So Monday was a much appreciated day off.  Caught up on all my blogging.  The internet died for three minutes between 13:22 and 13:25.  Didn't get a whole lot done in the afternoon, although did tidy up the plants on the kitchen window sill and plant some more seeds.  Started season four of The Good Place, and watched Oblivion which was a little confusing, but not too bad a movie.  

Tuesday went and got photos for my new passport and submitted the form, although botched my signature and wished I could redo it - I'll be stuck with that for ten years hrmm.  In the evening we were going to go to Raijin in McKellar with EffanC, but they were full so we ended up at Malaysian Chapter.  Which was somewhat disappointing because I was looking forward to Japanese and I really don't like the menu at Malaysian Chapter (I never remember which curries are which, and which are hot or not (and they don't indicate how hot they are on the menu)).  And it was nearly 7:30pm and I was *hangry*.  Grunt.  But did get some food into me and felt a lot better.  For reference I had the Chef's Special Curry with fish, and Stu had the Mamak Mee Goreng which was very nice.

Wednesday was a Lighthouse farewell for our director, and churning through Hong Kong photo labelling in the evening.

Oh we also finished season 5 of Brooklyn 99 this week, and I watched a couple of episodes of Murder in the Bayou at a recommendation from someone at work, but listening to that much bad english got very grating and I found it hard to sympathise.  Getting through season 2 of Big Bang Theory.

Friday was a Lighthouse farewell for a contractor, two pub lunches in one week, oops.  But did share a pizza with Connor both times to avoid overeating.

Saturday morning I did all the houseworkey stuff then did the design for the invitation for Kit's Hen's.  My ~23 year old copy of Photoshop wouldn't run on this computer (it loaded but just spinning wheels and stopped responding) so I downloaded Gimp.  All the tools are much the same as Photoshop, but I had to dredge up the memory on how to use them (and Google a few too).  Mid afternoon David came to visit, and we started a jigsaw.  A couple of hours later Scott and Kerry and the kids came over (they'd been planning to stay a lot longer but got stuck doing a longer bushwalk than they intended, so only stayed for a short while).  Then we headed out to dinner.  Labor Club, with Chicken Kiev for me yumm.

Then back home to work on the jigsaw for a little while.

We also finished off a couple of liqueurs that had been in the house *forever*.  That bottle of Midori I bought when I first moved out of home.  In the year 2000.  The Creme de menthe I've had for nearly as long.  Silly really.

This morning David and I headed out to Gungahlin for brunch (and was shocked to discover the parking under BigW is now paid parking (first two hours free) even on Sundays - how rude!)  David had a chicken and camembert grill and I had a rosti eggs benedict with chorizo that was quite nice.

Then we moved the car up to the Coles carpark and went and hopped on a tram!

I'd still never been on the tram, so thought it would be a fun thing to do with David.  Do you think he's having fun? ;)

I remember when this was just a grassy field.  Now there's apartments and a Woolworths..

Passing the Mitchell depot.  I was shocked that there wasn't a tram stop at Mitchell.  Why on earth not?

Ticket inspectors got on around Dickson.  In twelve years of catching buses I don't think I've ever had my ticket checked, but today they checked it on my first ever tram ride (and indeed my second ride on the way back!)

In the city we got off and took some photos, couldn't think of anything worthwhile to do in the city, so jumped on again for the ride back.

It was a little less crowded on the way back.  The ticket inspectors gave a warning to the drughead behind us who didn't have a ticket.  We wondered how many "warnings" he'd been given.

All up from start to finish it took an hour to go into the city and back on the same tram.

On the way back on the tram we saw a house bedecked for halloween, so went and had a closer look at it.

While we were there the owner came home and we were chatting and she said we need to come by again at night to see it all lit up.  

And we saw another tram go by :)

Then back home, finished the jigsaw, and David went home.

This afternoon mostly finished up the hen's night invitation, but didn't get a whole lot more else done, which was a bit distressing as I've got a *lot* that I *need* to do (like tax).  We did do food shopping though.  And I cooked a lamb roast.

And so endeth the weekend.

Monday came home a bit early and did All The Things.  Spent some time processing photos from our Hong Kong and Singapore trip - which I'd geotagged the originals instead of the resized ones I usually work with.  Also talked to Ric for the first time in well over ten years.

