About the right price.

I like coconut, the pity is that it doesn't like me, if I eat too much of it I get the spews, however I think they went easy on it in this drink.

Olympus SZ-16 IHS

Pocket size (not by much), good lens, good sensor, this will be handy to travel with.

It has me happy for a mid price range compact, plus has very usable zoom.

A cautious bug.

This bug didn't fancy getting close to Jimmy, I can't say I blame it, it's already lost a leg, wouldn't want to lose any more.

A bin too far.

I suppose after paying store prices for coffee people can expect the cup to find its own way five metres to the bin.

Looking at nothing.

The size of that belly shows me that all the weight I've shed over the years has come from my legs, leaving me walking on spindly toothpicks.

Another trolley in the drink.

This time it's Woolworths turn, at least the rogues don't hold a grudge, last time it was Coles.

The kissing couple gets a paint job.

I took a wander out to Tyto again late this morning, happily I can report the metal couple who had lost their paint have had a respray and have returned.

OOPS, I set fire to myself.

I had a Homer moment this morning. The lesson to be learnt is be vigilant when holding a blowtorch.

Beetroot.

An old Aussie favourite but it's not the beetroot that inspires me to buy it, it's the juice it's packed in, it has to be the best juice/syrup used in canning.
I can't help but think there must be people who just wastefully pour away this ambrosia.

A dying breed.

At least Kraft still make cheese that doesn't bite back, it seems all the cheddar in the dairy section of supermarkets are the same matured variety with different labels whacked on.
A curse to the makers who decided to call mature cheddar "tasty", it was an invitation to overwhelm the good old fashioned "mild" off the shelves, and whatever "mild" is left is just mature with a false label, mild shouldn't bite back.
TV chefs certainly haven't helped the cause of people who like real cheese.

More mucking around with the mower.

Some scrap welded to the deck and a spring to hold in place the bashed into shape mulching plate.
Happily it's working rather well now, I vastly prefer mulching to spraying the grass out the side of the mower, I may not vote green but I sure do practice a lot of green ways.

Lizard.

I saw this in the yard this morning, A Spink of some type I think, and rather a large one.

Navel.

Yes it's mine and not a pretty sight, it used to be a normal inney boy type navel until a decade or more ago when it decided to become bumpy, I suppose it may be a hernia or something but it hasn't gotten any worse and doesn't hurt so I feel reluctant to mention it to the medicos.

Honest.

I bought a pack of frozen mixed veges, usually I avoid them but I thought they'd make cheap filler for a curry, but the cheap stuff I buy has gone fancy now with a product picture on it.

I was fairly surprised to see it looked just like the cover shot, quite unlike hamburger shop pictures.

Why the mower was naughty, or tale of a cracked deck.

Another belt arrived this morning, I did a quick fit but it quickly jumped off the pulley, they aren't supposed to be at that angle.

 A quick prod underneath revealed why. The deck had cracked where the pulley mount attached.

 So off came the deck, luckily having a hoist makes the job fairly simple. Then bash the deck back into place.

Then a play with the welder, naturally with my usual mr blobby result. The deck is fairly corroded so I wasn't going to get too fancy.

 Turn it over and do a bit more blobbing on the other side.

 Chuck a bit of paint on, This is Killrust paint so it may help.

A spot of grease on the pivot surfaces of the pulley set and it was time to refit and mow.
Of course this was far more work than my body can handle, so I only did a rough mow, I shall do another run later and make things a bit neater.

Clearly my fault this time.

I bought a special little treat to have yesterday but naturally forgot all about it, had to re-fridge it to cool it off again. Anyway because I didn't place it safely in the fridge after having a piece, next time I opened the door it couldn't fall out quick enough, naturally having the lid fly off before gracefully landing upside down on the floor.
Never mind it should still taste OK despite looking trashed.

Another fail.

A lot of the wall CDs we use to show the way to our lavatory had fallen off over the years.

So I used some sticky dots to stick a fresh batch onto the walls.

A few minutes later they naturally started tumbling, within hours all had found their natural resting place on the floor. I think I need something stickier, failure at least comes easily to me now.

Mixed feelings.

