2020.

Oh my.

We started the year at EffanC's, suffocating in bushfire smoke. We didn't go out to the club because I was too nervous about bushfires, and in fact even suburban fires. In 1994 I saw spotfires go a full kilometre from the bush, just a couple of hundred metres from our house. So I wanted to stay close. The bushfire smoke hung around for much of January and the devastation the fires caused was just heartbreaking.

The bushfires ended, then we got a massive hail storm that wrote off thousands of cars. I know *lots* of people that had their cars written off. And then it rained. And rained. And rained. Just a few weeks after the fires finished, much of the landscape was flooded. Which apparently is exactly what the river ecosystems *don't* need. Coastal communities begged Canberrans to come down and spend some money to help them recover. So we did. Although just an overnighter for Pete's 40th.

But then.

The C word.

As it hit, coastal communities begged Canberrans to stay away. When we got back from the coast, we dropped into Coles at Gungahlin to pick up a few supplies, including toilet paper (we were down to our last roll at home). We managed to get one of the last packets of toilet paper on the shelves. It was the last time I was to see toilet paper in Coles for about six or seven weeks. Fortunately I was able to get it at Chris's, otherwise things would have been pretty messy. The panic buying extended to all paper products that could be used in lieu of toilet paper - all the tissues and paper towel was gone for weeks as well. Pasta, pasta sauce, rice and even flour and yeast all disappeared off the shelves. I really didn't understand the flour/yeast thing - bread was still freshly available throughout the whole thing. In the second week even fresh food was mostly gone. Long lasting vegetables such as potatoes were nearly all gone, as was most fresh meat. One day (22 March) we went to the Belconnen markets and all three butchers had closed by lunch time Sunday because they'd simply run out of meat to sell.

On Monday 16 March I had the slightest hint of a sore throat and a cough. So Tuesday 17 March I stayed at home. And there I stayed. For six months. Other than a couple of odd days, and dropping in on a couple of weekends to swap out my backup hard drives, I didn't work in the office in any regular fashion until September. As it turns out I love working from home. Who knew. Previously I didn't really like it, partly because of my monitor setup is a bit backwards, but also because if I didn't go into the office every day I would lose the claim to "my" desk. But with everyone else working from home as well, and in fact they had a sticker on my desk for most of that six months saying don't work here (trying to keep people further apart), it wasn't an issue. And I got somewhat used to the monitors being backwards.

By 22 March, most flights around the world had been cancelled. The government imposed a travel ban. For every country they said "Do not travel". Restaurants, bars, cinemas and anything "non-essential" was shut down. I was quite upset by the impact that would have on low income earners. And then I raged at people whinging about their pay raise getting delayed six months. My holiday to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play got postponed two years. They started doing that play to thank God for saving them from the plague. And this year they had to postpone. Because of a plague. There's got to be some irony there somewhere. Qantas grounded all their 747s - forever. I was super sad about this.

In late March I went out at lunch time on a Monday to do the food shopping, when Jamo was a lot less crowded, and did that a couple of times. Still not much in the way of pasta/rice etc. We did big shops fortnightly to minimise having to go out. And I did the shopping by myself for a while too which was no fun because I like going with the sweetie. Every time I went shopping I swore I was getting a sore throat straight after. It was late April before I saw toilet paper again in Coles. June saw an outbreak in Melbourne, and panic buying started up again. In July I finally got my money back from Emirates for my Europe trip, although not the extra I paid for seat allocations.

Things eased up a lot in the second half of the year with no community transmission in Canberra since March. Restaurants opened and stayed open. We were able to start seeing our friends again. It hit Melbourne pretty hard in the middle of the year.  By December it looked like Australia was getting on top of things again. But then a driver of international flight crews got it in December and started spreading it around Sydney. Sydney went into lockdown of sorts and Mum couldn't come visit us after Christmas.

So a pretty wild year on that front.

Very little travel this year, for obvious reasons. I flew up to Sydney in February for Ryan's 21st birthday. But with all the delays it would have been quicker to take the coach. And that turned out to be my only flight for the year. I stayed with Mum and went to the 21st, where I put up a video of all the photos I'd taken of Ryan every week/fortnight/month/year since he was born. Caught the coach back the next morning. In March we went down the coast to stay with Kit and Pete for a surprise party for Pete's 40th. That was a bit of fun. Came home the next day. Did a quick trip to Sydney in late June to inspect my flat after the previous tenants decided to move out. We also dropped in to visit Luc and Lizzi, and on the way back I saw Nepean Dam. My flat ended up being empty for a month, and I had to drop the rent *a lot* which was pretty sad. In late August we wandered around the Snowy Mountains to Tumut, visited several dams and had a lovely afternoon at the Tumut River Brewing Company for Stu's 50th. In November Stu's brother convinced us to go up to Port Macquarie and South West Rocks to visit him and his father.

In lieu of actual travel, I did a *lot* of work on my travel photos. Throughout last year I'd gotten our Hong Kong/Singapore 2016 trip labelled, and had the blog ready for the fourth anniversary since we went. I geotagged my USA 2000 trip, fixed up all the labels, and got photos into the blog. I started geotagging my USA 2004 photos in February, but ran out of steam with that after about a week's worth, because it's *really* hard to geotag photos taken out of a moving car in the middle of outback USA. Next I labelled all twelve and a half thousand UK 2010 photos, finishing in December. I registered a Geonames account, and a Google Cloud account so I could use the Google Maps API in Geosetter.

Work was work. Still doing mostly internetty type stuff like firewalls and proxies. As mentioned previously, it turns out introverts like me like working from home. It's just so much more flexible and it *feels* like I'm home, even though I'm working. It means I can pop something in the slow cooker at lunch time, or something in the oven a bit earlier than I would if I got home at nearly 6pm. Or if it's a quiet Friday afternoon I can flex off for a bit without having to wait for the sweetie to go home or catch a bus. I got a bunch of our gear finally converted over to SNMP v3. I shut off access to an entire old environment. I fought with a particular firewall for months, including spending three hours on the phone to support one weekend trying to fix it. Still no resolution in sight on that one, but Wardie, bestest guy ever, has basically taken over, because he's awesome. Did a bit of training here and there, mostly free stuff. Got a new service desk tool in December, and had a lot of fun making shiny dashboards for it, which a bunch of other sections copied for themselves!  Socially, we had a gin night in early March, just before the lockdown. I actually missed the last work drinks before shutdown because of the slight sore throat I had. In August the guys started going to the Pot Belly for drinks, which we did for a little while before actual work drinks started up again. And I got to run my Christmas barbeque at the lake for over forty people. It was a lovely cool day, which made nice change from so many years where it's been crazy hot or shrouded in bushfire smoke.

