Food Glorious Food

What can we do to see out the financial year? Not that us retirees know anything about tax returns. Lets have an 85th birthday party.  I didn't think it was going to be a full on roast with crouton meatloaf.  Not to forget the cauliflower soup and cheesecake dessert.  We wont need much tea tonight.  In the end we swapped plant presents ie we brought a plant in a boot and took away two plants, one for Nana, one for us. After that lot Grandma was going to have a sleep as well.

An old boot

Roastie is Toastie

Roll on Winter Sun

Yet another complete sunshine day and what garden hay can be made while the Sun did shine? That is the catch cry I have been hearing all this month.  And yes, for the last two days Debbie has been at it on a quite physical redesign of the pathway leading to the front door. This is the second time in a year that this path has come in for attention.  The opportunity arose when a dozen large pavers were uprooted in the previous front yard overhaul. The new design eliminates any grass being a part of the walkway. The look is very symmetrical and all the puzzle pieces were found in various stashes in the garage, without the need to cut a single piece.

Before

Aerial view

Happy Paver

After

More Winter Rays

This time more of the sunshine variety.  I just had to get the bike out for another quick spin. There must have been 100 cyclists on the short section of rail trail that I went on today. In the mean time the around the corner garden bed has been completed. Just a few screws here and there to hold up some pots and also some decos.  Then the planting has finished it off.  In the veggie section we have noticed the first cauliflower and also some peas are sprouting.

Winter Rays

The kind that swim not the kind that shine.  There was plenty of Sunshine as well today which is why I decided to try the water.  It was calm with very little breeze and you could see clearly for best foot placement.  The tide was a bit low so to get waist deep you need to go out to the grass zone. This is also where the rays like to snuggle into a sand bed.  I was really only having a soak rather that trying to run the length of the beach.  However I did go a short way until I got to the ray beds. I do wear clear beach shoes but I would most likely injure the ray than the other way around especially if they are asleep.  I was stepping all around them but they were snoozing not cruising. 

Sandy Ray

ByPass Day

The wind died and the Sun shone so I got the bike out for a short ride. I went over to see the state of the train tunnel.  The controller said I could ride thru and they would just move the tractor.  I said I would wait until it was officially opened. She goes that will be next week. So Tuesday is ByPass Day supposedly there will be no traffic driving thru Drysdale.  The staircase provides upper access nicely.  Bikes have to take the ramp.

SunSet No 338

Sand bagged seaside

Finishing touches

The Hidden Bed

Just when you thought the garden was settled, the design in place and the decor all complete, there is that area around the corner that was a bit of a dumping ground while the main action was happening. This has now been cleaned up and there is a proper bed under there that has been dug over between the rain squalls coming across today.  We used three different green bins from three houses to shift the pile of green cuttings that had piled up there. So more bags of compost were unloaded but the rain is hampering so no doubt this will continue tomorrow.

Plane Yard

Fin Tips

Squalls

Before Shot

Asher and the Chocolate Box

No Asher did not get into the chocolate box but I did. That is after I checked out two shoe boxes which had much duplication, eg pull out one envelope and it contains say up to 100 copies of the same stamp.  I tried a chocolate box next and this time there are individually wrapped stamps of significance. So a jackpot of sorts.  You never know what you are going to get.  

Two eyes sunset

The small box

A discard bin which I expect to overflow

Via Dentata

Two events to get excited by. We had a new toilet installed. There was a silent dribble down the bowl sending our water bill up. I am just flushed with that success but there was also the visit to the dentist.  Nothing like an outing to get you out of the house even if its down the via dentata.  (Tooth Road).  I had a filling done, a scale and clean, a fluoride coating and a general checkup for $60.  Dentists are cheap in the country.  It seems my use of tooth picks is ok but I am too rough and damaging on the gums.  She recommended I use a Pikster. I've never heard of it either. It seems I need a size 0. What are these baby teeth?  

Stamps by the Box

I had a delivery of stamps from Sydney.  This is a source I have used twice now and this lot is a mega tonne of stamps.  Two large boxes packed tight with smaller containers including 10 shoeboxes, cigar tins and chocolate boxes.  These haven't been opened in years. The envelopes inside the shoe boxes are crumbling with age but when you do get to the stamps they are still in good condition. I have also stepped up the stamp technology by installing the stamp identifier app on an Ipad Mini.   You can take a tight photo using this App and further crop it of all excess edging.  Soon after the stamp is located in the cloud and information displayed about it.  There are other versions of this type of thing to identify plants, bugs etc.  

Stamp Identifier  -   Rio Muni is in Africa

Shortest day Sunset

Stamp Mountain

24 hours ...

After last nights Queenscliff dinner date which was eye fillet steaks all round at the Q360 restaurant we thought that some exercise was the best thing this morning.  Especially since we had  a brunch reservation for 11:30am.   The ride was a 14km circuit of Drysdale but that did not stop us getting a coffee at the van at Drysdale station.  We made it back in time to get to the Bungalow for the Soldier's breakfast which was more like an early lunch.  During which we finally cracked the Google Blogger Comment Publishing Mystery. (See previous comment for details). This was a saga that had been ongoing for a couple of years.

