C ARS, CARS AND MORE CARS.

14/08/201514/08/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 4 Comments

Out of the blue one day last week, She Who Must Be Obeyed suggested we buy a new car.

Great idea I thought, our present vehicles are large and cumbersome, will not fit in multi story car parks, are expensive to maintain and are getting a bit long in the tooth.

Mr Brown as we call him is 31 years old and qualifies to be registered as an historic vehicle. We bought him new in 1984 and he has travelled nearly 500,000 klms. Still goes like a rocket and never ‘fails to proceed’ as is said in Rolls Royce parlance.

Then there is Mr Green. He is a lot younger at only 13 year of age. He too has been up a few hills and is nearing 400,000 klms on the clock.

As you can see, we are not sit at home types.

So, the tyre kicking commenced almost immediately.

Of course, our two beloved Landrovers were not going to be looking for a new home. Indeed not, they are part of the fabric of life at Casa Creakingbones and thoughts of trade ins or for sale signs were never a consideration.

First, VW’s. Lovely, smart, a little quirky, reasonably priced and the two of us could fit in the front of the vehicle range with reasonable comfort.

Next we looked at the KIA range. The Cerato with all its modern electronics and gadgetry was spacious, comfortable, within our price range and the colours available were all desirable. It even has a full size spare tyre and wheel.

Then came the Mazda 3. Wow, luxuries galore, everything that opens and shuts, sharp pricing, great reputation and is the most popular small car in our little part of the world.

Not far away from the Mazda dealership is the Nissan car yard. Boy oh boy, is the Nissan Pulsar SSS a car and a half. Electronics everywhere, turbocharged petrol engine, loads of torque, spacious, great trunk for filling with groceries or picnic gear. In metallic red paint it looks like a million dollars on wheels.

Finally we took a peek at the little Suzuki Swift. Great little machine, realistic price too, you could buy a matching pair for just a tad under the cost of the top of the range models we had previously looked at.

Back at home, armed with brochures, price lists, option schedules, service costs, road side assist tables, standard and extended warranty comparison sheets, we commenced drawing up our comparison list. Regular references to reviews contained within Mr Google were also undertaken.

All done we began allocating points out of ten for relevant features in order to reach a rational conclusion about our intended purchase. Colour was not an issue as we both know that heat from the sun comes in through the car windows, not through the body work, so white or black, who cares.

Then we had a spontaneous joint eureka moment. Are we both stark raving mad? Why do we need another car?

We have two vehicles already, both pass mechanical inspection tests, are regularly serviced and reliable. We know them backwards, they even have matching number plates and I suspect they even know their names.

Then there is the motor bike too and three bicycles. As an extra bonus, we live within easy walking distance of our town’s main street and it’s only $10.00 in a taxi if we don’t feel like walking home with the groceries.

Then there was immediate consensus over the inevitable coffee break. A new car is no longer on our acquisition list.

On Monday I’ll be on the phone to each of the friendly salesmen we met, just to let them know that we are out of the market but will keep them in mind should we embark on this exercise again in future.

The car bit out of the way, I can now begin to scheme and plot about acquiring a hot air balloon.

Hoo roo for now.

A BIT MORE DOGGEREL

08/08/201508/08/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 6 Comments

Yesterday Priceless Joy commented that doggerels sound like fun and how right she is.

Many famous writers have from time to time dabbled in doggerel and Lewis Carroll, famous for his marvellous works, Alice in Wonderland, Alice through the Looking Glass and The Hunting of the Snark was one of the great masters.

Try as I might, I’ve never been able to memorise examples of his doggerel, with one exception. After you’ve read this short little extract from Chapter 1 of Alice through the looking Glass I’m sure you will understand:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did gyre and gamble in the wabe, all mimsy were the borogoves, and the more rates outgrabe.’

‘Beware the Jabberwocky, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!’

And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the bulgy wood, and burbled as it came!

Now, just for fun, try reading it out loud two or three times, it’s quite a hoot. Don’t even bother with pronunciation.Then try committing it to memory. I kid you not, it’s pretty difficult to accomplish.

The one I can remember is from Carroll’s ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ described, I once read as ‘An agony in eight fits’.

Anyway, here we go:

He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare with an upwardly wag of the head and he once went a walk hand in hand with a bear just to keep up its spirits he said.

