Almost A Week Has Gone Already!

I find it hard to believe almost a week has gone since the last post.  The little Honda Jazz is now 'old news'.  The longer we have it the more we learn about it and the better we like it as a small run about around town.  We have noticed with the driving we have done how little the petrol gauge has moved.

It is beginning to warm up with today getting to around 30° after an overnight low in the high teens.  The pool is warming up as well and yesterday it hit 26 degrees during the afternoon.  This morning it was a couple of degrees cooler but still great for a swim after my 12k bike ride.

Our Christmas trip to Melbourne preparations have completed stage 1.  On Wednesday I bottled my "Melbourne Trip" brew.  I use Coca Cola bottles for this rather than my regular brown colored home brew PET bottles.  This means I can just toss the empties away rather than cart them all the way back to Queensland again!

Neither Trish nor myself are really interested in horse racing.  We do have a racecourse here in Caloundra and as with most race courses across Australia there was a meeting on Tuesday with a focus on the Melbourne Cup being run at Flemington in Melbourne.  Friends invited us to join them at the local race course for a day out.

All the ladies dress up in their finery and many of the men get suited up as well.  We didn't go overboard on that stuff but found a table with an umbrella, reasonably well positioned near the track itself, and within reasonable walking distance of the bar (and the toilets!)

We had nibblies to munch on and plenty of drinks were available to enjoy.  The drinks were a little on the expensive side but we don't get to the races all that often.  We had a great day, watching the world pass by. This area is sub tropical, the weather is usually warm and there was certainly a bevy of uncovered flesh to behold.

As the day wore on and the sun popped its head out from behind some storm clouds, the uncovered flesh would turn a pinkish color as the sun did its thing!  It was a lot of fun.

We used Uber to get to and from the race track, an app on my phone I hadn't used before.  It worked perfectly, especially as the storm clouds gathered towards the end of the day.  Onto the app and a few minutes later our car was there to collect us.  Soon after arriving back home the heavens opened up, the pool was full again and the garden received a good watering.

On Wednesday The Community Association was invited to be a part of the official opening of the first stage of the huge Caloundra South development.  A feature of the new site are the veloways, dedicated cycle pathway which will service much of the new area.  As a bike rider (and President of the local Community Association) I was invited to be amongst the first bike riders on the new pathways and to participate in the opening.

The local TV stations were present with their cameras and many of us cracked a quick view on the TV News that night.

Our association gets on well with the guys and ladies from the developer Stockland.  There was plenty of banter and the morning went well. The photo above has a couple of the very senior Stockland executives Ben and Adrian, our local Councillor and yours truly dressed in cycling attire.  We did a few ride throughs for the press and the TV stations.

Today the Test Cricket Series, Australia Vs Sth Africa begins on the TV.  The coverage is from Perth on the other side of Australia and is two hours behind us here in Queensland.  That means a 12:30 pm start of play.  As you can imagine the next five afternoons are settled on what I'll be doing.