Shotberries

 I have mentioned the miniature olives on our tree previously and was hoping they were just late starters and would get to their normal size.  Not the case.  This condition is called Shotberry and it has effected the vast majority of olives this time around. Shotberries are a pollination issue and are usually caused by adverse weather conditions during the flowering/pollination process.  They are hinting that just one season of colder/wetter conditons can do it but we have had three years of coolish Summers, maybe they are adding up.  The situation is not permanent and can often be followed by a bumper crop if the conditons are right.

Where's my cracker?

Valves ain't Valves

 I combined a bike ride with a massage as I have done previously although lately my normal bike park has been removed due to the new library being built in the centre of town.  So there are bikes stuck off fences, connected to poles and generally laying about until the construction is finished. I put mine on the side of a stairwell but locked it in place. After I came out and back to the bike, a dishevelled gentleman came up to me with my pump in his hand saying this fell off.  I had seen this group before I went in for the massage and they were still there and very loud when I got back.  

The swearing from this lot was putting the construction workers on edge. ( That gives you the idea).  Anyway another guy arrives with a bike that has flat tyres.  He says "I borrowed your pump" and can you explain that fff ing thing to me.  In the meantime the two women are swearing their heads off at these guys as not even being a bike rider's A hole or something like that.  

So I went thru the process of pumping his tyre which seemed perfectly OK.  He was happy with the pressure but I hadn't unlocked the pump as yet. Then they got animated as you had to do this part fast.  I tried to tell them that you don't have to do anything fast but they were pushing the valve and bending its pin and releasing the air.  By the time I got his fat fingers off it and did up the valve there was still some air in the tube.  

I got a long story about how he went to the Tyre Power store and they would not give him an adaptor for the service station pump??   Then he wanted to know where the bike coop was in Jetty Rd. So now he has the directions to it then he goes, "that's in the middle of nowhere"!  It was probably abour 1km away from where we were standing. 

Next time I will park some where else. 

High Water

 Nothing like a good sleep in your own bed after three nights at the Parc Apartments.  There was a huge flowering gum right outside our balcony there which gave Evie plenty of bird entertainment.  The tide was up at 10:00am this morning and the wind was a mere 10km/h so I went for my swim at a slow pace.  There was a small plate sized fiddler ray and schools of smaller fish.  You can just float there and they will pay you no mind. I took a fishy video but I am out of sync due to half the day being spent on birthday videos from the last few days.

                                                              Three videos must be a record

The Morning After

 We are in quiet mode here while Evie has her last minute sleep before getting onto the plane. This is an essential prerequisite for baby travel purposes, so all you new baby owning travellers pay heed. This room has been a good one for babies with the ensuite room giving more space for the portacot and us having a seperate room and another shower.  The kitchen area is tight but worked well. We used the cooktop as well as the grill.  Lots of entertainment was found on the deck with a huge flowering gum hosting all manner of birds.  A pool would have been good but you can't have everything.

Cocky or three

The Party

This one year olds party has been going for a week. Estelle had a rousing first birthday with lots of cousins joining in the fun. The spit always yeilds good results and James got a huge chicken and lamb combo turning nicely for around four hours with the temperature at 78°. The new deck did it's job and with a 28° day we needed the shade.  Overall it was kid city and we had to watch where we walked as there were 60 of us there.

CountryWide surprise

 Heidi's brother Matt and his daughter Elsie have flown in from WA so when we came this morning with Laura and Evie from QLD then this 1 yr old party has become a nationwide effort.  The final preparations have been made including the markee, the tables and 6 extra new chairs.  We got a quiet moment for Estelle to open her presents for yesterday and there will be more books going onto the shelves with the other 147. You can never have enough books. We have made it back to our Plenty road double apartment. Watsonis is a leafy suburb and we are backed onto the Bundoora parklands here.  I can remember bringing our kids here for cross country. I think I may have run here myself. There are many birds out side our windows here and they are used to bieng fed.

birthday horse

Settlement Day

 Did I also not mention that with everything else yesterday, it was also settlement day for the apartment at Doncaster. James had a long association there from building the whole place to buying one of them off the plan which gave him a good discount.  However our house was used as the basis for his loan so that is a total of 6 or 7 years of time dedicated to that aprtment.  Settlement came thru while we were at the zoo and it was high fives all around.  Straight afterwards we found the two banks we needed and took a bank cheque from one across to the other and good bye Doncaster.

