With bushfires in the news, this amazing “artifact” was revealed by a fire in the Trigg bush near me in about 2002.  What is it? Who made it? They’ve gone to an awful lot of effort. It was previously covered by the bush scrub, and only became visible after the fire. Could it be a witches’ coven?

Since then I’ve been struck by the similarity to this:

It’s pure coincidence, of course.  (It’s the logo of DPReview, a great website  http://www.dpreview.com)

Speaking of bushfires … this was the Trigg bushland fire just around the corner from me in January 2002.

It looks fearsome but it was well confined.

This was the aftermath.

But in the picture of the grass tree stumps, they look like Roman Candles and they shot up again as if they were. The spears they put up were incredible – fast, tall and twisted in playful ways. I’ll always regret that I didn’t take shots because I was attributing sayings to them, like “No, not that way, this way”, or “Hi there, I’m just coming over to see you”.

The whole bush regenerated within a year, of course, more lush than it was before. Fire is good if you’re not in the way of it.

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The post title refers to an unusual experience this morning. I was sitting in the outer area of a coffee shop drinking my coffee and reading the paper (it’s a hard life), when out of the corner of my eye I saw a guy approaching me. At first I thought it might be someone who knew me, but no, when I looked up it was an old guy with a white beard and wearing a deer stalker hat. He came up, leant toward me, put his hands on the table and said, “You look like a very distinguished gentleman.”

Well, stap me. I smiled and said “Thank you” and he moved off. I called after him, “Like your hat. Found any deer lately?”  He smiled and moved on.  I’ve never had anything like that before. Nice.  Of course, it would have been a hell of a lot nicer if it was a beautiful lady. Even if she’d been wearing a deer stalker hat.

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Beautiful ladies … I’m in the committee for our 2014 50th NSHS Reunion this year. It’s two “girls” and four “boys”.  Our chats are ranging onto who were the most beautiful and desirable girls at school. Whooo hooo, we had a bumper crop in 63/64.  So many lookers!  It was a vintage year, 1964.

The best thing is, I’ve completely got over my shyness now. Dammit, I was so shy in those years.  But now I talk to them quite often and I even stayed with one in 2008.  I couldn’t have imagined doing that in the future back then.  It turns out some of those girls say they were incredibly shy too.

So now we boys are looking for the list of hot boys from the girls. Hey hey.

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I had a cardiologist appointment this morning at 9.30am. So I went to his office at Joondalup Medical Centre, where I saw him last June, climbed the stairs to the first floor and announced myself.

The receptionist sucked her pen and asked me my full name, asked me if I’m still at 118 Charles Riley (clue), sucked her pen some more and said, “Mr Croft, your appointment is at Duncraig, not here.”  Duh.  I hadn’t read the text message clearly. It said Duncraig.  So I had to drive there. It didn’t matter, it only took 20 mins and they’d phoned ahead.

The verdict was all clear. No problems. See him in six months.  But if I have the gastric bypass, they’ll need a scan of the heart to ensure it’s OK for the operation. Yeah, I guessed that.

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I reckon I’m being targeted for a burglary.  This happened in the Trigg house – I’ve had three phone calls recently with no-one on the other end. They phone to check if you’re out.

I’ve wondered how I can protect myself. If I go to the police, they’ll just say there’s not much they can do. They can’t patrol all the time. They can’t prevent it, only try to catch the burglars after the event.

All my doors and windows are locked and the house has an alarm, but no-one takes any notice of alarms. I don’t much unless it’s next door. Alarms are going off every day around here.  They’ll just smash a sliding door glass. It’s safety glass, it won’t make much noise. No-one will take any notice.

I could have a camera in the house linked by internet to a smart phone  –  I’ve seen a mate’s example. But am I going to check my phone every half hour? I doubt it.

So all I can do is ensure I’ve got serial numbers of everything valuable in an inventory (I have) and hide things, but it’s hard to hide everything.  I’m fully insured too, but there are some things I can’t easily replace. Such as —-

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Watching Foyle’s War the other night, there was a British Army officer with medal ribbons in full view.  He’d served in Malaya and I couldn’t help noticing that two of the ribbons were familiar.  They were these:

These were (still are) Uncle Bob Arnold’s medals.  He was in the RAAF and was killed early in the war in Singapore. I’ve had them for many years (I think since Mum died in ’96) and I made that little bit of wood and pinned them to it at Beverly back in the 1960s.

The one on the right is called the Pacific Star, I think. The left one’s name I don’t know. Probably easy to find on the web. Marvellous thing, the web!  I must pass these on to the next generation asap.

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Speaking of Singapore, one of my photos I like:

And Bangkok, much in the news today: