Wednesday
Month: January 2019
Australia – Frying tonight!!
Thursday 24th Jan. This morning I took Benji out for his walk at 05:30. I thought I might as well, I was awake anyway. Actually, I had been awake since 3;40 – it was a very hot, sticky night and I
didn’t sleep too well. We saw quite a few Kangaroos and when I got back I made certain my water container – a big blue bucket – was full. I also filled the bird dish. Annabell and I had to go out since we had an unplanned medical appointment for Annabell. We moved across to the shopping centre and got her medication, the supermarket for milk and a few things then we came home. On leaving home this morning to take Annabell for her appointment, I did something I don’t usually do – I left a fan on for Benji so that he could stay cool until we got back. We didn’t waste time, got what we wanted and headed home. Inside and put the A/C back on again. The temperature climbed to an “official temperature” of 48.6 but my monitor read 50c and the reason it read 50c is because it couldn’t go any higher. At even the official 48c, the reverse cycle A/C had difficulty trying to cope. The government were noted and warned that the electric system was “struggling” so for the first time ever, the massive generators were switched on to help the grid. Despite this precaution Adelaide and some districts around, suffered power blackouts – and this on the hottest day ever. Around 8pm it had cooled down a bit so we went out for our evening walk. I was outside a short while ago and felt that it was warmer than when I took Benji out earlier, I checked the monitor and found that it was sitting at 36c and it is now 23:05, Might not be the best night for sleeping.
Did sleep reasonably well. Took Benji out this morning and was very surprised to see that many of the places on our walk had also put out buckets of water. I thought this was great. One place had a cleaned rubbish bin filled with water. I have increased the size of the container I use.
One of the incredible things that happen here are the Hay Convoys. Much of New South Wales and most of Queensland are in drought. Thus farmers cannot feed their animals. The farmers in Western Australia donated about 3500 bales of Hay – enough to fill 50 trucks and these are being trucked from Western Australia to New South Wales. The convoy was passing through South Australia on the Inter-State about 30 miles away. A number of people were going out to the Iron Knob truck stop to greet the trucks and the truckers and wave them on . I was invited to go with them and I really wanted to, but I had an unplanned medical appointment for Annabell and that was at the same time as the trucks were going through. I did ask my friend Angel to take lots of photographs – which she did
As I said before – the weather is strange and very unpredictable. From the hottest place in the commonwealth to being really quite cool when I was out a little while ago with Benji. It was ok, but really cool (17c) considering the temperature over the last few days. I did, however, remark to Annabell the other day when we were having these rolling power outages, that it was a bit sad when you have to walk about the house with a torch (flashlight) in your pocket and candles placed around the place – just in case, you understand. I have faith in Power Networks, I mean who else can tell over 100,000 people who have just lost power of the hottest day ever, that it was a blown fuse – and tell it with a straight face? That takes talent..
When I was growing up in Scotland the early days Fish & Chip shops sometimes put a notice in their window ‘Frying Tonight” That’s what it felt like here.
Wednesday
We have the Power — Oh no you don’t !!!
Well, we have now – otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. The power went off without warning at 3:01 yesterday (Sunday)
1st SMS 4:30 SA Power Network: Power will be restored at 6pm
2nd. SMS 6:16 SA Power Networks: Power will be restored at about 8pm.
3rd SMS 9:00 SA Power Networks: Power will be restored at about 11pm
Yadda 12 Midnight
Yadda Yadda 01:00 Monday —– Power was restored at 1am this morning
Gollleee I am so thankful that it was only 35c otherwise we could have been in strife!! Had to sent the family home but at least we were able to feed them – sort of. But hey – what a wonderful way to start Monday and a new week. But – and here is the really exciting news – Planned power outage on Tuesday from 8am to 3pm and again on Thursday 8am – 2pm.
Heatwaves and temperature crashes.
The highest temperature recorded in the town’s history, was how the temperature of Port Augusta was described. The “Official Temperature”was recorded as 48.9c but the temperature monitor in the center of the town recorded 52.6c. Here, my monitor recorded a temperature of 43c as did the monitor of a friend in another part of town, yet the “Official Temperature” only recorded 37c.
