Cake 2 out of the Australian Women's Weekly Childrend's Birthday Cake Book - Hickory Dickory Clock!

So start with one rectangular butter cake (I had to go hunting around for a tin the right size and found one at Woollies).

I tried making a meniscus...

It didn't help much..

Turned it out to cool

Once cooled, cut out bits of it to make the clock shape.  I probably cut too much off the sides.

They said to mix a tablespoon of cocoa powder with a tablespoon of water in three quarters of the Vienna cream to brown it up.. but it made it way too dark, I think probably only a teaspoon of each would be enough.

I also dropped the single drop of magenta food colouring into some water so I could control the amount of pink in the pink quarter of the icing.  I really didn't need much!

I started with the chocolate icing

Then filled in the pink stuff

This is two packs of Smarties.  I would have needed another three or four to get enough pink ones..

I just used my own colouring instead

Next I used the black "writing icing" to write out the licorice bits (we both hate licorice).  But it's a gel so it goes everywhere.  Not ideal.  Also, Chris didn't have Freckles, but even if he did they wouldn't have fitted, so I just used cachous instead.

You'll note there are no prune mice, because as I've said previously, we're not fans; or licorice bullets, because we both hate licorice.

This is what it's supposed to look like... 

Nailed it..? ;)

Sunday.  17th.  My usual Sunday routine is to backup phone and download my photos. Two hours later the backup is still going.. hrmmm. Tried out the new DVD player (which we got cause the old Laser one was doing dumb things like putting out the audio but not the video. The new one is doing the same thing. Sigh. Tried turning the TV off and on again which fixed. Why is technology so crap? To watch the Chromecast we have to reboot the amp, to watch DVDs we need to reboot the TV. Probably also the old DVD player isn't actually faulty, it's probably the TV. At least the new one gets the aspect ratio right, without having to adjust the TV settings. Veggies for dinner (no photos because my phone is still backing up) and MacGyver (getting back into it now we have a workingish DVD player). Then watched These Pretzels are Making Me Thirsty. Cause that's my tagline at the moment. These proxies are making me thirsty. Gave up trying to backup phone after like FOUR HOURS of it being connected.

Monday.  Awake for a while here and there, partly stressing about the hottest 100. Not stressing, just my brain was stuck in a loop. The heater worked first go but then died after its second break. Proxy day. Stu heated up some leftover sausages and we had those with leftover for veggies. Watched a video on a birdwatcher who went to a few places we went to in Victoria. The been-there's were pretty cool. But what stunned me is they're allowing duck shooting in the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve. What the actual F#$^??? A quick Google suggests they may have backtracked on that for the moment.. but seriously.. who the F#$% approved that in the first place???? Utterly outrageous!!!

Tuesday.  Okish sleep. Proxy day. No luck on the heater at all today. But we did get a dude from Voltair around to look at putting in a split system. Still nothing back from Climatrol about the heater though. Cloudloop have cut off cPanel/webmail/FTP due to vulnerabilities which don't have patches.. which is fine.. but they're talking about making that for "the foreseeable future" .. which would be super problematic for me (and I imagine a tonne of other customers) that are on ISPs that change IP addresses all the time.. hmm. ok they got back to me and said it should just be until they patch things (when they get a patch), so that's fine.  The new DVD player is a bit dumb.  Had reboot the tv this time to get it to work. Maybe there was actually nothing wrong with the old one (which was doing the same thing). hrmmmmmmm. At least this one sends the right aspect ratio to the TV, so no fiddling on the tv to make it show 4:3 for these ancient tv shows. Also today David sent me a link to a post by the Canberra Reptile Zoo saying that blue tongue lizards are no longer exempt from needing a licence. So then had to spend ages trying to figure out Access Canberra's website for information (there may have been some in some very long PDFs but nothing clear and simple that I could find about the changes until you actually load up the licence request form). I also don't really have any good photos of the whole enclosure so just sent the best ones I have to get it done.

Wednesday.  Took a while to get to sleep (restless) but then slept mostly ok. 12.4C in the house sigh. Proxy day.  Went to Hungry Cracks with Con and Jim and tried the Korean BBQ fried chicken burger which was pretty decent.  We even sat outside.

TV dinner for dinner.

