The collected works of ScottyB

Our (not-so) friendly neighbourhood Cockatoos visited en masse yesterday, keen to destroy the surrounding pool lamps and take what was left of the seed and bread lying around on the deck.

You can clearly see in the foreground on the fence, the broken lamp. And the whereabouts of its top remain unknown.

These loud, destructive individuals visit on a regular basis - and while we try not to encourage them - if you don’t feed them, you get something damaged. They are beautiful birds, but it would be nice if they had a little more respect for our stuff - especially when you’re giving them an extra source of food!

This one was a little more tame than the rest of the pack - he’s a regular - can hand feed him the bread and seed.

His mate had dropped down to the pool deck to finish off the rest of its meal.

And spotted another two on the lower deck.

After they had their fill, they departed with a deafening cacophony of sound… all except this greedy bugger, who decided to stick around and pick up whatever had been left behind.

Buggers..

F1…

The British GP got under way last night. And thanks to Channel 10 running Big-****ing-Brother through until well past 11pm, we got a delayed telecast as usual.

Live Timing as provided by F1.com was much more exciting than usual - plenty of purple numbers, lots of numerical overtaking and loads of similar numbers all added up for an exciting race.

Three different leaders over the three stints, with Hamilton leading early, Alonso leading the second stint and finally Raikkonen grabbing the lead - and eventual race win in the final stint of the afternoon.

So exciting was the live timing that I decided to stay up for the TV coverage and retired to the other room to watch. It’s been a while since I’ve watched a race where the victor wasn’t decided in the first 15 laps - and certainly a while since I’ve not known who was going to be the winner until the last 15 laps.

Kimi Raikkonen took an utterly dominating victory, the last stint before refuelling, running longer than Alonso was some fine driving. Seeing Alonso up at the front of the pack challenging for the win again was a fresh sight. Also commendable was Massa’s performance. A run from the back of the grid to 5th was fantastic - a testament to his skill and the raw pace of the Ferrari’s this weekend. Kubica was bulletproof in holding-off the charging Massa too.

Fantastic race.

Unfortunately the delayed telecast meant I didn’t get to bed before 1:30am - and am subsequently quite tired today - but what can you do…

FIA GT round 5 at Oschersleben…Hopefully this evening I’ll be watching the race, but I managed to catch some summaries of the race itself and read the news articles this morning..

Post-race scrutineering totally overturned the race result in Oschersleben today, with first the third-placed Lamborghini and then the winning Corvette failing scrutineering and being excluded from the event. It is not yet known whether either team will appeal.

This meant that the nr 1 Vitaphone Maserati MC 12 of Bartels and Biagi inherited the win - giving Vitaphone the Oschersleben hat-trick it had hoped to achieve.

The GT2 win went to AF Corse Motorola for the fifth time this season, and the second consecutive win for Ortelli and Bruni. Collard and Malucelli were second after a fine performance from the BMS Scuderia Italia Porsche; Collard’s battle with Tim Mullen in the Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari was one of the star events of the end of the race. Mullen and birthday boy Jarek Janis finished third.

Racing has never looked so good…

…

I really do love the Porsche 997…

Link: www.f1.com
Link: www.fiagt.com

As I was driving out to JB’s yesterday, with an ill Katie in tow, we got seriously rained on.

The clouds hung low and dark, slight green tinge to them and swirled about like water down a drain hole.

You could already see in the distance that rain was falling. The cloud almost appears like fog, you can’t tell where the cloud ends and the ground begins - its all one amazingly huge sheet of grey - filling the sky and blanketing the Earth with water.

It felt like a Summer storm, one of those freak ‘attacks’ of rain that comes out of nowhere and catches everyone off-guard.

As the rain began, falling with the utmost haste; Huge, heavy drops lashing the windscreen, sounding like footprints over the car, you could see people out walking suddenly running in every direction, scattering to find cover in the onslaught of precipitation.

Then began the hail.

Within minutes, the heavy droplets had become little pellets of icy terror. They bounced up from the road and the bonnet like little white ball-bearings. Suddenly the grees grasses by the roadside and the black of the tarmac was awash with white.

The noise was near deafening. We could hardly hear each other speak as the hail pelted the car and lashed outdoors. Those with more cautious natures were pulling up at the side of the road or slowing down - suddenly headlights were on and it felt like nighttime.

Then as quickly as it arrived, it disappeared. We got out of the car at JB’s, got a little wet on the run from the car to the shop and basically watched the clouds part and the grounds dry.

Crazy weather we’ve been having lately. I do wonder if this ‘La Nina’ is beginning to show her face.

On the way back home on Friday night I had to get some photos of the full Moon.

Thanks to all the rain lately the skies are crystal clear at day and also during the night. Visibility is amazing.. you can see every star at night and all the way over to the other side of the Lake in the day.

I love the rain. I love the smell of fresh rainstorms on the footpath and on the garden.. that sweet nitrate smell. I almost wish you could bottle it.

Thanks to an incredible night and a low full Moon:

Really wish I had a decent long-range lens for these sort of nights though