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8ight days a week

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An exciting new Blog

A photo a day, eight days a week, three hundred and sixty five days of the year.
A new theme each week, this weeks theme is Relics!

Please click below on the "8daysaweek" link to take you there.
8Daysaweek

The lengths that some blokes go to!

I was taking a walk by the railway track on the weekend, checking out our new surroundings as newcomers to town tend to do. Beneath a bush I noticed this rather strange looking cylindrical structure made from twigs, in fact there was two of them close together. One of them looked abandoned. All around the structure lay various pieces of pink plastic. I recognised bottle tops, straws, milk bottle lids, even pink flowers. Also included were bits of bone, glass and hundreds of little white pebbles acting as foundation stones for the twig structure. I thought that maybe the local children had built a sort of fairy glen to pass the time?
Wrong! Turns out it is a bower built in fact by the "Great Bowerbird." Apparently it turns out that the male or cock bird goes to all these great lengths just to get a shag! Well actually not a Shag as Shags are seabirds and as far as I know birds tend to keep to their own species just like er Humans do. Well actually we won't go there.

So anyway the Great Bowerbird (male) builds this rather elaborate looking bower from twigs and dried grass, of which there is plenty of in the Savannah region here in Far North Queensland.
He then decorates this bower with all kinds of objects to try and attract a mate. If successful the deed is done in the bower and the female then goes off to build a nest of her own in a tree somewhere and raises her brood alone.

As for the smug and satisfied male? Well he spends his days hanging out at his bower or love shack carrying out maintenance and general improvement duties. A shags a Shag in the bird kingdom or is it?
I'm quite sure that Desmond Morris or Sir David Attenborough could sum up this behaviour much more eloquently than I can but if I was to have a go? I would say that it is the human equivalent of a Ford Cortina MkII, fluffy pink dice, eight track stereo, sheepskin seat covers, a bottle of Alcopops and two young lovers parked up somewhere in a quieter part of town on a Friday night not long after "Time Gentlemen please has been called." Maybe too early at that!

The male Great Bowerbird is 33 to 38cm long and fawny grey in colour. It has a voice that only a mother could be proud of. Songster he certainly isn't. In fact apart from a lilac patch on his nape he is rather plain looking. Hence the need for a rather elaborate bower and mating ritual I guess?

Oh how laborious it all is and sounds compared to courtship in the human world of today especially with the social trend of female binge drinking! I too watched Ladette to Ladies.
Forgive me if I cast assertions. I'm sure that all is not lost with the world as no doubt there are still plenty of ladies out there who much prefer a nice candlelit dinner, a dozen roses and a box of chocolates first.
Chaperone you want a chaperone!

Yesterday morning I went back to the bower stood well away, watched and waited. It wasn't long before the male Bowerbird came hopping along towards the entrance of his bower. I watched in amazement as he crept up to the entrance and peered around the corner to see if his Queen was in the parlour?

I and he noticed too that sadly his bower was empty. Undeterred the cock bird began to call out and picked up a pink bottle top, dropped it and then preened himself and spruced up his bower.

But what's this? The bower that resembles a tunnel of twigs must have a back entrance, for I could just make out the outline of another Bowerbird. I took this to be a female or Hen but with all this pink laying about you can't be too certain. The bird world equivalent of the Kylie Word tour had begun!

Game on. The cock bird then proceeded to pick up various items from his pink collection, dropped his wing and strutted about quite eager to impress his new friend. Kylie stood and watched from her place within the Bower. At one stage she left and returned with a few twigs of her own.

She must have been impressed. I think my mate had pulled.

Amazed, I left them to it.

Extended greetings from a far flung foreign outpost

Greetings but not happy as even up here the urban crap still follows you and bites you firmly on the bum! For those of you who don't know we recently moved to Far North Queensland where my better half "The English nurse" has taken up a position as a remote area nurse. The house that we are renting is mostly furnished but we still had to arrange for a removal truck to bring the rest of our stuff that we couldn't do without. Pots, pans, linen, books, tools, breadmaker! etc. etc.

So before leaving NSW I obtained a firm quote from a reputable removal firm (so I thought) who belonged to the AFRA no less. That's the Australian Furniture Removers Asociation, for what its worth and it's not worth much I can tell you!