Healthwise I was generally pretty good. Bouts of insomnia came and went a few times. Completely frustrating and debilitating. From mid March I felt like I had a permanently sore throat and slight cough for like a month or two. It was likely all in my head though. Got a flu vaccination in April. David came home with a cold in late August. He went home but it was too late - Stu caught it about a week later, and I caught it about five days after that. I was sick for a weekend. Stu was sick for a month. At least. I decided to go on short walks around the neighbourhood every day at lunch to get a little bit of exercise and vitamin D. I passed a lot of magpies, and decided to bribe them to not swoop me in spring by feeding them little bits of roast meat. All through winter they would see me coming and fly over. So cool! But come spring time they lost interest - there was obviously plenty of their own food around which they were more interested in. I also never got swooped :) Went up Mt Rogers once with David. Got some new reading glasses in December (should NOT have gone to Specsavers).

On the friends front, really things only went quiet for about two months from mid March to May. Other than that it was actually pretty much business as usual. We saw our fair share of EffanC at ours or theirs, including drinks over Zoom. We caught up with Kit and Pete when they came up in January to avoid the fires, and in February when they came up again, as well as Pete's 40th at their place in March. Had a few games of Kismet with them as well. We went to Rob and Lynne's with a bunch of peeps in January and again in December, and had them over in May. Went to a bbq at Brett and Sharon's in January, and the middle of the year we saw quite a bit of the A/M/C group, including some dinners, parties and walks. Got to see Rob and Fiona a couple of times too which was nice, as they really went into hibernation during the lockdown. Unfortunately didn't see much of Scott. Also didn't see much of Chrissie. Saw her on her birthday in January and I think that was it. Doesn't help that they are all always either crazy busy or sick. We didn't end up having a hanami lunch with Nat and Andrew.  I invited them but never heard back.  I would have chased them up but Stu was too busy and stressed with a uni assignment.  Had a lovely time at Aquila's 60th in January. Had Nelson and Susan over in August for vegan lasagna and games. Had drinks with Damien in September, I think that was the only time I saw him all year. We were supposed to go to Ben and Sarah's wedding in Queensland in October. Yeah that didn't happen. But Ben was able to have a nice 40th at Gungahlin Lakes on the day. We also had them over for dinner in December. And Doc organised drinks at the George for a bunch of work peeps between Christmas and New Year which was nice.

On the family side, well my family has been here the whole time! David has been living with us for a little over a year. While it can be challenging sometimes (mainly menu planning and trying to remember to vacuum around a shiftworker) it's generally been pretty good. And he fixes things! While he was here he replaced the light fitting in our ceiling fan (I think that might have been before he moved here), fixed the leaky ensuite toilet, installed new taps in the bathroom, installed LEDs everywhere, including some smartlights in the loungeroom that are pretty cool, installed a new extentible clothes line, installed a new oven, fixed the display on Stu's CD player, fixed the frequency on our digital radios, fixed up the bedroom curtain string which had come off the rails, fixed our back fence which had been pushed out by vines and photinia and finally broken in strong winds, phoned up and ordered and picked up a new fix tank lid for me, installed a bracket for the clothes line so we can extend it half way instead of the whole way, helped Stu build his new shelves, rewired the LEDs in Stu's four foot tank so it'd work with a standard transformer, installed a couple of new smoke detectors, fixed my scanner (cable had come loose, and I would have eventually figured this out because I would have moved it to test it on another computer). And he mowed the lawns. Seriously, most awesomest brother ever!!! And super handy having a qualified electrician in the family! About the best we could do to thank him was cook lots of roasts. Including roast lamb on his birthday, and he had a few friends over to help celebrate. I stayed with Mum in Sydney a couple of times - when I went up for Ryan's 21st, and when I inspected my flat in June. We saw a bit of Stu's family as well. Went and visited a few times in August, October and Christmas.  And we saw Scott and Kerry and the family and Jeff and Ruth in November.

Our social club events had to be curtailed somewhat, and I missed out on doing Christmas in July which I've done for a few years in a row now, but at least I got to do Christmas for something like fifty people (a whole bunch had to stay outside due to capacity restrictions). We had a few weekends out there while Stu was on the committee, including in January where I did some cleaning out of the "tool shed", a night in June, our first since February, where we really appreciated the little wood fireplace, and in July where I stared priming the cabinetry. Also had some time in early October. We went out for the last event before lockdown - an epic Mexican feast in February. One of the raffle prizes that night was a six pack of Corona beer with an attached N95 mask. There was a working bee in July where I scraped concrete off a glass door. That night would have been the Christmas in July night, and the alternative was going to be a bonfire, but it rained, so we cooked marshmallows in the wood heater in the shed. The first event post lockdown was a halloween party where I got to be Lego 80s Classic Space guy again. And then my Christmas party. And we finished the year there with a few friends and a lot of bubbles.

Another fairly quiet year with the fish. I bought ten zebra danios in April and put a few in my three tanks. Half of them died, some fairly quickly. I lost the angel in my 620T tank in September, and Chrissie's catfish was looking super depressed. I stuck my hand in to see if it was still alive, and the water was COLD. The heater had died, taking my angel with it. Pretty upset about that. I took a random day off in September, thinking I'd do some fish stuff in the morning and other things in the afternoon. But I ended up doing fish stuff *all day*. And I managed to break the lid of the upstairs two foot while I was trying to clean it. Stu got some little sucking catfish and some guppies at the end of the year. So Stu's four foot has ten congo tetras, one loach, one siamensis and four tiny sucking catfish. My 620T has Chrissie's huge sucking catfish, a huge old cory and two female danios. My upstairs two foot has two male danios, one who has been sick since shortly after I got him, but refuses to die. Little trooper. It also has a sucking catfish, and six of the guppies Stu got at the end of the year. My downstairs two foot has four of the male guppies and two sucking catfish from Stu's purchase. Also downstairs are five little tanks, all with two or three guppies in them to cycle the tanks.  No change with Stumpy.  He's just as much a gumby as ever.

Not much going on with the Lego. I'm still sporadically sorting Vic's Lego but it's just so painful. If sets were complete it would be a joy, but none of them are, so it's just depressing. I think the only sets I built all year were the set of Shanghai Stu got me for Christmas, and Neil's International Space Station.

The year started slowly with jigsaws - most of the first quarter was taken up with a three thousand piece jigsaw of The Bombing of Algiers. I did two sections of the forty two thousand piece Disney behemoth - Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid. Very few at work thanks to the lockdown, and not too many at home because I'm just too damned busy all the time.

I continued working on labelling and sorting photos. As mentioned above I geotagged and labelled thousands of photos. I also did a lot of filing of photos, but there's still sooo much to be done in that space. In March I started scanning Dad's slides. I started out doing a box a week, and at that rate it was going to take me four or five years. But working from home during lockdown gave me an extra half hour in the mornings that I used to scan a box a day. I managed to get all his slides scanned by Christmas, although I still had a bit of work to rescan slides that had dust on them on the first pass. Didn't quite complete that by the end of the year. In December I had a bit of a play with a gallery generator. The only reason I'm labelling all my holiday photos is because I want to get the majority of them online. I did consider Flickr, but I just have this feeling they're not going to last. Too many buyouts and changes of conditions. Most likely I'll just use S3 and pay the few cents a month it'll likely cost.

