Saturday 29 December 2012

Day 364: Heat Relief


I went riding with Pete, Andy & Matt today and it was pretty warm. As usual we rode some great trails around Tallaganda and had a fantastic time on our bikes. I took off a little ahead of the guys to grab some photos of them coming through the crossing, they didn't disappoint and took the opportunity to cool off in the spray of an enthusiastic crossing. My photo today is of Pete who failed in his attempt to wheelie over the water and in doing so managed to create a decent splash when his front wheel came down in the middle of the creek.

We come this was quite often and ride out here in winter too, the crossings are generally at a more sedate pace in the cooler weather though.

Friday 28 December 2012

Day 363: Help to Play, Play to Help


Henry wanted to help me out in the garage today but then he spotted my old 3 wheeled scooter and wanted a go. It turns out that it's quite a good scooter for him because it doesn't really require much balance while he's learning about pushing himself along. It also turns out that this distraction was the best way that Henry could help me while I was tinkering in the garage.

Thursday 27 December 2012

Day 362: Making Do


I was doing a little bike maintenance today and part of it involved washing out the air filter on the Dirty Husky. This is the kind of important bike part that just can't be left drying in the sun on the pavers, not when you have a weird old dog that likes to eat things that are not normally considered food. To avoid having my filter destroyed by my dopey dog Rex and also the effort involved in walking all the way to the clothes line to hang I improvised with an old broom and a house brick.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Day 361: Relaxing in the City


We headed in to town for a little post Christmas shopping, it wasn't terribly exciting but Henry enjoyed our snack break at the Coffee Club. I'm pretty sure he was eating Belinda's Friand here.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Day 360: Christmas Day


Christmas morning got off to a very civilised start, the kids were curled up together playing with their iPods for an hour or so before we had our traditional champagne and pancakes with fruit for breakfast. We did the presents after brekky and then started preparing for lunch. We feasted on roast Turkey and Potato Bake and by around mid afternoon we started to sample Belinda's Gingerbread House, it was as delicious as it looked. By the time dinner rolled around we were all so full we just snacked on lunch leftovers. This is how Christmas should be done.

Monday 24 December 2012

Day 359: Christmas Eve Construction


Belinda put her Gingerbread House moulds to good use today and then with some help from Jenna constructed this awesome little Christmas treat. The end result looked like something you'd pay a lot of money for at some fancy little Christmas boutique store. I'm very lucky to have such a talented wife & daughter team.

Sunday 23 December 2012

Day 358: Hangin' at the Hyperdome


We spent the afternoon at Tuggeranong doing some more last minute shopping. While Henry and I were waiting outside the $2 shop I took a couple of photos of him running around the lolly machine in the afternoon sun. He would run around for a couple of laps and then come over to see the pictures, then run back for a few laps before coming back to see more pictures. He's become fascinated with looking at photos of himself as soon as they're taken. It's a funny little habit that can make trying to take a portrait type photo of him challenging.

Saturday 22 December 2012

Day 357: Hidden Treasures


I found these while I was looking for a little after dinner snack. Henry must have thought it would be a nice comfy spot for his Lego firemen to have a little lie down, luckily He hasn't discovered what's inside these brightly coloured wrappers. I'm pretty sure he thinks they're christmas decorations so we'll try to keep the secret of the wrapper contents from Henry for as long as possible. With a little luck he won't notice that the container is slowly emptying.

Friday 21 December 2012

Day 356: Submerged Selfies


We went to the pool this afternoon and I took the waterproof camera for a bit of a play. The result was a bunch of selfies and some very sore eyes from the chlorine. I liked this one for the bubbles running up my cheek and the little one caught in the corner of my eye, that and that it wasn't blurry like many of the others. The underwater camera has been lots of fun so far.

Thursday 20 December 2012

Day 355: Green


I've been playing with Belinda's pot plants again. This time I focussed on the Basil because I liked how bright the green was. Apart from the bug eaten leaf in the top left corner of today's photo it's also looking really healthy, but that won't last long because we tend to use it faster than we can grow it.

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Day 354: J O Y


I was feeling a little festive while doing some sneaky Christmas shopping so when I stumbled across these tasty little chocolates in cages of Joy I couldn't resist. I'm sure Belinda will be happy to help me liberate these poor, little morsels form their captivity... it will just be a question of whether they will last until the 25th. I guess time will tell.

