The House(s) of Fran_mart

Ever since we have owned our apartment there have been indications of work being scheduled for the pavement (sidewalk in US-speak) on the opposite side of Akuna street.  Nothing much seemed to happen for a while but this week activity has been noticeable. This morning about 0530 my attention was caught by folk moving about in a floodlight set up where what looked like form work for concrete had been set up. I tried but failed to get an image with the shadows against the wall in the background. They formed into a nice square pattern which, as members of the CFMEU were unlikely to be practicing quadrilles, I guessed meant they were shifting panels of reinforcing mesh. The mesh need to cut to size once in place.  Good to have double glazing - anyone without it in our area would have got an early wake up this morning. A close up of the guy with the angle grinder.  My guess is the stream of sparks is about 3m long.  No wonder these devices cause a few bush f...

The morning of 17 April seemed quite cool.

Back when I used to work in Civic one of the lunchtime runs was to a hill behind Duntroon.  On maps it appears as Mt Pleasant.  Running up it was nothing like pleasant so I took to calling it Mount Un.  I have suggested to the COG Wednesday Walkers that it would be an interesting venue for a foray, which happens tomorrow so today was a recce to work out the route.  The bit marked with an X was a slight error - but that is why one does regearsals! When I arrived there were strange things happening in the Molonglo!  I'd rather be in the rear vessel than the rather overloaded front one!  It is close to Duntroon!  Weeds have happened (and will do so again if it rains).  Scarlet Robins are nice.  So was the male Golden Whistler, but it didn't hang around for a photo. This Sulphur-crested Cockatoo was amusing, although the noise was unfunny.  I have tried many times to get a photo of a cockie's crest.  I got lucky toda...

For those who weren't in the UK in the 50s and 60s this is a reference to the King of the ukelele George Formby .  One of his great songs was " When I'm cleaning windows ".  For those who don't like reading, this gives the idea. We'll get to that in a moment! A balloon was over Black Mountain this morning.  A long trip to Doha! As we rounded the corner into  (what becomes) Allara St there was a very loud "Woof".  This was a very large long-haired German Shepherd that always goes feral when Tammy appears.  On the first occasion it tried jumping out of its ute to have a chat.  Unfortunately it was on a short lead and ended up hanging by its neck.  The owner of the dog realised  what had happened and came and put it back in place.  On other occasions as he is alerted by the woof he hops out and cuddles the dog until we have passed. The demolition site around the corner was entertaining this morning.  I suspect the drivers o...

There have been a few cool mornings recently and the leaves of Inner North Canberra are beginning to change. There was a nice sunset again.  Unfortunately the cloud is I think mainly smoke from some appalling Habitat Reduction Burns in the National Park South of Canberra.

We have a few things to do in Canberra so headed up there on 13 April.   This was after an attractive, albeit low key sunrise. My first thought as we drove was to notice the rather heavy traffic coming in to Mallacoota - possibly the seafood Festival is a big attractor? The heavy traffic continued when we got to the Princes Highway with a lot of caravans being a notable contributor.  Nothing dramatic just a bit surprising.  I presume it is folk seizing the second half of the school holidays and the Easter/ANZAC Day weeks coming up. Getting on to Imlay Rd and the traffic dies away.  We saw 2 other moving vehicles in the 57 km.  No log trucks, possibly explained by: all the signs about smoke hazard; and the number of State Forest fire-fighting utes around Imlay Creek. I think a fair chunk of forest is about to be lit up.  According  to the RFS the plan is for 2,000 hectares to go up. The issue of Habitat Reduction Burns continued in...