The last week of our break was overshadowed, quite literally, by the catastrophe of the bushfires.  I watched them get closer and closer to Kit and Pete's place, then it skirted round their town, but they're not out of danger yet.  It's still very close to David's place at River Island.  It got very close to DC's place at Malua Bay, and Fiona's place in Newcastle.  @CLBradley's place at Kangaroo Valley is still under threat.  Lisa's family lost a farm house and a camper.   Connor's inlaws' land was burnt out, but the shed was ok.  Chloe's land got burnt out and their shed and tractor are gone, but the house they are building was untouched.  And that's just people I know.  People have died.  Many homes, farms and historic buildings have been lost.  The toll on the bush and the wildlife is incalculable.  The smoke we've been breathing for the past few weeks is the remains of millions upon *millions* of plants and animals.  It's utterly devastating and heartbreaking.  I really fear that this weather is the new "normal" and wonder if it will ever properly rain again...

So New Year's Eve was very hot and very windy, and I was *super* nervous about fires starting.  We were going to go out to the club but decided not to.  EffanC also decided not to go, so we went over to their place instead as conditions eased. 

So it was fairly quiet evening of just chatting and watching the Sydney fireworks.  Even David joined us after his shift finished which was nice.

The smoke got thick again as the wind changed in the evening.  My first photos of the new year are of the smoke on the way home..

It was a pretty late night so Wednesday, New Year's Day, was a slow, quiet day.  Did a bit of photo processing, blogging, some jigsaw, and we watched Die Another Day in the evening.

Thursday ended up being another quiet day.  Didn't get a whole lot done.  Stu signed up for Disney+ and we watched The Force Awakens in the evening.  Of course our introduction to Disney+, literally the first thing on the screen, was Error 43.  Fricken useless.

How cute are these!?  Stu got them in the mail (before Australia Post stopped deliveries because of the smoke).

Friday with the cooler weather I took the opportunity to check on the gutters.  They weren't too bad.  David also couldn't help himself and pulled apart our cooler and gave it all a good scrub.  Bestest brother ever!

After lunch Kit called.  They were in Canberra - they'd come up Thursday night with all the animals (two dogs, a cat, two birds, three frogs and a snake) leaving behind the chickens and the fish.  They came over in the afternoon and just chilled out for a couple of hours which was nice.  Pete had a lot of fun watching the wedding videos, while Kit monitored the fires and social media.  We dropped their car back at her mum's and had a drink.

Then Stu picked us up and we all went to Bella Vista for dinner.  

We had Garlic and cheese foccacia to share $9 which was delicious (Kit said it was the best cheese and garlic bread she'd ever eaten heh).

For dinner I had Vitello Saltimbocca: Veal escallops with sage, Prosciutto and mozzarella cheese in a white wine reduction sauce served with creamy mash and green beans. ($35)

Then back to our place to chat for a while.  It was nice that they felt they could just come and hang out and relax with us.  We think they made a sensible decision getting to safety ahead of the predicted craziness on Saturday.  

So Saturday.  The hot north-westerly winds picked up again, fanning the flames of all the fires going on at the coast.  I was tense again.  I spent the morning putting away all the Christmas decorations.  Didn't get much done in the afternoon, although I did finish blogging our Melbourne trip, where we went and saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  Link is here - http://kazza.id.au/oz_holidays/ - if you wanted to have a look (last entry is first on that page so scroll down to see it in order).  We watched Casino Royale in the evening.  

The wind did blow all the smoke away for the day, but it came back again around 10pm.

And when I say it came back, I mean it *really* came back.  We could smell it as soon as it hit, and it was swift and all consuming.  In the morning it was like waking up in hell...  the phone wouldn't get the white balance right, I had to fiddle with the DSLR to get this.  

Played through an escape game on my phone, but otherwise only got little bits and pieces done during the day.

In the evening a bunch of us went over to Rob and Lyn's for dinner which was lovely.  The temperature had cooled down significantly so it was nice outside, just very smoky, so we stayed inside, which was a lot hotter.  But had a very pleasant evening.  Rob cooked some quite delicious steaks and there was heaps of other food.

So back to some sense of reality on Monday.  My "essential" todo list kept me going til 10pm but then I couldn't get to sleep (a mosquito buzzing around certainly didn't help, not to mention where the f@#$ did it come from, given there's no standing water anywhere in Canberra at the moment).  So today was a bit of a zombie day, but was able to do lots of cleaning which was good.  And tonight processed photos, and have spent an hour writing up this entry.  

Stay safe everyone...

Gosh what a busy week.

So Sunday a week ago was the Lego show at Ngunnawal.  Earlier in the day, which I didn't note last time, we went to Aldi and saw that they've changed their coin locks so my tool will no longer work with them.  Bastards.  I wouldn't mind using a coin if shopping centres could get off their asses and have a decent trolley return system, but they don't, which is why I'll continue to use my tool until it no longer works.

Monday morning I woke up at 4:15.  Hurrah.  And couldn't get back to sleep.  At least the day at work was relatively peaceful.  I cleaned out my locker and did a bit of inbox tidying.  After work we did some food shopping for Christmas.  But I was acting as a go-between for a couple of guys at work for a crisis that was going on, and so trying to rapidly type messages to both of them.  But OMFG iPhone autocorrect is infuriating sometimes.  It kept changing words that I'd typed correctly into different, incorrect, words, and so I'd have to keep retyping everything and sending correction message after correction message.  I swear I nearly smashed the damned phone onto the ground.  And I managed to screw up the steaks I cooked for dinner.  Yay.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 5:10.  Hurrah.  None of us were wanting to touch anything at work, because who wants to risk breaking anything so close to the break.  But as it turned out, the crisis the day before (still continuing Tuesday) was caused by someone changing something on Monday, and not telling their own damned team what they'd done.  So the others in the team had no idea that the problem was caused by one of their own.  Our team was dumbfounded.  I did however delete a bunch of Dev firewall rules for servers that no longer existed.  I figured if I broke anything in an environment that was being shut down anyway noone would care :)  Had a couple of sneaky drinks that we had leftover from the party before going home.  Had a super relaxing afternoon.  I even managed to finish scanning Mum's 1960s negatives and finish labelling our Hong Kong/Singapore photos, both of which I'd wanted to get done before Christmas, and I did!  In the evening we watched the Carols by Candlelight, which is so much better than the Sydney one.  It's more traditional and more mature and just not as *tacky* as Sydney.  

