Flip Out

 These all running, all climbing and all bouncing places are springing up like mushrooms in Winter. No matter which one you go to they are always packed. This is a new venue for us and whoever built this string of warehouses must love these guys as they have bought out the whole row.  This place is huge and the whole thing was covered in kids. You used to just bounce around. There is more neon here than Times Square.  Asher and Estelle were all over it for two hours. There was a section that required helmets but these two need to grow some more. A good place on a wet school holiday.

Finger Mold

 Session one today was the cutting off of the cast around the finger. Now this surgeon did not want that thing to move. The finger man filled his waste bin with all the offcuts, layer after layer of padding. We got down to the actual finger which looked messy but alcohol swipes soon cleaned it up and some movement is already possible without pain.  A splint was molded out of a synthetic board that melts and reforms around any shape that you want. So instantly there is a hard shell that fits the finger perfectly which can be slipped on and off.  There are a lot of stitches still in there.

I count eight stitches

Navel Gazing

The second session today was more accurately described as "through the navel gazing". Some yar ago I was offered a film to take home as a souvenir of the extraction of my prostate. I said I did not need to see that.  So now there has been a revisited edition of that film. You could call it "prostate that was" with an appendix called "appendix that was' . So the doc is happily taking me on a tour of my insides. Here is where your prostate used to live. Look at all that scar tissue. Now I am moving your colon (:) out of the way so I can lasso what's left of the appendix.  There is a river of green muck here that is flowing down, see that.  Now watch this as I bag up the severed appendage and slip out this little hole.  He described it as acute and very fast spreading. 

The Sun has set on this saga

Deer Park Club

 This is a sprawling venue that we have used for birthdays previously. It is an effort to keep up with these 91 year olds and this time we had the conference room booked out for exclusive use. The whole place was going off and I don't think there was a free table. Huge screens were showing the World Cup and for the kiddies there are two play grounds, as well as face painting and balloon puppets.  I recommend the spare ribs. I had a half rack pork pack slowed cooked for eight hours or so.  We finished with birthday cake and a reminder about putting the date aside for a 100th in nine years time.

we are lumberjacks and that's ok
eat the food and run away

The Fickle Finger

 Yes the Fateful Finger has been pointing at us lately and for quite some time. How to get that finger pointing somewhere else?  Hospitals always take longer. It will be late in the afternoon they say, sure.  We got back around 8:00pm last night. As usual the surgeons change their story once they have had a look inside.  Last week it was unexpected puss and degradation, coating otherwise healthy organs which needed a good flushing. This week it is more damage than was originally thought.  I had to chase deeper he says, repairs were more complicated he says.  Good thing these guys know their stuff.  The whole arm has been immobilised. The affected finger is still comfortably numb.

She wanted to spruce the garden beforehand

how do you sleep with this thing?

the race is on

Finger Pointing

 Deja Vu was in full swing back at the hospital again.  I got as far as the preliminary interview room before going home to sit it out. Same pack drill, same questions, same answers except it wasn't for me. Debbie is having a finger gouged, straightened and plugged.  Now we were supposed to be on a boat right now but because we weren't this procedure was brought forward.  I was told to wait it out for at least 4 to 5 hours then do the pickup.  My fingers have plenty of buckle in the knuckle and are worse than hers but mine are not leaking. 

Eureka

 This is a Geelong pub that has a had a resurgence. It was fairly roughhouse back in the day.  This is the second time we have been here in a month, so it can't be too bad.  I recommend the guiness pie complete with peas and mash.  I tried to get one of these the first time around and on this occasion there were plenty available. Four of us at $35 per head including drinks, can't get much better. We took a look upstairs at the rooftop bar. This would be your nightclub venue of an evening with plenty of leather couches and a huge bar. We should go back and pretend we are on a cruise ship right now.

lathered in leather

Aerial View

It has been calm as here for a few days and if it is pleasant then the gardening overhaul must continue. A neighbour bailed me up while I was coming back from the beach and announced he had found another gardener (me) for the cause. He was told this area was off limits so he went on his way.  We are going to borrow the neighbours green bin. They have artificial grass for one thing and its an airbnb as well so that bin has never been used. I have the new designs from above.  Moving tons of rocks around is more like landscaping than gardening.

It is hard to compare this still scene with the wind scene

Seniors health card

 This seniors health card looks alright. It cuts down chemist costs and maybe some other perks.  I can just muster enough energy to type this blog after the nearly three hours of trying to get thru the online application process. I never got to the end either.  First I had to go through the digital ID process which involved my phone and an app and various documents. This was about an hour or so but eventually worked.  Then it was getting Centrelink attached to the MyGov and getting a Centrelink account, this was another hour.  Now we are down to the actual application process which involves questions about everything including how long you have lived at the current address and for some reason that is where we got stuck for 30 minutes as no matter what we did we could not put a date before 2022, which is 4 years to short. We decided to move on with the wrong date. They did not seem to care. By now Debbie is fully involved as it branches to allow for a second person to apply for a card as well becuase the answers are almost for two people anyway.  I got to the final document upload where tax assessments are required but now have to wait for the taxman to get back to us.  To be continued.

