My Mum and gels

nana kay and the gels

Gross Fishing

Cleaning and Gross Fishing

This is not that it's really a family oriented blog good and bad bews etcetera.
[And this is a late post addon from an earlier one...]

If you know about this, you know I get cross with the shower sometimes. Like: When the plug hole is PLUGGED by child hair (or even the grey, ok). Or when the drain gets grown into by roots of grasses or vines or trees.

The last few weeks, if the shower is going at full steam (hahaha..) the footwell starts to fill.

Not again!

Pull the wad of hair from the plug hole...?

Not filling due to that pitiful wad of [LONG!] hair.

Need to do something else, check that the drain outside is not overflowing. Again.

NO!

Hmmm.

Today. Half naked and ready for a shower and while the blockage is on my mind I streak outside to grab some speaker wire from the Alcoholery.

Once back inside safe from prying eyes, I bend the speaker wire into a semblance of a hook and poke it down the plug hole. Deep Deep Deep, and pulled out some hair from the U-bend.
Not so good an Idea Marvin.

Return to the Alcoholery for.... adadadadadadadda dem... [drum roll]
hanger and a pair of pliers

Bent wire to suit. Slip it down the plug hole, and lucky for me the "strainer" piece comes free. Because as I rotate the kludged up hooking device and pull it up.... 

SOME ONE'S PONY TAIL WAS DOWN THE DRAIN

That's just Gross Fishing fore ya!

August

Last week

The twinge came back, for a half hour, lower back, when nodding. For about 15 minutes

I fell over when turning and answering my mobile phone! It might have been my ankle sprain avoidance routine as it was rough ground, but surprised the shit out of me! I do not wanrt to blame it as a symptom, but...

I looked at my latest MRI scan, and could not tell if anything had changed- ah well, will have to wait for February check up.

Ah cassettes cassettes

Remember cassetes?

the old philips type?

and an update

From the the the.... well, years ago, before the CD anyway...

Last weegen or so I was playing some tapes in the old player [1986] and the thing hisses and plays etcetera. I was a little tidly so that did not matter!
Except for the third Test Tape...
What!!! NO SOUND?
Had a look this time, in the little gap at the 'front'.
NO TAPE!!!!
Soooooo, and cos it was a great album, out with the sticky tape, knife and screwdriver and wind up device [a la Bic pen] to repair it... for the first time in  in   in    ages?     Decades even?   A little DIY while ... Why do I still have those tapes? But tried the tape back in the player and it Worked Just Fine Thank You All Very Much. Some of the old tapes are definitely of the mid 70's that a friend passed on to me when he "went religious", and those belonged to his big sister! Later I passed a few on when ever anyone was interested, when the CD came out for instance, but kept ones I Liked A Lot. Among the box of tapes was also compilations made when I was fairly sozzled after parties and still could not hit the sack... Good road trip tapes man!

Then the Walkmen

And this thingo?!? A real boys toy if ever!
I bought the Sanyo walkman style tape player back in  '83 so I could cruise the highway on the Yamaha 250 I had, between cold old Kyneton and Barfold- with some tape or radio music in the helmet.  And later on in the jet when going to work in WA or outback SA or QLD or cold VIC from Adelaide!


Did a few miles with this!


I won a real Sony Walkman Sports in a sailboard race about four years later.

Then when the Discman had to come out before I went to Aber-bloody-deen for a year, wellllll, yeah, well, so I Upgraded With the Duty Free Opportunity as I got on board! Pity the bugger only lasted a few years, I have only just tossed it* NO I DID NOT - a fine little machine, not much bigger than a CD and about 11mm thick. Paired with the Sony Speakers--- was nearly all we needed coping near the Arctic Circle...


I did replace it however, before the Millenium, with another albeit second hand, but still great Sony CD Walkman that only needed AA batteries, not the special battery pack for the first one I had- barstid to charge up etc etc.

This one was plastic and light compared to the first which though small, was heavy.
It did a few flying miles too.

Amazingly enough, none of the kiddies ever played with my musical "boys toys" or tapes in order to test them all to destruction...

Do you remember boys toys and Cassettes?





















*[ie I cannot find it at the moment- check back one day]

My dad and bro- gone yottie

My Father and Brother Gone Yachtie

Since the end of summer, a simmering idea

My dad Tez and brother Pete have been sailing around the Corio Bay area for a couple of years now with Pete's friend Larry. The other year dad and Larry were in a race, using whiz bang technology to steer around the lanes... Notice, not navigate... They laughed at some other yotties that were aground. Griinnnnd. They joined the club. This last year Pete has nearly fallen off when larry's boat was in a squall. Please note, this is second hand news...

But, somehow or other, an idea was simmering between them. 

Dad has a quiet life, kids all gone, [for now], twentyfour/seven looking after my wheelchair-bound but bright as a button mum. He does not get out of the house long enough to relax, unless we gang up and pitch in to help out as often as six siblings can manage. A golf round does not count, nor does a quick fishing trip down the street with the mad as a black hatter smarty bum Labrador "Lockie". A night or two away from it. Last time was working on my sister's farmlet three hours away to the north. What does happen pretty regularly is that the weekend ends up rained out...

pete is becoming an empty nester. I think. Four kids out on the loose, either working or studying or planniong on a trip overseas. He and wife Weez are now on nearly up to ten years of running a finger food catering company west of the Big Smoke in the former gold mining district- now a great boutique wine region. And he has been sailing with Larry...

Autumn

"been looking at coutta boats" was a new telephone talking point as summer ran into autumn when ever news was exchanged and then the inevitable "what's new?" came up. 

Port Phillip bay- thanks NASA-
Corio Bay in the SE, just cut out the mooring area,
The Big Smoke up the top of the Bay,
but this pic misses The Heads, captured in last pic below.

masted Couta Boats

These coutta motorised boats were designed for the bay fishing industry, or close enough, not ocean going. Usually with a sail in the old days and wide. Typically kept moored in the little ports sprinkled along the shores of Port Phillip Bay. These days as the fishing has gone quiet the boats are making a come back for recreational sailors as weekend racers or cruisers. But pretty expensive. 

At the end of Autumn, they found a yacht instead.

Winter

A proud dad

The yacht they found was for sale, and up on the wharf being micro detailed by the owner. The hull is of solid gum [eucalyptus], a draught of about 5 or 6 feet, a keel, not a centreboard contraption like AustraliaII for these guys! The design is of British origin, and well known as a great sailing vessel. The one the boys were looking at had been up and down the east coast, across to Tassie and island hopping Bass Strait too. Forty years of sailing, and in great shape, hardly a pint of dirty water in the bilge dad reckoned. The mast was being refitted/renewed on a shed when I visited early June.

Te Boyz

The other week the mast was restepped. The sails have been given a clean up, the insides tidied and the technology up to date. And the fellas are eager to go.

File pic...

My preferred sailing either

or

The first overnighter for dad and pete planned for Spring is around to Portarlington. So far.

First overnighter- around the lower headland, The Heads is the NoGo area to the right...

Looking forward to going out with My dad and bro- going yotting.