Christmas Island

Made a start integrating one of the stamp albums I got from the auction a few weeks back. This one includes Australian Territories like Christmas Island.  The albums were compiled by P. Smith and a lot of time was spent by him or her, duplicating any words on the stamp into hand written lettering (pre technology database).  I have found a way to show this method, as illustrations can be included in my database, even though I am dismantling those pages.  Fortunately the hinges in use require only a feather touch to loosen them from the page.

old 

new

Bungalow Bill

We had a voucher for $50 for the Bungalow, given to us by the Real estate agency when we moved in.  So many times we have had vouchers go past their use by date. Not sure why money expires in the first place.  We have been numerous times to this spot and always forgot to bring it and this voucher expired yesterday.  They honored it without a problem and the scrambled eggs were tasty. This is where grandpa bought a wall hanging collage last time and I noticed that another one had been brought in to fill the gap.  This would be the best cafe in town.

Timer Tea Service

Birthday Drive

This was our first effort at driving to a birthday venue with pre-dinner drinks and birthday cake at 5:00 then cross to the restaurant at 7:00 then driving back to arrive at 10:30 pm.  It all seemed to go well but I wouldn't want to try every day. James preferred the more dramatic birthday scenes away from the restaurant, although the "Il Parco" was a noisy place and packed on a Saturday night.  Later I thought of packaging two of the birthday presents together by placing the headphones around the basketball, would have been a good birthday prank. Too late.

Mostly Pizza

Paper Cutouts

My recent foray into auction sites resulted in one box of stamps that still had the paper backing. I have now washed these, flattened them out and selected 132 of the 1500 stamps that were in the box. These 132 have cost me just under 3c per stamp. I do not know their official worth as I need all six volumes of  SG's Stamps of the World  back from the library. In the meantime I have hardly dinted the pile of albums and boxes that came from the auctions.  My database currently says I have 2621 stamps valued at $5556.75

Six Volumes

Port Arlington Bakery

Did a quick ride down to the bakery before the storms hit this afternoon. That must be a sign that the weather is changing when you start having electrical storms.  It is a hilly ride but short at around 22km.  I added a few Km when I had to go back for my yellow jacket left hanging on the chair.  The one problem is they always have the blinds down so you can't see any view. But they do have good cakes.

One and a half father's here

Fire side chat

Bakery Cakery

Elevated Plains

This is an area just north of Daylesford. The Carney's have found an interesting neighbourhood to live in, although they are not in the house as yet.  There is a creek at the bottom of the garden and the place is crawling with roos.  The whole area is quite historic. I think I did a rogaine or two nearby featuring old gold mining sites. You can always go and have a spa.

roo poo abounds

Kerleys Auction Rooms

Debbie was wandering around Geelong yesterday getting cars serviced and changing over phones to Telstra.  The best Bellarine coverage is with Telstra and so far there has been no phone issues, the only problem was getting the old one surgically removed from her hand and the new one grafted on.  She spied an auction that was open for viewing and which had one set of stamp albums amongst furniture, crockery, paintings, you name it and these auctions are every week. 
We went there today and filled out the registration for my bidding card then we had some lunch next door at the Ebony & Ivory. They said the lot should come up around 2:30pm but when we got back they still had 100 lots to go (around 2hrs in my estimate) so we left a paper bid of $40. They sold it to me for $30 and I wasn't even there.

The place was packed with people bidding.