Buchan caves reserve 1981.

I'm obscured here and am wearing the yellow shirt, I liked colour even back then.

Another location mystery.

Another mystery for mega. I'm curious to see what this part of the planet looks like now but it's too vague for me to think of the location. Things of note are it's bitterly cold, I think Count is on the left with what I think is his Triumph, it seems the rainbow machine is having a run but I don't think it's too far from Sydney, perhaps Blue Mountains?

Mystery location.

My Dad's visit brought some old photos that I have scanned, this one made me curious, it seems to show brother Mega doing a fairly normal operation that boys in their prime do, but I'm curious as to where it is, with luck it may spur Mega's memory.

Season's Greetings.

Be happy everyone.

89 years ago today.

My grandparents were married. The marriage ran out of puff after only 70 years though but it was still a good run.
There may have been a fee for smiling in those days as my granddad was the only one game to give it a go.

Getting closer.

Faded flowers.

I noticed Grace's flowers had faded a bit too much for my taste when I visited a few days ago, this spurred me to advance my plan to replace them on her birthday.
Happily for us we had a surprise visit from my Dad. so I dragged him dawn to Grace's grave and he took these photos after much prodding from me.

I should rethink my schedule after this.

It's beginning to look a lot like xmas.

The last two for me have been sad non-events but Olivia has brightened up the house, and myself.
Xmas can be a quite rotten time for some people, everything is shut thanks to a colonial age government, and there's no sport played, so for a few men with no family who never have the wish to cook it's not a time for cheer.

Pointless widened ditch

Plenty of  money was poured into expanding the drain across the road from us, pity it'll be a total waste unless they clear the Herbert river, although it's possible they may have done some work on it secretly. When we flood it's water backing up from the Herbert  that causes our angst, this drain has always been a non-issue.

Tripod spider.

I felt sorry for this poor bugger but I did the same to it as I do to every other spider I see, I left it alone.

A power line perhaps.

This morning we heard sirens aplenty, but that's not uncommon, what was unusual was vehicles slowing down outside here, that gave me cause to grab the camera and wander outside for a peek.
Using my eyes I couldn't see anything that was causing such a flurry of activity but when I grabbed the piccies off the card just now it seems to me the problem was a power line dropping. Maybe if we'd lost power it would have been more obvious but we lose power very rarely, far less often even than we get flooding.
BTW I wouldn't fancy the ride in that maroon car, it seems to be following the current fashion for minimal sidewall on tyres, the thing that aids comfort, and in this case perhaps handling too.

Five years ago today since my Nana died.

Only in her later years did I start to know her, this is my last photo, taken a year and a half before she died when she was only 98.
I visited with my Dad Fred but I was so depressed by the nursing home she had moved to that I only took one photo and left. I certainly hope I can avoid these death farms as I age.
When I saw a huge expensive (and probably double normal price due to the way the system works) TV with the an awful picture made worse by not setting the correct aspect ratio (fat heads) I just knew that nobody cares about the cattle in here any more than to give them whatever simple things needed to sustain life, their meals and pills, and hopefully they're far enough from the ambulance for them to be deceased before they arrive.
We seem to pour money into social issues here in a manner like sweeping dirt under a carpet.

Proton Saga/S16 brake pads.

In a curious and experimental mood a week ago I ordered a set of pads meant for another vehicle that according to info about their shape should be fine for Daisy, plus they were less than half the price of the true catalogue pads.
I was right, the new pads are identical to the original pads but are a much prettier blue. What is odd is that the original don't have the screamer tang that the catalogue indicates.
Anyway if budget is important consider this as an alternative, the Bendix catalogue lists the replacement as a DB1748 but I ordered DB1725 which is listed for a Holden Barina TK 2005-2009, or as it really is before a different badge is slapped upon it, a Daewoo Kalos. These pads are far more readily available and less than half the price.
Anyway I hope the new pretty blue Protex pads I installed are nice and gentle on the rotors, harsh performance pads are pointless for gentle drivers like me, we have no need for repeated fade-free operation, that's for the racetrack as our roads are far too heavily policed to bother with spirited driving nowadays.

The only tool needed is a number 14 spanner, a dead simple job that only few percent of people would consider doing in these nanny times.

Mango time.

I picked this mango from our tree yesterday, they're not something I get excited about but Olivia is happy about them.
It looks like the green ants like them too.

Crack.

I suppose it was inevitable but Daisy now has a cracked windscreen.
I heard a stone hit the other day but didn't see any damage until now, the impact appears to be in the far right of this photo, beneath the resting place of the wiper.
It's times like this that living here has its negatives, if I was in crowded Brisbane a replacement would only cost about $200 and be a simple matter to organise, but for Jimmy who's rather allergic to using a telephone the task in very stressful. For some odd reason businesses here tend to be phone only, they don't even tend to have an email address.
A while back I saw windscreens cost about $20 each from China but they're not something a mere person can order, and plenty of windscreen companies sure take advantage of that.

Spark plug inspection.

Looks fairly clean but that's only to be expected, I was just hoping not to see signs of something amiss, I think I can relax.

Caution required.

I thought I'd climb up on the roof before the day got too hot so I could clear out the grass growing in the guttering, however much to my surprise and dismay the tiny bit of dew still on the roof made it extremely slippery.
Shortly after snapping this shot I had a big whoopsie and the poor camera took yet another tumble bouncing a fair distance along the roof but without sustaining extra damage.
After becoming aware of how slippery the roof was I carried on in a much more cautious manner and actually found it quite a difficult job, and it was very difficult for me to drag my body away from the edge after finishing.

Ingham has lights.

