Some Overnight Showers To Dampen Things

Yesterday we attended Fred Pereira's funeral. We don't do this sort of thing too often up here as we are not close to people older than us.

Over 60 people were at the service which was conducted in the Caloundra Catholic Church. The service seemed to concentrate on religion rather than the person who had passed away which was different in focus to what we had previously experienced.

The 'reception' was at the Caloundra Cricket Club rooms and consisted of nibbles with tea and coffee. As Fred would have said, it was a bit of a dry argument.

There is a piece on Fred on the Dandenong Cricket Club website which you can access HERE.

After a sensational game of footy on TV Monday afternoon and evening we headed around to friend's for a BBQ. Ian is just getting into 'movies' so some time was spent downloading adjusting and updating. It was great.

On Tuesday I had a CT scan to get done to check my sinuses and then both Trish and I checked out the Chiro. I was planning to visit Fred but he had gone that morning.

Wednesday was pretty much a quiet at home day but after bottle washing I had a Community Association commitment later where many of the Committee met with representatives of the developer Stockland for an update. This meant Thursday was to be busy for me with a fairly big news update on the BeCA website.

The strong winds we have been experiencing all week have now swung around to the east and so we are getting showers throughout the day. Overnight saw us receive 8mls of rain, the first rain we have had for a couple of weeks. If you check my rainfall figures you will need to click on Q2 down near the foot of the page to get to April's update.

Yesterday I had the funeral and today we have wet roads which all means no morning bike rides.

Daily temps now range from around 16 overnight to 25 during the day. I bottle washed on Wednesday after a late start and the bottles seemed to take an eternity to dry, mainly because the days aren't as warm as they were just a week ago.

Trish is off to Quilters this morning and this afternoon we will visit Fred's youngest daughter prior to her returning to Melbourne tomorrow. No drinks today as both of our usual drinkers have visitors. But we will be watching the AFL footy tonight, it is Carlton Vs Collingwood!

Farewell Fred

Good mate Fred Pereira passed away at 4:45 am today.

Fred was the major reason I decided to try my luck and play cricket at Dandenong way back in the late 60's. We became good friends and got into heaps of mischief together.

Fred then moved to around 1km from our place here on the Sunshine Coast. While visiting their house when it was under construction Fred and his wife Heather would stay with us.

Heather passed away at our home. I still vividly remember Trish administering mouth to mouth on Heather in a futile attempt to revive her.

Later Fred and I tended to drift apart but we were always mates. Fred sought a lift from me to be driven to the local airport at which I answered "No worries". I was due to drive him last Monday week.

Fred is survived by three daughters. His funeral is on Thursday at the Caloundra Catholic Church which is where Heather's ashes are.

It is a sad day!

Sensational Weather Continues

Every day is high 20's with an overnight low in the high teens. Skies are generally clear and bright blue. We did score a passing shower yesterday but all had dried up and was clear again after a few minutes. Our night out at Forty Five 51 was very nice. However I am glad we didn't pay 'full price' for the meal. The chicken seemed a bit tough to me though the entree and surrounds were marvellous. We finished up back at the home of Ian and Kerrie where we kicked on for a while.

I have been riding most mornings unless I have an early morning appointment to get to. I had to return to my Ear Nose & Throat guy Thursday morning. He described my infected ear as 'pristine' As far as he is concerned everything is fine. He described my sniffly head as a sign of the times and a problem experienced by older men! I reckon I have a head cold which has been hanging around for 'zonks'.

Plenty of footy on TV over the weekend and now we have the cricket on in the morning from the west Indies. I am out of bed around 5 am and I can watch the last couple of hours of the day's play. My footy team plays Trish's team this afternoon. Geelong has always beaten them the last couple of years whether it be by a point or a few goals. I am not so confident today. Geelong's ruck stocks are low and this means Hawthorn will most likely have first use of the ball.

I managed to put a brew on yesterday morning. Later that day we were invited out for lunch at friend's place. It was a big family get together for them but we didn't feel like outsiders. It was exceptional and we had a great time. I am pleased my beer is only mid strength.

We are invited out to a BBQ tonight but that will need to wait until the footy is all finished.

I am in for a CT Scan at 10 am tomorrow so I will need to be a little careful with my drinking this evening. The scan is to check all my airways are clear and was requested by my ENT guy.