Tuesday 18 December 2012

Day 353: Poppy Pressies


Christmas came early this evening when we visited Dad & Lee. They're not going to be in town for Christmas so we celebrated early with them and the kids. Henry loved ripping the wrapping paper into tiny little pieces and Jenna had almost as much fun helping.

We don't get to see Dad & Lee that often but it's always a good catch up when we do... we should do this more often.

Monday 17 December 2012

Day 352: A Class Act




Belinda's school were performing at the Queanbeyan Theatre tonight and her class did a Dutch themed act that involved this cute little street scene followed by the Birdie Dance done to Dutch Street Organ music. The kids did a great job which is testament to all of Belinda's hard work, even more impressive were the props: Belinda spent a lot of time making the little dutch hats and clogs that all the kids wore. I also contributed to this production by supplying the kite that can be seen centre stage as any good start should.

Watching the production was interesting too, I had both Jenna and Henry with me and while Jenna can sit still for hours on end, Henry struggles. Event he iPod wore thin toward the end of the show. Apart from climbing on the seats and all over my lap like a little monkey, Henry coped pretty well with his first theatre experience. I think it would have been a bit more of a trial if  Jenna hadn't been there to help entertain him.

Sunday 16 December 2012

Day 351: Playing In The Mud


Pete, Andy and I went for a ride out near Andy's place today. It had been a while and it was good to get out on the Dirty Husky again. We rode some trails that we hadn't done in ages and some of them had seen some water recently which always adds to the fun.

My photo today is Pete attempting to navigate one of the slushy gullies. The entrance is pretty steep and required ducking under the partially fallen tree before hitting the deep ruts full of watery mud. The exit is as steep as the entrance and without a bit of momentum to get you through the slush you can find yourself bogged with wet feet and a climb ahead of you that looks more daunting than it really is.

Pete did end up having to lift his back wheel out of the rut he got bogged in, but once he'd done that he made the climb out look relatively easy.

I could have offered to help lift the bike out, but Pete's got plenty of experience doing that himself and besides, I was busy taking photos.

Saturday 15 December 2012

Day 350: Polenty of Polenta


Belinda handed me a cook book and asked me to choose a recipe for dinner tonight, the Polenta crusted Chicken with Corn Salsa looked yummy and sounded easy so off to woolies I went. The end result was as delicious as it looked, I was even impressed with the salad. I like the kind of cooking where I go get the ingredients and Belinda turns them into something that I'd be happy to pay for at a restaurant.

Friday 14 December 2012

Day 349: Better Buildings


At the rate that Henry's block building skills have been improving I'm starting to think he could have a future in construction. You can see he's already worked out that townhouses make a more profitable use of the available real estate. I've also been impressed by how he's got all the roof trusses lined up ready to be installed one after the other, he's an efficient little fellow.


Thursday 13 December 2012

Day 348: Water Work


Swimming lessons again and Belinda's turn again. Sometimes Henry is more 'into it' than others and when he's having one of his not so into it days it can be tiring work.

Today Henry seemed to enjoy himself, he watched Mum swim through a hoop and then the instructor guided him through the same hoop into Mum's arms. He also got to walk on a big slab of foam that floats under the weight of a toddler running from one end to the other. This part looks like it would be fun, but Henry's still a little unsure of walking on something that moves underfoot.


Wednesday 12 December 2012

Day 347: Enchanting Inconsistencies



Henry likes to watch In The Night Garden after his bath, it's a bit of a strange show but it really captivates our little man. You can see how intently he's watching it while gripping his bath towel just like Iggle Piggle holds his little red blanket... If you don't know what I'm talking about you obviously don't have a two year old Night Garden addict.

There's one thing that bugs me with this show and that is the inconsistent scale of the Pinky Ponk and the Ninky Nonk. One minute they're small enough to go under a bridge that only just fits Makka Pakka walking under it and the next the minute the Pinky Ponk and Ninky Nonk are big enough to cary all of the characters at once. It's fair to say I don't find the show as enchanting as Henry does.

Tuesday 11 December 2012

Day 346: No Photo Day...


I missed out on taking a photo today and nothing interesting happened either... pretty boring hey. On the plus side, I now have an crappy, low res image to use for the next time I forget to take a photo. With 20 days to go this may still come in handy.

