Ugg Day

 I just had to get out the Ugg boots this morning as I made the mistake of having cold feet when I went to bed last night.  It has been hailing on and off today. The mini heaters are working ok so far and if they stave off todays 12° maximum then that will prove it.  Any one who made it to Brisbane this week despite more flioght cancellations, has timed it well to escape this blast.  I retrieved one box of stamps and three boxes of photos from Willie yesterday, as I had run out of both here at Clifton Springs.  The photo boxes are large and inside one was a shoe box. That box seems to be mostly negatives. I think it might take a month just to get thru the shoebox.  One of the envelopes said Debbie & Neil's wedding but inside were strips of negatives which I have never seen anything the like of.  They are tiny, maybe 10 mm x 20mm with no way to hold them still so I just weighted them down, which worked OK.

A Delivery of Olives

We haven't been to Willie for a few weeks and as soon as we walked thru the kitchen area the floor was covered in water from a leaking dishwasher. We had this looked at months ago and the techos declared it was working and  "no fault found".  That is a line I used years ago but now we have to get them back.  The Taylors also came over to pick up the olives.  Now they have a good 12kg to play with. It was also a good chance to go across the park to the Thai restuarant. It is a Thai wife and a Spanish husband running things.  The food was a bit spicy.  We have only one left to try out which is Greek. It looks more like a take away though.

12 Spikes

 When you open the backdoor now the orchids are hard to miss and they are not even in bloom yet. There are twelve spikes from 6 different pots this year. This is the best result we have had at Clifton Springs.  There may be more hidden in there somewhere. You can't pick them out easily from the photo but when the blooms come it should be quite a sight.  We have been cleaning up for a quick trip to Willie before Debbie flies tomorrow. I often forget that the strawbs are still coming and since I sprayed a nest of some bug or other, there has been a steady supply. It seems to be coming to an end now as there is only one plant left with fruit growing.

Pure Work Flow

There have been a few deadlines lately on the Pure Bookkeeping front. Debbie was up at 5:00am for a North American launch of the new Work Flow Management tool.  On this occasion software has been  written to compete with other tools out there that promote the flow of steps, to get the bookkeeping done, in the right order with documentation.  This was 18 tough months in the making. Our customers can now use Pure Work Flow as incorporated in the Pure Bookkeeping System, instead of paying extra for something like Asana or ClickUp.  The Australian licencees have been testing this for some months so it should go smoothly for those Canadians.

It's a gas gas gas

 Our gas bills are the ones that have rocketed.  We have plenty of natural gas but price increases are mostly forced up to get us off it.  Today is cold but we have not turned on the gas heating. It is the heating that costs us, so we are going to try small electric heaters near our desks during the day.  We will confine gas usage to hot water and cooking. Williamstown does not have gas bills so there is no issue there.  Years ago it was the electric radiators that used all the power and sent the bills up.  In a 100 yars time we will be going back to use that natural gas or maybe the Chinese will just take it.

Duty Stamps

 I have been mostly inside today except for a trip to the supermarket and now a weather alert has come up on my screen, as very black clouds are piling up out my window. It was 10:30am and an announcement came over the intercom that the Coles quiet hour was starting. What the?  Sure enough half the lights went out and the Coles radio channel was turned off and an eerie silence was all that was left. Most people seemed to be tiptoeing after that.  

I have often found duty stamps from the colonial period but could never value them as they don't rate much of a mention in catalogues.  I have found an online resource that has info about them and they can be just as valuable as postage stamps.  They look like stamps, you lick em and stick em like stamps but they have the words duty not postage.  It seems the courts are sticklers for official documents, so duty stamps were invented to be placed on all sorts of documents relating to production, transport and retailing of both farming and manufactured goods.  

This is the oldest I have from 1867 value $12

This is the most valued at $60

This one is from WA  printed in 1904. Mint condition $30

New Path

 A new path is being built in the reserve East of us at Beacon Point. We usually walk West towards the Dell most of the time.  There is a small beach in this Easterly direction which is currently choked with wrack.  The new path is meant to give beach access for the streets above the reserve.  The path will not be extending as far as our place but its not much of a beach access unless they are going to improve the steep path down and clear the wrack as well.  Its May Day and maybe yesterday was the last beach day.

not a breath of breeze yesterday

It will be fully concreted