This was rather nice. This US photography blog is generally regarded as the nicest on the web, because Mike Johnston is such an amiable guy. I comment reasonably often, maybe once a week, so to see this post this morning was quite a pleasant surprise.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/09/180000-comments.html

It’s a bit like winning the lottery, but I’m afraid there’s no prize.

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I saw the gastric surgeon today, doing my usual train to the city and walking from Elizabeth Quay station via the freeway lakes to the Mount Medical Centre. Gah! A max of 16C but icy, arctic, easterly winds blowing along Mounts Bay Road. Brrrr! It’s spring, haven’t you heard? Marvellous, these lakes, and being spring, fecundity has broken out.

Yes, that’s a black swan nesting right near the shore, unworried by humans.  All images (C) PJ Croft 2016

Mama Swan, sleeping.

A mumma duck and her six chicks.

This is Dad, I think. What kind?

A Night Heron, (thanks Tom) He must have been sleepy because he just stood there.

Waiting for the showers.

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The surgeon says there’s nothing to be done about the vagus nerve, but if I’ve got large gallstones, as shown by the C/T scan, they could be causing my dizziness and faint spells. It will be best to have the gall bladder removed, as there’s the danger of (a) a stone blocking the bile duct, or (b) a stone moving down the bile duct. Both would be quite dangerous.

So there’s yet another pending operation. I shouldn’t complain, I’m reasonably healthy for someone who’s nearly 70. But everything hurts! All my joints and muscles ache. Urrrgh.

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It’s the last opportunity to fill out my census form before Sunday. I started to do it on-line just now, but no, it specifically says at the start that it applies to people who were in this house on 9 August. I wasn’t here, I was in Bali, and I can prove it, so I can’t complete the form.

I’ll bet I get a “please explain” letter.

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It’s now two weeks, more than 10 working days, since I dropped my Samsung Tab Pro S tablet PC off at the kiosk at Joondalup for a fix to a BIOS problem. I was told 3-5 working days. I dropped it off on Monday 12th and as of now, the 23rd, I still haven’t had any news of when I’ll get it back.

As well, I had to give them my password and I’ve been getting notifications from my internet security program that it’s been accessing the internet. GRRRRR! Not happy, Samsung. They didn’t even start work on it until last Tuesday. I’ll bet it comes back with “No fault found.” They should not have needed to go into my Windows desktop. It’s a BIOS problem to with the power switch. You don’t need to fiddle with the machine to fix that.