Monday 10 December 2012

Day 345: Emails


Today I received 34 emails which is about average on a day when I haven't added to the count by making online purchases or asked questions about an item on eBay. I'm not entirely sure about how it came to this but I guess over the years I've subscribed to quite a few notifications from online sellers of stuff. Somewhere among all of these subscriptions my email address has been passed on to other sites that spam me with offers of cheap Viagra, Russian Brides or "Free" money to gamble at online Casinos.

Sometimes I get a chuckle out of these emails, today for example I had three emails asking me to join up with Christian Mingle Dating. That on its own is funny but funnier still, and perhaps a little disturbing, is the fact that they advertise in the email that they do "NOT CONDUCT BACKGROUND CHECKS ON THE MEMBERS OR SUBSCRIBERS OF THIS WEBSITE". It's written just like that, in capitals. Like that's some kind of selling point worth yelling out to prospective subscribers. Only in America... I hope.

Sunday 9 December 2012

Day 344: Paper Cranes


We tried to be a little organised today by going in to the Canberra Centre to start some Christmas shopping. I'm not sure how much Belinda got done (we went in separate directions for a while) but I came out all but empty handed. Luckily, I've got some stuff already on the way. Have I mentioned how much I like shopping online?

At least we saw this cool paper crane display, which I've highjacked for my daily photo. I didn't have my camera with me so I had to use the iPhone and I have to say that the image quality on my new one is so much better than that of the old 3Gs I had previously.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Day 343: The Pots Post

 

Our new Pots and Pans arrived today and as you can see they're bright red. They're also incredibly well packaged so they take up as little space as possible, after they come out of this box they will never take up as little room again. This is a shame because the drawer we keep our pots in often has issues with both closing and opening, it's the opening issues that are most frustrating. If only there was a way to keep them in this compact manner that didn't make getting them out and putting them away a lengthy game of Tetris.

Friday 7 December 2012

Day 342: Ho Ho Oh?


These little decorations keep popping up around the house... now don't get me wrong, I like Christmas time as much as the next person but Belinda takes 'like' to a whole new level when it comes to decorations. Actually the same goes for Christmas carols.

This little guy is now hanging on the end of the little dividing wall between our Lounge and dining rooms, it's pretty much the first thing you'll see when you walk in the front door. I do like this one though, even if he is wearing too much eye makeup.

Looking closely at this Santa for today's photo got me thinking about the people who design these decorations. It can't be easy coming up with ways to mount the hanging hook. It just doesn't seem right to screw an eyelet into Santa's head like this one has, but what are the alternatives? Stab one into his back and have him facing the ground? Have one moulded into his hat so he's dangling from a pompom? No, it can't be easy finding a way to hang santa without it being a little morbid.


Thursday 6 December 2012

Day 341: The 'Other' Tree


After Belinda, Jenna and Henry put up and decorated their trees the other day we had a few left over ornaments that didn't really fit with the colour schemes on the other trees. Instead of just putting them away for next year Belinda decided to hang them on her twig decorations. The twigs have made an appearance in my blog before, but last time the were much less festive and much more arty farty.

These decorations were all hand crafted by Belinda... except for the red one with the gold glittery pattern on it, that one's a ring in.

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Day 340: Fancy Loo


I had dinner at the Ottoman tonight with the work social club, apparently it's recently been refurbished but I couldn't really tell because I hadn't eaten there in roughly 4 years. The food was as good as I remembered though, we had the banquet and the quantity was as impressive as the quality.

As often happens when having a wine or two with dinner, I needed to visit the facilities. Now I don't often go into a restaurants bathroom to take a photo, but when I washed my hands I wasn't quite prepared for their intricately decorated sink. It was so mesmerising I had to take a photo, luckily I had my phone with me and didn't have to run out to the car to grab my Nikon. That could have been a little weird, especially if anyone else happened to be using the facilities.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Day 339: Impulse Buying


Not very exciting is it... 3 pairs of socks and a couple of ties in fancy boxes. I did get excited by the price though, this little selection set me back the princely sum of $18. I do love a bargain, and these were in a shopping centre not an online purchase.

My Impulse buys have been getting weaker, it has been very hard to top the impulse buy I made last year. It was a Yamaha YZF R1 bike that I forgot to tell Belinda about, she found the rego papers 3 days after I'd brought it home. I think I need to try a bit harder with my next impulse buy.

