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

Chilled for a bit.  

Cat in a bag!

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

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

I thought this was cute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And finally arrived at Jeff and Ruth's.

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

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

Then over to the east side of town

Then back into town, for an obligatory jacaranda photo

This is the view from where we had dinner.

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

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

Then bed.

Backdating.  Cause I'm a slacker.  Nothing to see here, move along.

Monday.  Slept ok.  Ok day I guess.  Went to have some of the snow peas that I bought probably only two weeks ago and they were *covered* in slime.  So fricken unusual because normally they last weeks and weeks in the fridge.  Pissed as.  Then David came home and spent all afternoon swearing at the fish tank lights.  But he got them working in the end.  Bestest brother ever.  (not sure if I ever mentioned the story - a few weeks back the transformer for Stu's stoopidly expensive LED fish tank lights went POP and that was the end of that.  It was a completely non standard transformer, there was no doco anywhere online for the lights, and they were strangely wired.  David decided to get resistors and rewire the thing so it'd work with a standard transformer, and also be less likely to blow out the lights.  Just waiting for the other transformer to go next so he'll have to do it all over again.. hrmmm....).  Had sausages and salad/veggies for dinner.  Then got more grunty that Stu's sauerkraut had gone off.  And some ham we bought ages ago is also looking very strange.  I *hate* wasting food and we've wasted so much this week >:(  Feeling like I should ban perishable food that I won't eat (like ham and sauerkraut) and veggies that only I like (like snow peas).  Don't get me started on trying to find veggies that everyone likes and doesn't cause health issues in people.  Took til 8pm to get UK photo labelling done.  811 left.  And blogging.  An hour and a half later.  hrmmm.

But look!  Poppy in the staircase!

Tuesday.  Ok sleep mostly.  Finished scanning Dad's WA slides.  Was good to see his photos, after only having seen Mum's very red-shifted prints for so many years.  I think I'll need to scan her negatives of those holiday trips - hopefully they fared better than the prints!  Worked from home so just watched some silly horse race on tv in the background.  David made home in time for the race but steadfastly ignored it ;)  Later in the afternoon had no tickets and not much else happening so flexed off for an hour or so and got some UK photo labelling done.  Only 581 photos left!  Leftovers from the club halloween night for dinner.  Hacked some periwinkle.  Watched random stuff on the internet in the evening.

Wednesday.  Okish sleep.  Up to 5000 of Dad's slides scanned.  I'm into Central Australia now.  I remember Mum saying a while back that Dad had issues with his camera on the WA trip, and there was a $25 camera fixing bill listed in the holiday expenses, but all the photos from that trip looked fine.  The Central Australia trip on the other hand was a disaster.  So many of the photos are over exposed, and there's *heaps* missing - obviously too bad to even keep.  I'm thinking *this* was the trip he had camera issues with.  Must have been absolutely heartbreaking for him.  I'll have to get Mum's negatives of this trip too.  Pity you can't climb Ayers Rock aka Uluru anymore.  I'm calling it though - I reckon within twenty years the local Aboriginal people will start doing guided tours to the top.  Charged of course.  I don't know how true it is, but David and Yvonne went some years ago and got the impression that the Aboriginal people didn't really care too much that people would want to climb to the top - they were much more worried about the sacred sites around the base of the rock.  I'm having to be the Naughty Email Intervention Layer (aka NEIL) at work, probably for another few weeks at least.  Which is a bit of a poo.  Cause he doesn't document anything!  Actually *going* to work sux epically - takes so much extra time out of my day.  Had leftovers for dinner.  Then it's back to "work" - finishing scanning the morning's photos (because there's not enough time in the mornings on "work" days), backing up hard drive, labelling photos etc.  Only 475 to go!!!

I don't have any notes for Thursday.  There was work drinks.  And I went with David to the mall to do some shopping.  Saw this very pretty car in the car park.

Friday.  I swear Dad must have had sex on the brain.  Following his Coitus Tower slides from the USA, this was the label for a thorny devil in Central Australia.

The evening was packing for our long weekend away...

Monday.  Couldn't get to sleep til really late, then woke up before 4am for ages.  Sigh.  Ok day.  Lots of tickets.  Hong Bo fixed the stoopid thing I couldn't get working last week - missing a dependency that I knew nothing about and wasn't in any of the doco.  Sigh.  Had UK labelling done by 7pm then watched the last episode of Against the Wind.  Then had a bit of a look around at static gallery apps.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep *again* (stoopid cold feet).  Very quiet day at work.  I don't think I had any tickets.  So went through documenting and cleaning out an old server we need to decommission.  Cooked up a bunch of veggies in with the mince I cooked Sunday night, and had it with pasta.  UK labelling and cleaning took til 8pm.  Then blogging.  Suddenly it's 9pm.  hrmm.

