Sounds like a waterpark I have been to however I can asure you it is just across the road and good timing when you have grandies there who have not seen dolphins before. One of these days I will have the snorkel in hand. In the meantime the new sinkies were a hit in the shallows and there was not a jelly to be seen, or felt. It must have been at least 30 mins of water play retrieving those sinkies off the sea floor.
Yes we have another list of tasks that all need doing with at least two volunteers. Why did we take the banana to the doctor? ....... because he wasn't peeling well. We seem to be tossing out bananas lately as they are ripening quicker than we can eat them. So get grandies to make banana bread. Simples! Also messy. We did have all the ingredients and they got to lick the bowl. While it was cooking the pool needed attention. Firstly scoop out some leaves, empty out the water, wipe it all down and refill. Now with grandies helping these steps need to be spelled out. It was good timing too, since the banana bread was ready after the pool had filled and they were ready for a sit down. Now to work out this afternoon's activity.
Back to Queenscliff we go to the same park and the same table but different cousins. This time we came with the lunch of chicken rolls, salad, sandwiches, hot buns, watermelon, grapes, blueberries, squeegy drinks and icy poles. Most of the play action was on the outdoor gym equipment although the playground came into it later along with the climbing tree. We finished off on the beach for 90 mins before a quick packup to get the cousins onto the ferry. All in time for me to get back for a five minute doctor call to get a long standing prescription renewed. There must be another way for this but so far chemists just can't give it to me.
The Coast Guard service is a volunteer one like a lot of other services around here, so we were happy to put in the gold coins and we needed numerous coins for numerous buckets. This day out was a well organised effort considering they had not done this sort of thing before. I talked to the Fish police about the red/brown jellies and they were trying to suggest they were Lion's Mane jellies but I could not convince them otherwise. We moved on to face painting, magicians and resusitation lessons. There was time for ambulance tours,rescue boat tours and fire engine tours before the hungries set in. For the second time in a week or two it was fish and chips in the park with a post prandial beach and pier walk to finish. Phew!
We started off at the playground and the wind which has been blowing for two days would not let up and it has been the same all day. There is meant to be research somewhere that says kids in the school yard become much more unrulely on windy days. We have been inside for most of the day however these grandies have found their own entertainments, leaving the adults to gaze wistfully out to sea. A visitor had the temerity to park in our view. Not on this watch.
The Bingo game is still a winner around here but it does not seem to be lasting past two cards worth of concentration. So how to extend the game. Estelle came up with her own idea of spelling out all the words on each piece with the tokens provided. Except that it is one token only for each letter of the alphabet. We start out ok with wombat and xray, so I say let's try some harder words like astronaut which then involves making extra letters and they have to be round and they have to be black. Now we have easily passed my 30 min marker on the activity scale and there are plenty more words to get back to.
The council men have been hovering about for the last two days and I can report that the beach path has been fully repaired with a new bitumenised surface. I thought I would take a look but I may as well bring the put and the snorkel if I am walking down there anyway. I did a few throws for my first of the year and my right side felt reasonably loose. I also checked out the jelly situation. This time I went in at the closer groyne. The jellies were about but not as many as the other day. I still retreated when about 10 or 12 started to surround me. They seem to devide the available space like people in a train. A couple came up to me who I had seen wandering around. They wanted to know all about it. Did you see anything? How do these grass balls form? Where is the artificial reef? What are tourist guides making per hour anyway? I picked up a big poo bag that was very recent. They didn't know that tourist guides also cleaned the beach.
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| black poo bags get hot quick |
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| sticky black top |
I got this book off the internet after seeing a line about it being "the best book written about sport ever." High praise but I must say, it is up there and I get the gist more because I have ridden a bike and done a few races. Those who have not ridden a bike may try to after this read or not. A quote from the first page, "I have seen those cafe dwellers as I ride along who have never ridden and their empty lives shocks me." It took 20 plus years to get translated into English but you can see what he is describing 50 yar ago in todays races. This is a no holds barred insight into what happens during a race, mind games, torment, pain, exhileration, accidents and weather. Krabbé started racing in his late 20's therefore was always dealing with the young guns and the stalwarts. The race incidents are illustrated with disturbing factual accounts, as when a race rider looked back as a car was coming. Like in 1971 when the current Belgian World Champ Jean-Pierre Monseré, wearing the rainbow stripes, looked backwards to gauge his lead as a car drove onto the course killing him. Krabbé went from Chess master to bike rider to writer and back to chess again and then rode 80km on his 80th birthday just for fun.