Tuesday we had Cath over for dinner - did lemon chicken and a sweet potato salad - both out of the Coles magazine.

Wednesday finished fixing up the Hong Kong / Singapore photos, and geotagged all Stu's photos from the trip, which I hadn't done before.  Then finished watching Twilight.

Thursday had quiet drinks and an early night, but didn't sleep very well so was a bit of a zombie on Friday.  At least it was a bit quieter than in recent weeks, and even had time to do decommissioning cleanup.  Had quiet drinks after work and watched cranes moving stuff around.  Watched Never Say Never Again in the evening.

Saturday we went out to the club fairly early, but when we got there most of the gardening work had already been done.  Stu helped a bit with that, and I helped chop vegetables, only slicing open one finger.  Like the Chinese New Year one a few years ago, these guys need a bit more practise getting catering quantities right.  We chopped a whole bunch of food that never even got cooked, and what did get cooked could have feed two to three times as many people as came.  So upsetting.  Anyway, the rain washed out the rest of the working bee.  I even tried to have a snooze but just don't sleep well during the day so never even got to sleep.  Didn't get much done in the afternoon either.  In the end went up to the shed for happy hour and dinner.

Didn't sleep very well, awake at 6am.  Took some containers and filled them up with leftovers.  Filled my esky to the brim and barely even made a dent.  Chucked some money in the honesty box, because basically I took home food for our entire week.

Was really tired today and just couldn't concentrate on anything much.  I did get up to the end of the one year in Julie Powell's blog, and then watched Julie and Julia.  A few differences in the movie to the blog, eg them moving to Queens at the beginning of the story when they actually moved part way into it.  And starting on August 13th instead of the 25th.  Odd thing to do.  Maybe to finish the year before the great blackout of August 14 2003 (funnily enough I remembered that date before I read her entry for that day, and wondered how it played out for her.  Turns out they only lost power overnight).  This is her boeuf bourguignon entry.

Cooked up the potato and pumpkin I brought home, and had it with the last of the chicken from Tuesday, and watched Veronica Mars.

So when I left you on Sunday night I was frustrated at the whole experience I'd had with Qantas that afternoon.  In the end my booking hadn't gone through properly because of a problem with my credit card (I never use it, in fact I don't think I'd used this one since activating it, so wasn't really surprised).  On Monday I tested the credit card worked (it did) so in the afternoon I called Qantas.  Where I got in a queue that said I would be on hold for THREE HOURS.

!!!!!!!

Are you freaking kidding me?  Most companies have different queues for sales and support.  Sales *want* your business and so put on more staff to handle the calls.  Not so Qantas.  So I complained on twitter.  As you do.  There was a bit of back and forth during the afternoon, and they said they'd call to try again with the credit card.  Which they did - while I was in the other room having dinner and watching Brooklyn 99, so didn't hear the phone.  

While I was waiting again, I got onto Emirates' site. I put through the same itinerary, which 1) actually seemed to let me do (I got all the way up to the payment page), 2) had a much better connection to Singapore, giving us a few extra hours there, and 3) was THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER.  I asked Qantas if we could please cancel.  I was too upset/stressed from the whole thing to concentrate on anything much, so I went and cleaned the kitchen.  Of course as soon as I left the room Qantas called again.  Sigh.  But confirmed my wish to cancel the booking and eventually they did.

On Tuesday I put the whole booking through Emirates.  I still had issues with the credit card (the two-factor code wouldn't come through to my phone), so I just used a different card.  And that was that.  Done.  

Although Emirates do price gouge with seat selection - $20-$30 for regular seats, $120 for the little pair of two at the back of the plain, who even knows how much for exit row seats.  There goes that saving...

So Qantas had three lost opportunities to get my money.  If their multi city flights were actually usable I would have booked on the spot, using whichever credit card had worked.  If their booking management system had actually made a provision to "pay now" and let me pay online, I would have.  If they didn't make me wait THREE HOURS in a phone queue I would have done it over the phone.

Qantas really need to lift their game if they want to stay competitive in 2019.

Sigh.

Monday morning I cleared a massive backlogs of tickets due to me being away on Friday for the funeral.  Started to panic at the sheer volume of work facing me for the week.  And I couldn't get anything done on Monday afternoon due to nonstop interruptions.  Every one of them tore my concentration away so the *one thing* I was trying to do I couldn't get done.  In the end I managed to get it done between 5pm and 6pm when everyone else had gone away.