I continued to rage at Apple and the crappy things it does. It still messes with the timestamps on my files. I can't download movies first go, or second or third or fourth in a lot of cases. And can't download timelapse videos *at all* to my PC, I have to save them to Google Drive first and then if I'm lucky the encoding/dimensions will be right for me to play them on my PC. Calendar and contacts refuse to sync to Google like they used to (I don't think it's worked since I got my new phone two years ago and I've tried *everything*). The contacts don't even sync to Apple Cloud. I'm about ready to give up on Apple.

Most of the stuff around the house was done by David. Because he's awesome. Our oven element died in March. I cleaned the oven while he investigated getting a new element, but in the end we got a whole new oven. While I was on a work break. With no sleep. Yeah really not the best mental state to be buying home appliances. In April we went out to buy half turn taps. Again, while on a work break, from a situation at work I probably should not have left. The anxiety of that day was terrible!! But the new taps are amazing, I love them! Unfortunately the dripping shower was still there. Guess it's not the taps that are leaking. We had a plumber come look at it, and he did a whole heap of tests, and decided the membrane was gone (duh) and most likely just leaking through the grout. I could have saved myself four hundred dollars if I'd just done the "cover the drain and splash water on the walls" trick which I did just after and proved the same thing. We got a resealer to come have a look and give us a quote. But he was confused about why there would be so much leaking through the grout, promised to send a quote for a complete retile/reseal, but never did. Even when I mailed them again and asked. In March we cleaned out the dumping ground room so that Stu could have his own office. He'd been wanting to do that for ages. The timing was great, as it meant he had a private office during lockdown. He got new shelves later in the year and a whole heap of toys, and he really loves his little space. I spent a weekend tidying up the dungeon and under the house and rearranging everything to keep it clear of the drip. We had to get the Chinese pistachio tree removed in August because the trunks were sagging apart and it was in danger of falling down (onto Kit's garage). I was super sad about that because it was such a beautiful tree, and the birds absolutely love it, and as it turns out it was a great shade for the eastern side of the house, so our house is a lot hotter in the mornings now. We also got the tree guys to be brutal on our photinia which was getting out of control. Again. We had a roof restoration done in October and the roof looks very shiny now. Next up: solar. The garden continued to stay out of control. Although we did get a few strawberry plants off Michelle and got some very nice strawberries off them in October (the ones the slugs didn't get at).

We still managed to eat out a little bit this year. We took Kit and Pete out for dinner in January to Bella Vista. Went to Kinn Thai in January, February and March (which was our last eating out before lockdown). It's always fast service and the food really good. Had some very nice pizzas at Grease Monkey in January. Went to Grill'd with Neil in January to avoid the food court during school holidays. Tried Malatang Hotpot in January too. The one I had was fairly bland, and the one Neil had was super epic spicy, even for him. Need to try something in the middle, but then there was lockdown, and they're still not allowing you to handle the tongs to choose your own food. Tried Wild Panda in Civic when I got back from Sydney, but I don't remember it being anything special. Had lunch with the sweetie at Gus's in May - first eating out post lockdown. Had brunch at Rocksalt in June. Had some nice pork belly with crackling at the Lake George hotel a week before my birthday. It was going to be my birthday meal, but we ended up going to Chong Co on my birthday. And KFC for lunch of course. Went to Happy's a couple of times with the sweetie in September and October. Met up with a bunch of N-Gang people for dinner at Indian Pantry in October for a feast. Tried out Herbert's in November, and went there a couple of times in November and a couple in December with Tony and/or the Chrises. Had drinks a few times with the sweetie at the Beirut Bunker Bar. Had Disappointing Sushi, aka Hero Sushi in Civic in December. It lived up to expectations. It's literally a running joke with us now. You can be guaranteed that the hot food will be cold and everything has avocado in it.

As always, I do quite a bit of interesting cooking. I don't quite know how I manage that, since I'm not really a very good cook. Actually I'm basically a lazy cook. I like cooking things that don't require a lot of fiddly preparation or a lot of cleaning up. I cooked two pavlovas in January. I think this was the first time I'd ever made a full pavlova. I thought I'd have another go at Christmas and failed miserably. Twice. We had cheese and bacon sausages we got from Coles a few times. They're great to have in the fridge because they last ages, so we can use them when we've run out of other food. Made curried sausages in March to try and use up some of the many tins of curry powder we have in the house. We tried out Dominos "deep pan" pizzas a couple of times. They were pretty disappointing. Nothing like the crispy doughy deep fried goodness of pizzas in the eighties. Tried a slow cooked marinated beef in March to try and use up some of the mustard powder we have in the house. It turned out pretty well. Made nachos in late March, probably the first time I've ever made nachos myself. Several of our lunches during lockdown consisted of various types of puff pastry scrolls - cheese and vegemite and pizza scrolls being favourites. Did a coq au vin in April. Cooked a couple of "Yum! Delicious!" cakes and a cashew slice with Mum's peanut slice recipe. I also did Anzac Biscuits on Anzac Day which has become somewhat of a tradition in recent years. I did a few tomato based stews as we went into winter, and we think all the extra tomato set off David's gout, so we had to cut those right back. There was Sizzler cheesy toast a couple of times, and taco Tuesday multiple times - soooo bad but soooo good!! Did an epic lasagna in May. Tried a pulled pork in May. It was pretty amazing, but such a waste of crackling ;) David obliged me with a Country Cheese and cheese sauce craving and had quite a bit of that over winter. Whenever a packet is open it evaporates very quickly. Tried a couple of non-tomato based bakes from my gratins and bakes book - a broccoli and cheese penne with garlic and lemon crumbs, and a potato, bacon and blue cheese bake, both were very nice but also quite similar to my regular veggie bakes. Made an Irish stew in July - Stu was going to make it but life got in the way so I did it.  It was nice enough. Tried slow cooking beef brisket in July and fell in love with it, and did it several times. As well as some slow cooked pulled beef and NQN's beef cheeks as well. Slow cookers are amazing for hearty winter cooking! David reminded me of our youth and Dinner Winner, and we had Coles' One Pan Dinner a couple of times, and even had authentic Dinner Winner once. There may have been a rocky road in there at some point, and a fairly nice gingerbread cheese cake I made at Christmas. There were several weekends where I spent several hours cooking up meals for a week or more, to save cooking during the week (which is really no fun at all when you don't heat up the kitchen to save money on heating costs).