Thursday.  Took a while to get to sleep (not restless, just awake). 11.1C in the house.  XL got a couple of KFC Hot Rods and gave me one - was pretty good!  Thanks XL!

In the afternoon the desktop guys released the new proxy to a bunch of peeps. Good drinks. Mills&Grills again and MacGyver.

Friday.  Logged onto work early to monitor for any problems from the proxy rollout. A few minor things but nothing too crazy. Well other than Microsoft's Whiteboard getting itself into a login loop. FFS why is Microsoft so BAD at literally everything?? Called Climatrol in the morning.  They never received my web form submission.  Sigh.  They're going to come next week to look at the heater.  Called POETS and we headed out to the club. Got the fire going and had tv dinners for dinner and afterwards Chris and Geoff came over and we just chatted for a while which was nice.

Saturday.  In the morning all around the toilet block and shed were all these big beautiful moths! I tried to save a couple of them from getting squished by people stepping on them in the doorways, but I actually sentenced them to death because a raven was watching me and was like "easy breakfast!!".

Went to the shed to see if they needed any help, but at the time the only thing going on was balloon blowing up. I don't do balloons. Having them overinflate and pop scares me too much, plus I can't even tie up the things, never have been able to. So left and raked leaves for like an hour. Then the sweetie and I went for a walk to look for birds. Saw a white-throated treecreeper which was pretty cool (it found a moth as well!).

Did some tapestry for a while. At 14:00 they had an afternoon tea. There was HEAPS of food, but I didn't eat too much - didn't want to spoil my appetite for dinner.

The shed looked spectacular!!

Just part of the afternoon tea spread

Then really just hang around chatting to peeps before dinner. Dinner was catered which was pretty cool. Quite a bit more expensive than self-catering but they do all the prep *and* all the dishes!!  (they did run out of a few things unfortunately).

I was hanging out for crackling but in the end they couldn't make much, but they were super sweet and gave it to me! I was honoured!

There were a bunch of speeches and cake cutting (three of them!!) and then we just hung out.

I also may have looked a bit like the Queen with my stoopid boofy hair and the "50" tiara that I wore that I got for my 50th.  Several people said so!

Bit of a late night, and we saw a tawny frogmouth outside, feasting on the moths.

Sunday.  Late night, but awake from 5:27. Hurray. Came home and had a pretty quiet day (super tired). Tried a few times to get the heater going but with no success. Stu did a power cycle on it and managed to get it to run for one cycle.  iTunes backed up my phone properly this week.

Sunday.  3rd.  Epic roast pork for dinner!   The crackling and meat both turned out quite well (2.4kg deboned shoulder).

Then we watched the first episode on a documentary on lighthouses (The Secret Life of the Lighthouse) - this one on the Eddystone lighthouse of Plymouth. A bit of fun and quite interesting.  Then I watched Matilda the Musical which was a bit of fun. Emma Thompson is unrecognisable as Trunchbull and the kid who played Matilda sounded exactly like Emma Watson as a young Hermione. 

Monday.  Star Wars Day.  Took a while to get to sleep and awake early for ages. Frustrating day of waiting for people and feeling like I actually went backwards with the proxies. For lunch I made toast pizzas which were yummy.

And the raindrops on the climbing rose in front of the cherry tree which is turning yellow looked pretty cool

Stu cooked up a bunch of veggies for dinner including a nice goats cheese cauliflower bake (the cheese was a couple of months past its use-by date (I bought it past its use-by date from Chris's before we went on holidays).. she'll be right!!).

Then the second episode of the Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Bell Rock).

Tuesday.  Slept okish. Another frustrating day of waiting for people, then a super busy afternoon with various meetings/calls. Oof. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner then episode 3 of The Secret Life of the Lighthouse (on Fastnet Rock). Neither Lego set that I put up/relisted last week sold. And buying the last remaining missing pieces off Bricklink is also frustrating because the places that have a lot of the pieces I need charge exorbitant prices for them, and the places that charge reasonable prices don't have many pieces, so the postage gets prohibitive. Blerf.