Look how low the lake is at the moment!  A good six inches down on its normal height.

I may have iced and sprinkled some of the gingerbread cookies.

This is the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  I got a better view of them on TV than I did in the theatre.

Wednesday.  Christmas Day.  Had a fairly relaxed morning.  Well other than having to take three quarters of an hour out of it to go feed Chrissie's animals, and clean up the cat poop one of the cats had done in the bath tub.  Hurrah.  The last hour before lunch was pretty busy, but the sweetie helped me with stuff so that was nice.  Annie and the family came over and we started snacking.  Then Mum arrived and we had Christmas lunch of prawns, ham, salad, bread, dips.  Then Stu put on stoopid YouTube videos so I went and did my own thing.  

We got the house some new towels for Christmas.

Mum brought this down from the cleanout at Diana and Grahams.  I can't believe noone else in their family snaffled this up.  And the wedding favours on top were from *our* wedding!

After everyone had left, Mum went off to go catch a tram, because they were free.  I went to put on a Christmas movie I had saved in my Netflix list, only to find that Netflix had deleted them all.  Bastards.  Moral of the story:  if you see something you want to watch on Netflix, watch it as soon as you can, because it won't be around for long.  Not the first time we've been caught.  I ended up watching The Movies that Made Us: Home Alone.  We watched Love Actually in the evening.  Well Mum and I did.  Stu ran away.

Thursday woke up early.  Hurrah.  Went to Bunnings in the morning with Mum.  Tried to have a sleep when we got back.  Failed.  Spent ages going through Mum's photos with her and updating labels with extra infos.  At one point we came across photos of the new Youth Hostel in Canberra that she was at the opening for in 1968.  So we went for a drive to try and find it.  We found it but the view is covered by trees, and even the building has had a lot of work done around it.  Had pizza for dinner and watched some BBT and into season 5 of Fuller House.  Played a couple of rounds of the basic game of Itchy Feet, a game I got for Christmas.  It was a little boring as the basic game, but may be better with the expansions, but I was too tired and cranky to feel like trying them.

Mum ate all the leftover prawns for us ;)

Friday woke up at 2am, didn't get back to sleep til after 3:30.  Then woke up around 6:30 with an aching spine.  Hurrah.  Mum went off to Chrissie's for the morning, which gave me peace and quiet to tidy the house and prepare lunch.  David arrived just before lunch, and we had roast pork with a lot of crackling and it was all very yummy.  Although not convinced by the stuffing (most of which oozed out and then burnt).  After lunch Mum left to go visit friends on her way home, David went to work and Stu went to the club, leaving me home alone.  I had a bit of a look at my todo list for the rest of the break but didn't actually do much.  Had some crackers and dip for dinner and a piece of crackling.  Healthy dinner, yay.  Watched 28 Days in the evening which I enjoyed.

This is what we call Five O'Clock Charlie - the smoke blowing in from the east.  It's usually more like 7pm though.  These photos were taken just four minutes apart.

Saturday woke up at 5:30 with an aching spine.  Hurrah.  With no car and no sweetie we couldn't do any shopping.  So grabbed the little brother to go storage tub shopping.  Basically there's a bunch of stuff in the dungeon and the spare room that's just all over the ground because there's no cupboard space, and I don't want to put any of it in the garage because of all the bugs.  But you can't even walk in those rooms because they're so choked up, so we can't even start with the decluttering of them.  So the idea is to use tubs as temporary storage to clear the rooms enough to be able to work in them again.  Once things are clearer, those tubs will be for more permanent storage of things that are in cardboard boxes right now - not good because, silverfish.  Spent the afternoon rearranging and filling tubs and getting rid of stuff.  Tidied the linen cupboard, the garage, the dungeon room, the hobby room.  So that was pretty good.  In the evening I watched Phar Lap, which I *might* have seen once more since seeing it at the movies in about 1983, but may not have.  Lots of been-there's heh.  Started watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but then David pointed out that The Sound of Music was on, so may have accidentally watched the rest of that.  Even though I have it on DVD with no ads.  Whoops.

As I was cleaning out the linen cupboard, I found that my roller blades had completely disintegrated!! :(

When I was in the garage working, I heard a scratching on the door outside.  When I went to look, there was an itty bitty little blue tongue lizard.  He was pretty energetic too because he was so warm but I still managed to catch him for a photo.

Sunday was lots more tidying and organising.  Also a bunch of computer work.  Finished watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was silly but a bit of fun.  I totally want a food machine ;)

Monday not a lot of physical stuff, mostly computer stuff, including catching up on blogging.  Went out for lunch and did a bit of shopping.  Picked up a heap of lemons off the ground, and made a lemon meringue pie with five of them.  Managed to piss everyone off after dinner, and so instead of watching Die Hard 4 we all got grumpy with each other and did our own thing.  I watched Sliding Doors which I first saw a few years ago.  

Blue sky!  Haven't seen blue sky in weeks!  It's gone again now though.

Today I've pretty much been doing computer stuff all day - downloading and processing photos and blogging.  The weather is making me extremelly tense.  Canberra new year festivities have been cancelled.  We were thinking about going to the club but don't think we're going to now.  I certainly couldn't concentrate on writing up my year in review post so that will have to wait.  Have a happy new year and stay safe everyone!

Monday into BBT season three, photo labelling.  Tuesday and Wednesday rinse and repeat.

Had this on Tuesday.  It's been in the freezer since before I moved to Canberra.  Since before iPhones were invented.  Before social media was a thing.  The world has changed around this little ice block.  Then I ate it :)

Thursday was a long pub lunch for Jeff's farewell.  First appearance of Bernadette in BBT in the evening.

Friday met up with the sweetie for a drink (joined by some of his colleagues) and dinner (Kimchi because the sweetie wanted KFC).  

Then I left the sweetie home alone and drove down to Kit and Pete's.  Kit was finishing up her last assignment for the year.  So she finished up that, then we had a drink and went to bed.  After meeting this little monster.  He looks like George but is nothing like him.  I mean he's nice enough and all, but *really* doesn't like being picked up.  And he eats *everything*.

