I’ve just come back from shopping in 39C heat. I’ve thought about putting up decorations but really, fake pine needles, fake snow, fake holly? And I can’t be bothered with a tree. So northern European. No, just the sound of sprinklers on the lawn and garden will set my mood.

I haven’t even set the sprinkler system to Summer Auto yet as it’s only a couple of weeks ago that we had a few showers each night for three nights in a row. Anyway, that wasps’ nest is still inside the door of the retic panel. As long as you move slowly they don’t get agitated and I could set the switch. Better do it soon.

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How about these as presents for your worst best friend?

These are from the Wish website. That is an amazing treasure trove of small gadgets and things. I have kept all my orders and I think I’ll do a tally – I would guess I’ve spent around $1500 in the past 12 months or more. I tell myself to stop but I must admit I’m hooked. At least I’ve slowed my orders down.

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Being a member of the ALP, I went to their sundowner just up the road in Alkimos a couple of weeks ago. On arrival, we were greeted by this picture of John Quigley, the local member and WA Attorney General.

But I’ve had these two images stored away for years:

And today, what should I find …

What is this, ALP – Check! uniform?

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I have two cousins living in the USA, and a second cousin, daughter of Stephen.

Stephen is about 70 and has had some bad health recently. So I was a bit shocked to see this graph on ABC News yesterday:

Where does Stephen live? Warwick, Rhode Island. The virus is rampant up there.

The other cousin, Lisa, and the daughter of Stephen, Sami, live in California, still a dangerous place to be. It would be a scary thing, even to go out shopping, when you’re in areas like that. Stay safe, cousins.

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I did actually go down to Jindalee Beach on Saturday evening, the 19th at about 9pm to try to see and photograph the planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. But the wind! It was so strong I had to hang on hard to my tripod and trying to take a long exposure was impossible. I did see what I thought might be “it”, an orange red star low down on the horizon, but it disappeared and I realise now it couldn’t have been the planets. The moon was quite bright and I realise now that if I’d known where to look:

What a great image! And it’s by an Aussie, Jason De Freitas in NSW, who worked out that he might be able to capture the International Space Station passing by. Wow! That is so clever. That line is the ISS and it’s travelling right to left. He’s put it up on YouTube as video as well.

Even more amazing: he shot the main image on 6x7cm film with a Pentax 67 medium format film camera and a Pentax 600mm lens, and he used an equatorial mount on his tripod to rotate the camera during the long exposure.

And to top it all off, he processed the film himself at home and scanned it to digital. I take my hat off, that is an outstanding image.

PS: if you haven’t got the shot, you haven’t missed it. The 22nd was just the closest approach:

I’ve missed the ‘closest approach’ but the planets are still there, just moving apart again. This is a northern hemisphere image so we should look NW, near the moon.

Phew, I think I need a nap after that.