Bamboo Extravaganza

A pioneering farming couple on the Atherton Tablelands are opening their gates tomorrow to the public via the Open Garden Scheme.
The farm is called Asper Park and their speciality is Bamboo, both ornamental and edible. Who could resist a visit after reading the blurb from ABC Far North
"Sample delicious bamboo shoots in marinade and learn the secrets of bamboo production. Picturesque Asper Park is a working farm with over 20 varieties of bamboo including many rare and unusual varieties. The bamboo grove appears like an ethereal living sculpture: wind whispers through skyward-shooting stems; peeling sheaths balance delicately. An avenue of jacarandas leads into the garden, which features shady mature English oaks, plane trees and a palm grove. Shingle-roofed summer houses and weathered pine dwellings evoke a European air..."
MDR & MB are booked in the for 9:30am tour and are looking forward to a sensory overload and tasting some freshly harvested bamboo shoots.

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight

Phew... the MB family is frying in FNQ, 37C in Cairns yesterday (heat index of 41C). Lots of extreme weather events all over our vast continent, with a very unseasonal cold snap in southern Australia, it actually snowed in the Blue Mountains and at Thredbo yesterday.
It's also quite dry in FNQ, but there are flooding rains falling in the south-east of Queensland, it's normally the other way around at this time of year! MB snapped last night's sunset in Cairns, the colour of the sky at dusk was a sight to behold.

Eggs on Steroids

MDR is back from his 12 day whistle stop tour of USA & Nova Scotia (via Japan) and was up bright and early this morning, showing very little sign of jet lag, so off he went to Rustys. Yamagishi eggs are always on the list and MDR loves the Super Jumbo eggs (around $5.00 per dozen), the Japanese guy on the Yamagishi stand even greeted MDR with "Gidday Mate" today, his English is improving no end. The super jumbos often have double yolks (luckily neither MDR nor MB have problems with cholesterol) which is always a delight when one cracks open the egg to find it's a double yolker, for some reason it feels lucky. One egg in particular in today's purchase weighed in at 120grams. MB had picked up some Extra Large Yamagishi eggs (around $4.50 a dozen) during the week so compared one with today's, the XL was about 70grams. As you can see in the picture, the Super Jumbo dwarfs the XL egg.

Halloween

MB couldn't resist posting this pic of first born son and girlfriend Mami taken at a Halloween party on 1st November. FBS hired a white suit and wig and managed to look quite grotesque. Mami did an amazing job with the face paint. Of course the white suit got black face paint on it, however it was water soluble but to be on the safe side FBS took the suit to a local dry cleaners (5 Star Cleaners), who managed to get the face paint out but stained the suit all over with something else. FBS took it back to the costume hire who rejected it, so it was back to the dry cleaners.
FBS mentioned that when he went back the counter staff were drinking cans of premixed Bundy & Cokes, even had a six pack on the counter, sort of gives one an idea of the calibre of these cleaners.
MB became involved when FBS was working and couldn't pick up the suit in order to drop it back to the costume hire, so she dropped in and picked up the suit after it's 2nd clean.
The cleaning was a disaster so MB decided to consult with another cleaners, Alsco, and discovered the most wonderful cleaner, Ray. Ray has cleaned for over 40 years, mostly in London. He took one look at the suit and explained that it had been cleaned in dirty spirit. Ray said to give him two days and he'd have it like new.
A mere 6 hours later he called MB and advised the suit was ready! Sure enough it was spotlessly clean and Ray had even starched it. Amazingly Ray refused to charge for the clean, saying that FBS has been cheated.
Due to Ray's professionalism and generosity a very negative experience had a wonderful outcome.
How many Rays does one encounter? He is a true gentleman.