Part of the local legend and conspiracy theory is that in the early days of the town, the temperature of the area was “adjusted” so as not to discourage people from coming here. It was advertised as having a “Mediterranean Climate” although off-hand I can’t think of many places in that area that experience temperatures of 40+C. Anyway, the higher temperatures meant lower and sometimes, no wind. I thought this was great and suitably attired, I managed to get almost all of the leaves swept up. Didn’t bode well for my plants despite the daily watering and monitoring. It’s also been a busy week in that I have had three medical appointment that were unplanned. What I mean by that is that doctor called and said he wanted certain tests for Annabell and I took her for these. And a call that he wanted to see her – that’s later on this morning.
Last night it was suddenly quite mild and Benji and me visited the Wetlands and had a good walk around the place. The thing I found surprising is that despite the coolness of the evening, there were not very many people about. I was, however, disappointed to discover that the Wetlands Kiosk was closed. I would have thought it would have remained open late, which would attract more people to the area in the mild evenings. There was not a breath of wind in the air. The water of the ponds were still and calm – sort of like me, really – still and calm — Yeah in my dreams!
Today – Friday – the wind came back, the temperature fell to the low 20s and we had a few spots of rain – so few spots I think it was scared to show its face after being away for so long. The heat, is some parts of the state and the country, only served to exacerbate the drought, pushing our farmers further into depression. Many of my plants did not survive and I did have concerns with my young Mulberry Tree, but it seems to come through ok – as far as I can tell.
I was hoping to go through to the Port this week and then on to Quorn Hospital but all these doctor dates with Annabell kind of knocked that on the head. She is ok otherwise. She coped reasonably well with the high temperatures this last week and we are going to look at replacing the Air Conditioner in her room with a reverse cycle Air Conditioner. It will give her more control to regulate the temperature to what is comfortable for her. I took Benji out for a walk this morning and it was – as they say -“Fresh”. In fact it was so fresh that I was sorry I had put on only a light jacket – and yes, that’s how far the temperatures have fallen. Sort of giving us a breather before the heatwave forecast for next week. Today, and tomorrow I have fundraising days for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This will take up much of the day. Fortunately it’s not a hot day – I think about 24c. We should be ok today and the team out tomorrow should have about the same,
Wednesday
This is unexpected – what do I do now?
Lovely weather and visiting dogs.
This is the photograph that I submitted for critique and whilst they waxed lyrical about each other’s photographs they were not thrilled about my photograph – bad lighting, poor composition, were two of the comments and when it came to scoring, it didn’t do well at all. I am not averse to criticism, even negative can be helpful, if done correctly, but they just didn’t like this and there was no constructive criticism. Anyway, I’m fairly comfortable with my photographs. I agree they could improve but not this way.
Got back from Adelaide last night. Was midnight before I got home and close to 1am before I got to bed and then back up at 5;45 to take the dogs out. It took me a while to settle the dogs down when I got home – you would think I had been away for weeks instead of just one day. I had to have everything done on the one day because I needed to be back for Annabell’s medical appointment. It was a fairly good trip – and I got everything that Annabell asked me to get for her but when it came to me – fail. David Jones has very little in the way of Organizers, or inserts these days, Kikki.K had nothing, Typo had nothing, same story at Officeworks, which I did find surprising. I have some things coming from the USA so I
shall just have to exercise patience and wait until they arrive before I can finish the change-over.
I did, however, get Annabell a new cookbook.
We bought an air-fryer and although it has a small cookbook along with the instructions, Annabell wanted something more so I looked for an Ari-Fryer Cookbook for her. I got this at Dymocks in Rundle Mall. We have no book shops at home. The last one closed down years ago. Yes the newsagent sells a limited number of books and the library has not caught up with Air-Fryers yet. Come to that, neither has Dymocks and there were only four books to choose from. Even in Adelaide many of the bookshops have closed down -Dymocks, Borders, Angus & Robinson, were the main bookshops in Adelaide. By contrast, Dymocks, the remaining bookshop, was crowded and many of the customers were young people. Anyway, I got her a cookbook and she is quite happy with it.
We have a Nursing Home here but the beds are very limited and it is not unusual for people to be sent to care in other places where a bed is available. This could mean they are sent over 100 miles away. If you remember I did visit one of our congregation who had been sent to a nursing home in Quorn which is about 90 miles from here. We have another person who has been sent there and I am going to visit him early next week.