I saw exactly one movie/theatre/show/exhibition this year -
* Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

As usual for recent years I/we worked my/our way through a lot of movie series. This may have been aided *a lot* by Disney+ !
* finished up watching through all the James Bond movies
* watched Star Wars episodes VII and VIII before seeing IX at the movies
* finished up the Pixar series with Coco and Toy Story 4
* watched a *lot* of original/remakes of Disney movies - Aladdin, Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, Freaky Friday, The Lion King, The Parent Trap (just 1 and 2 they don't have 3 yet), 101 Dalmatians and Mulan
* saw a few "Australian classic" movies - My Brilliant Career, which I really didn't like, and Ned Kelly, which I thought was better
* in March was the 30th anniversary of seeing Labyrinth for the first time, so we watched it on David's Bluray
* we had to watch some pandemic disaster movies, so watched World War Z first up because Contagion had been pulled from Netflix, but David had Contagion on DVD so we all watched that later too
* Frozen II
* Airport series
* Naked Gun series
* Star Wars - I think we saw all nine this year
* almost all the Ghibli movies, except Grave of the Fireflies which wasn't on Netflix. Some of them are amazing. Some of them are crap.
* a few of the Herbie movies (still a couple to go, it's a bit of a struggle since they're very silly)
* Die Hard 1 and 2 and Love Actually at Christmas. David dissed Love Actually on Facebook, but he had the choice to leave but didn't and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Just sayin ;)

And again, somehow we managed to watch our way through a lot of TV. I always feel like I don't have time to watch tv/movies, and yet somehow we see a lot. Mostly from Thursday to Sunday, as Monday to Wednesday is "work" nights.
* first episode of Who is America
* Star Trek: Picard
* The Mandalorian (season 1)
* Big Bang Theory - finished mid year, took a little over year to watch all 12 seasons
* Brooklyn 99 until it ran out of episodes (up to season 6?)
* Fuller House (last seasons)
* Lego Masters (second Australian season)
* Unorthodox
* Filthy Rich
* The Dismissal
* The Miraculous Mellops
* The Simpsons (most of the way through season 5)
* High Score (documentary)
* Against the Wind
* Discovery (season 3)
* The IT Crowd (all of it)
* The Mandalorian (season 2)
* The Queen's Gambit

Not a lot of reading this year. I don't catch the bus much and I mostly feel too tired to read when I go to bed.
* Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J.K. Rowling
* Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (all five books in the trilogy), by Douglas Adams
* Penguin Bloom, by Cam Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive (I also started Heartache and Birdsong)

Other stuff!
* Started "This day in history" posts
* Got Disney+ and watched a *lot* of Disney
* Got some cute "living stones" - succulent plants that grow extremelly slowly
* Played with Picasa for Ryan's 21st "morph" series
* Got our NBN fixed in January - because last time they did work they broke one of our connectors so we were only getting half the speed we should. David organised that because he's awesome.
* Used Picasa to tag people in a lot of work photos, still a long way to go on that
* Collected the next batch of Stikeez - got all but one of the specials
* Our rose bush and rhododendron out the front put out just a couple of flowers right at the end of summer when it finally rained
* Had cheese and nibbles with bubbly, and Chong Co delivered for our anniversary
* Went bed shopping in June but didn't find anything we really liked
* Went to Ikea and bought storage cubes for David and drawers for stu
* My domain - kazza.id.au turned 18
* Had a big outage of my web hosting in late June. Went looking for a new host and found VentraIP, but they didn't support Perl DBD::mysql so had to cancel it all again. But it did force me to do an upgrade of a dll in Eudora which allows secure downloads without ssl errors, so that's a win
* Had issues with the vacuum cleaner - it kept getting jammed - with my hair :(
* Got so much rain in August all creeks and rivers around Canberra flooded a bit
* The boys bought me a Dyson cordless for my birthday
* Couldn't get on the Qantas 747 joy ride flight out of Canberra, because Qantas' website sux donkey balls. So I watched it fly over central Canberra from Mt Ainslie instead (arguably better for photos anyway!)
* Listened to some podcasts with the sweetie - The Eleventh, Winds of Change, Thirteen Minutes to the Moon
* Got super sad at all the 747s around the world being retired
* A neighbourhood yappy dog pissed me off by barking non stop for literally hours at a time
* The winter was so warm our potatoes survived the whole winter without freezing
* Enjoyed Floriade in the suburbs!
* Went for a drive with the sweetie around Denman Prospect and out to Cotter
* Had a Bunnings sausage in October for first time since lockdown
* Voted in the ACT elections early so I didn't get a Democracy Sausage (most places I don't think were doing them anyway)
* Had a free run to the tip because what we took was mostly all metal
* Had to fight with windoze to maintain access to our NAS - its ancient version of SMB is making windoze super sad
* Tidied up all the packing materials in garage, with the idea to use it all to sell stuff
* Vodien moved my blog to a new host, but didn't tell me. Well, apparently they did tell me - to an email address that doesn't actually work anymore.
* Failed at jeans shopping
* Tried out Return-It's bulk facility which is only marginally better than their drop off system
* Saw the moon and Saturn and Jupiter near each other, but not at their closest point

Our year was finished off at the club. We headed out there on New Years Eve eve and stayed two nights, and had a fairly relaxed New Years.

2020 sure was one crazy year. Here's hoping 2021 settles down quickly into the "new normal".

Happy new year!! 

Backdating, because you wouldn't expect anything less!!

Monday.  Slept okish I think.  After the weekend this counted as the first day of our holidays.  I had the idea that I would "work" until Christmas - finish scanning Dad's slides and fixing them all up, get the house cleaned, get photos sorted out, get my year in review done, that sort of thing, and then after Christmas would be "holiday" time to do fun things.  So I spent All. Fricken. Morning. trying to fix up two boxes of slides.  Some slides I had to scan up to *seven* times to get them without fluff somewhere in the scan.  So was pretty cranky to start with.  Then stressed about having to cook all the time and deal with everyone's dietary issues.  I pulled everything out of the freezer and did an audit on it.  Pulled out a few things to defrost and eat before we're allowed to go shopping next.  It took all day to fix up seven boxes of slides.  Felt super annoyed that my first day of holidays was just doing this and nothing useful.  Watched Die Hard 2 in the evening.

Tuesday.  Got morning stuff done then we headed out.  I dropped off the last of the tubs we'd used for the bbq back at work.  Took a drive through the Parliamentary Triangle and I got Stu to stop so I could take a photo of George - because I'd never taken a photo before!

Then continued on.  Went all the way to Kambah to a brewing supply store so Stu could pick up a CO2 cylinder for his fish tank.  Then back into the city so Stu could buy some pens and I could have a look for jeans in Big W (epic fail there as well).

Had "Disappointing Sushi" at Hero Sushi.  It lived up to expectations - the first takoyaki plate I got was *cold*.  And everything has avocado in it.  Why can't you put cucumber in some of it??  Some of us don't like avocado!  #grunt.  By the time we got home it was mid afternoon.  Spent an hour fighting with slides and managed to fix one roll.  The sad story is there's dust and tiny hairs *under* the glass, so even though I wipe down the glass and practically scrub the slides before each scan, there's always dust in a few set positions.  But there's now so much fluff there I can't even flip the slides 180 degrees because there's fluff in all the corners, which means there's *always* fluff in the sky no matter which way I orient the slide.  So an hour and a half to fix two boxes.  Had leftovers for dinner.  Watched more of the Mandalorian documentary.  But basically I was cranky all day due to simply not enough hours in the day to get through the ever growing todo lists, not enough days in a holiday (still miss my uni three month holidays), being out most of the day, slide scanning being so painful etc.  I didn't even bother to try and go see Jupiter and Saturn on their second closest night.

