Sunday.  10th.  Chicken sausages and a bunch of roast veggies for dinner.

Watched the Lighthouses 2.3. Then I watched part 1 of a documentary on Hurricane Katrina.

Monday.  Awake around midnight for a while, then a somewhat delirious sleep stressing over the proxies. Day of trying to get things done, waiting for people etc. Leftovers for dinner, Lighthouses 3.1 on Beachy Head, photo stuff, then watched the next two episodes of the Hurricane Katrina documentary.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep and felt like I was awake half the night. On and off day.. filling in time for part of it, crazy busy for other parts. Stu cooked up a very nice Asian-style dinner with some leftover pork and veggies, and we watched the Lighthouses 3.2 on Muckle Flugga.  Did some photo stuff, and watched more of the Hurricane Katrina documentary.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep and somewhat restless night. Busy day of trying to deal with stoopid proxy problems. Our old one could deal with Mutual TLS, why can't the new one?? Lame. Leftovers of last night's dinner for dinner, then the last episode (3.3) of The Secret Life of Lighthouses, on the Boston Lighthouse.  Did some photo stuff and finished the National Geographic doco on Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time. What an utter debacle. It's so sad looking at Google Earth/Street View and all the vacant blocks because so many people didn't have the resources to rebuild.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep and somewhat restless night. Yeah after like four nights in a row of crap sleep I was a zombie today. Sure made it hard to concentrate on various proxy problems. Good drinks, a few other tables. Mills and Grills again for dinner. Death in Paradise 15.8 (end of season 15).

Friday.  Went to bed early and went to sleep early, but woke up around like 3 for a couple of hours. Tried to turn the heater on. It didn't even seem to want to turn on. Went back later with a light and was seeing "Busy 10 hi" and "Busy 46 hi" errors. Sigh. They errored out all day and we never did manage to get it going. Organised with Voltair for them to come and quote on installing a split system. Not quite as busy a day at work. Called it at 16:00. Kievs for dinner then we watched Rental Family which was.. touching. We both enjoyed it.

Saturday.  Took ages to get to sleep and awake a bit early but slept mostly ok in the middle. Turned the heater on and today it worked first go. Go figure. Definitely going to try and get it serviced/fixed soon though. We've lost one of Chrissie's clown loaches. It had been looking unwell for a couple of weeks with two large welts on either side of it. Now I need to decide what to do with the other one. I also need to decide what to do with the AR-620T. Both its lights have gone and they're getting hard to replace. Gem Aquatics still sell them but only the white ones, not the pink ones. Tony refitted his with a compact fluorescent fitting but I'm wondering if I should bother or just downsize our fish tanks. Climbed Mt Rogers, then went out birdwatching with the sweetie out the back of Weetangera.

Mt Rogers Trig Station

Airbus A380 VH-OQG flying over Canberra (QF93 MEL to LAX)

We may have stopped at The Scottish Restaurant for lunch.  They've got creme brulee pies at the moment (deep fried!) which are quite nice.

Finished the leftover pork for dinner then watched Catch Me if You Can, which I hadn't seen since 2003 (we tried to watch it a few years back but had to stop after like fifteen minutes and neither of us could remember why).

Sunday.  Actually slept relatively well for a change! The heater worked first go, but then died after its first break.  Reset it and gave it a rest and tried again later and it ran for a while before the house warmed up enough it didn't need to run again.  Quiet day of photo and house stuff. Even made a cake! 

Sunday.  28th.  Cooked up an epic lamb roast ($22/kg from Tathra Place in the markets) and veggies for dinner, then watched The Big Year (which some random dude on our holiday told us about).  It was a bit "serious" for all the comedic actors in it, but kinda cool.

Monday.  Slept relatively ok I think, for a change.  Spent much of the day geotagging holiday photos.  Stu also pulled out all the bedroom furniture to vacuum nearly 18 years worth of dust behind stuff...

Had some of Lily's Youfoodz for dinner.

Watched Professor T 1.5 together then I watched Taxi Driver which I've never actually seen.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, epic restless.  Finished geotagging holiday photos.

In the afternoon we went to Palmerville for a walk and to do some birdwatching.  This Bell 206L-1 (VH-OAS) chopper had been buzzing around Canberra all day, Evoenergy checking powerlines.  

I hadn't walked along the new pathway yet

Such a fun shot..

Finished off Lily's Youfoodz dinners and the last of the salad

Then watched Professor T 1.6 together (end of season one) then I watched a doco on the Titanic - Titanic: Digital Resurrection.  Considering the effort they went to to digitise the ship, the computer graphics they also used were pretty cheesy.  Interesting though.

Wednesday.  April Fools!  Slept okish, only awake for an hour or two around 3.  Back to work.  Yeup definitely an April Fool.  Spent most of the day catching up on chats and emails.  

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies and I fried up some lamb, then we watched Professor T 2.1.

You can tell the sweetie was cooking - the potatoes are all lined up nicely ;)

Then spent the rest of the evening putting up reviews of all the places we stayed on our holiday in booking.com.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Mostly still catching up on crap at work.  Had a gin night at drinks but hardly anyone else turned up.  Sad times. 

Bus home (trying to save petrol) then made pizzas for dinner and watched Professor T 2.2.

