andrewlighten.com

According to The Age, Melbourne’s water storages will fall below 28.4% of capacity today – that’s almost 1% lower than the trigger point for stage 4 restrictions (Melbourne Water say that’s 29.3%).

Melbourne is currently on the mythical “stage 3A” restriction level that was invented a year or two back. No-one had ever heard of it until Melbourne hit the stage 4 trigger point, a place where the government didn’t want to go.

We’re on stage 4 in Maryborough and have been for a good few years now. We don’t get to use any water on the garden at any time. We don’t even get to grow our own veggies (something we’d love to do) simply because we’re not allowed to water them.

It’s more than a little annoying to country folk to see city dwellers getting to water plants and gardens 4 hours a week while they’re using a more politically comfortable water restriction level than they should.

Although it has less than 500 days of water left, Melbourne will be partly helped out by the new north-south pipeline that will come into effect early next year. Yet more water leaving the country to keep the roses and daffodils in the city looking nice.

How much worse does Melbourne’s water supply need to get before the government take this 10 year drought seriously and have the guts to enforce stage 4 restrictions?

Right now they’re falling back on their stupid “Target 155” campaign to get people to restrict their personal use to 155 litres per day or less.

Ironically, the home page on the official website starts with “Want a beautiful garden…” and goes on to explain that if you water the roots of the plants instead of the leaves you’re watering more efficiently. This campaign isn’t working too well, by the way. As the graph shows, average daily consumption is well above the line a fair bit of the time.

That big spike in the middle of the graph is the week ending 5th February, which was the week leading up to the bushfires that tore the state apart a few months back. I don’t think you don’t go 100 litres per person over the target by quenching your thirst a bit more in the hot weather.

The only way to resolve the problem (and despite the latte sipping political heads being in the sand – it is a really problem) is for Melbourne to go to the stage 4 restrictions they should be on.

(One weird stat I cannot understand or explain is that according to the Target 155 website, Maryborough residents use an average of 176 litres per person per day, while Melbourne residents use an average of 166. I personally know of a few homes where the stage 4 restrictions are flouted and gardens are watered under cover of darkness; maybe that goes on more in the country where homes are more than 30cm apart so you can get away with it.)

I remember having a couple of these when was at school. It’s a shame I didn’t put them away – they’re worth a bit of money now.

From memory there were three types of yo-yo you could buy at the time. There was a really lightweight white plastic Coca Cola branded one, a middle-of-the-road Fanta branded one, and the high quality Coca Cola one. These were the only sort worth buying. Heavy (and therefore heavy on strings) but they were fast and accurate.

The big thing during the 80’s yo-yo craze was of course all the tricks you could do with them. Around the world, rock the baby, walk the dog… good times.

Thanks to Easter bunny the children get chocolate eggs and bunnies because the eggs represent new life. So happy Easter all from two daughters.[left Adelaide right Eloise].

My second ride in a week! A good distance (34.79km) at a pedestrian speed (24.87km/hr) but a good morning anyway.

Brad and I went to Cragie, across to Carisbrook and then home via the trotting track and Tullaroop road. The last climb was predictably tough, but the run from Cragie across to Carisbrook was great; we averaged somewhere around 32-34 across there. I’ve always enjoyed that road when I’m on the bike because it’s a good 5km long, pretty much flat, dead straight, and you’re always warmed up when you get there, so it’s brilliant for aerobic fitness.

I was expecting it to be pretty cold this morning (Autumn weather has definitely set in) but it was actually very pleasant.

While I’ve got Live Writer open – I noted yesterday I’d be getting the bike out during my week off. I did that this morning – ~33km in about 75 minutes, which is dreadfully, dreadfully slow.

(For those who know the Maryborough area, I did the tri club’s traditional training circuit in reverse: down Tullaroop, around the trotting track, across to Cragie then Daisy Hill, and up Maffa’s hill and home. That last hill up toward the res was dreadfully slow; I crawled up in granny gear doing about 9km/hr.)

This stool has been in my family for many, many years. I’m pretty sure Mum and Dad bought it when I was a wee little boy.

If I recall, it came from some kind of sheltered workshop, as they were called in the day. No idea what the modern politically correct term is (assisted construction environment? facilitated handicraft design and development studio?)

Anyway – The Kid needs a new stool for her room, so she’s sanding away the old varnish and the paint splodges from the work it’s done as a painting stool and she’ll be painting the wood to match the wall colour of her room.

She doesn’t like the red woven seat, so she’ll use some kind of cushion.

It’s been a while since I’ve actually put any thought into a blog post. That won’t be changing today – just don’t have much to write about.

Some bullet points, however.

• I’m on holiday all next week. First day back at work will be the Tuesday after Easter. Get to spend the first week of holidays with The Kid.
• Lisa and The Kids have been a bit crook, especially little one. Getting better now.
• The microwave oven blew up stopped working during the week. At some time in the not too distant past there was an incident where a certain member of the household decided to make her own hot chocolate and found that setting the microwave for 10 minutes doesn’t give you the results you were after.
• I’ve been swimming three times in the past week. First swim was a struggle to cover 750m, two days later did that ok, and yesterday did an easy 1000m followed by 1000m of walking in the pool. Plan to dust off the bike during my week off.
• I’m very, very busy at work. At the moment I’m in the transition phase between two interesting projects. I can’t talk about it though, because if I did, I’d have to kill you.

On to more important business: lunch today is home-made sausage rolls, courtesy of The Little Chef.

Sausage mince, onion, rosemary, chilli, ground pepper, breadcrumbs, egg, worcestershire sauce and puff pastry.

25 minutes later, and presto – lunch will be ready.