The "Fluffy's"

[fluffytonystuff]

I have been really slack with this Blog since the Tigers became premiers. Mostly because we run two shops in a busy tourist town. From October until the end of January is just flat out for us and maintaining a Blog was low on my priority list.

Then in Feb and March we had a rather long holiday (for us). The holiday would of been a great topic for the Blog but as we were on a cruise and had no internet (by choice) it wasnt a practical thing to do. I will do a catchup post or two on that but for now all I will say that it was the Best Cruise yet.

Now its June and how time has flown. I have been working flat out on getting a new website up for our Toy Shop “Yarrawonga Fun and Games”. I have had websites in the past and the biggest problem is maintaining them with current stock levels so customers arent trying to by things that you have run out in you store. I hope this will be different as it will link into the Stores Pos inventory so those problems wont happen. The biggest problem with all this is the shear amount of work it is getting everything on file. So far I have added nearly 700 items but looking around I still thing there is probably another 2000 to go.

So that means I shouldn't be blogging away and should be working on the site right.

If you want to check it out then 

https://yarrawonga-fun-and-games.com.au

Hopefully I will get to post more on here when I can.

[fluffytonystuff]

The day that we have waited 37 years for.

Saturday 30th September 2017

Tears flowed, Songs were sung, drinks were consumed and many hugged even complete strangers on this day. The Richmond Tigers of 2017 were premiers in front of over 100,000 people at the MCG after a 37 year drought. Rhonda and I spent the day with my parents who are also lifetime Tigers. I have a little device that plays the Tigers song and I would play the song after each goal for a small amount getting longer and longer each time. By the end of the match when we were at the point that we had it won I played the whole song with all four of us singing along. This day was very special for us and will live in my memory for a long time.  After hot dogs and mum and dad decided to head home we headed of to see some of the local Tiger people we know that were at Burkes Hotel. Even more drinks were had, even more songs were sung and this is where the hugging of complete strangers definitely occurred. 2017. The year of the Tiger

[fluffytonystuff]

Sundays have become busy.

17th September 2017

Again we are off to explore. Benalla is about 50min south of us and is were we will be off too today. Its a town that we have traveled through (or around) hundreds of times but we have not spent a great deal of time there. Walking the parks around the lake in town on this lovely day was great. We also got a little bit out of town chasing some other Pokemon Go gyms. Again we learned that Optus has limitations off the main tracks and that if we plan to do more exploring in the future we should look probably to Telstra for our phone plan. We got out to small towns like Swanpool, Moorngag and Tatong but our phones failed us in some of these areas. Late morning we sort of did a big loop around and ended up back in Benalla for lunch. There is quite a few places to choose from in Benalla but boy am I glad we settled on the “Main Street cafe” for our meal. Now it may have cafe in the name and the setting is very much like that but the meals are wonderful. I had a “Pan fried, Sous Vide Pork belly with sweet potato pure" OMG it was wonderfull. We certainly will be heading back here sometime in the future and would recommend the place to anybody that will listen. 

After lunch we spent quite a while walking around, Pokemon hunting and taking Gyms. You can see in the photo below what time it was.

It was a great day to be out and we headed home about 3. We added about 8 Gyms badges here and will have to come back to get the rest. Its just a matter of finding time.

[fluffytonystuff]

Another Sunday out.

10th September 2017

For about 4 months of the year both Rhonda and I have Sundays off together. For those of you who have weekends every week these sort of days are common but not us. So for that short period during winter we like to spend sometime out exploring. The addition to the medal system to Pokemon Go has meant that we tend to go to some places we haven't been in a long time or somewhere were we could add a few more badges as a record of our travels. Today we decided to go to a small country town called Berrigan. We have been there before and remembered a Chinese Restaurant at the Golf club that had good food. Its about a 40 min drive so not too far but far enough to be sort of “in the sticks” with a population of around 1200. 

Our current S7 phones are on a 24 month contract with Optus.  With Optus being one of the main phone companies we didn't even think about not being able to get reception to play Pokemon Go but out here we had many connection problems. Something we hadn't faced with these phones before. We did eventually take all the 4 Gyms in the town after some struggles. 

The Chinese was excellent but one thing to be aware of is that they don’t take cards. Bring cash if you intend to come out and enjoy a meal here. 

The land in this area is mostly grain farming. On the way home we managed to get a few good photos of some of the Canola fields that dominate the landscape.

[fluffytonystuff]

Fathers day !