Friday.  Good Friday.  Although not so good for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly ok.  Didn't get much done all day sigh.  Pretty much a nothing day.  We did go for another walk in the afternoon to Palmerville to try out Stu's new toy (all the bird pics I'll put in another post one day).

Kievs for dinner then Professor T 2.3.  I then watched "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" from 2015, which was mostly footage around Christa McAuliffe.. (as an aside, I didn't know that her backup, Barbara Morgan, later went on to be a full-blown astronaut in her own right.. cool!).  Eerily, the peeps that are on their way to the moon right now used booster rockets from the shuttle programme.. that wouldn't be freaky .. at. all.   .. !!)

Saturday.  Only awake for an hour or two around midnight.  Spent literally the entire morning doing housework.  Sigh.  Went out with EB to have a look at the new road around the north/east side of the airport which was pretty cool, had a good long drive around the area, then went in to Quangers for lunch at the Royal Hotel (had a very nice caesar salad).

Air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport

Did you know they're closing down the air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport and replacing it with cameras done with remote control..?  What could possibly go wrong?

Swing bridge in Queanbeyan

Caesar salad at the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan

It's such a shame they haven't setup any sort of dedicated planespotting area with all the new works

Stu cooked a tuna bake and veggies for dinner then we watched Professor T 2.4.  I then watched Lantana which I'd never seen before.  Lots of unlikeable characters behaving badly.  Hurrah.

Easter Sunday.  He is risen!  Slept mostly okish I think.  Woke up 6am!  But 5am in reality. Sigh. Didn't achieve really anything all day.  Stu took Stumpy outside for a walk.

In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for afternoon tea and catchup with the family.  Pebbles wasn't being *quite* the scardey cat...

Leftovers for dinner.  The just-past full moon was rising and it was like, hey there's four peeps in between me and that bright shiny thing!  Pretty cool!  Then watched Molly's Game, which I'd seen on a plane but Stu hadn't seen.  

Monday.  Slept mostly okish.  Got a bunch of Europe 2016 photo stuff done, and a heap of jigsaw.  Stu has cooked up a bunch of veggies to have with some leftover lamb for dinner.

Sunday.  8th.  John Williams' birthday.  I really must remember that.  Not that he's likely to have many left.. he's fricken 94!!!!  Stu cooked up some chicken with mushroom sauce and some greens which was very yummy. Then we watched the old school Disney version of Peter Pan.

Monday.  Early night. Interrupted by the mother type person calling. Then I was restless. And awake from 5. Hurrah. Some tickets and crap in the morning and spent most of the afternoon writing up more stuff to decommission. Stu cooked some pork and fennel sausages with cabbage for dinner (the sausages were a bit dry unfortunately), then we watched the last episode of season 2 of MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Okish sleep I think. Busy day I think. Stu cooked some yummy creamy lemon chicken for dinner then into season 3 of MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Took ages to get to sleep - epic restless legs.

Super busy day - barely any time for jigsaw breaks! Stu cooked a cauliflower bake and goats cheese stuffed mushrooms which were very yummy.

Thursday.  Woke up around midnight cause my guts were upset for some unknown reason. Then stayed awake for a couple of hours waiting for things to settle. Sigh.

Busy day deleting All The Things.  Good drinks - lots of people.  Pizzas for dinner.  Not quite a repeat of the last two weeks as we were out of mushrooms.  There's pepperoni and feta, olive and capers, and tomato and spring onion.

Then MacGyver then started watching Airport to keep us awake til Kit and Pete got here (they'd come up for a comedy cruise and thought they'd play tourist here for a couple of days).

Friday the 13th.  Slept okish I think. Busy day of decoms and tickets and crap. Chilled out with Kit and Pete after work and got Turkish delivered from Lokma (the same place Mishi did last weekend).

Chatted for a while then watched an episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which was.. bizarre haha.

Saturday.  Happy Valentine's Day.. remembered various anniversaries of my family that can't really be celebrated anymore. 

Mostly awake from 3 and fully awake from 5 sigh. Zombie morning. Kit and Pete wandered off for much of the day and I did mostly Lego stuff (and some dotz!!!).

Also made up breakfasts for the week.

Trigger warning for Tony!  Found her in the recycling green bin.

Kit and Pete brought home some Luv-a-Duck peking duck for dinner which was awesome.

Later we played a game of Ticket to Ride (Europe) which I won, but it was actually really close and one move either way would have changed the outcome.

Sunday.  Slept slightly better. Did some dotz in the morning. Went with Kit and Pete to the Old Bus Depot Markets which I've never actually been to before! It was very uncrowded, and apparently a shadow of its former self. 

Then dropped into Canberra Glassworks which I've also never been to.

Anyone know what this is?  Google image search suggests either an epic insulator (seems unlikley) or an air raid siren...  Edit:  another search indicates it was in fact an air-raid siren!

Kit and Pete wandered off home and I did some food shopping on the way home. Then tried to get KFC for lunch but the lazy or hard of hearing server mistook "large Pepsi Max" for "large chips" (which I annoyingly didn't pick up on), and then completely ignored me when I asked for a receipt. And the girl getting the chicken dropped a piece onto the floor because she was being careless. Hopeless. Talked to the mother for a while in the afternoon and then my weekend is over. hrmmm.

And Windows is STILL forgetting my photo in tray folder settings. Windows 11 is seriously BAD!!!

