R-Day

The removalist truck rolled in at around 7:30 am this morning, just as everyone was waking. Then it was all hands to the wheel and slowly but surely the house was emptied of all furniture and pre-packed boxes.  The team consisted of three young guys who obviously have backs in much better condition than I do.

I am standing as I type this as all the chairs have been packed and are in the truck!

Wednesday afternoon was spent with me just looking busy or keeping out of the way.  I downloaded a couple of movies and did some web surfing. Trish was flat out with some cleaning.  Kate discovered she now has an extra shelf in the pantry.  It had been removed and was sitting on the pantry floor!

At 5pm we were on our way to Pat and Graeme's to catch up, have another lovely meal, enjoy a few drinks and a have great chat.  It was extremely pleasant.  We discussed the kids new lifestyle in Saudi Arabia and compared it to what their daughter had enjoyed in Dubai.

Arj has a blog on getting ready for their adventure.  You can read about it HERE. Hit on the "older" link at the foot of his post's page to view his previous blog postings

There will be even more cleaning this afternoon before we all head off to Arj's parents home where they will spend their last two nights.  We are required to cart some stuff they will be leaving at Arj's parents home.

From there we will make our way to Mordialloc and the home of Eddie and Patsy Riordan where we will spend the night, a great meal, a few drinks and a look at the footy.  There is one of very few Thursday night matches on tonight. 

P-Day

P-Day, "Packing Day" has arrived and the place is going crazy.  The big winners will most likely be the local Salvation Army as heaps of stuff is being tossed out.  Mostly it is kids' clothes which isn't worth storing as the clothes won't fit when they return in two year's time.

And it appears the cat, which went to our daughter's unit in St Kilda, is beginning to become accustomed to its new home.  It took quite a few hours before it appeared out of its carry case but more recent photos show it is beginning to find its way about.  It won't belong before it is sleeping on someone's bed!

The two professional  packers are here and are older ladies who appear to have done this job many many times before.  The biggest hassle they have is writing "Bartholomeusz" on each of the boxes.  That seems quite a challenge at this stage!

The dinner dishes etc will be packed as well so an old store of plastic plates, cups, knives and forks is being put to use.

The bins, rubbish and recycling will be over full!

There are boxes everywhere and the constant sound of tape for the sealing of boxes can be heard in the background!  We still have the fridge to empty but I guess that will occur later in the day.

The photo (left) shows our stuff which has been plonked on one of the beds, well away from anything which is to be packed.  We wouldn't want any of our stuff to finish up in storage for a couple of years.

Last night we enjoyed a lovely evening around with Keith and June Damon.  We get on very well with them and they are being extremely generous in storing the kid's car for them while they are overseas for two years.  Not only was the company great but the meal was delightful as well.  We were able to assist June with Skype on her iPad and she spoke with a grand daughter in London when it was all set up.

They were amazed it was all possible at no cost!

My job today is to keep out of the way!  After running a school to now be told to go in there and do something on your computer is a big come down!  But I will get over it.

Tonight it is a meal with good friends, Pat and Graeme then back to the kids' home for our last night with them. It is R-Day tomorrow, the removalists come in to empty the house!  Then comes the house "cleanup".  The kids will spend their last two nights with Arj's parents before fly out time at 10:40 Saturday night.  We will spend a night with good friends Patsy and Eddie and then on Friday we will move and stay a couple of nights with Kim before we set of for Caloundra Sunday morning with the two cars.

I am not sure when I will have internet access again so the next blog entry may not be until we get back to Caloundra on Tuesday August 5th.  Kim does have wifi but there may not be an opportunity to get online.

There is usually free wifi at motels nowadays so I may get a quick entry in while we are driving home.

Shippers, Packers And Removalists

D-Day, the day Kate, Arj and the kids fly out to take up their two year teaching appointment in Saudi Arabia is getting closer! They fly out at 10:40pm on Saturday!

The "Shippers" are here right now, packing the 800kg of luggage, some which is to be shipped by air to Saudi Arabia.  This will possibly arrive in a couple of weeks, the rest will arrive up to 2 months later.  The guys have done this so many times before it is pretty straight forward for them to do.

