Good evening, fellow bloggers (well it's evening here...or late afternoon...whatever).

I had a horrible day yesterday which culminated in a phone call from my daughter telling me my eldest granddaughter, Stacey, had had a car accident. Fortunately, she's okay, just a bit bruised. An 89-year-old driver didn't stop at a stop sign and wrote her car off. Thank God, she's okay, though.

That's all I'm going to say about yesterday...I'm glad it has passed.

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I've been watching my magpie family. They have two babies, one of whom is quite quiet but the other! Heaven help me, that bird can whinge! It has this high pitched eee! eee! eee! which, as the parents come closer with food, rises to impossibly high levels of decibels (well, for a magpie, anyway). I get fed up when it comes too close to the open door making that noise, it's so loud I can't hear the sound files while I'm working. Fortunately, it's a bit of scaredy bird and I only have to walk past the door and it flies off and perches in a tree.

I feel sorry for the parents, with such a demanding child as they've hatched. What I find very sad is Concubine, whom I shall rename Aunty. She obviously didn't find a partner because of her malformed beak and the others attack her if she tries to eat any of the cat biscuits I throw out. She grovels and crouches down and sometimes lies on her back...all the time giving conciliatory warbles. She's one of the babies from last year and last year she helped feed the second lot of hatchlings. But this year, the parents won't let her anywhere near this season's babies.

Although it's sad, it's interesting to watch and I don't interfere. Okay, giving them food is probably interfering, but at least they don't swoop us! Anyway, Aunty doesn't starve. She waits until the parents are busy with their offspring and feeds to her heart's content.

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The Silly Season is well named. The idiots on the road are being more idiotic than ever, thanks to whatever chemicals they've ingested. We were swapping horror stories at work today...and believe me, there were horror stories about the hoons around the place. Enough about them...hopefully they'll get theirs without killing innocent people.

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First one of the season. A category one cyclone has formed off the coast of Far North Queensland. They've called it Cyclone Guba, probably because it's closer to PNG than it is to Australia! We shall be watching this event.

Okay, that's about it. Be nice to each other and I will see you at the next post...whenever that may be.

Cheers!