Follow the Fiddler

 We are having a wet day here so I can get into some video from the gopro. This one was taken two days ago. At first the water was a little cloudy and also the tide was on the way out at 10:00am but as I ventured out further it cleared some more. I had to angle across to the pole line rather than being parallel to the shore. When I got there a Fiddler Ray came gliding underneath.  This was the best video I have taken and had to swim away and back again to keep the ray in picture.  There is a moment where it attacks at speed to grab some small morsel. On the way back I stumble onto another one this time a black one with a split tail. These are called Smooth Stingrays. 

APITA

 There was a TV character who ran around yelling Serenity Now! Serenity Now!  I could start running around with APITA!  APITA!  It is always debatable about whether too much information is conveyed in this Blog.   I had two warty bum bumps frozen this morning.  These have been here for two or three weeks and were delicately positioned where the Sun does not shine. I could not do much about it with chest infections and QLD visits at the time.  It was important to get onto this type of problem early as they only get bigger and spawn more of them. I remember when I was about 14 I had a papilloma on my foot which I ignored  until the inward growing spur was a shooting pain with every step. This is going to be another pain for the next week or so but we already have a donut here which will get me out of a jam.  

the ring is the thing

Weight Update No 2

 I said I would report my progress on the weight loss trial.  It has been a month and my starting mark was 94.5 Kg.  My weight this morning was 92.4kg so it is a promising start and even with those two kilos off I can feel a difference.  I have changed a few things. No potatoe chips and no fizzy coke with bourbon. The meal sizes are also smaller. There has been chunks of birthday cake etc.  For the next month I will aim to get below 92kg.  Even now the Easter buns are being consummed and we haven't got to the chocolate yet.  Always an uphill battle.

Floor to Wall

We went across to the beach around 2:30 after the daily meeting schedule had ended.  It was another ideal sunny afternoon with calm waters. We must have gone in the water four or five times. At one stage as the Sun was dropping which means our cabana shelter loses some of its shade as the shadow narrows and we turn to the debate about getting a wall on one side.  As I am sitting there it was one of those eureka moments "I have it".   I took up the floor and pegged it to the side making a wall. It gave us a 50% shade extension.  Excuse me genius at work.

From Floor

To Wall

Hugos on Parade

 It has taken 5 or 6 years but I have come to the end of the Hugo collection with the delivery of one book this week published in 2020. At first I was going to secondhand book shops particularly the one in Keilor Rd (also a stamp shop) which has now closed down.  I was getting 4 or 5 books at a time.  Then I had to use internet searching and ferreting while deliveries were slow over the last two years.  Now I have an unbroken line from 1953 to 2020 with 70 different book titles all gathered together on one shelf.  I doubt if it ever happens often, except maybe they are on display at the awards night. Even libraries split them up according to author surnames.  I expect that a valuation would be a minimum of $2000 for the collection. Even at that price each one averages out at under $30 and the early ones are getting rarer.  I have read maybe 80％ of them and have deferred some as I need to do more chasing to find titles that are part of a series.  Maybe I need to start finding the the short story winners now.

The universe on a table

Late Arvo Sun

 Meetings and more meetings until 2:30pm but fortunately the Sun came out for a pleasant three hours of beaching.  It rained hard this morning but gradually cleared up throughout the day. We did not carry over the usual load complete with kitchen sink.  We used the new floor with an umbrella and low backed seats. This worked well as there was no wind but was quite warm at 26°.  We cooled off with three separate dips but no snorkelling.  We did not spy much rubbish around although there are a few large holes that will need to be filled in.

The Obelisk Gate

 The rain has caught up with us after we tried to leave it behind.  Rain time means indoor reading time to finish off another Hugo.  This is the second volume in the only Hugo trilogy ever. It is better than the first and the forces of Good (which seem to be pretty bad) are lining up against the other forces of something else.  I will have to get straight onto Vol 3 to sort this out.