The bikes have been partially dismantled and packed ready for shipping. The photo shows one of the piles of boxes ready to go!

Tomorrow we have the 'Packers" coming.  It is their job to 'pack' all the gear which is going into storage for the time they are away.  This will include furniture and the like.  Then Thursday morning the removalists will descend upon the house to load everything into their truck to put in storage.

Two lots of people who are prospective renters appeared for an inspection of the house late Monday afternoon.  Both seemed keen and are completing 'applications'.  Their rental record will be inspected as well as their ability to pay and hopefully the house will then be rented.

Arj and I set up "Viber" accounts on our phones yesterday so we can have some contact while they are away.  I am sure we will refine this when they get there and check out what others do at the school to keep in touch.

Yesterday afternoon I caught up with good mate Gordon and we enjoyed a catch up of old times and a couple of beers. Gordon and his wife Anne (with whom I taught for many many years) are holidaying on the Sunshine Coast in a week or so and we will catch them again shortly.  Gordon was the Assistant Principal for some of my time at Doveton North Primary School.

Tonight it is an evening meal with Keith and June, tomorrow (Wednesday) an evening meal with Pat and Graeme.  Keith and June may be looking after the kids' car.  It seems it fits into their garage OK which really takes the pressure off their need to sell it.

Today it really is keeping out of the way and helping as required!

The Sun Is Out

It is a bit blowy outside today (Monday) but it is expected to get to 18, a lot warmer than we have had for a while.

Our dinner with most of the family at Malaysia Garden on Saturday was a great success.  As it turned out, Kim came down with a nasty bout of "Gastro" so we didn't see her at all.  We enjoyed our favorites and it was great to see the grandkids jump into the tasty Malaysian food we had ordered.

There was Char Koay Teow, Beef Rendang, Boneless Chicken Curry, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Fried Rice and heaps of coconut Rice as well.  The prawn crackers were OK too!

Then it was home to see the last bit of the footy with Trish's team pulling off a great come from behind win!

As Kate and the family are going to a very strong Muslim country, Kate has been advised she will need to choose her clothing she wears outside the KAUST Compound carefully, especially when in the city of Jeddah.  She purchased an "Abaya" dress just to be sure.  She modelled it for us Sunday morning.

It isn't the most flattering of piece of clothing.  They are now hearing that as long as she is fully covered from neck to tow she should be OK.  But you can't be too careful!

Arj has received a "New Arrivals Handbook" providing heaps of info about where they will be living.  It is a 1.36MB pdf document which you can download HERE.  There is some interesting reading there!

Sunday afternoon saw us head to Drouin to celebrate good friend Barry's 60th birthday.  They were neighbours of ours for many years and we have remained great friends ever since.  We were the last to leave! It was great fun catching up and enjoying a few drinks.

Saturday Update

Our days go from unplanned to unplanned.  What we had planned to do during the day often doesn't happen.  I had a couple of things planned for yesterday but eventually spent the whole day at Kate's.  Impromptu baby sitting or changes of mind are now the norm.

We baby sat both Thursday and Friday as Kate and Arj went through a couple of their numerous farewells.  They have another farewell today at lunchtime, then tonight we are (nearly) all meeting up from our side of the family (kids and all) for a meal and more farewells.  Also this is a birthday celebration for both Chris and Wendy.

It doesn't promise to be a late night at all so we will just wait and see what happens.  And there is a very huge footy match on TV tonight of which we may see the later stages if things go to plan.

Now I have a new GPS I thought I might jump online and tinker with updating the maps on the older one we have.  Youtube was great for this and had all of the instructions on how to do it.  Usually I would have expected to pay over $100 for map updates for the old unit.  At that cost it was easier and cheaper to buy a new one.

Anyway I 'obtained' what I thought was the correct downloads from online but they didn't look at all like what I was meant to download from what I had seen in the film clip.  I went through a different process and I think I 'may' have updated it, but then I may not have.

It now says there are two maps installed on the GPS, the original maps and the updated maps so we will just have to wait and see what shows on the GPS screen when we are near a lot of new streets and roads near our home in a week or so.