Wow. So 2025. It sure was a year!

Travel

I went to Adelaide with Mum in late February to visit my Uncle Graham who was in hospital for three months being treated for a lymphoma. He was doing really well at the time (he'd really only just started treatment). Good news is he's done with treatment and is (so far) cancer free. We went down the coast to visit Kit and Pete in March for Pete's birthday and I went to the Milton Show with Kit. I didn't go to Europe with Mum, even after spending months planning it. At least David got to go instead. I did go up to Sydney the day before they left to go through everything I'd prepared with them. In November the sweetie and I took ten days off and headed down the coast, staying in Narooma and Kiama. Didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked in Narooma due to reasons, so we hope to go back again some time soon. Did a day trip to Sydney in December to see Back to the Future the Musical.

Work

At work I was the Naughty Email Intervention Layer (NEIL) a few times while Neil took leave. We're not sure what's going to happen to his position when he retires next year (after 50 years!!!!). I got to do a bunch of work on some of our management scripts to get them working in the new environment. Learnt a lot, which I've now completely forgotten. Did scripts to check on the quality of objects/rules, backup configs, look for orphaned objects, print out our rules in a friendly format, delete crap. I love those delete scripts whenever I use them - they save So. Much. Time..!! Used Copilot (and Google AI) to help me with regex and Powershell (the regex stuff was pretty cool - I gave it a problem and it found me a solution - that worked!). Did lots of decommission work in the first two thirds of the year, ran out of time with everything else going to do much in the last third of the year. I still think my job description is mostly "Sadie". Helped Neil build and cut over to some new mail servers (which took months to finally get to do after they were like, oh, yeah there's a bug, soz). Ray brought in his pizza oven in February for a team lunch which was quite fun. We farewelled HBZ in February which was a bit sad, also farewelled Julian and Bruce in March and Imaar in October. There were trivia nights in March (a bit trash), June (a lot of fun, and we actually won, but luckily didn't have to run the next one - they decided in advance that the last place getters would run it) and October (a bit trash). Had a small "anti ball" in April but it was a bit of a fizzer and I don't think I'd bother trying to organise another one. Used "New" Outlook for only a couple of days in April because it was trash. The dealbreaker was shared calendars which just wouldn't render properly. Did a massive cleanup of our main dev environment, which I've been wanting to do for literally seven years. It makes me so happy that it's *clean* now! Worked on policy for our new cloud proxies, but even though I've been using myself for months we're still not really any closer to getting it released to everyone. In November it suddenly became crunch time on our existing proxies - the old hardware (which we've been using for TEN YEARS) was going EOL and we didn't want to renew the licence and we weren't ready to cut over to our new proxies, so I spent a few days migrating the policy to other equivalent but newer hardware, doing all the paperwork, and prepping it all so Con/Ward could cut it over while I was on holidays. It went mostly smoothly which was epic awesome. Spent a heap of time looking at what talks to some legacy domain controllers so could replicate their rules to new ones. Broke something during a transition though sadly. It was fixed super quickly once they told me though. Had to rework our ticket dashboards when they upgraded versions and our originals were done so long ago they were "legacy" and didn't work properly. Had various Christmas parties in December, including my annual bbq at the lake attended by over 40 people.

Health

I had a bit of a sore throat in February. Spent two days in bed and pretty sure I beat it off because I didn't seem to get fully sick. Mainly I was paranoid about getting sick because if I did I wouldn't have been able to see Uncle Graham in Adelaide. Ongoing bouts of insomnia and thermoregulation issues throughout the year (thanks menopause). Oh, and the minor inconvenience of the C-word. Not that C-word. The other C-word.

Family and Friends

We started the year (almost) with some of the n-gang (we left at 11:30 and got home just before midnight). Mum and D/K/S came for the family Christmas lunch in early January for last year, and a week before Christmas for this year. I definitely like doing an early family Christmas. Went to see Lily for her 21st in January. Had EffanC over for dinner in February, and also my birthday, and went over to theirs for dinner in May. David came to visit in March to install a new light fitting in the kitchen. Because the old one died. It was only six years old. Hating on how crap everything is nowadays. Mum tripped over just inside her village entrance in March and was knocked out and broke her collar bone. She went to hospital and they did a bunch of scans because they didn't know if she'd passed out and then fell, or got knocked out from the fall. Passing out first would have been super worrying. Fortunately there was security camera footage and you can clearly see she just tripped (she was power walking and was just moving off the main path when she tripped on a raised bit of concrete). Had Jenn over for dinner in March. It had been two years since we saw her last. Whoops! Caught up with Luc for drinks/dinner in May and December. Fiona came over with a care package in May, and visited again July. Tony also dropped in a care package in May, and we went to the arboretum in July, as well as had a couple of movie nights. Had lunch at the Burns Club with the Chrises and Tony in June and the Chrises and Glenda and Neil in December. Kit came to visit in August for Ben and Sarah's baby shower (which I would have loved to have gone to, but, people). Went and saw Annie and the family in August. Had Friday afternoon drinks with T/J in October - we really must do that more often! David and Kellie came to stay in November when they went and saw Ricky Martin. Went to Rob and Fiona's in November for a deck warming. Had Mishi's 60th in December. Had a super quiet Christmas Day, but Stu did got to see his family (and we'll hopefully catch up with them on New Years').  New Years Eve Eve party at M&M's with some of the n-gang.

