Ewan & Phe's Wedding

Rehearsal

Patrick

John, Ellen, Nolan,  Joshua

Rehearsal, Noni the Celebrant Front

Jose and Cic on the Dance Floor

Christine, Katie, Helen, Phe, Ewan

Ewan, Phe, Fraser, Jose, Cic

Ewan

Phe

Cic, Me, Fraser, Jose

Hi

My son Ewan got married the other day, its not every day this happens and so a blog entry is good to show off to everybody!  Ewan and Phe organised the whole thing themselves and it went very well despite 43 degree C heat.  My brother Richard was well represented by all his children, Cicely, Fraser and Josephine.  Christine and I are parents in law and we welcome Helen and Didier to the same club.

The day of the wedding there were thunderstorms and lightning as well as heat, and the fires started then (10 days ago now) have already burnt out the coastal towns of Wye River and Separation Creek, and are still burning threatening to flare up again it tomorrows 39 degree heat.  Cross fingers everything will be ok.

Steve Nurse  

OzHpv Weekend Days 2 & 3

Outside Pax Hill Scout Camp

Roadside Shop

Coming Into Ballarat

Near Ballarat

Ballarat Gold Museaum

Gold Museum, Simon Watt Snaps Pete Heal while Kate Leeming (in Photo Poster) looks on.

Good on Ya Molly! (Poster in Gold Museum)

Gold Museum

Simon, Ian, Steve and Dom, fairly relaxed at breakfast, Pax Hill.

Graham Signiorini, Strauan Little, Rans X-stream, Holden Commodore

Leaving Pax Hill

Pax Hill Weather Station

Lake Wendouree, any gathering of recumbents will involve........

lengthy discussion on the merits of oval chainrings, carbon fibre, tailboxes and aerodynamics.

Graham, Helen, Simon, Duncan

October 31, November 1, 2015

Hi, this ozhpv event is long gone now but I am just catching up on writing it up, mainly posting photos.  It was a nice weekend, on the Saturday we rode to Clunes and were strung out like Nanna's washing on the way there but were slightly more coherent on the way back.  We had lunch at a nice lakeside restaurant, and then went on to the Gold Museum where a sort of bike fair was winding up outside.  Pete Heal's round Australia bike was on display, and we were treated to a free museum entry and a (woohoo) showbag.  After wandering round the museum it was back to Pax Hill for a much needed rest before (ozhpv supplied) Annual General Meeting and Dinner.  I put my hand up for Ozhpv Newsletter editor and have the job for a year.

Next day it was back to Melbourne.  I rode with the others to Lake Wendouree and then pootled to the station for the trip home.

Hey Joe

Hi

My current work is at Monash Uni Caulfield and I've become a regular at a couple of shops around the place, chatting to the owners and visiting fairly frequently.  These shops include the Indian Takeaway, the op shop and Joe Zolin's Frankencycles electric bike shop.  The other week I bought a video / dvd player (which works) for $7.50 from the op shop and I was stuck without a helmet the other day and bought one for $5.00 from Joe.

Anyway, all good things must pass, and the lease came up and the landlords wanted the Church Charity op shop to sign a 10 year lease.  Most of the volunteers running the op shop couldn't commit to 10 years more volunteering, and so they let the lease go.  And Joe Zolin at Frankencycles who sublets the garage out the back had to go.  Anyway, Joe was happy to move on and had found a new place down the road, more rent for more space.

So anyway one day I was singing and stuck Joe's story into "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix.  And here it is, I am particularly glad to be able to reuse the phrase "old Lady" to mean "old Lady", whereas in Hendrix's song, the "old lady" was a girlfriend or wife, who'd been messin' round town.  But had she not been shot, therefor achieving immortality in Hedrix's song, she would now be the other type of "old lady".  Enough writing now, on with the song lyrics.

Hey Joe,
Where you goin' with that electric bike in your hand?
Hey Joe,
Where you goin' with that electric bike in your hand?
Well I'm going down 1259 Glenhuntley Road
Going to rent a shed from another man.
Hey Joe
Why you movin' from this old shed today?
Hey Joe
Why you movin' from this old shed today?
Well I sublet this one from the ol' op shop ladys and their lease is up so I'm movin' on.
Rent went up and now all of us are gone.
Hey Joe
Well I'm goin to miss you and the op shop too but I will rock round to Glenhuntley to see you anyway.
Any good op shops down there, see you soon one day.