Tuesday not *quite* so busy, but did get stuff done.

Wednesday I was in race condition mode.  That is, too many high priority tasks competing, which meant I actually didn't get anything meaningful done at all in the morning.  Sigh.  So did some stuff for Henrch, and then Shane saved me by pushing back on the people that haven't done their docos :)

Also on Wednesday I had just stood up and was looking out the window and saw a Tarago back into a car in the car park, bumping it so I saw it move.. and then it drove away.  I grabbed my camera and took some pics.  And then went and left a note :)  I did get a call from the police asking for the photos, but no word of thanks or even acknowledgement from the owner of the car that was hit.

Aldi proved themselves once again to be a bunch of scammers.  Neil saw an ad for some scotch that he thought he'd get for the bar.  So we had a look at lunch.  But not only was there none of that scotch to be seen, but there wasn't even an empty spot on the shelf for it.  There was no price tag at all for that scotch.  Which clearly meant they never had it for sale at all.  SCAMMERS!

And then on Friday Dan's tried to charge me $14.99 for a bottle of Henkell.  I knew when I saw the price tag there was going to be trouble, so I took a photo of it, and got it for the cheaper price ;)  

When we got home on Thursday night I was in the family room doing up my hair and talking to the sweetie when I heard something and saw something move out of the corner of my eye.  One of Chrissie's clown loaches was flopping on the top of the book case next to the tank.  It must have been startled when we got home, but it had somehow managed to get out between the loosish lid and the tank wall (might have to weight it down heh).  Grabbed the fish and plonked it back in, and it's been fine ever since.  It was lucky I saw it too, I don't normally linger at that spot for very long, it would have been just as likely for me not to even have noticed til the next day.

I really wanted to have a random day off on Friday but there was just too much work all week.  I think I closed something like 30 tickets which is *huge*.  I did manage to leave at 4pm tho.  Started watching Friends with Benefits until the sweetie got home, then we watched For Your Eyes Only.  I haven't seen most of the early James Bonds in probably twenty years or more - when Dad used to put them on while I was still living at home.  But with the early ones I could still remember bits and pieces and even the odd lines of script and one-liners.  But I have no memories at all of For Your Eyes Only, except for dropping the dude down the chimney at the beginning. 

Saturday morning was the usual house work type stuff.  Not too much in the afternoon.  Finished watching Friends with Benefits.  Silly and predictable, but hey, New York.  Watched Jackie with the sweetie.  It wasn't bad, but had a very disjointed filming style.

Today was Lego picking, trivia night planning, photo culling, lunch out and food shopping, more of the same in the afternoon.  Watched Parenthood before dinner and finished after. Roasted a stack of veggies for dinner and watched some Veronica Mars.

And blogged.

Monday doctor; Hero Sushi for dinner (it met expectations - it disappointed).

Tuesday continued photo culling.  I managed two days all week.  It's fricken hard work.

Wednesday was KFC for lunch (tradition).  Ate it while listening to an AWS guy deep dive into some stuff, so most of it went over my head, and I was stuck there for two hours which my legs really didn't appreciate.  Then had to deal with people blaming the firewall for blocking stuff.  Sure it's blocking stuff, but only because they upgraded their application, not because we changed the rules.  Went and shared some bubbles with Neil which was nice.

Then to Bella Vista with the sweetie.

Had Assagini for entree - a mixed seafood platter consisting of calamari, scallops, prawns, San Danielle prosciutto and an avaocado and tomato salsa

Stu had Gnocchi with gorgonzola dolce cheese

I had bistecca: wagyu sirloin, creamy mash, prawns, spinach, green beans, pancetta, garlic butter sauce.

All very nice.

Saw this on Thursday.  Driven by quality.

Friday morning I drove myself up to Sydney.  Had lunch with Mum at the village - lamb roast.

Then off to the funeral.  Actually the thanksgiving memorial - the private funeral was in the morning.  It actually went for quite a long time - an hour and a half.  They used a whole heap of photos of Mum's that I'd scanned in recent years and sent them all through to Chrissie to pass on (they didn't have access to the house to get any of their own photos).  Saw quite a few people that I knew from years past, even Kristen from school and Joe W and Michael S so that was nice.  

Chrissie and I completely geeked out and went and stood in the hall of the church where we met thirty years and a couple of weeks ago.