The Social Club

We went out in June for Ian and Chris's 10th wedding anniversary formal night which was lovely. I did our annual Christmas in July by remote control this year - the sweetie did all the shopping for me, I did as much prep work as I could either at home or in the van, then got the sweetie and helpers to cook it all on the night (with lots of printed out instructions!). Went out again in September - Stu for a committee meeting, and I did some priming of cabinetry. Went to the Halloween Spooktacular night in October which was fun. Went out again in early November for a committee meeting for Stu, and I continued priming cabinetry. Then there was R&F's Christmas party in late November.

Photos

Spent ages picking out photos for Mum's funeral (on account of she wants to see it and I want to get it done in advance should the worst happen and then it would be one less thing I would need to think about). Spent chunks of time here and there tagging people in Picasa. I figured out how to have different databases for different people groups and even wrote a startup script to make it easy to switch between them. Jumped in to finally getting my Europe 2016 photos online - spent ages and ages culling culling culling, then labelling them and getting them online. I still have to make panoramas and get them online. Also filed a lot of photos into directories with more descriptive folder names. Re-scanned all of Mum's slides at the highest resolution my scanner would go (the first time I did them very quickly at a medium resolution). Then rescanned the ones with fluff on them, sometimes over and over and over again. I've geotagged our south coast trip from November, but that's all I've done so far.

Fish and Stumpy

Stumpy's UV light died at the end of last year, but I couldn't find anywhere that sold a 48" 10% UV light, so had to make do with an incandescent bulb which does heat *and* UV in one. He'd been pretty lethargic at the beginning of the year, possibly because of the lack of UV light. He perked up again with the new light, and got really quite tanned over the course of the year. My AquaOne 620T tank leaked in February because the filter wool drifted over and blocked the outlet, backing everything up. Whoever thought using chipboard to make fish tank stands would be a good idea should be shot. Lost the sucking catfish in the two foot downstairs in February - it was happy then was dead. Towards the end of the year I thought I was losing the clown loaches - they both hid in a corner and wouldn't come out. But in the last week or two they've been behaving more normally.

Our current fish inventory:
* upstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* four foot - nine congo tetras, one lone male guppy (I'll get him some friends when others in the other tanks get big enough), and an enormous fat loach
* Chrissie's tank - two clown loaches
* angel tank - a whole heap of guppies at various ages
* downstairs two foot - a whole heap of guppies at various ages

Lego

Spent ages of time (and money) on Vic's Lego. Bought a crazy number of loose pieces to complete some sets. I managed to complete all the Creator and City sets. I built and photographed the Creator sets and have been building the City sets. Still a long way to go though. The LEGO Group is taking over Bricklink more and more. This year they forced you to use your Lego account to sign into Bricklink and later in the year they gave two weeks notice they were going to suspend trading in a whole heap of countries (which they then pushed back til next year). I'm just waiting for them to enshittify it completely. The only set I built new was 31134 - Space Shuttle, which I got for my birthday, but haven't had a chance to build the other two sets I got for my birthday.

Jigsaws

A little bit quiet on the jigsaw front, especially at work. Bought two jigsaws with a voucher from my 50th birthday, but have only done one of them so far.

Other Hobbies

My favourite hobby at the moment is diamond painting. I find it super quieting for my brain (which always seems to be overstimulated). After the little Christmas tree I did on Christmas/Boxing Day last year, I've done Green Eyed Beauty, Pink Galah and Banksia, White Cockatoo and Waratahs, and started on Oh Christmas Tree (which Dave2 very kindly bought and posted to me, on account of not being able to find anywhere in Australia that still had it). I did an Anko miniblocks Owl in Tree that I got for Christmas from Kellie and David which was very cute. I also did a Nanoblocks Church I got from the Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction in March. It wasn't quite complete but it was mostly there and is very cute. And there was also a Petit Blocks fox I got at Daiso for at work. It's very cute. I bought a brand-new-second-hand saxophone from the Young Music School sale in February. Had it serviced and got it back in August. I've done a little bit of playing on it but not as much as I would have liked. I did find some easy Christmas music for it which was fun and have been on the hunt for other music for it.

Weather

We had hail in January, August, September, November and December. There were various rainbows throughout the year. In October/November it went from needing the heater, the cooler, the heater, the cooler, the heater (although didn't actually run it that time) in the space of two weeks. Had lots of storms in November and December. Had an overnight low of 0C on 2 December.