Wednesday.  Finally finished scanning all Dad's slides (at least a first pass).  Took two hours to do one box.  Day was spent fixing slides, blogging, processing photos.  In the afternoon we met up with Tony and later Keira at Herbert's for a couple of beers and dinner.  I had the porcetta burger this time (which has crackling!!) and managed to mostly get through it.  Earlyish night.

Thursday.  Christmas Eve.  4:30 wake up - itchy and restless legs.  Just a day of all the things, although not as much as previous days.  Put on a video of Beethoven's 9th while wrapping presents and blogging.  In the afternoon watched the end of Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, which I'd started the other night.  I'd watched the first half one night when I was feeling cranky, and as such didn't really enjoy it.  But enjoyed the second half a bit more.  It sure is pretty to look at, but basically a bit meh.  The kid who played Journey is pretty cool tho.  Pizza for dinner (Thursday!), then watched Love Actually (Stu endures it because he has no choice, David had a choice, and although he dissed it, he actually stayed and seemed to be enjoying it ;) ), and then the Melbourne Carols by Candlelight.  Such a strange thing to watch with no audience due to Covid, and most of the choir for the Hallelujah Chorus singing remotely.  

Anything that turned up at the house in December went under the tree.  Seemed little point rewrapping any of it, so that's how they stayed til Christmas morning ;)

Twenty years ago today I took photos of a few things around my flat.

First there is my shiny new Iomega Clik! drive.  CIA bought this for me to take to America with me to download my photos.  This thing had a Smartmedia and a Compact Flash reader, and a 40MB disk (basically a big floppy disk).  You put your memory card in, clicked a button, and it would copy your files from your memory card to the Clik drive.  I really only used it for this trip, with three 40MB disks.  In the long run I probabaly would have been better off just buying bulk memory cards.  The thing worked flawlessly, but I was terrified that it wouldn't and I'd lose all my photos.  I managed to give it away to someone before I left Sydney.

And then there's a couple of photos of my bedroom/study.  As always, it's fun seeing what I still have and what I don't.  I'm using that exact same desk and chair right now for example :)

Slept ok.  Had one of my bacon and cheese rolls for first breakfast to keep me going.

Chilled for a bit.  

Cat in a bag!

Went out with Kerry and Violet - they were going to see if Target had any rollerblades, but they were only online.  Then had a little walk around the waterfront.

There's quite a few Art Deco buildings in town, one day I should document them properly.

I thought this was cute.

When everyone was ready we headed out for second breakfast - at Bittersweet cafe above Lighthouse Beach.  They wanted to put our group of six essentially right in the middle of the footpath where literally everyone trying to get past in or out of the inside part and outside part or either way along the footpath would be tripping over us.  Kerry asked if we could go in the far corner furthest away from everyone (it was only setup for four people) but they said they couldn't because of congestion for Covid.   *blink* what?  Whatever, they did actually let us sit there.  I think because Kerry said something they blacklisted us - service was *very* slow.  Took fifty minutes for our food to arrive.  I got eggs benedict with bacon and a cheese and bacon rosti.  Mostly nice, although the second egg was a bit overdone so wasn't as nice by the time it all cooled down.

After brunch we thought we'd go up and see the lighthouse.  But everyone in Port was doing the same thing, and there was literally no parking available, so we just left.  The others went home and the sweetie and I went back down to Lighthouse Beach for a looksee.

Drove around some more.  Went to Shelly Beach where we were lucky enough to get a park.  So.  Many.  Crowds.

Went for a walk around the headland looking at beaches and stuff.

As we were leaving, someone asked if we were leaving so they could take our parking spot.  So.  Many.  Crowds.  All of Port is like that, and it's not even peak season.  Apparently the locals hibernate for Christmas/January to avoid the crowds.

Next we headed back into town so Stu could do a driveby of an old friend of his houses.  Then I remembered a slide I'd scanned of Dad's taken in 1976 of the view from a holiday flat we stayed in, and looked up where it was taken.  Turned out it was in the same street as his friend's house - about five houses back from where we'd stopped!!  I'll post the comparison pics in a separate post, but this is the house.  I wonder if Mum would remember it :)

Continued to drive around.  Wandered all the way up to Settlement Point and even saw the ferry.

On the way back looked at the crazy expensive houses around The Anchorage/Portside Crescent.

Chilled for a little while (I played through some of Violet's beginner piano books - I *really* need to learn the bass clef) before getting ready to leave.

So headed north.  The last time I was up here the Kempsy bypass and bridge over the Macleay floodplain was still under construction.  This time we got to go over it.

And finally arrived at Jeff and Ruth's.

Had a brief rest, then went on a drive with Jeff around town.

They don't need lawnmowers in this part of town - they just let the kangaroos at it

Then over to the east side of town

Then back into town, for an obligatory jacaranda photo

This is the view from where we had dinner.

Ruth cooked up beef for dinner.  Nicely cooked, although fairly grissly, they weren't too happy with it.

After dinner we watched the second last episode of Masterchef Junior.  Amazing kids.  We saw two get dropped out before the finale with the final three.

Then bed.

Backdating, cause I'm a slacker ;)

Tuesday.  Woke up at 5am for over an hour.  Meh day at work.  Taco Tuesday.

Wednesday.  Woke up at like 4am.  Crazy intense day of meetings.  Rollout planned for the afternoon didn't work.  Part of it we had no idea why, another part we realised before we started it wasn't going to work so didn't go ahead.  Meanwhile all my other work is slipping.  Hrmm.  After the failed rollout Neil and I went to the Labor Club (first time since last year!) and debriefed over a bottle of bubbles.  We actually came up with some ideas.  For dinner I cooked chicken thighs, with a lemon/butter/thyme sauce inspired by @phonakins.

Had a game of Kismet with Kit and Pete, that Pete won, but no UK photo labelling.

Thursday.  No slide scanning other than finishing off yesterday's roll (*going* to work sux!!  Doesn't leave me nearly enough time in the mornings (or evenings)).  Watched the second episode of Against the Wind.

