The House(s) of Fran_mart

 These snaps were taken (mainly) on 22 -24 November. For reasons I can't now recall, but probably related to Commonwealth Park still being blocked off thanks to NCA, we switched our morning walks to the suburb of Reid.  This is n the far side of Glebe Park.  Our three walks are shown in different colors here. I have studied the various stickers people use to keep snail-spammers at bay.  This is a new one! The walks all end up in ANZAC Park which is sort of the service road alongside ANZAC Parade.  This image shows the back of the Vietnam War Memorial. This suburb was set out in the first days of Canberra.  As a result there are wide nature strips, parks and shady trees.  Very pleasant compared to the Bogan Plains now being created.   Most of the houses still look original, at least from the front.  There have been a few knockdowns of which these are examples.  But the new houses are pleasant, not 3 story McMansions. This one had 2 Porsches out the front, and a large flock of Magpie

Our daughter had arranged for a bunch of flowers for Frances to be picked up from a florist in Braddon.  I decided the simple thing to do was to walk there to pick them up.  Here is the direct route (I think the blue line is visible).  There are many bars on Lonsdale St and at 1415 on a Friday afternoon they were all full on people having a liquud lunch.  Walking past them carrying a vase full of pretty flowers seemed to draw a bit of arttention.  The females all gave me smiles (suggesting they were thinking "Isn't that sweet.").  The males gave cheesy grins (more along the lines of "Whats he done that he needs to buy flowers?")  Here is a selfie - I couldn't work out how to get the Rainbow Roundabout in the image! On November 20, as:  the weather was pretty pukey;   Commonwealth Park is still closed); and  Frances didn't want to push matters so soon after her hand operation ... we restricted our morning walk to a lap of Glebe Park.  There were a lot of

 We are in Canberra getting various medical things fixed up.  We expect to be here for a bit over a week and then do a few trips - depending on doctors scheduling - for the rest of the year. I can see Black Mountain Tower from my desk and just before sunrise on the morning of the 18th it looked interesting with a skirt of cloud. The sun came up - a surprising distance along the horizon. On our previous visit I was annoyed that Commonwealth Park is still fenced off as the National Capital Authority returf the area after Floriade.  After a complaint to the Leader of the Opposition in House of Assembly (NCA) I was told the fence would be cleared by 17th November.  Sorry that is a fail.  My guess is that there is still at least a week more work needed.  It is astounding that the NCA is allowed to waste this amount of money each year. As we walked back to the apartment I was struck by the design (by "Olivia" aged 11) on a recycling truck. Later in the morning I walked down City Wa

 Although this is about Mallacoota, it isn't about the weather or the wildlife.  Rather it is a farewell to one of our neighbours who died, suddenly at a young age 2 weeks ago.  This was a great shock to us as she had catered for a U3A event we attended the night before her death.   The formal celebration of her life was to be held at Captain Stephenson's Point but as the rain was bucketing down, and the wind howling, it was shifted to marquees outside the Muddie.  (For those not familiar with Mallacoota-speak that is the Mud Brick Pavilion!)  As well as signs saying people had to sign in and show double vax status there was a Mallacoota special asking the "Dogs keep your owners under control".  Which task the pooches did well. My guess was at least 300 people present, which is a good effort by a town of 1,000. Very good live music, I suspect from some of Vanessa's friends, and good tributes.  Some were on relay from her childhood home in Idaho.  Quite a few of th