Saturday morning Pete cooked breakfast - turkey egg and bacon mcmuffins with hash browns.  Yum yum yum.

Then went and said hello to all the animals.

Then headed out to pick up some feed for Kit's horse.  There were birdies.

Went and visited Jet.  He's quite pretty.

Back to Kit's.

Chloe came over with three of the kids, and we had a bit of a wedding planning session.  Went through the todo list and discussed all the things.  And did a trial run of the table decorations.

When it cooled down later in the afternoon we went back to have a ride of Jet.

I even had a little ride.  But because of the design of the saddle, changing the stirrup length is too hard, so I could only just reach the stirrups with my toes so it wasn't very comfortable, and I certainly didn't feel stable enough to do anything other than walk.

Came back and looked at the sunset and had a drink outside with the girls.

Pete cooked a nice dinner of chorizo and mushroom pasta.

After dinner we played Kismet.  With the snake.  Kit won the game.

And I got snake kisses.

Played a couple of games of Monty Python Fluxx.  Kit won a game and Pete won a game.

Sunday typed up wedding planning notes.  Then we went into Husky for lunch of fish and chips.

And for a walk along the beach and rock pools

I thought these looked pretty colourful

Then we went back to the house.  I packed up all my stuff and went home.  I nearly hit a tortoise that was just standing in the middle of the road on Macs Reef Road or Bungendore Road.  And it rained.  A lot!

Didn't feel like going food shopping, so the sweetie ordered Chong Co delivery - several meals worth so we could have leftovers all week :)  Watched Goldeneye in the evening.

We received the devastating news today that dear sweet George had to be put down.  He'd had urinary problems for years, likely since being trapped under the neighbour's house for a week when he was young.  Today, after a week of stress and thousands of dollars in vet bills Kit made the hard call.  We all loved that stoopid jerk face cat. 

Goodbye George

It started the Wednesday night.  I did all the prep for a beef stroganoff.  So the beef, mushrooms, bacon, onion and garlic, frying it all up so the only work on the weekend would be plugging it in, filling up the slow cooker, and letting it go all afternoon.

And by the end of it, on a weeknight, I still managed a clean kitchen!

Friday evening we headed down the coast.  I snapped a picture of one our new trams.

Drive down was uneventful.  We listened to John Williams the entire way that Stu had downloaded on Spotify.  Couldn't enjoy the scenery though cause it was dark most of the way.

We'd booked to stay at an Airbnb in Sussex Inlet.  Neat little apartment, quite spacious, and a well equipped little kitchen (stovetop but no oven, washing machine/dryer but no dishwasher).  Although previous reviews weren't wrong about rock hard pillows (I brought my own), incorrect wifi password (it was correct in the notification Stu got just before we arrived though), and lack of privacy from a useless curtain on the window above the door, with a view straight from the flat above into our bed (but noone was staying there so not really a big deal).  Pretty much just collapsed into bed (after Stu had a shower that was barely a trickle).

In the morning I went to have a shower, only to find no water at all.  The taps in the sinks were still running slowly, but even they stopped after a flush or two of the toilet.  My first stay at an Airbnb and THIS is my experience??  I smsed the number we had but got no response.  But Stu used the app a while later and got a response within a few minutes so that was ok.  The cleaner said feral kids think it's funny to turn off the water at the street.  (I had asked Stu to go check that earlier but he hadn't gone out to the street).  So they turned it on again and it was ok.  Although a lot of bubbles all through the pipes made for some interesting noises.

I'd been chatting to Kit about it as well, and they weren't doing much better with their water.  They have solar hot water, but it had been rainy, and with so many people in the house they were getting slightly warm at best.

Had some breakfast then went for a wander around Sussex Inlet.  Just walked down to the inlet, north along the river, then back through the town.  It was only 22C, but with the humidity it felt a lot hotter :(

Then we drove to the hall where the party was being held so I could setup the slow cooker.  The hall is quite lovely.  Poured everything into the slow cooker and asked Pete to stir it every hour or so.

Went back to see Kit and Pete's new house which is pretty cool.  Pete has an EPIC shed, and there's heaps of room for all the animals.  Although the dogs didn't like being relegated out the back heh.

We didn't actually see Kit - she was out with Mel.

Headed off again.  We went into Huskisson to have some lunch.  So much fried goodness.  Oh and some salad.

Wandered down to the water to have a look.  

Drove down to Hyams Beach to have a look.  It was full of people.  Yuk.

Then we went for a bit of a drive south, and ended up in Booderee National Park, in the Jervis Bay Territory.

Drove around the loop through Jervis Bay Village, and Stu was like - oo look the Federal Police :)

Stopped at Scottish Rocks and wandered down to the beach, then wandered all the way along to Hole in the Wall, then walked back along the road (because it was cooler out of the sun).

We drove to the end of the road at Murray's Beach, but didn't get out, because it was getting quite late.  We were going to be late for the party, so did the long drive back to Sussex Inlet.  Had a shower, then back to the hall for the party.  The stroganoff was still quite liquid which was a bit disappointing.  Probably shouldn't have used all the stock that I did.  Or at least added a bunch of corn flour.  People did seem to like it though.  Would have done better with something to soak up the juices.

So not only is there quite a large hall, but there's a huge open area all around the hall, including a playground for kids.  People spread out all over the place, meaning the hall was only sparsely populated heh.

And there were some very friendly horsies.

Party food.

And there was some dancing (see what I mean about the hall looking empty!).

I may have called it a night once Bohemian Rhapsody was played and sung along to :)

Came back to crash.

In the morning we dropped by the hall to pick up the spoon I'd left behind, although we didn't stay to help clean up because Stu was anxious to get home to do some uni work.  So just drove home, home by lunch time.

Quite a nice weekend, although I did feel a bit grumbly on Sunday afternoon that the weekend was nearly over and I hadn't had any time at home.

So the beginning of the year. We began the new year at Kit's with Ben and Sarah for a nice start to the year.

We took the first two weeks of January off, so three weeks all up, but during the first two weeks our house was a revolving door of people wanting to use the pool. I do enjoy having people over, but we needed a break!! I think in that two weeks we socialised every single day which was completely exhausting. Later I was able to do a deep clean of most of the kitchen, and organised the garage.

Somehow we managed to go overseas twice this year. In April we made an impromptu trip to Wellington, New Zealand for a lonnng weekend for our tenth wedding anniversary. We only arranged it a few weeks in advance (taking Wello's lead of going to New Zealand just because (actually he did it for status points haha)), and got one of the very last direct Canberra to Wellington flights on Singapore Airlines. In December we avoided the family Christmas obligations and headed to the northern hemisphere. We had a couple of days in Japan before heading to Southampton to board the Queen Mary 2 for a transatlantic crossing and Caribbean cruise. Christmas and New Year were on board the ship in the North Atlantic. I went up to Sydney in January for the mum/uncles post-Christmas chatchup, where we went to Pandora's in Rouse Hill for lunch and sat in Ken and Jeanine's spa all afternoon; and again in June for Mum and Uncle Ken's birthdays, and we went and saw Vivid Sydney which was pretty cool. I went to Junee in May and we went and saw the Bricktastic Lego exhibition, which was awesome because no crowds, and we went to the circus as well. I went to Melbourne in June for work, and again with the sweetie in August for Kit's graduation.

Work was pretty stressful this year. The work itself was fine (I completed a massive cleanup project in around a year, much less than my estimate of two years) and my supervisor is great, but we switched to hot-desking which is all kinds of stressful for me. Not to mention that "activity based working" means we should be sitting with the people we work with, but because there's not enough seats that's often not the case. I get in relatively early (thanks sweetie!) so at least I get *some* consistency. We had a Ball in March which was very .. blue! and a lot of fun. Our work bar closed in June and we had an amazing final night. We got a new one, but it's half the size and not as practical. One of the first nights in the new bar was a whiskey night which was good. I organised a trivia night for March, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest. Tried again in May and this time it was a packed house, and the last one in the old bar. We won the first one in the new bar in October, but the organisers said as incentive to win, the second place winners should run it. Let's hope they do or I'll be running another one!

Healthwise I've been pretty good. Just had a cold in May and another in July. Other than that it was just a lot of insomnia. A lot a LOT of insomnia. Omigosh sometimes I was convinced it was going to kill me.

Once again we had a *very* social year. As I mentioned earlier we had a lot of visitors in the first week of January. David came to stay a few times. He came in January and fixed some taps in the bathroom, and later in January to see about the Railway Historical Society and whether or not they'd try and reopen. He came with Leanne in February, to stay after the Airport Open Day (that I never managed to get tickets for), again in April, September and October with Kat. Always great having him here. Chrissie got bigger and bigger with Beavis and I got to see a couple of ultrasounds. She had a quite small but quite cute Nathan at the end of February. Visited them a little but not nearly often enough. Didn't help that Chris was completely exhausted from lack of sleep. Aunty Di and Uncle Graham came down a couple of times and we did fondue with them at Chrissie's in April and October. Had lunch a few times with her as well which was nice. Chris also gave me a kick up the butt in July and helped me grout half the shower. We caught up quite a few times with the extended N-Gang, going to either EffanC's, R&F's, Scotts for pizza, and beef cheecks at our place in July. We saw quite a lot of Kit and Pete during the year. It was sooooo nice having cool neighbours you could pop down to for a quiet drink. Pete is into games, so played a few with him (Kit played begrudgingly) - including Travel Trivial Pursuit, Cards Against Humanity, and Kismet. We went out to the George for Kit's birthday in May, had Ben over for roast in March, and had BBQ at Serena's for her birthday in October. Kit and Pete had a farewell party at the beginning of November (much drama ensued) but we still got to see them every weekend until they left. Helped pack their truck at the beginning of December, and they moved down the coast the same weekend we went overseas. We met up with Damien and Amanda at the Dickson Dumpling House in April, and Stu had a wargame with Damien in July, followed by dinner at Laziza House. Jenn came over in February with various Tequilas she'd bought on her trip to Mexico. Hao came up for work in May, so caught up with him at Alice's. Had our annual Hanami lunch with Nat and Andrew in late September. Stu's dad came over for dinner sans Ruth in January. Scott and Kerry came down at the end of June on the way to the snow and we had the whole family over for dinner. Had Wello's 40th at Casey Jones in October, and went over to @CLBradley's in November for BBQ for his birthday.

We didn't do as much club stuff this year. The event dinners are getting out of control with so many people going, and Stu has to go out once a month for committee meetings, which leaves us with no enthusiasm to go out at other times. We did go a couple of times, including a nice night in November with only six of us out there. We did an epic Burns Night in January, with two huge pork roasts, a huge haggis, tatties, neeps, peas, carrots and cranachan, for about forty five people. We did another round of two huge roast pork roasts and veggies for Christmas in July, and something like fifty people came. We were going to help with the Christmas party, but Stu got a migraine just before we were going to head out. During the committee meeting in August I regrouted the shed's kitchen splashback, because I could scrape out the old stuff with a fingernail, and I had the last of the grout from our bathroom that I thought I could use up. Only went to a couple of swim nights.

Pets. For years we've only ever had fish in this house. In February Chrissie was heavily pregnant and overstressed and the stress of Stumpy not eating was too much for her (Stumpy being a lovely blue tongue lizard). Kit had had Stumpy since he was born in her last place (I remember when they first moved in seeing the tank in the spare room, thinking at the time it was fish). Stumpy spent many years living in Kit's garage generally being neglected. So a couple of years ago Kit gave him to Chris and Zac. He fattened up nicely. But as I said, Chrissie couldn't deal, and asked if I'd take him. Well our front entrance way was still full of clutter that had been there for like five years that I'd been wanting to get rid of. So she took the majority of the stuff to sell on Gumtree one day, and we got Stumpy. He didn't eat at all for the first six months we had him. Didn't help that I didn't have lights through the early part, and then it was winter. So he sat doing not much for the whole time. Then later in the year (I'd been increasing the amount of heat/light to match the seasons) he suddenly started eating. It's been lovely having him. Stu really likes him and gives him lots of cuddles.

On the fish front. I got five new black neon tetras in January for the two foot, and some harlequin rasboras in May. I got a little sucking catfish to keep the algae at bay in Chrissie's little tank. We went to Serkan's for killifish study group meetings in March and August. Stu has been trying to breed killifish, with mixed success. He gets all enthusiastic for spurts, then they get neglected for weeks at a time. The other drama was the epic stress caused by dodgy Aqua One LED fish tank lights. All three, plus one I'd already had replaced died in the space of a couple of months. In the end got all my money back and went back to fluoros. Confirming my hatred for all things Aqua One.

Lego, jigsaws, and other hobbies. In January, Vic came down from Sydney with an entire bootfull of his kids' Lego he wanted to sell. It wasn't sorted so I spent months sorting it and checking each and every damned piece for FAKE Lego. Had to stop working downstairs in April when it got too cold, but didn't really do too much at the end of the year - I was too busy getting ready for our holiday. I'd bought some nice Willow storage tubs to replace all the cardboard boxes I have for storage, and they got pressed into service holding sorted Lego. I really want to get rid of it all to get the space back (and my storage tubs back!), but need to do something about the computer I'm using down there - it doesn't have enough grunt to keep five word docs open at a time containing the parts lists for the sets. I did a LOT of jigsaws this year, including several sections of the Disney behemoth. Another reason I want the space back downstairs...! Didn't do much else hobbywise. Spent a lot of time fighting with Apple. I downloaded Image::ExifTool and used a perl script to rename the files based on Date taken instead of Date modified which I've been doing all these years with all my other photos. I processed, labelled and blogged all the photos from our New Zealand holiday within two months, then I went back and labelled all the photos from our East Asia holiday and got that blogged by the end of the year.

For some reason I always mention the weather. We had the extremes this year. We had a dust storm in March. In fact all through March the max temperature was around 30C almost every day. It was freaky hot. Then throughout July it was crazy cold. We got so much ice on the pool it was ridiculous. One time it was 14mm thick in places! Maybe the super thick ice was the beginning of the end for the pool - I did consider that all that ice can't be good for all the joints.

New toys! My iPhone 5 got more and more annoying. For some months the lock button was really sticky. It either wouldn't work at all, or would spend the whole time in the lock position, so the phone would think you were trying to turn it off. I waited til the Apple announcements in September to see if they'd release a small form factor phone, but alas none came. So I bit the bullet and got a HUGE XS. The new phone and iOS STILL screws around with the date modified on my files. Pissed off at that. But the camera is very nice. Especially the HDR capabilities. My old phone feels like such a sweet little phone when I pick it up (I've kept it around because it has a bunch of apps that won't run on the new one). Also before our holiday I decide to replace the seven year old Asus Eee PC. It was always under-powered (what is it with Asus and not enough memory?) and spent most of its life swapping to disk and not actually doing anything. It was pretty much unusable and frustrating, so got a little Lenovo net book which was just great to travel with.

A few house sagas this year. The first being the leaky shower. It took me forever to finish scraping off the old sealant and scraping back the old grout. And then it sat there for months doing nothing. Eventually Chrissie gave me a kick up the bum and helped me grout half the shower, and I finished it a week or two later in July, followed by the sealant in August. Took a little over a year to get that shower back into use, but it doesn't seem to leak anymore. I also attacked the cloudiness on the shower glass but NOTHING worked - not bathroom cleaner, not vinegar, not diluted CLR, not straight CLR, not straight CLR left there on the glass for weeks on end. I gave up the idea of ever having that glass clear again. We came home from New Zealand to find the power had gone off in the house and had been off for four days. We lost some fish in the cold (the rummy nose tetras), and I chucked out a bag of stuff from the fridge just in case, but the freezer didn't defrost completely (still had a couple of whiskey balls in tact) so didn't chuck anything out from there. Then there was the epic stress over the blown hot water release valve. It had died *just before* it was one year old, but I didn't call them for ages because I'm allergic to the phone. When I did call them it sounded like they were going to charge me, but when the dude turned up he was all "is that all?" and replaced it for me on the spot (and left me a spare to boot). Fortunately Rheem didn't charge me for their second defect in its first year. Then there was the circuit breaker that caught fire, taking out all our power points. Fortunately we got it fixed the same day, and used the lack of computer to do a lot of cleaning and organising. And finally the pool. Maybe all the ice over winter stretched all the seals to breaking point. But we had a leak that I don't know how old it was and we couldn't see how much damage had been done to the structural wall. The pool turned out to be around thirty years old! So even though it broke my heart we (I) decided to drain it and say goodbye. We did have a win - Pete replaced the laserlite sheeting on our back pergola, as well as the front piece of wood that had been positioned right under the old sheeting and had gotten rotten.

We ate out a little this year but not too much. Went to Iori with EffanC, Yat Bun Tong a few times (Stu likes the dumplings), with Damien and Amanda we went to Dickson Dumpling House and Laziza House, went with EffanC and Scott to Pialligo Estate for a "Meet the Maker" dinner with wines by Shaw and Smith in April which was delicious, Happys with the sweetie, Malaysian Chapter a couple of times with the N-Gang, The George for Kit's and my birthdays, Lake George Hotel in Bungendore with EffanC - disappointed with the pork belly, Tipsy Bull in Braddon for Stu's birthday which was great, and Sushi Bay sushi train with the sweetie. Went to Chong Co a couple of times. Probably others I didn't mention.

Didn't have too much blog-worthy food. A guilty pleasure was nachos - simply corn chips topped with cheese and baked for five or so minutes. Did Lorraine Elliot's Asian Style Beef Cheeks a couple of times (is it possible for something to have *too much* flavour?), and had a go at Sizzler cheese toast!! OMFG!!! SO GOOD!!! I'd make it all the time if given half a chance...

Theatre/Shows/exhibitions
* Bricktastic in Junee which was great and no crowds of kids
* Circus in Junee which had exotic animals to my surprise, but convinced their no photography rule is simply to not have anyone get it on video if they fall off stuff or get eaten by lions
* Ben Law and Jenny Phang at Library Up Late which was interesting
* *Didn't* see Cartier, but did wander around a bit of the National Gallery with Cath
* Brickman Lego exhibition by Ryan McNaught with Neil which was also awesome and also no crowds of kids (sensing a theme here?)

Movies
* The Last Jedi
* Bohemian Rhapsody

Movies on TV
* Well lots but I'm not going to list them all
* Lord of the Rings series (in advance of going there)
* Kevin Smith movies
* Harry Potter series
* Star Trek series
* Pixar series. Saw what we could of these on DVD and Netflix, then saw most of the rest on various plane trips at the end of the year. The only one I didn't see (and have never seen) is Coco.

