BACS Remnant

The remaining stalwarts of BACS met last night which may be the last gathering before being fully absorbed by the Accounting Mothership.  The lease on the BACS office is running out soon and will not be renewed. Bernie was the only one missing from below photo. Il Parco is an Italian restaurant with lots of room. It looked like there was a backyard of sorts but I didn't see it properly. They were quite open to us putting meals down the centre and bringing extra plates for the sharing option.

Il Parco

Negativity

I have turned my attention to digitizing negative images. Not so simple. I went to the shop looking for a light source similar to what doctors use to check X-rays. I came back with an Epson V370 photo scanner.  However it does not allow for the much older individual negatives but it can do the film strip type of negatives. A lot of the positives are damaged in some way hence use the negative, however I am finding chemical reactions are gluing some of these strips together. I have struck some gold as below.  I still have to go and get a slim A4 light box before I can move onto the earlier negatives.

This game again. Hint: middle row

old style Air Traffic Control

Myki Cards Seniors Cards

I guess it is official when you get sent your seniors cards. I must be 60. Went to another 60th doo today and the talk was all retirement and cheap train travel.  As in my previous post I am a bit rusty on the trains and now I have two Myki cards. Those Italian Taylors know how to feed a crowd so we didn't need any lunch or tea. As I type this I have felt a tugging at my back and I can feel the most recent batch of stitches have protruded through my shirt. Good thing I am getting them out this week.

I contributed a choco cake

Jack's Magazine

I always wondered what exactly was behind those bluestone walls when I rode past on the Maribyrnong path. You could see it was explosives of some sort.  The bunkers are serviced by tunnels with tram lines that ran from the end of the canal loading bay. The gunpowder was stored here since 1878 and later was used in the munitions works higher up the slope. It seems the developers are circling but these five hectares of bunkers are being preserved.

Tramway for moving barrels

Last log entry was 1972

Lunch with MeerKats

It has been 20 yar since I was down at Werribee Zoo.  We just strolled into the bistro for lunch and we are still not sure if we were supposed to pay an entry fee but this zoo has improved heaps. And after lunch our car broke down and a lion jumped on the bonnet! See below! It is the closest I have ever been to hippos, gorillas and lions. Hippo teeth are huge and sharp not to forget wild African dogs who can devour a rabbit in 5 minutes.

Hairy Backs

Teeth

Prowlers

Resting on the Bonnet

Apex Predator

Getting the Treatment

We went down to the farm for a unique art show which was a bus tour around to 7 sites within the Western Treatment Plant (previously "the Farm").  The "Art Works" were orchestrated by Deakin Uni  and consisted of a footy match from the 1940's "Herefords" footy team and the half time address in the historic change sheds. These are the exact same rooms that I used in the 1970's when I played for the Survey team in the MMBW league when we got to the Grand Final. We also visited the Water Tower,  The Daleks  (Poo Beaters) and the Cocoroc ghost town swimming pool, which had been restored and filled for the occasion.

I played here

The Tower Display

Only thing in Cocoroc now is the pool

Poo Beaters

A Golden Moment

Craigieburn Line

I have revisited the train system. Last year I turned up at a station and didn't even know I had to own a Myki card with travel money on it.  At least I had one this time which now registered -$2.  We got off at Parliament which I had never used before.  Last time we drove into the city and paid $70 to park. So this time I figure we saved $50 to spend on lunch which we did at Buckley Corner. This is another of your modern décor restaurants with an all day breakfast. We also called into the BookBonding shop next door to the old BACS office in Buckley St.  Handy to have a new book shop within walking distance.

The Paris End

Buckley Corner

Digital Archive

The conversion to digital of all things photographic continues. I received two shoe boxes from Grandma & Grandpa.  I now have four sources which I have been converting in batches and rotating through each source, Eg Beryl, Patty, Shirley&Gordon as well as mine.  I have taken a shopping bag or a shoebox or a couple of albums at a time.  The Slide Era is not part of this project as they have mostly been dealt with some years ago.  The converted slides run from 1960 to 1990 approx.  Here are some photo examples

Yours Truly

Sister Act

Hint - Top Row and Middle Row

 

The Master of Ballantrae

I had this book on the shelves for so long I can't remember where it came from. This is an adventure  yarn by Robert Louis Stevenson who is a bit of an expert at writing yarns.  He wrote it in 1889 and this one covers the world from Scotland to India with pirates walking the plank in between. The climax finishes in the Adirondacks of New York.  Errol Flynn made his last film in 1953 which had the same title as the book but never followed the original storyline. This edition was a paperback of 192 pages and small print on now browning pages.