These days writers seem to have become terribly serious in their work and I haven’t come across too many examples of doggerel since I had the pleasure of reading some of the scripts from the old BBC production of the Goon Show. Spike Milligan was masters of the art.

I’m certain if you dig around you will find lots of doggerel to keep you amused and you might even write some yourself.

Hoo roo for now.

A LITTLE BIT OF HUMOUR ON A COLD AND MISERABLE DAY AT CASSA CREAKINGBONES

07/08/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 13 Comments

By general Aussie standards today is’ bloody cold mate’. According to the thermometer outside the back door it’s 10c in the sun just after 2pm on Saturday afternoon.

Ideal time to do a bit of blogging I thought but what to write about today?

Photography? No. Motor bikes? No. Landrovers? No. Computers? Hell no. Travelling? No. Work before retirement? No way. Early life?

Early life. That got me thinking about those long gone days and how my childhood growing up in the 1940s and 50s has influenced my way of thinking and my behavioural patterns.

My mother and father were a profound influence. Both were musicians, both were religious, both were well educated and importantly, never lost their individuality. Additionally, both had their own particular activities and both smoked like chimneys.

Family history was important to both of them and as the years went by I heard more and more about the importance of family traditions. This was reinforced on a regular basis when family get together took place at the home of my maternal grandparents. My paternal grandparents passed away before I was old enough to fall under their influence.

My father was an academic whose hobbies, apart from music, were Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew and of course, English, all of which he spoke, read and wrote effortlessly.

Mom on the other hand spoke, read and wrote French and German fluently. French because back in the ‘Old Country'( England) she had a French nanny and German to annoy my father.

My father believed in firstly learning by rote and then completely analysing what had been learned.

Now I get to the point of this yarn. I still vividly remember, word for word, a number of the pieces of doggerel my Dad insisted I learn at a very, very young age. This was he said, to convince me that learning can be fun.

Just one example of great doggerel is this piece written in the 1800s by a British playwright and actor named I think Samue Foote. Here it goes, around about 65 years or so after I memorised it:

She walked into the garden to pick a cabbage leaf to bake an apple pie and at the same time a great she bear came up the street and shoved its head into the shop. ‘What, no soap’, he cried. So he died and she very imprudently married the barber and they were all present at the wedding, the Jobillies and the Picanninies and the Great Panjandrum himself with the little round button on top and they all fell to playing catch as catch can till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots.

Certainly doggerel and totally inane. Fun to learn though as Dad said it would be. Impossible for me to analyse though. Years later I learned why Foote wrote it.

Dad’s habit, which I also learned, was to polish boots and shoes when learning a passage by rote. He told me that the rhythmic to and fro of the brush assisted the memory. Worked for me then and I’ver done it ever since; while learning dirty ditties to sing in the Officer’s Mess, memorising risqué jokes to tell around the camp fire, not to mention memorising specific instructional details for using the camera, tools and all things mechanical and most importantly, learning essential information for passing exams.

So there we are, a well learned aide memoir that has helped me to remember lots of useless information over the years.

By the way, they also taught me to never smoke and I never have, Even in the presence of smokers, I’m like Bill Clinton, I never inhale.

THE DAY MY MAC MINI DIED

03/08/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 14 Comments

Back in July my iMac refused to upload images to my blog.To overcome the problem I turned to MacBook Pro where everything worked fine except being an old Mac using an outdated operating system it was snail pace slow and took forever to process RAW images..

Then I remembered that I’d mothballed my old Mac Mini and it’s resurrection commenced.

First I had to load Photoshop CS6. All went well until Adobe called for the key to my copy of Photoshop CS5 extended before CS6 would load.

Being a bit of a bower bird I located the vital key, uploaded the numerals and bingo, all went well for about ten milliseconds before my power board flipped its circuit breaker. OK thought I, switched the breaker back on and OH no, same thing. Tried again and wow, mini burped, screen illuminated, the Apple logo appeared and then so did the dreaded bloody rainbow coloured revolving wheel.

After four or five more attempts with the mini and efforts to get my beloved Photoshop CS6 disk released I was stumped. It was was firmly lodged in the mini. How to retrieve it. All methods know to man failed.

Off to the nearest Apple store, only 60 miles away. Mini in hand. Fantastic service too. ‘How long have you had it’? I was asked. ‘Quite a while’, said I. ‘What’s the matter with it’? ‘My Photoshop disk is stuck in it’. I replied.