The good thing is that the GPS still seems to work OK despite me tinkering with it.

Today we 'may' be heading to Fountain Gate Shopping Centre again, we may be getting rid of some of the clothes we permanently leave in Melbourne to the Salvos, and we will be doing a spot of baby-sitting!

A Foggy Morning

The weather continues cool and overcast.  It wasn't quite so cold last night but it is cold and dreary looking outside this morning.

On Wednesday the kids took the opportunity to go to Mt Donna Buang and the snow.  They don't get that much snow in Saudi Arabia and it was a first time occasion for Charli and James.  The arrived back home mid afternoon after being wet and cold up in the frozen snow.

But the grand kids loved it.  Snow isn't my nor Trish's scene I am afraid.

I did grab a GPS for the car yesterday.  We don't rely on them a lot but they are handy when on a long trip.  The older one doesn't have 'map updates'.  On the way down from Caloundra there were quite a few occasions when it said "Recalculating" as a new section of road had the GPS thinking we were driving across open paddocks!

Also the speed zones were way out of date and this made quite a difference to any estimated time of arrival.  It is handy to be able to glance down and see exactly what the speed limit is if you have missed the sign.

There are also times when Trish heads into Brisbane and we don't know our way around that part of the world at all.  It will therefore be handy for some trips.  Lane guidance will also be great.  It comes with life time map updates which will keep the thing relevant for longer.

I picked this one up for $125, while at Dick Smith it was on sale for $199!  Another store had it for $168.

Last night we caught up with friends Eddie and Patsy.  This time we went to their 'favorite' Vietnamese restaurant just a little out of Springvale called the Minh-Ky in Springvale South.  This restaurant specializes in Roast Duck.

They had never tried Roast Duck before so it was a new and extremely pleasant experience for them.  They loved it!  It isn't too good for the cholesterol level though!

It was a great night made even better because our table was almost directly under the reverse cycle air conditioner ceiling outlet and we were lovely and warm.

Getting There

We are currently with the kids in one of Melbourne's S/E suburbs.  They depart for a two year teaching contract in Saudi Arabia in a week or so.  We are here to help out, though I don't seem to do much, and to farewell them at the airport on Saturday week.

We are catching up with friends while here and are slowly but surely getting our appointment book under control.

We have a little trouble catching some people but with a little persistence we manage to get hold of them.

Yesterday, Monday, we caught up with our Financial Advisor here in Melbourne for an update on our situation.  It seems it will be steady as you go.  We alerted him we wanted to travel to see the kids in Saudi Arabia and possibly check out a few things in Europe as well in April 2015.  If we were going that far we might as well do some stuff.

That shouldn't be a problem we were told and he will manage things accordingly.

Trish has it all planned, a 9 day guided tour of Spain, several nights in Barcelona, a 24 day cruise of the Mediterranean and a few weeks in Saudi Arabia.  All told it would be around 8 weeks away!

From our appointment with our Advisor we went looking for another 'warm' place spend to some time.  Fountain Gate Shopping Centre seemed to fill the bill so that is where we went.  My old rechargeable el cheapo electric razor died recently so I was on the lookout for a replacement.

I don't like electric shavers that much but they are handy especially when travelling and in case of emergency. 

Needless to say we ate lunch while at the Shopping Centre, a small place called The China Bar which just so happens to have Char Koay Teow on its menu!

Not being school holidays meant the Centre wasn't overcrowded.

Today is a bit of house cleaning and there is a hard rubbish collection booked as well.  There are a couple of nibbles for their car which they have for sale as well which certainly would solve some problems for them.

I am not sure what I am actually up to today, I will just go with the flow!  Maybe I will download a TV show or two..... for a change! Or maybe I will catch up with a mate?

Cold & Gloomy

It is an overcast, cold and wet Sunday morning in Melbourne.  My nerves have settled after a close footy game on TV last night.  I am rugged up despite the heating being adjusted from what it was set to overnight to everyday use. The house is again beginning to warm.