Monday 3 December 2012

Day 338: Monday Night Oztag


I finally remembered to take a photo on Monday night during one of our games of Oztag. I had just subbed off and had a minute to grab the phone and shoot this action shot in low light with the low resolution camera on my phone. It's not a very sharp image and the light was fading quickly but it was all I had time for before I had to run back on to replace one of the guys who needed a break.

We had fun tonight, we always do. We were also beaten which has become a fairly regular occurrence, tonight the score was 11 to 6 against us. This was one of the bigger thrashings we've been subjected to so far, hopefully we'll continue to get better and start winding the margins back a little at a time.

Sunday 2 December 2012

Day 337: It's That Time Of Year


The Christmas Trees went up today, I helped a lot by staying out of the way. In total we had 3 trees decorated at the end of the day. Jenna looked after the 6ft one in the Lounge while Belinda supervised Henry's decoration of the small table tree and then very carefully made the 8ft tree in the family room look amazing. Unfortunately the trees will need to remain present-less until Christmas Eve because Henry seems to think all presents are his, or as he calls it "Mines". This year should be an improvement over last years when he was more interested in the paper and the boxes than the gifts inside.

Saturday 1 December 2012

Day 336: Fancy Dress Party


One of Belinda's friends had an 80's themed birthday party tonight so to make sure we looked the part I did some shopping this morning. I found the jacket I wore at St Vinnies for $10 and then went in to Target and bought Belinda's fluro top, my white shoes and the 80's style sunnies. The rest of our costumes came from our wardrobe.

The party was fun and there were some interesting takes on 80's fashion. I might be a little biased but I do think we were among the best dressed at the party. The photo tonight was taken by Jenna with my phone, she thought it was pretty funny that Belinda and I were hamming it up for the camera.

Friday 30 November 2012

Day 335: Red Curly Things


Belinda bought these red curly things, they're in a vase instead of flowers. I was a little sceptical at first but the red looks good in the vase and it makes for a nice contrast against the white walls. I also like the the shadows that these red curly things cast, particularly with the flash on my cheap little Fuji point & shoot.

I used the Fuji for today's photo for a couple of reasons: First, I like the harsh light of the flash in this picture and second, I had the Fuji with me and couldn't be bothered going to find my Nikon.

Thursday 29 November 2012

Day 334: Swimming Selfies


To keep Henry entertained while we were waiting for his swimming lesson to start I got the phone out and put the camera on so he could see himself on the screen. Henry took around 20 photos in a matter of seconds and I decided to use this one for today's photo.

By the way, that is a Santa hat that Henry is wearing, he found it in his toy box this afternoon and insisted on wearing it to the pool. He did get a few funny looks in his little one piece bathers and the Santa hat but he didn't mind. It's nice that Henry's getting in to the Christmas spirit just under a month away from the actual day, I think this Christmas will be a lot of fun with our little man.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Day 333: Pucca


Yet again I found myself stuck for picture today, then I spied this little character hidden up high in our wall unit. I can't remember how long we've her but it must be somewhere around 4 years, she's an alarm clock that plays the theme song from the 'Pucca' TV show. She lives in our cabinet now and guards Belinda's extensive collection of Delicious magazines. I'm not sure why we bought her, but she made us laugh a lot which I guess was a good enough reason for the purchase at the time.

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Day 332: Budding Environmentalist?


Today Jenna's class had a parent day at her school where the kids show their parents through the classroom and what they've been working on. My photo today is Jenna in front of her project on what would be required to sustain life on a new planet. They had pretty much free reign on how they presented the information and Jenna chose to make a tree that had all things she'd need on her new planet. There was a little plastic bag full of water hanging in one branch, a pinwheel windmill as a source of renewable energy, an origami fish and a carrot made of pipe cleaners as sources of food, another bag that was full of air and a bunch of other things that would make life possible on her planet.

It was very creative and well put together, as for Jenna being a budding environmentalist: I'm not so sure, I think she might have liked the creative side of this assignment more than the actual lesson.

Monday 26 November 2012

Day 331: Petunia


Belinda grew this in a pot that sits out the back. I haven't taken any other photos today so this is it and there's really not much else to say about it apart from "it's nice isn't it?".

