Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)

[pmccarthy]

Had a lovely afternoon today, probably within walking distance of Nev's place. Sun shining in through big windows and lots of lovely red wine. Well, I had two glasses as I had to drive back up the Calder Freeway to home. Opened a bottle when I got here. 

[onetrack]

We braved the rain, the squalls, and the bitterly cold wind to go and have Sunday Roast at Johnny Fox's Irish Bar in the City. We even got a free parking spot out front! (no parking fees on Sundays).

SMWBO had the Pork Roast, and I had the Beef Roast. They were both excellent! - and we walked out completely full! But we decided we'd like a coffee and dessert, so we went to Sinamons in Victoria Park, and had coffees and a Blueberry Danish and a Fruit Danish! Talk about great desserts, this place stands head and shoulders above any other dessert cafe.

 

Called into Spotlight on the way home and grabbed a couple of items we wanted (a new pedal bin for the bathroom and some vacuum storage bags), and then went home, and now I'm kicking back in front of the heater for the rest of the afternoon, watching the storm blow itself out!

The only problem now, is what to have for tea! It just might be a 'fridge raid to see what we can quickly knock up, for a light evening meal. We no longer eat big meals at tea time, a big meal then wrecks your sleep when you're older.

 

 

https://sinamon.com.au/gallery

[old man emu]

I woke up to clear skies and sunshine. A southerly breeze of about 15 kts came up. Perfect for drying the washing. It got to about 20C inside just fom the sunshine. A real rejuvenator after a couple of very cold days and a little bit of rain. 

[nomadpete]

18 minutes ago, old man emu said:

and a little bit of rain. 

Glad to hear you got some rain OME

[Litespeed]

Here in Port Stephens we have had a major storm every 4 weeks for the last three months.

 

Getting like clockwork.

 

Very much over the roads that swallow cars and shit repairs.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I have had a great weelend.. Lunch with the son and daughter at the local pub on Saturday was nice.. albeit pricey. Daughter woke up this (Sunday) morning and asked if we could go to the local airfield (Dunkeswell) for breakfast. Most airfields have cafes/bistros. Although it was cloudy, the wind was blowing straight down the runway and the cloudbase was high enough for circuits. A sole C172 took off for about three or four circuits. We finished our bacon and egg rolls, which were very nice and drove around the perimeter of the airfield to the hangars and checked out the aicraft. After a while we drove home as the wx brightened up.

 

Lovely weekend. 

[ClintonB]

On 3/8/2025 at 12:27 PM, facthunter said:

Tamworth  copping it . Ill have to Look up the weathermap.  Nev

I got stuck on Moonbi range going home on Saturday, 37 centimetres of snow dumped on us, 5 hours to go 20km from turn around to end of snow. Drove home via Newcastle and up freeway as it wasn’t cleared of cars and snow by 11am on Sunday.

all the sticky beaks made it the hardest, got stuck in their little hatchbacks and such, lots of crashes into rock wall, stuck trucks, caravans, and cars scattered everywhere to dodge on way down.

iteresting to experience, but not a fun way to spend an evening.

[nomadpete]

You must have been there when my BIL was stuck in Armidale. He said he had a hard time getting up Moonbi. Then he gave up and slept in the car.

 

I told him it was about time he got out of the house and had some adventures....

But he didn't see the lighter side of it.

 

 

Edited August 5 by nomadpete

[Jerry_Atrick]

Penfold's Kununga Hill chardy normally £13.50 in Tesco; today, £5.20..

 

Bank balance suffered a little today!

 

I doubt you could make it for that price, let alone ship it, store it, and sell it.

 

Edited August 8 by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I doubt you could make it for that price, let alone ship it, store it, and sell it.

At which point, I sense a wry smile cross Nev's lips. So glad he got out of grapes when he did.

[onetrack]

You mean Koonunga. You're slurring again.

[facthunter]

You get 770 bottles with a Ton of grapes  which works out at about 40 cents  a bottle for todays grape prices. Not even close to sustainable for growers unless they UP their Tonnage /acre to crazy figures and then where does QUALITY go?  Nev

[onetrack]

As an old mate found out in Cobdogla, after he bought a small vineyard and ripped out all the vines - growing vegies that are in demand, pays better than growing grapes.

[facthunter]

Bypass Woollies etc and you're fine. Dried fruit in the right climate also. We all had our OWN Coolstore. FIGS were a good little item. Grape Viticulture is a Mugs Game. The French were getting 6000 Au a Tonne. for good grapes when 1500 was the Max here. Nev

[Marty_d]

Had a nice ride yesterday, up to New Norfolk for lunch and a wander through the antique shops and street market, then down the other side of the Derwent (past the farm where I lived as a child), over the new Bridgewater bridge and then the old roads back to Hobart.

