Meetings did not finish until 4:00pm but we still wandered over for 90min on the sand. Very warm too, as it was calm even though it was 20°. The cladding has gone down on the walkway but it is still blocked off as there is no railing as yet and also the local minister has not had her photo taken in front of it. We saw a tentacular fish stranded on the shoreline which was changing colours in a rippled display. We got it back in the water but I am not sure if it helped.
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| cladded deck |
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| last night |
This is the second book in the Inheritance Series and they are not getting any lighter. I have just got the the third one off the shelf and even for a paperback it is a bit of a brick to carry around. The saga has continued and for some reason in this story we have not met the main bad guy yet. There are always underlings that need to be dealt with. Another reason the third book is much heavier seems to be a switch of publisher to DoubleDay, that must mean double the size of the type script. Good if you have poor eyesight, bad if you have crippled fingers. I do not have the fourth book so I have just placed an Amazon order. It is going to be sent to a pickup locker. Why not send it to your address?
Our fridge is too cold for strawberries as they tend to freeze. I get them out in the morning and some are hard and when they thaw they turn to mush. It seems to be a problem on the vine as well. Last night there was no cloud cover and it dropped below 10° but I noticed some had a similar softish squelch with a bit of brown to them. There were still plenty of others that were under cover from their foliage which were OK. Over on the beach this afternoon we had it to ourselves but were invaded by the flying cobweb. We have seen this before and there seemed to be some very small spiders attached but what arachnid is sending this stuff into the air. There was also some major burning off sending huge smoke clouds up. Maybe that started the spider web invasion.
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| Smoke stack |
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| world weird web |
This board walk is a magnet for us and we can't help ourselves. We did a beach walk and noticed the workers were there doing a bit more of this and a bit more of that. We marched right up to discuss the goings on. Don't blame me says the builder, it's all the council's fault. He says the sloping ramp was a design change demanded by the council, which took four months to fabricate. He also says that the steepness of the ramp is not within regulation. We went back there at high tide and can see why the council changed the design as the rectangular approach would have been submerged at high tide. As it is the beach keeps changing shape and this option was under water as well. This guy says he makes heaps of money off the council. He is their go to man for anything that is marine engineering. He has laid hundreds of red gum stumps in the Barwon River as fish habitat. He has built bridges into water filled quarries and now walkways out into the Bay.
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| The Man (who doesn't like engineers) |
The COVID scourge defeated us today. It seems the staff at the testing centre weern't even aware of the extent of the queue for tests after the orange zone was declared in Brisbane. They couldn't understand why all these people were there without any symptoms. Because of the influx the results might anywhere up to 48 hours so we just went home to do the isolation part. On the way to the airport I did spy the half ironman event that I was going to ride to before the covid stuff. Looks like there were many competitors. Now we will just have to sit tight at home for results.
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| competitors |
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| bike turnaround |
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| Airport Kangaroos |
For the second time recently premature babies are doing it for themselves. Estelle came along on the 25/03/21 weighing in at 3.34Kg. Now we have to go to plan number 97b seeing that Debbie is in Brisbane and the covid police declared all Brisbane a yellow zone yesterday, which means testing and isolation in Melbourne tomorrow. Fortunately we already changed the plane to the earliest flight which means there is a chance of a midday test with a two hour result turn around meaning that we may make it to the hospital for a visit in the evening. Phew. I am sick of covid messing us around and taking the focus off the real stuff. At the end of the day we have a healthy grand daughter who has got lots of hair, so let's go with that.
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The skies have cleared a bit so it's swim time again. The water temperature is still ok however the seagrass was stirring so I did not do my longer swim with the facemask but it was ok for a lounge in the water. I spied a change in the boardwalk from a long distance so went over there for a closer look. After 4 or 5 months of nothing doing, work has resumed on the walkway. Mind you there was no one there working on it today. Maybe every weekend is a long one. At this rate it will be another 6 months to finish.
