Not painful but rather more interesting than I like

I had my neck stiches removed yesterday morning. They were tight and it took about twenty minutes. It was unpleasant but not painful. After the last stitch was removed, I didn't feel good. I asked the nurse if I could lie down and she helped me up onto the bed. I was in a cold sweat. The nurse checked my blood pressure and the upper level was alarming low in the sixties. I take medication for high blood pressure, so what is going on? 

My own doctor came in and out a couple of times to check on me. The nurse cross questioned me about how much alcohol I drank the night before, being one glass of wine before dinner. They correctly know patients lie about that.  What I had eaten last night, for breakfast, only cereal. Coffee, no at that point. 

I began to feel better. R was downstairs having a haircut and I called him to say he will have to escort me out but nurse wasn't having a bar of it until my blood pressure was ok. She said I had turned deathly pale. She kept checking my blood pressure, gave me a sweet lolly then suggested I stand up and walk around. She was not understanding how I felt ok, was not falling down and could walk around with such low blood pressure. Eventually after consulting my doctor, she set me free when my upper blood pressure level reached 95. I felt fine. She already knew R and I would have food and coffee after leaving the surgery. She asked me to return afterwards for another blood pressure check. It was over 100. 

We have a blood pressure monitor at home and by 4pm I was 132/84. I messaged reception and she called back to tell me she was relieved I was now ok. She was so nice and a bit of fun. It was puzzling to her and is puzzling to me. I'm going to monitor my blood pressure for a few days.

Lol, this began as a post about cabbage moths. I had to delete the first sentence.  

Modern non polluting transport

There have been many steam train tours this year. I checked the Steamrail timetable one day and caught a tram to Flinders Street Station and the train was very punctual, and also did not hang around. Doesn't the train just look glorious. Ha, a vertical funnel, vertical smoke, vertical Elizabeth clock tower and the vertical tall building, probably the Rialto. 

Where is the 'smoking car'?

I wish old trams could come out of storage and run around in a similar manner. Aside from operational costs, the main cost would be converting them from pole to receive power from the overhead wiring to a pantograph. 

Thursday feel good

This is a nice story about human's best friend, posted back in 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/10/travel/dog-istanbul-boji-cnnphotos/

So what happened to Boji by 2022? https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/istanbul/istanbuls-famous-commuter-dog-boji-finds-new-home

2023? https://twitter.com/i/status/1649798463973130240

Daylesford

What I left out of yesterday's post was the horrific car crash into a pavement seating area outside a hotel. resulting in the death of five people and injuries to others. Daylesford is known as a gay old town, and yes, many gay people live and or operate businesses in the area. Each year the gay Chillout Festival is held there.

R took me to Daylesford for my fortieth birthday and it was a nice weekend. I think where we stayed was called The Balconies. It was nice private accommodation. The gay owners gave us a bottle of champagne because one of them blurted out that that I was having a massage. What? I didn't know about that. Another gift from R. The massage was funny because the masseur suggested I was aroused and he could help with that. I wasn't and I said no. No doubt a happy ending would have cost extra.

Photo from booking.com.

One day we lunched at that very hotel where the car crash occurred. The street dining was probably set up during Covid and back when I turned forty, we dined on the upper verandah (ok, now I've got it. Spell check doesn't like the h at the end of verandah. In this case, I know I am correct. Bugger orf spell check)  of the hotel. It does make the horrible event seem a little more personal when you know the venue. 

As I said, the owners of The Balconies were very friendly and were of a similar age to us. One night they asked where we would be dining and we mentioned a place near the nearby mineral spa town, Hepburn Springs. They then said that they had a single guest, a gay guy from Malaysia and he would be so happy to have your company over dinner. I can't remember anything about him now beyond he was good company and it was a nice dinner. And no you with your filthy thoughts, that is all that happened. The thought never entered my head. 

Those killed and badly injured in the crash were of Indian heritage and it is kind of nice that they were Australian enough to be dining outdoors at the pub. I remember an Indian workmate remarking how disgusting it was that Australians sat out in the gutters to eat and drink. I should have replied to him that I thought he was disgusting for fucking his workmate Carla behind his wife's back. 

What did prick up my ears was that one of the victims was a woman aged 44 with her partner who was 30, I think. Sadly they won't reach old age and see how the age gap works in older years.

This was supposed a quick two line supplementary post, but it took on a life of its own. Forgive an old man reminiscing. 

Personal stuffs

We are being a bit social of late. Clocks is a gambling venue at Melbourne Flinders Street Station. (This seems to be the correct way to refer to multiple stations within a large city) 87 year old Brighton Antique Dealer likes going there for a flutter and we have dined there with her. Sister turned up her nose when we said we went there at times. 

R and yours truly went there for an early dinner on Friday night and we had a terrific time. The cliental is so just so diverse, the food is good for the price and the service is good. 

Melbourne Cup horse racing eve, our building hosted a barbeque dinner and we really enjoyed ourselves. We met our new neighbour who is very nice and friendly. As an engineer, he works from home and told us to visit for coffee anytime. That was kind but we won't.

Come cup day we were in a city pub at 11am that had government controlled gambling facilities to put our $2 bets on each horse race for the day. I used a machine and just managed to get by bet on for the first race. R did not. My horse in this race came third I think, so I will receive a minor return. We changed to marking cards and it became so difficult. R lodged his cards with the cashier and went to pay, but it was cash only. Each bet had to be manually cancelled by staff as we didn't have much cash. To get cash, we had get the guard to open up a machine and supervise us as we extracted cash. Then we put our bets on and paid with cash. I said to R, I think we are in America. We must be better prepared next year. 