Saturday was spent quietly catching up on a range of things and chatting away.  We expect the dining room table and chairs to disappear today, they were sold yesterday on Gum Tree!  Power of Attorney forms are sitting waiting to be signed on the table before it is collected.

We are learning more about KAUST, (King Abdullah University of Science & Technology) which is around 70k's north of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia where Kate Arj and family will be heading in less than two weeks.  There is a website for newcomers so the can familiarize themselves with how the place works before they get there.  You can access the site HERE.

The family went out to another farewell occasion last night so Trish and I headed to our most favored eating establishment in Springvale.  The Vietnamese Rolls tasted as good as they look!

My inexpensive phone doesn't have the best camera I am afraid.

Then we headed back to the warmth of the house and the footy on TV.

Today there will be more sorting of our friends visiting timetable to do.  We have quite a few friends we want to catch up.  Our immediate priority though is to be of whatever help we can be for the family here. We leave some clothes and things with Kate as well so we have to sort them out and find a spot to leave them.

However with Kate and Arj heading off and with us considering visiting them in April 2015 most likely we won't be back in Melbourne for well over 12 months at the earliest.  And I can tell you the winter weather here doesn't encourage us either.

Today it is lunch with Arj's parents.

Tomorrow we have our own financial guy to catch up with.  By then things should begin to settle and we can plan what we are doing a little more easily.  At this stage all we can confirm is the furniture removalists will be clearing everything out of the house Thursday week.

Now In Melbourne

It took a few days and around 1850 kilometres of driving but we have arrived in Melbourne and have moved in with Arj, Kate and family.  The drive down was via Newcastle where we caught up with Janet and Mick for a couple of nights.

The photo above/left shows us stopped in cold conditions to grab a quick lunch (yet another gorgeous hot pie!) before hopping back behind the wheel again to continue the drive.  The photo was taken at Macksville in N.S.W.

It was lots of fun catching up and discussing where we are at with things while in Newcastle.  Mick is approaching retirement age and has a few things to consider over the next 18 months or so.  Janet continues to respond favorably to recent medical concerns.

The wine was perfect but the company even better while we were with them.  It could have been a little warmer but the stay there was great.  We did around 875k's the first day getting from Caloundra to Newcastle and then almost 1000k's the next day getting to Chris' place in Melbourne.

The weather on the way from Newcastle to Melbourne was cold.  At one stage the outside temp near Yass was 6 degrees.  There were periods of heavy rain and extremely strong winds but after leaving Newcastle before 6:30am we arrived in Melbourne just before 5pm.

We caught up with Chris Wendy Andrew and Emily for the evening, lots of good stories and good times.  Andrew is getting into 'downloading' so he and I got on extremely well.

By 10 am the next day we had travelled another 75 ks and had arrived with our daughter Kate, Arj, Charli and James on the S.E. side of Melbourne  We will stay with them almost right up until they depart for Saudi Arabia for two years where they have a two year teaching appointment.   Already much of our time has been 'booked' up!

Kate and Arj are out tonight so Trish and I will be baby sitting the two kids ..... and watching the footy on TV.

I know this will come as a big shock to everyone but I have managed to catch up with my TV Series downloading since we have arrived with Kate and Arj!I had around 8 episodes to catch up with and that task is now all done!

The weather is cold and overcast.  The strong wind makes it feel even colder.

Further Getting Sorted

My get ready to head to Melbourne list is just about sorted!  I mowed the lawn the other day, and this morning I vacuumed the pool and washed the car.

As inviting as the pool may look, I wouldn't recommend a swim right now if I were you!  Just in case you are interested, the pool temp is a testy 11º, a little too cool for anyone I would suggest. Click on the photo for a larger view. 

Medications have been readied to ensure we have enough for our time away.  The Waeco has chilled some beer for me and I will slip some soft drinks in it as well..  I will load it into the boot of the car tomorrow prior to heading to the Chiropractor for a last minute tune up!

My 7" computer tablet has been loaded with songs and is ready to go and my portable hard drive has been updated with all my recent downloads. The kids do seem to say to us when we arrive, "Hi Dad, did you have a good trip and did you bring your hard drive with you?"