Estelle's long necked adventure

 We got to the Zoo at 9:15am from Geelong. James and Heidi and her Brisbanite sister Kelly and daughter Lucy as well as other sister Trudy all met up at the gate around 10:00am. It was the first birthday outing for 1 year old Estelle.  One year old's can definetly recognise the large animals. Many were hiding but not so the giraffes, they were feeding on high branches then the zebra came over right in front of us.  The meerkats were the other front and centre attraction. Anything with a bit of fur she was calling a catcat.  The zoo seems to change everytime that I go there as I do not remember a big underwater seal viewing.  It is good to know after all the hard work that the Lord Howe Island phasmid is on display. 

such Meerkating

sunbaking Lemurs

rubber neck

Estelle points the way

Meerkats not the only cool cats

Collendina Update restarted

 Our old van park is in the news of late. It is up for sale and the residents are a tad in the dark about its new direction. There may also be a turnover of van sites as one thing is for sure the rates will start to go up to help claw back the new owners outlay. It may be years before there is a new owner so the Klyes, the Taylors and the Carneys are on a wait and see.  We did get to visit there yesterday and went to the Barwon Heads pub for steak night.  The old houses with the sea views are steadily being removed and the mega storied ones are being put up.  It has been 4 years now that we have quit the park and moved into our own sea view spot.

About 10 days ago we were encouraging Asher to get her bike upto the Ice Cream shop and back.  She had trouble turning, pedalling, breaking as it was all so new.  What a difference a week makes.

Estelle walks the walk

 Within a day of Evie taking steps Estelle has followed suit.  I tried a few times to get some video but you just can't rush it.  Debbie was hosing outside and that was very interesting looking out the window for a lot of the time but we did get some moments where she was stepping out.  It helps if the room is not strewn with obstacles like toys, shoes and rocking horses.

Asher Rockin Roller

 IT was the second day of low to the ground activities. These grand daughters need to grow taller so I don't have to get knee high.  The day was spent on the Barbie Bus, on the Circus Train and also doing indoor bike riding. That last one was not pretend and I have the video to prove it.  We have made it back and I am updating the blog on my normal trusty machine although that one is getting left behind in technology as well. There is a windows reinstall option for the even older Traveller machine that I take away but the catch 22 has kicked in. Please remove some files to reinstall but to do that I need a working windows. There is a bootup cut down version to try next.  

Asher does the splits

Estelle takes the bike track

In a pram that is. I got Estelle out for a walk while Debbie did some gardening work at Estelle's house. The new deck is looking good and now there is a newly turned garden bed at the front door.  We are at a newish Motel for us in Mickleham Rd. It does have a pool and we used it just now at 6:30 and 27 degrees.  I have had a hard time typing this as my travel computer got a fatal error when starting up so switching to Debbie's is tricky, as Google wants to verify five ways that you are a real person on a different computer. I have a photo but it will have to wait.

Cleaning the drains

Mr Jones again

 I'm digging deeper into my box of stamps and have found more items.  Turns out that the Officer in Charge of the various blood specimens is Mr Jones himself, who I think was also keeping the labels for his own stamp collection. He is also a chemist and went on a trip thru NT and the top of QLD. He wrote a letter to his wife on the 31/8/1959 and the letter is still in the envelope. See below.  The tour seems to concentrate on mining and the chemical procedures required.  Familiar towns are described as ramshakle, like Batchelor and the remotest place he went was Normanton where the letter was written. He says please keep the envelope as Normanton is a rare post mark. 

Other points were that Mr Ansett has just bought two blocks up here for a future tourist trap. He thinks fishing will be a big thing, as a 500lb groper was caught off the beach.