Toys / Purchases / Techie Stuff

I bought a new camera in January because my old one (Dad's old one) had some dead pixels and just isn't as good as newer cameras in low light. But I got super frustrated at the 24-105mm lens which didn't have the range of my old camera/lens. I also got frustrated at how dull and lifeless the photos are from it. Did a bunch of testing comparing the new camera, the old 600D, my G5X and my iPhone. Also played with user mode settings to increase saturation and contrast, which has made a difference. In July I got a 24-240mm lens, much happier with it than the 24-105mm. The 24-105mm is still great for people photos and low light, but the 24-240mm is my general usage lens. I'm totally hating on Windoze 11 which does utterly daft things. Like if I open a text document on one desktop, it'll open it IN ANOTHER DESKTOP!!! Even if just a moment ago I'd opened and closed another text file on the original desktop. Or that it NEVER remembers folder settings. There's a few folders that I have specific settings (sorting by reverse date order, details instead of large icons etc..) and it resets them every fricken time I use them. HATE. There were a couple of times this year it remembered the settings, but mostly it just reset them. Or that sometimes when I unlock in the morning, windows that I've had on the right screen (my main screen) will randomly be moved to my left screen (which I don't use all the time) and I have to turn on that screen and move them back. Or that notepad is so trash now. If you have a large text file it becomes unusable due to the lag of it trying to do spell checks or whatever. Or it'll literally just not enter keystrokes and just skip one or more letters that you've typed. Or that Windoze will reboot AGAINST YOUR WILL when it feels like it. Or that whenever I attach a USB device it takes a full minute for windoze to recognise it. Or that whenever I attach or remove a USB device, explorer collapses what directories I have open, so I have to re-navigate to them all to get back into folder context. Or that when I open a command prompt (which I have pinned to my task bar), the command prompt doesn't open where the pinned icon is, it opens all the way over on the right of whatever else I have open. I got a new desktop at work and it's doing the same thing. Yet the Azure ones didn't do this. Or it'll just randomly jump to the top of the explorer window and I have scroll back down to find where I was working. Or it changed how folders are displayed by date. My computer crashed earlier in the year and in October as well. Frustration with Apple. If you let it automatically set the time zone, it'll just change the time zone on you randomly. It stuffed up a bunch of photos in Adelaide with its nonsense. Apple also merges timelines from different numbers into one message thread. So you reply to a message in the thread, but it goes to the home number not the mobile number and is never received. Apple is so stoopid. I had to split out Mum's mobile number into a different contact to stop that happening. Google broke Chromecast because they didn't renew a certificate. Eventually after a week or so they fixed it. OneNote threatened to force me into an Office365 subscription, but didn't end up doing it. I finally got around to setting up my phone to use my own hosted SMTP service because Optus was getting super flaky for trying to send mail. Raged at Optus who now FORCE you into using $5/day roaming unless you pull the sim out of your phone. BOM updated their website in October and half the country screamed at them for ruining things. Pretty sure CloudLoop made some change to email headers in mid to late November which means that mails from some places aren't rendering properly. I downloaded (and paid a little) for Thunderbird to handle mail from the problematic senders. Might one day copy everything across, but for now the way of filtering mail is super annoying.

House stuff

I spent ages in the first part of the year trying to get the back yard under control. Our lemon tree dropped probably about a thousand lemons over summer. I'm not even exaggerating - a branch fell off that had 110 lemons on it, and that was just one branch out of the whole huge tree. I juiced most of them and was drinking homemade lemonade for months. I grew a bunch of mini capsicums which I could harvest in April. Such a lot of effort (and having to water every single day) for so little reward (but a nice reward!). We tried to turn the heater on in April but either the controller or the heater was having a spaz and kept rebooting. In May we managed to get it to work and didn't turn it off for literally two weeks straight. After that we managed to operate it normally for the rest of the winter. But in spring, after being off for a few days, it got the crazy behaviour again. Potted a chrysanthemum that I'd accidentally uprooted out the front and it's been thriving. I still need to find a permanent home for it. Frustration the Mirabella Genio lights and app, terrible user interface and annoying to try and get them to repair. Started picking strawberries from the weeds in the back yard at the beginning of November and continued through early December. Not nearly as many poppies this year, must have been too dry for them.

Restaurants

We had Quan's Kitchen delivery in January (because Dumpling Inn presumably wasn't open yet). We went to Bar 59 a few times in January for work drinks, and again in April. Dumpling Inn is a continuing favourite, with deliveries in January, June (x2), July, August, September, October and December. So is Chong Co, with deliveries in March, April, May (x2), June, August and October. McGriddles at Maccas finally arrived in Australia! I had one in July but my sense of taste was shot at the time so couldn't judge it. Have had a few more since October though. Went to Ikko again for a work farewell in October. Went to Stellas by the Lake for brunch in November with David and Kellie, nominally for his 50th. Tried out Bamiyan with Luc in December which was really good. Tried out Grease Monkey in the mall in December. Went out to Four Winds for pizza lunch with Tony in December for our annual lunch out there. Went to the Labor Club with Mum and Stu in December. And to the Old Canberra Inn for Tony's birthday.

Food / Cooking

Our first meal of the new year was cheesy hash browns cooked on New Years Day. We usually have pizzas every Thursday night, mostly made ourself, but occasionally a commercial one. We often have Ingham's chicken Kievs on Friday nights. And we often have a roast dinner on Sunday nights. Made lemon pepper dill chicken a few times (with all that lemon juice!) and creamy lemon dill sauce with either chicken or fish a few times. Luv-a-duck Peking duck is a favourite, had that a few times. Did a pork neck in the slow cooker in February which was *amazing* and again in April. Tried Microwave Pork Crackle in February which was actually pretty good! Had steak a few times earlier in the year (we never get steak at home because Stu is usually meh about it). Had NQN's butt sorry beef cheeks in May. Stu cooked a little bit in April/May when he was on leave. Made a potato, blue cheese, and rosemary pizza in July. I couldn't taste it at the time, need to do it again. Did slow cooker lamb shanks in August. Tried a cheats mac & cheese with just a bit of water and cheese (and a bit of milk in one version, cream in another). Made a couple of coconut cakes - once in the microwave and once in the oven in August. Did slow cooker beef brisket in August. Baked a plain cake and icing in August from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday cake book to test the recipe. Officially started cooking cakes out of it in September (just one so far!). Made puff pastry scrolls a few times - vegemite or pizza flavoured. Cooked some crackling by itself in November which turned out pretty well. Made some gingerbread biscuits in December. Made a peppermint slice in December.

