New Pud Hanger

 Amongst the busyness we found five hours yesterday to get the Christmas pud cooked and hanging nicely from the new shower head. This has a flatter shape that allows the tied cloth to grip without sliding. (tautology - if something is gripping then also saying it is not sliding is not necessary.!)  We have been held hostage by the line after line of driving rain here yesterday but it did make for a good Pud Day.  This morning woke us up with a clattering of heavy rain on the windows.  I noticed a mother with a child on her front, also with a rugged up toddler in tow and two dogs being walked and bending at the same time to get multiple dog poos along the trail. Right, that's it I am going down with the rubbish bag in hand to see what is washed in, no matter what the weather is doing.  I got the usual blue tops, plastic bottles and cigarette butts but also two ice cream containers. I have never seen one before and today there were two.  I mostly fished stuff out of the creek, as this was more sheltered and the water level was high which meant I could reach without jumping down.

Live Crab Sticks

 You can't get dim sims at the moment due to flooding of the marathon foods factory.  The fish shop man said try a crab stick instead. I think crab sticks are a bit over rated.  The GoPro videos were backing up and it has been at least a week or two since I unloaded them last. There was one there where I had a run in with a crab. He wasn't happy, barring his teeth and snapping his snippers.  He was a good size maybe two or three crab sticks in him. 

Road to Nowhere

 The festivities continued in Fitzroy gardens with lots of food and a proper sponge cake for the 60th birthday singalong.  There were many ankle biters and pregnant mothers as well.  Some years ago we went on a slippery slide down the roadway just near here.   That was a Summer with Sunshine. We finished about 2:00pm before the rain came as we wanted to call in at Werribbe hospital to see how Nana Beryl was going.  She was sleepy but recognising people by name so I took that as a good sign.  We left there about 5:15pm  and were faced with a line of cars that stretched out of sight. We followed the phone directions using back streets that were all totally gridlocked.  After 90 minutes we finally crawled to the freeway on ramp to find there was a cordon line of hats blocking it, they were turning us back into Werribee.  I quickly swung off and onto the Melbourne side.  We got to Williamstown about 8:00pm.  We will try for Geelong again today.

Shine at the Lustre Bar

  I caught the train from North Williamstown which has had a complete makeover when the level crossing was removed.  Fifteen minutes to walk to the station and 25 more to get to Flinders St. A day of partying finished at the Lustre Bar. Our group mostly had it to ourselves for Julie's 60th birthday drinks & cocktails.  Those coffee expressos can be addictive.  I'm not sure about the sticky strawberry  shots that were going around. I thought sambucca used to be the go for those. Tim even found a slice of cake from a shop somewhere.  Mental note: if we are returning to  'The Village' via taxi or uber then we need to bring the buzzer for easier access. Fortunately we had a set of door keys which included a key for the padlock on the side gate.  Just as we got it all secured again, a car came and opened the main gate.  DERR.

Train Station

 Our public transport knowledge is lacking but today I am catching a train at North Williamstown but we had to go to Williamstown three stops away as that one is a manned station. They changed over our expired Mykis for new ones.  Seems they don't last but at least the money on them does.  Williamstown station is like a country stand, not many cars not many people.  I got the mower out this morning and also a new wheelie edge cutter. Those things are a menace but I got the edges done eventually.  We also got a few decos up around here and the smallest simplest Christmas tree you have ever seen.

Not your normal huge train terminus location

white tree for a white house

edges edged

Gowanbrae End

 We did the three Retirement Village hop again today.  From Geelong to Burnside, to Gowanbrae and finished at The Village.  That was the last time we will do it.  This is the start of a Julie birthday weekend. We had lunch with Grandma & Grandpa trying to wrestle with Christmas attendance timing.  The Gowanbrae part is the final time we will go there and this was to drop off the keys.  It seems we still have to pay some bills even though it is now officially vacated.  The renovation upgrade will not start until next year.  We got to Williamstown in the late afternoon. There is a safety upgrade happening here.  I think that is another way of saying they are changing the medical call centre to another company. So the phone, toilet and neck buzzers are all being replaced next week.

The Three Body Problem

 This is the Hugo from 2015.  A few words come to mind like scientific, complex and cosmic.  To add to the mix this book has been translated from Chinese. The first Hugo winner to have done so.  I had trouble with the characters as I was not used to them having chinese names but I managed to know who was who by the end.  Another way to describe it is an updated War of the Worlds.  There are two sequels but I will not be persuing them as I have other sequences to fill in.  There is also the pursuit of the Retro-Hugos. These are a special case where for whatever reason Hugos were not awarded that year.  So years later they had another look at stories from that time and then awarded the prize.  There are eight missing years, therefore eight more books to go on the hunt for.