Floundering

 We crossed over to the beach around 2:30pm for ideal conditions. The tide was up for the entire afternoon and with only a slight breeze.  There were are few Saturday arvo people around but not too many. One group that came later were spear fishers. They were all kitted out in their gear and brought small eskies to hold the catch as well as torches and food to last into the night.  What is the collective name for a group of blacked out frogmen? I am going with a subterfuge of frogmen. They were a black V shaped wave of death heading out. Too dramatic?  One of them came in shore directly towards our camp. Debbie had to find out what was up with this guy as he struggled with a flounder that was still flapping on his gun.  In the end he battered it til it stopped. He said he was going to batter it again later at tea time.  It was a perfect plate sized fish.  One of the things I want to try is a night time snorkel. He reckons the bay comes alive after dark. We have also heard the blue ringed octos like to go out at night as well. 

Aqua Man

It's just like riding a bike

 Hooray, we managed to get onto the bicycles this morning for a short 14km half circuit of Drysdale. My pain in the bum problem has mainly healed over although there is a bit to go.  So we weren't sure if the bicycle ride would be even shorter however in the end it was well seated. haha. We stopped at the train station for the coffee van that is always parked there and so busy was it, that we could not find a seat. That's Saturday morning for you. I also have two photos below looking in the exact same direction. Not sure if I have noticed this before but the Sun and the Moon have both set in the exact same spot or does that happen every day.  Just looked it up.  It seems the Moon and the Sun will rise or set at the same point, only from time to time, depending on lunar orbits and equinoxes. Phew!

12 hours later Moon Set

Tea on the fence

Beach Clean

 We eventually got back to the beach after the long weekend for a cleanup walk with a rubbish bag in hand. There was plenty left over, like shorts, a hat and one only left sandal (expensive looking). There were also the usual butts, lots of em, rope, some bottles, cans and the weirdest was a stack of stitched flower petals. Obviously the flower has come apart and we picked up parts of it all along the beach.  It was a fullish bag but not too heavy.

the Sunsets roll on

The Officer in Charge

 Mick Taylor might br interested in this one. At first I was thinking this looks like a toe tag.  I have been digging thru an old box of stamps and often there are other documents like this tag. Normally I would melt it down in a hot tub to get the stamps off.  This event took place in 1950 and Blood Specimens are being sent to Sydney for urgent analysis.  I can tell you it was government mail by the stamps that have Perfins thru them spelling G NSW.  Also it was sent by train from Orange due to the train stamp attached.  

"Just get this down to the train station will you, it's due to pass through later today. And include the return envelope for the results. Maybe they will get it at the lab day after tomorrow, then allow two days for testing and results then another day to mail it back. Hopefully we will know if it is a deathly problem within a week, Mr Jones."

I will enter ths in the collection as is.

21½ pence to send. Now these four together are worth $2

Lemon Hog

 There has been a lot of garden catchup in the last two days including some new solar lights, a redesigned fairy patch and some more stone borders to keep the pesky minor birds out. Part of it was also a harvest of lemons. These have been maturing nicely and a batch of 20 or so went out the front last night. This morning there is not one left. We suspect one person has grabbed the lot. Some of them you needed two hands to pick up. Previously we saw a steady reduction of the pile. There is another dozen or so left to be put out but maybe we should trickle them out or put up a sign saying maximum 2 per purchase.  Do we have to limit lemon horders now?

Curly Sunset

Fairy Time

next batch

Rest day videos

 Yes we are having a rest day here. There is also a bit of rain about which helps with the indoor activities. I may still head across to the beach with a rubbish bag,as there will be some left overs from the long weekend. As we walked back yesterday it did seem like most people were cleaning up after themselves.  I have gotten onto the video films from the weekend.  The Asher family are all on board with Casey Jones at Port Arlington and there is also one of those one on one videos with Asher up close.

Asher storms the Dell

 Speaking of storms last night was a light show and a sound show but no rain show. Ir was all around us but not over us.  The morning dawned clear and the Asher show was on again.  By the end of the day I think she was properly tired.  We did walk her to the Dell and back and then got her down to the beach again in the afternoon.  She did get a sleep inbetween but I would say she will not last long in the car before nodding off.  

