Collendina Report No 145

You'll be glad to know the current crop of two plovers are doing well. Seems there is  only a week to go for flight. Speaking of birds, we were attacked by a crazy seagull that persistently dive bombed. Otherwise the only other things are dodging all the new speed humps that have appeared, not parking the car on the grass and not using motorised scooters, hovers or pogo sticks. What is the collective name for a group of scooters?

Plover Proof

A propellance of scooters ?

Painting

Any house needs maintenance but a weatherboard house needs paint, roughly every 10 years and we have been around this one for 36 yar. I have done the job at least 3 times including the blow torturous effort which burned all the previous layers of paint off the boards.  Like the growth rings of a tree this house was getting thicker from the outside, until all of its growth rings were burned away.  In the latest effort, I have had no hands on. This must be another sign of the retiree.

Picasso at work

When things are tough

If it seems like you are surrounded by madness then get out side and have some fresh air.  And what better way than on yer bike. The bicycle layer on google maps is proving to be quite accurate. I did a loop today connecting the Main Yarra Trail with the Koonung Trail via the Ruffy Creek Trail. This last one is a start stop affair and I used some quiet roads in the gaps.  There were a lot of rough sections the further you go upstream on the Yarra however the Koonung Trail is a dream run with only one set of lights at Bulleen Rd.  Much better than contemplating that youth in Asia.

Swing Bridge  Finn's reserve

Michaela & Yelena

We revisited Hunky Dory. The fish and chips worked out to be $10 a head this time and those twins put away an adult share at least. We had to get there at 5:30 to beat the rush as there are still no bookings allowed and we needed a table for six.  Also this one near Puckle St does not yet have an alcohol license. Overall the service was Ok with big servings of good food.

That was a heaped tray full.

Picasa

For some years now I have been adding photos to Google maps as a way of tracing the route taken.  But from time to time the photos would stop displaying. I had been using the URL from Google Photos but these URLs can expire.  I believe these URLs are more like records in a database that can be searched and reorganised as required. In my database days the data is regularly unloaded and reloaded for efficiency.  However using Picasa Web Albums to view the same photos, this system uses a URL that references the photo with its filename. So far the URL has remained persistent. So I have just updated around a hundred URLs on all the grandparent photos I have been able to geographically place. I may have to go back to all my other maps and do the same thing using Picasa.

In my dancing coat

Port Melbourne Action

Nothing like a mid week trip to the beach. This time we bought a whole chicken and some rice salad plus a few travellers for two hours from around 5:00pm until 7:00pm.  The on shore breezes are tricky even though the temp is 29° but this does mean there is action for wind contrivances such as kite boards, kayaks and yachts.

Is that a winged keel?

Just passing

Spinaker

Uncle Jack's

There is a prominent corner in Ocean Grove that used to have a service station, which is now the Zebra restaurant. On the opposite corner the former Skinners Produce Store (1950 to 1980), later the video store (1980 to 2015), is now Uncle Jack's.  The food method was share plates and we had calamari, dumplings and sliders on three serves.  The food was good however five more servings of drinks and food kept coming to our table and sure enough this was all included in our bill.



Uncle Jack

Retiree's Ramble No 9 Anglesea to Bell's Beach

Its the 9th edition of the RR and some people are keen to keep the unblemished 100% participation record intact. Namely Bill and Ross. Along the beaches and cliff tops of the surf coast walk is a good place in to go in March.  We got up at 6:30 am and it was 20° but overcast.  Driving to Bell's Beach was only 30 minutes then another 15 min to Anglesea. The walk was 15 km or 22200 steps which took 4 hours.  There are some good high views of the beaches although long stretches of cliff line are fenced off due to the nanny state approach. We walked the length of the Red Rock beach but took the high route at the back of Pt Addis and Bell's Beach.

Back towards Anglesea



Ramblers

Much construction for the Bell's Easter Surfing event in two weeks.

Ginger Annie

Tried Ginger Annie (formerly O'Sullivans Irish Pub).  You'd almost call this a chinese food pub. The bar is the same, the rooms are the same, the tables are the same.  There has been some painting done but the food is certainly different. We had duck pancakes, rice paper rolls and a fried seafood mix with black bean sauce and not a piece of ginger to be seen.

Ginger Annie any relation to Ginger Meggs?

Clean Up Australia

We were a day late but we had this convenient broken bucket wash up on shore so we filled it with all manner of debris as we went to then from first rock.  The bin by the stairs normally gets emptied once a week but I think the plovers have suspended driving along the beach. Those Plovers.  I can remember Laura and James with their photo in the local paper about 25 yar ago cleaning up Essendon.

 7th Mar 1990

Collendina Clean Up

 

Jetty Snorkel

 Did some practice snorkelling yesterday down by the ruined jetty. We were having a good old time, swimming between the pillars and on out to the very end. It was not all that deep but deep enough for quite a few fish. Mostly clouds of very small fish. The biggest we saw was a fiddler ray that hugs the sandy bottom. 
 There was a guy there from the marine centre just down the road. He was cutting chunks of growth from the pillars for study purposes. He said he had to be a bit careful not to disturb the blue ringed octopuses that hide in the old wood of the piers. Its ok he goes" they are docile and only come out at night".  He says don't get bitten, as one bite will kill and is twenty times more venomous than your average taipan.

Tunnel vision

Leaning tower

Collendina Report No 243

The van update continues. I am typing this from workstation No2 which also doubles as the new bench for the TV.  The curtains are demanding the greatest time with much putting up, taking down, pinning, putting up , taking down, cutting, putting up, taking down, sewing and final putting up. Then you do it all again for the other half.
The plovers are taking over the beach completely. There are now weekly updates on progress, so far of the three nearby chicks, one died in the first week but two are still ok.



Blog Central

Plover City

Plover Update

 

Glass Den

We were in a hurry, it was chinese dentist time (toof hurty) and we hadn't had lunch and our next appointment was 3:00pm.  Happened to be driving past Pentridge and the Glass Den came into view with a vacant car space right out the front.  This worked out well but we did rush it.  The smoked salmon was good, the cappuccino could have been hotter.  The café has been conjured out of a walkway space in the no man's land between the outer wall and the inner gaol workings. Originally it had no roof so they have covered the space but left all the bars on each side and the barred gates. One huge door is now a table.  A quirky place worth trying again.

Gaol Bird

Door table

Land Lord

The last time I bought a property was in 1980. I bought another one yesterday, so that means its 36 yar between drinks.  We were always being prompted do more with the equity in our current house. No way. We are getting our millions via global domination, I say to them! So I always resisted the property approach as I didn't want another set of bills, running around after tenants, attending Body Corporate meetings.  And here we are doing exactly that.  The last three weeks have been dealing with spot fires on a daily basis, so now we just need regular timing.

Italian fittings, benchtops and appliances no less.