With that the Apple engineer peered at the back of the mini case, entered its serial number into his computer and told me the Mini was ‘Vintage, can’t be repaired because parts are no longer available’. ‘After all,’ he said,’It was made in 2007′.

I enquired how I could open the case as there were no visible screws. My Apple man smiled as only a genuine computer nerd can, and proudly informed me that there were no visible points of entry. I’d already alluded to that fact.

Back home with a new Mac Mini under my arm I turned to the traditional blokes method of opening an object when all else fails; a screwdriver and a bit of brute force. On this occasion a hammer was unnecessary.

The good news is that after totally destroying my old mini I retrieved the CS6 disk undamaged and have now successfully uploaded it to the this new mini.

For your absolute amusement, hereunder are a few images of my handiwork. No need for the images to have titles, they speak for themselves.

I’ve got a few ideas about the names of these parts but as this is a family oriented blog, their names shall remain unrecorded. I’m sure you know where I’m coming from.

However, the next image is a positive sign of my computer savvy and undoubted capacity to recover, intact, a disk stuck in a vintage Mac Mini.

Hoo roo for now.

CASA CREAKINGBONES AND SOME OF OUR RESIDENT MAGPIES

29/07/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 11 Comments

The Australian Magpie is a black and white bird found in all areas of Australia except in the arid almost treeless desert country.

Totally adapted to the presence of humans and happily established in cities and towns Magpies are welcome visitors to residential backyards where their beautiful call makes a pleasing and melodic accompaniment to early morning risers.

The Magpie is strongly defensive of its environment and in the breeding season is known to attack humans and pets that come to close to their breeding areas. This has never occurred to residents or pets at Cassa Creakingbones.

Magpie family groups can number up to 24 birds and once they adopt a backyard, if you have made the mistake of feeding them, they are almost impossible evict.

That is exactly what has occurred at Casa Creakingbones. We took the decision about 15 years ago to feed about four Maggies that visited from time to time. It wasn’t long before we were hand feeding them with mince meat, toast and the occasional biscuit. That is when our visitors moved in permanently.

Now, just after the breeding season in spring and early summer, their numbers in our backyard can number up to 30 or 40 resident individuals. We know that we should not feed them but it’s amusing to watch their antics, listen to their wonderful songs and from time to time, break up quite violent fights as the elders work to drive unwanted members of the clan to places new.

Once a week it’s necessary to pressure wash our kitchen window sill and the area near the backdoor of their copious droppings. You see, the little devils, the moment they observe movement in our kitchen swoop down and land on the kitchen window sill and rap on the glass with their beaks to remind us that they are hungry. The glass gets grubby and the window sill, well, I leave it to your imagination.

Today was no exception, as our lunch was being prepared, eight magpies arrived at the back door and four of their number settled on the window sill, waiting to be hand fed with beef mince and toast, their favourite.

Now I should add that they are quite tame, our cat Ginger can wander around among them and cause no distress. Not only that, if we leave a door or window open, the four of them come immediately inside to feasts on the cat’s food. No, they are not house trained and after we have managed to convince them to leave, the carpet cleaner is put to good use.

Today I decided to grab a few images of the lunch time occurrence and took a quick shot of the four on the windowsill and then around the back door and their carefree attitude to Ginger the cat.

GINGER AND THE MAGPIES COEXIST PEACEFULLY.

LANDROVERS, THE ULTIMATE 4X4 BY FAR REVISITED

26/07/201528/01/2020 ~ creakingbones ~ 7 Comments

When I wrote the original of this post, it was my intention to illustrate my narrative with images from trips in our Landrover She Who Must Be Obeyed and myself have taken in our Landrovers. That part of the exercise failed and now, using my MacBook Pro the uploading of the images can occur.

So, here are the images I intended to show you:

MR BROWN SWIMMING NEAR TOM GROGGAN — MR BROWN SWIMMING NEAR TOM GROAN

MR GREEN PLAYING IN A PUDDLE NEAR COWOMBAT FLAT IN VICTORIAN HIGH COUNTRY

A COLDISH CAMPSITE ON THE DARGO HIGH PLAINS IN VICTORIA.

A LONG AND DUSTY ROAD IN FAR WEST QUEENSLAND

ABOVE THE SNOWLINE, WALKERS ONLY HERE SO WE ALWAYS PARK AND WANDER DOWN A WAYS ON FOOT.

