I don't know what this post is about. I am just writing.

Yesterday I met the newest of the family. He is...a baby a few weeks old. I bought some absurdly expensive clothing for him at the posh Seed shop in Albert Park. Ray and I used to argue there every time we bought some clothing for a new born. Me, we are not spending that much, and then I spent that much. I asked for it to be wrapped and the shirt and shorts was wrapped very nicely in tissue paper, in a white box with a red ribbon around. No extra charge. They are size 1, perfect for him next summer. 

Mondays I have to hang around home to wait for my food delivery around noon. My neighbour HH was off to Morning Melodies, so I accepted her delivery too. One of her brother in laws died last night, but he had been unwell for some time and aged 88. It was no shock to anyone. I did go across the road for coffee at about 10.30. 

I ate some pumpkin soup from the freezer, with pretend croutons. Phyllis had left me half a kind of spicy sausage roll to eat, and that was nice. He is such a good cook. Kosov's laptop would not work and no matter what we did, nothing worked. It eventually completely died. 

I communicated with a couple of people online and I then went out to catch a 604 bus to Elsternwick Station. My plan was to catch a train back to South Yarra and a tram home from there. But I left the bus at Coles supermarket before the station to buy something, and then a 67 tram was approaching so I caught that home. 

Mail arrived in my letter box. One was a bill for last month's food delivery. Why can't they send the bill electronically? I called City of Port Phillip and a request has been lodged for me to receive the bill by email. Last week I had no postal mail at all, and then two letters today. I much prefer bills to come via email, and they nearly all do. 

The other letter was from a debt collector, clothed in the name of Mercantile Services, wanting payment for Ray's trip to the hospital by ambulance the night he died. A bill did arrive last year and our private health insurance covers the cost of the trip. I forwarded the bill to the health insurance company, assuming I would hear no more. Another letter arrived, and I thought the health insurance was slow to pay. Another letter arrived, so I called my health insurance company. 

It had been taken over by another company and changed its name, which happened a month after Ray died. Then I changed my cover from a couple to a single. I called my health insurance company and it is working on it, it said. Clearly the ambulance bill got lost somewhere. Ray died with some money towards his funeral, but effectively intestate. So there is no money in his estate to pay the bill. I think I should reply to the latest demand, but then I think, fuck it. It is not my bill. Go for you life to get money from a dead person. 

I've done everything right, but I am not doing anymore with this. 

A meal of barramundi and chips from my old person subsidised delivery service company. Phyllis kindly heated it for me and added some greens to it. 

The purple tap is a public supply of recycled water, and is cleaned enough to drink, in spite of the message.

My pot of flowers on the balcony. 

The cupboards are full of all sorts of exotic ingredients and some were stacked on my tiny corner of cupboard, psyllium husks, Vegemite, peanut butter, jam and honey. I removed what was on top. I want free access to my stuff. 

Phyllis, this will be the only magnets on my fridge. Mine.

This is a bus. This is a good bus, as it is an electric bus, charged overnight at the depot, and it has degenerative regenerative braking, that recharges its batteries when it is in service.

See the orange at the front of the bus roof? I understand that is where the batteries sit.  

I have ridden a couple of route 604 electric buses and one 603. They are excellent, and any doubt I had about there being enough power for aircon in very hot weather was dispelled. They are cool inside, quiet inside and out.

When we moved here we had three bus routes from Brighton via Prahran pass by, with a stop conveniently in front of our building. Although I do prefer trams in general, the tram from Prahran was often busy, and even busier now, so we would often catch a bus to or from Prahran, especially in warm weather as they were all air conditioned. 

Bus routes were rationalised and the buses then terminated at the Alfred Hospital, still a little useful to get home if there was a tram problem, as it was one stop to walk to St Kilda Road and catch a tram from there. 

Bus routes were again rationalised and I now have the 604 passing by, but it is a short walk from stops in either direction for me, the Anzac Station terminus or Slater Street. I've used it a few times. 

Today, because I could, I caught the 603 eclectic bus from the corner of Toorak and Williams Road to Burnley. The driver greeted me, I was the sole passenger, and I had a brief chat to her before I alighted at the terminus to find out if bus drivers like the new electric buses, and she was passionate in her praise for them. They are nice from a passenger perspective too, without the engine racket and diesel fumes of what will soon enough be, not a normal bus. A happy bus driver makes for a better bus trip. 

I believe in a few months, all our state's new buses must be electric. 

Australia has unfortunately picked up the American phrase, passed on, and that has religious connotations, as passed on to a better place, perhaps heaven, maybe hell, but is there anywhere for we who are at times good and at times bad? 

In response to someone who uses passed, I will use the word passed, but for me the words are dead or has died. In my personal life, I have not said passed. 

Passed sounds gentler, softer, less confronting. But my Ray did not pass. He died suddenly, with some pain as his guts filled with blood from his ruptured aorta. He passed nowhere. He died while unconscious from blood loss. He's gone. Completely dead. 

I know I am out of step with society on this one, and if you say passed on, that is fine with me, but in my life, people have just died and they are dead.

My old blog had a about thirty unpublished posts, and this is the only unpublished post I have, written either on July eleventh or November seventh.  I can't tell from 11/7/24 with Blogger inconsistent dating system.  

Here is a photo for you. It isn't fake. Apparently you were given time for shopping in Vienna along the way. Would you like to take the trip? The fresh fruit in Vienna is rather good, imported from somewhere, along with apple strudel with vanilla sauce (custard). 

"Darling, an omnibus to Calcutta? What fun!"

