Summer in Diamond Beach

Summer is becoming my favourite season here. Its nowhere near as fierce as Canberra's summer and the sea breeze helps cool us down most days. We've only had to use the airconditioner two or three days so far. Climate is a big topic for us baby boomers, a fact well recognized by Mae and Nick who gave David the most wondrous weather station ever invented as his Christmas present.  I brought it back from my last Canberra trip and it has been lovingly assembled, programmed (despite the Engrish instructions) and installed. The outdoor unit, surely a thing of admiration amongst our neighbours, communicates with an indoor station using solar power.

Now this wonder device tells us everything we always wanted to know, such as indoor/outdoor temperature and humidity, windspeed and direction, barometric pressure, UV index and even how many lux are beaming out of the sky. We may yet become weather tragics to the extent that our friend Chris is. He even keeps BOM up to speed by querying their readings and has recently sparked a furore on local radio by pointing out some errors in the local record. 

Bird of the week is the white-throated needle tail swift. A huge flock of these swept in yesterday and flew fast and aerobatically all over our airspace for about 10 minutes or so. I suppose they were hawking for insects. Almost impossible to photograph because they are so fast. They make a "swwff" sound when they flash past.

David's self-training as barista continues and his latte art is progressing. Here's a recent effort. Hmmn. Might go make myself a coffee right now. He's down at his Landcare site so not available for this task at present. What is it that makes his coffee taste better than mine? The art of the barista is indeed mysterious. 

Recent rains have filled our dam very prettily. David has been putting in long hours in the garden mowing, brushcutting, edging, weeding and sorting out drainage issues.

Meanwhile I've been in the study creating order out of the chaos of our filing system. Not much fun but satisfying to have it done. I loved going through the "Memories" file, full of adorable cards and mementoes from when the kids were small. Including some from our gorgeous little grand-daughter Keliyah. here she is on day 1 of her school career, last Monday.