Midnight Line

 There is extra reading time at the moment with the doctor's orders.  I am moving around and doing a few pushups and situps without too much discomfort. I ripped the covers off the wounds which has freed up my movements even better. There are three holes to go with the scars I had previously collected but right now it is a series of black blue belly blobs.  The latest novel I finished is another Reacher feature. Now there's a guy who does not even acknowledge a few scars and stitches. This book presents a slightly tamer version of Reacher. Yes there are a few bad guys who got their noses rearranged but overall only a short body count and Reacher was not the culprit either.  This was mostly paying homage to returned servicemen and women and their readjusting to life in the burbs.

Shortest Day swimmers

There were three cars together containing five swimmers. I was expecting them to have pointy hats and runes painted all over but they just went in for a swim for 10 mins and then headed off again. It was the calmest of days and very clear water. One of them said the water temperature wasn't too bad. I have been accused of that exact same phrase outside of Winter.  I also had the rubbish bag and there was plenty of the trashy stuff. By far the most numerous items this time were rope pieces. This seems to be a theme lately and some of them were heavy duty knotted coils but also short and cutoff. The usual plastic bags and small plastics were there as well. The bag was full and heavier so I left the remainder.

Knot rope

Rope II

Phillip Parker King

 There was one stamp that had been waiting to find me for years. I had a charity box that I bought which could be a hit or miss.  I opened one of the albums and there it was on the first page, a complete set of navigators.  Many times I would find this set and always the last one was missing. These were the predecimal variety and there it was, a £2 King, worth around $90 at the moment. There are about 180 different designs in the 415 Australian predecimal stamps ever released and now I have at least one of every design. It was the last predecimal stamp that I could realistically expect to find just floating around.  The other 20 or so variations I do not have are worth $1,000s for each one.  As for King, he was an explorer, one of Australia's first beach combers. He sailed all around Australia, hugging the coast on four different explorations.

Cylindrical Garden

 There has been a metal circle in the garage for some months just waiting for the right moment to be installed. The dirt facing edge had already been primed so it was time to move it out. It seems a bit prominent to me right at the front and will catch the weather but looks like it has always been there. Elsewhere the orchids are spraying and I now count thirteen spikes out the back and just two in the centre courtyard.  May need to pay more attention to those ones with a bit more feeding. Finally the apricot tree has had a prune as well now. This should have been done after fruiting.  The lemon tree needs some attention but we are running out of green bin space for now.

Reminders

 I keep getting these annoying reminders, messages, notifications or requests. How did your visit to the British Museum go?  I didn't go alright. We decided to do some gardening instead. This is a pressing concern for us way more important than the Elgin Marbles. Besides I have been to the Parthenon and I saw one half of those decorations but not the other half becuase you guys took them. Maybe it is a good thing that they are inside and out of the weather but I am sure the locals could have organised that although they were short of a dollar last time I was there. So in the end the Greeks lost their marbles and you gained some, so don't ask me again. 

Return to the Conservatory

 I am getting tired of this recurring theme of where we were supposed to be now compared to where we actually are.   The reality is that we still have to go and celebrate a birthday and the Conservatory struck a chord a few weeks back so we went back for another luncheon.  I switched to the lamb shoulder very tasty with a mint sauce. Debbie tried the duck and was quacking about it.  We shared one desert with a single candle.  Just to change it up we dropped into the bar for a while. There was a fire, the world cup and a spiral staircase, everything you could want. I descended to the games room which I guess used to be a cellar for beer barrels.  

Bookkeepers CRM

 Some of us might be covered in stitches, or recovering from cancer, it may even be your birthday and were supposed to be sitting on Brighton beach right now but nothing stops.  The world of Pure Bookkeeping marches on and today became pivotal with the launch of the PB CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). Now this has been years in the making. How to best serve our bookkeeper customers? Build them a digital platform to better manage their own customers.  This CRM can be used to manage, track and store their customer interactions and keep it all in the PB Cloud.

Yes keepers united all in one place. Keepers United sounds like a world cup team.

