Ridding yourself of chattels

 I am really laughing at my stray thoughts. Now someone leads a bride down the aisle to meet her prospective husband but there was a time not so long ago when the bride was 'given away', usually by her father to her about to be husband who then took over ownership. Well, that is what it sounds like to me.

How extraordinary! Were you a possession who was given away by your father to a man who you would love, honour and obey?

Actually, it is not very funny at all and that I can remember it happening in my lifetime is just extraordinary.

Cop Out

 When it becomes too late at night to properly compose a blog post for the next day, there is always glorious Wisteria seen during ISO walking to fall back on. 

Gunfire circa 1996

 It didn't sound like normal gunfire that I knew but quite alarming to be woken by in the early hours of the morning when we lived in our Balaclava house.

I called 000.

Police, Fire or Ambulance.

Police please.

Police: What are you calling about?

A series of what sound like gunshots.

What area Sir and your name, address and phone number?

I replied.

We will send a patrol car to the area Sir. Thank you for informing us.

I had a cord phone in my bedroom. 

About ten minutes later the phone rang. R snored on in his bedroom quite oblivious that I was about to be shot dead in my bed.

Ring, ring.

Hello again Sir, said the honey sweet voice of the female cop.

We believe it was youths setting off gas guns but thank you for your report. Good night Sir.

But, but, but, I stuttered impotently in the phone handset. What is a gas gun? Too late. She had hung up.

In COVID time there are so few people on the street but neither a couple of strollers nor a jogger ducked for cover tonight as 24 years later as I heard the same sound but perhaps louder while sitting on the balcony. Birds were alarmed and all species rose to heights in the sky.

In '96 it was the early days of the internet and I dialled in (insert dial in modem sound) to find out what gas guns are. Early it may have been but I found the answer.

Gas guns are put in orchards to set off loud explosions to scare away birds that may destroy the fruit crop. 

The youf of 2020 are not so different to their dad youf of 1996.

Friday Facebook

 I think these all came from Facebook. This first one could be useful to some people......even me.

A Sammy J take on my State of Victoria with coffee cups and showing the driving paths of our hook turns.

Very American but the government taking half our money in taxes turned out to be quite untrue.

This one may be English or even Australian.

One to go with patting your head and circular rubbing your stomach at the same time.

I conclude with some twee feel good stuff. 

The Personal

 There is much excitement in The Highrise tonight as we anticipate tomorrow being Friday, shopping day. We will shop for food etc at Aldi and liquour drinks supply at Dan Murphy's. 

We'll have seriously good take away coffee in cardboard cups from Brazil and R will be thinking lustful thoughts about the bloke who works there (he is rather hot), while sitting on a public bench seat (probably pandemic illegal, but no one really knows) and return home with famous South Melbourne Market dim sims to reheat in the microwave. We limit ourselves to them once a fortnight. I will have one steamed as tokenism towards healthy eating and one deep fried. The rest of the day will be as usual. R will go out for a short walk and I will go out for a longer walk later. R will lie on his bed, watch tv and fall asleep then wake and watch more tv. I will lie on my bed wide awake looking at all sorts of things on my tablet. 

There will probably some good ABC tv tomorrow night and we will have a wee dram of Scotch before bed.

We may go out of lockdown on the 19th of October and as my birthday is the 14th, that would be such a good belated birthday present. Please email me for my postal address to send your expensive gifts.

I am so looking forward to seeing Mother again and We have booked a holiday in Torquay in early November, no not Torquay at Fawlty Towers. Firefighting Nephew, his wife and their new baby Poppet will move to their brand new seaside apartment just before. His mother and her husband will take their caravan there and stay in the local caravan park. We have booked a spacious two bedroom cabin and now Hippie Niece, her new beau and the twins have also booked a cabin. 

It is something to look forward to and the weather by November should be reasonable.

We've just had our Federal Budget handed down and it will send our country into debt for years, but at pretty well zero interest rates, how much does that matter? There was the usual complaints from people who were left out, and of course the usual moaning of nothing in it for them by self funded retirees....hang on that is me.  But I am not really a deserving case. While I am not game to look at my investment balance, I still receive the same income regardless. In four years time I will receive the old age pension and receive lots of benefits and I will still have my investment income, which I will no doubt cut back and it will be enough for sustain me until I am 100 I will leave it for the kiddies.

I is ****** furious

 I am furious at those who are not wearing masks or wearing them badly. You are breaking the law. If stupid old people like me can wear masks, then you younger people can. There aren't many infringers and that makes it all the worse.

Person 1 had COVID. Person 1 lives with Person 2 who broke the law by not self isolating until a test came back clear and continued to work at a major shopping centre, mostly closed except for food. 

Person 2 spread the disease to a butcher's shop and a cafe, with some staff and two customers infected. The butcher shop manager is now in intensive care and so many had to self isolate and a huge number of tests had to be taken by those who had visited the shopping centre.

