The Easter that was

Boring Good Friday, everything was closed, except they weren't. Cafes were open and R took me to cafe he knew at Fishermans Bend. Once home I did do some serious cleaning on the balcony, a bit of a follow up after the air con remediation. 

Saturday morning we trammed to town to buy Easter eggs for kiddies and had a cafe brunch along with very unexpected good coffee, with a 15% pubic holiday surcharge. I used to think that this was ok, as staff are being paid extra for working on public holidays. I no longer think the same. Public holidays are a known thing and extra public holiday wage costs should be built into the budget forecasts for the business.

Sister, Bone Doctor and Jo were in town Saturday in the afternoon to see a Melbourne Comedy Festival performance. They went on to see the Titanic exhibition at the museum and we met them at The Oriental Teahouse in town for a nice dinner. Sister and her wife are both just post another bout of Covid, with Sister having caught it on a school camp. They happily returned to rest at their hotel while Jo came back with us to stay the night.

Sunday morning after a very small breakfast at the Scottish restaurant opposite, R and Jo made sandwiches and we drove to the suburb Oakleigh for a family gathering organised by Sister. Sadly Fire Fighting Nephew was on duty, and his wife, five year old daughter and two year old twin boys were staying with her mother at her apple orchard. 

Guest list:

Myself and R. 2

Sister, Bone Doctor and Jo, 2 adults/1 child.

Tradie Brother, his Ex Wife and her husband. 3

Oldest Niece and her partner and their three children, 2/3

Hippie Niece, her twin children, her partner and his two children. 2/4

ABI Brother. 1

Ex Sis in Law's husband's daughter and the daughter's luscious partner in his early twenties with a lean body and a perfect camera smile, and their daughter, 2/1

No one mentioned the missing person who would have been ninety years old. It was all about children and renewal. 0

So, fourteen adults I think and nine children. 

The picnic was at Brickmakers Park. We secured a table under shelter and had a lovely time. Walks were taken, the extensive play equipment was well used, trees were climbed, left over brickmaking equipment was explored and a walk to the nearby Scotchmans Creek undertaken. There was food aplenty and the obligatory Easter egg hunt. 

It was a very successful family gathering, the first really after scattering Mother's and Step Father's ashes. It was nice to not have to drive for an hour for a family gathering too.

Don't we all love a nice duck or two. 

Don't ask me, aside from a wind vane.

I could see two of the strange coolie hat like structures, but I can't in the photo.

A small and neat rotunda can be as good as a large one, can't it?

Another strange structure or something functional. 

I'm on steps to nowhere, just into a swamp.

It's a pity the grass is not irrigated and has turned brown. The next day we had 56mm or rain, say over two inches. This broke a weather record, as did the driest March for over a hundred years or something like that. Weather records just continue to be broken in great haste, but of course it is nothing to do with climate change. The grass will be green by the time this is published.

Some brick making machinery was left in the park. The sign in centre of the photo says no climbing on machinery. 

This boy was too young to be able to read the sign. Get down Lucas!

I've reduced the size of these photos compared to what they normally are as taken at a ridiculous size of around 6mb. Does it make a difference to you?

The washing machine tune

The Samsung washing machine tune only plays once, after the cycle has finished. It initially annoyed me and I turned it off. I gave it another go and I found to know when a washing load was compete, a bit useful. Then I started to like to tune. I had no idea it was classical music and that makes sense now. It is a bit of a Shubert composition called Die Forelle, so my online advisor tells me. Now I make sing along noises when I hear the tune.

Sydney Day 2

Tuesday we were meant to meet our Sydney friend and his mate, along with a couple of women who were staying with our friend, who both hailed from northern areas. Our Sydney friend's mate was someone he went to school with, the women he worked with overseas.

Lunch would be at the Sydney Rowing Club in Abbotsford on the Paramatta River so it made perfect sense to catch a a ferry to the nearby wharf. 

We decided to go to the ferry wharf early and have a cup of coffee and so did the others, so we had coffee together at the Circular Quay before setting off on the half hour ferry journey.

Our Sydney friend, his mate and his two friends were great company. Apparently our friend's friend had told the story many times of a 'sad story' before of how her boss of twenty years after she left the public service offered her an overseas trip or something equivalent of $5000 as a reward for her excellent service as I think a medical specialist receptionist. He died shortly after making the offer and she got nothing.

Sad stories came forth. R began to tell the story of how he and Mother had celebrated their birthdays together for just on as long as R and I have been together, forty years plus. Lordy, how he complained about my mother but he cracked as he was telling his sad story. She loved him as a son and he loved her back. We all grieve in our own ways. I felt impotent and just rested my arm over his shoulder with a couple of pats. It was the first time I've seen him visibly upset about Mother's death. You can really now understand why he did not want to be home for what would have been his and Mother's birthday. I called Sister on the 23rd for a chat, as I knew it would not be a good idea to call on Mother's birth date, the 24th. 

