Something pretty.

Same type of orchid as grows at home, but they're of our region.

Maraka parade.

This years Maraka festival parade appeared to have a military theme, likely a good idea with the army currently doing some exercises in town.

This Mack held up the flow when it stopped for a little while but like so many things in regional Australia there seems less participants every year.

Happily the Cowboys had fans.

One tank looks happy.

A Cowboys flag. Go Cowboys, not wannabes any more.

Olivia's in hospital tonight.

Olivia had an unexpected bout of bleeding tonight which was a bit heavy so the hospital is looking after her tonight, hopefully she'll be right to come home tomorrow. All her signs that were being monitored looked pretty good, and she's in good hands.

Ready for inspection.

I see the doctor tomorrow as a follow up to the little slash and burn job he did on my cheek, I've saved him the bother of removing the stitches so it should be a pretty quick visit.
I wish I could go to the doctor without feeling I'm just a burden to the system, as least the operation was a useful visit but most of my appointments just waste everybody's time, at least according to statistics that I've seen I see a doctor less often than the average, despite having poor health requiring pills.

Yuck.

My life is being reborn since Olivia came here, she's found friends and that's enabled me to socialise again, that means I can help people again, Olivia's friend's husband had trouble with his clutch slave cylinder so I was able to change it for him, the old one shown here was quite yucky but a new one at least got the clutch operating again.
The pity is that I saw a ball joint boot was split while I was doing it, then as we were testing the clutch I suspect it needs new universal joints, plus I suspect the timing chain. Somehow I think there might be plenty of other things that need doing to the old beast.

All good.

I can forget about my face now, it seems to be repairing itself fine, even though it's still a scary sight apart from the scar.
I'd now love to talk the Doctor into a quick snip like this one on my intestine where I still have that bleeding problem that has sadly caused me to be almost teetotal. He'd only have to dig in a tiny way to find it and I'd think a quick zap with that expensive soldering iron and a few stitches would fix it up, but somehow I don't like my chances of sweet talking him.

Sherlock Hodge.

I took this photo on the first day of my great trip to the Philippines in 2013, I thought today now that there's a little bit of street view from there I'd see if I could work out where it was.
I took it from a taxi we took from Makati to Ermita, and naturally I was quite lost the whole journey but I had a couple of clues from other shots along the way to help me. It seems the driver, typically for tourists around the world took us the long way, but since the fare was agreed before starting it was very likely the best route.

It was opposite the cemetery on South Avenue, things have changed since then but the tree appears right, as does the security fence.

Nearly three years now.

Next Friday will be three years since dear Grace died but since today was a good day to go out I made a little trip and gave her a similar flower from the same garden bed that I gave her when we buried her.

Progressing nicely.

All seems pretty good, the blister on the left is from the hit of nitrogen the Doc did to blast the bit of trouble outside of his slice me up zone.

Not spiders but stitches, I've read on-line that face stitches can be removed within 5 days so being a fairly hardcore DIY sort of chap I got my old rusty side cutters into action and removed 4 of the stitches, then decided to leave one for an extra day just in case of drama.

Now washed and shaved and displaying the sole remaining stitch.

A flower for Daisy.

I like colourful pretty things so Daisy scored a solar powered flower to wave at the folk behind us, at least for the few moments before we get overtaken.

Removal time.

I've endured this patch of Bowen's disease on my cheek for what must be over 15 years, my new Doctor was pretty keen to practice his excising skill, and since it's often been rather annoying I weakened a touch to allow him to have a chop at it.

After giving me a painful few jabs to ensue it was painless thereafter he pencilled in a guideline for his blade.

 After the cut it bled a bit so a bit of fun was had with his expensive medical grade soldering iron.

Stitches. I asked him if I could remove then myself, which only brought a semi-negative reply but Olivia who was nice enough to take these blow-by-blow pics kyboshed the idea, being married I dare not break the rules of "she who must be obeyed"

All done, smiling, happy, Dr Sprague has such a lovely manner and workmanship I don't even regret having it done.

Red means right.

Olivia bought me these house slippers recently and oddly to me left and right appeared the same but after using them a bit my feet formed them into shape, so to make life easier she cleverly added a few red stitches to the right one. Red because with audio connectors red is used for the right channel.

Hiding.

There's a frog hiding in Olivia's plant holder. It's one of the good ones so I asked her to leave it alone.

Grammar.

I saw this the other day and its simple grammar whoopsie struck me, a shame is that from what I've seen very few Aussies will notice it, and I don't recall ever being taught its use at school, somehow I even doubt if more recent generations of teachers even know its use today.
On a happy footnote I've read online that the Cowboys have had an extra time win in the Grand Final and are now the Premiers of the NRL.  I'm going to enjoy the replay that starts in 15 minutes, my nerves (and eyesight) didn't allow me to see a minute of the live telecast on macroblocky free TV.

Philippine innocence.

It'd be very suss in most English speaking parts of the world.
It's in the Calamba area which has plenty of thermal pool resorts.
One more sleep before the Cowboys play the last game of the season to decide the premiership, a game I'll have to wait until the replay before watching, I don't handle stress very well.

GPS mount.

I made up a new mount for my street GPS this morning, it seems to work OK maybe this will help someone gather ideas.
The old screw thread on the mount broke years ago but it's the same as common 15 mm plumbing fittings thread.

I cut it to fit in the tray under the radio.

Daisy gets a new vent.

Predictably the repair I did some months ago to Daisy's vent failed after a while so rather than fiddle around again I ordered a new one which meant a trip to Townsville and letting Olivia have some fun shopping down there.

 Fitting the new vent was a simple procedure but while Daisy had some parts out I checked the lighting on the A/C-heater controls.

Blast, they must have found an old antique supply of filament bulbs, they aren't my style so I found four LEDs to replace them, it did at least use LED on the A/C and I assume the recirculation buttons
BTW having recirculation on is for car salesmen and when there's a very dead animal on the roadside, flow through is the preferred setting. Car salesmen have their ways like they will always have  a transmission set in the power position if the car has a power/economy switch, probably it's best to set everything they do to its opposite position.