Hung around til almost the end before Joe gave us a lift back to Mum's (we took the train earlier because we figured we'd have to walk about the same distance as if we drove).  Stopped in at South Village to have a look.

Back at Mum's I had a quiet toast to Diana and Graham.

Then we played Rummy Tiles, which Mum and Diana played every Friday night for years.

Saturday morning Mum and I looked at dates and travel options for our trip next year.  Then I headed off.

Met up with Kit in Dapto so she could look at a horse she was interested in buying.  She had a decent long ride and I took a whole heap of video for her to get an idea of whether she wants to buy or not (by today she'd decided not to - the horse was an old pacer so wouldn't canter).  I even had a little ride (my phone went a bit spastic so it was very dark and unsaturated, no idea what that was about, fixed up somewhat but not ideal).

Stu wanted gnocchi bake for dinner, so went to Chris's for supplies and did it.  Then we watched Moonraker.

Today I spent most of the morning trying to catch up housework.  Did some food shopping and finally got to go see takoyaki man!  The guy makes actual takoyaki, although he'd run out of octopus by the time we got there late morning, so we just had pork.  Next time we go earlier!

This afternoon I thought I'd book flights.  Sounds simple.  Four legs, which I put into Qantas' site.  But every time I got to a certain point (confirming passenger details) it gave this friendly error:

WHICH IS COMPLETELY F#$^ING USELESS QANTAS!!

So I got onto their chat line (took about thirty five minutes to talk to someone) and they spent a good twenty minutes trying to reproduce the problem ("I'm also having the same error in the website. Let me check this in our system").  Eventually he says "I have checked and the reason why you're unable to proceed online is that there is no combinable fares for a Multi City trip."  Which really doesn't help me much.  After a few repeats of "I don't understand" it seems that the cities don't actually link up in the middle.  Because it's Europe.  Who goes back to where they came from anyway?  So I wasn't going to be able to book it via the website.  Qantas is completely pathetic.  If this sort of itinerary is going to cause an error, why don't they say that before I move off the very first page?  Why lead me through another couple of pages before throwing up a Generic Error that doesn't actually tell me what's wrong?  Sigh.  So anyway, for an extra $200 he put it through manually, although after all was said and done, I got an email saying there was a problem with payment and I have to call them anyway.  Fricken great.  Maybe tomorrow.

Anyway so dinner was an hour later than I wanted because I spent so long dealing with Qantas.  Watched Brooklyn 99 and Veronica Mars (they keep bringing back characters that I've forgotten about so have to go look them up, and other characters that I *do* remember, like Leo and Vinnie and Weevil :) ).

Crazy week.  And two weeks in a row without a proper weekend.  Really must take another random day off..

Monday night the sweetie was home so he cooked dinner - salmon with a tartare sauce he made himself.  Very nice and very much appreciated.

After dinner and photo labelling I wanted to have some *fun* with Vic's Lego (after it all just being work so far).  So I started on the Cinderella Castle, because it was almost complete (likely because girls take better care of their things than boys do).  The palette sure is different to boys Lego too.

Tuesday lunch had lunch with Chrissie which was nice, although fairly brief.

Tuesday the sweetie was home but he didn't cook dinner.  We had leftovers.  

Then I finished the castle.

Wednesday the sweetie was home but he didn't cook dinner.  We had pizza delivered. 

Instead of photo labelling I spent all evening typing up all the notes from the last chat Kit and I had had about the wedding.  

Thursday we were going to go to Dumpling Inn with Hannah and Rita, but someone had the idea we should try Pizza Artigiana.  So we did that.  We had three very nice (and very thin!) pizzas - Patate e Salciccia - PAOLA - thinly sliced potatoes with mozzarella, Italian pork sausage (I think they forgot that ingredient) and thyme ($20); Quattro Formaggi - SANDRA - mozzarella, provolne, gorgonzola, and shaved pecorino ($20); Prosciutto Crudo - AMBRA - tomato base, prosciutto, mozzarella, rocket, parmesan and balsamic vinegar ($21).

And a nice Rocket and parmesan salad - rocket lettuce with shaved parmesan and a balsamic vinegar and virgin olive oil dressing ($10).

And we might have gotten the nutella pizza (which I don't think is on the menu).  

Friday I took a random day off, so used that do a bit of houseworky stuff, and then get ready to go down to the coast.

