Cohen on Australia Day 2010

Oriental Lillies from Rob

Please explain why it is eco-friendly to pull down solid stone or concrete toilet blocks and replace them with these timber versions? Toilet blocks are being demolished and replaced with these all over Caloundra's beaches. They look really shacky and at least here at Moffat Beach, the pavilion for picnicking under has not been replaced. Better than painted concrete maybe or do you prefer the style at Coolum? I think this toilet block at Coolum is cute.  It is actually at Stumers Creek.

Moffat Beach is getting a bit spindly looking.

In fact, the council seems to be going mad chopping down trees and thinning out areas for development or letting too many developers in here. Caloundra South affordable housing estate is being cleared by burning if I am guessing right by the smoke and smell last week. The boardwalk has lost all its trees near fisherman's end and cotton trees have been replanted - too small for the desperately needed shade. The main street lost 2 of its Morton Bay Figs hush hush style and the future of the rest remains uncertain.. Norfolk pines planted as memorials to soldiers in the World War, are being removed all over the coast - dangerous they say. And our last local Koala may have to move on as developers plan to clear away his 2 hectares of bush and only remaining food trees. The Salvation Army sold that land to developers I hear. And the tell-tale pink ribbons mark the demise of more bush. The thicket between Caloundra Rd and Pelican Waters Estate is being thinned slowly but surely. The next section is all completely cleared bush down to the soil interspersed with concrete canals appearing like worms being flooded out of the ground. Meanwhile the coastal vegetation of any size is being allowed to fall into the ocean and the tourists are getting the benefit of open views from their balconies. But we need shade!

Zooming in on Moffat Beach looking at Point Cartright

The pink before the gold

Here comes the sun

A big ball of light at Neil Street, Dicky Beach.

I'd say the sun's up!

Nice

Sun's up, surf's not.

Yesterday I parked in Neil St and watched the sun come up - it was not long before the walkers were out for their very early morning walls along Dicky Beach.

Crepe Myrtle January 2010 
It's pretty big now. 


I've been crook with a blockage in the gut and the liquid started last night, nearly 24 hours of it. Rob was in town and wanted me to go with him to metal detect the beach and I couldn't go anyway.  I must have known since I was blown up like a huge balloon and found it hard to move and tried to act grateful for the hot chicken but it was not going down well.  He bought me some flowers on discount at the Supermarket which are very nice Oriental Lilies and the perfume is powerful. But as fate often has it when Rob is around, I was: trying to ignore symptoms; uncomfortable sitting on the chair; getting bitten by mosquitoes and hoping he would go before I got worse.  He came back around this afternoon but I was in bed and he left for Tewantin again. He let me know that he wants a girlfriend for the new decade during one of our conversations which were mostly about his recent trip up around Charters Towers and Townsville instead of doing the Christmas-New Year thing.

Anyway I slept most of the day away, unlike yesterday.  Yesterday I actually got up for sunrise and went out in the car to photograph the sun coming up at Neil St Dicky Beach and later I hung around Moffat Beach, wandered around, took photos and sat in the shade drinking a thermos of coffee.  All that before 7:30am.  Then I headed to the Farmer's Markets and bought a bit of fruit and veg, saw Tina's bric a brac stall and came home for a sit in my wading pool.  After breakfast I slept.  At least I got to do something before the body stuffed up again.  I'm supposed to be going to the dentist tomorrow - but appointment success rate has not been good for 2 months!

.Long time no see visitor. Bda Finally visits in the early New Year. I ordered some mossie repellant come sunscreen from her many months ago but I have not been camping anyway so it did not matter too much that I didn't get it until now. Bda ended up giving it to me and I had a little Xmas gift for her too. It is hard to believe that on her birthday, she will switch to the old age pension which in her case, with all her Avon income, is not such welcome news. The disability pension is tax-free but the old-age pension is taxable. Bda is preparing for the idea of having to pay tax - which is pretty rediculous given her circumstances. She is still renting privately, still is not on the housing list, still running around like a blue-arsed fly for Avon and still putting stuff on her credit card. Maybe the idea is to keep your credit cards maxed out until you die and get the benefit of the plasma High Def TV and the beautiful furniture now. I wonder what happens after she dies. I wonder what happens to the economy when all the baby boomers die with maxed out credit card debt?

Connor and Mould man went camping on Jan 3rd to Cedar Grove Campgrounds in Amamoor State Forest.