Bye Now,
Apologies to Jimi Hendrix, Good luck Joe and the Op Shop Volunteers.
 

OzHpv weekend day 1

October 30, 2016

Southern Cross / Spencer Street Melbourne

Spencer St 1 Ballarat.  Gardener by bike.

Spencer St 1 Ballarat

Spencer St 2 Ballarat

Cup of tea at Spencer St. 2 Ballarat.

Hi

This blog entry is going back a few weeks now, I have been quite busy, so am only now catching up and posting a few photos online.

This year, the OzHpv AGM was scheduled for Ballarat.  Pete Heal's Round-Australia record bike was on display alongside an eclectic assortment  of other bikes and trikes, and this was as good an excuse for a trip as any other.

Early on the first day though, I had a bit of work to do.  Some bike frame timber routing I had started was ready for pickup at Clayton.  Don had done the routing for me, all I had to do was pick all the parts off the routing machine and clean up, and the parts were all mine to enjoy.  So I drove out to Clayton and was there not long after 7am, and worked on the routing machine and then came home, shoved the bike frame bits into the shed and packed a few things in the working trike and headed to the station for a midday train to start the OzHpv trip.

The country train terminus in Melbourne is called Southern Cross but was previously called Spencer St. after the street it's on, and I got there in plenty of time and was able to shove the seat up the frame towards the front to make it a bit smaller for travelling onto the train.  It was a holiday weekend and the train was pretty busy and the luggage area pretty full, but I had no problems with carrying the trike on the train either way.

Got into Ballarat, and went to the publicised meeting place a few minutes late, but couldn't find any ozhpvers and headed off in the direction they might have gone, around lake Wendouree, a well known stomping ground for Fiona Elsey Cancer research rides.  Soon I gave up trying to find more recumbents and settled down to some lunch and to sort out navigation to the scout camp where we wre staying from my map book.  Spencer St Ballarat - good, it's that street opposite, just point the trike in that direction, keep going, and a few inexplicable street name changes later I would be there.  Unfortunately not!  I ran out of numbers in that Spencer St before I reached four hundred and thirty something where the scout camp was  meant to be, so needed to try to work out the navigation again. 

As well as the map book, I spoke to a lady watering her garden "Do you know where the Pax Hill Scout camp is?"  "No dear, I only know my way to the nearest Coles" , so it was back to the map book.  Another lady was concerned for my welfare, particularly as there was were ants crawling round and I was sitting in the gutter. "They'll get in your bag" she said.  Well the bag didn't matter, what if they got in my jocks!

Anyway, TADA, there was another Spencer St. in Ballarat and I headed off there to find the scout camp: yes, it was there at the end of the road and after looking round a bit found the huts where we were staying.  Noone was there and I spread out a bit, had a few cups of tea and waited for the others to arrive.  Richard was first, he had ridden 2 days from Howlong to get there.  (To be Continued)

Garage Sale Day

Bike outside Spensely St Primary, loaded with tomato plants.

Jamies flight simulator

Jamie Friday

Garage Sal booty: Tupperware, Beer Stein, Teapot, Ukelele

Jamies Flight Simulator

October 24, 2015

Hi

This year, and last year the fete at the local primary school coincided with an organised national garage sale day, with many houses organising garage sales.  What better day for an inveterate, rusted on garage saler and op shopper to get out and about on a bike, trike, er, thing.  Y'know.  Anyway, the weather was very nice and I think I got round to about 10 garage sales plus the school fete. 

At one of the garage sales Jules took an interest in my trike and posted a brief entry in her blog.  There is a vidoe if you click on "contraption".  Hmm, whats that? Never heard of one of them before!

The garage saling is very sociable, and there is often some gentle banter and discussion about the sales.  One lady was spinning wool on a wheel outside her house.  With me it didn't get to haggling....

7 tupperware conainers for 20c each and I offered $2.00: "do you want to pick up a book as well?." "No, not really, have a nice day".

At Jules's sisters sale, I had already agreed on 2 beer steins for $5.00 but a nice bottle opener "Aussie Bottler" was thrown in gratis and for free.

At the fete, I cought up with fellow bike builder Jamie Friday.  His kids have left the primary school now but he was back to oversee the running of his human powered creation, a "Flight Simulator" consisting of wooden aeroplane models running down fishing line and controlled by kids moving poles back and forth.  Actually Jamie really didn't have to be there, it was all running very smoothly and harmoniously from what I saw.

