Training Day

At Willie, the Ilve oven has not been working for a month or so. The clock was working but there was no heat or dials lighting up.   After much twiddling by us and the local maintenance, we got a repairman in who took it completely apart, to get at a switch that was faulty.  That was a $350 fix but we had to do it.  After that I wandered over to the Gym for 20 mins on the bike machine and 10 mins on the rowing machine. Altogether it was 10km, 8km of it riding and 2km rowing.  The pool was vacant so I finished off in there for a leisurely 15 mins. Almost seemed like training for an adventure race but I have not done one of those for 17 yar.  I called in to the library and the President of the Residents Association got me into an impromptu meeting.  It was me and another guy. After five minutes I said since I was not a fulltime resident here I could not really comment. She had mixed me up with a committee member I looked like.  These old people (does that include me?)

last adventure race Anaconda in 2007

Jawbone Dropper

It was sunny so we went for the walk to the Jawbone beach. You might get anything from snakes to wedding dresses along here.  In fact it is not the first time we have seen a snake in these parts.  This slithering side slider went directly across the main path. The water was clear so I took the small snorkel tube and just eye googles to mess about in the shallows. I did not have the waterproof camera and further out it seems to have had a similar growth spurt of grass like back at the Springs, so I just stuck to the clear edge.  There were a couple of nasty spiked puffy floaters to steer clear of.  

                                                                 Eastern Brown Snake

Kaia Keeps Kool

With a Frozen ride that is.  It is a Kaia day today or a half day as it turns out.  We had some jobs that required banks and shops so we packed Kaia off to Highpoint. Now I have not been to this spot in 5 yar and it is still big. We needed two banks to close Beryl's old accounts which took well over an hour and Kaia was very understanding during the whole tedious process.  Outside the bank I resorted to a Frozen go Round and later a Kiddie cino.  Back home the fish tank is looking smart with its new fish. One of the fish was pregnant so there are about 20 fry hugging the rocks and lower reaches to keep away from the bigger fish at the surface. The parent fish are very attentive and aggressively chase anything that comes close.

Small Fry

Tower of Grass

 Two days ago we were down on the beach with Asher. There was not a lot of room and there were a few other groups around. We spied one of them, who were not prepared for the water. There were six in the group and for something to do they started gathering seaweed balls and piled them up to form a tower.  It is where they decided to do it that was the problem. There are two grassy patches that can be used and they filled one of them with seagrass.  It got bigger and bigger and of course when they got sick of it they just trudged off and left it there. I spent 5 mins dismantling it and then went to the other of the beach, where there was a smaller pile and removed that one as well. On the way back I had a longer go at the first pile which is now down to a manageable size.

Still got these to remove

Shoo Fly

The  veggie section has been done over again with some updated straw and with only two new tomato plantings. There are some self seeding ones but there will be no tomato jungle this time around.  The two new fruit trees seem to be OK despite the curly leaf problem. There are new nectarines appearing and the apricot tree still as straight leaves.  Not far from here is where I dumped the nasty mulch that was incubating a fly swarm last week. The flies were smallish and seem to hang around for a while. A week later we have a fat fly fest going on. Now these black bombers are gathering in the middle court yard and I am not sure if they have anything to do with last weeks mess. They must have hard heads as they keep battering the glass.

ground level roses?

flies all over this plant

Grandie 1 Grandie 2

It's the Great Grandie swap.  Asher and Kaia have been on a sleepover with the help of their parents, although they did spend a pleasant Saturday evening with a dinner date on the Q train. What I did not know is that the Blues train (noisy) and the Q train (quiet) operate at the same time on the same single track on a Saturday night.  They must do some nifty point changes. In the meantime we have had a beach day with Asher while Kaia court up on some sleep. Asher was making us some seaweed cakes with lots of decoration sprinkles and Mermaid hair.

Kaia has picked up on scootering

Water Lady Crash

 We have a gurgling water lady in the middle court yard that Debbie loves, however a hanging metal framework above came down breaking off some key pieces at exactly where the water pumps from. I have used one of those two part glues to get both pieces back together with the trick being to have the pipe already protruding thru the hole.  It says five minutes but an hour later it was still sliding around. I left it and went down the to the beach for a rubbish pickup. There was a cool breeze but I did get a half bag of small plastics and plenty of ciggie butts plus two bottles and cans.  When I got back the two halves were firmly held. Now I have to attach that back to the lady. How water resistant is this stuff? 

PS Debbie now tells me that she hosed down the table and another small triangular piece went flying. We started scouting around near the gratings and there it was jsut waiting for a passerby. Now I have to get that back in.

Cycle Express

 I have been chasing the first stamp from all countries that feature a bicycle. In Australia there is a private company that came way before the first official stamp in 1936.  Back at the discovery of gold in WA in the 1890's prospectors from the East charged over to the West and the post office there could not cope.  One of the locals started using bicycles to deliver mail around the goldfields. The attached comic tells the story better. 

PS. I got a reply from the Bicycle Philately shop. He has now closed it so my idea of selling some stamps back is on hold. 

I have tracked down the edition of Australian Stamp News which is April 1984 that this story was published.  I used to subscribe to this but in early 1984 I stopped to save costs.  Now I would like to back track and get a copy of this edition.

Rest Day Video Day

 Time for a rest day although there was a cleanup which was mostly done by Debbie yesterday while I was doing the airport ferry bit.  I have gone back to check on any videos that may have been overlooked.  These are a hit with the stars of the show lately. Some TV time always grabs their attention and also means some quiet time but now there are requests to replay things that have been done during the day, especially with them in it. I have a few more here from last week.

action shot

Travel Day

 We have to be co-ordinated today trying to tire out some grandies whilst at the same time gathering everything from one end of the house to the other for the packing process. We included a walk and playground session as part of this.  The next bit is to have them sleep for the 90 mins to the airport so that when the flight is happening it will be nice and relaxed.  Easy, snacks and relax.