I saw this baby magpie lark on my walk at lunch.  The thing could flutter a bit but was clearly too young to be out of the nest.  The parents were *not* impressed that I was anywhere near it!

Wednesday.  Woke up to the sad news that Charlie of The Daily Coyote had died. 

Was scanning slides in the morning and came back after some housework when it had done a pass and the lights were out.  Which is super odd, the lights only turn out after it being idle for quite a while (12 minutes as it turns out).  When I tried to scan there was no option to scan slides anymore.  Tried turning it off and on again, but it still wouldn't come good.  And I'd just been saying that there were 58 days left til Christmas, and 50 boxes of slides, which didn't leave much wiggle room to get it all done by Christmas.  If the scanner was dead that would blow right out.  And then I remembered that I hadn't put out the green bin.  I went and got gloves and was about to go outside (I was going to have to empty some of the grass because the bin was way too full of grass) but the track came!  Gahhh!!!  But then it stopped.  And picked up the bin.  And I'm like.. wha??   Turns out David had put it out the night before, and even put some of the grass in the neighbour's bin.  Seriously, bestest brother ever!!  Ok day.  Busy busy afternoon.  David finished mowing the lawn in the afternoon. Stu wanted pizza for dinner.  At least it wasn't takeaway.  But they did get extra cheese.

And there was a storm down south.

I rebooted my computer to see if it would help with the scanner.  It didn't.  I knew it wouldn't.  So then David had a look.  Turns out the cable connecting the lid to the rest of the scanner had worked its way loose after thousands of times being opened and shut.  So it was the first rule of tech support - is it plugged in.  Sigh.  But did I mention that I have the bestest brother ever??  Finished scanning the morning's slides, but didn't get all the UK labelling done.  

Thursday.  Neil came to work blind in one eye, so Sharpie and I convinced him to go straight to the ER rather than his optometrist at 12pm.  And then I had to be Neil all day.  As well as find someone to run the bar.  I hassled literally everyone and thankfully someone came in to do it, otherwise we would have had to cancel.  R&F invited us out for dinner at Indian Pantry with EffanC.  We had one of the banquets which brought a lovely array of food.

Friday.  We would have been in Queensland for Ben and Sarah's wedding.  But covid happened.  So instead it was simply Ben's 40th birthday party at Gungahlin Lakes.

For dinner I had Famous Paddies Chicken - pan fried chicken tenderloins cooked in a whisky cream sauce with bacon, onion and mushrooms, served with house fries.  It was delicious!!

Saturday.  Just bits and pieces of housework.  We were going out for the club halloween night, and I wanted to get there a bit early to do some priming.  But Stu wasn't feeling it, so we arrived only just on Happy Hour.  I did Lego 80s Classic Space guy again.

Stu wore the beanie he had from a previous year, that everyone thought made him look like Shrek.

Matt and Michelle put on an awesome dinner.

Then got rejected so left quietly before I had a meltdown.  But it did make for an early night which was nice.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well.  Woke up to the news that Sean Connery had died.  Came home early.  They played our song on the radio on the way home.  

Oh wow!  We know him!!

Had a relatively productive day I guess.  Cooked up a bunch of veggies including a potato bake, and even baked some kranksys so that was a nice Sunday night dinner.

Watched the first episode of the new season of The Mandalorian.  See Star Trek, you don't need an overly complicated plotline to be good televsion.

Backdating, but only by two days ;)

Sunday.  Slow cooked some lamb shanks.  We went and visited Annie and the family in the middle, so instead of putting them in later, I put them on earlier, but at quite a low temperature.  They actually turned out really well.  But I didn't manage to get any leftovers.  Doh.  

In the evening watched the last episode of The IT Crowd (the one-off final special).

Monday.  Woke up at like 5am.  No notes for the day (it's been a bit of a nothing week).  Leftovers for dinner and watched episode 10 of Against the Wind.

Tuesday.  Better sleep.  Was scanning Dad's slides of San Francisco and came across these.  I might have LOLed.  A lot.

Noted that I had an ok day, but that I'd gone on strike house-wise.  Can't remember why.  But I was cranky at everything and so Stu cooked dinner - duck and plum gyozas with bok choy and rice.  Very nice.

Wednesday.  Ok sleep.  Went into town for a doctor's appointment.  Had ten minutes or so before it was due so thought I'd grab a quick lunch at KFC.  Ha.  Firstly it was *slow as*, and when I finally did get to order, they said they had no fillets.  And I'm like WTF?  And he was like, do you want a zinger.  NO, I want a fillet burger.  And this was after David the other night had tried to get a fillet burger at Gold Creek KFC and they had no fillets.  You could maybe understand that because it was very late at night, but I was in Garema Place at lunch time.  No fricken excuse KFC!  So I walked out in disgust.  And met up with the sweetie who let me have some of his KFC - Korean fried chicken - at Cocorea.