Sunday 25 November 2012

Day 330: Estuary Excursions


The wedding yesterday was really nice, the reception was great fun and it went on until quite early this morning. We checked out of the cabins and decided it was a nice day to recover at the little estuary just south of Bermagui. The weather was great so we found a little spot on the sand beside the little river that was flowing into the ocean. Henry took a little while to come out of his shell so to speak, I think it was the feeling of walking on the sand that took him a while to get used to. Once he got past that it was like he went into hyper Henry mode to make up for the slow start. He had enormous fun running around in the sand and splashing in the water.

I went for a bit of a wander to play with the new waterproof camera and found some interesting sea slug type things on the rocks and the odd hermit crab as well. As I was walking back toward our little position by the water I noticed this octopus drifting along in the current, it drew a bit of a crowd of onlookers and I think it was actually a bit curious about the people gathering on the shore. It swam right up to the edge of the water and even stuck one of its tentacles out onto the sand. I took the advantage of  having the waterproof camera with me by sticking it in the water and trying to aim it in the right direction while pushing the shutter button. It's not that easy to aim the camera when you can't see the view finder.

I managed to get a few shots before some feral children decided that rather than watching and appreciating an experience that in all likelihood they will never have again, it was best to try and hit the mollusc with their boogie boards. All I can say is 'dickheads'. At least the octopus didn't seem terribly concerned by these brats, it just kind of casually swam off.

It wasn't too long after this that we decided to head home, Henry was exhausted and asleep within minutes of being strapped into his car seat. Belinda and I stopped in at the fisherman's wharf for a late lunch of delicious fish, scallops, calamari and chips before making the 3 hour journey home. This was a very good weekend away.

Saturday 24 November 2012

Day 329: Rats With Wings


Last night was an interesting one that involved sharing our cabin with another family because they had not where to stay and for me catching up with old friends and new until the wee hours of the morning.

This morning we went in to Bermagui to take advantage of the sunshine and the time we had before needing to get ready for the wedding. Henry played in the sand with Nanna Glenda while Belinda and I took a lot of photos of Seaguls, Cormorants and Pelicans. We were close to the boat ramp at a little fenced off swimming area that is sheltered from the wind and there were hundreds of birds vying for position to grab the scraps as that were being thrown by the fishermen as they cleaned their catch.

It's fun trying to capture the birds in flight without the image being blurred or poorly framed, I must have taken over 100 shots of seaguls before I caught the one I'm using for today.

Friday 23 November 2012

Day 328: Fly-By Bemboka


We tried to leave early this afternoon to get down to Bermagui for Scott & Rowena's wedding. As sometimes happens to us, our plan didn't really come together. Aiming for a 3:30 departure saw us on the road just under 2 hours later. As we were late anyway we decided that we'd pull up for photo opportunities if we saw them.

This was one of the stops we made. It's the little church in Bemboka and I took it from the drivers seat of the car with the window down while Belinda was out taking close ups from different angles. We were only here for a few minutes and in the end we made it to Bermagui just in time to meet up with the others for dinner at Il Passagio. The food at the restaurant was fantastic and the company at our table wasn't bad either. To add to the impressive evening, Henry amazed the people around us with how proficient he was with the iPad while waiting for dinner.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Day 327: Experimenting With The Sun


I thought I'd experiment with the manual settings on my Nikon and try taking a photo of the sun today. I think it worked out pretty well and I like how the sun has the rays coming out of it like you'd see in a kids drawing. The settings I used were: ISO 100, F/16 and the shutter speed was 1/320. Most of the settings don't really mean that much to me but I figure it's worth making a note of them in case I want to shoot directly into the sun again.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Day 326: Another Delivery


More stuff in the mail today, this time it was from an online store that gets a fair bit of business from me. Each day I get an email from the good folk at Torpedo7 and each day I'm subjected to their daily specials. Most of the time I have the willpower to refrain from buying the daily special, but not this time. The daily special was so good that I had to buy two, it's always good to have a spare.  

For the uninitiated, these are Fork Braces used to brace the forks of your dirt bike when strapping it down for transport. They stop the forks from compressing further than they need to which reduces the pressure on the fork seals. I made one myself out of a couple of bits of wood and it's served me well but when these fancy little one's came up at $5 each I just couldn't resist.