Water Play

 It is warming up again. Today's first activity was a garden job that got abandoned when we opened the lid of the green bin and a horde of black flies escaped. Debbie got the grandies going to the playground up the road while I did something with the bin. I caught up to them when it was coffee time during an hour or so of swing pushing. As the hairdressers was right there another job was crossed off with a quick booking for two kiddie haircuts.. The rest of the morning was water play and there will be more of that this afternoon across at the beach.  Beach update: Just got back from a wind change that blew our beach session away, so its more water play on the front porch which is nicely protected from the Southerly.

Wyndam Cache

 The action has continued today with another Pre birthday lunch, this time it was grandma who will be 90 next month. However in order to get some beans out, we stopped off along the way at a flying fox race track where Evie is now an expert at working the whole contraption on her own.  We then proceeded on the hour or so drive to Wyndam Cache for lunch.  There is a lot of choice here foodwise, although there is no play equipment. However there is a grassy play area and 1,000 cabbages. You can buy any of the produce in the shop attached.  Right now there is another beach session happening but to quote Jethro Tull, I have been allowed to "Sit this one out".  I did change Laura's shower head from a water saver to a water pourer, in this case the pourer the better.

Playing with the Tap

There must always be activities no matter how much there might have been the day before or coming up, So this morning we travelled to PortArlington to the much used playground high on the hill with Bay views over the You Yangs and beaches. It might have been high but not so dry as they have a water feature there which is good for paddling on a dry day, not that they haven't been stomping in puddles this week. So they walked the creek bed in barefeet as well as using the swings and slides. Evie also started to pickup the skills of finding treasures with the aid of directional heat markers... you're getting hotter.

Charlie Pre 2 Party

 Since Charlie was here with a lot of his cousins then lets have an early birthday party. To average out the driving we we went to Williamstown and invaded the locals with eight kids under eight.  There was a lot of food and a lot of fun and a lot of noise. There are many presents that will not make it on the plane next week. Getting in pizza was a good move especially with the oven playing up after the last electricity outage.  After 90 mins drive back Charlie is cooked but it was a big day.

Geelong Show

 This has been on my list since we moved here and also since we saw a good session of fireworks from our balcony some 5 yar ago. Because Evie and Charlie are here you are always looking for things to do and the Geelong Show beckoned, despite the rain.  Three adults cost $30 each to get in. Everything was awash from carpark to seats, to rides, to feet.  We used two spray jackets of ours on the kids and we had umbrellas. We tried to stay indoors for the first two hours and the the second two hours was Sun and heat. There were many highlights like getting up and close to many animals.  The showgrounds here are bigger than Melbourne. Most of everything is bigger and less crowded. There is a vintage machinery shed that is a permanent attraction here and it is huge with large boilers running everything. As for costs two show bags cost $75, two rides each was about $75 total and lunch was about $85.  I would recommend this as a dayout but not if you have a tribe of kids.  James' dreaded $10 curly potatoes were there but we did not go near them.

Charlie loves Diggers

Real Digger

Licking the Rain

Two Days Two Grandies Two Beach sessions

 Well I hardly got them back here from the airport yesterday when the call went up to go beaching. That was a long day. This morning was no different. Just about every toy we have has been unpacked but then it was time for more beaching. So far there has been water play in the shallows and lots of sand pit style building with me doing a lot of water fetching.  Now it is quiet time with Charlie having some afternoon snooze and Evie getting some TV time. 

Re-Tire

 The other day when we went down to the beach there was a tire in the grass about three-quarters down.  It looked familiar. It was the one I dug out of the sand the previous week and when I went back to get it again, it was now all the way back down to the bottom where I started last time. At least this was a smaller tire compared to some others I have taken up. This is the first time I have done the same one twice.  This time the bin was mostly empty and I was able to get it through the opening and then inside. Good luck getting that back down the hill.

Curly Nectarine

 Our new nectarine tree has sprouted a problem.  You can still see developing nectarine fruits, especially towards the top of the tree but further down, the branches have leaves that are curled up, even knotted in places. The lemon tree was showing signs of this but seemed to pull out of it.  Whatever fungus is in the soil is showing in the leaves. I have plucked most of curly ones off. They almost have a lettuce like crunch and texture.  Debbie has spent two hours digging down to locate where the water spray uprights intersect the main pipe. These have now been replaced with the next size up, a sturdier and much taller spray tube which will cast water further and higher towards the trees.  Whether better watering is going help we will have to wait and see. Grow and resist. There is no sign of the curlies on the apricot tree as yet.

there is still fruit here but looking a bit stunted

Miniature Orchid Hunt

We have tried the drive to Inverleigh a number of times now, each time taking a new person and this time was one of our neighbours, Jill. The main thing to consider beforehand is making sure it is October, which we seem to have forgotten on the last few tries.  We stopped off at the pub for lunch for starters then preceded to walk it off. We covered around 5km but the walking requires concentration to avoid scrub and branches while always scanning the ground for the meerest hint of colour. We have had success only once before but this time we found 5 out of a possible 50 orchids that grow in this area. But those five are all star performers, as they appear as illustrations on the scoreboard before you set out.  Trying to zoom in on a moving plant the size of your fingernail with a crappy phone lens is another trick. I do have a few here.

Blue Squill

Red Parrot Pea

Tiger Orchid