In other fun crap today. We tried to turn the heater on after quite a few days of not needing it. But it kept dying. This afternoon Stu replaced the brand-new-second-hand controller we bought last year. This one the temperature dial works properly and so does the display, and now we can see the new error it's giving - Err 50 HI (and Err 10 HI). Google AI from Facebook says:

A Brivis ducted heater "Err 50 Hi" (or Error 50) indicates an ignition lockout, meaning the heater failed to light after four attempts. Common causes include no gas supply, a faulty igniter, or a faulty gas valve. Reset the unit using the reset button on the controller to try clearing it.

On the old controller the reset button just caused the whole controller to crash out. At least the new one can get it to work eventually. We'll have to see if a service will fix it. Leftovers for dinner and the Lighthouses series 1.3 on Fastnet Rock.

Wednesday.  Awake from 3:00 for hours sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Stu cooked some vege ravioli in creamy mushroom sauce which was nice then the Secret Life of the Lighthouse 2.1 on Wolf Rock.

Thursday.  Awake from like 3:30 for ages sigh. Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Good drinks - several other tables of peoples. Picked up Mills and Grills pizzas for dinner.

See Dominos.. THIS is how pizza is done!

Potata $21.90 - cheese, bacon, potato, aioli, garlic - yum!

Don Pepperoni $15.90

Death in Paradise 15.7. I think the entire solution was speculation with barely any evidence.  How would they ever get this to trial?

Friday.  Slept in til like 5! Another stoopidly busy day dealing with problems with the proxies. Kievs for dinner, Lighthouses 2.2 on The Smalls.

Then I watched The Little Mermaid "real life" remake from 2023. It's like two hours fifteen minutes though WTF??  Caribbean setting, but filmed in Italy. They kept most of the original songs, and even added a few.  And Jodi Benson was in it which was pretty cool.  And Melissa McCarthy was pretty good as Ursula.   I mean it wasn't *bad*.. just not the same...

Saturday.  Awake for ages from like 1:30 blerf. Quiet day of house and photo stuff. Leftover pork and veggies for dinner. Then we watched Remarkably Bright Creatures which was funny and sweet and I found quite emotional. Lovely!

Also this strawberry didn't get the memo that it's autumn not spring..

Sunday.  Awake for a while around midnight, and I was awake just before midnight when someone let off a whole heap of fireworks down the back which were quite pretty! Went for a walk (called the mother type person on the way), then popped out to pick up some Lego off a Bricklink seller, which ended up being two hours of that, Green Shed sorry Vinnies sorry Goodies Junction to drop off a pile of jigsaws (and not pick up any more!), and food shopping.

Happy Mother's Day!

On Friday we all headed to Braddon to go to Bentspoke to celebrate Neil working 50 years!

The booking was super stressful.  They force you to give you a credit card so they can charge you $40pp if you cancel within 24 hours of the booking.  So that was a bit offputting.  But it all worked out.  I booked for 18 in the end and I think we had 16 for the main part of lunch, but another four people came over the course of the afternoon.  

I tried a bunch of beers with a couple of these taster paddles

For lunch I had the Southern Fried Chicken Burger ($25) with Americano mayo, American cheese and iceberg served with chips & choice of sauce.  I asked for regular mayo but they talked me into the chilli mayo which they said wasn't very hot.  Yeah it was hot.  Took me ages to get through it and didn't each much of the sauce.  Otherwise it was very nice.  Their chips are pretty good.

Very nicely the kitchen doesn't close between lunch and dinner, so we were able to get more food over the course of the afternoon to stop us getting too silly.

A lovely afternoon.

Sunday.  12th.   Leftovers for dinner then Professor T 3.4.

Monday.  Slept okish I think. Felt all day that work was completely pointless. I keep getting called into meetings for one project that people have to do every couple of years, but instead of reusing previous years' work, they insist on redoing everything from scratch, which feels like the most massivest waste of time and money ever. Then I was waiting for other to people to help me with some stuff. Still waiting. Stu cooked up some goats cheese and caramelised onion ravioli with a creamy mushroom sauce which was very nice. Professor T 3.5.

Tuesday.  Slept okish I think. More pointlessness and waiting for people at work.