It was crazy windy on the drive.  All the wind turbines at Tarago were shut down.  I was a bit nervous about a tree branch falling on the car (and we did have to round a small tree partially blocking the road).  (edit: a father and son died when a tree fell on their car in Victoria on Sunday night :( )

Had dinner and just chatted when we got there. 

Pete has a new fish tank with nine neon tetras (Clone 1-9), six male guppies (red spotty tail 1 and 2, yellow spotty tail 1 and 2, blue and grey 1 and 2) and a sucking catfish (Dyson).

And Petal was very excited to see us.

Kit has a new snake.  She wants to call it Richard.  Pete wants to call it Monty.

And three of these are still going something like eighteen years later..

Saturday morning was more animal stuff.

Then we headed out to have a look at the wedding venue and ask questions and take notes.

Had lunch at the Australian Hotel in Nowra.  $10 for quite a nice steak (better than the Rashay's $5 ones).

Then we all went to the zoo.  It was still crazy windy.  I'll save that for another post.

Pete made pizzas for dinner (epic thick with toppings heh)

Chatted and played a game of Kismet (I won, somehow).

Sunday morning I showed Kit the bridesmaids dress.  We debated the best way to fix the problems with it.

Then I sat down and went through the wedding planning notes with them.  Well I tried to.  I'd been wanting to do it all weekend but getting the two of them to pay attention for more than thirty seconds at a time was like trying to herd cats.  Super frustrating.  So we left a lot later than we'd planned to, and just got chips and snacks at the servo for a very late lunch.

Got home and the house was freezing (10C when we got home, minimum of 6C).  Had chicken kiev for dinner and super stressed out by Apple.

Tonight I caught up on last week's photo labelling, as well as getting a good head start on this week's.  Was in a completely different mental state and was able to process all my photos from the past week.  I was so stressed out last night my brain couldn't *see* what I was doing.  Blinded by rage???  

So no movies at all this week.  Just a lot of feeling cold.  And a lot of pizza.  And a (mostly) nice weekend away.

Monday I went shoe shopping for Kit's wedding.  Needed to get the shoes before I ordered the dress to get the right heights.  Found a nice pair of silver shoes but they've got a bit of a heel which would hurt my feet so Kit said probably not best to use those.  I might keep them anyway as I can wear them for other things.  Got up to 4000 out of 10500 photos labelled from the last trip.  Also found out that Foursquare killed their RSS feed for my checkins back in March.  How the heck am I meant to get an offline backup of my history now?!?  Stu said I should try IFTTT to get it.  So I did.  About half a dozen clicks later I had IFTTT downloading each checkin to a Google docs spreadsheet.  So disturbingly easy and I didn't touch the keyboard in the whole process.

Tuesday I had another go at shoe shopping after Kit said she'd be happy if we all wore nice thongs.  I sent her pics of a few and saw one she liked so I bought a pair.  Only $15 w00t.  Stu was sick Tuesday and we might have had Kingsley's for dinner.  Whoops.  Made up a tomato sauce with a big bunch of Kit's tomatoes I defrosted on the weekend.

Thursday I went back to the shoe store and bought another two pairs of the thongs so all three bridesmaids will have the same shoes.

Friday a bunch of us went to Rashays for their $5 lunch special (just for the month of May).  Great value that's for sure!

But they are seriously trolling people with their serviettes!

In the evening we started on MacGyver season 2.

Kit had picked up keys during the day as she was up for Katie's sister's funeral (kid was only 12 :( ).  She got home after 1am.  We hadn't slept.  Yay.  I was just uncomfortable and restless.  Torture.  When Kit got home Stu poured us a small nightcap and we chatted to Kit for a while and helped her finish her Big Mac.  Even that didn't help much, and it was after 3am before I got to sleep :(  Woke up at 5am with a sore spine so struggled to get back to sleep.  So that was a fun night.  Not.

Saturday had a little bit of a sleep in.  Kit spent much of the day sleeping and doing uni work (pyjama day for the win!).  I did houseworky stuff and jigsaw.  In the evening I cooked a lasagna with the tomato sauce I made during the week and we watched a Netflix (Stan?) show on street food, this one on Singapore, and The Imitation Game.

This morning Kit and I had a long chat about wedding planning.  I even took notes haha.  Stu and I went out to for lunch and food shopping, and Kit went off to her friend Sophie's wedding.  

