Big Blow

I waited all day yesterday for the wind to drop but it never did.  I spied some teenagers coming back from partying on the beach last night around 9:30pm.  I am amazed they lasted that long. They all disappeared into the house for hire.   We had a dream month of calm, sunny, even warm weather, with temperatures into the high 20s.  Whilst it is not cold right now our beach is a mess.  I could not wait any longer. I picked up after the teenagers who left at least eight cans.  The rest of the beach was strewn with washed up jetsom.  I only went 50 metres before the bag was full.  I had to squeeze passed some bushes which says how much the water is driving up by the wind.  A particular theme this time was boat repairs. I picked up a two part glue gun, a large spatula and other squeeze tubes.  There were six plastic bottles and tubs, many lids and tops, as well as two lighters.  Probably have to do it all again tomorrow. 

Cell 8

 I got this one from the Willie Village.  They have a lot of empty shelves and it seems to me there are plenty of books you can fill them up with but maybe they have a purge every now and then.  This is a whodunnit but with a difference as the killer is broken out of gaol before his execution and the plot involves working out wether he really did it.  There is a good twist at the end. It was deemed good enough to be made into a TV series of 8 episodes in 2022.  It is always better to have read the book before you watch the show as those producers often deviate from the original.

A good lie down

 Debbie had an ache in her arm so we called into the hospital on the way back from the Kaia show. Now this was already a long day but we managed to add another 5 hours to it by sitting around mostly just waiting. In the end what you want is that they don't find anything which is how it turned out. This ache has been there for a couple of days and no doubt after an all day Kaia effort it would have been worse.  She has a follow up appointment with the local doc but my immediate remedy is a soak in the bath and no computer.

Wind in the Pillows

I did another Willie Gym session.  There was another gymnast there this time and he was on a recumbent style bike machine.  I spent 20 minutes biking balanced by 10 minutes of rowing, with short 5 min recoveries.  I rode for nearly 8 km and rowed for 2 km, which makes sense as when ever I am riding passed those guys on the river I can catchup fairly quickly.  We started the Kaia sitting at 8:00 am and she has now gone for her sleep.  We are getting into a pattern here. Some breakfast followed by an hours play then outside to the park where the wind has abated a bit.  It was still strong enough to blow over a potted tree here and break the pot. Then it is onto the coffee shop, where she ate half a croissant.  On the way back she spies the playground so it is back in there for a second session. By then it is time for more food at 11:00am and sleep with a bottle at 11:30am. Phew! 

blow

Tree Loppers

We got the gardener in today before we went off to Willie. He was working on the olive tree but I think he got a bit carried away. There are whole branches chopped off now. It was supposed to be a haircut but I think ii is a bit bald.  The main thing was to keep it from rattling on the gutters. When we get to Willie the first thing we see driving in is that the gardeners here have really taken to the tree out the front. It is a crepe myrtle and there is nothing there but a trunk and a few branches.  They have done that to all the myrtles.  They are cutting our lawn so we are not going to bite the hand that mows us.

Pipes and Tractors

I have seen just about everything out the front of our place, maybe not a marching band but there was a lone pipe player trying to pump a tune against a fairly gusty breeze.  The video is a bit jumpy and the baggies were being turned in different directions. It makes a big difference to the sound when his back is turned. I have another video from the lake circuit walk we did. This one is a parade of old tractors. I think they are building up to an antique  machinery show on Father's Day so they were giving the tractors a cobweb removing test run.

Photo Distribution

We had one last go to clear the boxes this morning. I have already sent copies of this archive, as scanned digitalia, however the original source material was kept. So between brisk walking sessions and restaurant lunches and morning brunches there was a final 2 hour effort to divide and conquer.  In the end there were seven major piles and three lesser piles and a bin full of photos and frames.  Now we still have to bag it and tag it and send it on its way.  There is still the matter of the musings, memoirs, scribbles, the writings and the notes, which permeated all the boxes, folders, drawers and envelopes.  I have scanned a huge amount of these papers so far but another large batch was uncovered.  A lot has been done and we had Julie's fruit cake to keep us going.

7:30 am Day 1

11:00am Day 2

Tarra Revisted

 The final piece of the Rochford estate is being divided today in the form of half a dozen boxes of photos, frames and papers. These have been on the living room floor for 12 months. We have just come back from a late lunch at the Tarra restaurant in Queenscliff and now we are having a 4 o'clockers after dinner drink on the deck. We will get back to those boxes in a few hours.  The Sunshine almost made us set up camp on the beach right outside the restaurant.

