The House(s) of Fran_mart

Although I have tried to repress how knackered I felt on the two occasions I ran the Melbourne marathon I thought it nice to record todays event in a more relaxed style.  The road was closed heading in to town but - somewhat to my surprise - the trams were running and the road out was open to Commercial Road. Course clearers - these become important later in the event. Not sure if there was a telecast but this was definitely following the race. The leaders at about 3.5km. The next few. Seeded runners taking their time. Numbers building. I missed the lead woman Genevieve Gregson (who I didn't spot at all) who came in at in 2:28:13.  This was the first woman I noticed  (darkish green, 4th from right in bigger bunch).  She, Sarah Klein, came 2nd  in 2:31:05 . This woman (Kate Mason) came third in  02:34:08. Photographer on skateboard 3 hour pace-setters.  A lot of folk here. 2 costumes. The footpath began to be used ... As did the main lane as well as the slip.  Trams and Mr Plod used

The brackets around "mainly" are because some of what follows is  from the net (but accessed at 505) and of balloons not shipping (but photographed for 505. In a post covering a trip to Port Melbourne  I referred to the cruise ship season starting in late September.  In fact one arrived early this morning.  Here is a view of it from our apartment: And here is the view from my Marine Traffic app. The little red boat is a fuel tanker, presumably topping up the tank in the Petri dish of bacilli and viruses.  The cruise ship certainly merits the name as  explained in this wiki . According to the Port schedule of Petri dish arrivals it will leave at 5pm tonight, and they take 3.5 hours to get to the Heads.  I hope I will get snap of it sailing out.  There are up to 2,700 victims on board, so I am glad I didn't try catching a tram there today.   The next cruise is due on the 18th of October: the Queen Elizabeth, en route to Sydney for a circumnavigation of Australia. Also at S

 We have come back to 505 St Kilda Rd, to get the car serviced, to visit the Portland and Dunkeld areas and view the Melbourne marathon on the 13th of October. The visit began with a bit of a negative before we left 'coota.  This arose when I noticed about 9pm on 2 October, that my car keys - and my key to the Werribee poo pits - was not it the basket where it should be.  It was clear that it was somewhere in the house, but where?  After both of us searched for an hour we couldn't find them so gave up and went to bed (not really expecting to go to sleep).  That expectation was met!  About 1:30 I had a thought that I might have taken something out of a cutlery drawer to help take a letterbox key off the ring: a 0.01% chance but better than anything else!  There the  🤬 🤬 🤬 🤬 thing was. Then to sleep for about 5 hours! On the road by 0815 and feeling OK. There was a surprising amount of traffic on the road, but no biggies. Frances took over driving at Newmerella and we t