TV
* Star Trek Discovery (season 1)
* The Good Place (season 2)
* Pride and Prejudice (BBC series borrowed off @CLBradley)
* A lot of Dad's war documentaries up until April, and then again from October
* One episode of Altered Carbon
* Homeland (season 6)
* Star Trek Enterprise
* Addams Family (maybe season 2, would need to check)
* Anthony Bourdain's The Layover
* Back in Time for Dinner
* David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities
* Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown
* Rake (season 5, not as good as previous seasons, too over the top)
* The Good Place (season 3)
* Death in Paradise (seasons 1 and 2)

Books
* Prey, by Michael Crichton
* The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories
* Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
* The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer

Other stuff

* Got NBN!!!!!!! In January - haven't complained about our internet since. 12x faster than before!
* Stopped by Cataract Dam on the way home from Sydney in January
* Took my car to the wreckers. Realised six months later I'd left my RTA etag in it, so called the wreckers but my car was crushed. There goes $40. Also realised, when I went to charge Kit's car in December, that I'd forgotten the battery trickle charger attachment that had been mounted in the engine bay.
* Climbed Black Mountain from Bindoubi Street with Cath, Fiona and their friend Heather
* Saw the Canberra Balloon Fiesta
* Filled with rage at the tax office that refuse to send paper bills, so how the hell am I meant to know how much I owe them??
* Was super happy with the awesome customer service from Willow when I found one of the lids I'd bought was cracked. Saddedened at the appalling experience from ebay
* reCAPTCHA died, but have been puttering along without it since May, and doesn't seem to be getting comment spam these days anyway
* Watched Flying High twice this year
* Tried taking recycling bottles to Return-It, but (after they forced me to register all my personal details) they RIPPED ME OFF and never put any money in my account. Return-It is a SCAM!!  I've been collecting the bottles but I've never been back - I give them to David whenever he comes to stay and he takes them to NSW where they have a PROPER system, or take them out to the club where someone else takes them to NSW or I think the new one in ACT where you get a receipt on the spot.
* Went to Frank Bradley's funeral, on my birthday. Tried to go to Stanley's in Bruce for dinner but it's closed Tuesdays so ended up at The George.
* Got a green bin!!
* Ate some of Kit's chickens
* Stu chopped a foot of hair off just before we went away at the end of the year

We finished the year at nine o'clock in the morning, North Atlantic time.  Stu was in bed and I was eating breakfast.  And yet, even in the middle of the North Atlantic, I could still watch the Sydney fireworks live :)

So where were we?  Oh yes, yet another week has passed..

Wednesday morning we hopped a flight to Melbourne for Kit's graduation.  

!!!

Her parents were overseas so couldn't make it, so we filled in.  

Wait, let me backtrack a minute.  On Tuesday morning the sweetie messaged me to say his ballot for a points upgrade to business class had gone through.  So I'm like.. friggen great.. now I could lose my left-side-of-the-plane window seat.  So I tried to check in online.  I was able to choose seats on the left side of the plane (yayy!!) but the screen hung after the declaration of dangerous goods.  I tried to reload the page but it just said I couldn't check in online.  Thinking it was me stuffing up the webpage loading I tried to call Qantas to reset the error.  None of the options on the phone menu matched anything I wanted so I just ###### in an attempt to talk to a human.  Well it did put me in a queue.  For the next forty five minutes.  In the end I tried the online webchat, and got through to a human pretty quickly.  They said because of our upgrade we couldn't check in online.  Well why didn't you fricken say that on the error on the webpage you buttplugs!!!!  Why make me waste fifty minutes on hold (before I evenutally hung up after talking to webchat person)?!?

Anyway.

So we got to the airport somewhat early, and sure enough did get the seats I requested which was a relief.  Had breakfast in the business lounge which is somewhat nicer than regular Qantas club, and I had bacon, eggs and mushrooms for breakfast and a croissant.

Ok so business class.  Never flown it before.  Ok the service was bit nicer/quicker.  They offered us still or sparkling water before take off.  And we got actual metal cutlery and didn't have to peel a cover off our quiche.  But the seats, while wider and more legroom, were more reclined than usual, and I couldn't actually reach the floor, even with my slight heels.  So somewhat uncomfortable.  I'd much rather business class on a long haul flight so I can lay down flat(ish).  It is somewhat more quieter in front of the engines though.

So on a Canberra to Melbourne flight you really want the left side of the plane.  You typically take off to the north from Canberra airport, then curl around to the west then south west over north Canberra.  Which means.. I can see my house from here!  Had a great view of Canberra, everything I hoped for.  At least that part of the flight was pretty awesome.

And then to Melbourne.

We got tickets for the Sky Bus, because it's like half to two thirds the price of taking taxis, and went pretty close to our hotel.  Funnily enough, we booked into Travelodge Docklands, where I've stayed twice in the past year for work.  When booking the hotel I asked for a room on the east end of the building, because it has a much nicer view.  But, like just about every other customer service experience I've had in the past couple of weeks, it was terrible, and they ignored my request, and we ended up on the west end of the building with a lovely view of the Channel 9 building.  Thanks Travelodge.  NOT!

We couldn't actually checkin when we arrived at 12pm, so dumped our stuff and headed over to the Convention Centre for the graduation.  We met up with Kit and Pete, and then we went to the pub across the way with Pete while Kit got a gown etc.  She met up with us just before it started and then left again.  We finished our drinks but even though we were only slightly later than the suggested time, the auditorium was almost completely full, and we had to sit way over on the side and couldn't sit with Pete, he was two rows in front.  The graduation ceremony was .. well it was a graduation ceremony.  Hadn't been to one since my own in 1996.  Was somewhat like I remembered.

Afterwards there was some pretty average "refreshments".  Kit got her degree framed and bought her stage photo, then we queued for the studio photos.  For like an hour.  We were getting pretty tired by then.  And they were all stoopidly fussy about anyone taking their own photos, which I thought was COMPLETELY ridiculous.  There was no way we were going to queue for an hour and then not buy any of their photos.  STUPIDITY, GFP!! I didn't even bother, but Pete got told off for trying to get a quick snap.  I hate that sort of attitude, GFP, JUST SAYIN!!