Bye Now!

Regards

Steve nurse

Wet Day

Trike with DVD player in the back.

Tailbox

November 5, 2015

Hi

For the first time in a long time,  we had some real rain overnight, about 24mm, which was more than we had in the whole of October.  Anyway, I rode through some of the rain to work this morning, and was quite soaked when I got there.  There were some spare pants in the cupboard, so I put them on, but hung around most of the morning with a wet shirt till I needed to get up and take a walk anyway, then went down to the local op shop for a dry shirt. 

They had shirts, and a DVD / Video player as well.  Now our video's been playing up lately, so a replacement seemed like a good idea, so I bought the player, which seemed very new and had a "working" sticker on it.  The nice lady in the op shop let me put the dry shirt on in the change room and I wandered back to work.

At the end of the day, it had stopped raining, and I was able to bundle the player into the bike and ride home.  Still to plug it in to see if it actually works, or if its too compliated for me to operate but we shall see.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Edith on Cup Day

Edith with wine, the winnings, and the winning ticket

Christine and Edith

Hi

Before I launch into this blog post, I just want to say that I have fallen behind on my blog posts and emails, and hope to catch up soon, but meanwhile I will use the tactic of jumbling up the blog posts and not reporting them in chronological order.  In an attempt to make this less confusing, but which will probably just make it more confusing, I will put a comprehensible date at the start of each blog posts, which relates to when the events occurred.  Here we go.

November 3, 2015

Well,  Melbourne Cup day is a holiday for some in Melbourne but not for us hard-working-university-type-people-with-deadlines, so I rode into Uni in the morning.  About midday, my wife Christine rang and said out 103 year old neighbour Edith was coming over, and could I come home a bit before 3pm when the Melbourne Cup horse race was on.  So I did just that and needed to do my duty before the race, giving out glasses of wine and setting up our prodigious gambling for the day, 8 horses each for 50c the lot for $1.50 total prize pool.

Well Edith won, and so did the first ever female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, Michelle Payne.  Michelle had been across the news as the feelgood story of the race for several days prior, along with her brother Stevie who was the strapper for the horse Prince of Penzance.  The horse won at 100 to 1 and everyone including me is kicking themselves - why didn't I put $5.00 on her?

Anyway, congratulations Edith!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Mary & Geoff in Beruga

Mary & Steve (me), photo Christine

Geoff in the orange groves

Christine, Mary, Geoff, photo Mary

Knitting Machine, full view

Knitting Machine, the dial at the back is a stitch counter

Knitting Machine

Working the machine

Hi

My Aunt Mary is my Dad's uncle's daughter and lives near Beruga in NSW.  Mary's married to Geoff Backhouse, whose family pioneered the Beruga area.  While we were in Echuca, we rang them up and travelled the 110k or so from Echuca up to Beruga the next day.  We had a great lunch with them and Mary showed us her late father's Eddie's knitting machine, made from bits of Meccano and found or adapted household items like a shoe polish tin.  Here is the video.  There is a water clock of Eddie's in the Museaum Victoria Collection.

Thanks very much for lunch, Mary & Geoff, see you soon.

Romet Wigrey bike in Echuca

Lots of flowers like these on the roadside

Moama town centre

Free bike hire in the old part of Echuca (St Annes Winery)

A couple of birds scurry out of the way in Moama

Hi

For a few days my wife Christine and I have been staying in Moama, up near Echuca on the Murray River.  I chucked my Polish Romet Wigrey (try saying it without smiling) in the car for a bit of pootling around town and managed to visit almost every op shop in Echuca and Moama during the week.  Managed to pick up a few interesting things and it was quite good fun if a little quiet.  Cadells where we stayed is right on the Murray and its possible to sit on a lounge chair, watch a lazy boat drift by, drink a beer, feed the local very varied bird life, and cook a barbecue meal all at the same time.  Most of the patrons were a bit older and very harmless. 

One day was quite hot, the wind blowing the trees and branches around and making everyone talk about bushfires.  My Georgette Heyer novel blew off the table and about 10 pages escaped into the breeze.  Found a few of them right away and another one was handed in by a neighbour, but with several pages remaining missing it was a bit of a write off.

We visited my Dad's cousin Mary during my stay, more on that next post.

Regards

Steve Nurse