Connor left with all his teeth but he came back 3 days later with one front tooth missing. The tooth fairy found him in the tent and paid for the use of his tooth with a couple of gold coins. It was showering a lot for their trip but they still had a good time by all accounts. I enjoyed the 2 days I got to myself but I did not get peace and quiet the whole time they were away because B lobbed with aches and pains and lay around here for 24 hours developing tonsilitis on top of the virus.  He had had a fight with Stacey but since New Year, they have been living in the same house. Nevertheless, B will be going back to R's when he is better or after the weekend which will begin this evening.

It is actually Connor's birthday today, but because we were not going to see him after Wednesday I gave him the birthday present from Grandnan early.  I must say he really did like the clock that did so many things - it is a changing colour night light cube, an alarm clock (for school), a calendar, and it shows the temperature too.  Connor particularly liked the touch function where you push on the uppermost surface and the light switches on just for a few seconds.  We had a long discussion about batteries and being in possession of something that would see him through high school, University and his first job if he looked after it properly.  We also practiced the touch action avoiding heavy pressure and non-hard surfaces.

Happy New Year. In the News (from Time): “The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell” The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened. Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era.

It is pouring with rain, pouring, pouring, pouring down and I am thinking of S (aka the mold man) and Connor. I was so happy when they left to go camping this morning. Finally, the house to myself. I am still having a reaction to New Years Eve, when we got Connor in the morning before I even got up and Cohen in the evening so that B and Stac could party. I wasn't exactly lively but trying to get into the spirit of things for Connor's sake, I took the plunge and left the house with the boy to participate in the festivities at Kings Beach. I bought these glow stick things we had activated and made into halo's necklaces and bangles and I was surely glowing but it was not quite dark and I was not quite sure whether we would find a park close enough for me. It began to rain while we were still in the car but by the time I found a parking spot it had stopped. Just showers. Been a bit like that all week actually. Not bad for camping since it was not downpour type rain, and better than full sun beating down on a tent. We walked along the beach to avoid the crowd but had to enter into it, buy food and find a spot to watch an open air "Horton" the elephant movie. It turned out Connor had it at home anyway and all he cared about was finding kids to play with so we headed back down to the beach and I let him run around. Not long after it started to rain and we got wet but it was warm so it did not matter and everyone else just sheltered under trees and awnings too. But in the crowd, Connor disappeared several times so I had to just wait for him to find me all a glowing. The first time, a lady brought him to me and he gave me a big hug but after that he knew he would find me in the same spot. I was getting a bit impatient to go and he was deliberately taking off.

We came home to Cohen running around the house and getting into everything. He was supposed to be asleep in the cot. The mold man refused to help out much. He had been in a semi schizo mood (for lack of a better description) all day. That was the main reason I took Connor in the first place.

New Years Day was not any better, Brett was late getting Cohen, I was too tired and the mold man had determined that the boy Michael, Flora's grandson was not a good influence on Connor for some unexplained reason which he would not disclose, so he banned Connor from playing with him. Connor has always gotten on well with him - they play make believe type games together, very nicely around the tree out the front, making things out of dirt and scraps that are significant to them. I have heard them ducking bombs but Connor said they were playing pretend "creatures" that day. So I have no idea what got up the mold man's nose.

I call him the mold man because his car has smelled of mold for a year, since stuff in the boot got wet and when he pulls in the driveway, I can smell it from inside the house. I think I am allergic to that smell. I cannot stand it. Everything he brings in from the car smells the same and now my vacuum cleaner smells like it because he has used it to clean his car out. He is also the mould man because he refuses to open the shower door to air which I have been in the habit of ever since I lived in a hot sub tropical climate...so the shower is now mouldy far too often. Another reason is his constant watering of the lawn (even through water restrictions) which combined with grass clippings which he puts on top if his seeding areas, is all turning moldy. Even throughout this showery week, he continues to water his grass.

Anyway, the mold man was not able to keep Connor happy and he begged to go to his other Nana's and I encouraged it with a view to picking him up today for the camping trip. Yesterday he decided to cancel but somehow I got him to change his mind - and like I said, now it is raining, raining, raining and their tent (actually my tent, my gear, which is a worry) would have water running through the front part for sure if they got this rain that we are having. So now I am wondering about a moldy tent and whether my long awaited time to myself will end abruptly tomorrow instead of Thursday. Surely they will stick it out one night.