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We were on the deck trying to answer the lateset set of 25 questions when we were interrupted by the dolphin dance. Such a good thing everytime you see those guys just out there. We have not spied them so far this Summer and although not in a hurry they can get out of sight quickly. There were a couple very close to shore which reminds me that we should take post prandial walks along the beach but be ready with the snorkel at a moments notice. I have been on a swim with dolphins in the bay before but I went to them. By the time I was in the water they would probably be 200 meters away.
The good news is that I think I solved my leaky breather problem. It was a bit overcast so the view was not as clear and I was confronted with many of the red brown jellies. I tried to make my way towards the end of the rock groyne however the jellies were massing like areoplanes. HaHa. I am still not sure if the sting is an issue however this time there was no clear path anywhere so I backtracked to get out. It seemed like a bit of a trudge back so I got the rubbish bag out and filled it halfway. This was the first rubbish haul since Christmas so a reasonably clean beach after the hordes have all gone back.
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| sand is being sown with grass |
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| a poo bag, shredded tennis ball and plastic bags |
I have been urged to read this whodunnit due to it being sited in and around a retirement village south of London, given that we have experience of village living. Having read it, there is another connection here as well, being the nearby town of RobertsBridge. Now this is the town we were informed by a local when we were last there, that the surname Roberts came into usage. This was because the founding priest named Robert, who everyone seemed to work for, had his name attached to them eg not only was it Robert's bridge but also Robert's field and Robert's baker.
Back to the book, there are plenty of funny jibes at the retirement village scenario. My favourite is the chair committee who immediately requested I be part of the group, seeing I was in my sixties and a young buck at that. The book involves numerous other groups, the most feared being the parking committee however the smartest is the Thursday Murder Club. As for working this one out before the climax, good luck, particularly when there are multiple bodies. There are more in this series and this one has made it into film, so now I will have to chase the rest of them. At least the library had this one.
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| I think the cover could have had more thought. It seems the fox represents the cunning of TMC |
Now this is a new one for me. I just got back from a not so good swim as I kept getting salt water in my mouth. It was clear water when I started but closer to the rock groyne there was a lot of floating grasses. I tried a few things whilst in the water to no avail. Now that I can see clearly now the water has gone (song variation?) there is grass caught way down in a small valve at the bottom of the tube. This is totally encased in a plastic cage however my stamp tweezers could reach down in there and clear the grassy stuff. Hooray for stamp collecting. I still need to test if this was the cause of the seepage. I also saw a sheet of roofing that has washed up. I am still dealing with an elbow issue after hauling up another piece so this will have to wait.
We had a final session at the playground in Portarlington followed by a lunch in the old butchers shop now called the Staple Eatery. The play area was busy but not to crowded as Evie could move from one area to another as they freed up. Her climbing is non stop now. The water pumps also held a lot of attention. Across at the Eatery this was very busy but we did get a table, even though there was plenty of food at home and the bike riding just happened to be on. They do a good meatball sanga here. Later we dropped them at Avalon. Now this is a way more relaxed way to fly. No queues and state of the art everything complete with free parking. Our only problem last time was that Jetstar cancelled our flight. I believe there are penalties now for sudden cancellations.
Seeing this blog is the Retirees Occasional Blog Of Time (ROBOT) then it seems to me that I need to dwell a bit on the waiter that served our food last night at Ramen & Rice. I also subscribe to an IT newsletter and Robots are all the rage. Each year they get more of a human shape and with better capabilities. I guess you would judge our waiter as one of your early models but it did the job and the grandies were very impressed. I found some more MOPA photos from yesterday as well.
This is a building that started out as a church over 150 yar ago. Since then it has been a drill hall, cafe, art gallery, brewery and now a playground. We booked a two hour session and used every bit of it from lego dams to illuminated book stories. There was also many electronic tricks, including dance floors and computer generated art. The most unique thing has to be car painting. How often do you get to paint a car.
We need to bring out all the tricks and paper planes is always a winner. If you have parents where aeroplanes are ingraved in your brain then bring out the paper planes. Evie would have to be the most plane travelled four year old in Australia. I am not sure how you can check that but I am sure an AI somewhere could go it. We got the flight path organised down the hallway and like anything it gets fast and physical. It was a good 30 minute shoot out and then I needed a sit down. Four year olds can do it for hours.
It is a 50kmh Northerly heat shocker right now and the temperature at 43℃. Good thing I took Evie to the playground this morning. She has improved heaps in the climbing activities. There was steady progress across all the nets and ropes as well as getting to the highpoint against the far pole. Getting down seemed trickier but managed to do it. Outside I have battened down everything. The wind is strong here during Winter but it seems worse when it is a hot blast. We have already heard that fires have started. I wonder if plane flights will be grounded as Evie is meant to be joining Mummy today.