1000 Perfins

 The rain has come but I might get in a short walk, as it seems to be easing. My neighbour Di, the physical trainer, was running passed in more rain after a quick swim so she was already wet.  She says not to let the appendix thingy stop my ideas of trying a shot put competition one day. Keep up the light regime for now, the way I am doing it, she says.  PT people are always good for a gee up.  My activities are limited to inside so far today, so it is a good stamp day.  I uncovered my 1,000th stamp with perforated initials.  This one is from the USA in a strip of three with very clean punch holes for visibility.  These stamps were used by the Realty Development Company based in Philadelphia in 1938. The company has gone now. 

Another Walk another CleanUp

 Yes I promised I would go back today with the trusty rubbish bag.  I increased the morning exercise regime to about 15 minutes.  Pre appendix it would have been a good 30 minutes. Pushups are now at 20 with no sit ups at all. Squats and lunges at 20 and step ups back to full 40 with no weight lifting except arm curls with the very lightest weight.  The beach was calm and sunny and I was over dressed.  In the end it was a normal walk with a huge strike rate. I must have bent down for at least 100 items of small crap being rope pieces, plastic bags and bottle caps, straws, chocolate wrappers and papers, as well as boat excesses like caulking, foam, rubber and tubes.  At least bending is mending.

Golf Pills

 I was warned not to over do it, eg no heavy lifting for 4 weeks. Exercise is required but exactly what.  I was using a pushup technique in the hospital bed in order to turn from side to side without brushing against any stitches. I did five pushups this morning which seemed to be ok as the body is straight. The problems are more an issue for the stomach crunch type of manouvre, like situps and toe touches.  In the end I just walked the length of the beach and back for 4,000 steps. There is plenty of flotsam to pickup but I wasn't bending, maybe tomorrow.  The anaesthetic has warn off but there are still five days of golf ball sized antibiotic pills and I am already drowning in the stuff after 8 bags were dripped into me. We can't make a fuss about too much puss.

Now where was I

Yesterday it was Health insurance and today it is Travel insurance.  We know the drill. Get anything back from airfares etc and then we will look at it.  I just packed a bag now I am unpacking it.  This is the third time in three years we have cancelled travel. Yada Yada Winge Winge.  There will be a turning point somewhere. I am running out of body parts to throw out but I must weigh less at least. I am not sure how much an appendix weighs.  It seems the main objective of an appendix is to hurt at some point in your life.

Flowers

and Sunshine

No travel for you

 What rhymes with unravel....untravel.  The doc was not happy with what he found when he took  a look  inside.  So now he is writing a letter that says no travel for six weeks.  These are the ultimate nophasement moments. Don't give up your health insurance. I have my own room with ensuite and room service.  I was supposed to get that for the next four weeks. 

Another piece removed

 I have made it into my own room now, it is about 10:00pm. The dining/kitchen has closed so I was given a sandwich and it disappeared in seconds. It seems that if you are removing an appendix on the right side then you make holes in the left side and work thru those. There are still tap holes in my arms just in case. I certainly don't feel the problem now but there is still lots of medicine in my system. 

Emergency

 I have  been to this Geelong hospital before to get a prostate out. This time the talk is about appendix. Now I am supposed to be flying out of here tomorrow and frankly I am sick of hospitals but this is the best place to be. So far only tests and painkillers.

20+ Yar Problem

 Subscriptions are like the ever growing money tree to companies that have them.  Microsoft has been switching everything it can to a subscription model and gaming was the start of that push. At that time our teenagers did not have credit cards so the $100 a year payment was made on our card.  Here we are 25 yar later still paying it and the total is well over $2000. The problem was that the Microsoft account access was lost.  The credit card has expired at least 7 or 8 times in that period but some companies like Microsoft have software that can ask banks for the updated details and then continue to merrily take your money. We tried a few things every now and then however this time we went to the ANZ to block the card payment. They investigated and got me the original email contact where we could then revive the account and finally login to cancel the subscription.  Now I just have to work on the other subscriptions.

Juicy Reds

 If your interest was purely in getting the most oil out of the olives then maybe waiting as long as possible until they are as plump as a Plucker Duck and dark red will give the best return.  I got up close to the last of the olives for this year as the branches came tumbling down. Yes the tree missed out on a trim last year but this time around it has been cut back into a neat ball.  Not your traditional hollowed glass shape but accessible enough for us and it did not cost $500.  You could try salvaging the olives and there might be 2 kilos worth but the birds will finish them off and we are out of time anyway.

Official Winter beach day

 I got the Grandies going with a birthday cake session. Now it seems that if they were not helping then the cake would not have turned out so well. Ho Hum!  The afternoon was all beach action but with some stirred up water they did not go fully in but there was a lot of splashing about.  With steady sunshine and no breeze the afternoon seemed hotter the longer we stayed. Nana got a big roast going after all the exertions but even so there was plenty of room for the birthday cake and Winter ice cream.  Nana's present was one of those internet attached photo frames.  These frames would work better if they were wired.