Theatre / Shows / Exhibitions

* Pompeii at the National Museum in January with Mum which was really good
* AI in Science talk in April with T/J, but missed the rest due to avoiding people and being busy
* Constellations at the NFSA in April with Tony which was amazing
* Back to the Future - The Musical with the sweetie in December which was a bit of fun

Movies (at the movies)

None. *gasp*

Movies (TV)

* Heaven is for Real
* Die Hard 3
* Darkest Hour
* Star Trek: Generations (after seeing the Duras sisters in DS9 1.3)
* Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
* Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Blackberry
* The Princess Bride
* Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
* Fantasia 2000
* Perfect Days
* Inglorious Basterds
* The Holdovers
* Jaws
* Flying High
* Rogue One
* Star Wars (A New Hope)
* The Empire Strikes Back
* Return of the Jedi
* The Post
* Cruella
* Forgetting Sarah Marshall
* Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
* Terms of Endearment
* Lego Batman Movie
* Lilo and Stitch (the original animated one, and the live action remake)
* The Green Mile
* Passengers
* The Last Emperor
* Back to the Future, I, II and III
* V for Vendetta
* The China Syndrome
* Die Hard and Die Hard 2
* Birdman
* The Neverending Story
* Love Actually
* Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2

TV

* Death in Paradise - seasons 11, 12, 13, 14
* Wednesday - seasons 1, 2
* Beyond Paradise - Death in Paradise but back in the UK
* Stranger Things - season 1 early in the year, then 2/3/4/5 later on
* Return to Paradise - a spinoff of Death in Paradise set on the south coast of NSW
* Meltdown: Three Mile Island
* Deep Space Nine - seasons 1-7
* Air Crash Investigations on Disney+
* Andor - season 2
* How to Change your Mind
* Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
* Lego Grand Masters of the Galaxy
* Trainwreck: Poop Cruise
* Black Mirror - season 7
* Tokyo Trial
* Trainwreck: Storm Area 51
* The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem
* Futurama - season 13
* You Are What You Eat
* The Simpsons - bit of season 36
* Lost Melbourne documentary
* GameStop documentary
* Pirates: Behind the Legends - a couple of episodes

Books

None. Although I did get some way through The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Reading is just so *hard*.

Other Stuff

* Got frustrated at the lack of response from Access Canberra in January over the new MyWay+ issues
* Got some ok photos Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) in January
* Got our Queensland holiday from 2004 and Col and Sandra's wedding blogged. Only took 21 years to get online..
* Took some Cousin Itt photos in February
* Remembered 11 years since Dad carked it in February
* The Green Shed closed down booooo and was replaced by "Goodies Junction" run by Vinnies. Definitely preferred the Green Shed. Later in the year found out the owner of the Green Shed started a spinoff in Fyshwick.
* Did a keto diet for a few weeks in February to lose a few kilos. It was pretty effective! And mostly kept the weight off too.
* Neighbours moved to New Zealand in April
* Climbed Mt Rogers a bunch of times in April while I was trying to get a bit fitter for my holiday
* Did low carb again for a little while in April. Gave up when it became apparent I wasn't going overseas.
* Had a lovely drive around Canberra on our wedding anniversary in April
* Saw the Giant Crane in May
* Listened to the Classic 100 Piano in June
* Went to the Handmade Markets at EPIC in June
* Neighbours house was finally rented out in June
* Watched all of Jamie's Anti-Chef videos from the very beginning in order from August. Still only about two thirds of the way through them.
* A red-back spider took up residence in our letter box in August. She was spray-and-wiped.
* Crimson rosellas returned to chew on the beams supporting the roof
* Stu rage-retired in September. Then spent the better part of a month in agony from his back. Recovered from that only to have hearing problems and nausea.
* Saw comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), but only barely
* Visited the new "Green" Shed (The Shed) in October
* Stu more or less took over some cooking and some basic housework in October or November
* Plucked a number out of the air to go for in the Melbourne Cup (my birthday), and that horse won!
* Got frustrated at MyWay+ which doesn't work properly. Got one free ride out of it, but then figured out a fix.
* Got some photos of the aurora in November, although I never actually saw it
* Made a beer advent calendar out of beers I missed from work drinks that Neil saved for me
* Found a 2011 10c coin!!
* Chipped one of my front teeth
* Neighbours got a new barky dog
* Reread the second half of the New Testament

So there we have it.  I guess a fairly quiet year in a lot of ways.  We're both hoping 2026 will be better, especially health-wise.

Happy New Year!!!

Sunday.  28th.  Stu wanted karaage chicken pizza for dinner. Whoops. Stranger Things 5.7.