Asher's other ride

 It was a tight list of activities today.  After the trains and some lunch it was out with the bike for a mega uphill ride to the local shops for a visit to the Ice Creamery.  Once she knew what the destination was it was all systems go to get this bike up to the shops.  It was the longest ride she has had and coming back was all downhill but she also got the hang of the brakes.  After a mego sleep it was time for some beach action. The tide was out which was suitable for much digging.  We found pippies, snails, worm houses and muscles along with a lot of goey stuff that she seemed more happy to touch as the session went on. Storms started to thunder across at the You Yangs but we were still there ffrom 3 until 6pm. 

Asher takes the Train

 It was a long coming but the plan of ours to get grandchildren onto the train at Port Arlington arrived today. We had previously ridden bikes there and always on days when it was not open. Today was a long weekend with a sailing regatta but the queues for the train were not that bad.  You get two circuits of the track for your ticket which is roughly 1 km around.   They have 5 trains going at the same time in order to keep the travellers on the move.  There is a kiosk and a sausage sizzle. But after Daniel and Bianca's fund raising sausage sizzle at Bunnings yesterday, they were not interested in a sausage.  They sold over 1000 snags yesterday and could not keep up.

blue light disco

Casey Jones on the front

Asher at the rear

Sleep Time

 I have deleted the SnoreLab from my phone.  I did not want the payment amounts starting up, so I got it off. I was getting bored to snores with it anyway.  It seems there are many factors that will affect your sleep even from one night to the next.  They wanted a more accurate profile so the score could also be more accurate. If you did have a problem then maybe a years worth of records could be done. As it is, my score kept going down, the last one being 31.  It seems to me to be an issue if you have two people in the bed, who does it record?  

Let Sleeping Rays lie

 It was good conditions this morning but I also had to get the lawns mowed.  So as soon as that was done I went across the road to check it out.  It was calm, sunny and high tide.  Part the way along I spied a sleeping ray. I have seen this before and had the camera with me this time. They bury themsleves with just the eyes showing. You can see the outline and the tail. This one is a smooth ray also called a short tail ray. The only other excitement was diving for three golf balls.

The Stone Sky

 I have finished reading this trilogy, the first ever where each book won a Hugo three years in a row.  The series has concluded and the world has settled into a kind of peace throughout the land. There is an opening for another story in this timeline, as one of the key pieces was quietly submerged below the sea in a sleep mode.  These are worth a read and as usual you need to be paying attention, as clues to what's coming could be 10 chapter's back.  

SnoreLab

 I have installed an app on my phone which is a sound recorder. It records while you are sleeping and we gave it a try last night.  So you start it and place your phone face down. It ran for just over 9 hrs and takes sample recordings during that time. It took me a while to get a few of those recordings off of the phone and onto a hard drive then convert those Android type files into mp4 files so they could be heard here.  This may also be in the category of too much information but a few of the ZZZZ's can be heard below.  It is a recommended tool by dentists so I guess these are real results. The session notes say the snores were happening for two hours out of the 9 hrs of sleep with a resultant score of 41.  I'm still not sure what that means. The website said only 15% of people will score over 100 and they should seek treatment.  They will let you use it for a week then you have to start paying.  So I have a week to see if there is any consistency in the score over a those nights.

24 carat silver

 After the usual meetings and PB dramas we crossed over to the beach around 2:30pm. It was a bit blowy but Sunny however we did not venture into the water this time. I did go in earlier in the morning when it was high tide but concentrated on my 500m swim rather than spying rays along the pole line. 

There are many characters criss crossing the beach and this afternoon we pulled up a young guy who was methodically metal dectecting his way from the Dell and back again. We just had to ask if he had found anything. He has been detecting for four years and thinks that his best find was today. I can't believe the day we ask him is the day he has his best find. It was a silver ring about a metre down and just in front of the spa house from 100 yar ago. I proceeded to give him the history of the Victorians who took steamers to Clifton Springs specifically to take the waters for the health giving properties of its effervesence.  I think he was more interested in the money he might make. On the inside was stamped 24C.  It looked old and probably from that era. Check out the photos. It has a copper like circle and a silver set of balls, with a silver scroll work in a wider setting.   We said if he spies us here again to let us know its worth.

tucked back in the foliage

Detectoring

It looks 150 yar old

24C