No matter, it was a really lovely outing with such nice people. 

Having had a decent sized lunch, we had a nice small meal at a Tuesday night empty Portuguese place in Oxford Street, Ogalo. The food was terrific, with good service, and it deserves to be busier. 

Ah, you are begging for photos...here they come.

R took this photo. You know what it is.

The tallest building is colloquially known as Packer's Penis, Packer being James Packer, a former media mogul who inherited the business from his father Kerry, who inherited the business from his father Sir Frank. James went on to casino involvement and I don't know his ownership status of Crown Resorts now, but the tall building is known as his.

Do you want a close up of Packer's Penis? Too bad if you don't.

It was a pleasant sail up the Parramatta River. I am not sure if we were on a ferry like this one or a River Cat. 

To the left of photo is the new development of an old goods wharf area now called Barangaroo where the aforesaid tall building is located. The wharf was once known as the Hungry Mile, where during the 1930s depression many men would line up, hoping to be selected for a day's work for poor pay. It was both exploitative and demeaning. Thanks to unionism, waterside workers now have very good working conditions and pay. 

My, how quickly these trees have grown in less than two years. It looks lovely and is on my less than ambitious bucket list. 

Our ferry stopped at various wharves to let off and pick up passengers. The stops were so efficiently handled by the ferry staff. 

Most of the wharves are newly built but on the site where there was an old wharf.

The views from the rowing club looking upriver were terrific. 

Parramatta in the distance. 

Our friend's friend was not going to allow R's birthday to be uncelebrated and this appeared at the table after we lunched. Thanks you so much L. That was quite a lovely thing to do. 

Definitely a River Cat is arriving to take us back to Circular Quay.

I thought the Gladesville Bridge was something special. I was underwhelmed. Maybe the bridge this one replaced was nicer? Nope.

Another of R's photos. Sorry, I've forgotten the name of this bridge. 

Algorithms

Blogger doesn't get too much attention from its Google owners, as bloggers are a dying breed, but I did find a new setting in Blogger where you can apply algorithms to your blog which works out what your blog readers find interesting on your blog judged by the time they take to view a post, along with the subject, their viewing of photos and if they watch the posted videos, including how long they view the videos.

So instead of seeing my latest post, the algorithm will decide which past blog post that you as a reader found interesting and show you similar blog posts. After a closer look, and it's a bit of a faff, you can search for the latest post, though I couldn't really make that work for me.

But isn't this just a great adjustment? Blogger will now work like Face Book, Pinterest and Instagram by showing you what it knows are your interests are by what the algorithm knows you want to see. I'm just loving algorithms and I will apply the new algorithm system to my blog after this post is published. 

We can complain about tech companies but I think this is terrific idea. Give me some feedback tomorrow about the next algorithm blog post tailored for you from my posts after you read this one. If you wish to do the same, and I wish you would so I don't have to read boring stuffs on your blogs, you can find the adjustment under Settings/Layout. 

I just feel so happy about being able to do something for you to improve your blog reading experience. 

EC, as you will probably read this first, just make your mark that you approve of my new blog experience for you. 

Sydney Day 1

We were only in Sydney last October but as I think I said in a previous post, R wanted to avoid being here for his blah blah blah birthday along with what would have Mother's 90th birthday. For 44 years they celebrated their birthdays together. It was a pity he didn't actually tell me this, instead of me asking why he wanted to return to Sydney after six months of being there. Apparently I should have been in tune enough to understand. Well yes, but why Sydney? It mattered little where we went.

This time we used the long term carpark at Melbourne's airport rather than a taxi cab. The price is cheap if you book well in advance but you do have to allow more time to be bused from the carpark and the airport, and then for us it was a long walk to Terminal 3 to catch our Virgin Australia flight. 

We had our boarding passes as a QR code on our phones. Both our phones showed but at check in, R's had disappeared. Fortunately mine had stayed on my phone for both of us. As we boarded the aircraft, mine had disappeared too. We knew our seat numbers and the welcoming flight attendant wasn't bothered and just said to go through to our seats. 

The 1.5 hour flight was uneventful, as was the train to Museum Station, nearest to where we were staying. 

We went to the shops for provisions after meeting with mien host. 

Aside from in a comment, I've not explained properly where we stay in Sydney. It is the Oaks Sydney Hyde Park Suites. The building is divided into a normal hotel and quite a number of individually owned studio apartments, and we stay in one of the individually owned apartments. These apartments are managed by a woman who turns up to greet you and take you to your room. She then takes the balance owing on her portable device and she talks, and she talks, and she talks. We know her life. In the lift on the way up she greeted a male couple who were returning guests who lived overseas, with big hugs. They loved her dress, yes quite nice, and her shoes that I can't remember. She may well talk a lot, but she is very nice. Gay men used to have a name for women like her but I don't like to use it. A better and just as descriptive name needs to be invented. Gay friendly, I suppose. 