Apple Play Not

 The Clancy's are back from a Euro trip and after an hour of mucking around with Apple Play on a Samsung TV last night, this morning we tried screen mirror from the Iphone and voila we could see their photos on the large screen.  We needed some exercise so we did a coastal walk along the new path and looped back to the coffee shop before getting back. Julie has made a you beaut fruit cake which has been half devoured already and we haven't had lunch yet. 

city on the horizon

Hooray for Fibre

 Yes the Optus man has switched on our Fibre connection after the NBN man installed the cable earlier in the week.  It means we don't have a landline phone any more but I have run the telstra speed test and connections are vastly improved. At least the test numbers say so.  Previously we were at 9Mbps download and 7Mbps upload.  I could never get above double figures. The test now says 116Mbps download and 21Mpbs upload.  The proof will be in the usage.  Eg Will we see that pesky stalling circle while trying to watch a streaming TV show?  Will it drop back to a hazy blur or stay clear?  I still have a problem with my PC preferring to use WIFI instead of the hard wired connection but I can live with that at these speeds. Debbie's computer goes for hard wired everytime but I have a more recent Windows 11 and that can make a difference.  

Land View

 I am always looking out over the water and there are times when we catch ferries that you would be looking in towards the land.  I have been spotting a boat who has been dropping anchor at least three or four times along our coastline this Winter and this time it was right in front of us.  I spied him going off in his dinghy. We met a couple once on the QLD island that Reg Ansett started his hotel on. This couple lived on a boat and were always on the lookout for a pub near a pier.  This boat is the MV Kele II and his putput was going into the Dell which has the pub up above.  

According to Facebook  (https://www.facebook.com/BoatPixMedia/?locale=es_LA) he takes photos of boats but our house gets into his pics so I am returning the favour.  It's canola season and it looks vast from the water view.

NBN Not Quite

 We got the NBN man back again and it seems you never get the same one twice.  The last guy quoted the rules about what you can and can't do. This guy was the same. We can't have the outside junction high up below the eve.  We have vandals in the area and that box will be a beacon.  "I see, I will ask my boss. No the rules say no higher than 1.2m."  Why?  "I don't know but that is the rule."  It was a lot harder job than he thought.  Uncovering the pit cover took an hour and was full of dirt and for some reason had to go to the next pit to get a cable thru. It was mud and slush all the way.  A second guy turned up and between them it was another four hours.  Good thing this is all a freebie. Now we are waiting for an SMS message to say it is turned on for use.  Can take up to 24 hours.

he had to go a lot higher than this both on the pole and the outside of the house

Letter from the Riviera

I mentioned a few posts back, about the lack of letters these days, so some weeks prior to that I sent a letter to Asher who is rapidly learning her reading and writing.  About 50 yar ago my note taking at RMIT destroyed any semblance of nicely formed writing that I used to have. If you wanted to take notes during lectures then you scribbled down what you could and the scribble stayed with me.  The below letter will be the first I have added to my correspondence box this century. In fact it is combined letter and artwork.

100% Asher's writing aged 5

fishes in the sea

No Fibre here

 I had booked an appointment for the NBN Techo to return this morning to finish the fibre installation. Daniel has prepared the way with a cable and power all ready to go. We have cleaned out three power boards and three power leads from Debbie's office after the new power point reconfiguration. No one turned up from the NBN.  There are no phone numbers to arrange this with, you have to go thru chat windows. I spent an age getting this appointment set up.  So I went back onto the chat window and after 45 minutes the guy says that NBN is not his area of expertise so is going to move me to someone else.  Then all the verification stuff starts again after the first guy says I wouldn't have to do it.  After an hour I gave up.  It seems todays appointment was never set up and I don't have a new appointment either.  What I did learn is that you need to ask for an NBN team member right at the beginning. Also they want you to do all this typing on your phone but they don't want you to talk on your phone.  

Update: after an hour or so Debbie had the idea of ringing up the Optus shop where we first went to get this done. It took three different people and another 30 minutes but we have a new appointment, we think.

 

Lots of Yachts

 If you need another sign that Winter is over then look no further than the Tassie ferry starting up again after a Winter hibernation.  We spied that boat heading out as we were riding down towards the jetty area. This was not the only water action. Yesterday a yacht squadron came passed as they were racing into Geelong and as is always the case, were racing back again this morning. Not a lot of wind but there was a lot of tacking. I got the video camera out in time to catch some of it and used the still shot button on it for the first time.  These photos seem to work although there was no Sun out earlier today.

these are coloured photos not B&W

Birthday Card

 Quite some time back last century, a group of us 20 yar olds was in Tassie doing a tour and some bushwalks as you do. We met a couple named Maggie and Loretta and I was digging thru my box of correspondence and found a birthday card from Maggie. It also had a letter attached and was written in 1977.  She later went to the USA and overstayed her VISA allowance but kept it quiet for years.  Security was ever tightening there and had to own up to her illegal status but a deal was arranged for her to return to Australia and then become a bonefide US citizen. I have not heard from her since.  I caught up with Loretta again last year at Josh & Alison's wedding.  These days it is online contact and no letters. There are jokes in this letter, one which I have reproduced

