Reef Huddle

The Sun has been out so its a good time to see what has washed up in the few weeks we have been away.  The beach is quite clean of rubbish which is normal for Winter.  There have been strong winds and tides, as another chunk of sand has been taken away.  As I got to the end I could see a largish group, up to their knees in the water, across at the artificial reef.  The council had a lecture going on by the reef designer and also some Uni Professor on the benefits of these reefs. If you want hear you have to get wet. There were a few unwilling stragglers on the shore so I gave them my version of the Kinugawa artificial reef. Much more exciting than plastic domes.

they all wore gum boots

P&O Sunk

 P&O have been around for 90 years and we have just tried our first ever cruise with them and we have brought the kiss of death, as the ship we predicted would be sold off soon has been sold off. Not only that, it was our first cruise and our last cruise, as all future P&O cruises from next year have been cancelled.  The two remaining ships may be rebadged as Princesses or something else but will not necessarily be sailing in Australia.  Maybe Royal Caribbean or Virgin will take up year round cruising in Australia. Carnival say they have not given up on Australia but it looks like it.

P&O has P&Oed

The Ink Black Heart

 There are tons of books that require much concentration and this one is right up there.  Trying to read it while cruising the high seas, with all the distractions that that involves may not have been the best idea. The internet is a huge focus in this book and trying to capture what happens online and put it into the context of a murder mystery was tricky.  There were conversations between characters in chat rooms online that read like a Japanese vertical page.  Eg three columns of text appeared on the page. The trick is to follow the first column all the way across multiple pages until the end of that section. Then go back thru those pages and follow the next column and do the same for the third column.  It took me four or five of these sections to twig to this. Then there were the Twitter conversations, Reddit conversations, email conversations and the Ink Black Heart game itself with it's chatroom not to forget the 50 suspects to keep track of. I have one more of these to read at the moment but I will give Cormoran Strike a rest for a while.

Aussie Stamps

 Winter has hit so what better time than to catch up on a few stamps.  I reference an Aussie stamp catalogue for valuations on local stamps however they have a large lag time between editions, like seven years. So I have been placing Aussie stamps aside for the last seven years and have now heard that the new edition is out this month. To get ahead of the game I have been getting the paper backing off of a seven year pile of stamps.  It has taken two days, but modern stamps are designed not to be easily removed from the envelope, once they have been used. The PO is paranoid that someone might reuse a stamp, so these days they sell them with security cut marks to break the stamp up. Thanks a lot! 

Two hours for this lot

Garden Update No 734

 It has been a non garden effort for some weeks with being away and other activities putting the garden maintenance on hold. Debbie got into it yesterday clearing out the main beds completely and trimming the trees for a bumper crop next year.  Except for the olive tree. We need to get the tree man in for that one. The apricot and nectarine trees are thickening in their trunks so a much better start than last time when killer grubs were found in the root system. It seems the lemon tree has been hit by some sort of blight, as many of the leaves are curling up and browning off. May need to treat this.  As for the orchids it is a new record with 28 spikes so far being 22 out the back and six more in the middle courtyard.

curled leaves

Riding Legs

 Got the bikes out on this rather brisky morning although we are not used to 13° of late given the PNG temperatures. That recent landslide there does not surprise me, with the rain we had and the steepness where a lot of the shacks were perched.  We took it easy on the ride as we are a bit out of practice. There is some new road works above the jetty and new car parks going in around the extra boat ramps. No end of money being spent on this boating stuff.  We stopped at the train station coffee van and could hear the volunteers playing with the trains in the new shed.  There are a number of grafitti covered carriages that have been hauled in perhaps for restoration.

lone kayak fisherman

TaxiBoxes

 I have never seen the TaxiBox system up close but if you have limited space you can just pack them one at a time and they will stack and store them. When you are ready they all arrive at the new location for unloading.  Fortunately there is an aircraft hangar at Asher & Kaia's new house which swallows all four of those easily. I did not pack a whole house into four boxes but it seems like some Kondo minimal was needed.