The main reason that I didn't make it to the Iron Heart party this year was because I got myself a dog. This is Disco, he's a Peruvian Inca Orchid.
He's currently about four months old, and probably about the size of a Whippet. Like his owner, he's also completely bald.
I had a guest hound, Tex, for the first half of this week. He's a Peruvian Hairless puppy, about eight months old. His owner had fallen ill a few weeks after getting him, and he'd gone to stay with her friend. Unfortunately, after a few months in hospital, she passed away. I went to pick him up in Wagga Wagga, which is a couple of hours from where I live.
Here's Disco meeting Tenor the Azawakh, with Tex in the background. Azawakhs are a really rare sighthound that were originally kept by the Tuareg people in North Africa. They can be a bit prone to biting, as they were kept as guard dogs, but Tenor was friendly. He also quite liked Disco.
I made a stop about halfway home because the weather was hot, at over 40°C or 105°F. My car's air-conditioning had been unreliable for months, which didn't help, and the compressor blew up halfway to Wagga.
Peruvians come in three sizes. Disco is about 64 cm or 25" at his withers, which is at the top of the large size, whilst Tex is 50 cm or 20", which is borderline between a medium and a large. Unlike a Poodle, the sizes exist more as a spectrum. The dogs have the same father, but Disco's mother is a large, whilst Tex's was a small medium.
The heatwave continued all week. I took the dogs out on Tuesday morning, and they cooled off in the river. Tex decided that swimming was quite fun, apparently he hadn't done it before. Disco doesn't generally go in any deeper than he is in the photo.
I had to drop Tex off at the airport on Wednesday afternoon. The heat built during the day, so I headed to Melbourne in the morning, as the weather was much cooler, and we went to the off-leash dog beach.
Disco tried to steal a ball.
Tex had a ball running through the water...
... and he got plastered in sand about an hour before his flight!
I did wash him off before taking him to catch the plane.
Tex is a lovely pup. He's gone back to his breeder, and I think that she's planning on keeping him long term.
Having two dogs was a different experience, and I've only had one before. I think that Disco enjoyed having a playmate, which meant that they entertained each other, but handling two on a walk was much trickier than one.
This is a Kookaburra. They're a relative of the Kingfisher that's native to Australia, and they're about the size of a crow.
They're hunters, and I saw one today that had caught a small snake. That's the large worm in its beak. It's not a great photo, as I snapped it with my phone on maximum zoom.
The Aurora Australis was visible from outside my house this evening.
There's an area of native bush or woodland in the park near where I live, and there's some wildlife that frequents it.
Yesterday I saw a couple of older gentlemen on the bridge across a creek that runs through it. It turns out that they were watching a Platypus. It climbed out onto a log, and I got a rather poor photograph with my phone's camera.
The sighting came about half-an-hour after I'd been verbally abused by a woman for having my dog off-leash in an off-leash area...
I saw an Echidna back in December. They're a spiked marsupial that resembles a Hedgehog or Porcupine.
I've seen a couple of Kangaroos, and several snakes. I don't have any pictures of them, because I'm normally trying to stop my dog from sniffing them or following them into the undergrowth.
I got my pair of Sailor Moku Denim Pants from Papa Nui a couple of months ago, and the Australian summer has been really hot (over 40°C or 105°F last week), so they haven't had a huge amount of wear.
Continuing the theme of clean and dirty, here is Disco on Sunday afternoon posing after winning Best of Breed at the Royal Sydney show. I should cheapen the victory by pointing out that our rival failed to turn up, after she unfortunately injured her knee. But the advantage of a rare breed dog is that it is likely to win its class by default.
And here he is on Monday morning after he spent an hour chasing a Pitbull and a sheep around a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney. It was probably the highlight of his weekend.
Disco got a lot of attention at the show. I probably had to explain what a Peruvian Hairless was hundreds of times over the two days, because it's a fairly unique breed. Well, except for the Xoloitzcuintli who were further down the aisle...
Disco enjoying his stay in a hotel.
And since everyone is doing before and afters, here he is at three months old.
I've still got the Mountain Parka, and occasionally wear it. Here it is being modelled with Flash, who I was walking at the Greyhound Adoption Programme on Saturday.
@Tobi have you seen how Savotta tests their backpacks?
I've seen a few photos of the Grand Seiko Ushio 300 Diver where the dial and bezel are darker, and I think that it looks a lot better than in the photo I posted earlier.
Maybe it's something I need to see in the metal before I make a judgement.
@Go-For-Chill the dial might look better in the metal than in photos too.
I still prefer the black textured dial to the blue and green though.
@Giles the SLGA015 has a black version of that dial, which I think looks better.
Hopefully they'll offer the new model in that colourway in the near future.
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this, but Grand Seiko have shrunk their Ushio 300 Diver to a 40.8 mm diameter and slimmed it down to 12.9 mm, added a micro-adjust to the bracelet, given it 300 metres of water resistance, and fitted their UFA Spring Drive, which is accurate to within twenty seconds per year.
Hodinkee and Monochrome have more details.
Looking good @jdwaid! 
The SBD belts that @goosehd mentioned are very good. The other brand to consider is Pioneer.
The top one is a hybrid belt that uses a leather core wrapped in Cordura. The bottom one is in orange crocodile skin...
@Go-For-Chill I read that Rolex has difficulties with the Pepsi ceramic bezel, ranging from fragility, inconsistency in the colours between batches, and having a bleed where the red and blue meet.
Rolex didn't really come up with anything that exciting at Watches and Wonders this year. The new Yacht-Master II is clever, but the original was never (as far as I can tell) a popular model. But I do like the celebration dial.
The Tudor Monarch, despite not being a fully-fledged Rolex, also appeals.
What caught my eye this year were the IWC Pilot's Venturer Vertical Drive, though it's a big chonky at 16 mm thick, the TAG Heuer Monaco Evergraph, and the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronometre.
Most of the other releases felt like either existing models in new colours, or limited runs priced for the plutocrats amongst us.
@ManiacLachy I'm working on the assumption that an empty house will make for a quicker sale and higher price, and once the owner realises that, I'll get booted.
I want to move, so it's not a huge imposition, but I'm not sure where I'll go. I'm in northeast Victoria, and it'll probably be down to Melbourne. I'd like to be in Sydney, but I failed to win the lottery last week, so it's probably not affordable.
But I agree that housing is a complete disaster here.
@Brian it's a pain renting, and without a secure tenure, I wouldn't want to drop a couple of thousand on an EV charger for my landlord.
At least the I20N is a cheap midlife crisis, and a reasonably practical car.
I suspect that my car buying plans will depend on when my car breaks down, where I end up living, and just how much of a fuel crisis we have.
@Brian the charging network in rural areas can be patchy. I did a run from Benalla to just outside Bendigo and back. It was about 170 km, and there were no chargers along the route, though I could have found one in Heathcote if I took a different way home.
Some of the longer range EVs would be fine, but they normally involve going up a size class. I'm interested in the Ioniq 3 that's due to be unveiled in late April.
The other issue could be charging. I could use a granny charger in my current house, but the landlady is going into care, so I'll probably be moving. (Something I should have done a while back.) Due to the somewhat excessive prices for property in Australia, I'm likely to be in an apartment, which means that's not an option.
The i20N is a cool little car. I've seen rumours that the next generation will be a hybrid, and it's not too far away.
The other thing I like is the new Honda Prelude, though I think that I have to hand my man card in if I get one.
