One of the things you really notice as a pedestrian in wet weather is low-hanging branches over the footpaths. I don’t know if the wet weather we’ve been having causes the trees and bushes to put on a growth spurt, or it’s just more noticeable because every time you brush against something lots of water ... [More]
Category: Home life
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Getting stuff done (or not)
Marita’s gone off overseas with Justine to explore San Francisco and surrounds. Management of time is often an issue for me, and I in no way want to say that her presence is a cause of me not getting things done. But I thought that while she’s gone for three weeks, I might have some ... [More]
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Rubbish goes user-pays
I didn’t spot this myself, but apparently Glen Eira is revising its bin charges: 120 litre bin charges are dropping from $138.40 to $120, and 240 litre bins are going up from $151.20 to $240. I switched to a small bin a couple of years ago when I realised my big bin rarely had more ... [More]
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Aldi product reviews
So, in my quest to become a cheapskate, I’ve tried a few Aldi products. Having pretty-much restricted myself to Aldi products made in Australia (food miles, though it’s something of a generalisation), and ruled-out some categories I’ve been warned about (fresh fruit and veg, meat), here’s what I’ve found so far: The Weetbix clone — ... [More]
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CFLs
Lights again. I seem to have reached the point where the first of my compact fluorescent light globes are starting to be replaced. Many of them I installed about two years ago, and most in the house are still going strong. The three that have expired get switched on generally for only short periods of ... [More]
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Wacky idea
I’ve previously joked to my architect brother-in-law that given the relative space in my front garden (larger, somewhat wasted space) and back (smallish) garden, I should organise to have the house moved forward by 2-3 metres. We laughed it off, but by chance I found there are companies that move houses from anywhere to anywhere, ... [More]
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Shopping around for insurance
As I noted in March, a bunch of my annual expenses fall together. This is a consequence of having bought both my house and my car in the month of August. Apart from the insurance on both of them, the car rego also happens to fall in August. I had been pondering why my home ... [More]
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The gurgle
It seems at my place that once or twice a year, the back toilet will become a temporarily slightly clogged. The flush fills up the bowl with a suspicious amount of water, and empties more slowly than usual. And it becomes a battle of wits: should I call in the plumber (with his special machine) ... [More]
ABC AM on Wednesday on Green power: JEFF ANGEL: Polluters are using our money which we’re paying as a premium for GreenPower, in order to report lower emissions, when in fact they’re not doing anything. DAVID MARK: Jeff Angel is the director of Total Environment Centre in Sydney. He says the schemes don’t work, because ... [More]
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By the power of Greywater!
My rough estimate is that at home it takes about three litres of running the hot tap before the water actually gets hot. One of my most commonly-used taps is in the laundry sink, which doubles as a sink for the back toilet. Being a laundry sink it’s big enough for a ten litre bucket, ... [More]
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It can’t be real
The deniers like Steve Fielding would say climate change can’t be real. (An ultra-conservative “becoming” a climate-change skeptic — who saw THAT coming?!) After all, to take a simplistic view, if the planet were starting to heat up, we’d be seeing record low rainfall… Melbourne has recorded its driest first six months of the year ... [More]
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DNA quote
A letter from Lola Jones in this morning’s Age has this quote: We don’t have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it. — Douglas Adams, ... [More]