The new front tyre has improved handling no end, it was very pleasant.

[facthunter]

Don't let People Put you off your Harley.  You can enjoy them without having to Imitate Valentino Rossi. I've done 4 bike trips  on the South Island Of Australia.   Nev

[spacesailor]

A couple of Harley 's up for auction,  ( fat boy & trike ) .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

A trike is not a Bike. In my view, most of them are B dangerous, except the very low centre of Gravity ones.  Nev

[spacesailor]

Oops , again not fat boy  but fat bob fxfbs 119 .

The trike ' Harley Davison  VRS Nightrod '. With  Akrapovic exhaust

Just clarifying.  ( Slattery  Newcastle. ).

spacesailor 

[Marty_d]

It's only a Honda pretending to be a Harley, Nev.

Sounds the part though, V twin with an exhaust pipe for each cylinder.

[nomadpete]

A plastic harley probably outperforms a 'real' Harley. 

My 1100cc Yamaha Virago had Over 100,000k on the clock. But my pro Harley friends always had sad stories about Harley reliability. One even admitted that although he had 3 HD's, (loved em), for any interstate trips, he used the Honda Gold Wing because it never gave him any trouble.

 

Harley love is a bit like Alfa Romero lovers.

 

They love their brand, but wouldn't choose it for a comfortable successful trip. 

[facthunter]

That's BS Pete. That model Yamaha is worth zero these days. I test rode one when they were new.  Promising., BUT they had a lot of bad faults I test rode a lot of bikes back then. On the Nullabour you'll see plenty of larger Harleys. They are Far more comfortable than  GP copy bikes where you body weight is on your wrists and you Heels are up near you bum and an hour on them is enough.

    The HD seats are big and LOW and you can have a real windscreen and soft suspension and rubber mounted LARGE Motors that don't need to rev AND Great Paint and Chrome..  Nev

[nomadpete]

Well, Nev I am not making it up. My Harley mate loved his Harleys. I worked with him for 15yrs. That was 20 years ago - they might well have improved. But he only had big miles up on the Honda, and his Harleys were always giving him costly problems. In fact, he mentioned once that the Honda logbook only had one failure outside regular maintenance + tyres and battery in 90,000k. And that was for failed instrument lamps.

 

And when I sold my Virago, it had 129,000k on it. It is not a GP copy. It has a soft ride, on a wide low seat,  in a posture that enabled me to ride when my bad back prevented me riding a conventional road bike. The logbook had nil failures that would have you walking home. It's previous owner rode it across from Perth. 

Don't get me wrong - it was no performance beast. But it was a very reliable, comfortable cruiser.

As for resale value, I didn't buy it as an investment. And I sold it for $500 more than I paid for it.

 

 

 

No, not BS.

Edited August 10 by nomadpete

[onetrack]

The W.A. Police force bought a large number of Harley-Davidsons in the late 1980's for Police patrol work - against the wishes of most of the serving officers. There must have been a kickback involved.

 

The WAPOL's HD Shovelheads performance was absolutely abysmal. They broke down 4 or 5 times as much as the previous Jap WAPOL bikes.

And when they broke down, there was always a huge parts delivery delay, and the cost of the parts was through the roof.

The serving officers largely hated them. Heavy, excessive vibration, oil leaks galore, electrical problems galore.

 

The W.A. Govt took the step of getting rid of all the WAPOL HD's by auctioning them, and at auction, about a third of the HD's on offer were non-functional. They brought dismal money.

 

There were questions asked in the W.A. Parliament about the debacle, and the horrendous reliability of the HD's, and just who was responsible for acquiring them.

 

No-one ever accepted any blame, nor pointed the finger, and the WAPOL hierarchy ensured the fiasco was brushed under the carpet. The next lot of WAPOL motorcycles were Japanese - and they've been Japanese ever since. One of the nicest bikes I've ever ridden (in the early 1980's), was a late 1970's, ex-WAPOL Yammy 750.

[Marty_d]

Well, I'm not wanting a slinging match between HD and Jap bikes.

 

All I'll say is that my Shadow has 71,000km on it, is comfortable and smooth, has a shaft drive and cost me $3k.

 

Yes, you can spend a lot more and you'll get a prettier bike, but for grins per dollar I'm pretty happy.