3rd September 2017 

This fathers day we decided to take my Mum and Dad out for lunch in their local area (half hour from us). This gave us a chance to spend some time with them and do a few things we haven't done before. We picked them up at their place in Barooga and took them to lunch at what they call the “Top Pub” in Cobram. Many towns in country Australia have a couple of hotels known as the “Top Pub” and the “Bottom Pub”. Many of these are because the top pub is higher or to the north but for some reason the “Top Pub” in Cobram is in the south part of town. Mum and Dad have membership cards for this pub and they get cheaper meals and free drinks etc with these cards. The “Hotel Cobram” was packed and the meals were really good but it was just too noisy for me. I couldn't hear the conversation at the table and that was a big put off. Here should be a photo of the prawn dish I had but yet again I forgot to take one. I will get better at this blogging stuff (I hope). So here is a photo of the beautiful old Cobram Hotel instead.

After lunch we did a bit of a drive around the area that they used to live in called “Koonoomoo”. We also visited the “Big Strawberry” where we tasted some liqueurs and other things. The stuff was all nice but was a bit sweet for me and that’s saying something as I love my sweets. We then head back to Barooga . Im sure they had a great day out as did we. After this we took the chance to drive around and take a few of the local Pokemon Go Gyms before heading back to Yarrawonga. On the trip home we stopped at the “Rich Glen Olive farm”. We were a little late as they had closed but we took the Pokemon Go Gym there. This place was great for us when they first started the game as we put Pokemon in the gym there and they would last for months at a time due to poor phone reception there and most people not knowing it was a gym. Since the new gym system came in we hadn't been out here but now its ours. It was the last local Gym for us to add a badge for, we will see how long it lasts. The image below was taken some days later. They look very nasty and they are obviously hungry so I wouldn't go near them if I was you.

[fluffytonystuff]

Buying a couch - Second attempt.

27th August 2017

We were not really even close to completing our task of purchasing a new couch on our last attempt and we had limited amount of Sundays left where we could both get out. This time we headed for Shepperton as there are many furniture places there. After about 4 places we finally found one that was the right size and colour and was in our budget.The fact that it was called a “Sami” suite was a extra selling point. (Sammy is our youngest daughter).  The delivery options were also critical as we live up one flight of stairs and would need to have it delivered up there. We also wanted them to take away our old couch. All of these boxes were ticked. Still not totally sure we decided that we needed to measure again so we took the measurement and the details for consideration overnight. On the way home we took a couple of Pokemon go Gyms. Some of the weirdest names for gyms you will find are on the way home. “Cow on Fire”, “Horse Chode” and “Historic Tractor” and now on our list.

So the score for the day

                      Fluffy Rhonda                  Fluffy Tony

Couches                 0                                      0

Gym Badges          4     (total 70)                    4     (total 71)

NB: The couch was purchased on the next day and was delivered on the Friday after. Everything worked out well and the old lounge was removed. We can now add 1 to our couches purchased above. The picture is of the lounge, not our actual room.

[fluffytonystuff]

Breaking the Golden rule

6th, 7th and 8th August 2017

For three days each August we head down to Melbourne and attend the “Gift Trade Fair. We have had our gift shop for 22 plus years and a such we have attended the August Gift fairs for 23 years in a row (never missed). We purchase much of our Christmas stock for both “Canning A.R.T.S.” and “Yarrawonga Fun and Games” over these three days. Its a very busy time for us but we do enjoy getting out of the shops and seeing our Suppliers. Many of our suppliers we have had many years and some date back the full 23 years. 

There are probably 20 different places we have stayed to go to various business events in Melbourne over the years but of late we have been staying in the “Atlantis Hotel” on Spencer street due to good rates, parking and breakfast included. It also is not that far from the Exhibition building so we can walk there and back. The best part of these trips is the fact we get to go out for meals on the business. We have found a couple of places we like not far from the hotel and we have eaten there a few times each.  “Il Sole” is right next to the Hotel and is a lovely small Italian restaurant which we enjoy (forgot to take photos). The other place is the “Mail Exchange” hotel. Here is my Steak and Rhonda’s Lamb Ragout.

It was a good trip. Sometimes we don’t find alot of new items for the shops but this time we came back with more ideas than money to make them happen. 

We also got to spend a little time with Pokemon Go in the city which is very different to playing it here at home. We added many new Gym badges and we even managed to hold down on of the Spencer Street gyms overnight (very surprising). Here is a Psyduck that was jumping for joy near the “Polly Woodside” down by the Yarra river. 