Anyway they agreed to pickup our furniture from our garage and so we left the key with the neighbour and set off on our new adventure.
Then we received a phone call " Hi my name is ******* and I will be delivering your furniture the job has been passed to my removal company instead" PARDON! So I confirmed this with my removalist and paid the new company instead. Big mistake because he turned out to be a broker who in turn passed the job on to another company who duly collected our furniture and began the long trip north.
But alas for us the broker didn't pay the company in time who by now had our furniture in transit so instead of delivering last week as promised they have dumped our furniture in a storage depot about 300 km away.

After umpteen phone calls, stress and threatening with fair trading we have got all our money back from the broker except for his commission that he has kept. Commission for doing what exactly?
The removal company who have our furniture (well actually they don't have it) now want more money to finish the job due to the extra work involved in unloading and reloading of our furniture after their decision to dump it in a lock up.
You see we live in a remote area, it's a large country, we have travelled 2700km ourselves so it makes things a little complicated. Its not as if we live by the side of the A6 through Leicestershire.

So after many heated phone calls and we the paying customer coping abuse from the removalists apparently our furniture will be delivered tomorrow, except I cannot confirm this as each time I ring the driver his mobile is engaged or out of range.


It's all a load of bollocks really

A July morning

There I was on a July morning
Looking for love
With the strength
Of a new day dawning
And the beautiful sun

At the sound
Of the first bird singing
I was leaving for home
With the storm
And the night behind me
And a road of my own













Good morning pop pickers and for all you old 'Prog Rockers' out there that one was especially for you. "July Morning by Uriah Heep."

Not sure if I am breaking some copyright by printing the lyrics to one of their songs here? But I figure they owe me from those teenage years long ago when the majority of my paper round money was spent on concert tickets and albums.
I'm not quite sure about the looking for love bit though because the English nurse safely back home tucked up in bed wouldn't be too happy. But a new day was dawning and yes the sun was beautiful. I did have the road to myself as well.

Odds on that when Ken Hensley and David Byron wrote the song in 1971 they didn't quite envisage Turning right for Broome or left for Cairns. More likely they had Spaghetti Junction in mind and no bloody way either would they have it all to themselves. Not even at this hour, 1971 at that. No! They'd be some mad Brummi on his way to work in a spluttering Reliant Robin breaking the tranquility of the moment.

I was looking for nothing more than a few photographs. I woke up early it was still dark, almost fell over the dog who was snoozing outside our bedroom door. Putting chairs up on the sofas before going to bed fixed him. Not that I begrudge him his bit of comfort, but try getting the dog hairs off without a vacuum cleaner. Roll on Wednesday afternoon when the removal truck finally arrives.

I put the kettle on and looked out of the kitchen window. Wow! Even up here in Far North Tropical Queensland they still get misty, damp cold mornings. I turned on the computer get the latest sport news from the BBC. Think about the mist, sod it grab the camera and head out into the morning. For some reason "July morning" by Uriah Heep is going around in my head. Strange but still half asleep I didn't realise that yes indeed it was the first day of July.

The mist was shrouding the trees and the morning sun was creeping up from behind Elizabeth Creek. It was chilly, dark and damp. Lovely! Black Cockatoos were screeching in protest at my presence. Luckily it was too cold for snakes and no sign of the wild pig.
If anyone could see me! I had nothing on except a pair of tracksuit bottoms, no socks or pants. A Spitfire beer T shirt. The shirt was a Christmas present now well worn and stained with last nights 'Chili con carne' The Ugg boot slippers (new from Golders in St. George) made my feet slip around inside them. I felt' looked and walked like an escapee from the asylum.

But it was all in the pursuit of photography, anyway I hoped I would be home before it got too light. No chance of that though as there were far too many photo opportunities. The sun was well up by the time the search party comprising the English nurse and Banjo caught up with me.

Cue iPod, turn on Bose Sound Dock, play July Morning by Uriah Heep.
A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month to the English nurse as she goes out of the door and leaves for work.

I really must get a job!


A Larger view of this image can be found here as well as more stories and more of my photography.