Driving buses in Sydney is hard work. Generally the privatised bus companies treat their staff very badly. Maybe Lorna works for Transport for New South Wales as a bus driver which has decent working conditions. This is a nice little story about Lorna. 

And another story posted below. Post Covid lockdowns there has been a huge shortage of Sydney bus drivers, with timetables having been altered to deal with the shortage of drivers and nightmare waits for some passengers as full buses pass them by. Yet they, Sydney Buses or a private company had the cheek to ask potential drivers for an application fee. That is outrageous. 

Photos from Channel 9.

This is nice and easy quick post. Jabblog mention a sadly cancelled steam engine festival and reminded me I found this clip a few days ago. 

English drivers must curse this vehicle on the streets. I have posted a clip before featuring the Whitby steam bus. Note at around the two minute mark where the bus is really struggling as it slowly climbs a hill. I have learnt from train fans that the best place to watch diesel or steam trains is as the ascend steep banks, as they call hills. What fun!

I bet you are relieved that I am finishing my English holiday posts. There may be one more to tidy up some loose ends.

Four cars transported some of the family for about half an hour to Beamish, a former coal mining village and now a wonderful museum of all things back in the early to mid twentieth century. On this warm sunny Sunday it was very popular but it can cope with crowds. Everyone loves Beamish but it can lead you to exhaustion. 

There are various ways to get down the hill to the central part of Beamish. I just followed the family crowd and piled on an old double decker bus. The bus must have been sixty years old but was remarkably quiet and smooth. Sister 1's partner had brought his portable electric scooter which could not get on to the bus. We just left the pair to make their own way.

I am fairly sure this is the bus we caught down to the village.

No risk from the electric pole that transmits power from the overhead wire to the tram motors. You can touch the pole because the tram has a strong earth connection through the tram to the wheels and the steel rails. You will not be a preferred conductor of electricity, unless the tram is off the rails. The you need to...'Exercise great caution.'

The band struck up and made some great music. 

Sister 3, her 8 year old and 20 year old grandsons walked with us to check out a steam train ride from the railway station. We had walked rather a lot to discover the train was not running. 

Fortunately there was an attraction nearby for the young one. 

Around and around we all went.

Followed by a slippery slide. 

And a throw a ping pong ball into a cup. Every child wins a prize.

Some of us lunched in the very good and spacious old cafe.

After a few hours we caught an electric tram back up the hill. At the lower area Sister 1 and her partner had turned up, somewhat to our relief. They had walked/scootered down very slowly, stopped for some things to see and lunched. We all piled onto the tram but the partner's electric scooter beat us up the hill, being driven by Sister 3's grandson. He said he had received some strange looks. 

It was a wonderful finale for our month in England. We said our goodbyes and the next morning Sister 1 and her partner drove us to the station airport. Again we had a restful overnight pause in Colombo and renewed our acquaintance with hotel staff, and it was just so nice to be home, in spite of our apartment taking days to warm up properly for our winter. 

We are feeling very trapped at the moment. A car journey to the west, where we shop and visit for brunch a couple of times a week is now a convoluted route full of jammed up traffic and takes quite a long time to get anywhere at all. This is because our street St Kilda Road is closed for about three hundred metres north of us towards the city. The street is closed for tram track realignment past the new underground Anzac Station.

This a wonderful infrastructure project, but how we have suffered for a week and half with the same still to go. Trams are being replaced by buses for perhaps three kilometres. We have to walk about 7 minutes to the bus stop.

The bus takes a convoluted route and as like the traffic can't, the bus also can't travel along St Kilda Road either. It just takes forever to get to the city. I've used the replacement bus in all directions and after last Sunday, R has refused to do so again and I will do my best to avoid it too. Bad luck City traders and businesses. You know who to blame for such poor management.

Here is an example from last Sunday morning. 

11.05, depart home to catch public transport to the city to meet family. Walk south in the opposite direction for about 7 minutes to the bus replacement stop. There is no reason why it can't be kerbside and opposite the temporary outbound bus stop. It was a very warm 29 degrees and we don't walk terribly fast now.

A bus arrives at the stop as we did but the driver closed the doors and departed. We could see the bus was packed. About five minutes later another bus turns up. It was so full it couldn't take any more passengers and did not stop. Another five or more minutes the third one stopped and the about ten of us waiting squeezed on. It was then around 11.25.There had been other people waiting, including a family of Irish tourists. They gave up and I felt sorry for them. Others had left too.

Trying to turn into Kingsway was brutal in jammed up traffic. The third set of lights in a long cycle had us past Queens Road and it wasn't so bad then. More to feel sorry for as the bus had to leave behind about a dozen people in Wells Street and maybe half a dozen in Dorcas Street. I couldn't see that there was much chance of them being able to catch a bus there for a considerable time.

By tram from our front door to Bourke Street might have taken 15 minutes by tram. We changed from the bus to a tram at the Arts Centre and arrived at Bourke Street at 11.47, that is 42 minutes travel time door to city tram stop.

We are old men. We should not be standing on swaying, lurching and braking buses. No one offered their seats to us, unlike on trams, and I don't really blame them. We've experienced a few of these bus replacements situations in the twenty years we have lived here and I have never experienced one so badly organised and managed. How could Yarra Trams possibly think that a two minute service with medium sized trams can be replaced by a five minute slow loading bus service. What world do the planners possibly live in? It is a disgrace, and of course it is on the ground staff staff who unfairly cop the flak. Overheard, you are a tram worker who voted for him. Here is Dan's work in action.

We had a cunning plan to get home, train to South Yarra, tram to one stop short of home and then walk. The non disability compliant ramp at South Yarra Station, plus now a tram in 34 degree heat and the one stop walk home nearly killed us.