Here we are starting the second month of autumn and I’m still shirtless, with the fans on and having cold showers. I sleep on top of the sheets with a fan running on me all night. Every day is around 30deg and humid. It’s not downtown Denpasar, but I’ve been perspiring a fair bit. Sure is a long summer.

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Our annual Northam Senior High School reunion was held yesterday, our 58th year since we finished 5th year. Only two years until 2024, which will be our 60th anniversary. I’ll have to change the design of our name badges:

That was from 2014. I drew all of that, including the shield logo and the gold 50 Years caption, in my vector drawing programs.

Each year a few more names are changed to DECEASED in red in our database, and a few more turn up at the reunion wearing wigs and/or scarves due to hair loss from chemotherapy. Kudos to them for making the effort to come. We always hold the reunions at the Ascot on the River hotel in Ascot, which was rebuilt from the old Ascot Inn motel where we held the first reunion in 1982, I think. We used to bring our own ’60s music – I built up a collection of CDs holding hundreds of tracks (still got them) and I brought a mini hi-fi system to play them on. Other patrons of the bar used to come over and tell us how much they liked the music.

We used to go on quite late into the night in years past, and many people stayed in the hotel overnight so as to not have to drive. Unfortunately, at $200 a night for a room, it’s become too expensive. The food and drink is also very expensive – we were paying $12 per schooner (350ml) of mid strength beer and for those who like their steak, $39 for a rump steak lunch. Too expensive for me. I had a very nice Caesar salad with smoked salmon but that cost $29. There were very few patrons at the hotel. It’s a vicious circle – few patrons equals low turnover equals low profits so the need for higher prices, leading to even fewer patrons. Ho hum. We might need to find a new venue.

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I’ve developed quite a liking for Greek salad at the moment. It started with small containers at the IGA, but at $4 each, for one serve, they’re a bit expensive. I’ve been buying my own capsicums, onions and olives, with fetta cheese and I slice up a chorizo sausage over it. Drizzle with olive oil and heaps of Tabasco. Yum! I’m having it for breakfast these days. Gee, capsicums are expensive, though – $14.50 per kilo for the red and yellow, $10.50 for the green. Whaaa? I think I might have to grow my own.

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On the radio this afternoon the theme was, “What museums have you visited that are out of the ordinary?”

I’d list three that I’ll never forget visiting, although there are more:

1. George Frideric Handel’s house in London. It’s very close to Grosvenor Square, the location of the US embassy. I stumbled across it, so to speak, in 2008. The thing I remember most clearly is the squeaking floor. It’s a wood floored house of about four stories and the noise when I walked, slowly and carefully across the floor was embarrassing. Even so, I’m very happy that I’ve been there, as Handel is one of my favourite composers. I was surprised to read a plaque on the house next door, saying it was where Jimi Hendrix lived for a time in the 1970s. I didn’t go into that one, but at least I’ve seen it.

2. Duxford Air Museum, Cambridge: I wouldn’t have known about this one, but my good friend Keith insisted I should visit if I got the chance in 2008, and I’m glad I made the effort. It involved a bus ride out into the Cambridgeshire countryside and a lot of walking, but the thing is, it contains a Concorde, a U2 spy plane and a B52 bomber, inside a hangar! You can imagine how big the hangar must be if it contains aircraft of this size. Those are just a few of the most famous planes. I was able to enter and walk through the Concorde. I also saw an F111, an F4 Phantom, a V bomber and others. Best of all, I got to touch them. I’ve run my fingers down the titanium skin of the U2. I’ll never forget that.

3. The Beethoven Haus, Bonn, Germany. As someone who reveres Beethoven as the greatest composer who ever lived (no, not Mozart, not for me), I’ll never forget being in the very room where he sat.

I’ve been to many other museums but those are the ones that spring to mind.

(Notice the inconsistent paragraph styles above – this blog is a hopeless word processor. I can’t work out how to make paras 2 and 3 look like paragraph 1. Duh!)

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Well, this was a surprise. I’ve mentioned how the boot on the Peugeot won’t open and while poking around inside looking for the fuse box, I found that it has a Clarion 6 disc CD changer! I’ve had the car for a year but I hadn’t realised it was there.

I loaded the caddy up with discs and it works fine. Being a French car, the disc listing on the console LCD seems to be in reverse order to me, but that can’t be helped. What a bonus – I can play CDs in the car now. There is a CD slot in the dash of course, but it won’t take a disc, so I assumed it has one stuck inside.

I’m torn – the Chinese make a complete plug-and-play drop-in replacement radio/CD/DVD/GPS unit designed specifically for Peugeot. This is what I’ve got now:

This is what you get:

It integrates completely with the car, giving touch screen control of all the car’s functions including the parking sensors. I want it, but unfortunately the price is $635. I’m not sure that I’ll hold onto the car and obviously this radio is not transferrable to any other car, so it would have to go with it. I suppose I could add it onto the price I sell at. Hmmmm.

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I was at the doctor last week for yet another urine test, to see if the bug has finally been squashed, and I asked about the COVID Vax 4/Fluvax. He said they haven’t been told anything yet. But I got a text on Friday that the Fluvax is available now. I’ll have it, as I always do.