Went into town after work for the first Shine Dome talk of the year in the Bright Minds, Bold Voices series.  This time they had Professor Stephen Simpson from the Charles Perkins Centre and Vanessa Hudson the CEO of Qantas to talk about "Reimagining how we fly".  The format was a little different from previous years (although I missed most of last year's due to reasons so not sure what they did then) in that they just had the guest speakers sitting out the front and chatting about stuff rather than having formal talks.  They were talking about the collaboration they're doing between science and Qantas to optimise the long haul experience by the choices of lighting and food service to try and reduce the worst of jetlag.  This was going to be especially relevant for Qantas' Project Sunrise A350 flights which are aiming for 22 hour non-stop flights from east coast Australia to the UK.  Which is great and all, but I was still hung up on how little *space* you get in cattle class. Vanessa addressed this right at the very end with a quick comment about how economy will get 34 inches between seats instead of the usual 31-32.  pfffffft.  Sorry but I need more horizontal space as well so I don't feel like I'm pinned in (which leads to epic restless legs).

Professor Stephen Simpson, Vanessa Hudson, Lish Fejer

We saw this very purple mustang in the car park..

Then Tony and I went for a light dinner at Badger & Co (we split this on account of pigging out at the Shine Dome)

Wednesday.  Slept okish I think. I don't think I achieved anything useful today. I did get a ride to and from work with Chrissie though in her Tesla. OMFG there are so many DUMB things. Like the door handles for a start (to get in you have to press them in then you can pull them out, and to get out you can either find an awkward little handle in the arm rest area, or push a button). You have to change gears using a touchscreen WTF?? (Ray pointed out that how often do you *really* need to change gears in an automatic electric car?).  Yeah so if the touchscreen dies you can't drive your car. Hurray.  And blinkers are a button on the steering wheel. The torque on it is pretty impressive though. Like a rollercoaster.  Stu cooked up a fake satay chicken using some almond paste we wanted to get rid of out of the fridge, with some red curry paste, coconut cream, fish sauce, chilli powder, sugar and some veggies that needed using up out of the freezer. It was very yummy and tasted like satay.  Professor T 3.6 (end of season 3).

There's actually a bunch of rice under this!

Thursday.  Took forever to get to sleep - super restless. Then another day of not achieving much. Chrissie came to drinks which was kinda fun. Although I think Mike hates me. hrmm. Got Dominos again, but only because they sent us a $23 voucher for a free pizza during the week (something about the delivery taking longer than 24 minutes last time). These pizzas actually went back to almost being full sized. Almost. Yeah, still only 9.5 inches.  The thin and crispy pepperoni we got was just over 10 inches. Still pretty hopeless. Professor T 4.1.

Friday.  Broken sleep from 2am. At work mostly just fixing up logging on the new proxies. Kievs for dinner. Professor T 4.2.

Saturday.  Somewhat restless sleep. Got annoyed (listening to the news in the morning) that I was going to miss the airport open day. I knew it was coming up but they hadn't put tickets online yet before I went away for our holiday, then I forgot to keep an eye on it while we were away. Annoying too because they were going to have an A220 which I haven't seen before. #grunt. Went for a walk again in the morning.

Got back then went out birdwatching with the sweetie. Suddenly the day is half over. Whoops.

.

Quiet afternoon.  I may have done a jigsaw.

Fire out at Googong (hazard reduction)

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies for dinner (including a very nice cabbage (cauliflower I think) bake using a pack of goats cheese I got from Chris's that was already past its use-by date when I bought it before we went on holidays... she'll be right!)

Then watched Netflix's 2023 "Civil War" which was a bit.. bleak..

Sunday.  Slept mostly okish I think. Quiet morning, then in the afternoon went with Jo and Mel to see The Sound of Music at the NSFA .. singalong!!!!! OMFG it was so much fun. The sweetie just barely tolerates me singing along in movies, so this was a great opportunity to really have some fun. It was awesome! Thanks Jo for the invite!

Monday.  6th.  Stu cooked up some veggies and I fried up some lamb and then we watched Professor T 2.5, then I just watched crap on the internet.

Tuesday.  Slept okish I think. Spent the day working on getting the last of the vips migrated off the old load balancer. Stuff is mostly ready to go, just need to quadruple check everything and do a heck of a lot of testing. Leftovers for dinner, Professor T 2.6 (end of season two), then labelling Europe panorama photos. The internet died around 21:40. Hurrah.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok (although woke up around 5:20). The internet was still dead but came back before I went to work. Continued work on the last vip migration, only to find out someone else is doing another change to the back end of the system I want to work on around the same time. So I'm going to have to wait a couple more weeks. Also got pulled into a couple of blergh meetings which took up a bit chunk of the day.

