Last stop.

At the Bushy Parker Park at Rollingstone I noticed this spider, though I have no idea whether a bite results in instant death or just a painful lingering one.

Sandy Corner.

I noticed the lavatories at Sandy Corner have been upgraded. Despite still lacking a urinal having three unisex stalls makes these much more serviceable than the previous two sexed stalls.
The light showing in the middle stall is from the torch Olivia very conveniently had with her.

Right price at Clairview.

We stopped again at the lovely Clairview and noticed these goodies at the community centre which is beside the nice public lavatories.
The black box in front of the sign is the Star Wars Trilogy but the world's moved on and unlike the houses here that suffer from an extra zero on the end of the price, free is about the right rate for VHS gear, including the recorder.
We had a look and left it for someone more desirous.

Yaamba,

Maybe this will be the last time I stop at this comfort spot. I've loved it in the past when colourful birds abound on the feeding trays shown on the left here, but they've been absent for years now whenever I travel past, couple that with a very ordinary public lavatory that lacks a urinal and it's often a miserable stop, urinals are a vital thing for travellers.
The soggy look is from rain that drenched the east coast, happily it was pretty well gone on Saturday.

Rockhampton.

Naturally a train held us up in Rockhampton where it very usually runs down the middle of a main street.
After a short while I remembered that if I used the camera that the train would complete its crossing, true to form it did and I just caught it.
The usual bland car colours in view, Australia is cursed by a sea of bland grey cars, it's become a real joy to see the unusual like a pretty green car now.

Monto.

Monto has a lovely barbeque area which also has the look of being funded by recent government handouts to stimulate things, the side effect being the economy reduced to a perilous state.
Much of that would have been avoided if the tenders for work had the trailing zero on the price erased from the often hyper inflated cost.
Olivia was relaxed too that Morning and stayed in good cheer all day.

First night.

After receiving a lovely greeting from brother mega and SIL Robyn, who sadly had to go away for the weekend, so we headed back home slightly inland on the Burnett hwy, stopping at Eidsvold.
The cabin which at $72 for a night was more than I wanted to pay but it was quiet, had a great bed and good hot shower, even the A/C was a good quietish thermostat controlled unit, but the TV was a waste of time.
Since it's only an old analogue unit commonly found left out for kerbside collection I knew the quality was such that if I watched the football free TV usually insult our eyeballs with, it would just look like any other blurry mess on it.
The instructions for using the TV and set top box were clear and quite foolproof, which they would need to be for much of the public, but the downer is realising the signal is just a speck short of the being viable, resulting in a few seconds of being fine interrupted by a dropout. The stuttering result is too annoying to bother with so off it went and Jimmy wished he'd brought the radio he left behind thinking it wouldn't get any use.
In the morning I notice a dipole missing off the phased array aerial on the roof, that would cause the issue but it also seemed odd that it was a VHF unit in this age of UHF.

Olivia at last.

Then after a whole heap of passengers had exited customs, including all the crew (I personally thanked the Captain for flying Olivia safely here), Olivia appeared. We'd waited nine months for her visa to be granted but now I have a companion and wife again. We've been blessed in this internet age to have been able to stay in constant contact online but the time has now come for us to live life together.

Destination reached.

The Gold Coast airport and I was overjoyed to read Olivia's estimated arrival time was 20 minutes earlier at 07:30.

Naturally the Hodge factor kicked in after that, because Olivia was flying on a budget carrier she had to do a few laps looping around the coast until all the premium carriers had landed and departed but in the end it was only a few minutes late.
My mind thinks that they pay the same money for landing fees yet their natural position must be that they have to waste fuel circling waiting for their social betters to have priority.

Change of life road trip.

Leaving home the rain actually stopped for a short while just out of town, everything was working nicely and I'd only forgotten to take a good tripod for the camera.

But on a detour through Gladstone (which was way too wet to have bothered with) the street GPS decided it didn't want to play the game properly any more, At least I still had the map based one to help me.

Preparation.

Another chapter of my life shall begin soon, these sandwiches should sustain me for part of the interim period.
My posts here will be quiet for a while but should also be fairly hectic in a week's time.

Shrinking Jimmy.

Very likely this latest bit of weight loss is linked to myself being fairly crook this month, but at least the spark of improvement hit on Saturday afternoon. I suppose I've lost a bit of tummy fat but to me I think my now pipe-stem arms and legs have been victims of the bulk of my weight loss.
Still some slight pain under my ribs but at least it doesn't affect my sleep now, pity the course of antibiotics didn't clear it completely but I can't see the doc again until after I collect my dear Olivia from the airport.
11 years ago when I first saw my current doctor I was 116 kg, I was even heavier before that, so this is a weight for me to be pleased about.

A real cruddy job.

The battery clasp on one of my smoke alarms broke (as well as one on the battery) so thinking sideways I put a regulator from an old failed project into service, and hooked it into the 12 volt line I have in the house.
Some really bad soldering (a word the yanks just can't pronounce) and junk wire to connect.

Yoink.

The price was right, yum.

The price is right.

Even if it is unsalted butter 10c is too good a price to ignore. It is a bit odd sprinkling a bit of salt on top to compensate for what was left out though.
The pills were what the doctor prescribed for a dose of what may have been diverticulitis (again) pity they didn't really have any effect but yesterday I finally felt I'm recovering a bit after three weeks of quite poor health.

Lazy lineup.

I noticed the shopping trolley's lined up unusually well the other day. Pity there's so many who can't be bothered pushing them a few metres to a holding pen, it doesn't send a good message to the young who are open to guidance.

17 years.

In 1997 phone numbers in Australia changed to 8 digits, so I imagine just like me they enjoy silence on their phone line.

Can't help myself.

My eyes are tuned for things reduced in price.
They don't taste too bad either, like peanuts in the shell but without the woody shell taste.
On a really positive note Olivia's visa was finally granted a few hours ago, so soon we shall be together as a real couple, the time is right now for me too.

For the Sunbirds.

I hope they like it.
I'll have to move it though, no chance of photos of them from here.

Moon and Venus.

I noticed this in the pre-dawn light the other day. It's great to be able to get shots like this hand held with very little effort, though it is over exposed but that's normal when shooting the moon with non-manual exposure.
You can't see them but Mercury and minor planet Pluto are hiding in the background.

Zenodorus Orbiculatus

It's the black spider with white markings. Spied it on the handrail of our front stairs the other day.
She has her eye on that other spider and will soon jump on it, dinner I suspect. I even managed to cypher what breed it was fairly quickly thanks to the wonder of the internet.
Like most things here it's fairly harmless to us so I just leave them be, if spiders kill flies and mosquitoes why would I harm them, they're my friend.