My travel insurance arrived in the post. Taking Gina at her word, I phoned Suncorp, with whom I have two bank accounts plus car and contents insurance, to enquire about travel insurance. Every time the menu referred to travel insurance I hit the required number, only finally to be told that Suncorp no longer provided travel insurance. Fortunately, RACQ, the state’s premier motoring organisation of which I am a member, have a large travel business and they were able to meet all my needs for $1,365.40, which included a sizeable discount.
I saw the bird on my walk this morning, swimming in the dam, then much depleted, which forms in the paddock next to Driscoll Lane after persistent rain. I knew I had never seen it before and that, as it swam, it looked so unlike the few ducks who were also in the water; even more so when I photographed it on the bank, at up to 28 times optical zoom. The bird was an immature Little Pied Cormorant, lacking the white above the eye of the adult. It is one of Australia’s most common water birds and is found throughout the country. PS I saw it swimming and diving next day, the dam level having sharply risen after overnight rain. Its dive took it a fair distance underwater. I didn’t have my camera with me.
On my walk this morning, a severe gust of wind sucked my cap aloft from my head and took it completely from view. This has never happened to me before. Always, until today, the cap has landed on the ground nearby and rolled along until I could retrieve it. To add insult to injury, I had to curtail my walk because the sun was shining on my bald pate.
This morning I visited Gina, my travel agent, and booked a trip to the UK and Europe, which I last visited six years ago, an inordinate gap in my travel schedule. My preferred accommodation in London, an apartment in Belsize Park, was unavailable, so I opted for a hotel which is even closer to Belsize Park underground station, limiting my time in London to eight days instead of two weeks, given that my beloved cousin Leila is no longer alive, but sufficient time for me to catch up with family and friends and have tea ay Betty’s in Harrogate. I will be spending a week with Clive, mostly in Somerset, where he lives, but also overnighting in Cornwall.
I love train travel, so will book a Eurail pass, which now includes post-Brexit Britain, whereas previously I had to get a separate Britrail pass (go figure). I have also booked an eight day Rhine cruise between Amsterdam and Basel, from where I will return directly to Amsterdam by train, spending four nights there and using my rail pass to travel to the Hague and my favourite art gallery, the Mauritshuis, and to the many splendid old towns and cities… Read Complete Text
Jesse Jarnow agreed with my request to record my reminiscences of the Bickershaw Festival, rather than an interview. I have just emailed Steve, asking him to set up the recording.
I have just sent the USB containing the updated Image Library, to the Queensland Museum by registered post. In addition to the 246 video frames, there are an edited 1,007 photos covering the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, plus the data documents listing subject matter, species identification and location. When I checked the files on the USB, I discovered that all the photos were listed, so I had to convert them to large icons.
This morning, Jesse Jarnow, who co-hosts and co-produces the official Grateful Dead podcast, sent me an email. It contained a request for an interview to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Bickershaw Festival, where I produced a firework display to accompany part of the set of the Grateful Dead, who were the headline act.
This morning I photographed a female goliath beetle, aptly named, at the garage and emailed a photo to the Curator of Entomology at the Queensland Museum who has been so helpful and supportive for many years. He identified a female in 2016, but I think this is a different species. In reply to an email I sent him last week which included a fetching photo of a ladybird with raindrops on its body, he disarmingly asked if I would mind if he passed on the image to the beetle worker who literally wrote the book on this group of ladybird beetles in the Australo-Pacific region? I replied that I would be honoured.