Since we don’t live by politics alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Mrs Z is on a modified Swank diet [Prof George Jelinek Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis]and I’ve joined her. I climb a ridge most days and push the treadly about the paddocks so I was surprised that I was able to shed 7 kilos and not only maintain my fitness but to eagerly increase the program to include a 10 km ride in to town and back.
Work Christmas Party at the Breakfast Creek pub last night — food was really overpriced, I thought ($40+ for a steak???)
Skype conversation with the newly beloved late Saturday night leads me to suspect that I will have a wife and two children this time next year.
Housework Sunday.
3.20am start for work tomorrow, so Sunday night will be largely spent in snorage.
Trying to remember how to format and re-install Windows onto a computer that suddenly refused to work any other way. I’m hoping it won’t take too long to find all the updates *sighs*
What a performance to find the installation disk/s though! *wry grin*
Started early, did the Sydney to the Gong ride then had a leisurely 2nd breakfast before catching the train up the nasty hill and riding the last 40kms back to the start. A very pleasant day in Sydney, in stark contrast to recent days.
Stratford-Dargo Classic.
Four hours of agony on one of the best cycling roads in Australia.
Had to sweep a flurry of feathers from the front porch after Mlle Bella le Chat, despite being very well fed and having a bell on her collar, committed fowl murder and consumed most the evidence.
Husband was intending to bolt and cement a new toilet pan to our (sewer connected) outside toilet but was stymied by a lack of battery power in the drill. Instead he paced, stared at and swore at the charger in an attempt to make it charge the battery faster.
We had a pleasant family birthday gathering – one of my sibs and one of the nieces are only a week apart, so we did a joint celebration. The lower Blue Mountains are putting on a nice spring showing, and the niece got a trampoline, so there were bouncing sprogs abounding. We even got the Xmas gathering planning sorted out.
There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Mine was also a pleasant family birthday gathering, tigtog, my sister-in-law’s 70th. It was Saturday night but overlapped into Sunday.
It was especially memorable for me because I had been alienated from my siblings and relatives for around 20 years – my wife forcing me to choose between her (and our daughters) and my relatives. Since the girls were only babies I felt I had no option but to stay with them. My family never gave up on us and I was able to maintain some discreet casual contact over the years.
It was a great thrill to bring my now-adult daughters along and introduce them to the extended family they’d never known. My girls were amazed and delighted that they were so much loved and so joyfully received. Several had family albums that they showed the girls to give them some knowledge of the past.
My girls were also enthralled to discover pictures of themselves as youngsters in the albums. These had been kept lovingly from photos I had sneaked away to the relatives. My wife would have objected even to that, but I got rather cunning in those pre-digital days. Many of the roll developers had deals where they’d do an extra set of prints for a token sum. I’d get that and send one of them off. I’d almost forgotten about them myself.
It was a tight squeeze time-wise. I worked taxi shifts with 6am starts Saturday and Sunday. I finished at 4pm Saturday, picked up the girls at Warrnambool railway station at 4.20pm (they’re both based in Melbourne now) and drove to Heywood about an hour away. We first assembled at another sister-in-law’s place (where we were bedding down that night) where they met more of my siblings and their cousins.
Then we went to my nephew’s place for the big party. He has a McMansion-type establishment, which was perhaps necessary for the 50 or 60 or so guests. It was a great success. My girls almost stole the limelight from my sister-in-law.
My next challenge was to rest and to get back to Warrnambool for my 6am start. My brother brought me back to the house just before midnight. I slept till 3.30am, got up, dressed and drove to Warrnambool arriving about 5am in time for a roadhouse breakfast before starting my shift.
My nephew and his family drove my girls back to Warrnambool after lunch. I saw my girls about 4.30pm just before they boarded the train for Melbourne. They’d had a great and exciting time.
As had all the rest of us.
Spent most of Saturday reading and taking notes from the Annual Registers for 1775 and 1776. Saturday afternoon had some friends who had gone missing for a couple of months turn up and visit. Delighted to see them because the sudden disappearance and lack of contact was very uncharacteristic. Watched Paul Newman movie on ABC 2. Basil rathbone as Sherlock Holmes does nothing for me.
Sunday, mainly taking notes from Charles Patrick Niemeyer’s America Goes to War. A Social History of the Continental Army, mainly on Massachusetts and Virginia. Got some interesting references out of it.
A recently published bio of a major Australian colonial figure seems to have filched a great deal of stuff, not just an idea or two, from a friend’s long ago honours thesis and not acknowledged it. Its not out and out plagiarism, but does seem to be pretty scissors and paste. For this apparently gargantuan effort in cheating and poor research he was apparently awarded a Ph.D. On the phone with her this Sunday, I encouraged her to investigate a little further, and if substantiated, raise hell.
A far from lazy Sunday trying to bring down ‘over my head high [about 5'6"]‘ wild oats to make the place a bit safer in the fire season. Had to stop the brushcutter several times to unwind long stalks from the head. Got pretty good at detaching the brushcutter from the harness by feel, as the whole set up is designed for blokes and when I’m wearing it I can’t see the harness bit which sits over my hip because there is a boob in the way. Not willing to go the Amazon to fix the problem though. Had a siesta in the middle of the day while the other half took the kids to the pool. Youngest got out of the pool asking for a drink, completely oblivious to the huntsman sitting on her head. “Of course darling” other half said, casually flicking said spider away. I love that in a man.
First barbie of the season. Pity the back yard had standing water on it! So the 9 adults and 7 kids all stayed inside our (rather small) house and we had a good time.
All of us are parents of young children or parents-to-be. Lots to talk about, especially as our minister & his wife had been to a talk on child development by Robin Grille the previous week. I’ve always thought that Grille was a bit of a twit (based on his Sydney’s Child columns of some years ago) but he appears to have been quite helpful to them.
“I can’t see the harness bit which sits over my hip because there is a boob in the way. Not willing to go the Amazon to fix the problem though.”
Er… good choice. You’d want to be pretty committed to winning gold at the whippersnipperlympics to get that drastic.
I had the happy happenstance of the student lads next door borrowing a family brushcutter and tidying up the much neglected non-veg-patch bits of my garden for me (kind of a shared space) in exchange for the produce they eat from my gardening labours. A wonderful arrangement all round – I got to spend the day planting and transplanting and staking and stuff, which I much prefer, and they got to be big blokey blokes – so cute!
Quog @6
Do an online search for ‘cat bib’. It’s a piece of wetsuit material which slips over their collar easy-peasy and dangles irritatingly in front of their front paws. Comes from the States. Don’t know of any made in OZ.
I discovered last week on putting our Abyssinian hunter Zebedee into the cattery while we shifted house that he is now so unfit after two years wearing the bib that he cannot jump up to the sleeping shelf from the ground (~1200mm). This from the scourge of Freshwater birdlife!
My guess is that you don’t really need to understand anything about American football, in order to see how funny this is regardless…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHYT8nYuL7w&feature=related
Anyway, I larfed. Maybe you will, too.
(h/t Althouse & AoSHQ)