Curlewis foreshore

Bungalow Bills

SunSet Drinks

We have visitors on the terrace for the never ending birthday.  As well as garden walks and beach walks and sunset photos.   Sitting on the deck worked well as there was only a slight breeze now we have to relocate for a Queenscliff evening. 

Garden Stroll

Beach Stroll

Orange You Yangs

Final Garden

The finished arrangements were applied to both the charm gardens and the charm bracelets.  The charms were sent away for a deep clean. There was much ooing and ahhing when they were put down on the bench at the shop.  It seems the staff had never seen most of those other countries before.  The final loads of compost, rocks and pebbles etc were unloaded yesterday and seeing we have been having two weeks of sunshine the whole design has been completed in quick time.  I went back to the new Dell to see what the council was up to and the area has cleaned up quite well with the removal of all the weedy underbrush.

the Last load

Charmed x two

rockery

The Water Method Man

I found this book was all over the place and I recommend that men should not read it especially if they have had peeing surgery.  There is a scene in the book set in the urologist's office. I have been there, I have had that experience. I have overheard the same nurse asking the same questions. I have sat in the same reception room watching the other guy holding on with a desperate eye for the nurse. He is doing the target and power test.  Then there is the guy with that smug look of I have finished my surgeries and I can pee when I want to.  This writer, John Irving, must have spent time in the urology office to make fun of it. 

I agree with the author, drinking as much water as possible does not flush away ailments

Early Start

It was supposed to be a rest day but more Canadian/US presentations had already been planned so it was a 5:30 am start.  This start for us gave them a mid afternoon time slot over there but it does vary depending on which coast the licensees login from. In the afternoon there was more shaping, shifting and planting in the front yard. I went for a short ride as the sunshine was very inviting. The new bypass road must be close to opening as it looks complete with landscaping.  Another tractor has appeared on the foreshore with a nasty looking mulcher on the front.

last night's Sunset was calm and an even grey

Succulents lined up ready to go

Now what?

The Sixty Tooth

Contrary to much confusion about a mosaic poster on our wall which says  happy sixtieth, that time has passed.  It was still a working day for the first half of it with a special 200th podcast edition of the "Successful Bookkeeper" going out to Canada and the US.  Some of us have to work.  We went to the Fyansford Hotel for lunch where we met Ross and Franster. It was the first time she had been allowed out for some months due to her being in the most at risk group.  This was typical large Pub meals. About 6 or 7 yar ago I called in here after I rode the bicycle leg from Ballarat to Fyansford. I made a mental note then to try this pub but it has taken this long to get back.  In central Geelong we did some Pandora shopping for a new bracelet and then finished off with Wombat Gully plant farm and bought about 15 small succulent plants.

Now there is a bracelet on each hand

It will take another 10 years of travel to fill this one

Clifton Clearance

I went out the back to hang some clothes and was attacked by a Triffid.  It seemed like a Triffid  all gangly limbs and suckers that I got caught up in. I was informed that this was a succulent and that Debbie was driving along and saw it on the side of the road so thru it in the back of the car.  This will form part of the succulent section it seems. She has been watching instructional YouTube videos like success with succulents.   

I went down to the beach just now to spy out why a large earth moving digger should have chugged down there yesterday.   I thought it may have been sent to clear a silt build up.   When I got down it could not be seen except for tracks.  After 10 minutes I located it well back from the beach in a bush area. It has cleared huge swathes of  growth right to the cliff top and along various gullies.  Maybe it is a wild fire fuel reduction measure.  

Read "Day of the Triffids"

Just waiting

High Tide Grass Balls

Asher on Video

I have been emailing to and fro to the Database man that I bought the stamp database from.  It is stalling from time to time.  One tip I found is that Windows 10 has a default defrag of the C: drive scheduled every week.  This may or may not be the issue.  In between emails I have been unloading videos from the weekend.  This machine works perfectly rendering videos and other intensive processing but the database stalls. I have now upgraded The Office Access to 2010 to see if that makes a difference.

Hurricane Asher

It was exactly a 24 hour visit primarily as an early 62nd birthday but any excuse will do to stay over for a night. The weather was reasonable but we only got out and about this morning.   Yesterday, we got out the old car set which is like a 3D jigsaw.  Cheese, wine and sausage rolls during the afternoon followed by a few games of pool with the new pool cues which James got from North Geelong.  The lasagne went well as did Heide's carrot cake birthday cake for tea.  The presents were all about the garden. We have the mobile garden bin and the kneeler cum seat as well as the tool apron. Everything for the complete gardener.  More pool until midnight meant we could hardly see the balls at the end.  After bacon and eggs it was off to the Ocean Groove for coffee and some beach action.  And during all of this Hurricane Asher was waltzing thru.

New Pool Sticks

                                        

Get out of the way kid we're playing

Duck Cuddles

Full Flight Striker

Complete Gardener