Am I naughty?

This could get me in trouble but Bill Digger's grave opposite Grace's also suffered from a lack of a hole for flowers the same as Grace's did, despite being supposed to having them.

I've felt for a long time that they would like one so I took my drill out again and put a hole into the concrete.
I did Grace's a long time ago but didn't feel I should interfere with his, but later felt guilty about that.

Of course what I did would be illegal (nearly everything in this non-free country is) but it looks tidier and I meant no harm.

This reminds me of an American medal.

Medals aren't so common in Australia, this purple heart got me thinking of my Great-uncle John McGregor 4881 who was killed in WW1, he was wounded and hospitalised for a fair while sometime before he copped the fatal bullet to the head, but medals aren't easy for NCOs to come by.
He had already been promoted to the highest rank possible for a non-upper class man, Sergeant, and eventually was shot in the head trying to retrieve one of his boys that was wounded, but I suppose he needed to be more important to be thanked.
His record can be found in our national archives naa.gov.au

Rates bill, ouch.

The postie delivered pain this morning, as usual rising faster than inflation.
To add to the pain later I noticed the meter reader checking our electricity.
Neither of these things we have any ability to shop around for the best deal, we're just pawns in the game.

Pretty flowers.

These flowers caught my eye this morning, very nice so probably a weed.
The hills in the background are on Hinchinbrook Island 25 km away, the peak toward the right is Mt Straloch which had the WW2 USA B-24 bomber the "Texas Terror" smash into it in 1942.

A Philippine flag for Cubby.

A similar age to Australia's flag yet it doesn't look like a colonial relic.

Windy.

Very windy when I popped up to see Grace today, a lot of cane trash had blown over the cemetery.
I'm quite tired of this bleak winter we've had, way too much grey weather again this winter.

Big football match tonight but because it's broadcast by a blurry commercial station and I value my eyesight I'll have to wait for the HD replay on subscription TV, but since there's also pushbike racing in France I'll have to wait for tomorrow's replay.
Luckily for Australia the poor status of TV broadcasting here isn't known to other countries else they'd all be pointing their fingers and laughing. The British can watch cricket broadcast from here when they tour in lovely clear HD but for local audiences all we get is bandwidth squeezed blurry SD, while the HD channel is reserved for repeats of 1970s sitcoms.

Planting sugarcane.

After a year's rest the barren field behind us should sprout a fresh crop soon enough.
This stuff is just glorified grass so they only replant every few years.

LED lighting.

The kitchen light is done now so that's all the inside lights of the house now LED. I take a lot of photos so I always opt for a cool colour temperature.
I put two in here so I could put some extra light over the stove without using a more powerful lamp overall.

A good use for this misnamed spread.

I bought a couple of jars of this chocolate spread some time ago and didn't fancy it on bread much, I suppose there's a hint of hazelnut in there someplace so the do-gooder types can feel justified feeding it to their children, but anyway I thought I'd find an alternative way to use it, glad I did because I noted it had recently passed its best before date, and yes they were bought because of a decently discounted special.
I saw a recipe somewhere so when these cute by-jingo molds arrived I gave it a go.
A couple of spoonfuls of the spread mixed with enough milk and whacked into a blender, pour into molds then freeze, result in a taste like chocolate paddle pops, or milk ices for non Aussie readers. This is my second batch, the first was quite yummy.
The by-jingo molds are cute too. Sorry about the square format shot, I forgot to change the camera setting back to my usual 16:9.

New eyes.

Olive thought my old eyes did nothing for me, she's right but I only wanted something plain and sturdy, however they lost much of their sturdiness when I closed Cubby's bonnet on them, so I did another eye test and ordered a fresh set, noting a change in my left eye possibly related to the issue I had in Philippines.
These are the pretty boy eyes that arrived this week.

These are plainer ones I ordered for computer use, at home I don't have to look too charming.
Due to the way freight works it ends up much better value if I order two sets of eyes at a time.
AU$34 for both all up including delivery from my old favourite, selectspecs.com.

In a friendly light sometimes my grey eyes get a hint of blue about them, the vain side of me should try to use that.

A very persistent weed.

Looking at the nature patch in the front yard today I see the weed tree I've being trying to destroy has made yet another comeback, poking its weedy leaves out from the shady box I had covered the stump with hoping to spook it into expiring.

So I did a bit of digging hoping I could pop the stump out, but quickly realised that there was real work involved.

So poured a drop of diesel around the stump and gave it some fire therapy.

