Mountains

"Artwork" for sale at a market:

I don't think that's true. In my old house I could view the planes by just stepping out into the back yard. And those people who park around Tullamarine to watch  the landings and take-offs haven't climbed any mountains to get there.

Now that all the windows and doors are in, our house is locked:

I like the fact that the builder has put a doormat at the front door.

And this afternoon this arrived:

It will be breaking up that mountain of roots and branches, making several smaller piles. That way we can recover usable firewood, and safely burn the rest in smaller lots.

Wrotten Spelling

Into the Hills

End-of-year lunch at the Patchwork Teahouse in Warburton with quilting friends from the SCQuilters CBD group. View from the window:

I think those treeferns mean we are in the hills.

Happy quilters chatting among the quilts:

I've disguised the two who were looking straight at the camera, because I haven't asked their permission to show their faces. If anyone else in the photo feels they are too identifiable, please let me know and you can have a smiley face, too!

On the way home I snapped this shot through the car window. Do you see a spelling mistake here?

Some dictionaries do give this as an alternate spelling of "mantel", so perhaps it isn't strictly a mistake?

Real Estate-ese

Spotted while out walking:

This house has some not-so-unique selling points; I'd like to think that most houses for sale had "fully functional" laundries and bathrooms. Wouldn't you get a broken toilet fixed before putting your house on the market? I'm also not convinced of the desirability of nearby "fast food restaurants".

But what really caught my attention was the puzzle of exactly what the windows and doors are made from.

Waste Time Exploring the World

I love Google Street View. I've used it to wander around random places I'll never see in real life. I've used it to show students the places they migrated from 40 or 50 years ago. I've looked at places I lived in as a child. But this week I found a fun way to waste a lot of time, Geoguessr. It's a game that drops you somewhere in the Street View world, then you wander around to try and figure out where you are. Once you think you know, you click on a map to make your guess. A game consists of 5 rounds, and your score will be higher the closer you are to the correct spot.

There are all sorts of clues you can gather - what side of the road is the traffic on, are the speed limit notices in miles or kilometres, are the roads well-maintained, how big are the vehicles?

The type of vegetation helps, and if it is sunny you can check the direction of the shadows to work out if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere (you are told where North is). What do the people look like? As well as looking around, you can look up and down, which might reveal mountains behind the building in front of you. But the best clues come from signs. You can zoom in to look at them (but not if you play on an iPad, I'm told). What language are they in? The longer you spend exploring, the more likely you are to find a sign telling you the name of the place.

In my early games I was happy to guess somewhere in the right country, but soon I wanted to be more exact. Today I got my best score so far, 30971. If you want to try and beat that (play it a few times to get the hang of it first), follow this link to the challenge: Beat my best score.

And speaking of signs, today I saw this:

This is a tattooist you would not want to go to. Misspelt signs can be repainted, correcting tattoos might be more painful!

Spelling Spotting

While waiting at a tram stop I noticed both these examples of the sign-writers' art:

Is this a noisy restaurant?

Do these people know their business?

Mistakes like these always fascinate me. How do they come about? Is it the fault of the business, or the sign-writer, or a combination of the two? Does the business decide what the spelling should be, and not accept input from the sign-writer? Does the sign-writer get it wrong, but the business owner fail to notice or care? Do sign-writers look up words they are unsure of? I don't know, but I find photographing the mistakes irresistible.

Hope you had a good International Women's Day. Mine got off to a depressing start when I attended a university computing lecture in which only about 2% of the students were female.

Back To Ballarat

My father is in hospital in Ballarat, so today I went to visit him. The first part of the day went to plan. I caught the train heading west:

I amused myself on the train with some sewing:

When I got to the hospital, I was relieved to find Dad sitting up in a chair, reading the newspaper. He is making a good recovery from a bout of pneumonia. In fact he looked in pretty good shape for someone who is hospitalised.

During the after-lunch rest period, I wandered around the town. I walked past the house which featured in last night's episode of "Who's Been Sleeping in my House?", which was interesting. I sat beside this fountain until the rain forced me away.

There were a lot of bees enjoying the flowers. I think the plant is some sort of Nepeta (catmint). It looked fantastic mass-planted like this.

After lunch, I had a frantic afternoon running around trying to get hold of a couple of drugs Dad had run out of which the hospital pharmacy doesn't stock. If only someone had mentioned it before the enforced 90-minute break! Finally got the drugs, but in doing so missed not only the train I was intending to catch home, but the one after that. I ended up having to either buy another ticket to get home on a coach that wasn't stopping at the station I had a ticket for, or waiting in Ballarat for another 2 hours to get a train to the station I did have a ticket for.

Here's part of the ceiling at Ballarat station, which I've never noticed before.

I had time to sit and look at it while I waited for the coach.

On the coach I read my Kobo most of the way back to the city. There was no room to sew. About half-way home I looked up and noticed this sign, which I had to read a few times to work out what on earth it meant:

I think my brain was rather tired by then. But did whoever approved that sign have the same excuse?

Apparently They're Not Great Spellers, Either...

I almost laughed out loud at this piece of vandalism. I don't know how clear it is but it has the odd spelling error (or six). What made me laugh was the "there" and "their". Perhaps if they had written that sentence just one more time they'd have used they're.

Probably not, though.


PS: Edited to remove my own typo! Thanks to the discreet person who pointed it out quietly.