Turdhead neighbour has parked his massive ute on our land. I left a note asking to please not park on our side. Finished labelling my Europe 2016 panorama photos.

Thursday.  Mostly awake from 3 except for a couple of short patches of dream sleep. Busyish day again, but waiting for people, so moved onto trying to solve a problem on the new proxies. Everything said to do something a certain way for HTTP/2 but it just wouldn't work and I had to raise a support ticket sigh. Not sure how busy drinks was, I don't think very (we were outside). We got Dominos pizzas for dinner. Shockingly, they've shrinkflated their pizzas. When I opened the first one I thought it was a joke, or a "special" pizza that was supposed to be smaller. Nope. They were both like 2/3 the diameter they should be. #grunt.  Will be boycotting Dominos til they fix their $#!+  I should have measured these..

Professor T 3.1. Bed.

Friday.  Restless night, weird dreams. Woke up cranky with the world. Also the neighbours still have one of their trucks parked on our side - it's been there for *days*. #grunt. The note I left the other night was gone. Talked to J in the morning who said he'd told T not to park there. At work I'm still angry they took away my Visio licence while I was on leave and refuse to give it back. Pissed off with the world. Busy day not achieving much including more meetings and having to deal with vendor support. Kievs for dinner then Professor T 3.2.

I was so excited Chris had potato gems!!!  Haven't had them in ages

Saturday.  Took ages to get to sleep - stressing over the neighbours. Then restless sleep. I was gonna go yell at turd neighbour to move his ute, but he'd already left for work. So I put some bins in the spot so hopefully he'll get the hint. Went for a walk, finished htmlifying Europe 2016 panoramas, watched the Artemis II splashdown.

Look how green everything is at the moment!

Food shopping in the afternoon, don't know what else I did. Neighbour came home and parked on his side. Hurray! Stu cooked a Japanese curry for dinner. Professor T 3.3.

Sunday.  Early night. Slept mostly ok. Went for a walk again. Got jumped on by TWO dogs. Seriously people if you have a dog that's likely to jump on people KEEP IT ON A LEASH!!! It's not that hard!! Busy day getting lots of stuff done around the house including washing, weeding, mowing, and even some music.

I'm so excited my chrysanthemum has got some life on it!!!

We also went out to West Belconnen Pond to go birdwatching but it was super windy - feels like 6C whoops.

Windoze didn't remember my iPhone in tray settings, but it did remember the date order sorting on my blog posting directory.

Yeah it's been a week...

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.

Thursday.  26th.  Got home from our holidays around 17:00ish.  I started the download of photos from the Canon and my phone and also the GPS and blogged the last couple of days of the holiday.  The sweetie ordered pizzas and we watched Professor T 1.2.

Friday.  Awake from 3:40 hurrah. Did some unpacking and house stuff. Went outside to check on my plants and was horrified to discover my chrysanthemum is dead. Sigh. It'd obviously had some issues previously, but when I got to it it was bone dry and all the green leaves (and little flower buds) had dried out.  I chucked it under the awing to get a good soaking and I'm just HOPING that there'll be something left alive in it to send out some new shoots.

Not so problematic..

Apparently we had a lot of rain...

Everything else was fine though, thanks Tony.  Didn't stop me being zombie tired *and* depressed though.

Got some stuff done but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I did get some pretty amazing support out of Region media though. Their RSS feed stopped working at the end of February (which I didn't notice because we were travelling and I wasn't really keeping up with most of my feeds). Looks like they were blocking automated clients - it still worked in a browser. Anyways I took a punt on their support address and emailed them, and shortly afterwards got a mail back saying they'd fixed it. .. !! .. And sure enough they had! I was impressed :) Kievs for dinner then Professor T 1.3.

Saturday.  So had an earlyish night and thought I got to sleep ok, but then woke up at 4:11 for a couple of hours. Sigh. So an hour late starting my day. Not as zombie tired though so that was useful - was able to process (rotate and rename) all my Canon photos from the holiday and back them up. Also started going through receipts/statements to figure out how much the holiday cost. Hint: it was a lot. We spent over $800 on petrol! Eeep! In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for a while which was nice. And brought home seven tv dinners that Lily had bought by mistake and couldn't eat (and no one else wanted).