THE RESULT OF BUSH FIRES AND STRONG ALPINE WINDS. — THE RESULT OF BUSH FIRES AND STRONG ALPINE WIND

MY DRIASABONE KEPT THE FROST OFF THE BOTTOM OF MY SWAG IN THE VICTORIAN ALPS.

A TRANQUIL STRETCH OF THE SNOWY RIVER NEAR THE VICTORIAN-NEW SOUTH WALES BORDER.

SUNSET NEAR TIBOOBURRA IN FAR WEST NEW SOUTH WALES.

MY MATE IN THE 'YELLOW PERIL' HAVING SOME WADING PRACTISE. — MY MATE IN THE ‘YELLOW PERIL’ HAVING SOME WADING PRACTISE.

These image are not in any order,neither numerical nor chronological. A number of them are scans from slides made on Kodachrome 64 and some using my Nikon D100 before I had it converted to infra red only.

With any luck over the next few days I’ll have unravelled why the IMac refuses to upload images and when I do, whackoh.

Hoo roo for now

ONCE UPON A TIME REVISITED

26/07/201526/07/2015 ~ creakingbones

Yesterday I encountered a mysterious problem that prevented me from uploading images to the blog I was composing.

In a test earlier today, I switched over to this MacBook Pro and lo and behold, an upload actually worked. Bravo.

So, without further ado, and before the mysterious gremlin returns, herewith the magic mug I wrote about yesterday.

A SPECIAL LOGO ON A SPECIAL MUG

Hoo roo

ONCE UPON A TIME.

25/07/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 2 Comments

I was spurred to write here today because of two events which occurred, one yesterday and one today. Prima facie, individually they appear totally unrelated but when viewed together by a few individuals are seen to be closely linked. I just happen to be one of those individuals.

‘How is it so’ to quote the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller.

Well yesterday I was totally unable to upload any of my images onto this WordPress site. No big deal you might say but without supporting images the thrust of yesterday’s blog was lost. Event number One.

Then today, She Who Must be Obeyed, when examining the darkened interior of a rarely accessed cupboard came across an interesting and never used white coffee cup bearing a most unusual logo of a black hat with black sun glasses beneath the hat with the dates 1940-1997. Event number Two.

Once upon a time I was fortunate to be a part of an organisation that preferred to be the ‘unseen and unheard of’ element of the main organisation. In fact, had we been able to become invisible, many of our tasks would have been oh, so simple.

Now photography was an essential element of the job and without photographs the thrust of our written work (not in invisible ink of course) would have been lost. Go back to Event No. One.

That brings me to the mysterious coffee cup.

The Unseen and Unheard element of the main organisation was formed in 1940 shortly after the outbreak of WW11. It’s task was to be on the lookout for fifth columnists, communist sympathisers, members of the Communist Party, aliens and any other people or organisations perceived by the powers that be to be a threat to National Security. Photography was an essential activity.

In addition gathering information and reporting to the main organisation, the reports and photographs made their way to Federal agencies with a similar mandate.

During the times of civil disobedience Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict and the implementation of conscription, it was exciting and extremely busy working in the ‘unseen and unheard’ element. The information flow was the same in the 1960’s as it had been in the 1940’s.

I learned a lot about available light photography, black and white film processing and printing. More importantly, I was also getting to understanding what motivated normally law abiding people to express their political views and opinions in sometimes forceful and unlawful ways.

Eventually I came out of the shadows as they say and went into another line of work in the main organisation.

Then in 1997 the Government of the day determined that the ‘unseen and unheard’ element had outlived its usefulness and it was disbanded without fanfare.

Subsequently, a reunion of those of us who had worked there was held and only the coffee mugs with the black hat and black sunglasses survive to remind us of the work we carried out. Go back to Event No Two.

What a coincidence, Event No. One and Event No. Two have come together to suggest this blog to me so here we are. A report unsupported by photography. Impact lost.

Hoo roo for now.

LANDROVERS – THE ULTIMATE ALL TERRAIN 4X4 BY FAR

24/07/201528/07/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 7 Comments

I’m just unsure what comes first in my lifestyle (how I abhor using that word). Could it be Nikon cameras or Harley Davidson motorcycles or, Landrovers.

In the early 1960’s when I worked in the country I was always attracted to the Series 1 Landrovers I observed being used for various tasks on farming properties as well as being a general farm mode of transport.