What's soft & white & flies through the trees?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .a Merangutang!

inside it said Happy 21st and arrived on my 22nd birthday

SagaLand

 I was reading about two Australians born in Iceland who met here and decided to go back and write a book.  The sagas are a series of 1000 yar old written stories about families in Iceland. I am not sure if I was expecting anything different to the Vikings show from some years back. The same approach to settling disputes is there, like using an axe first then pay for the damage later.  I kept getting stuck on the names of not just the people but the places as well. This book came from the Drysdale library so the system worked this time. Sagaland says Irish monks were the first to go to Iceland and mostly froze in caves. The first vikings arrived after them.

Little Teapot

 Kaia knows how to push all the buttons and whenever a phone is out she wants it to see any photos on there. Flicking from one to the next is no problem.  If it is a video even better.  I wasn't expecting this teapot to start singing but she knows where the secret button is.  The teaset is a bit scarce at the moment after the last move but we made do with a few old plastic shot glasses.

Kaia in the Swing of things

We had Kaia on the go since we arrived 7:45. First the playroom for 2 hours then the playground followed by the coffee shop followed by the playground again on the way back. Debbie tried to get some cash while I entertained for another 30 minutes. In the end I found a bank on a separate drive and by the time I was back she was fully asleep. Not sure how long it will last. The pram is a good activity. I have wheeled a track thru the backyard grass just happy to go for a ride.  We called in at the end of the afternoon to Asher's class room.  We have never been to her school and it is well set up.  The traffic snarls are nasty.

one year olds in the digital age

Tight Fibre

 Trying to get a better internet/streaming service in here is a bit of a pain.  There is an internal 20 metre cable that Daniel has run from the office area to the outside four bricks down from the eave but which is high off the ground.  The corner section of roof space is very tight.  The NBN man is going to place a junction box of some sort to connect this fibre to the one coming from the street but with recent vandals roaming around I don't want such a box at an accessible height. Back in Essendon there were three or four of these junction boxes all on the blind side of the house.  Here we are forced to install this one in plain sight. The next thing is to convince the NBN man that he has to go up a ladder.

Winter is going

As opposed to Game of Thrones where Winter was always coming.  If it gets to 20° then that is it Winter is over. I went checking out the high tide line for washed up stuff and found about 20 items altogether. Some small rope pieces, the usual plastic lids etc and a sheet of bubble wrap. I think that is a new one for this beach. There were some families sitting around with only the kids in the water, not the parents.  We have heard the landcare group is coming back for another clearing session this month so stand by.  The last video showed huge bird numbers, in this one I zoomed to a passing yacht and a single bird broke the surface.  Later there are two boats working the shell fish farm.

Vandals

 More likely they were bored teenagers looking for mischief to make. What attracted them first was the neighbours who had placed some electronic rubbish on the nature strip. What can we do with this they thought.  The fire hydrants in our area are under grounded but have a marker sign. They pulled this out and started using it as a kind of shovel in our front yard.  Then the large bird sculpture was dugout and dragged onto the front nature strip.  It was anchored by a number of rocks but they ended up on the front grass as well. So the large bird sculpture is now missing and Debbie is not happy.  We did have a similar problem in Essendon one time but this is the first issue we have had here in six years.  I went for a walk along the cliff line, as it could have been tossed in any of the grasses along there. The neighbours have not seen any sign but it is light weight.  As for the rest of the garden, it is looking undisturbed and at last the orchids in the middle court yard have started to pop open.

Here it is still in place.

Riding yes Curry no

This run of mild Winter days is continuing so we got the bikes out for a short tour of Drydsale. The new pesky roundabout at the top of the jetties is now open so it is straight riding thru that section now.  We stopped for the obligatory photo. The Naval pier is in action again and you can see trucks rolling along there unloading and setting up shop just across the way.  We continued on to Drysdale and stopped at the cafe near the library for an updated photo. I would not recommend it.  The snacks were plain eg the pastie had way too much curry. 

The Escape

 I got this book from the Willie Library and I don't think there is any time limit on borrowing however we are on a two week Kaia rotation at the moment so I may as well get books read inside that time frame. But when you add Olympics into it as well as Tour de France Femmes (Sarah Gigante riding) how are you supposed to read books.  This is the one I plucked off the shelf in the dark last time. It is one of those spy novels, you know, the one with the snipers, guns, double agents, WMDs, guns, car chases, murder, guns and explosions. I am sure you have read a version of it somewhere or seen it on TV.