Person 3 who was either a close contact or household member of Persons 1 and 2 travelled with a work permit to country Victoria and broke the law by dining in at a cafe when that is only allowed by people outside of Greater Melbourne. Person 3 infected cafe staff and caused the business to close indefinitely. Again, a huge number of tests conducted.

While in Victoria we were down to 6 new cases Tuesday, the figure could have been a whole lot lower if not for irresponsible law breakers.

Aside from hotel quarantined returning travellers, there is a good chance we can kill off this virus in our country. If not for my state's disastrous hotel quarantine failure I expect we would be there already. We keep our international border closed to all unless they are prepared to do two weeks hotel quarantine and if we want to travel overseas, we have to hotel quarantine when we return. 

The loss of international tourism is significant, but the alternative is much worse. I expect overseas students will return and go into quarantine for two weeks before beginning or resuming their studies. Meanwhile we continue to export and import and world trade goes on, as does the transfer of wealth around the world. 

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how we felt uncomfortable at the beach on a busy day when drinking coffee and we left. R challenged one bloke about not wearing a mask and he replied, I am drinking my coffee. R replied, your mask that you are dangling from your finger is flat and you clearly haven't worn it. It was a relatively polite exchange, unlike the driving incident a couple of days ago that I may tell you about in the future. 

Wallaby Wednesday

 Did you know we have white wallabies, and in simple terms a wallaby is like a small kangaroo. These white wallabies are confined and thrive on Tasmania's Bruny Island and are genetic variation of the Bennett's Wallaby. They can and do mate with ordinary wallabies but many retain this albino gene, although some are just white and not truly albino. They have no predators on the island, hence their success. Their problems associated with being albino would soon see them soon die out if mixed with predators.

What do think? Cuddly? Cute? Sweet? Or maybe you think they just look way weird.

Margaret in northern Tasmania has visited the lovely looking Bruny Island and wrote about it here.

St Thomas Close Up

 I've written and posted about the nearby Thomas Aquinas Church before and you can see the building here.

I recently took some close up photos of the tiles adorning the building.

This looks a little meaningful.

The technical term is the top bit.

Crazy World

 While the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, there are still rainbows, this one appearing a week or so ago. I know both end points of the rainbow. One is the the corner of High Street and Chapel Street, Prahran and the other, not in shot, St Ignatius church on Richmond Hill. While both are within are within our five kilometre limit, the rainbow would be gone before I could get there, so no pot of gold for me. I just need the end point of a rainbow to be on our balcony and we will be rich!!!

Motoring Monday

 While I never owned either, I drove one of each of these a few times and the subsequent slightly improved model and they are pure luxury motoring, even compared to my Humber Super Snipe. 

Citroen Goddess cars had the slogan, 'Floats on Fluid' (or was that a Morris?). The ZC and ZD Ford Fairlane 500 felt like they floated on air. Their handling was poor, there was little in the way of safety features aside from seat belts, without even head rests. They had a powerful 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) V8 motor but were heavily muffled and as silent as a petrol driven engine could be.

Not many cars in the late 1960s had power steering and power brakes. I can tell you the Fairlane was a dream to drive.

So, it interested me to see this model parked on St Kilda Road on subsequent days of late. It appears to be in superb condition and I so wanted to hop in and drive it away, within my five kilometre limit of course. But then 100 km/h on a freeway would be good. "Sorry Your Honour. I did not steal it. I just wanted to drive it".

I'd better get this right. It is a, well, I don't know. I know the tail light set up but when I look at each model of Fairlane online nothing matches. While it was probably based on an American design, it was very much an Australian car, back in the days when we built cars.

Lookey See

 I am not sure this has ever happened since I set up my andrewhighriser at gmail.com account so many years ago.

After staying up way too late, like 4am, only 3am in pre daylight saving time, we struggled this Sunday. I managed to wash my doona cover and we went out at midday for coffee, but otherwise as the English say, just chilled. I think chilled is a word for hungover.

Nevertheless by 4am Sunday morning we had sorted out our own personal problems including R's ageing issues, family problems, world problems and heaps more, as we contentedly felt sorry for the very unwell US President. Like the hell we did.

Sunday Selections

 Joining with Elephant's Child and others for Sunday Selections.

I am sick of walking in St Kilda Road. I am sick of walking the streets of South Yarra. I am sick of walking in Fawkner Park. I will venture across the traffic sewer Kingsway to South Melbourne, and there was much of interest to be found in my couple of walks. I will just mention about one walk for this post. 

Five minutes to the big 21st century city by tram from these small 1800s homes. Modest they may seem but because of their location.........well, you can't afford one and nor can I.

New buildings in all directions but the old remain.

A nice bit of fun and frippery.

Two weeks later this scene would be quite different.

There'd be green stuff growing up like.

Great that these with their curious roofs were retained.

I think.

There isn't an explanation about this sculpture placed by a property developer. 

From the advertising board. Nice views.

Bar Espresso was all set to open earlier this year, but has not.