Ride Update

 Took another ride to see the latest on the new bike track. Along the way a fog bank descended but did not quite get down to the ground.  I also spied a canoeing group who were using the traditional Canadian style shaped canoes.  It was calm on the water but behind me was a stiff southerly which I was cutting into.  Too bad you cannot create an echelon for one rider. The bike path is progressing with long sections of newly laid concrete stretching out of sight.

calm with cloud

this will eventually intersect the ring road track

Dan Gindling

I received a few books recently, one of which is the 'Bicycle Stamps" book. I got it yesterday and I read it today.   It is not particularly long, being 140 pages, but half of it is illustrations and is also 23 years out of date.  I got it sent to me from the USA and is an ex library book from the East Cleveland Library.  There is a lot of info in it, like the world's first bicycle stamp was issued from Cuba in 1896. Now I know what to look for.  It seems hard to believe that the first bicycle stamp did not come from some European spot. They invented the bicycle 80 yar earlier.  He suggests there were 1200 bicycle stamps at the time of writing.  My research says that is now up to 1610. So I have another 1500 to go.   

The Status International people might help as I had my first successful bid with them yesterday for a box of stamps that weighs four kilos. That must be a lot of stamps. 

Cuba postman

Video Day

 We have had all the weather today, bright sunshine, fog and now rain. I was considering a swim, as the temperature is 21𝆩 but in the end I caught up on a backlog of videos that needed to be unloaded.  I have stitched a few together. Hopefully I have cleaned the black spot off the lens now.

Stiff Breeze

 The wind is still issuing from the South but has dropped to something less than a gale so we went for a bit of a ride after all the PB meetings were done.  It's too bad the mobile coffee man doesn't hang around into the afternoon.  We went passed the boat ramp at Clifton Springs. The fish gutting station is set back from the water and I always thought it was a barbecue. There was a lot of fish cutting going on and not a pelican to be seen. The lemons we placed out front are being taken. One woman grabbed at least six and could not juggle them. So she took a dog poo bag off the pole and used that.

Sunsets are starting to drift South of West

Fish Hands

lemon poo

Murder Room

 This book's title is bit too obvious and is a whodunnit that tries hard. If there was a butler in this book then you would know the culprit. Nevertheless it was worth a read. From the markings inside the cover it has been sold before from a secondhand place but I am not sure how it got here but it can go to the op shop when they open again. There are a stack of these books which all seem to have made it into TV films or series with Inspector Dalgleish. 

Beach Patrol No 783

 The wind is up and from the South. This can mean a bit of natural weed clearance blown from off the beach.  It is looking better but there is still plenty of the stuff laying around and a few jellies to boot. I went not quite as far as the Dell.  There was not too much rubbish around, some straws and small plastics.  On the way back I looked over the edge at the creek bed. For the first time I climbed down into there and picked out 6 plastic bottles and numerous other plastic caps etc.  Looking in amongst the trees I spied a pile of folded newspapers. Looks like local papers that were never delivered. Funny about that because our local paper has not been delivered for a few weeks now. 

cleaner beach

bag of bottles

Lemon Tree

 Lemons were starting to rot on the ground so the lemon tree was in need of attention.  We have been avoiding it as the thorns are sharp and the bees are loving it right now.  Mounting the ladder in the dirt had a slight sway but most of the really hire growth was lopped off.  There were a few lemony nicks after that. Sounds like a book I've heard of.  The actual lemons were big and a large tub was filled with them even after giving some to the neighbours. What is the collective noun for lemons? A rind of lemons?   The other thing we did was put up the new table. That makes about 10 tables we have about the place now.

lemon scent

black and white inlay tiled no less

help yourselves to lemons

Grappling the Horns

 The Orchid man has remounted our second fallen staghorn. The prices are going up. This one cost us $70 but it is a sturdy job that will last another 20 yar.  We did an immediate tag team with the MegaHorn being dropped off at the same time. This will no doubt be a longer job and it was sitting in the rain. He needs to let them dry out for a while before he starts to wrestle with em.  We have decided to take the last one down ourselves before it falls down. It is also quite large. The Orchid man is closing shop at the end of Orchid season next month so we have to stagger getting them remounted. We talked about our orchid chase at Inverleigh. He was impressed by the number of orchids we found. He says it is a $50,000 fine per plant for taking a native flower out of the ground. 

new board on the left - the last one on the right

Life Check

 I got a letter from Greg Hunt Minister for Health wanting to know if I was feeling OK after turning 65.  Nice of him to ask but I thought he might have been busy at the moment with the covid business. I decided to run thru their questionnaire just to see how it works.  They reckon they delete the answers as soon as you leave.  The main thing I got was ways you can volunteer. There are thousands of volunteer tasks out there however they are on hold due to covid.  

