Author: 6000

Day 360 – Birds

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Ah. The full 360. And that’s why we’re just about to come back to where we started with another hard lockdown.

Anyway…

Sunnier, warmer and less windy today (although that last one starting from a very high baseline), so the Boy Wonder and I grabbed a camera and went for a wander around our weekend neighbourhood.

Not much special stuff going on togging-wise in the bright sunshine, but good to get some fresh air and take in some rays as we headed through town and then back along the coastline.

I’ll need to lob them into Lightroom when I get chance, but in the meantime (because I’d rather be looking at the sea than a computer screen), please enjoy a Cape Cormorant and a Three-Banded Plover. Despite the Cape Cormorant being much smaller than his White-Breasted cousin, there’s actually still quite a size different between the two birds above (65cm v 18cm). However, because of the cropping and the fact that one was far. away. it doesn’t seem that way.

More photos to follow. “Soon”.

Day 359 – Overhang

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I’m sitting in bed in a converted radar station building overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I can’t quite see land on the other side, but if I could, then it would be the Southernmost cost of Brazil about 6,500 km away. My eyesight isn’t that good. I fact, not much of me is very good today after a very heavy session on last night. Loads of fun, loads of laughter, but a quite terrifying sight of empty bottles of many varieties this morning.

I feel as rough as a nomad’s heel. I haven’t been this hungover in many, many years.

We’re away with friends for three days, but clearly pacing ourselves was never an option. The release after a taxing week was just too tempting. We’re grown ups. We really should know better. On the plus side, I’m really not feeling the need to drink ever again, so I’m confident of waking up feeling much healthier tomorrow morning.

And the view is lovely.

Photos to follow at some point.

Day 358 – I did not click through

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These adverts at the bottom of otherwise sensible, grown-up news articles are getting more and more bizarre.

Who Could Blame The Vet? What Can The Police Do About It? And Why Are All The Words Capitalised?

Also:

Total teeth! Surprising stairlifts! Look at Bras!

These were on this article about an ISIS-related group allegedly beheading children in Mozambique.
Dentistry, transport for the elderly between storeys* and supportive underwear seem horribly insignificant and incongruous.

* No matter how unexpected

Day 357 – B&A

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Well, it’s taken a while, but here they are: The Before and After photos of our pool.

This wasn’t a thing we wanted to have done, and other jobs that we did want to have done have now had to be postponed because of deep shortfall in cold, hard cash, but there were so many fibreglass particles in the water that the pool was unusable (unless you really liked itching for 12 hours afterwards). And swallowing it? Well, you don’t do that with swimming pools.

But now it’s done and it actually looks pretty good, I think.
Hang on, I’m going to see if I can get this image comparison tool I’ve just found, working…

NO. I CAN’T.
In my defence, I didn’t even know that it was a thing I could do when I started writing this post, let alone when I took the photos.

So let’s do it this way instead:

The chlorinator was installed yesterday, and this morning, some nice men came and chucked lots of baking soda and 150kg of salt into the water. Now we just need a few more nice days before summer deserts us completely to warm the damn thing up, because it’s quite chilly at the moment.

And yes, I know that I cheated by taking one image on a rubbish grey day and one with the gorgeous sunshine glinting through the pristine water, but that’s how all before and after images work. And I really paid for it in demonstrating the lack of dynamic range of my phone camera [sad trombone].

Day 356 – Just so much to do

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New house, so much work. Just so much to do.

Initially, my list of jobs shrank by about 4 jobs today, mainly because I managed to get about 4 jobs done. However, like a debtor who is doing their level best, but still not quite meeting the interest payments, I managed to sink deeper into task debt, simply because I added more than 4 jobs onto my list of jobs.

Massive own goal.

Today was about waterproofing, painting, framing a fishing hook (I’ll explain another time) and meeting with a dogsitter. And all of those things went really well, but I’ve still ended up with more to do than I had this morning.

I’m leaving blogging until the last minute each evening, because if I don’t get those 4 jobs done, then I slip further and further behind. I haven’t watched an episode of Only Connect for over two weeks now (sorry, Victoria) and as for Thomas Heaton, well, he is but a distant memory at the moment.

I’m going away this weekend to the Weskus (the Second Bes Kus), and while that will mean no subtractions to the jobs list, it should effectively prevent any additions as well. But I still might choose to just take the hammer blow of having a day (or even just an afternoon) without jobs tomorrow, just to catch up on all the things I’ve been missing.

If you pop by at 3pm and there’s already a blog post up, you’ll know that I’m probably even further behind, and I just don’t care.