The battery for the camera is being charged as I type!

I was reading where the awards for best TV series movies, actors etc is not far away and a series which has been nominated is "The Good Wife".  Here it is shown on one of the popular commercial free to air TV channels which immediately indicates it can't be much good.

Top shows such as Breaking Bad is shown on one of the lesser known ABC channels and Fargo was hidden away on SBS!

To cut a long story short I downloaded an episode of The Good Wife.  It was great and I saw it had an IMDB score of 8.2 which puts it in the top range of TV Shows  (The 2 shows mentioned above score over 9 on the IMDB website!)

As I now have the extra download capacity about 3 hours later I had all 22 episodes of Series 5 of The Good Wife!

Both our footy teams have won this weekend so we are both happy!  It will be a footy afternoon today as well, and possibly a bit more of The Good Wife TV Series tonight!

Extra Cold Overnight

It seems this morning (Saturday) was Brisbane's coldest morning for over a 100 years.  It sure felt like it too!  I don't remember ever having it so cold here especially early in the mornings and for such an extended length of time as the last few weeks.

There may have been only one or so mornings where it was into double figures it has been so cold.  The wind is usually a bit blowy and creates an 'apparent temperature' well below whatever the thermometre is saying!

Fortunately the days are usually OK with tops from 20 to 23.  There is lots of lovely sunshine and if you can get out of the wind it is extremely pleasant.

But those mornings!

It has put a real dampener onto my bike riding.  If it isn't too windy I get out for a ride after 10 am!

We went around to Kerrie and Ian's on Wednesday evening with other friends to watch the final Rugby League State Of origin match for the 2014 season.  It was a fun night out, probably a little too much fun judging by the way I felt to watch the World Cup game at 6 am on Thursday!

On Thursday I helped a mate set up his new laptop which kept me busy.  Friday was busy as well tidying up loose ends for the Community Association prior to us heading south on Tuesday morning.

As the photo above shows the portable "Waeco" fridge has been setup and is just about ready to go.  We tend to take the Waeco if we go south by car as it gives us the option of taking some of our own drinks, snack etc.

I mowed the lawn yesterday as well so I have only the car to tidy up a little and give the pool a good clean and my major chores are all up to date.

Computer Club was busy again with lots of little things here and there to do.  There were some questions I just couldn't help with, mainly to do with some android tablet apps.  One lady did enjoy being shown all the little goodies that are available with a Google account.  She was looking forward to having a play with them over the next few days!

From The Laptop

Just for a change, and to ensure I have everything setup and ready to go "just in case", I am doing this post from the reformatted Dell Laptop.  I discovered I hadn't installed a small program called "Image Resizer" so I have hastily installed it and already put it to use.

Image Resizer is a small program which resizes photos to a much smaller file size so they can be included in emails or in websites.  I am using version 2 on the laptop, version 3 gets a little more complicated.  I can right click on a photo I have taken and select Resize Pictures in the drop down menu which opens.

For the Blog I usually use "Medium" as the new size.  The full photo I have resized and used on this page above is 56kb where as the original off the camera is well over 2mb or around 2500kb.

Do a Google Search for Image Resizer and perhaps add 'Powertoy' to the search and give this free program a go.  I have installed it on lots of computers for people, especially for when they are sending photos in emails.

It said 3.7° on the thermometre this morning and I believed it was much too cold for a ride.  The sun rose into the sky and it has become a glorious day.  It is well into the low 20's and the gusty cold wind from yesterday has gone!

So at around 11:00 am I decided to jump on the bike and have my usual ride.  It was delightful as the photo shows.  Who wouldn't want to have a great ride on the bike when you see conditions like this?

When you click on the photo you will go to a larger view which is probably most likely the size the photo should be after the image resizing. 

Blogger then resizes them back down again for inclusion on the blog page and this then allows the web page to load more quickly.

A Chilly Monday

Neither Trish nor myself can recall it being so cold here for so many days in a row.  To look outside it appears just sensational but you shouldn't let looks fool you, it is a beautiful looking day outside but it is a mere 17º and a gusty freezing cold breeze is blowing.