I think that's all I have due to come in the mail for a while now.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Day 325: An Improved Behind


A while ago I ordered a few things online and the eBay item of the two arrived today. It's the grab rail attachment for my Ventura rack on the ZX14. The rack is fine when you've got luggage to carry but when you don't it's kind of ugly, the grab rail is much less obtrusive. I think I'll peel that Ventura sticker off it though, it'll be a job for another day... you can't rush these things.

Monday 19 November 2012

Day 324: Public Transport


After dropping the BMW off at the workshop early this morning I took the hire ute and trailer back to Sydney. The trailer tow's really well when nothing's in it, which is kind of pointless really. I was able to sit on a smidge over 110 km/h all the way back and made pretty good time dropping the trailer off first an then the ute back where I hired it from.

I was fortunate enough that Daphne was able to pick me up from the hire place and drop me off at a train station so I could get to Central and then catch a Murrays bus home. I can't remember the last time I caught a train... or a bus for that matter and today I was lucky enough to do both.

On the train I found a seat and then answered the phone, it was the workshop asking for some details and letting me know what they'd found so far. I'm not a loud talker on the mobile and I kept the conversation fairly brief but after I'd finished a long haired man in a business suit told me very firmly that "This is a quiet carriage!". I agreed with a smile, it was a nice and quiet carriage on the train. This seemed to frustrate the man and he turned around in a bit of a huff. I thought he must have been referring to my phone conversation and that perhaps it's against the rules to talk on the phone so I looked for some indication that this was the case but couldn't find a sign anywhere. I guess I'm just not up on train etiquette.

The bus ride home was far less eventful, I even managed to get a little bit of sleep. It was a full day and I was very happy to see Belinda when she came to take me home from the bus stop.

Sunday 18 November 2012

Day 323: Slow Trip Home


I made the decision this morning to tow the car home and after a little research I was able to find a ute and car trailer to hire at pretty short notice. The catch was that I'd have to bring the ute & trailer back tomorrow, no one would do a one way hire.

We were very fortunate that Belinda's parents didn't need their second car for a few weeks so Belinda was able to take the kids home in that while I fiddled about with getting organised to tow the BMW home. It was a fair bit of a palaver that consisted of picking up the ute & the trailer at separate locations and then loading the car up, tying it down with some ratchet straps that I conveniently had in the boot and then finally getting going.

The whole exercise saw me not getting on the road until after 5pm which should have had me home by around 8:30 allowing for a bit of a break. Unfortunately this wasn't the case either. Towing the car through the suburbs of Western Sydney was fine, a little sluggish with the turbo lag on the diesel ute, but still it was ok once it got going. The trouble started when I hit the highway. The trailer didn't tow so well with the car on it, it got the wobbles up as soon as got close to 90 km/h which is very disconcerting. What was even more disconcerting was not being able to control the wobbles and doing a 180 degree spin on the M7. I managed to stop the trailer from jack knifing and once the spin had stopped I was able to get both the ute and trailer that were facing the wrong way off the M7 quickly enough to avoid creating a massive traffic jam.

After taking a minute or two to calm down, I turned the ute around on the median strip and found gap in the traffic big enough to get going again. I couldn't travel at more than 80 km/h for the rest of the trip, as soon as I dared to venture above that I could feel the trailer starting to wobble again. In the end I made it home without further incident but it was close to 10pm by the time I got there.

This was by far the slowest trip from Sydney to Canberra I've endured and at the same time the most hair raising.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Day 322: Opa's Birthday


Happy Birthday Hans!

What a day. We spent the morning shopping and then visited David's house to see the build progress, after this we all jumped into the car and were going to go back to the Frekes' house. This would have been fine if the car would start. It wouldn't even wind over. I checked the battery, it's one of those ones with an indicator to tell you if it has charge or not, it was showing the OK reading. I started to google mobile mechanics in the area and got on to one who could be there in roughly an hour.

While we waited for the mechanic Belinda went home with her mum to retrieve their second car so we could install Henry's seat in it and get him back for some afternoon tea and out of the heat. Once that was done I waited with the car for the mechanic who spent about 20 mins poking about and looking at all the stuff I'd already looked at, in the end he did something I couldn't do and that was check the starter motor was getting power with a test light. It was and since it wasn't doing anything with the power it was receiving it meant that the starter motor had failed.