And a very healthy fire was the result. I've struggled with this super weed for years and I won't have any surprise if it does a phoenix act, mere poison years ago only increased its strength.

Why am I posting this?

An older view of Mayon taken by Olive (Olivia) in early May, this is a picture diary so I have to find a photo to have an excuse to say something.
I've started up a weblog for Olive which hopefully she will add a bit to later when she gets more comfortable, she has quite an adventure ahead but hopefully can find some fun things to share before she leaves.
Anyway it's over here oliveviews

Clever.

I bought this brick of pineapple juice the other day (because it was half price) and got a pleasant surprise to note that unlike similar milk bricks it was dead simple to open, with the added bonus of without needing special care to avoid spillage, just simply twist.
It has an inbuilt one shot only barbed sled to break the seal, brilliant.

My first job after leaving school was in the Golden Circle cannery 40 years ago, the noise was monumental with my ears ringing for hours afterwards, luckily I suppose it was only casual work so I was able to find a quieter job immediately that short term was over.

Sometimes we are the lucky country.

Imported from Canada yet written in one fairly universal language, weight written in the simple world standard  units.

Time to leave.

My puff was about to expire so it was time to leave and relax at home. This was an impressive sight, there must be plenty of money spent of these rides but mere mortals like me can only afford to look.

It says stars but I don't see any evidence of it, all being unknown to me.

This was the only smoker I saw, which was really quite astonishing I can't imagine the smoking rate of carnies has dropped below 110% maybe I was just lucky, at least the juniors who would ride there wouldn't notice it due to their excitement.
Then I left before it became too busy for this weary old man.

Bad timing here.

There seemed a bit of a lull on the showgrounds when I was there but I didn't wait however long it may have taken for the good stuff to recur. Woodchopping and horse jumping makes for good photos but not to be this time.

Sideshow stuff, or more fun with the Olympus SZ-16

The laughing clowns are always charming, perhaps they're only non-evil ones. Happily the sun made an appearance when I exited the display hall.

I hope he got a good shot of her.

Talking of shots, I think it would be very difficult to win here. I wonder what strings they pulled to be allowed guns.

I think I was still in school when the zipper appeared.

I measured this and think the sign is about 2 cm too low.

Perhaps the centrepiece mount was broken so they stuck it on upside down.

Sunlander.

John noticed cane loaded on a trailer going past on our webcam the other day, this is where it would have been heading. Entry numbers appear well down from years ago.
In the background I later noticed the Sunlander passenger train tooted past.

And here's the last carriage about to clear the showground.

Exhibits.

The school numbers have dwindled but these two, the Canossa and Abergowrie exhibits drew my interest, the drawing of students adds some much needed variation which is usually quite lacking and the Abergowrie one was quite different.

No surprises with the grown food entries, the judges just pick whatever is the largest.

The cakes looked very good, though left me wondering about nepotism, but life is like that, it's always about who you know.

This was a surprise, the smallest stool won.

Another view of the hall.

Ingham Show

A local public holiday today and I decided to ease some money from my wallet for pensioner entry to it, I thought I'd blown $6 at first since the gray skies are no friend for me to get bright photos, but things improved later.

Fresh flowers for Grace.

 Show day today and since I thought I'd go and take a few photos at the show I popped in to change the other set of Grace's flowers. Call me strange but I always talk to her.

The work across the road.

I wandered across the road to check out the work they did at the soccer fields last week, a pair of concrete platforms, I imagine the bleachers may sit on them.
I can't help but think they had to use up some taxpayer handouts before the financial year ended on Sunday.
Our house is between the V of the background bleachers.

Aftershave.

Now that I'm shaving again I'm looking for a low cost way of giving the face a bracing tingle afterwards, my Jim brain thought to try metho, not exactly cheap but nearly all alcohol, I poured some in an old tomato sauce bottle to make application easier.
It works pretty well as intended but later suffers from a horrid aftertaste when you lick your lips.
I don't think I can give it a full recommendation, only for the brave or stupid, but it is refreshing.
If I lived in one of those countries which don't try to raise the majority of their revenue from alcohol taxes then drinking spirits may do the job, but the prices here are too high to even think of drinking it, let alone wasting it.

Awkward.

After I made a doctor's appointment this morning I had quite a surprise to see the walkway blocked in a most enterprising manner, I suppose it was easier for me to wander around it than others who may have been to the doctor. At least the driver wouldn't have faced the onerous task of having to walk a few extra metres to get to the shop.