She came back for a couple of hours between the ceremony and the reception so we mostly just chatted.  And there may have been cheese.  Other than that I was sorting photos - filing photos into more logical directories.  Some work directories have 1000 or 1500 photos in them that need to be filed more logically.  And then I need to crowdsource labelling them.  Cooked a lamb roast for dinner and watched Death in Paradise.

So a fairly quiet weekend which was nice.  Achieved some stuff, although maybe not as much as I'd have liked, but it was generally quite relaxing. 

Monday we got home a bit late which left me a little stressed because I need to do All The Things on Mondays, in addition to a backup I was meant to run on the weekend but never did.  I thought it was going to talk all night because I'd done a heap of moving files around, which means robocopy would then have to delete/recopy everything.  But in the end I moved them around on the disk first so it was pretty quick.  I ran Spacemonger over the disk and it added up 1.3 million files in 51000 folders.  Freaky.  We also started watching Brooklyn 99.  Stu has actually seen it all through before but suggested watching it anyway.  Not a bad show.  A bit silly but a bit of fun.  But.  KEEP THE DAMNED CAMERA STILL!!  It's got the whole Modern Family can't-keep-the-damned-camera-still thing going on which I HATE.  It's even worse than Discovery's damned lens flare.  

Must be mother's day soon..

Tuesday had the club committee meeting here so I half listened in while labelling photos (1/3 way through w00t!).  Also baked a Yum! Delicious! cake which all got eated.

The neighbour's ducks

Hey sucker!

Wednesday I was surprised to find an actual light meal at the Labor Club, so didn't end up stuffing myself silly.  Because for dinner we went to Dumpling Inn with Hannah to talk Harry Potter.

Labor Club caesar salad

Dumpling Inn

Thursday night I swear it actually got warmer as the evening progressed.  We made the most of one of the last mild evenings of the season.  At home, Stu ordered extra large pizzas for dinner hrmmm.  Then afterwards had a drink with Kit and Pete and played a game of Kismet (I won, w00t!).  The fact they are 130km away is irrelevant.

Friday we Marie Kondo-ed our clothes.  We actually pulled everything out and put it all out on the bed.  My pile was somewhat bigger than I thought it would be, but nowhere near as big as some of the piles we saw on the show.  Finished watching the Desolation of Smaug, then watched Thor Ragnarok which is a bit of fluff (reviewers either completely loved or completely hated it).  We'd seen Dr Strange so knew who he was, but not sure if there were other references we didn't get, on account of only seeing a few MCU films (it's creeping up - have seen Guardians of the Galaxy 1&2, Dr Strange, now this).

Saturday just bits and pieces.  Did a Bunnings run (no tubs in the size/style I wanted that weren't crap).  Spent some time Marie Kondo-ing the linen cupboard.  Finally sorted out the wine that's been making a mess under the house - consolidated boxes (down to about 7.5 boxes now) so it's all a bit more organised.  Watched the Battle of the Five Armies.  Just as dumb as I remembered it.

Today spent some time in the garage in the morning, but barely made a dent.  Made some cheese and vegemite scrolls for lunch which were pretty awesome.  Marie Kondo-ed three shelves in the pantry in the afternoon.  Roast chicken for dinner, Discovery (finishing up season 2), and Dr No, which I haven't seen in ages.

I need more of it.  Everything takes longer to do than it should, and there's just not enough hours in the day to get it all done.

Pretty standard week.  Busy in parts, not busy in others.  Fun and games with failed hardware, but did get dual nics working on the mail server in the new environment (well Connor did the hard bit, I fiddled with the server config).

Thursday the return of the vomit pizza!  Well not quite, but it does have a cheesy sauce base.

Also, as it turns out, I never posted a photo of the original vomit pizza.  This was taken in August 2017.  OMFG it looks disgusting but it was sooo good ;)

Saw this Friday morning which made us lol

Friday came home a little early.  Started watching He's Just Not That Into You which was a bit of fluff, kinda reminded me of Love Actually where everyone is connected to everyone else.  When the sweetie got home we had leftovers and started watching The Desolation of Smaug.  Way too long a movie and we ditched it with still a little over an hour to go and went to bed.

Saturday morning catching up on house stuff.  Then headed out to the club.  Where we accidentally bought a new van.  Which is about five times the size of our last van (actually probably even bigger).