Then wobbly worn out Jimmy got home and bumped into the fridge, dislodging this fridge magnet ornament. Normally I'd just groan and set about repairing it but this was a gift that never inspired love from me, I think I'll just pack it away in the maybe someday box.
Maybe not a great photo but The XZ-10 decided the light was that poor ISO 1600 was needed, so I'll post it as an example for this new release camera.

Time passes.

Grace now has a splendid cover of grass, pity it rained while I was there.

Screwed.

The boys at The Shed were moving more gear into the new place so I gave them a bit of a hand, then I got volunteered into sorting screws that were jumbled together in the grey tray, oh well I'm only good for light duties anyway so I actually got rather diligently stuck into the task.
Of course after not a real long time even this simple job proved quite tiring so I had to clock off, I'm really quite useless these days.

Pineapple,

On a shopping bag I bought a week ago. I love pretty patterns and colours, I absolutely must be going through menopause.

Just add salt.

These were on special a few weeks ago but only the no added salt ones were in stock/
A sprinkle of salt at negligible cost restored flavour lost to the market created by the taste Nazis.
At least our locals were sensible enough to buy up the stock of the normal ones first.

Lucky find.

The screw holding the spout on our vintage kitchen tap gave up the ghost on Friday, naturally resulting in Jimmy copping a spray. The tap unit is so old it has some obscure non-ISO thread dating from a time before we became one of the last countries to join the world measurement standard 40 odd years ago.

Happily I found a bent rod in a useful tin of old bits that's a millimetre perfect fit, wedging beautifully against the base of the sink, I doubt I'll even try to source a new screw now, I'll probably just replace the whole unit with something that has more reach eventually.

Pie.

I don't many of these, they're cheap and easy to heat so maybe I should eat them more often.

These are on special at Coles this week, the price was right but the hook for me was them being square, I prefer the square ones to round. I always seem to whack a squirt of tomato sauce in them too.

Usual bash-up job

I mentioned needing to create a new mulch plate for the mower the other day, so here is the crudomatic job I did. I welded a little tang on the front to help hold it in place, I hope it;ll work without needing a fancier mount.

Something amazingly inane and useless.

On my travels around the world via the wonderful Google Earth I've noted if our place was relocated to the northern half of the world to the major island Luzon of the Philippines at the equivalent latitude then it would be a very short stroll to the northernmost point of the island.

Our place, note the hand in the car park, our place directly below, also note that south points upwards for a change.

That northern beach on Luzon at the about same scale, the hand is as close as I could get to the same latitude.
Somehow though I don't think relocating will improve the house price, despite being beside a beach.

I've outlived another one.

This time our last ruling monarch to die, George VI, putting our current Queen on the throne.
Happily despite having the power to send me to the tower for whatever punishment they desire, we live in an age of a benevolent monarch, though I must say the hereditary monarch of North Korea appears to have more power over his subjects.
I notice I'll go past another pommie king in a month or so, Henry II, he one was way too early for us in Australia but I hope I can keep on beating them. He was followed by a couple of famous but rather dubious rulers.
For those who check into this, I did say ruling monarch, there was of course a retired one that's going to take a bit more living to beat.

There's a message in this bunny.

The Easter goodies at Coles were reduced today, but most were still too expensive to consider.

The message here I'd like to push is the drummer bunny, what this country really lacks now is marching bands and that stems back to schools, I see a real need for marching bands to be pushed at school level, so later we have a supply of musicians for Anzac day parades and such. March music would be a far more important thing to push than the dribble played on the radio. With all the money having been wasted in the past as well as promised in the future for education, I think it'd be good to see some of the mountain of money used on band instruments, even *gasp* bagpipes.

I wish I wasn't used to this.

The new cutter belt for the mower arrived this morning, and happy Jim set about immediately to fit it.

Fitting is simple on these, release belt from engine pulley, engage cutter lever to release brake, remove belt, then fit new one in reverse order. I had a few other issues to deal with so I took a bit of extra time and welded a bracket for a new mulching plate I shall make soon enough.

Then after mowing half the grass and things were going smoothly I hear a ping and no more mowing, the new belt had snapped, resulting in a sad Jim. I hope the kangaroos move in to keep the grass down while I await delivery of another belt.

Bug time.

Tongue out.

Tongue rolled up.

Mop and bucket time

It's been about eight years since I spruced up the house facia.

That's enough work for now, hopefully more rain will appear soon to wash it down.