A Quiet Cup Day In Queensland

There is a bit of sun about today but not warm enough to see me jump in the pool. I even got some rain drops on the glasses this morning as I headed off on my daily bike ride. With a threatening sky I took a slightly shorter route. By the time I finished 11 or so k's the sky had cleared and everything was beginning to warm up.

I spent a bit of time on the BeCA website adding another post and had a quick check out of what movies there are to download. I am afraid movies such as "Apocalypse Zombies" don't do a lot for me. But that seems to be the standard fare available for download right now. No wonder I grab a heap of TV Series off the ABC's iView.

On stinking hot days we put an umbrella up in the 'back corner'. If you have a few people around you need to 'jockey' for position in some shade. We are considering buying a reasonable quality 3m x 3m "Gazebo" to set up in the back corner.

We took a few minutes this afternoon and checked out our local Bunnings and saw this on display.

It looked 'huge' in the store but we found it would fit OK. It needs to fit in over the pool filter cover so we need the larger 3 metre size.

The possible remaining hassle is that it takes 2 people to set it up. If we had a thunder storm beginning to rattle in like we do in this part of the world it would be great if it could be partially dismantled by one person. Not so sure this is the case with this model.

It seems pretty solid though and has all these supports in the roof to hold it up. It may well be a 2 person job to get it down. I would need to fasten it to the fence on two sides in case of windy weather. Velcro straps would probably do that job though.

After measuring things up it seems this model is most likely the one we will go for. It will give us plenty of shade on those very hot days.

I could then set the old umbrella up over the semi circle section of the pool and offer some shade for that area as well. Got to keep the home brew out of the sun!

During the afternoon we took 45 minutes and enjoyed the 2011 Melbourne Cup on TV. It was an exciting race this year with the winner getting over the line by a nose hair!