Happy Australia Day, 2010!

The weather today has been written into the script of a clichéd movie about Australia and Australia Day!

Fair dinkum, mate - it's 31+ degrees at 1:30 PM on the 26th. of January 2010 and the traditional Oz Day b-b-q has been held, sitting at the table in the backyard, protected from the sun by two large umbrellas.

Now - note all the "Aussie" things in the photo:-

• To start with, the two Aussies - myself and wife of 36 years, Shirley.
• The Aussie cap on my head.
• The (genuine Hawaiian) summery shirt.
• The glass of, and bottle of, Aussie Shiraz.
• The mug of Aussie tea.
  
• Aussie lamb chops and  beef sausages.
• Aussie Saxa-brand salt (sorry about the American Kraft and Newman's salad dressings!)
• Wife's glass of Aussie beer.
• All sitting at an Aussie hardwood table and on Aussie hardwood seats.

About the only things missing are an emu and a 'roo!

We didn't finish the meal off with lamingtons or a dessert of Peach Melba, I'm afraid, so we've let the team down on that score.

Australia Day "weekend".

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It's Oz Day on Tuesday the 26th. - that's in 4 days time. A public holiday held - like Anzac Day - on the actual declared date and not on the Monday closest to it. There's no official long weekend, in other words.
Yet, like millions of other Aussies, I will be having a 4-day long weekend.
The company that I work for has decided that on Monday the office will not open and we will take a day out of our annual leave, thereby giving us an extended break.
Not that I object, mind you. I think it makes sense because, in this Land of the Long Weekend, there will be a heck of a lot of people who will do the same thing whether their employer closes their business or not.

Many years ago - back in the 1980's - the company I worked for had a new Managing Director (they weren't called "CEO's" back then) come down from the USA. Fred was his name and Fred hadn't a clue about Australians, our idiosyncracies, our "sensayuma" or our public holidays.
He wanted to have a meeting with some people here in Canberra and I was asked to set it up on a particular date.
Unfortunately the date that Fred preferred fell on Canberra Day - a local public holiday - so that buggered his plans.
Then Easter interfered with his alternate choice, so that frustrated him too.
So finally, when he chose Anzac Day and was told that was also a public holiday he lost his cool and blew a fuse, berating the Australians for having too much leisure time.
That little performance was followed up by a few other examples of his intolerance over the next couple of years and he left our shores without regret, I'm sure.
I know that we didn't regret seeing him go.

Anyway - a happy Oz Day to one and all and may you slip on a shirt, slop on the sunscreen, slap on a hat, seek some shade and slide on the sunnies, because it looks as if it's going to be a scorcher.

Enjoy a lamb chop and a coldie!

Christmas 2009 - a family affair.

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We played hosts for the traditional Christmas Day lunch - with the traditional turkey and ham and plum pudding.

This year we also had pavlova - a traditional Australian dessert!

(The stupid "spell-checker" has just highlighted "pavlova" as being a non-word. Bloody American-English!)

So son Drew, daughter Lauren, son-in-law Chris and the two grandchildren, William and Matilda, all enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by wife Shirley. The entree of king prawns and the pavlova were brought to us (literally) by Lauren and Chris.

 And what a lovely day for eating as soaking rain fell throughout the day and into the evening. More than 40mm in less than  36 hours; the best Christmas present of all.

Oh dear! I HAVE become a motorcycle collector!

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As much as I love my Honda CM400A, it is a semi-auto (no clutch) and so I am not getting any experience in co-ordinating clutch operation and gear-changing.

If ever I gain my full license I want to be able to widen my choice of 'bikes and, apart from scooters, there are not many automatics out there. You can count them on the fingers of one hand, in fact.

The CM250 that I bought - back in September as a non-going project - is in pieces whilst I try and source a replacement 430-pitch rear sprocket and chain to mate with the drive sprocket on the CB250 engine. So I can't use that and anyway, it may just end up becoming a stock of spares for the CM400A.

So I decided to buy a small 'bike with a manual 'box.

But it had to be a classic, in good condition and less than $2,000 including delivery to Canberra.

Just before Christmas I bought the two-stroke Suzuki A100 seen here.

It is a 1980 model, but these 'bikes were manufactured with only minor changes for almost twenty years, so the latest model is similar in appearance to the earliest. Here is a link to some brochures.

My bike is not 100% original. The rear shock absorbers have been replaced with YSS units and the handlebar with a cut-down Renthal item. The top end has been rebuilt (slight overbore, new piston & rings), brakes redone and new tyres fitted. Finally, the bike was repainted red over black.

It looks the goods, in my opinion, and the first ride was a real eye-opener for me, as I had not ridden a fully-manual 'bike since doing the Stay Upright course back in August.

Co-ordination of clutch and throttle was practised up and down the driveway, first gear only.

Then, when I had become familiar with the friction-point, I took it out into the cul-de-sac where I live and did figure 8's, looping back and forth and around as I familiarised myself with the low-speed handling and gear changing between 1st. & 2nd. and back again.

That went on for about half-an-hour.

The next morning (Boxing Day) I launched myself out of my street and into the Big World, doing a few laps around the suburb and actually changing up and down through the gears.

Neutral is indistinct - maybe the selector detente is worn - and there were a couple of times when it revved it's head off as I idled along in what I thought was 2nd. but was actually No Man's Land!!

Along one of the local 80 kph stretches of road I did see an indicated 80, the little engine buzzing away at untold revolutions (no tacho), the wind whistling through my raised visor and a couple of cars ambling along behind me.

The experience is totally different to that when riding the Honda.

The CM400A cruises along; the Suzuki definitely does not cruise!

I will continue to practice on this little machine but I would like to have the gear selector looked at, as I think it needs to be more definite in its operation, certainly in that area between 1st., Neutral and 2nd.

When I pop it into a gear, I would like to actually feel it go there, not be left wondering!