Monday.  Busy morning of all the things. Decided to have another go at attaching the CanoScan 8400F on my main windoze 11 machine. I know it definitely used to work on windoze 11, but the last time I tried it it refused to work. So then I wondered if maybe I was just too impatient - anything I plug in with USB takes a full minute to appear to windoze. No idea why. It only seems to happen on my computer, has from day one. Anyways. It works. So all these years I could have been scanning on my main computer and not have to turn on my old computer to scan. Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Leftover turkey and veggies for dinner then watched Enola Holmes 2. Yay for dementia, even though we only watched it three years ago, I really couldn't remember *anything* about it.

Tuesday.  Early night, slept relatively well, but then of course awake from fivish. Realised my phone hadn't charged all night. Replugged the cable. Nothing. Then realised the wifi was off. Rebooted my phone but nothing worked. Then I noticed the clock radio was off. Great. Must have tripped a circuit. Yeah. At ~23:00. So half the house including three fish tanks and the fridge/freezer were off all night. Ice cubes were still frozen though so all good there. Most likely it's the old heater in the downstairs two foot. Although I replaced it a while back but never removed the old one, but now I can't remember which was the old one and which was the replacement. Will need to stick a thermometer in there (the old one wasn't heating properly). Also off was the cooler, so ran it on fan mode for an hour or so to try and cool down the house a little before today's 34C madness. Later Stu said he'd had an alert that the grid had gone offline, so maybe it was something to do with that. Not great that it would trip a circuit flipping to battery mode though. Another quiet day of fish and scanning and dotz.

In the afternoon went over to M&M's for a pool party/bbq New Year's Eve Eve which was nice.

It threatened to rain.  Then it did.  A lot.

I haven't seen these since I was in primary school!!!

Wednesday.  New Years Eve.  We're officially a quarter of the way through the century.  Mediocre sleep. Day of reflection (writing up my year in review post), slide scanning, Lego, dotz.

With a family of currawongs demolishing the plums on the self-seeded plum tree.  

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth,"[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death'[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Finished re-reading the New Testament today.  The verses above remind of The Holy City from carols, so fun timing.  A new heaven and a new earth will be pretty awesome.  But for now we can just be content with a new year...

Photos to be added when I download them on the weekend.

Sunday a week and a half ago I gave up trying to do anything off my main todo list and just concentrated on Christmas stuff.  So once the house was clean I felt relaxed enough to make some gingerbread biscuits.  

I dug out the recipe given to us when we used to make gingerbread houses at church.  Then halved it.  This is the full recipe, which I might do one day to make an actual gingerbread house.

So this is the butter, suger and spices mixed up

Then with golden syrup and an egg (remember we're halving things)

I didn't chill the dough cause who has time for that crap.  Yeah dumb idea, it's super soft and sticky when it's warm.  I ended up putting it in the freezer while I was working on other biscuits.

I was a bit dubious about using the back of trays.  I really don't think it makes much difference.  I think having a little flour on the tray would help them not stick though.

The first batch I did for 7 minutes and they were fine.  Others I did for 10 minutes.  Also fine.

I bought this writing icing for the black - to replace licorice when making cakes from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake book.

The white was great.  The green was like a gel rather than icing.  Not great but still mostly worked ok.  The red was terrible - it was quite liquid and went everywhere.

Fun times!

Sunday.  14th.  Backdating this a few days.  Had leftovers for dinner then we watched a documentary "Lost Melbourne" about the loss of a lot of old buildings in Melbourne in the name of progress. Melbourne is still a lot better off than a lot of cities though, even Sydney.

Monday.  Awake from 12 for ages, then again from 5 for ages. Hurray.  Busy day not achieving much.  Went to Four Winds with Tony for our now annual tradition of wine and pizza.  Such a lovely place out there.

Did some Christmas music on the sax in the evening.

The last strawberry of the year!

Tuesday.  Crap sleep. Awake every hour or so feeling hot and needing to cool down. Another day of not achieving much. But we did have a division Christmas party at work which was nice. Came like second in the two lolly guessing competitions. After work we went and picked up the mother type person at Jolimont then went to the Labor Club for dinner.

I may have given those anchovies to the sweetie

Got home and looked at Mum's slide show of Croatia and Greece, then we looked at all of Dad's photos of Tasmania.

Wednesday.  Restless sleep. Fairly chilled morning, did a bit of cleaning.

Eventually D/K/S left Junee so I made apple sauce then a potato bake then another potato bake then the roast pork then a veggie tray bake.

Blue cheese potato bake (with thyme), bacon potato bake, brussels sprouts, sweet potato, spring onion and bacon (with hazelnuts), apple sauce.  Just missing the pork which is in the oven by this point

Just finished doing all that when they arrived - great timing! Kellie brought a heap of noms so we had those and did photos and presents and stuffs while lunch cooked.

The pork turned out fairly well (the crackling worked really well but the meat may have been a little overdone).

There may have been a lot of bubbles

Played a game of Five Crowns although I got super frustrated near the end when several rounds in a row people went out before I'd even had one turn, or maybe had just had one turn. So upsetting. I don't even know who won in the end.  Played a bit of Pictionary but just playing through cards not actually using the board. Put on Flying High in the evening. D/K/S left and Mum and I finished watching the movie ourselves.  All in all a lovely day.