Last night we finished watching a show called Fargo. If you want a series that is unpredictable then this is it. The main plot was around two brothers who were having a spat over the inheritance of stamps.  The one who got the stamps became more successful as he sold them all for a fortune but kept just one. Moral is always keep your stamps as they may be worth something.

Season 3

Garden Update

 We are starting to get some strawberries from the hothouse setup. There are 8 different types of strawberry plant in there.  I have never noticed flowers on the lemon tree before but right now there has been an explosion of them as well as large lemons. Some tomatoes have been planted but not as many as to cause jungle like growth from previous years. I also noticed a box of plants nearby that must soon be dealt with, as well as a bunch of bulbs. We have given the orchid man a prod, as the downed staghorn has dried out a fraction. We may have to hose it slightly.

plants by the box

 

Sculpture unveiled

 I finished scanning the mega album. There must be around 200 photos in it. Putting it back together was another trick. The plant sculpture has been hung and it is quite a heavy creation but it still swings in the breeze. The  Chain of Hearts tentacles need a bit more beefing up. We are waiting for one of those windy days to see how much of a sway comes up. Debbie has had three days in a row spruiking the benefits of PB in the Facebook marketplace.  This was a joint presentation to PB and TOA (The Outsourced Accountant) database.  The TOA people could use some PB help. For a price.

Windy day at the Grampians - about 45 yar ago

Pelagia Noctiluca in plant

Photo Scans

 I have been wading thru yet another album of photos mainly to ensure there is a digital copy going forward. I think some of these may have been printed from a digital but I am scanning them anyway. The cover photos below have been individually removed, scanned and put back in place. But I have sped things up by scanning the pages thru their plastic covers. I have attached a couple and they still look OK.

Cycle Circuit

 It has been cloudy here for a few days. It was supposedly the PB day off but there were a few online events that needed attending to. After lunch we did a variation to the 16km circuit. There is a new bike track that we can see being constructed from the bypass road so we went looking for the other end of it. This trail alignment follows a creek thru a new housing estate. It will take us part way to the centre of Drysdale when its finished.  We spied a traffic island that was all in one piece last week but now it is completely flattened. Not much safety there.

Four separate barriers flattened

The new extension

Yiddish Policemen's Union

 This is the Hugo winner from 2008. My trail of the Hugos has now led me to this century and the more up to date winners. However I cannot see how this book can qualify as SCIFI or fantasy. I never liked it when  they changed the entry standards to include Fantasy in the Hugos but this one doesn't seem to be either. It is made up, it is make believe, but it's more your classic whodunit.  It is a good read and solving murders surely goes into the crime thriller class.  Yiddish is a dying language and the author was told off for making fun of it so he writes a whole novel bound up in the stuff.  It helps to have a Yiddish dictionary. 

They say politicians are speaking two indistinguishable languages these days - Yiddish and Rubbish

Attack of the StagHorns

 This seems to be a regular occurrence lately. This particular monster has been on the ground before. I rehung it by doubling up the fixing points but this time it came off the backing board. The orchid man is becoming a regular destination of ours. He is not the fastest horn backer around and he says he has not even started the last horn job we gave him, so now there are two queued up.  He tracked our back in a pack at the back of the stack, he was sorry to be slack but would get our back on track. Hooray!

horn attack

staggering

Street Library

 I got on the bike for a 'work it out as you go' ride. I have mentioned previously about taking a box of books over to the numerous Op type shops around here.  Most will sell you a book for $1.  While out and about I stopped at a street library. These are a small waterproof shelf at the front of a house where you can take a book or leave a book.  This one is bright fire hydrant red so you can't miss it. There is a website that co-ordinates this stuff but I haven't run out of reading material here as yet.  The next beach two over from us does not have much seagrass washed up at the moment so it is just the luck of the wind. 

There is a particular corner in Drysdale where I have previously been hit by a bird.  It hasn't happened for over a year but today I was dive bombed again.  I believe the original magpie has gone the way of the stuffed bird. So this must be a new antagonist. It went at me at least 6 times and right on the corner I stopped for a bit and a pedestrian got caught up in it as well. This bird makes physical contact so riders beware.

Clean Beach

help yourself to books

Delivery NOT

 I was meant to get a stamp delivery yesterday however the postie woman just put a card in the letterbox and drove off.  It was a heavy box consisting of  10 olde stampie albums but I could have lifted them out of her van while it was here. So instead I had to drive myself to the PO today and get them from there. Whinge Whinge. They wont take complaints at the PO as they are just a shop front. There must be a charity who syphons out the stamp albums from the donated goods. It's the only way I can think of how 10 separate albums from 10 owners get put into the same box. I am only about half way thru the last box but we are not going anywhere of late.

stamp box

Last night's sunset - the Sun is still on the move to the left a bit each day

 

Bombs Away

Nothing gets buy without being observed here. It might be a boat way out there or someone walking passed but you will be seen.  We have noticed some construction activity. Tugs tugging and barges barging. It turns out the navy jetty across the way is being upgraded and reopened for business after a $193 million dollar upgrade. It was closed in 2008 and all ordnance action moved to the top end.  We got the neighbours  here a while back and they had a photo of navy ships docked alongside there in 2005.  I would like to see that for myself. The upgrade will take another two years but after that they will be swabbing the decks over there me hearties.