Afterwards we walked Kit and Pete back to their apartment and had a couple of quiet drinks (Kit's back was killing her and the sweetie was super exhausted so we didn't go out).  Then walked all the way back to our hotel, where we had thins and aero for dinner and watched the end of War Games.

In the morning...  well other than breakfast in the hotel which was ok .. but .. 

Second Qantas drama in a row.  I tried to check in to the flight but we had been "upgraded" to exit row seats.  Which are like THE WORST SEATS ON THE PLANE.  Right over the wing, you can't see a damned thing.  This is an epic DOWNGRADE for me.  And I couldn't change the seats online.  Once again, we had to go to the airport to deal with it.  I told the sweetie he could keep the seat if he wanted, but he said he'd sit with me.  So I explained my situation to the checkin dude who was all cool and gave us seats further back.  Although row 22 which is still a bit close to the wing.  Not like the seats I actually reserved when I booked.  Completely pissed off with Qantas over all the drama they caused me.  The flight wasn't even full, and we could have had seats further back.  At least the sweetie didn't have to sit in the middle.

So work, drinks, etc.

Friday morning was optometrist appointment.  Honestly Specsavers are *completely* unorganised.  I first went two years ago and got a full eye check and new glasses.  They said they'd like to get a baseline for potential glaucoma (family history and all), and scheduled me in for a checkup in a year's time.  So last year I got the reminder notice, and booked an appointment.  When I got there the staff were all like.. "why are you here?  You just had a checkup..? and I'm like .. um, because you told me to.  They eventually figured out I was just there for the glaucoma tests.  Again they said come back in a year.  So I got my reminder recently and booked in an appointment, making it quite clear that it was just for the glaucoma tests.  So I get one of the tests, but then the one of the optometrists comes out and he's like "why are you here?" and I then had to explain the situation AGAIN, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE IN THE STORE!!  Don't these guys understand *anything* about patient confidentiality???  I was actually pretty annoyed with the guy.  Specsavers please get your act together!

For lunch Neil and I were planning "grease" at KFC, but the queue was a bit long, so he suggested Grill'd, which usually involves sharing wine.  Then hot chocolate at Max Brennar.  Whoops ;)

Last Sunday night we watched Star Trek Beyond, which I could barely remember anything about it was that.. memorable..  So I decided we should watch all the Star Trek movies from the beginning.  So on Friday night we watched The Motionless, sorry, Motion Picture.  Honestly nothing happens.  They get called on to intercept a thing.  So they do.  And that's all they do for the next two and a quarter hours.  Although I can imagine that trekkies after a ten year break would have wet themselves over seeing the Enterprise on the big screen.

Saturday was out to the club for yet another whole day wasted, this time for the AGM.  

Oh I should mention, since we got back, after Pete's sister left on Friday, I was feeding Kit's animals.  On Saturday morning I went out and collected twenty one eggs!!!  So Saturday night we used nine of them to cook a frittata for dinner.  Fun times.

Then we watched Khaaaaaaan.  

Today was just a quiet day doing all the things, although not all the things, cause I don't have time for all the things.  Did do some food shopping and cooked a lamb roast for dinner. 

And then we watched The Search for Spock.  There's a bunch of funny quotes, but the one that transported me back at least twenty five to thirty years was "Up your shaft" which Scotty mutters to the turbolift.  I first saw this movie in probably about 1990 with Chrissie.  I can't remember anymore if we hired it or if it was on tv, or if we watched it at her place (I think we did) or mine.  But I do remember we both absolutely cacked ourselves over that line.

And so ends another week.

So on Saturday the Albury-Wodonga Lego User Group put on "Bricktastic" in Junee.  Seemed like as good an excuse as any to head down and visit the little brother.  So Saturday morning I headed down.  It was quite foggy for much of the trip which was kinda nice.

Arrived at nearly 9:30am, and then headed to the pool and rec centre.  Instantly I confirmed what I knew would be true - it would be peaceful and uncrowded - nothing like the ridiculousness that is the Canberra Lego shows (that I stopped going to because, kids).  Had a good long wander around, it was pretty cool (it was, in fact, bricktastic!).

After we were done there we headed back to David's for a little while.

Then headed out again.  We stopped by Peter Neve's, but sadly he wasn't home (haven't seen him since Dad's funeral).  Had a quick look at the trains.

Went to the Junee Hotel for a pub lunch.

Then up to the showground to go to the circus.  This was a Lennon Brothers circus, and it had animals other than horses - I thought exotic animals had been stopped in circuses in Australia years ago.  This one had three lions, monkeys, ponies, donkeys and camels.  It was quite a fun afternoon.  They couldn't have made much profit though - there weren't many people there.  Maybe there would have been more for the evening show.  There were no photos allowed, which is fairly common for performance shows, and I would understand flashes distracting the performers, and phone screens annoying other audience members.  But.  They were selling flashing glow sticks and spinning LED lights which are far more distracting and annoying than someone taking a few photos.  I reckon the real reason they don't want you taking video/photos is in case one of them falls or gets attacked by lions and they don't want it recorded.  But the real kicker was the kid outside (who played a clown) telling us not to take photos of the animals outside (before we even went in).  Little anti-photo nazi.  That sort of attitude to photos really pisses me off, and did colour my mood for the show.  So I'm going to post the couple of photos I got anyway.  So nyer!

Stopped the IGA on the way back and picked up some stuff for dinner.  

But first we did most of a 550 piece jigsaw.

Then I cooked up some chicken (butter chicken - Chicken Tonight), rice and veggies for dinner.  And we watched half a dozen episodes of The Good Place, which was good to watch again from the beginning knowing how things go later on.

Then this morning I came home, again through fog in various places along the drive.

Saturday 23.12.17

Dropped into Chrissie's to pick up keys and instructions for animal feeding, then did our food shopping for the week.  

Sunday 24.12.17 - Christmas Eve

Spent pretty much the entire afternoon cooking.  I cooked up a Christmas caramel slice (flavoured with a little ginger and spice), a cherry/raspberry white chocolate cheesecake that looked like crap, whoops, and then a 2.8kg piece of roast pork, as well as potato bake and roast veggies.  In the evening we had our Christmas Eve feast and watched new episodes of Fuller House, and started watching season four of Rake.