When we were in England earlier this year, R oldest sister gave us this tin of tea to give to Mother. We never got the chance. We did tell Mother about the tea. I tried a cup of the tea this afternoon and it was ok, nothing special. I dream of the best tea I've ever had at a tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. I like tea but I am not a regular drinker of tea. I'd never heard of Ringtons. Have you UK people? 

ABI Brother is getting serious about selling his house and moving to a retirement village. He, Ex Sis in Law and her daughter Hippie Niece took him to a brand new retirement village active lifestyle estate and it is nice but I prefer the well established one near to where he now lives. But it is his choice. I think he can afford it but it is hard to get a straight answer from him about his finances. 

I don't know what the correct medical word or phrasing is, so I will just say Ex Sis in Law is in hospital after her lap band surgery. She has been quite unwell post surgery, though all tests and scans have shown nothing. 

Tomorrow I am going to the German school in Melbourne by tram to buy an advent calendar for Jo. I have bought her one each year since she was four years old, now sixteen. This may be the last. The early ones were chocolate and lolly filled behind the windows, but this one is a not so traditional German calendar. 

It is seeming like later this month we will visit Step Mother in northern Victoria, who we haven't seen for a couple of years. She is old now and her partner is mid nineties. I was a bit concerned about their situation and it seems her partner will stay locally and Step Mother will move to be near her daughter in the Latrobe Valley. Tradie Brother and ABI Brother will visit too, and stay overnight with Step Mother, while R and myself will stay in a nearby motel. 

There is perhaps more I could tell you but be grateful I am not. 

He has style, he has grace

I dress in a rather ordinary manner but that doesn't stop me from admiring handsome straight men who dress with style, albeit to create their persona and make money.

There was a large gap and former was Japanese soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata. Gosh, that was back in the 2000s. Here is a link to Google Images. 

I have a new one, the very sexy hot Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh. Mein gott, does he know how to look great for cameras, or his team of stylists, make up artists and hairdressers know how to make him look good. But for all the frippery, he is one hot looking dude.

Check him out at with this link. 

Sydney Day 7

This was our last full day in Sydney and we didn't have anything really planned. We decided to walk to the city shops and have a look around the Queen Victoria Building. It is quite stunning.

The clock wasn't working and so we didn't see the action at the hour. I forget what it is now.

We had brunch in an open area not far from the centre entrances and while I can't remember what we ate, it was excellent, not expensive, and with quick and pleasant service. Good work Metropole Cafe.

We caught the tram northward in the city to Martin Place and had a wander. This is the centre third rail from where the tram picks up its power. It is only electrified when the power collector shoe is in contact with the rail, so it is not unsafe to walk on, aside from slipping if it is wet.

Looking eastwards along Martin Place.

Sydney's former General Post Office is a very grand building in Martin Place.

A nice enough but not mesmerising water feature.

What are these? Nice. Opposite the cafe where the siege happened was the studio of tv Channel 7.

We returned to our hotel for a rest but I went out again and from the nearby stop in William Street I caught the 324 bus to Watsons Bay. You can see the route here. Sorry about the window dots in photo. The bus followed the old tram route to Watsons Bay.

More on all over bus window advertising in my Sydney summary post, but you can guess.

I didn't hang around too long at Watsons Bay. I've been there and seen it all. This is called The Gap, an infamous place where so many people have suicided by diving off the cliff edge onto the rocks below. Now there are fences, cameras and local monitoring of folk who seem like they have an intent. 

I caught the 325 bus back. It has a more winding route and what a great trip it was, as the bus travelled via the upper path, beautiful streets, twisting and turning, up hill and down dale. There were some terrific views along the way.

I think this is Rose Bay.

We felt like a basic pub meal on our last night and we knew how to get one. We bussed a stop or two to Taylor Square, an important location for Sydney's gay history. 

We had a nice drink and meal at Kinselas. We chose our meal from a menu and it arrived piping hot from the pub to the right of this photo, the Courthouse Hotel. 

The Oxford Hotel in the background, where we dined for our first night in Sydney. 

I was a bit doubtful the next morning when I checked our flight home time as the official Jetstar site was saying Google indicated our flight home would be late. I checked and cross checked, and the flight home did seem to be late. But why no phone text or email from Jetstar to tell us? While R was infuriated by our late train arrival to Sydney, he was quite relaxed about our delayed flight, which ended up being an hour late. JetStar's poor reputation seems to be well deserved.  

A laugh

What we used to refer to as 'pay tv' has now become 'streaming', if I correctly understand. We pay for one streaming service, Britbox, at $9 per month. That won't send us into penury. R makes good use of Britbox and it does have some great shows and I mean to watch many of them. But I am a retired person and I just don't have the time. 

There is an Australian gay movie or series I want to see and will be streamed but not on Britbox. I don't want to sign up for anything and I am happy to pay per view. I am quite ignorant about streaming tv. Oldest Great Niece proclaimed to us, there Auntie Andrew, your tv has Netflix. No darling child, it is just a link and we will have to pay. Darling child, let me just switch the tv to YouTube for Kids. I find there is more than enough to watch on the big screen from free to air tv and YouTube. 

Britbox began quite low key here but is now advertising itself quite prominently, displaying many old tv shows, oddly though not Love Thy Neighbour. That must be cheap to buy the rights to.

Via Facebook, I came across a group for Keeping up Appearances. Hyacinth, aka Dame Patricia Routledge is just brilliant in so many ways. When she was here in Melbourne, a friend of years ago carried her in his taxi cab and said she was just the loveliest of people. True class, unlike Hyacinth. 

There are a number of promotional clips I can choose from, and this is wot ya get.