We decided an easy dinner at Kinselas would be nice. We sat outside and fortunately under shelter. Big rains came and some had to flee inside.

Across the road is the very gay Oxford Hotel. 

The Darlinghurst Court House, with the Darlinghurst gaol within where the first Mardi Gras marchers were held after their protest march that went on to become the well known Mardi Gras Parade. The gaol is now something called QTopia. 

 

There is such a nice feature fountain in the street.

The meals at Kinselas come from the Courthouse Hotel, the building nearly next door. 

With a regular client discount, this room that could sleep five with this drop down bed cost us AU$172 a night. It has a separate kitchen and bathroom and a balcony with a nice view. It is bargain accommodation.

The place isn't flash. Everything is worn and shabby, but we find it suits us well. I thought the kitchen drawers might be interesting to photograph. The teaspoon compartment is empty because there were only two teaspoons. There was only one wine glass, and so I took Hyacinth's advice and drank my wine from a beaker. Hmm, this is interesting from Wikipedia. I never noticed a buckling. Did you? Hyacinth "acquired cultured accent which buckles under stress."^[

Some helpful cooking utensils, including a bottle opener.

Of course there were knives to carve a roast, that you might cook while on holidays, all blunt. 

But the most brilliant items were two wooden rolling pins, just what you need when you are on holidays and feel an urge to make pastry when you are making a large pie for your family. One of those rolling pins might have been used to bonk me on the head if I suggested R cook. We brunched and ate out for every meal. R does not cook when on holidays, and we have stayed in some places with really good cooking facilities. 

No, we didn't make scones. I was fearful to open the oven door. 

Returning to some home works

We had a lovely week in Sydney. Details and photos will follow, of course. We came home on Monday but it always takes me time to get my blogging mojo back. Photos take time to sort. I've broken the back of that but there is more to do.

The day after our return, a man arrived to service and alter our air conditioner. I think we paid top dollar for about 4.5 hours work, including the bracket and tray. Pictures tell the story. 

The unit sits in a stainless steel tray that holds the water the unit produces. On very cold winter days, this could be one and half buckets of water in one day, 15 litres, almost four US gallons and over 3 and 1/4  Imperial gallons.

The tray had an element to steam off water, rather like a kettle element. There is a water level sensor but it didn't seem to work very well. When we returned from Danube River cruise and visit to England in 2014, I turned on the computer but it did not work. The circuit had tripped. I switched it back on and it immediately tripped again. R said he heard a noise on the balcony. Sure enough. Another reset and R saw a spark in the evaporation tray. The element had broken. The unqualified electrician called Andrew disconnected some wires in the box at the bottom of the photo, and taped up the ends of the exposed wires. The next day the unqualified electrician called Andrew bought some proper live wire isolating caps. And it has been left there untouched since 2014. Subsequently the unqualified electrician Andrew had nine months of back pain from screwing in an awkward position. 

It took me a while to find this twin D battery powered aquarium pump that cost only $20. In the interim I used a soft plastic bottle, originally a shampoo refillable bottle, to suck up the water and dump it into a bucket. I think this is the fourth pump (including the spare I have put away). They are not made to last, especially if not used for months on end. I would pump the water from the tray into a bucket and then tip the water down my toilet. In hot times the air con would be blowing out hot air as I pumped out the water, but worse, in winter when the unit produced the most water, I was blasted with cold air from the unit. Look, it was fine as I monitored what was happening below, but will I be able to do this when I am very old? Should I be lucky enough to be quite old at least, I think not.

The old tray contained some cigarette butts, I guess fallen from above and with white filter paper rather than brown, indicating they were cigarettes Asian people smoke, and also a child's sock and  with muck.

The unit is elevated now with a small steaming tray below with a superior float activation system rather than a water level sensor. It also has a 'Power On' light and a 'Heating' light.

"But what about the mess Charlie?" It wasn't a case of  'I'm No Mess Charlie". We cleaned it up ourselves. It was just a dirt built up under the old tray. 

Being elevated, the barbeque gas hose will no longer reach the gas bottle, so we have to buy a longer hose. But Household Management declared the air fryer might be good enough to cook steak and lamb chops, and do away with the messy barbeque. We shall see. The front of the unit has started to rust and corrode. I think when there are strong southerly winds with big waves, we do get a mist of salt laden sea spray.

Easter gratuitousness

I've heard that Jesus might look dark skinned but also it has been suggested he might have looked Arabic with a sallow skin colour.

I am not sure I would worship Jesus, unless he looked like Madonna's ex Jesus Luz. He has style, he has grace. Jesus Luz gave good face.