Friday.  Woke up at 4:40.  OK day.  It was actually pretty quiet (some hardware problems had a lot of people offline that would usually be sending me work).  In fact I wandered off for an hour and a half in the afternoon to get stuff done around the house.   See, working from home is much more efficient.  I can flex off for an hour or two when the workload is light.  If I was *at* work I'd have to hunt around for things to do.  Not that I don't have any shortage of things to do, my todo list is a hundred years long, but sometimes on a Friday afternoon you'd rather just be tidying the house.  Did a Bunnings run and some food shopping (omfg Coles was closed! Some eftpos issue affecting their stores nationwide, so we went to Aldi, and fortuntely they had a caramel mudcake that I wanted to get for David's birthday), and may have had the Scottish Restaurant for dinner.  Watched episode 3 of Against the Wind.  Had to laugh and the really bumpy camerawork while they were following people walking/on horseback - no steadycams in 1978!!  

Saturday.  Slept in til 6:20!!  Felt so much better.  Got ready then basically just started prepping lunch.  There might have been a slightly epic lamb roast for the little brother's birthday lunch :)

A few peeps came over to wish him a happy birthday :)

I might have eaten too much ;)  

Watched some more Against the Wind, but I have to keep stopping it to go look up the history (the series was based on actual events).  In the evening we watched David Attenborough's Witness Statement, which was completely depressing for the first half.  There was more of a message of hope in the second half.  Stop breeding.  Check.  Go solar.  Coming soon.  Eat less meat.  Need to work on that one.

Sunday.  Mostly decent sleep.  Just did All The Things all day.  Managed to chip one of the good bowls while doing the washing up which gave me an epic sad.  I searched and searched everywhere for that chip but never found it.  I was hoping to minimise the impact by supergluing it back on, but it vanished off the face of the earth :(  In the evening we shared a bottle of McGuigan's shiraz that I bought on our Hunter Valley trip in 2012, and funnily enough I was wearing the same tshirt Sunday as the day I bought it :) 

Watched the first episode of a French documentary on the sun, and episode 6 of Against the Wind.

Backdating, story of my life ;)

So where were we?  I'd been sick.  Starting Friday afternoon, most of Saturday in bed or sitting in the car.  On Sunday I felt a little better although super tired on account of very little sleep.  I decided it would depend how much sleep I got whether I would feel up to going to work on Monday.

Monday.  I actually slept really well - and for nine hours!  I was feeling a lot better, so thought I'd go to work, and go have a lie down if things got too much.  But I was actually ok all day so that was nice.

Had all my UK photo labelling done before dinner which was good.  Had a bit more of a think about hosting and gallery apps.  Had a serious meltdown because I was feeling underappreciated for all the cooking and cleaning I do.

And the kitchen light fitting caught this epic centipede.

Tuesday.  Woke up at 3:30 and never got back to sleep *sigh*.  Did a bit of UK photo labelling but stopped at Stonehenge - because a couple of hundred photos will basically just be a copy/paste so will be very quick to do.  Instead I was looking at cameras (mmm Sony A7C) and playing with Geosetter (see Geosetting for Fun and Pleasure).  

Wednesday.  Slept well.  Seems I can only sleep well every other day.  Got myself a gmaps api key (see previous geosetting link).

Thursday.  Slept well.  Two nights in a row!  Went into work for the day - six months to the day that I started working from home.  Went up to Pot Belly for drinks after work.  Watched the second episode of the Netflix show "High Score" (watched the first one the other night, not sure when).

Friday.  Woke up at ~1am til well after 4am *sigh*.  I'd planned to take a random day off, which was going to be a bit sucky to be so tired through.  Had a bit of a slow start then got stuck into my day.  I thought I'd do some fish tank stuff in the morning, then maybe some tax stuff in the afternoon.  Well the fish stuff took All. Day.  I started with the upstairs two foot (and managed to smash the lid in the sink when I was cleaning it :(:(:( ), moved onto Chrissie's tank after a break, then the angel tank (with no angels in it), and finally the downstairs two foot.  With an hour at work in the afternoon for a meeting.  I had plans for the other tanks too, I just ran out of time. 

I also took photos of the new bracket David installed out the back for the clothes line.  This way you can extend the line only half way out - where it's all under cover - so if it's going to be rainy it'll stay out of the elements.  Have I ever mentioned I have the bestest brother ever?  And this was after he mowed the front lawn as well.  He's just too awesome :)

Caught a bus into town (second bus in six months).  Met up with the sweetie and Damien who were having a drink, then we went to Happy's for dinner.

Came home and watched third episode of High Score.

Saturday.  Slept well!  Hurrah!  I didn't think I would on account of all the meat I had for dinner at Happy's.  Stu was still sick though.  He had a full week at home off sick, then all this week he was still coughing and spluttering, but his work would still rather he went to the office than work from home and keep his germs to himself.  Silly people.  

Did quite a lot of stuff on the todo list - which worked out to mostly fixing up slide scanning (the dust and scratch filter is sometimes a bit too enthusiastic and blats out real details, so have to redo those with no filter), photo processing, and blogging.  We felt like wedgies for dinner, so that's what we had!  With lots of sour cream and sweet chili sauce.  Watched the fourth episode of High Score, then Spirited Away, which I first (and last saw) in 2005 in Brisbane.  I had no memories at all of it.  Hurrah for dementia.  Hrmm.

Sunday.  Hurty kept me awake for hours in the middle of the night so that sucked.  Bit of a nothing day in the end.  Did a bit of blogging.  

David brought home a packet of Dinner Winner, so I had to make that for our dinner :)  Watched a documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the evening.

Not backdated, but no photos, will update with photos later.

Monday.  Noticed the sucking cat fish hadn't moved from yesterday.  I put my hand in the tank to poke it to see if it was alive, and it was COLD!!  15C!!  Fricken heater must have died.  No wonder the angel had died.  And the cory looked pretty sick too, and they hadn't eaten the algae wafer I gave them on Saturday.  Brought up a little heater from the empty two foot from downstairs.  But after being plugged in and running all day, the tank had only risen a couple of degrees in temperature.  Did my quota of UK labelling, washing up and finished a jigsaw by 19:30, so on to cull Tumut photos for the blog.

Tuesday.  Had to go into work - first time I'd done any work in the office since May.  I'd rather be at home.  But did go and have Kingsleys with the guys which was nice.  After lunch was a very draining meeting with vendors.  Blerf.  Meanwhile it's all happening for Kit and Pete - sold two houses and bought another in the space of a couple of weeks!  Cooked Coles chicken kievs and home-made wedgies.  Got quota of UK photos labelled (finished day 22), but didn't have the energy for Tumut photo culling.

Wednesday.  Turned the heater on in the morning but nothing happened.  It's been so warm these past few days.  It was still 19 in the house (heater was on 17).  Fish tank still slowly warming up.  However it was a cold day, and the house didn't warm up at all from the sun, in fact it kept getting colder, so turned the heater on (up to 18).

When you open your front door and this is what you see...

Thursday.  Scanned the 100th box of Dad's slides.  The fish tank had actually cooled down again overnight :(  That little 25W heater is just not up to the task.  I found a bigger one downstairs, but it hadn't been plugged in in forever, so wouldn't trust the seals on it, so mounted it so it wouldn't be submerged.  It managed to heat up the tank quite nicely.  Also after relative peace and quiet for the past month or so, one of the neighbours dogs has started barking on and on and on again.  Epic #grunt.  Went to the chemist at lunch, and did a couple of hundred dollars worth of shopping while waiting.  Whoops.  Watched start of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.

