We went to the Moruya Markets this morning which was full with shoppers, hawkers, and baskers, brought out by the warm weather and bright sunshine. Graham was playing his button accordion and a chap from Sydney did an imitation of André Rieu with his violin and Ritchey Sealy painted from a photo.
Funny! Painters of old used to paint lifelike images because photography hadn't been invented yet; today's painters paint from photos to make them look like paintings.
Later, at the bowling club, we had a lunch of beautiful Orange Roughy, a deepsea fish from Bass Strait. Perhaps it hadn't tasted quite so nice had it been served up under its other name 'slimehead' or 'Hoplostethus atlanticus'. Wikipedia tells me that this fish is noted for its great age reaching up to 149 years with the result that it accumulates large amounts of mercury in its tissues. Mine was quite tasty which may mean it was less than a hundred years old which gives me hope that my eventual cause of death will not be from hydrargyria.
Anyway, I immediately flushed all that mercury out of my system with a few glasses of medicinal Chardonnay after which I felt like Albert Weinstein and enough of a genius to tackle the big job we'd come to Moruya for: to buy a new water-pump and instal it in place of the trusty old DAVEY XP900H which had served us well for almost ten years but was getting rather noisy and clucky.
The new pump is a classy Italian thoroughbred, a Calpeda Idromat3, which pumps water with barely a whisper. However, I am confused: the operating instructions - sorry, istruzioni per l'uso - state, "Non mettere valvola di ritegno all'uscita dell' IDROMAT3", which, as any full-blooded multi-cultural Australian knows, means "Do not install non-return valves on the outlet of IDROMAT3". And yet, Paul at the Moruya Mower & Chaninsaw Centre also sold me a non-return valve to stick on top of this little beauty.
What to do? Should I take it back to him or is it a non-return valve in the literal sense? I will find out the answer when he re-opens his shop on Monday. In the meantime, I shall instal the old DAVEY on the tank by the horseshed where it can see out its days pumping water to the vegie garden. 'O pompa mio!
| A friend of mine was pulled over for speeding. While he was writing the ticket, a fly was bothering the cop, so my friend said, "That'’s a circle fly, sir." The policeman asked, "What’'s a circle fly?" My friend said, "Them are the flies you find in the barn around a horse's ass." The policeman said, "You calling me a horse's ass?" "Oh no, sir, I would never say a thing like that, but you can't fool them flies, sir." |
