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Options for getting to the street festival in the next suburb: We could drive there then spend half an hour trying to find somewhere to park, we could catch the train, we could ride the bikes then worry about where to leave them locked up, or we could walk. We walked.

Seemed to have stalls from every conceivable community group and childrens' entertainer. A dozen different kinds of foods, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek and Mexican. Three stages of music, ranging from the very cultural up one end, the partly cultural about a third of the way down the road, then doof-doof yoof moozik at the far end.

An interesting observation while having a lunch of rice-paper rolls and satay chicken sticks; a dozen caucasian people walked past eating an assortment of asian foods, then half a dozen asian people walked past all eating McDonalds' fries or greasy chicken shop fries.

It almost felt like I was living in Richmond again — left work on the bike, off down Ferntree Gully road and onto the Gardiners creek trail to head into Richmond to meet Jo for a beer. As usual I'm heading against the general flow of commuters; ones or twos, threes and more, the odd group of six, all flying along with total disregard for anyone else on track, all convinced that there's only traffic heading in their direction! At least half a dozen close calls, I wish some of these idiots could meet themselves coming in the opposite direction, at least then there'd be a cleansing of the gene pool....

At the moment, Thursdays seem to be crap days.

Woken — yet again — at 5am by garbage trucks then while riding to work I was hit by a truck at a set of traffic lights.

At the corner of North road and Clayton road I know that there's usually a left-turn arrow, so I'd stopped at the far right-hand side of the lane to let traffic turn with the arrow, five or six cars turned through with plenty of room, then the truck pulled up, the driver yelled out the window "Fucken idiot get out of the way" and turned the corner — striking me with the tray of the truck as it went around and pushing me half a metre over into the car next to me!

Thanks mate, glad to know that getting that truck around that corner was more important than my life and me.

I guess next time I just won't bother trying to be helpful to other road users and letting them pass, I'll just sit in the centre of the lane and let them wait — that is unless this idiot truck driver comes up behind me, in which case he'll probably just swear again and drive over me.

Freeway crash leaves one dead

from The Age News Headlines

One person dies and three others injured after a car strikes a tree on the Tullamarine Freeway.

What the? Bloody dangerous roads those freeways, trees sticking out the middle of them for motorists to just drive into. Is there going to be an investigation into why there is a tree on the freeway? I guess its a change from people driving into each other, picking on the trees for a change....

Where better to go on the fourth or fifth day of a heatwave than off inland to a hot, dry, dusty paddock to eat chillis and other hot foods! The Redback Chilli company's annual Hot Sauce and Fiery Foods Festival — their eighth — was on this weekend out at Jindivick, its always fun, even if I can never quite remember how to get there and the websites are hopelessly out of date.

The annual production of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” is on in the Royal Botanic Gardens, one of Jo's friends has been organising a get together with a group of friends there for some years. Despite the heat — 38°C some time this afternoon — it was a great evening. An hour or two before hand spent lazing around in the Corner Hotel beer-garden, gathering our strength over an ale or two, then a long and very slow walk through the stifling heat across to the gardens. An endless supply of picnic foods and chilled drinks, good company, then as the sun went down the show commenced.

It all got a bit too exciting near the intermission, the Chinese New Year celebration fireworks from over the river nearly deafened and blinded us all, but the cast didn't skip a beat, even throwing in a joke about it all as the scene ended.

Tada! A card appears in the mailbox, "Your water meter has been exchanged". Well how about that, amazing!

Now let me see, I first rang South East Water on May 10, they didn't seem to do anything until six months later when I got the "Call re. your recent enquiry" letter on Oct 10, then when I rang to make the booking for a meter replacement had the — "When will they come?" "Dunno, but the plumber will ring first", "Ok, when will they ring?", "Dunno" — phone conversation.

I guess I should be happy that at least they finally did replace the broken meter, and they did it without me having to make yet another phone call to the disinterested "dunno" woman.

Thunderstorms woke us this morning, wind howling through the trees and rain pelting on the roof, but I got up to find that there was no real rain to be seen, just enough to soak the washing.

All day long the wind howled around from the south-east, the normal prevailing winds are westerly, so every piece of rubbish that has migrated into the lee of a building was found and redistributed, every tree that leans with the wind was forced creaking backwards. In the afternoon every half hour we heard the local fire engines head out for yet another call to a tree or power line down....

The plastic sheeting of the neighbour's carport screeched and creaked like a demented fruit-bat, the loose cable-TV box hammered against the wall, at the building site on the other neighbour the dunny door and temporary electricity box banged incessantly, and across the road the roof of one of the buildings sounded as though it would come off. Hardly a restful Sunday afternoon to aid recover from helping Kathryn and John rearrange furniture!

A courier arrived this morning and brought me a shiny new replacement Edge 305 GPS to replace the one that broke back in January.

At one month and one day Garmin are twice as responsive as Canon for repairs — last year's warranty headache — but I'm still not really impressed that it takes that long for them to send a replacement unit, I would have thought they would keep them in stock. Apparently not, I was told that they order them in when a faulty one comes in for repair. I'll be keeping track of the dates since I'm fairly sure that Australian law says I get my warranty period extended if I'm without it for more than a week. Here's hoping I don't need the warranty though!

All excited at the new arrival, I powered it on, got it synchronised with the satellites, then put it in my pocket and rode to work — no replacement mounting bracket was sent. Unfortunately I was too excited, forgetting that unlike a normal bike speedometer I was supposed to press the Start button, so when I got to work I discovered that I had travelled exactly zero (duh!) miles (ugh!). At least I've set it up now so that it reads in metric like the rest of the civilised world.

Another phone call to GME and I can get a replacement bracket, but I have to post in the damaged one. They'll also find out if I can buy a third one to put on the third bicycle....

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