In a fancy ceremonial fashion our Mayor switched on our new town xmas tree tonight. Ingham won't look as drab at xmas time after our council splashed some money about for decorations.
I think this shall serve as a future trigger point for our lights to be put up.

Paxton is dressed up now.

With thanks to John in Newfoundland Paxton has a lovely maple leaf shirt now.

It's either very happy or very sad.

Olivia's plant that she bought a little while ago is blooming a-plenty, I hope it isn't in pain.

Our road gets a freshen up.

We had traffic control outside today, a surprise to me was they were giving the road a fresh seal. It was still in pretty good nick, having only seen 11 years of service and floods since the previous job.

The crew seemed to know their job pretty well and I have to praise their productivity.

First a layer of tar.

Then spray on a layer of rocks, the method looks a bit odd but works very well.

Then road rollers settle the surface by going up and back a few times.

A splash of paint to indicate where to paint.

Today's job is done.

On the 27th June 2003 this crew did a lovely smooth asphalt job, we can only hope the new job lasts as well.

Now I just have to hope Daisy doesn't break a windscreen.

A GPS upgrade for Daisy.

Daisy has fairly proper OBD compliance, something the auto trade in Australia has been very loathe to pass on to consumers, but since it appears to largely comply I treated Daisy to a tablet that can act as an OBD dashboard and fault reader. Then I realised it had a lovely screen and inbuilt GPS so now I've set it up to be mainly a GPS, and use OBD in a secondary role.
As usual my mounting method is rough and simple.

Happy Birthday Mega.

Something from the past.

I'm always tinkering.

Daisy comes with a very ordinary transmission indicator lamp, which must exist purely to comply with an ADR, but being a budget car why would we expect any better?
To use up some time I cobbled a few bits together to make a three coloured LED lamp for it, I just grabbed a 470 Ohm resistor that was handy and series connected them, 11 mA current flow seemed like a good number so I kept it.

I never measured anything so anybody else who may try this will be sure to improve on my ordinary effort, but eventually it did work after sorting out issues with plugging it into the existing T5 socket, including blowing a fuse that took an age to locate.
The end result though is nicer yet still retains my groanworthy finish and touch.

An early start to Xmas.

Peter next door has been itching to get into the Xmas spirit so lit things up last night, I'd be inclined to thing Halloween is just a mite early but maybe he was just testing.

1st of November, a double birthday in the family.

Olivia's mother Fidela would have turned 85 today.

Also my Grandmother Mollie would have turned 111 today, neither are with us any more.
My Nana is posing with her British Empire Medal here, they don't give them here any more but I have to think she merited this lowest of the Queen's medals which coincidentally is also the highest non-bravery award a common citizen could attain.
I also think today marks the 111th anniversary of Mollie's Mother's death, an event that drove a wedge into her relationship with her Father.

Sensible Skippy.

I spotted this pair today pondering whether to cross the road. I was glad they changed their mind and hopped back again, that road is too dangerous a place for skippy.

Maraka parade 2014.

Olivia and I went out to see the Maraka festival parade on Saturday, Maraka was created a long time ago to celebrate the end of the sugar season but now there's always much cane still to cut but at least it adds a bit of spectacle to Ingham.
This drum and pipe band led the parade and thankfully they were pretty good, in tune with crisp drums.

The theme of the parade this year was the centenary of the local steam cane hauling loco "Homebush" which appeared in the 2008 film "Australia", it's only used for special occasions now. The business floats have pretty well become merely history now with it becoming the preserve of local schools or taxpayer funded organisations, but the Homebush theme was applied nicely by all, this copy was very good.

I think the red car is a Fiat 124 Sport Spyder, with what appears to be excessive steering toe-out, or worn joints. Italian vehicles are special in Ingham so it wasn't grouped with the others.

Still on cars the second one here appears to be a Ford Popular 103E roadster ute, with such luxury features as a single windscreen wiper, yet despite that luxury it was claimed to be the cheapest car available back in those days before my time. It's followed mainly by Aussie grey porridge usually powered by heavy and inefficient V8 engines, though the extra weight of the engines did seem to be compensated by removal of any sort of silencer.
I had some battery drama with my camera which really curtailed my fun. Either a charger problem or an extra camera problem after that tumble that broke the screen, it has rattled me a bit as I even took two spares but had to ration severely my shot taking.

What cracks?

I have a fair bit of mortar mix left over so this post copped a makeover before the bag became a big rock.

A coat of paint may even have it look like a proper post again.

More effort required.

Predictably the job I did yesterday was somewhat a failure, the cement was nice to stand on but quite a failure to seal. Today I've used some sealant to try and make it watertight, at least it'll take another day before I have to scratch the noggin working out another cheap fix.
I used the pegs as wedges to enable me to get the sealant under the joint.
Fingers crossed again.

Capsicum coming.

Lousy photo but I was way out of my comfort zone at the time.
Olivia planted some capsicums the other week, one sadly died but the others seem to be thriving, this one has a flower and checking the photo it appears the green ants will spread some pollen about. We're both looking forward to seeing results.

More work.

While I was at it I fitted a waterfall shower fixture I'd been planning to do for ages.
Happily the law was changed a few years ago to allow mere mortals to fit their own shower heads, this was due to pork barreling a few years ago when green initiative taxpayer money was used to hand out water saving heads to homeowners, who if they followed the law then would have had to call in a plumber and very possibly need a 2nd mortgage to pay for having it fitted, so the law was relaxed and we can now fit shower heads as well as tap washers, but not the whole tap, that would require a plumber.
Australians imagine we live in a free country but we must be about 200th on the list of freedoms.
Pity I can't test it yet due to wet cement.