This brings me to breaking the “Golden rule”. We have a rule that we don’t do phones at the dinner table, This applies to home or going out for dinner. Well when we sat down for Dinner in “Mail Exchange Hotel” we saw that we were at a Pokemon Gym, It was red and we just couldn't resist the chance to take it down and add a new Gym to our list. We did all our tapping away as quickly and as inconspicuously as we could and claimed the Gym. Our phones then went away and a lovely dinner was had. This is not something we intend to start doing so shhhh. The Golden rule is still in place even though we bent it this one time.

[fluffytonystuff]

Hot Chick at the Post Office

1st August 2017

Maybe I should word that better. What I mean is that there is a “Fire Chicken” in the Gym at the Post Office. 

Still don’t get it ?

There is a “Moltres” raid at the Yarrawonga Post Office Pokemon Go Gym.

This was the first one that has popped up in town just a hour or two after the official release of “Moltres”. 10 of us showed up and we took that bird down. I am not sure exactly how many caught it because I wasn't there at the end. 

Did I hear you ask “how could you do the raid and not be there in the end ?”. Well I will explain. The Post Office is almost directly across the road from my Shop “Yarrawonga Fun and Games”. I was working and because I had no customers I was able to pop across the road, join the raid and come back and complete it. I had tested this previously and it worked fine. I was just lucky that I had no customers at the time (not sure about that). So I was battling away at my desk while all the others were out at the post office. So without further ado I now present my Hot Chick.

[fluffytonystuff]

The “Fluffy’s” adventures

30 July 2017

Its starts here. “Fluffy Tony” and “Fluffy Rhonda” have had many adventures but have never documented any. Well as of Sunday 30/7/17 we decided that we will put some of it down on paper (so to speak). We are different, we are in our 50′s and have very diverse interests. There is much about us you will find out over time so I will leave the “About Us” stuff to follow in further posts. Todays post starts with something we havent done for years. 

“Buying a couch”

We set of around 9am headed for Albury. We have been putting this off for sometime but we really cant wait much longer, the current one is stuffed. Albury has a few furniture stores and lots of “Pokemon Go gyms” so we thought it was a good start.  

Did you say “Pokemon Go Gyms” ?

Well yes I did.

You see “Fluffy Tony” and “Fluffy Rhonda” are in fact our Pokemon Go Trainer names. We are currently level 35 “Pokemon Go” trainers and as such we try to incorporate as much playing as we can into most of our other adventures.

So we headed off to Albury, a place we have been many times before but not since the new Gym system has been in place. “Buying a couch” was the main goal but if there was time there were many Gyms medals to be got. Well some of Furniture places we intended to go were no longer there, We found a few places but alas not the couch we were looking for (being very fussy). Rhonda “spun” a couple of gyms for me as we drove past but didn't get the medals for herself. “Buying a Couch” was still our goal so we headed off the Wangaratta without any chance to visit more Gyms. Buy the time we got to Wangaratta it was lunchtime so we stopped at a little club that does great meals. Not having blogged before I didnt think to take a photo of my wonderful mixed grill. I would of inserted that photo here. These things will take time to get used to. After lunch we came out of the club and put our Pokemon Go on. Just down the road was a Articuno raid with 1:30 still on the clock. Why not see if there are any there to raid with we thought and turned up there not knowing a soul. 20 minutes later we leave there having completed the raid with 19 people (huge for us). Rhonda caught the Articuno but I didn't. I remembered the photo this time.

We then went to another “Raid” not far away with most of the same group and this time we both caught Articuno. We spun a few stops and then headed of to find that elusive couch. We finally found a couch but it seemed a bit larger than we have space for and were also not sure we would be able to get it up to our first story house. Looks like we go home without making the purchase and measure things up. So that done we walked around and drove around Wangarratta a bit, caught a few pokemon, span some stops, and took a couple of Gyms. This game has really made us discover some of the towns around us. So many parks, lakes etc we have found that we never knew were there even when we have been to places many many times.  

So the score for the day

                       Fluffy Rhonda                  Fluffy Tony

Couches                 0                                      0

Articuno                  2    (total 6)                      1     (total 6)

Gym Badges          4     (total 55)                    6     (total 56)

Thats it for today, there will be a new Legendary bird ( Moltres) coming this week so we hope to add some of them our collections.