I forced myself out for a bike ride this morning.  I left a little earlier than I would usually have gone as the second parcel (the laptop replacement battery) was most likely to arrive today.  I planned to be back home by 9 am as Trish had an appointment 'in town' at 9:30 am.  I managed 10k's in a shortened ride but it was extremely cold.

There was little or no breeze when I left home.  But it began to spring up during the ride.  It said it was 11º as I was riding along but with the wind chill factored in I guess it felt around 7º.  At least I managed a bit of a ride anyway as I did a little over 10k's.

I won't bother going tomorrow morning if there is any icy south westerly wind about!

And the second parcel (the $19 replacement battery for the laptop) did arrive, but it was delivered by the postman.  Finally a heap of replacement ink arrived by courier for the printer as well.  I managed 4 large black cartridges, 2 x cyan, 2 x magenta and 2 x blue all delivered for less than $15!

I am pleased to say the battery fits the laptop perfectly and right now it is fully charged!

I continue to do some fine-tuning on the laptop, getting it all up and ready 'just in case'.

Every now and again I like to swap the 'wallpaper' around on my PC for a bit of a change.

I go to this site (HERE), look through a few pages until I find a photo I like, click on it once, click on "Download" and then "Open with Windows Photo Viewer".  Now I click on "OK" and the photo 'opens'.

In the 'File' tab I select "Make A Copy" and then make sure it is copied to a place I know, e.g. the desktop!  Once there I put the photo into a safe place on my computer (e.g. My Pictures).  When it is there I right click on the photo file and click on "Set as desktop background".

Bingo, I have a nice new and fresh 'wallpaper (or desktop background) on my PC!

That is the current picture/wallpaper I have on my PC, top left!

ABC

As President of the Community Association I get to meet a few people.  One of the people that I have met is a part time presenter with Brisbane's ABC 612 radio station. His name is Phil Smith and he conducts the ABC 5 am to 9 am Saturday time slot on one of Queensland's major radio stations.

Phil has a second occupation and that is doing pastoral care work for the one of the churches at the local Unity College School here on our estate.

Phil is keen for his church based group to take on the management of the new Community Meeting Place facility being handed on to this community from the developer via the Council.  As a result we have spoken from time to time both face to face and via email.

The Community Association regularly places notices on its website regarding upcoming Church Group events when Phil requests them.

So on Thursday I get a call from the ABC in Brisbane saying they want to do a piece on new arrivals from interstate fitting in to new communities.  Phil had passed on my details to the producer.  So I did a 5 to 10 minute piece on the radio this morning!

The footy has dominated the weekend with Trish's team suffering an unexpected loss on Friday night.  Then we had two close and exciting matches yesterday and now we have another couple of good games today.  My team plays the last match of the round late this afternoon.

Drinks was huge fun on Friday.  I didn't over indulge with my home brew on Saturday as I was feeling a little 'tired'!

Computer Club was busy on Saturday.  A task I am being requested to do quite a lot is to put a 'real' start button onto Windows 8 and 8.1 computers.  This only takes a few minutes to do.  The addition of the new "Start" button makes their computer behave quite similarly to a Windows 7 or Vista machine, something which most people are very comfortable with.

The second task is people want me to remove the need to login (type their password) when starting up Windows 8 or 8.1 computers.  Go HERE if you want to give it a try.

Again this is a quick task.  I did a few email problems and some backing up of important files as well in what was a morning which was busy enough..

One Down, One To Go!

With Trish heading off to Quilters this morning, I decided to wait and not venture out for my daily bike ride, just in case any of the parcels I was expecting was delivered.  It is a warmer and sunny day today but I did have a bottling to get done as well. 

And then I had a lengthy report to get onto the Community Association website following a Community Forum we attended last night.

And it worked out well as one parcel was delivered.

But first things first.  I did have a bottling to get sorted.  I wasn't in a rush so it was a great job to do today.  After sitting on an uncomfortable chair for around 3 hours at the Forum last night my back was best described as 'tender'.  However a "Mobic" tablet fixed that.