Thursday.  Awake from some time after 2. Hurray. Dropped Mum off at Jolimont then went to work. Did a bit of party prep and DC rules work. At drinks I took up all the leftover cans of drinks from the work family party that I bought off Neil and washed them all (they were all covered in dirt). Pizzas for dinner then Love Actually but it was too late a night :(

Friday.  Awake from 4:53.  Sigh.  Then I started thinking about the day's party and all bets were off.  Hurray.  Party prep in the morning then party all afternoon! 

Sadly I didn't catch any birds this year.  Leftovers for dinner then we watched part 1 of a documentary on the Gamestop nonsense. 

Saturday.  Awake from like 3:30. Hurray.  Spent much of the morning sorting out the rubbish and recycling from the party. Super annoyingly, some helpful person tried to clean up, and very helpfully threw out a bunch of the plastic forks. Pissed off about that because those things are irreplaceable!!! I also chipped a tooth on the last of the pork crackling I had at lunch. Sigh.  Storms and epic clouds in the evening.

We were getting hail (only a tiny amount) while this rainbow was out

Then it all disappeared.  That's the end of the storm right there.

And there may have been a Dumpling Inn delivery for dinner..

Did I mention the epic clouds?

Super early night because zombie tired.

I saw this in the Green Shed, sorry Vinnies, sorry Goodies Junction a while back and snapped a photo of it - 101 Places to See Before You Die.  From the font on it I thought it might be pretty old - like maybe 80s or 90s, but the Millau Viaduct is on there and it didn't open til 2004.  

I went through the list recently (copied off here) and noted which ones I've actually been to/seen.  I also noted, for the ones I haven't, whether I want to see them, I'd be open to seeing them, or whether I don't really have an interest (or would be impossible with the current state of the world).

Here's my list!

So from the 101 entries:
Seen 45
Bucket List 15
Maybe 23
Shrug 18

Not a bad effort :)

Sunday.  24th.  Cooked up some fish that Stu bought with a creamy lemon sauce, with some leftover veggies and some frozen veggies.

I've also been eating some lime jelly that I made up with some half price jelly from Chris's.

DS9 6.10.  We might have had a craving for coconut cake.  It would have taken nearly an hour to do it in the oven, so we tried David's method of doing it in the microwave.  It was ok, but hard in places and soggy in others.  Do not recommend.

Very tired.

Monday.  Slept okish maybe. Still feeling blah. I'm kinda over this crap. Another couple of days of blah for this cycle then only one to go at least.

Put on some brisket at lunch and roasted a bunch of veggies (cauliflower bake and brussels sprouts) and some garlic bread because I can actually still taste garlic.

DS9 6.11 then continued watching Anti-Chef from the beginning (up to video 10).

Also. A red-back spider took up residence in our letter box WTF?? All the nope. Normally I will evict spiders but this one didn't want to be caught and there's no way I'm going to keep sticking my hand in a letterbox with a venomous spider there. So she got spray-and-wiped.  Sorry.

Tuesday.  Felt somewhat better today. Back to DC migration stuff and helping Neil cut over to new mail servers. Cooked up the rest of the fish with some leftover veggies for dinner then DS9 6.12. More Ferengi dumbness.

Wednesday.  Felt normal enough to have food for breakfast today (in the first week I don't feel like much, usually will just have some milk). Spent way too long looking at a login problem that we should have been able to figure out and fix earlier hrmmm.

Stumpy gave me "the look" at one point today - the look that says, aight I'm done with my winter fast, give me food.  

Europe photo labelling and Jamie Anti-Chef watching. Leftover brisket and veggies for dinner then DS9 6.13 which was kinda fun seeing what everyone looks like normally.

Thursday.  Woke up at like 2:30 for ages. Continuing to feel a bit better. Bit of DC work and dealing with crap.

Managed to label a day of photos. Pizzas for dinner (must be Thursday!)

Then DS9 6.14 which reminded me of the old Lost in Space episode where they go inside the giant robot (Trip Through the Robot - I only ever saw a couple of episodes of this show like ever, but happened to see that one twice).

Friday.  Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.  I remember having to learn that once when I was younger.  

Slept a little better. Got a bunch of my DC work done but also a bunch of XL's work and dealing with crap. Just missed getting hailed on getting supplies from Chris's.

Had a fake beer. Just doesn't cut it. Kievs for dinner then DS9 6.15. 

Went over to see Annie and the family after dinner so that was a nice catchup.  Mila was in town too which was nice.

Saturday.  Slept okish. Bit of Lego. Also got my brand-new-second-hand saxomaphone back all clean and shiny. So it seems low D/C notes are super tricky on a saxophone. But higher notes are a lot easier.

Leftover brisket for dinner then DS9 6.16 and Tokyo Trial episode 2.

Sunday.  Woke up at one point needing to pee, then didn't get back to sleep for ages. Mostly a Lego and photo and baking day.

On our anniversary last weekend we did a bit of a magical mystery tour of Canberra.  We went to a heap of "our" places (mostly friends/family).  

We drove past Annie and Stu's, Mishi's and our old place

Through Gungahlin

Past Scott and Kerry's old house and Flemington Road

Through Dickson

Past Scott and Kerry's old old house (which has been demolished and replaced with two townhouses)

And into Ainslie

Where we returned to the scene of the crime!

Had a long chat with the lady cleaning the church.

Then into Ainslie shops.

Past the War Memorial

And up Mount Ainslie

Then we headed for home

It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours with the sweetie!