The fridge is choc-a-block full!

Monday 25.12.17 - Christmas Day

Had a relaxing and quiet morning because I didn't need to do any cooking.  I did clean up the kitchen, the bathroom, and the vomit some animal had left on our front patio - gross!!!  The sweetie and I went out and did a little pokegressing, then dropped into Chrissie's to feed the animals.  Came home and did a final bit of house tidying (and found out both families were coming for dessert, not just one).  After lunch (I had leftover pork and potato - yum!) Annie and the kids came over for dessert, and a little while later Scott and the family came over as well.  There was so. much. dessert.  And I'm not even a big dessert person.  My teeth hurt just looking at all the sugar!

By the time everyone left the sweetie and I were completely exhausted from *people*.  I cooked up the section of crackling that had been under the roast and so not crackled, and had that for dinner.  In the evening just Fuller House and Rake.

Tuesday 26.12.17 - Boxing Day

Did a bit of decluttering in the spare room - pulled out a pile of clothes to give/throw away, and started separating some of the stuff in the entrance way of what to Green Shed/Freecycle/eBay.  Cleaned the kitchen and family room window sills and trimmed the thyme which had been going a little crazy and tidied up all the herbs.  Did a bit of jigsawing, and worked on my new Nanoblocks building.  In the evening we went to Kit's as she and Pete were having a barbeque and a bunch of their friends came.  Stayed up probably a little too late, but it was a nice night.

Wednesday 27.12.17

Had a bit of a slow start.  Did a water change in the angel tank.  We'd been planning to meet up with Potty etc to see a movie, but in between deciding which movie/session to see and actually booking it, they sold out.  We met up with them at the mall anyway for lunch (I also needed a few things at the shops so did that first).  Then everyone came back to our place for dessert take 2 (and the kids had a swim as well).  So I had to put away all the stuff that I'd spread out on the lounge room floor back into the spare room, where it's now out of sight out of mind :(  We put on the animated live action The Jungle Book to watch in the afternoon.  I say animated because just about the only thing that was real in the entire movie was the kid.  Still, it wasn't too bad.  I did the edge for the World's Most Difficult Jigsaw while watching.  By the time everyone left the sweetie and I were completely exhausted from *people*.  That and an entire day gone with pretty much nothing to show for it.

Thursday 28.12.17

Alternated between fifteen minutes at a time doing some deep cleaning in the bathroom, and doing the big jigsaw.  In the evening (it was Thursday after all), the sweetie ordered an epic pizza from Dominos.  It was nice enough, but it was sorely lacking in pepperoni, which was pretty disappointing.

We watched The Space Between Us, which was nice enough, but some of the problems with it annoyed me (spoilers!!) - like being able to have online chats in real time - don't you know there's a three to twenty-four minute delay each way on comms (depending on position in orbits)??  Or what are they going to feed the kid?  I'm sure they didn't send any baby formula on the mission!  And I did call out the father very early on.

Friday 29.12.17

Just a few bits and pieces in the morning, including testing the dead LED fish tank light in the fitting downstairs.  I bought the LED light in April, but it died a week or so ago.  I'm pretty pissed off about that because the light was twice the price of a regular fluoro light, but it only lasted half as long.  I'm also pretty pissed that we don't have a receipt, because the sweetie doesn't tend to keep receipts.  Going to have to make a point of always getting him to give me receipts when we go shopping.  I know exactly when we bought it, and it should be in the sweetie's credit card statements, so going to try our luck getting a refund or replacement.  Moral of the story:  AquaOne is evil, and their products are crappy (always have been).  We bought another LED light in October that's still working, but we don't have a receipt for it either, so can guarantee it's going to die shortly too :(

Went into Belco to get our pool water tested.  Good news is our sunscreen levels are now down to the correct levels after last summer's dramas.  Bad news is there's no buffering (total alkalinity), which means it's all a bit unstable.  And even though our test kits say there's plenty of chlorine, the pool shop testing says there's none.  *sigh*

Went into the city for doctor stuff and lunch.  We went to Hero Sushi which is usually crowded and pretty good, but it was half empty and all the hot food was cold which wasn't much fun. Mostly just sorted pairs of pieces in the little jigsaw in the afternoon.  Had a swim then added a bunch of pool chemicals.

Saturday 30.12.17

Finished The World's Most Difficult jigsaw (it's not) fairly quickly in the morning, then finished the Nanoblocks Empire State Building.

Worked on the big jigsaw for a while in the afternoon so could finish it by the end of the year.  Serena came over after seeing Kit, and had a quick swim.  We watched Coyote Ugly in the evening which I first saw on the plane to the USA in 2000.  I didn't realise I'd seen it again back in 2003.  

Sunday 31.12.17 - New Years Eve

Was awake from dentist time to about 5:30am, then only managed about another two hours sleep after that.  So pretty tired and a very slow morning.  Watched Cinderella while finishing off that section of the jigsaw.  It's a pretty lame movie actually.  I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid.  There's a whole heap of just slapstick, and the "love" story is pathetic.  How do you fall in love with someone without them even saying a word??  Sure you can get a bit of a crush, but that's not really enough to live "happily ever after". 

Went out for lunch at the markets and to do our food shopping.  We didn't do much shopping as none of the butchers were open, I was super tired so couldn't even think about vegetables (and Tom's was very depleted on stock anyway).  We did pick up a huge pile of fish for $19/kg though, gave some to Kit, froze some, and will have it as a couple of meals in the next few days. 

This afternoon has just been catching up on this blog, and I've still got to finish my year in review post.  I started off well this year, taking notes for most of the year at the beginning of December.  But then everything just went crazy before Christmas and I kept putting it off.  It's probably half done so need to do that if there's nothing else I do before tonight.  We have no plans yet for New Years.  I'll be lucky to stay awake!

A wolf spider in our front yard just before we went overseas.

Bacon!  To go with the alliteration of Buttons and Blobby

The bristlenose I got for the angel tank

Just me and a chicken - at @CLBradley's

Just the sweetie and George

Just Kit and a donkey

George was excited by this possum in our cherry tree

Stu caught this gecko in our ensuite bathroom