Postal Election

 We filled out our forms today. The Greater Geelong council is one of those mega councils created to save money, towards the end of last century. It has been restructured three times in the last twenty years and this is our first say in it since we moved here. One of those times was a complete sacking of the council due to inefficiency, bullying, dysfunction and conflict. That does not seem like a good score.  There are 250.000 residents (expected to double in the next 25 years) so we have picked councillors who claim they can stick to the current number of new subdivisions without filling the entire peninsular with houses. Maybe they can spare some time to clean our beach.  I can't remember the last time I had to lick an envelope.

Asher likes the Blues

 I have unloaded a few videos from yesterday and while I was at it there were a few others queueing up from before that so I will spread a few out over the next days. We had grand ideas of trying a ride today but we just can't maintain the pace we used to. Mainly because it was Debbie's  so called day off on a Monday but the meetings did not finish until 11:00am and a snooze was required. We did dawdle over to the beach in the afternoon. We just have to use the beach as it comes so if its weedy then its weedy. 

Asher takes the cake

 Birthday season is still rolling on despite the bug trying to stop it. First stop was 'care giving' at retirement village 1.  Cakes and coffee, dropping off of chocolate, planting of rose bushes, delivery of wool, transfer of books, pickup of presents, checkout of knitting and general catchup. Second Stop was retirement village No2.  Shepherds pie and apple pie, pickup of photos, pickup of presents, drop off of lasagne and arancini, unveiling of balloons and general catchup.  Third stop was 'socialising in the open with no more than four adults from two households'.  This involved many presents, cake, candles, masks, dips, cheese and biscuits. The playground was quite busy but Asher insists on trying every item because the big kids were doing it.  In the end there was fairies, finska and frippery.  

Fairies in the Dell

Asher and Bluey

Beach Report No 295

 The beach report is not good.  The wind died away overnight so it was calm and sunny for the first time in two days.  I went straight over to the beach this morning to assess the mess.   It is worse than last week but October is the rainy windy month.  The tide was in at maximum and has clawed a lot of sand away again and left even more grass in its place.  Some years back we talked to the engineer who built this beach using three sand grain sizes. For the first time the larger more stable grain at the back is being bitten by the tide. 

Some beaches in Hawaii are nothing but black so we can adapt to this

Wind got hold of this orchid pot and rolled it

Stamp news

 It's still blowing here and has done for over 24 hours so we are inside doing stamp projects. The scarce numbers and not particularly valuable theme that I have been pursuing is bicycles on stamps. I have been wading thru various old albums I have acquired and there are plenty of maps on stamps and lots of Australian stamps that I am after but never many bicycles.  There are currently 917,917 different stamp designs produced in the world since the first in 1840. I wonder which country will score the 1,000,000th design. Of these, 1606 are bicycle related and my paltry quota is 113 bicycle stamps. Even when you are looking at the stamp you may not spot the bike, like the one below.  I poked around on the internet and ordered a book today titled "Bicycle Stamps" an illustrated history.  This copy is an Ex library book from the USA.  It was USD$6.00 and will probably be three times that much to post it here and three months to arrive.

spot the bike

Hedge Knight

 Game of Thrones has one but we have one as well and this one cleans out gutters as well as trim hedges. Before we let him loose though there was a huge harvest of Winter greens.  The hedge cutting and gutter cleaning took two hours for $150, better him than me up the ladder.  It all happened this morning before the rains came at lunch time. Look at those gutters flow.  We have two rubbish bins, two recycle bins but only one green bin.  The camellias were raining down when the trimmer was going and the bin was getting tighter but fortunately we saved a trip to the tip by cramming it all in.

before

during

Running a PB empire requires doing more than one thing at a time

Cabbage Rolls

 What to do with the one and only cabbage we managed to grow.   Cut up the smaller leaves and some of our home grown mushrooms, add some rice and minced beef  then lay it out on the bigger leaves and form it up into a roll. Very tasty it was.  What is the group name for orchids?  How about an orchard of orchids.  Getting the right names to the flowers is tricky. 

cabbage plate

These are thumb nail size or less

Blue squill

Shows the type of countryside but you cannot see flowers in the distance.
You need to be looking at your feet which is the opposite for navigation.