Had said tv dinners for dinner (they were tasty!) and watched Professor T 1.4.

Then I watched Elio which was a bit of fun, but really just a fun kids movie. "Your disk is muted" haha.  Also watched a video Dave2 linked to about how Pixar is so fundamentally different now.

Sunday.  Bed normal time, awake for chunks of the night sigh. So I was fairly tired although not completely zombie tired. Ploughed through some of the todo list, and finished sorting holiday finances. 43% went on accommodation, 19% on food and drink, 10% on booze, 9% on petrol, 6% on transport (mostly the ferry to Kangaroo Island), 4% on entrance costs to things, and little bits on donations, tips, fees, laundry, parking and some I counted as gifts (for Tony as well as taking peeps out for dinner/drinks).

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!!!

Sunday.  1st February.  How'd it get to be February already?  Had an epic roast pork for dinner. The crackling turned out really well and the meat was pretty good too. Then MacGyver.

Monday.  Went to bed fairly early. Didn't get to sleep for hours (restless legs). Woke up for a bit around 4 because of the epic wind. Then woke up again at 5 because that's what I do. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made a tuna mornay for dinner (onion fried in butter, steamed asparagus (I would have skipped the steaming part as it would have cooked later), tinned tuna, cream, mustard powder and cheese, finished in the oven for 20 minutes).. it was delicious! MacGyver.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep again and then restless. Busy day doing tickets and crap. Stu made cabbage with soft boiled eggs which was nice enough. MacGyver.

Wednesday.  Slept relatively well. In fact I "slept in" which was a bit annoying because I had to leave early to take the car in for service, and waking up a bit earlier would have given me a bit extra time. Gerald Slaven have changed their drop off procedure. You used to be able to just park in the car park and drop the key in at the office. Now you have to queue up in the parking lot. One at a time you go into the garage and they sort you out and take your key, then you can go and then they park the car before taking the next car. Seems pretty inefficient. hrmmm. Busy day doing tickets and crap. And cleaning up messes cause I can't help myself. Leftover pork and salad for dinner.

Thursday.  Busy day doing tickets and crap. Went to Bar 59 for drinks as Neil was off getting his knees manipulated.

I thought the lens flare on this photo of a cockatoo outside the Labor Club was pretty cool..

Pizzas for dinner then watched Hook, which I haven't seen in probably 25-30 years.

Repeat of last week's pepperoni, olive and capers, and mushroom pizzas

OMFG there was a mouse in the house!!!!! First time we've seen a mouse in here since when we first moved in. Even during the mouse plague of a few years ago we didn't see any.  Don't know what's changed.  Maybe they were desperate to find water after all the weeks of no substantial rain.

Friday.  Meh sleep.

My work desktop wouldn't render on my left screen after my last reboot.  hrmmmm.

Busy day doing tickets and crap.

This was funny..  Yup, we had chokos! Was never really a fan.  We also had corned beef and white sauce (I didn't like it - I thought it was too salty); ham steaks (not actually spam) but floured and fried which I actually liked; devon - not really a fan, even now I'm not a big ham eater; steak and kidney, yeup Mum used to do that, really didn't like it; rissoles, well how could you not!  Fun stuff.

Saturday.  Spent much of the morning sorting Lego. Mid afternoon we headed over to Mishi's for a games afternoon/evening. Best I can tell, this is the first time since 2016 we'd been over!!!!!  I knew we hadn't been since pre-covid but what the hell?!? Chatted for a while in the lounge room, then chatted for a while around the table, then played a game of Ticket to Ride (Asia expansion), which was a bit confusing to begin with but we eventually got the hang of it.  I came second or third (out of five).

There was Turkish delivery for dinner then we played a game of regular Fluxx then a game of Pirate Fluxx. The first game was one of the most complicated games of Fluxx I've ever played, with some rules that made for a lot of confusion (eg inflation).

Sunday.  

It rained overnight!!!!

Out of sorts all day (maybe feeling like I lost a quarter of my weekend, and just generally feeling overwhelmed). Food shopping after lunch.  Stu is cooking some chicken and mushrooms for dinner..