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| not quite sunset |
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| this sloping ramp appeared last week |
We have had various internet outages here as we all do, however tracking down exactly where the problem lies is the trick. I always suspect power problems can cause other issues although we have the proper trip switch here. Last night during the internet card session the router just froze up, so the game went on hold until I could reboot it. Previously I had gotten a new router from Optus at no cost. These days they are modem/router/switch all combined. This one also allows me to plug in a hard drive turning it into a NAS drive to share on the network. I already have 6 Terabyte of NAS (Network attached storage) as I added a new drive only a week ago. The new router is working now so we need it to stay that way. I haven't tried streaming anything yet.
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| Optus Black Box |
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| This was my other job today, dismantling the Foxtel duplication link from Upstairs Downstairs |
The ballet classes are in full swing and with proper leotards and tutu no less. Before we got to Asher's house there was the inspection of the new carpet which has replaced the now banished blood soaked version out of Nana's house. We put the bed back as well seeing we were there. Overall it looks neat enough. Back at the Asher show it was all a gogo until it was sleeping time while we had some lunch. Debbie checked in at the Alexander Hotel before heading to Brisbane tomorrow.
It has taken a while to get this typed up today as we have had no power again this afternoon. It seems to happen quite regularly and I was trying to get the video camera unloaded although there was not a lot to show as it turned out. I did selvage some bird action and a close up of the ferry we use from Port Arlington which was way off course.
Didn't have a very good sleep due to possums running over the roof. This has occurred a few times and does not make for a good day the next day. The staghorn man who has remounted our ferns was at his wits end and decided to cut down 6 huge gum trees overlapping his roof. I don't think we are at that stage as yet. I also spied the Port Arlington ferry way off course yesterday. For some reason it came straight at us and stopped just below. It was a bit windy but not that bad. I have never seen it in that position before. They have to do regular sea tests in different conditions.
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| grey sky grey water |
The wind was blowing this morning as we were going to do the short ride to the market again but we went anyway. This time we tried the coffee van with the proper machine which was much better. The stalls were also a bit varied which says that not every seller comes every month. The one we did spy last time was the UGG lady. Turns out she lives just around the corner from us and is going to hand deliver my UGG boots on her way home from the market. I have picked a size 10 which is tight but the wool compacts over time.
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| The Hit Van |
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| UGG |
I was reading about a new sculpture installed towards the end of last year and for some reason I had it my head that it was at Point Henry. This is a road I have wanted to try, as the gynormous 2 tonne sea lion Henry, that used to make yearly visits, was named after where he first came ashore, at this point. However this is a rather desolate spot, very scrubby and industrial, although there are lots of waterfrontage and some quite different views of Geelong. There was no sculpture. We had packed a picnic lunch as well so we had to find some where else to eat it. In the end the sculpture was just down the road from the concrete couch I featured on this blog a couple of years back.
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| You Yangs view from Pt Henry |
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| Geelong view from Pt Henry |
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| Moon Phases in Marble |
We have been waiting for AmartMan for some months, he is a furniture super hero, except after all this time he rings up and says I will be there in less than half an hour. So mad scramble to get the old table out of the way. It takes five minutes to bring it in and they are off and we are left with a wall of cardboard boxes. This table is huge and can seat at least a dozen grand children. We had to turn it at right angles to the old one for the best fit but everyone gets a view of the Corio Bay. We will place the old one on the sidewalk to see if it goes otherwise the council will take it.
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| boxed |
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| unboxed |
Lets get back to a bit of normality around here. Which really means dealing with the usual meetings that finished around 1:00pm then all the phone calls about one thing or another. But by the end of the day we did spend two hours over at our beach from 3 til 5. We mostly had it to ourselves as well for that time. I also raided the garden again for some more strawberries, cherry tomatoe bombs and some black russians and yellow perils.