Transferred back to Sydney I soon learned that one of my workmates was a Landrover fanatic and by early 1969 I was the proud owner of a second hand 1967 Short Wheel base Sahara Gold ( fancy name for yellow) petrol Landrover hard top.

At the insistence of my workmate Roy, I joined the Landrover Owners Club of Australia, Sydney Branch, where he was then President.

What fantastic times we had on Club trips and also our private Landrover adventures.

I know I’ve got photos and slides by the hundreds of my SWB Landrover but somehow or other their whereabouts escape me.

All those years ago it bore number plates GCA-400.

Since 1969, I’ve never owned a sedan motor vehicle. However, I’ve owned three Landrovers and I’m proud to say that I still own and drive two of them. They are known affectionally as Mr Brown and Mr Green. Mr Brown was purchased new in 1984 and Mr Green purchased new in 1991. Both have covered many, many thousands of miles around Australia and are still going strong.

She who must be obeyed now is the main driver of Mr Brown and I almost have to make application in writing to gain permission to drive it. In fact Mr Brown proudly displays ‘Her Ladyship’s’ personal number plates.

However, I digress.

This morning we had a visitor new to the delights of four wheel driving and I trolled through part of our archives to find some Landrover images to show her. By the time I’d completed that task she had made her goodbyes and left.

Not wishing to return the images to the depths of an external hard drive I’m going to inflict them on you so here they are, in no particular chronological order. All are scans from Kodachrome slides so they may not be as sharp and colour accurate as you may expect from a user of all things Nikon.

As for my ‘lifestyle’ preferences, I’ve decided they are all on a equal par.

One early morning on one of our Landrover trips into what we call the High Country we awoke to see this inquisitive Grey Kangaroo with its Joey securely in the pouch casually standing at the edge of our camp site. She didn’t even move or blink when I grabbed at the camera and made this image.

Now that I seem to be able to upload an image, I’ll try for the others I was going to add to this Landrover Best 4×4 By Far diatribe and coax them into into another blog later on.

Now it’s really hoo roo.

A RARE SNOWFALL IN MY HOME TOWN

19/07/2015 ~ creakingbones ~ 4 Comments

On Friday the 17th July last residents of my town awoke to see a mantle of snow draped across the landscape. An extreme cold front had spread across the southern part of our State, New South Wales, bringing snow and strong winds to towns along the Great Dividing Range.

My town is on the south west slopes of the range and in the down town central business district the altitude is 690 metres above sea level, 2,264 feet for our non metric friends.

Where I live, just 4.5 klms, that’s just 2.7 miles, from the CBD, the altitude has risen to 705 metres of 2,3132 feet. Not particularly high when compared with Europe and north and south Americas.

In the 15 or so years I’ve lived here it’s snowed three or four times but on this occasion the snow fall was the heaviest seen for over forty years.

Many roads were closed including the Federal Highway that links Canberra, our Nation’s Capital to much of the northern part of the State.

From 5.30am onwards like many other locals I made copious images around the house and environs and here some of them.

THE HOUSE ACROSS THE ROAD AT 7.30AM ON 176th JULYN 2015. — THE HOUSE ACROSS THE ROAD AT 7.30AM ON 17th JULY 2015.

5.30AM ON 17TH JULY 2015 — 5.30AM ON 17th JULY 2015

5.45AM ON 17th JULY WITH OUTSIDE LIGHTS ON — 5.45AM ON 17th JULY WITH SOME OF OUR OUTSIDE LIGHTS ON.

11.30AM ON 17th JULY AND THE BIRDS ARE STILL FEELING THE COLD IN OUR BACK YARD

9.30AM ON 17th JULY, A PRETTL LITTLE NOOK IN THE BACK YARD. — 9.30AM ON 17th JULY, A PRETTY LITTLE NOOK IN OUR BACK YARD.

We know that compared to countries where it does regularly snow, our little fall would not even raise an eyebrow.

However, for many of us it’s an event of great interest and enjoyment, particularly for kids who get to see and play in snow for the first time in their lives. Our local newspaper even ran photos of snowmen kids had built .

We all complained about the bitter cold but in a few months time we will all be complaining about the +38c to +40c summer heat.

Such is life in our wide brown (most of the time) land.

Hoo roo for now.

	communicatingcreativ… on GOOD BYE 2023 AND HELLO 2…
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	Waking the Wombat on HOME ALONE.