I didn't buy this but maybe I should have!

I did actually buy this because Scott and Dee had some at the club back in July - very nice!

Friday.  Morning was fine.  But afternoon was crap.  Couldn't get stuff to work, stoopid firewall is still being stoopid, and had that telltale feeling of getting sick - sore throat, coughing, just not feeling right.  I should point out that Stu came down sick on Sunday, four days after last contact with David, but he hadn't had contact with anyone else since then.  So we knew it wasn't going to be covid, but he was so sick he ended up taking the entire week off.  And he got a covid test.  And it was negative.  Like we knew it would be.  But it was fairly inevitable that I'd get sick too.  And I did.  Sigh.  Stu cooked dinner - some of my mince mix with peri peri sauce for a nice warmth, on toast with cheese.  Watched The Cat Returns which was a bit of fun, and the return of The Baron!

Saturday.  Woke up very early.  But my body is allergic to actual sleep.  Lay in bed all morning, alternating between pretending to sleep and colouring in Happy Colour.  Went back to bed for a bit after lunch.  The sweetie felt like going on a drive, so sat in the car and we drove around Denman Propect and the Cotter and came back via Uriarra Crossing.  Nice drive with the sweetie. 

Stu cooked dinner using some more of my mince, cabbage, sushi rice and seasonings.  He called his Japanese inspired chop suey.  It was tasty and everyone went back for seconds.

Sunday.  Went to bed early, but only managed an hours sleep by 3:30.  Got a few hours after that.  My body refuses to sleep at the best of times, but add not being able to breath and a sore spine and I've got no hope.  Another day of laying in bed all morning not sleeping.  David cooked ham and cheese panckes for lunch.  This afternoon was just blogging and we have a lamb roast in the oven for dinner.

Backdating, because I'm a slacker... ;)  Also I think there was an entry or two in the July archives you might not have seen if you don't use an rss feed reader.  

Monday.  5am wakeup.  Sore spine, numb hands, full bladder.  Sigh.  Tired all day.  Hid out in do not disturb mode all morning and caught up on all Thursday and Friday's tickets.  Long weekends are never long enough!    Tried to read stuff but too many interruptions in the afternoon.  Got my UK photo labelling done a bit early then went into battle with Apple to get the movie files off my phone.

Tuesday.  3am wakeup.  Didn't get back to sleep til probably 5ish for another hour.  Even tireder than yesterday :(  Stayed in DND all day.  Got a bit more than my quota of UK photos done.  Two episodes of BBT, but far too tired to blog.

Wednesday.  Yayyy 9.5 hours sleep!!!  Tried a pulled beef recipe - which was ~1tbs brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder; ~1tsp salt, pepper.  Rubbed some mustard on the meat, covered with the dry rub, then chucked in the slow cooker (with some leftover lamb jelly and some liquid smoke in the bottom) and left it on high all afternoon.  Possibly could have been done a bit longer, it wasn't quite pull apart.  Also should have used a fattier cut of meat.  But it was still pretty good.

Thursday.  Ok sleep.  Work ok.  Caught a bus into work in the afternoon, went and picked up a new pass (the old one had expired), went and said hi to the team, then headed up to Pot Belly.  First drinks with work peeps in five months!  So that was nice.  Picked up pizza on the way home then watched the last four episodes of Big Bang Theory.  Took us a bit over a year to watch through all twelve seasons.

Friday.  Wouldn't be my birthday if I didn't end up in tears over *something*.  In this case trying to understand our crazy networking.  David took me to KFC for lunch (it's tradition!) but we couldn't eat in so had to bring it home. 

Blerfy afternoon fighting with stoopid firewall which is doing stoopid things that noone can explain.  The plan was to catch a bus into town and have dinner somewhere with the sweetie, but I was so late getting away he just came home and picked me up and we went to Chong Co, which was lovely as always.  

Thai fish cakes - famous spicy Thai fish cackes, served with sweet chilli sauce ($12.00)
Crispy crab net rolls - crab meat, shrimp, fish mixed with water chestnuts, and taro delicately wrapped in crispy net roll ($9.50)

Prk Pao Moo Grob - stir fried mild chilli yam sauce with capsicum, onion, shallot, mushrooms, corn and basil leaves ($25.00)

Duck salad - sliced roasted duck with coconut shredded, chilli jam, coconut milk, cucumber, mint, shallot, coriander and cherry tomatoes ($23.00)

Came home and watched Shakespeare in Love.

Saturday.  Awake from 2-5am, then broken sleep til 8am.  So a bit of a zombie day.  Went to Michelle's in the evening for her birthday party.  They have a karaoke machine and a subscription to an online karaoke website, which is pretty good - it has all the original audio - but it doesn't have the original videos like Singstar had.  Not that anyone really needed the karaoke machine, everyone was just singing.  I only joined in for a few, was elsewhere chatting to people and standing in front of the fire for a fair bit of it.  I did get to sing Let it Go right at the end of the night which was fun though ;)  Too late a night though for me.

Sunday.  Slept ok, including a bit of a sleepin.  Mostly housework in the morning.  Had lunch then cooked dinner (beef cheeks).  Need moar slow cooker recipes so we don't sick of things.  Watched penultimate episode Fuller House.

Monday.  Slept ok, and slept in til nearly 7am - whoops!  Super productive morning getting things done while scanning slides.  Went and took some photos of the daffodils out the front, and saw a cold wild blue tongue lizard.  So caught it (it wasn't happy haha) and had it pose for photos.  And its little claws are *sharp* - so much sharper than Stumpy's!

Had a two hour long demo from Sharpie which was quite useful, but I need to see something like ten times before it will sink in....  And stoopid firewall is still being stoopid. 

Backdating.. cause I'm a slacker!!

Monday.  Definitely not enough hours in the day.  Had the tree people out.  The pistachio is slowly splitting at the base and one part of it is leaning on the fence to Kit's place.  The dude was like, this has to go sooner rather than later.  Took more time off work when David got home to help him sort out the fence.  We cut away more vines and weeds, and he was able to get the panel pulled back up and held in place with string until we could get some screws.  Cooked (not) Dinner Winner (Coles don't sell Dinner Winner) for dinner.  Was quite nice, although I could probably do something pretty similar myself.  

In the evening passed half way in my UK 2010 photo labelling.  Still on track to have everything done by the end of the year.  Next year I want to label my Eurasia 2012 photos.  Twenty three and a half thousand photos.  At five hundred photos per week that'll take forty eight weeks to do!!  Craziness.  But the idea is to have all the work on in complete by the time it's ten years since we went in 2022.