The four Test Cricket matches against India have ended with a well deserved win for India. There’s no question of the fact that India really dominated the entire series and in all honesty should have ended 3 1 instead of 2 1. India dominated the last Test Match from start to finish and should have come away with a win, but bad light and bad conditions means that the match was abandoned and it became a draw. Be interesting to see how they do with a different set of skills in the ODI (One Day Internationals) ( Not very well, I fear!!)
In ten days from now we would have had Dougal for three months in what was to be a week to ten days visit. Anyway, he went home today. I took him round to Sam this afternoon. I think Dougal was glad to be home and glad to see his people. I’ll miss him but it’s nice to be back to me and Benji again. I think Benji will be quite happy and we had a good walk – just the two of us – this evening. We should be clear now until sometime in December when we get Yogi back for a bit. You never know, we could have Dougal back for a few visits if Sam has to go back to Adelaide for tests.
Wednesday.
2019 – Meet the New Year – Same as the Old Year :o)
Well, time to think about taking down the tree and all the decorations. Once I’ve done that here, I’ll go down to the church, dismantle and put away the Christmas Tree there. Then after that I might take a drive down to the supermarket and get myself some Hot Cross Buns – might even pick up an Easter Egg whilst I’m there. Sad, isn’t it?? I mean we only just cleared Boxing Day and the Hot Cross Buns were in the shops already. Don’t know about the Easter Eggs, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Things have been fairly quiet on all fronts – a heatwave followed by two serious thunderstorms, then back to more normal weather for this time of year. We will have one day ( Thursday) when the temp. is forecast to hit 42c but other that that fairly normal mid 30s,
The company John works for has just completed a multi-million dollar upgrade and a rebuild of part of the facility. Because of the disruption they are well behind on orders and need to catch up – so they have that as well as starting up new equipment and sorting out any problems that may arise with the new plant and equipment, so in order to bed in the new plant, and work on catching up with orders, the company has gone on twelve hour shifts for the time being. John is on nightshift —- bit of a shock to the system :o) Andrew is supposed to be on holiday but he was called out and t
here was a possibility that he would be called out again, so he stayed at home. And there you are – Annabell and I – for the first time ever – spent New Year’s Eve on our own – well we did have Benji and Dougal – but no other uprights. Did get text messages from both boys so that was good. Sam ( Dougal’s daddy) is still in hospital. It was thought that they had sorted the blood loss problem and he was allowed to go and stay with his daughter for a bit before coming home, but after two days he was rushed back into hospital. This was just before Christmas and I haven’t heard how things are since. We could have Dougal for a bit longer. That’s ok – he is not a problem.
Got the dogs out early this morning before the temperature builds up to the expected 42c today. This time next week I should be in Adelaide. I have some things that I need to do and I want to get the problems with Annabell’s mobile (cell) phone sorted out. We do not have an Optus shop here, only an agent and they can’t do much other than sell you a phone. So, anyway, here we are in 2019 and I have to say that I haven’t really noticed much difference. I’ve gone back to an A5 Organiser rather than an A6 mainly because I was having difficulty getting A6 inserts and I am not really keen on Filofax Personal. Years ago David Jones used to be the place for Filofax and other Organisers Years ago it was also so simple – not so now. Now if I want inserts for my organiser I have to order them from overseas – the UK or the USA – in the case of the USA $30 for the inserts and $26 for postage and that’s $US converted to $AU $87, which is ridiculous. I could go into Officeworks and buy a brand new Organiser with inserts for just about that. Ok so it wont be good quality leather, but chuck that in a cupboard somewhere and use the inserts that come with it. So I have gone back to a larger size because, oddly enough, the inserts are easier to get and I can download them and print that size on my printer. Not so A6.
I’m not very good at joining things but I did join a Filofax/Organiser site and although I still follow it, I find that there is very little that really interests me on there these days. I find my self playing Batman’s Joker – “Why so Serious?” There is also a regular round table Skype call but it’s always a Sunday and the family are here so I never take part. Oh and to help me in the joy I find in taking photographs I attended the local Camera/ Photography Club. I did very well, I thought. I lasted two meeting before I came to the conclusion that it was not really for me. and I left. I like taking photographs and I always have a camera with me everywhere I go. I have an old Nikon Coolpix L100, which I keep in my laptop bag. I bought this off some old fellow called Noah many years ago. I am not a great photographer but I like taking photographs. I have bought many books on photography, but I found them confusing even after the blurb says that they are targeted at beginners. I suppose one day they will come in handy as door stops.
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