Where are the utilities?

Have you noticed those coloured marks that appear occasionally on our footpaths?  They obviously indicate the presence of utilities, so I did some googling to find out more.  Perhaps, not surprisingly, there’s a lot to know!

There’s a “dial before you dig” service, and detailed procedures to be followed.   It seems there are various techniques to identify the location of sub-surface assets, such as radar and electro-magnetic devices, and these are used by “certified locaters” .

There’s an Australian Standard (AS 5488) that  recommends the utility code and line colour for each subsurface utility type, which  is here.   I see that white is for telecommunications, green is for stormwater/raw water (does this include sewerage?), red is for “fire service”, orange is for electricity, yellow is for gas, pink is for “unidentified”, purple is for recycled water and blue is for potable water.

 

I haven’t looked in detail as to how the identifying equipment works.  For example, it would seem to me to be difficult for technology alone to distinguish recycled water from other types of water.   And there must be special technology that can detect pipes etc made from plastic, or anything else that does not conduct electricity (and does not have a tracer wire affixed).   However, for now, I shall just observe the markings with respect for the technology that enables them to be made.

Clearways

So, we’re in lockdown. There’s much less traffic on the roads. So, there’s less need to enforce the “clearways”?

Err, no. The tow truck has been just as active as ever. I’ve seen them towing cars several times now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lodging the Tax Return 2021

As in the past, I’m preparing our own income tax returns this year.   I find the ATO information entered on the MyGov site by way of “prefill” helpful, although I do cross-check this with my own data.  But although dividend and interest pre-fill information mostly appears promptly, this doesn’t apply to managed funds.    This isn’t the ATO’s problem and it happens every year;  the information has to come from the funds themselves (directly to us and later in the pre-fill) and is a little more complex than the other data, since the various components must be specified.   Just the same, you’d think that the funds would know what was required and be prepared to get their end-of-year information out reasonably promptly.

S and I have interests in one managed fund each.   The information for S has just turned up;   the information for mine still hasn’t arrived.   Since each tax return needs to specify the other’s taxable income, the upshot is that I can’t lodge either of them.  I know that an estimate about the other’s income would probably be acceptable (since in our case, nothing turns on this), and that anyway the returns aren’t due until the end of October, but even so, it’s a little annoying that I can’t get them over and done with.

Christmas Card order 2021

Well, here we are, barely into September, and already we’re invited to order our Christmas cards – although I see that it’s in line with the timing last year.   We’ve greatly cut down on the number of cards we mail out each year, given the availability of other technology, but we still send some.   So I’ve placed an order.

Life in Italy

We may be locked down, but hopefully it’s OK to do some armchair travel?    There are lots of books about life in Italy, such as those by Frances Mayes (Bella Tuscany etc),  but when I saw Hisham Matar’s A Month in Siena listed on the Library’s new acquisitions list, I thought, why not?    I clicked and later collected.

 A Month in Siena describes the author’s observations and impressions formed during a month-long interlude in Siena.  His particular interest is Sienese  art, and he reflects at some length on a number of significant paintings.   In one section, he reflects about the influence of the Black Death on painters and their art, bearing in mind that the plague of 1348 was probably the most devastating incident in human history.     But he also records aspects of his personal journey as well as his encounters with the people he meets and the walks he takes.  I suppose it’s what you might call a “thoughtful” book.  

Madonna del latte (Ambrogio Lorenzetti)

George Negus’ The World from Italy – Football, Food and Politics is over 20 years old now, and I’m not sure why I picked it up again.  Negus lived with his partner and two children in a smallish Tuscan town for well over a year, capped off by a month during January 2000 (winter) in a village close to the Etruscan coast.   Obviously the world has changed very significantly since then (Negus dwells at some length on Italian politics, for example) so the book is definitely “dated”.   Even taking into account the era in which it was written, the book rambles around a lot, but nevertheless contains some interesting insights.   Besides politics, another aspect where things have changed a lot is in the area of technology.   At that time the book was written, we were barely on the threshold of our now tech-oriented society.  Perhaps Negus would be impressed by the way Italians (and the rest of us) have taken technology in our stride without, I suspect,  letting it change their underlying nature.

Consistently with this,  Matar’s book barely mentions the tech side of the modern world.  There are just a incidental references to the use of a phone. 

Spring Growth

After a couple of  warm days and then a heavy rainfall, we could almost see the creeper growing in front of our eyes. The new leaves seemed to sprout within hours.

 

Father’s Day 2021

We had to zoom yet again for Father’s Day.    But once again a lovely meal was waiting for us on the step when we returned from our afternoon walk the previous day.    A bottle of nice wine was included, too.

I’m not sure if it’s quite the right thing to do, but again we used it as the basis for two enjoyable meals.

 

Third party ATMs (2)

Well,  the ANZ ATM at the local shopping centre was re-branded as I’ve mentioned, but alongside it the machine that used to be branded as a CBA machine has changed, too.  It has also become an Armaguard ATMx.

Before……

I couldn’t find anything on the CBA site that said CBA customers could use it without charge, and the implication here is that they will be charged.    Sounds as though ANZ customers have got a better deal!   In the meantime, the sign next to the former CBA machine helpfully directs users to the nearby supermarket to get a “cash out”!

…and after

Delivery times

A family member was sent a package from the US.  FedEx got it from the US to Tullamarine in 6 days.   Australia Post took 9 days to get it from Tullamarine to our side of Melbourne!     And yet Australia Post is paying big bonuses to its management?

 

Caught in the act

Well, we knew that the possum was eating the camellia buds – and we caught him red-handed in the act!  And the next night, he was back again, keeping an eye on things.