Tuesday.  Had the ACT Government tree inspector out (I put a form in on the weekend).  He also took one look at the tree and said it had to go sooner rather than later.  Got verbal approval to remove it straight away.  So talked to the tree peeps and they rearranged some customers so they could come out the next day.  Later, David and I went round to the neighbour's side to pull away more vines and weeds, and he was able to strap up the fence to pull it back into position to be screwed.  Poor neighbours, we keep hassling them!  But did I mention I have the bestest brother ever? :)  Cooked beef cheeks for dinner.  Not as dark this time for some reason.  David really liked this version.

Wednesday.  Tree guys came first thing.  Such a shame to see such a beautiful tree taken down, but the thing was in danger of falling down so had to go :(  Kit was sad as well, although I think she'd have been sadder if it had fallen on her garage!

They came back later in the afternoon to grind out the stump.

Had our pizza night a night early, then played Kismet with Kit and Pete.  I got not one but *two* kismets - the first with 1s, the second with 6s.  I ended up winning.

Thursday morning.  Emirates refunded our Europe flights (although not the extra we paid for seat allocations hmmm).  Still, can't complain too much, we're lucky to have gotten anything back at all.  Packed up to go out to the club.  Lit the fire and collected more firewood before the predicted rain.  

Hey look!  I saw a 747 in flight!

This is what we came out for so early - to seal this sawdust board MDF

They'd put this cabinetry in but hadn't sealed it, so a single drop of water would make the whole thing swell up.  Which is really great right next to the kitchen sink.

I sanded and sanded it, but it didn't get smooth, just all fluffy.

Had drinks and leftover roast pork by the fire.  Listened to a podcast on the possible CIA origins of Winds of Change (part 1 of 8).  

Friday morning.  Got stuck into the first coat of primer.  Things were going well until the fumes made Stu sick :(  So stopped after an hour and a half and washed out the brush.  In the afternoon did some tidying and organising of the "tool shed" in the van.  Also did some work on the tapestry.  Stu had some pretty chilled out music going so it was a nice pleasant afternoon just chillin.  I also sanded the cabinetry again.  This time got things somewhat smoother.  Cooked curried sausages for dinner.  I don't think I'd really want to cook much from scratch out there in future.  I mean I can, but there's no range hood, so steam from cooking just goes everywhere.  Think we'll just stick to leftovers, or bbq.  Listened to another episode of Winds of Change and had an early night.

Saturday.  Stoopid fricken insomnia.  Lit the fire again, had a bit of a sleepin.  Did another coat of primer while Stu was at the committee meeting.  I think another sanding and another coat of primer (just on the horizontal surfaces that had been damaged) and it'll be as smooth as I can get it. 

We were meant to meet up with EffanC after for lunch, but we went to the wrong hotel, 20km away.  This is what happens when you use the PHONE, people, instead of MESSAGING!!!  If I'd seen it in writing would have been less likely to get it so wrong.  #grunt !  Anyway, Stu and I had a nice enough lunch at the Lake George Hotel.

This time they got the pork belly right - with crackling!  

Finished watching the end of Herbie the Love Bug in the evening.

Sunday was housework all fricken morning.  After lunch went and visited Annie, but we were running a bit early, so Stu drove me around to look at the flooded Ginninderra Creek.

So seeing Annie and Immy, and later Noah and Stu, was nice.  Haven't seen them in forever.  Did our shopping at Casey Supabarn, I think for the first time since 2017 when they ripped us off.  This time they wouldn't do any bagging, which is a massive pain when you're trying to wrangle a large trolley load full of shopping at either end.  At least I had Stu's help this time, it would not have worked *at all* if I'd been by myself.  I swear if they try and do that sort of crap again I would send one bag and what I wanted to go in it through, go to the other end and load it, before coming back to pass the next bagful of stuff through.  Got home and cooked for hours.  Roast chicken and veggies, chicken to make up some honey mustard chicken during the week, and mince for tacos.  Dinner and BBT.  I went to go clean up after dinner and Stu put YouTube videos of various BBT stuff.  While I'm fricken working and everyone is just sitting around watching videos without me.  Might have had a meltdown.  There is no way I could be a mother, I'd lose my $#!+ every fricken day.

So contrary what the date on this entry says, I didn't blog that night, in fact like three weeks behind in blogging by that point.  *sigh*

Backdating.. cause I'm a slacker...!

Monday after two late mornings on the weekend I slept in til 7:10am!  Whoops!  So no slide scanning.  Deleted lots of stuff at work which always makes me happy.  Dinner and kitchen cleaning and took all night to label my quota of photos.

Monday night I couldn't get to sleep til after midnight - restless legs/itchy skin.  Then woke up at 3:20 and couldn't get back to sleep for over two hours, then broken sleep til 7:10.  Got up and had breakfast, then attemped to get some more sleep, but failed.  *sigh*.  So another day of no slide scanning.  Had a 2.5 hour marathon session with Ward doing all the Sharefilez.  Taco Tuesday, then took all night to label 145 photos of the Tower of London.

At least I slept well Tuesday night, sleeping in til 6:40.  Put on an Irish stew at lunch, but the recipe Stu gave me could have used a slow cooker twice as big as ours.  I did realise this and cut it down a lot, but it was still very full (and as I write this on 28/7 there's *still* some leftover in the fridge!).  Into season 2 of IT Crowd.  By the time we'd had dinner and watched some tv and done the washing up by the time I sat down it was like 8pm.  *sigh*.  Kinda struggling a bit.. hrmmm..

Thursday.  Slept ok again, even woke up on time.  Finished watching the original One Hundred and One Dalmatians.  And started getting a cold sore.  Hurrah.

We're onto our sixth case of Corona since the lockdown.  I calculated we've drunk about 7.4 beers each week between the two of us.  We're saving the boxes for filling up with books if Lifeline ever start taking donations again...

Let Stumpy out for a walk.

Wait what?  Am I watching One Hundred and One Dalmatians here?  Or Peter Pan?  I call shenanigans!!

Friday I took a long lunch to go see Qantas' last 747 fly over Canberra.  If I get Coronavirus it'll be from the guy who came and stood right next to me upwind of me and was sniffling and coughing (only very quietly, but still..).  Epic #grunt.  

Had chicken kiev for dinner and watched My Neighbour Totoro.

Didn't really do much on Saturday.  Nothing noteworthy anyway.  In the evening went over to EffanC's for dinner.

Sunday also not much.  I did scan a box of slides - of me as a baby.  Had C over for a music session and dinner.  Did slow cooker beef brisket based on this recipe.  I've never cooked beef brisket before, but it turned out pretty well.  Very fatty though!!  I'll append an after shot once I've gotten it off the phone, although it really wasn't very photogenic!!

Also how funny is this - the bottle on the left was best before 2004.  !!  It was the second bottle Stu owned when I met him, and after finishing the first I moved onto this one.  Except it was so dehydrated it was pretty much a sticky mass that wouldn't pour.  So we got a new one.  Best before 2022.  :)