Just starting to notice a bit of cooler weather. The doona is on at night. The windcheater is on in the evening. The patio door is closed after 5pm. The leaves are falling from the street trees. The evening is starting around 5.30pm.

They forecast a 95% chance of rain today. It looked a bit grey at 2pm but nothing happened. Lucky, because I chose to do my washing today. Ha.

5.45pm Ha again! The rain crept up on me. I managed to get most of my washing off the line.

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Eye clinic appointment tomorrow, thank goodness. Something’s not right. I seem to be peering more, and having trouble with bright and dark. I hope it’s the cataracts. I want this over with.

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Yudhie (right) at his restaurant April 2014.

My Bali guest (above right) arrives in two weeks, and will be with me for about two weeks. Should be interesting. This will be his first visit to Perth, but he’s well travelled – he went to Japan last year, so it won’t be a novelty.

I’m not sure what we’ll do for food. I don’t want to eat out every night, nor eat a big meal in the evenings. We’ll see how it goes.

He owns a hotel in Sanur and has offered me free accommodation when I’m there. It’s a bit out of the way, not near the beach and you’d need transport if you stayed there, so I’m not sure, but it’s nice of him to offer.

He surprised me by saying he’s doing exams at the moment for his Masters degree in Philosophy. I’m impressed.

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Have you been watching The Halcyon on ABC1 on Saturday nights? I wasn’t too enthusiastic when it first started as it seemed very low key. But gee, it’s grown on me. What a great show, as only the BBC (or British TV anyway) does so well. They recreate WW2 London scenes so realistically, not that I’d know, but they look real. Still, a lot of London has hardly changed, I presume. You’d need to have watched it from the start, though. It was about episode 6 or 7 last night. Keep an eye out for the repeat when it happens, which, the way things are going on the ABC, will probably start next week.

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One thing I’m noticing on TV shows recently is the use of drone material. It’s obvious when you see shots rising smoothly from ground level (or low down) to heights too high for a crane (by crane, I mean a TV crane, a boom arm). Or where the shot is looking straight down from a fair height, or smoothly tracking around from the air. I’m not criticising – done well, it looks great, but it can also look a bit artificial. It used to require a helicopter, but costs kept the use pretty rare. Now it’s common since drones are so cheap and easy.

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Ping Kee Pork Shop, Penang, Malaysia 1990  © PJ Croft 2017

Penang. I was there for about a week in 1990, and I have the kidney stone to prove it. Not really, but I didn’t realise what dark urine meant and I was lucky the stone didn’t strike until I got home. It got stuck in the ureter and took a year to work its way through. Ow, that was a rotten year. Kidney stone pain every few days, not the full 10/10 but 8 or 9. They had to go in with a probe and break it up in February 1991.

Anyway, I must make another visit. I’m sure it’s got even better in the last 20 years.