There's a student accommodation block at the Australian National University called Toad Hall.

Not being familiar with the Wind in the willows books, as a child, I thought the name referred to it's proximity to Sullivan's creek, a small watercourse that runs past it, ha ha.

It made perfect sense at the time... the toads had to live somewhere... ha ha.

🙂

🙂

The possum's been in the house opposite the pergola bridge where the birds congregate, I'd say two out of the last three days...

Which wouldn't be a problem except that on both those days it's decided to have a quick peek out of the doorway, about three in the afternoon...

At about the time the World's most easily upset cockatoo (Kakatua Neurotica, ha ha) is sitting pretty much opposite the house...

Not more than three millimetres of furry little face peers round the doorway...

And that's all it takes, ha ha...

There's the next half hour of my day gone, ha ha.

All of thirty seconds is spent checking on the possum - it's fine... awake, and curious, but otherwise quite okay...

And then there's the bird... talk about ruffled feathers, ha ha.

It's something that even a nice cup of tea with a generous dash of brandy, followed by a Bex and a lie down won't help... ha ha.

The bird is incredible...

What's funniest, though, is the other birds, not more than five feet away, sitting there with this expression of "We're not really sure what's going on, so we're keeping out of the way...", ha ha.

I had thought of turning the house a quarter turn, so the doorway wouldn't be directly facing the bridge...

The trouble is that the possum would come further out, to have a look, and the whole circus would begin from there, ha ha.

🙂

🙂

There's an old man bird who's been coming here pretty much every day since the end of the Winter...

"And why wouldn't I? You spoil me rotten..." ha ha.

Last week we had the discussion that led to a piece of scrap wood being found to make a shelf ...

"Just there, next to the perch... that's perfect... that's exactly what I want...", ha ha.

Today it was pretty crowded, and he couldn't get up onto the main bridge, so he settled himself on a perch, and needless to say, a perch at the other end of the pergola, ha ha.

And of course, there's no convenient shelves here, ha ha...

The question of the afternoon then arises... How am I going spoil feed the old man bird while he's sitting on that not really accessible, to me, perch?

I ended up putting the food in a plastic lunch box, and held it up for him... now that's a clever solution...

The supplementary question, following up on the question of the afternoon, and asked after a couple of minutes have elapsed...

Why did I think this was such a good idea, and will my arm ever stop aching, held outstretched and slightly above head height? ha ha.

We managed to survive my not completely well thought through idea, and he has, once again, been well and truly spoilt, not to mention fairly impressed by my cleverness, if not quiet stoicism, so all is good with the world, ha ha.

And slowly, in my mind, a picture is forming of where a shelf could go, near that perch, ha ha.

🙂

I dunno Stawks, just felt like a sing-a-long on the spur of the moment ...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMR5JVo21wQ

There's somebody who loooooves Christmas parties! ha ha.

And apparently the cat's pretty enthusiastic about them, too... ha ha.

🙂

Some years back I carved a small wooden teddy bear and wood stained it...

And then put it somewhere... box, bucket, back of a shelf... ha ha... and forgot about it...

Yesterday, I turned it up while looking for things that fall under the category of "Oh no, it's almost Christmas and I know I'll probably need an emergency spare reserve blind panic What am I going to give them? otherwise unforeseen last minute Christmas gift...", ha ha.

And I thought, as I do, ha ha, that it could do with some minor "refinishing", perhaps reshaping's a better word... I've made the ears a bit more prominent... ha ha.

So now I have a mostly complete bear, sitting on the bench in the workshop next to a can of wood stain, waiting for me to devote a few minutes to give it the finishing touches it needs...

No, it's not made out of chocolate, ha ha.

In the container on the shelf by the bench there's an almost finished bear body...

As a rough guess, there's maybe half an hour's work to get it going...

But I can't find the arms and legs for it... or the pattern for the arms and legs, so I could make them... ha ha

So, there's some hunting around for me to do, ha ha...

Busy? No... Occupied? Yeah... well, there's always something to do... ha ha....

It's just a matter of whether or not I do, for all the other things that somehow seem to take up my time, ha ha...

🙂