Hong Kong Celeb. Spotted In Richmond, Tasmania

Glamorous socialite spotted recently in Richmond...

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

MB organised tickets to a book signing today, held at the Hobart town hall. The author was Alexander McCall Smith, seen here at left wondering who these smiling women are.

Grace slept through most of the talk but perked up amazingly when it was photo time. PB and MB giggled though a very entertaining 40 minute talk.

McCall Smith tempted us with a few secrets from his upcoming book. Something about big African women and cute blue evening shoes and the resulting problems. All in all, well worth going along.

Aurora Australis

One of the house sitting jobs here in Richmond is to take Ounooi (Ridgeback hound) out for a late night "nature call" before retiring. Ounooi lives inside with the humans so we can all keep warm. Last night PB and MB ventured out into the chilly darkness in our goosedown and ski jacket respectively. We both immediately noticed how bright it was outside even though no moon was out, the previous night had been absolutely pitch black. MB noticed long streaks of light across the sky and wondered if this could be the Aurora Borealis (it's actually referred to as Aurora Australis in the southern hemisphere). Sure enough the next morning the radio news confirmed this had been the case. Truly an amazing sight, apparently caused by plasma gas explosions from the sun.

The Quest is Over

Browsing the shops in Richmond yesterday and found the biggest pepper grinder I've ever seen, made of Huon Pine and only AUD$220.00. You may remember the earlier discussion on this very topic in post dated 2 June 2005.....

Winter in the Apple Isle

Sunday 21 Aug 2005. Welcome to Richmond, Tasmania, population 800. Richmond boasts over 50 historic buildings as well as Australia's oldest bridge - convict built of course. Richmond is also the home of Australia's oldest standing, complete prison, another convict built gem. St John's Catholic church is also the oldest in Australia...... Enough of the heritage lesson.
Today's weather was spectacular, gale force winds and rain direct from Antarctica buffeting the house, the windows were actually rattling. I was lovely and cosy inside - what a great feeling.
I ventured into Hobart today to do a spot of shopping, it's about 25 klms from Richmond. My sense of direction seems to have stayed at home in Cairns. After I left the shopping centre I ended up on the bridge over the Derwent, the opposite direction to Richmond. The first exit off the bridge is the Hobart Botanic Gardens, the sun was out by then so I did a little jaunt around the gardens. There were Daffodils galore, putting on the most beautiful display. I also saw Peter Cundall's vegie patch (on Gardening Australia). The whole time I was there I only saw 4 other visitors, guess the morning storm kept them at home.

Low Tech Mobile Computing

I've been grappling with the issue of being separated from my computer for 6 weeks whilst I'm in Tasmania, even though I will have access to a PC with ADSL and XP. I do have a 5 year old notebook which takes about 10 minutes to execute a keystroke so I'd quickly become deranged if I had to use it for any length of time.

I'm not keen on buying a new laptop, the price you pay for a mediocre processing speed and tiny hdd is still very high.

My solution is to take all my important files and software with me in a portable hard disk. I found a fabulous 40 gigabyte pocket drive which is less than 120 grams. It fits in the palm of your hand! One really great feature of this drive is that it doesn't need an AC power cable, it only has one USB cable, so it's extremely portable. Another plus - software drivers are not required, the drive worked as soon as I plugged it into my XP PC. File copying time is excellent too. Cost under AUD$300.