I started this morning around 10:00 am but the traffic was reasonable so I made it to Essendon Fields for the pickup at 11:45am. Beryl is moving from rehab care to respite care for the next two weeks. We had to gather some clothes and then shop for a few more like socks but we also took time for lunch at the Coffee Club. The Respite place reminded me of a cruise ship. Attendants were coming and going. I counted at least 8 different people who came into the room for some introduction of their service. The activities guy came in three times to explain what was coming up. Two TV men came in to get the TV going. I was expecting the gardener to come in about the hedges just outside. We have now made it across the Pacoe Pub.
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| settled |
I have done some mowing and a cleanup on the same day. I probably should have split them over two days but I've done it now and Debbie will not be here til tomorrow. However a clean scene makes us all serene. There might be time for a quick swim but I might just have a snooze instead, as I also have a round of cards this evening. The sunsets are still worthwhile here. I tried something different for sunset photos this time around.
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| orange and grey |
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| a telescopic sight |
After four days of nurse maid to the awning, it was time to get out a bit. I did a quick beach patrol for recent rubbish and I can report it is still reasonably clean even though I haven't done a cleanup for a few weeks. I got at least a dozen cigarette butts, one can, some old thongs and numerous small pieces of plastic, as well as the inevitable golf ball. Also got out on the bike for a ride down to the jetty. We have been gliding passed this area along the tops but have not had a close look at the expansion. This time I went right down to the ends of the breakwater. No real seating here though. Todays last effort was another forage for produce. I got one good looking zucchini and a tub of strawberries and tomatoes.
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| old jetty |
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| new jetty |
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| and a Black Russian |
Turns out there was not enough power getting thru to the motor on the awning. This is because the power lead was caught up inside the canister and being wound up ever tighter thus easing the plug out of its new power point. The engineer claims the sparkies must have dragged the cable into that position. I thought that it may have been that way from the beginning as there was a huge length of cable with plenty of slack and that the sparkies can only cut off for the new closer power point. Anyway after two visits and a dismantling he got it unwound but also replaced the power lead. In the mean time I was keeping busy nearby with some plant watering here and some tomato plucking there. I have booked tickets for Debbie's return on Wednesday so this garden has to be ship shape.
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| Sun's northward march |
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| Succulent City |
I have been having a tug of war for the last three days with the new high tech awning. I opened it about half way to shade a row of chairs last Friday, then around 6ish I tried to close it but it stayed stuck open. I tried all three buttons, open, stop and close but still nothing. The paper work mentioned if the LED was red then the battery power was down. There was not much wind so I left it overnight and in the morning it had extended out to three quarters open. I went to four shops before I could find the right coin type battery and I bought two for good measure. Before I swapped it out I tried one more time and got a little hint of closure by 20 cms. Having changed the battery I was confident of it working. This made no difference with the battery changed. I rang them up but they do not work at the weekend and a storm was coming that day. Fortunately there was no wind with it just lots of rain. I was sitting inside around 8:00 pm and the awning extended all the way out by itself. No remotes no button push. Why do we need a remote to open an umbrella.
PS It turns out the red led is for the motion sensor on the blind not for the remoteI took this book to Brisbane with me last week and it has taken this long to get it read with all the goings on. It is a multi volume story that Laura left behind when she moved to QLD so now I have gotten around to reading it. It is one of those Game of Thrones type stories and I bet this author read the first of those to get a few ideas, eg dragons hatching from eggs but also here we have shadeslayers rather than kingslayers. Still it is a good effort for a teenager straight out of school. It helps if you have parents that own a book publishing company. I remember there was a guy at the MMBW who used to play footy for Collingwood. As an after footy option he wrote a book, but publishers said he had no established name as a writer and refused to publish it. It is a good thing I have volume two of this story because there is no pausing here. Volume two starts in the exact scene left standing in Vol one. As usual with a bit of success this has now spanned out to 5 volumes, the last three of which I do not have.