Note price in 1966 was 50c

The Club

This Club is in Caroline Springs not to be confused with the Deer Park Club down the road.  They are RSL like, serving pub type meals with bingo and pokies thrown in.  Grandma is 81 years young. I had your plain and simple lasagne but they serve large helpings.  These venues are way out west. I wouldn't travel to far to try them.

81 yar

YarraVille Food Trucks

Rode back to Yarraville gardens today. This time there were food trucks, three of them. Two hamburger trucks and an Asian specialty service. It's a BYO system which I did do via my back pack.  We had barbecued chicken and fried chicken, two kinds of chicken. Chicken and Chicken. It was quite tasty for $22. It took around 45 minutes to ride there and we had the wind at our backs on the way home. There was plenty of cricket to watch although it was no test match.

Food Trucks in the background

Yarraville Gardens

Went for a ride today since I got a bit of a sore leg, when a dog knocked me over yesterday. Another dog from this group tripped me up once before but I stayed upright. This time I went sprawling. From now on I'm taking a wide berth of that lot. There must have been at least 12 dogs in this pack.  Back on today's ride, I located the road where the food trucks congregate in Yarraville. It doesn't seem to be as organised as in Preston where they can get off the road, with tables and chairs and beer on tap. Next time I hope there are trucks there. PS What is it with ads appearing on bike tracks now?

Getting blood from a bicycle track

Suetonius

Just finished a book called "The Twelve Ceasars" by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. This would have to be the oldest book I have read. He wrote it around 90AD and covered the doings of 12 Emperors starting with Julius Caesar and finishing at Domitian. The style is more like listing facts. The book covered from 100BC to 96AD and most of these guys were assassinated. Trajan and Hadrian were the next two but Suetonius was living at the time of these so he didn't want to push it. My old mate Gaius Valerius Catullus gets a mention when he lampooned Caesar in a poem but Jules got him over for dinner for a chin wag. This was one of the books where Uncle Bernie filled in time by filling out complex Readers Digest forms. At least this one got read.

Hardback Folio Edition

Birthday Season

We have come to the end of another birthday season which begins from Sep 7 and runs to Nov 7.  This seems to usher in Christmas season.  I notice the cake standards are rising as well. (Ha Ha rising cakes, get it.)  I will have to peruse my Just Deserts book. The Danes v Vikings was a rivalry match in Finska where for the first time, it was the second team to get to 50 who won the match.

Backyard Finska

Ollie Oi Ollie Oi Ollie Ollie Ollie

Gov't Present

The Gov't sent me a Poo Kit for my 60th birthday.  How thoughtful. The instructions are complex with the whole operation requiring some skill. They must have known I pushed shit uphill for years when I was working out at Brooklyn Pumping Station.  We had that stuff by the truckload before we sent it on its merry way. The grass is always greener in Werribee.  There is a ghost town down on the "Farm" called Cocoroc. I played footy there years ago and they are trying to revive its heyday through an art show. Stay tuned.

MMBW Footy - Ringin getting a prize

Crappy instructions

The Travelling Bookkeepers

Yes its Pure Bookkeeping time again with another tour starting. That means I can get to the scanner without upsetting the office routine as the boss has left the building.  I have spent two hours getting 35 pages scanned but will need to spend at least another day cutting them into individual photos as well as a third day to get the annotations off which have been scribbled on the album page.

Pure Bookkeeping

Who are these Clowns? Note arrow.

Flying Brick

This place is named after Black Cockatoos.  I have seen them invade the tree outside our van and almost demolish it. I wouldn't call them Flying Bricks but their beaks could bite through a brick when you see the state the tree is left in.  This place is more restaurant than cider brewing as that happens over at the Jack Rabbit where we have been previously.  I had popcorn chorizo to share then smoked eel as well as a paddle of cider. (Yes that is the group name for cider - a paddle).  The ginger cider is 8% alcohol. The prices were reasonable.

The Big Cocky

Washed Up

Most days at the beach we start off with the morning jog. I always take the camera as you never know what might show up. We've had seals, dead ones and live ones, penguins, dead ones and live ones as well as the old favourite plovers.  The yellow peril was the most photogenic item. Today we found the pole. I think it is a huge aluminium stay that is meant to live under water but broke off. It will probably get buried along with the car and the ship's funnel that get uncovered from time to time.

Don't get this in your propeller.

Trick or Treat

I haven't really read up on Halloween rules or etiquette but in previous years we just ignored what was going on. Not sure if that qualifies you for a Trick.  Having started handing out the chocos yesterday it seemed to me there was never any consideration of the Trick. Every encounter was more like, here I am where is my chocolate? I was taking photos of kids and asking them at least to be scary in some way. Mostly it was a blank look and one kid wanted to know why his photo was being taken.

Confectionists