The Computer Club was extremely busy. I do too much at the Computer Club so I have decided to cut back a bit. I find I am not enjoying it so much as I don't have a chance to mingle and swap stories with others. I am busy trying to sort out someone's email on a laptop that runs Windows XP and is 5 year's old and has never been reformatted. No wonder things won't work properly!

The Front Door Is Open Again

With days getting to 28 degrees and overnight the very high teens, the front door has been thrown open again!

Plenty of bike riding going on at the moment with absolutely ideal conditions. Right now in a warm corner of our backyard it is into the low 30's and the humidity is under 40% making things extremely comfortable. This morning the pool was 23.5 for my post bike ride swim so it was definitely refreshing when I jumped in.

Monday night was the 3rd Community Association Meeting for the year. It was a committee meeting so only committee members were there. This usually means a huge post to go onto the website the next day. This kept me busy.

Trish and I went to visit Fred in Nambour hospital. He was looking frail, he was rambling in his speech but seemed really glad to see us. I related the contents of a couple of emails I had received from people remembering some of the antics we used to get up to. He asked me to stop telling the stories as laughing can be painful for him.

After staying for an hour or so with Fred we stopped at Beefy's Pies near the Ettamogah Pub on the way home for a pie for lunch. This company is an award winning pie making company and the pies are sensational, expensive and huge. We had a small tea last night.

I am feeling better but still have a heavy chest and some congestion. To ensure all bases are covered I am booked into to see a cardiac guy as I have become a little short of breath at times. I am also to see my ENT specialist tomorrow morning for an ear tidy up. I will run my stuffy head problem past him as well.

We are off to a nice little place in town called "Forty Five 51". 6 of us going and using an online coupon special for a special deal. The special includes and entree and main meal for 2 for $42. We will meet at 5:15 for pre-dinner drinks, head off to the restaurant then back again this time for post dinner drinks. Needless to say apart from a 'free' glass of wine, the drinks are expensive at the restaurant.

Perfect Weather

It is beginning to cool down a little from the heat of summer. This view is quite new to us, it is the front door closed to keep the cool breeze out! The door usually remains open all the time when it is summer time.

Still no joy from the postie. I bought an item on eBay which arrived from UK in a little over a week. The DVI/Hdmi lead I am still waiting for is coming from WA and was ordered well over a week ago.

There weren't drinks on Friday so Trish and I enjoyed an hour or so in the sunshine having a 'quiet' one. The AFL footy is back on in earnest again and with the new TV rights deal we are getting every game live, it is almost like being in heaven really! Trish's team had a good win on Friday while my team went down over in the west on Saturday night. I wasn't surprised at the result. The Dockers have the best ruckman in the competition and we had one ruckman playing his first game while the other guy had around 20 games. I was hopeful they would win but not overly confident.

My friend Fred is seriously ill and will be extremely lucky to see out the month. His family are all here in Queensland now and visit him regularly. Trish and I hope to see him on Tuesday.

The great weather (max around 27 and 18 or so overnight) means I am back on the bike and riding. I did around 15k's today and mapped my ride. You can see it HERE. I haven't done that ride for some time and I had forgotten how big a couple of the hills are. I should sleep well tonight. The photo above left shows what I enjoy on my way round.

I was in the pool when I arrived back home but not for too long. It is around 23 degrees now and heading towards "Brisk".

Trish decided it was floor cleaning day! I didn't know until I jumped out from the pool. It is a two person job, one uses the steam cleaner while the other mops up any left over water from the floor. Usually we wait till we have a really cool day but once "The Boss" makes up her mind that is what is going to happen. No mention that it is going to happen, you just get back from a 15k bike ride (a little the worse for wear as well as hot and sweaty) and get into it!

Click on all photos for a larger view. Then click on the X in the top right hand corner to return to this page.

Busy at Computer Club again yesterday. One chap couldn't get any response to get his computer going. It worked much better after we turned his power on. Another lady wanted her laptop 'reformatted'. She had thoroughly prepared saving all her documents etc and the reformat went ahead without too many problems. Several others just get sick and tired of putting their password in each time they start up their computer so we managed to remove those.

Another lady wants to buy stuff online and wanted an intro to eBay. I asked her if she had a PayPal account and she said not yet. I then told her she would need to give PayPal all of her bank account details but she didn't think that was a good idea. Therefore there was no need to show her all about eBay as 99% of payments are done via PayPal!

Needless to say it was all great fun.