Then back home, and straight out again, to EffanC's for drinks and cheese on one of the last warm days of the season.  Had dinner of one of C's amazing salads.  So all very nice.  Except the drama.  Don't like drama.  Dropped in to see Annie and the kids and Daisy for a bit as well.

Saturday night/Sunday morning woke up around midnight and didn't get back to sleep til after 4am :(  So was a bit of a zombie today.  I thought I'd do a little Lego picking (finish picking the six sets I started this week) til maybe lunch time, then tackle the todo list.  Except I was still going strong on the picking by dinner time and I'd done like ZERO things on my todo list :(  Well other than finish watching He's Just Not That Into You.  And I did pull out some periwinkle and load the green bin.  Kit called just before dinner asking if I'd be a bridesmaid, which is very exciting (Audrey was going to find it too difficult, living in another country and all).  Roasted some potatoes and had those with leftover chicken and watched Discovery.

How do you stop windoze 10 just forcing a patching reboot whenever it damned well feels like it???  HATE Microsoft.  More time taken out of my evening trying to get back into everything it shut down.

Now just need to find some time to breathe....

It was four weeks ago last night I had my appendix out.  Still doing all right.  Still random stabby pains all over my abdomen though.

Meanwhile.

Wednesday a week and a bit ago we met up with EffanC for dinner at Malaysian Chapter.  They have a new menu but didn't put any effort at all into its presentation, it's just bits of paper in dodgy old sheet protectors.

Thursday was the usual pizza.

Friday the sweetie and I had sushi in town and watched the new Ghostbusters.  It's rated quite poorly on IMDB, but I thought it was a bit of nonsensical fun.  Kit and Pete came up for Kit's brother's wedding, so I gave them the keys during the day but we didn't see them at all Friday night.

Saturday Stu went off for a war game with Tom and Damien and I had a quiet morning. Kit and Pete surfaced well after lunch, possibly still over the limit, so I drove Kit to pick up her mum and took them to Kingston so Kit could try on wedding dresses.  In the evening Pete and Leisa were having a combined birthday thing at the Old Canberra Inn, so I drove them to that as well.  Kit still wasn't hungry so I suggested splitting a schnitty, as I don't like huge pub sized servings either.  Worked great, although Kit ate so little of it I ended up having most of it anyway hehe.  Inflicted them with our slide show.  Still too big, at 729 photos.  Still needs more culling.

Sunday Kit and Pete went home.  I just had a quiet day doing stuff.  Finished watching the Stepford Wives which I'd last seen in 2006 and started watching the day before.  Kerry and the kids dropped in around lunch.  They'd come down for a flying visit to see the balloons.  We did some food shopping, and watched Fuller House and Discovery in the evening.

Monday I got up a bit early and went and saw the balloons.  Neil was operating the Square this year and not cooking.  Saw the beagle, mostly its butt.  Then came home.  Had a quiet but productive day.  Even pulled a whole heap of crap out of the spare room.  Including a huge pile to take to the Green Shed.  So can move in there again now, but still need to do a lot of organising.

Tuesday I bought some ten litre plastic boxes to store shoes that don't get used very often.  They stack nicely and are to replace cardboard shoeboxes that silverfish eat.  Trying to get rid of as much cardboard in the house as I can.  Had Turkish for dinner and watched Homeland.

Wednesday I got some more plastic tubs for shoes because I didn't have quite enough.  In the evening I prepped a big batch of steak/bacon/onion/garlic/mushrooms for the weekend.

Thursday was just MacGyver, but no pizza because we'd already had takeaway one night this week.

So there we are, all caught up.  Nothing particularly exciting in there.

Monday night I started feeling sick.  Just a cold.  But after having so much time off I felt bad about taking any more time off, so carried on.  Fortunately it wasn't a bad cold so that was good.  Only lasted a few days.

Pretty quiet week otherwise, just continuing tv watching of MacGyver, Fuller House, Discovery, and we started watching season 7 of Homeland.  I also started scanning the last two analogue photo albums of Mum's (there were two holiday albums squirrelled away), and started labelling my last holiday photos.

This weekend has also been really quiet.  I haven't left the house!  Just getting stuff done, filing photos, labelling photos, doing jigsaws, basically weekendy type stuff.  Last night we watched Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which was a bit of fun, if a bit far fetched.