I started plucking a few strawberries, as the produce had been ignored for a week. The first section was straightforward, as well as the other strawberry bed which was also just a case of leaning in. Then it came to the cherry tomatoes. There were a lot of these and many were hidden. I had to climb in and try not to stand on others that were ripening. I was balanced in awkward positions for periods of 10 minutes with legs starting to burn. Some of them were so ripe I would burst them when trying to pick. It reminded me of "They're a Weird Mob" when the meringues were crushed by heavy hands. I tried to shift position with tomatoe juice dripping off my fingers. There were tiny black worms on some so I just thru those out behind me without looking. These hit the brick wall but the worms went with them. The bed next over were the Black Russians and the Yellow Devils. These were really hidden but there were only a few to get out although they were at the back of a thick jungle. There were also zucchini, about 5 or 6 of them on the fence. It had been an hour getting these out so I left those for tomorrow. I have been eating cherry tomatoes like chocolates all day.
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| Huge harvest |
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| I thawed some frozen zucchini slice and added a pan load of cherry tomatoes |
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| Also did another swim. Very calm this time around. |
I did a short swim yesterday and the beach was totally deserted. The water is a tad cooler than those pools in Brisbane but it was very clear except for the breeze slapping the water around a bit. I also got out the video camera which I did not use so much this time around. However there was one Evie clip, the first of many no doubt. She is relaxing on a pillowed lap. How placid is that?
This idea did not work as I thought. The hotel TV was quite old but did have one only HDML port. The problem was the freebie WiFi. They gave us 1Gb per day which I was using for blogs, maps etc and also was limited to one device only. Debbie's mobile phone plan has a huge quota but she was using it for the daily meetings etc. So it seems you may have to buy extra capacity if you bring a mobile streaming service with you. There were many bike rides to watch during that week however they have been stored up as a replay so I can check them out this week. We did do a couple of our own rides.
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| These were heavy and chunky but cheap and convenient. They were old school, as the motorised scooters were everywhere. |
Travel days are often long days however this time around the drive was way longer than the flight. Just over two hours to fly from Brisbane and around three hours to drive here, twice normal. There were three accidents along the way which slowed to a crawl then stop start until you got passed. I still got here around 5:00 and then made a quick trip down to the beach to check out the long week end damage bill but it all looked fairly clean. I did pick up an eski that had been thrown n a bush. Looks like lots of washing of sheets and towels has been done today. Mystery guests have even gathered the mail and emptied the bins.
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| low tide clean |
Yes the new pram arrived today and it got its first workout with a short walk to the dog park. All of these deliveries were timed for the original date which is still another 10 days off but here we are two weeks old tomorrow. The nurse is very impressed with progress so far, especially getting back to birth weight so soon. Debbie is staying over tonight as we have booked a nearby hotel. The jobs have dwindled so that means there is more baby time. Hooray.
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| perambulator |
We walked over to the 'Lagoon' for some quiet reading and wading. We were there early around 9:00 am so we had it to ourselves however it wasn't long before the toddlers started appearing. It seems to be set up for kids at both ends and adults in the middle. We went off for coffee and the most decadent chocolate soufflé I have ever eaten. Good thing we were off to the bike hire City Cycle rack. We got two bikes and this time went upstream. Many repairs were happening to the boardwalk over the water style path. We had to find our way without signage. We crossed on a new bike bridge to the city side and found our way thru to the path on the opposite bank. We stopped at the Botanic gardens for lunch on a seat by the river with good views. I had previously bought the same two egg and lettuce sangers for lunch from the deli the other day. We went as far as the paddle wheel boats and then turned back to the hotel.
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| death by chocolate |
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| it's more modern on its side |
The jobs keep getting ticked off besides getting a meal ready. The garage is cleaned out requiring a trip to the tip. This was the big ticket item, although we did not need the voucher, as all the items were recyclable on this 'Clean up Australia Day.' The new table was assembled and Evie had her nails done. I guess this will happen another 2716 times in her lifetime.
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| Of all the baby gizmos I like this one the most. |
We got casual passes for $2 each at the bike station. We did two rides both just under 30 minutes around to Storey Bridge and back. The trails are crowded with motorised scooters (all the rage), bikes, walkers, roller blades etc. We stopped for iced coffee and watched the passing river traffic. Lots of it. There is a company here that can reserve parkland for picnic spots later in the day. How rude.
