Rain

I had to put a jumper on today as well as socks!  I went over to the beach for the first 5 days of March, all after the official end of Summer but today only got as high as 14°.  The water temp would be OK however the rain has been off and on.  So that means I did some PB filing, some more reading and some Stamps.  I have a new problem in that I have come to the end of the printed stamp catalog.  The Post Office does not allocate an ID number to each individual stamp but the dealers do. Dealers need to identify each one in order to re-sell it.  My database needs it as well to identify the record although you can search by other fields.  The last catalog entry stops on the 21 Feb 2017 at stamp no 3549.  So now it is time to go back and put in the USED stamps.  Can you spot the differences between these two used stamps?

Self-adhesive

Lick and Stick

The second of these stamps is also a "Cancelled-to-Order" stamp, ie when it was purchased at the Post Office it was also immediately cancelled without first being placed on an envelope. This instantly devalues the stamp and renders it useless, except to that customer, who only wants to collect used stamps but in mint condition.

The Demolished Man

This is  the very first Hugo winner from 1953.  My copy is a Penguin edition from 1966 and I had to poke around on the internet to get it. It was 3 shillings and sixpence back then and I paid $10 for a very thin 190 pages.  It is set in the future where evolution has created mind readers, so murder is hard to do when others can know what you are planning.  The Demolished Man gave it a go but in the end his mind was adjusted for better usage.

This cover is why people have clown phobias

Monday on my Mind

There is a song called "Friday on my Mind". It is acknowledged as Australia's greatest ever rock song. It is the mantra for the workaday world however come the retirement era and things change. Yesterday we went to OUR beach and it had crazy yelling teenagers, the usual snappy dogs chasing birds and also the sea doos doing noisy sea stuff.  Today we saw one or two people and literally the laid back chairs allowed for plenty of reading. Earlier in the day there were squadrons of aircraft and helicopters returning from whence they came.  I wonder do airshows supply their own tower controllers, who may move from show to show or are the locals required to lift their game by 200% when the Air Show comes to town?

All ours

Air Show final day

I found my wayward videos and have placed some short ones below. In the end we were ignoring planes as they were just zipping everywhere.  The best views towrds Avalon are thru a device however there was plenty overhead here at Clifton Springs.  The night action is limited to Friday Night only and I have resurrected a small part here.

                                                                   
                                                                   Night Moves

                                                               Waving at Planes

The Sunsets over the Air Show

Avalon Night Show

We have seen a number of fireworks shows from our balcony. The Geelong Show is the closest but the Airshow is so well positioned across the bay. The best view is thru the video but unfortunately I lost the files. I may be able to get some back tonight. The explosions are the unique thing about this stuff, timed for the low passing of the planes.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

This book is one of the most recent Hugos I have found being written in 2004.  I have since resorted to finding them on the internet. It is a heavy brick of a book over 1000 pages and is quite wordy. This one is all fantasy and these two are both magicians who are learning their way from books because the original magic had died out from England 300 years earlier.  It spans years and wars in Human England and Fairy England.  The BBC have made a TV series of it and there seems to be a mention on Netflix.

Underwater School

The hot days have been frequent lately as has been the time at the beach.  We got caught up in the largest fish school we have seen so far.  This was a very clear water day with much sunshine so the video below shows good detail.

                                                           Swim with the Fishes