I've started a thing, I'm avoiding Colesworth as much as possible. I'm interested in exploring new places, and I've been fed up with their nonsense for a while. So today took Miniest and went shopping at an independent grocery store a couple of suburbs from here (it's a big store and worth visiting). Some things were a little more exy but the meat. was. fabulous! The ground beef delicious (we had burritos again for dinner, my kids are obsessed lol) and the steaks were half the price of colesworth and local butcher. There was only a couple of things we use that they didn't have. I'm happy they didn't get my money this time, and I'm going to try to do it more in future.

Some butcher shops sell eggs too.

Edit: for brevity.

I get the tummy thing if I have a dairy milk coffee, even though I don't usually have issues with dairy milk, which is odd, but I prefer coffee with soy anyway since menopause for some reason. It's weird for me; I'm one of those people who can have 3, 4, 5 cups of coffee and it doesn't seem to do a damned thing, but a cup of caffeinated tea will keep me up (and piddling for Australia lol). I love my coffee and, as a former barista, will never give it up, but tea is my real poison. Especially love me a genmai cha. I have a lot of different teas. The tea aisle is my weakness and I have to avoid it, I just want to drink them all. I could talk tea and coffee for hours!

My lemon tree has been doing it a bit hard lately

That's what happened in my back yard too. I set up a birdbath and within a disappointingly short space of time, I'm talking about an hour, I had those Indian Myna birds bullying away all the birds I sought to attract. Not wanting those pests to set up camp, I relocated it to the side way where it is now a very shallow bee drinking station (too much human activity in close proximity for birds so they don't use it).

I forgot to post something bird related! My tribute today is to the Maggies and ravens in my street, I love watching their morning antics and their little society. And the birds which raised a baby in a nest they made in the back of my staghorn. Also the pigeon that lives in the supermarket. Smart bird, it's always cool in there and there's plenty of food. They've tried to shoo it out but it's way too clever, bobs under the aisle into the next aisle away from its pursuers lol. There are black and yellow cockies that come every year exactly at the time the pine trees in the local park have young pinecones. If you're not careful you'll end up copping a projectile from above.

My condolences. I'm sorry for your loss 🙏🏼

Had to take the Minipeelers to a birthday party at highpoint and it finished with a movie that finished after the most of the joint closed. It was a weird feeling walking through the place, a real liminal space kind of thing.

Having a lazy day after washing blankets (great weather for it). I can't believe it's almost time to start thinking about dinner 😦

Bougainvillea or climbing roses to form a barrier? Hard to say without knowing what the space is like. In my area, every time someone builds an extension there are these massive rocks dug up that just get carted away in a tipper. I'd probably ask them to dump a few in the way so people couldn't pass through easily. If you can afford a motion activated sprinkler that would be funny to watch and has the element of plausible deniability, but I think some of them are actually marketed as bird deterrents. Could work for people though, depending on the range and where you point it🤔

Cheap telescope was predictably disappointing. My dad's old binoculars did a much better job, we could clearly see the dark side of the moon and the edges of craters! This old nerd was very excited 😊

Set up a cheap telescope Miniest got for Xmas. She wanted to know what that bright light in the western sky was and I told her I thought it was Venus. She insisted we set it up and take a look tonight. I don't hold much hope for a great view but it should be interesting anyway.

Edit for vague direction of bright light.