The House(s) of Fran_mart

 Each year in Canberra there is an exhibition of the best political cartoons of the previous 12 months.  In 2020 that was held at the Museum of Australian Democracy (aka Old Parliament House) in Barton.  Frances and I took ourselves over there on 27 November.  Here are my favourites. This one appealed because it so follows a friend's comment in a job interview.  At the time developing a Corporate Plan was a hobby horse of the executive so my friend was able to expound at length at how he would go about developing one, and its content.  Smiles all round.  Then he was asked "What would you do with it?"  He coldn't help himself and said "Use it to block open my office door."  He didn't get the job. A feature of the exhibition was the low representation of Peter Dutton (aka Adolf Kipfler).  I can only think of one actual depiction of him and this one of the foul organisation he runs. Sort of links with the first above. First Dog on the Moon ...

 This covers some photos of sightings around the ACT for 25 and 26 November. The first few come from an outing to Jerrabomberra Wetlands on the 25th.  It has been said in the past that there are few breeding records for Eurasian Coot in the Canberra area.  They were making up for lost time as I saw at least 3 different broods at various sub-sites. A basic photo. This image is included because the adult appears to have grabbed the cootling's bum in its beak! This shows the red down rather better A Pied Stilt and a clutch of Pacific Black Ducklings. A Welcome Swallow posed nicely ... As did one of the many Australasian Reed Warblers. The next images are of Grey-headed Flying Foxes in Commonwealth Park.  The colony seems bigger than usual this year. Early in the day the bats are usually just dangling in the trees.  However something (either a mower underneath the colony or an active crane on Regatta Point) stirred them up on the 26th. I called this a smoke-bush, be...

 This covers our drive back to Canberra after the border opened at midnight on 22 November.  (Service NSW had sent an email on 21 Nov. saying it was open then, but fortunately I checked before driving up there on the 22nd.)   The first item to report was that the road block at Wallagaraugh had completely vanished.  Not a single roadworks sign, no tents, no witches hats ... nothing.  I think they must have started the pack up on the 22nd and possibly just had a couple of cars there for the last shift. There was more traffic on the road than there has been in the past but generally it wasn't an issue.  I will make an exception for the first caravan in this queue. They plodded along at about 80 kph in a 100 kph zone and showed no signs of helping people to get by.  The second in line pulled over to let the cars (there were at least 2 more behind me) get by.  We made it by eventually.  Fortunately everyone else headed towards Eden rather tha...

You will be aware of the fiasco when the Trump campaign mis-booked the 4 Seasons Garden Centre (between a funeral parlour and a sex toy shop) instead of the 4 Seasons Hotel.  I have a great wonder why they actually went ahead with the Presser  when they realised the mistake but perhaps Giuliani is so demented these days he didn't notice. However proving that not even 4 years of The Trespasser can completely kill Yankee ingenuity a number of very funny t-shirts have appeared.  I hope the Garden Centre is making some coin out of this use of their name.  Here are some examples. In this one the words under the crossed rakes give details of the neighbouring enterprises! I love the Mob suggestion in this. This is possibly my favourite with "Make America Rake Again".

 I have just discovered that we first looked at our place at Mallacoota on 11 November 2018, so 2 years ago on Wednesday.  This was followed by a second visit (down and back in a day) on the 19th when thins got serious. What has caused this is my remembering the very attractive flowering bush out the front.  This is a NSW Christmas Bush,  Ceratopetalum gummiferum  and is just hitting its straps again now.