The bottling was all completed and things were cleaned by 10:30.  It is a gorgeous day again and not quite as cold as previous days.  The garage where I do the bottling gets the early sun and it was quite pleasant pouring away and screwing tops onto bottles.

It is all done now and the container is drying in the sun outside.

And the tablet holder arrived.  I set it up and it looks quite OK.  Now all I need is for the thing to work properly.  It has toppled over once so far but maybe I didn't hold the suction cup down hard enough the first time.

It is now a little more strategically placed with a softer landing available in case the suction cup gives way again.

It will be a little trial and error I guess.  But what can you expect for $10 delivered from China!

A day or so ago we finished watching the TV Series "House Of Cards".  We just loved it.  If you get the chance, have a look at it.

Kevin Spacey is the star and he plays Frank Underwood, an unscrupulous US politician.

At the end of Series 2 he had just been appointed as the new US President!

Series 3 should be good!

Another Cool Start To The Day

The landline phone was reconnected yesterday at around 1:30pm.  It appears they run some software to swap the phone across from one provider to the other.  Apparently the software disconnected us from Telstra perfectly but the connection to Internode did not work.

The software was re run and this time the transfer was accomplished painlessly.

Another cold morning in this part of the world, it was around 6º first thing today.  There wasn't any play in the World Cup soccer so I stayed in bed and kept warm.

I did a 12.5k bike ride this morning and now ensure I have a second top on as the wind chill factor is that bad.

Same old same old again, nothing much new happening.  And no packages delivered at this stage either which is disappointing!

Beer bottling is on tomorrow morning!  And forecasters are tipping an overnight low of 12º as the wind shifts to a south easterly and will be coming in off the ocean rather than the freezing cold Australian inland.

A Tad Warmer Today

Actually, it is a fair bit warmer today.  Despite the max temperature looking at 22º or so today, at least it will feel like 22º rather than around 16º or so had the icy south westerlies still been blowing. It is quite still outside today and not a cloud to be seen.

It has been in mid single figures overnights and sometimes even down to as low as 3º or 4º.  It makes getting up around 6 am difficult when I want to watch the World Cup second soccer match on TV most mornings.  We even put the reverse cycle air conditioner on the other night for around 10 minutes or so just to take the chill off and warm the place a little.

My brother Geoff and his wife Jeannette are towing their caravan from Mitchell to St George in southern Queensland today.  After a night or so there, they will head on to Lightning Ridge in northern NSW for a few nights.  Geoff says the heater in the caravan gets a good workout most nights!

Yesterday we were both at home so we decided to go to the Dicky Beach Surf Club for lunch.  They have their monthly specials, upgrades and senior's discounts going, so for around $25 both of us enjoyed a lovely and sizable lunch.  Even the beer was a reasonable price.

I rather like it there.  The club is smaller, fairly new and parking is easy.  Most importantly it is only 10 minutes away.

I am expecting a couple of parcels in the post either today or tomorrow so I didn't venture out for a bike ride today.  Trish heads off early each Wednesday so I had to hang around home in case there was a parcel delivery.  I did bottle wash after the World Cup soccer finished while I waited.  I managed to knock the bottle washing chore over in less than an hour this morning.

Regretfully neither of the two parcels I am expecting turned up today.

One of the parcels is a replacement battery I bought on eBay for the recently reformatted Dell Laptop so I am keen to see how things go.

The other is a 'holder/cradle' for a 7" tablet for the car.  Most likely I will be driving the Ford Telstar home on our way back from Melbourne.  I can then have the tablet strategically secured and use it as a GPS and as a Music Player.

I will load the tablet up with my music, and play it via a an ear headphone while we drive the 1800 kms from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast!

Hopefully the holder will do the job, all for $10 delivered from China!

As I mentioned last week, we are swapping our landline phone rental from Telstra to Internode.  I received a text message around 1pm on Monday saying the switch had been completed.  So we had a bit of a shock when Trish's mobile rang on Tuesday night and a neighbour told us she was unable to get through on our landline and that she had to call us on the mobile number.

So I was straight back onto Internode to lodge a 'fault'.  The landline still isn't working today.

I wasn't happy!