PB New Release

 In a lot of businesses there is often a company blog.  There is no time for these niceties in Pure Bookkeeping.  Last night was a significant launch of the latest and greatest PB implementation course in Canada and the USA.  It is week one of a a four week course and everything went smoothly.  Behind the scenes there were many dramas. The PB course training program is a software development entirely by PB staff. The content of this is 100% Debbie's work being 10 hour days for months at a time.  Access settings were incorrect, but Debbie spotted a work around at 5:00am to get everyone going. The staff in the Philippines have now been chastised but this has to be done lightly as Philippinos take things to heart.  The Pure Bookkeeping process has a co-ordination element, now called Pure Work Flow. This software is not under development by PB but it may as well be.  PB have taken on a role to manage the bookkeepers using this since the new owners in Australia are now concentrating mainly on accountants.  Previously we were dealing with English owners via Canadian PB staff and all the time zones in between.  This is the 10th time the PB system has been totally revised and updated over the last 20 years.  Getting the system from a paper based manual to an online system has taken three solid years.  

Free Toilet paper

Ka  Ching!  I was at the checkout or was it a slot machine. I had just scanned in the FlyBuys card and my number came up. Congrats you have had your grocery bill reduced by $50. My bill was only $35 or so but that's OK we will give you credit.  When did these points cards start having real money attached to them? I haven't enjoyed toilet paper this much since COVID when we didn't have any.  Back then you had to scrounge for some old newspaper or phone book pages.  I forgot, there are no phone books any more, so we must have just held on.  Now I can't say I never win anything.

Fish City

 Now that I have the panasonic video replaced I should be using it.  There was a lot of squawks coming from the water and sure enough it was crowded with birds of all sorts following a fish trail.  There are pelicans in amongst this lot but mostly are cormorants and gannets.  If one gets a fish then someone else wants to steal it.  It is hard to pick up but you can see fish being swallowed whole.

uncluttered bush

Winter Wade No3

 I was tempted to try the water in the afternoon late yesterday but after already having an outing I let it go. However two calm days in a row with the Sun out. Perhaps Winter is on the wane. We noticed Spring clothes in the shops yesterday. One thing about electronic gadgets these days is the huge number of cables to keep track of.  I have left my watch cable at Willie Town. You can rig your phone to transfer power thru it into the watch and bypass a cable but this is messy.  We spent $50 on a gizmo that will take a watch, phone and ear buds at the same time. We have bought these before and have not worked well.  I went in for a wade and the temperature seems similar to the previous effort. 

Ahh the serenity

Inverleigh Bush

 We have managed to go outside today being a 5 hour outing including a pub lunch. The native bush at Inverleigh has become a favourite spot to wander so we walked part of it again. If you pick a Sunday then you will most likely have trail bikes to contend with, although we quickly melt into the bush land where they are not allowed.  Huge swathes of forest have been cleared of under growth in some sections.  There is a very nasty prickle bush that is mostly along the edges of the bush tracks but is spreading more each time we are there, so the clearance could be for fire protection and for native growth.  Some of these trees are ancient with branches ready to fall. The pub was not as busy so we got a table for two this time as previously we could only sit at the bar.

Stumped

Debbie is convinced a cat had peed on one of the bushes out front and killed it off. We did see a cat some yar ago but I have not seen any recently.  This bush was progressively turning brown and was more brown than green when I chopped off the branches last week.  This time it was the stump I needed to get out and my fingers don't like hard gripping of tools any more.  It did put up some resistance but I have had worse. Just for good measure I mowed the lawns which have been in a suspended state of no growth for a couple of months.

Kaia gets magnetic

 Due to Asher having a contagious eye problem she could not go to school, which means we had the double trouble Asher and Kaia show for our entertainment.  In the morning we bypassed the playground and went straight for the coffee shop. Before and after it was the usual spread your self on the floor, so for a while you get to sit on a chair at the shop.  In the afternoon the fog had cleared away so it was back to the playground for an hour in good sunshine. Kaia is starting to get into the playground equipment but with help. The floor sessions were mostly using magnetic building squares. These are tricky, where you can quickly build a structure but it will collapse at the slightest push.

Video with Speedo

 I have done a deeper read on getting a speedometer up an running during a video. The Gopro does record this information along with the video, however two yar ago they announced their editor was no longer available. So switching to the Garmin editor, which I have an old version of, they expect this data to be in a separate file. So I have a video with data but no editor and a different editor with a video and no data.  All along I have been wearing a Samsung watch, which not only records the required data but can export it to google cloud as a required GPX file for the Garmin editor. Are you getting this? However the other day I did not have it running while riding.  The worst problem in this episode is that the hardly used so far, only 6 months old Gopro, is broken. I only used it once on the bike and it was sent for off for repairs yesterday taking 4 weeks to get back.  I have also read that the GoPro people have seen the light and are going to release a new version of their editor for windows soon.  Now I just need to get the camera back.

This is yet another editor called Dashware