A trip to nowhere in particular

Today we were supposed to go the races at Bombala.   Bombala is a small town about an hour south of Cooma, which itself is about 2 hours south of Canberra.

Bombala has a single race day each year as a major fund-raiser for the local schools, emergency services, rural fire brigade, etc.  The racecourse is actually just a pub with a racetrack attached.  This is what it was like the last time we went in 2002.

Anyway, Karyn is in a club called “Women in Racing” that does regular trips to events like this, so we decided to go along and avoid having to drive ourselves.  However, when we got to the bus at 7:30am we were told that the races were cancelled because of the recent heavy rains and the predictions for further rain during the day.  It was a further disappointment for us because one of our horses, Diamond Jay, was going to be racing there.

Nevertheless, the trip was still on they said.  They would find somewhere for us to go – like a kind of mystery bus trip.

It was a great trip, with lots of alcohol involved, starting at around 8am.  I took pictures of Karyn all day and night with a champagne glass in her hand at each time.  But she refused to let me put the pictures up here.

So we ended up at a little place south of Bombala called Delegate.  It can’t be too far from the Snowy mountains because it was so bloody cold.

Here are some pictures of the place.

As you can see, the town is really just a pub with a few other buildings for company.  Most of which seemed abandoned.

So we spent the best part of the day in the local pub, which fortunately had its own TAB and plenty of TVs showing the Sydney and Melbourne races.

All day the weather changed from sun, to sleet, to snow, and back to sun.  The temperature was close to freezing all day.  And the wind was about 50-60 km/h – so the snow and sleet was blown horizontal.  I was only about to get out once for a walk, and even then I couldn’t go far because the next sleet/snow shower was never more that about 15 minutes away.

But the group of people we were with were fun and we had a great day.

There be dragons

I was walking near the Canberra Centre today when I saw a fire-breathing dragon.

Although you can't see it in this picture, there were flames coming out of its nose.

Cockington Green

While Mum was down in Canberra we took the opportuntiy to visit Cockington Green.  This is a model village on the outskirts of Canberra that I haven't been to in maybe 20 years.  We went there regularly when we first moved to Canberra to show visitors, but then we just stopped going when they'd all seen it.

I was surprised at how much it had grown and in some ways hadn't changed from how I remembered it.

I took the wrong lens for my camera (the 50-250mm one) so I was limited to photos that I could take from a distance.  But maybe the photos worked out anyway.

The big challenge was to take photos without someone standing in the shot to upset the sense of size.

We really enjoyed the place and would recommend it to people of all ages.  There were a lot of families there on the day that we went, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.

Floriade

Mum came down for the weekend, so we took the opportunity to visit Floriade, the annual Canberra flower show.  It was a good time to see the flower display as nearly everything was in bloom.  In previous years, by the time we've got there, there had usually been a big storm, or torrential rain, or some other natural disaster that damaged the flowers - but this year everything was ok.  The weather was good too - the temperature had climbed enough that I could get around in shorts.  Mum, however, was covered up to avoid any more skin cancers.

I realised now that I must have a thing for flowers with a red/orange/coral colouring as I can see that most of the photos that I took were of tulips of these colours.

There were a group of people in traditional Polish dress that put on a display of Polish dancing and music, and some hung around for photographs afterwoods.

We were just turning back to the entrance when we looked into a little glade that had interesting decoration.

Spa awning

Last month we decided to replace the old pergola at the lower back side of the house with something actually useable.

I've never quite worked out the purpose of pergolas - those strange wooden frameworks that just sit there and do nothing.  Except need painting.  Ours was also dangerous.  You see, Karyn liked to hang plants from it.  Big ones. Right at head height.  Right where the the unwary face could walk straight into them. 

So we decided to get rid of it and replace it with a clear perspex roof that extended outwards in an "L" shape to cover the outdoor spa as well.  I hate sitting in the spa and getting rained on.

So we had someone come and measure it all up and install a roof.  The only problem was that the roof they constructed didn't actually cover the spa.  You can see from the following picture how the roof misses about a foot of the spa.

 When I rang them up, they said that there was no problem because they had built what we asked for.  I said "it doesn't cover the spa".  "But it was supposed to be 2.6 metres wide" they said.  I replied that the measurement was theirs and that I had asked them for a roof to cover the spa.  They claimed that they had no idea why we wanted the roof, so how could they know it was supposed to cover the spa?  They were desperate for any excuse by now.

Anyway, I insisted, so they came out and fixed it, and now it covers the spa properly.  And to be fair to them, they replaced the whole spa roof at no extra charge. Even though it was now several square metres larger than what they had quoted for.  Karyn offered them extra for it, but the boss turned her down.  I reckon they knew that they'd measured it wrong as soon as they started erecting it.
 

The roof is nice and high and I can sit in the spa and watch the stars at night.  And not worry about getting wet in the rain.

And no, that's not the same washing on the clothes line.

How could they claim that they didn't know that the roof was supposed to cover the spa?

Karyn's Birthday crystal

The hard thing about being talented is that people are always wanting you to prove it.  Like Karyn did today. 

You see it was her birthday yesterday, and I got her a piece of Swarovski crystal as a present. An elephant. Don't ask me why someone would collect crystal; after all there's not much you can do with it.  You can't drill holes with it or load games on it.

Anyway, she's been nagging me to put a light in her display cabinet to show off the crystal.  So today I did it.  I firstly tried LED lighting, but it wasn't bright enough.  I had seen some nice lighting in the display cases at the Swarovski shop, but I couldn't get anything close from the lighting shops.  We finally decided on a flat compact fluorescent light that would illuminate not only the crystal figures at the top, but the rest of the glassware as well.

The installation was tricky as well because the Parker furniture is very solid and the internals fit pretty tightly, and with all the glass and mirror around, you have to be careful not to shatter it with a misplaced drill bit.  In the end I was able to find a 5mm space that I could drill a hole through to get the power in.

I also took the opportunity to try and photograph some of her Swarovski pieces in the cabinet.  It was a lot harder than I thought and in hindsight I would have been better taking them outside the cabinet rather then through the glass doors.  It's just that the crystal looks much better when directly illuminated.

I really needed a macro lens for this, because I had depth of field problems with these.

I also found it hard to isolate one image from all the light reflections around it.  Maybe it would be better isolating each one on a dark background.   Maybe I'll try it again on some future rainy day.

Heaven knows what Karyn will do next.  Probably use the new cabinet lighting as an excuse to buy some more crystal.

A great weekend in Sydney

Karyn and I went up to Sydney this weekend.

There were a couple of reasons for the trip. Firstly, we wanted to give our old TV to Jessica because her son has moved out and taken the TV with him; and secondly so that I could go to Mark & Cherie's place and set up a wireless range extender so that James could use his laptop from his bedroom.

It was a great weekend.  The weather was perfect and from Mum's balcony you could see clearly across Rose Bay to Potts Point and the city centre beyond.

On Sunday, before we went out to brunch, the local sailing club was in full action, and it reminded me of when I used to sail out there in Rose Bay myself in a boat not much bigger than these.

Here you can see some beginners being towed out to the starting line.

The moves that the government have made over the past few years to reduce pollution in the harbour seems to be paying off - the water seems crystal-clear, with a lovely colour.  The sailors don't know how good they've got it - when I sailed out there we had to watch out for huge Sunderland flying boats landing or taking off and heading out to Lord Howe Island.  These guys were so powerful that if they turned and caught you unawares, the backwash from their engines would capsize you in a flash.