Luckily, David was still working on his house and was able to give me a lift back to the Freke's so I could get changed and we could all go out for dinner to celebrate Hans' Birthday. We only just made it, I'd spent pretty much an entire afternoon sitting in a hot car that wouldn't start waiting for a mechanic to come and tell me there was nothing that could be done.

Dinner was nice and we had cake when we got back, today's photo is of Hans, Jenna and Belinda trying to show Henry how to help blow out Hans' candles. He didn't actually blow any out, but on the positive side: he didn't spit all over the cake either.

It was a long day and tomorrow I need to work out what I'm going to do with a car that won't start... I'm pretty over the drama with this BMW.


Friday 16 November 2012

Day 321: Friday Arvo Drinks


My work is one of the few left that still has regular Friday afternoon drinks, we normally have them onsite in the office but this afternoon we moved drinks to the Holy Grail in Kingston. The boss put some money on the bar and we had a couple of platters of delicious canapés as well. It's a nice way to wind down after a busy week and is one of the reasons I've been where I am for as long as I have.

Thursday 15 November 2012

Day 320: Celebrating Success


Today I got the official word that I've qualified for the s trip to Hawaii next year. I thought this was a pretty good reason to buy a nice bottle of Champagne, hide it in the fridge and surprise Belinda with it when we came home from Henry's swimming lessons. She was supposed to be somewhere else with Henry and I was to meet her at the pool.

This little plan didn't really work, Belinda was home when I got there with the bubbles and I wasn't able to sneak the bottle into the house. Oh well... it was still a nice surprise and the Bollinger was very nice.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Day 319: Sage Advice


Why advice? Just because I wanted a catchy title.

Belinda's been cultivating some herbs with varying degrees of success, the Sage has been going gangbusters on both the pot and the garden but the Basil doesn't seem to thrive like the Sage has been. This is a bit of a shame because we'd use the Basil much more often than we do the Sage, especially if it was growing in the weed like fashion of the Sage.

Apparently there are a number of different varieties of Sage and the plant reportedly has antiseptic and anti-fungal properties. It's also supposed to be good for assisting with the digestion of fatty foods which is particularly handy as most of the time we fry it in oil to get the leaves all crispy and yummy. Our Sage is the Purple variety, you can tell because the leaves are purple. Clever hey?


Tuesday 13 November 2012

Day 318: Spiderweb In A Butterfly


This is Belinda's Butterfly ornament thingy, it has been hanging outside for roughly a year and I noticed it this afternoon while hunting for something to take a photo of. It seems a little spider has moved into the butterfly and has been busy making webs in and around all of it's crevices.

I just liked the irony of the spiderweb in the bug and figured it made for an interesting photo.

Monday 12 November 2012

Day 317: Henry Lego Hands


Coming soon to a theatre near you: The latest Tim Burton movie about a boy who was created with Legos instead of hands and his struggle to find love, be accepted and scratch his nose without finding his nostril stuck to one of the Lego lugs.

This is a new trick that Henry discovered, he manages to wedge a Lego block onto the end of each finger but not just in any old pattern, they have to be colour coordinated. He's a funny little fellow.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Day 316: The View From Scotts


This is what I spent a few hours looking at this morning while relaxing and waiting for the guys to return from a morning wakeboard session, I was feeling a little fragile this morning so gave the water play a miss. It was a beautiful morning and sitting here drinking water and soaking up the sunshine was pretty good way to unwind after the nights festivities.

I should mention that my title isn't entirely accurate, this is actually the view from about 10 meters to the right of Scotts. It's close enough though and this was a slightly better view of the top end of Burrinjuck.  I can think of much worse places to while away a couple of hours.

Saturday 10 November 2012

Day 315: Heating Goodhope


Tonight was Scott's Bucks do out at Goodhope, we spent the day wakeboarding, ski tubing and then drinking beer. We eventually had a BBQ for dinner and I even brought some veggies to share with the boys. It was just a bunch of asparagus and a 4 pack of corn on the cob from Woolies but they went pretty well on the barbie with the snags & steaks.

After dinner we pretty much sat around the fire drinking more beer and talking, this was interspersed with cutting up a large log with an old and pretty blunt axe so we could stick more on the fire. We also used up what was left of the off cuts from Scott's deck, these didn't cut too well with the axe either.

As far as Bucks Nights go, this was a pretty relaxed and low key one. I think that's what made it as enjoyable as it was.