2021-04-22

All Mother's sons.

I found this on the wall at Mother's place, it's possibly the only photo of the five of us together, I believe it was taken at Brother Ken's first wedding back in 1982, he's the tall one beside mother (Jan) I don't know his whereabouts now. Brother Mick the youngest is beside him, he died in May 1984, a lesson that road rules are to be obeyed, plus a reason that no similar photos could be made after then. Eldest Brother Reg is looking sophisticated and handsome on the far left, and the smiling chubby fool behind them is number two son me Jimby.

Now that our Mother has died we can't really get any more family snaps, it's really time for us to move on to the younger folk, something I can't do having not had children.
 

2021-03-31

Out with the old, in with the new.


 I've been playing Sudoku and practically nothing else on my cellphone for a while but I broke the screen on my Doogee Y8 when my mind was muddled having to replace Oscar's rear screen, and sadly fixing it wasn't as simple as hoped, so I blew another $120 I don't have on a new cellphone, this time a Umidigi A7S, again a phone that has ample power for my purposes, plus being sold from another country can also be bought in a non-black colour, unlike almost any consumer product imported by major sellers here.


So now I have to work my top solution times down again.


I'm been very lax at posting of late and have had much family stress culminating with my Mother dying on the 2nd March, some six days after moving my Dad into aged care. I'm afraid it's made me a bit bitter about the system and just how much red tape and barriers are put in the path of ordinary punters to gain some help. It isn't going to stop for a long time yet, it looks like I'm gaining all of her bills but the assets appear to be getting carried into limboland like the end of the first Indiana Jones film.

2021-01-29

A change of flowers for Grace's birthday.


 A busy morning ahead so we popped out early to the cemetery. I had hoped it'd be quiet but it was noisy with activity. The whole town must have awoken from their slumber since Summer started, also we're currently under a blitz at home which has explosive noise before dawn every morning in a futile bid to scare the bat population away, it doesn't work people and you've been at it long enough to stop wasting taxpayer money.


I also said hello to our friend Shirley's husband Ron whom if I stay alive a few more days shall outlive. That feels like a big "if" now.


2021-01-25

Also broken when Oscar felt pain.

 

Another casualty of Oscar's broken rear windscreen. I had popped the phone in my back pocket and forgotten about it when driving to get a quote. Bugger but at least I've ordered a new digitiser screen thingy and hope I'm good enough to fit it. I only use the phone for two things, to receive calls from Olivia, and to play Sudoku, I can't claim to be a natural at Sudoku but I've found the logic challenge quite captivating for many years now, I only play at the hardest level.

Oscar is now fixed yippee.



2021-01-15

Nearly a write-off.

 

I was mowing out the front and heard a noise so looked around and went ouch.

I thought I might have to write Oscar off but the local shop quoted $420 to fix it, so a big ouch on that price but I'll do it.


2020-12-16

Now it looks better.



 

Some 10 mm tubing arrived yesterday, and today the new cheap Chinese pumping bulb arrived, so I was able to make Oscar look half decent again. A much quicker than normal delivery too so that cheered me up.











2020-11-29

As usual a simple job becomes a disaster.


 I changed Oscar's fuel filter and when I primed the system I noticed I had cracked the squeeze bulb, which is quite a disaster.

I did a bit of nutting things out and used a bit of old pushbike inner tube with a bit of fairly large heat shrink underneath.


Hopefully it'll hold until a new generic bulb arrives which I'm hoping I can splice into Oscar's never to be serviced fuel line.