Fighting with migrating CVS to a new server in the afternoon but I couldn't figure it out because I'm dumb.  Stu was late to pick me up because of a burst water main on Barry Drive.  So we got pizza.  Blerf.  Watched episode 11 of Against the Wind.

Thursday.  Ok sleep.  I think.  Ok day.  I think.  Work drinks were good.  

Friday.  Took a random day off.  Woke up early but got a bit more sleep, but a bit of a slow start. 

Michelle's strawberries are doing great!

Washed the sheets.  Then we ran errands.  Took about a dozen wine boxes full of books to Lifeline.  Went to the tip to drop off the old oven, all its trays, and the old extenda-line, which turned out to be free because it was all primarily metal!  Win!  Then to the Green Shed.  I picked up a big pile of jigsaws, as well as a chest of drawers I want to use as a pantry in the van.  $15 for all the jigsaws and $10 for the drawers.  Not bad :)  Came home briefly then headed out again for Stuey R's farewell.  Didn't get much done in the afternoon - too sleepie.

So this week we had our roof restored.  Wednesday they cleaned.  Thursday they primed.  Friday morning they did the first coat.  Friday afternoon they did the second coat.  Just before the rain that was due Friday night!

Friday evening met up with EffanC for drinks at the Pot Belly.  Got home minutes before the rain started.

Saturday.  Slept fairly well.  Did heaps of things on the todo list, but nowhere near enough. 

First batch of strawberries!  Although slugs had gotten to one of them otherwise would have had four.  #grunt

Went over to EffanC's for dinner, with Robert and Ian.

This is the bottletop of a Great Northern beer

Can you see the bird?

Sunday.  Woke up after 3am some time and never got back to sleep.  So a very slow start.  Had brunch at The Scottish Restaurant then did our food shopping.  Too tired to do anything much.  In fact we both had a nap in the afternoon.  Well I didn't have much of a sleep - my body simply refuses to sleep, even when it's super tired.  A bit after 3pm I got up and spent the rest of the afternoon cooking.

I cooked all this (except one of the bags of potatoes).  Two trays of roast veggies.  Then roast beef with another two trays of veggies.  A kilo of mince with bacon, onion and garlic, and honey mustard chicken.

After dinner I ended up with five meals of roast beef and veggies, four of honey mustard chicken, mince in four containers to be cooked with whatever, and two extra containers of roast veggies.  Basically enough food for the entire week.  And probably even longer.  

OMFG!  Not backdating!! ;)

Monday.  Slept ok.  Ok day I guess.  In the evening I got up to labelling the photo of sad bean!  This was a baked bean Stu had at breakfast one morning on our UK 2010 holiday.  It had a crease and a couple of specks of pepper at just the right spots to make the bean look like it had a sad face.  Stu couldn't bear to eat sad bean, and I don't like baked beans, so that poor little bean didn't get eaten, which was even sadder!  I might have had a little sad ten years later just labelling the photo I took of it :(:(

Up to episode 7 of Against the Wind.

Tuesday.  Hurty woke me up and kept me awake for an hour and a half.  But otherwise slept ok. 

<work rant snipped>

But look!  Itty bitty Cape Weed flower!

Leftovers for dinner, UK labelling and episode 8 of Against the Wind.

Wednesday.  All the stoopid.  I don't even remember what now.  I ranted to Stu over a drink at Beirut Bunker Bar and pushed it from my memory.  

Stopped in at the markets on the way home to go to the chemist, and the sweetie even cooked dinner! :)

I thought this looked pretty cool - looks a bit like the Matterhorn!

Thursday.  Filled with rage at someone watching Bathurst near me at work without a headset - not even at their desk, but in our area because their own desk is outside the exec offices and that would look bad.  And three or four conversations going on around me meant for NOISE and I seriously nearly lost it.  Fortunately I have the bestest boss ever and he went and muted Bathurst for me so I didn't go postal.  Watched the second episode of the French sun documentary.

Neil and I saw these at lunch on Thursday.  Not a huge amount of information on the Beam website, you need to download the app to find out useful stuff, you know, like where you can ride them.  45c/minute introductory rate to ride one.  Wonder how well they'll last.  I wouldn't mind taking one for a trip around the lake :)

Friday.  Deleting all the things!  Did a massive cleanup of routes in the morning, and cleared out a big decommissioned app in the afternoon.  In between I had lunch at Herbert's with Tony and the Chrises.  Big lunch, so dinner was a small serving of popcorn (needed some fibre to counteract all the meat I had at lunch).  Watched Arrietty in the evening, which we last (first) saw at the movies in 2012.  The movie is based on the "The Borrowers" books which really annoys me as a title because they're not borrowing, they're *stealing*.  Just sayin!

Saturday.  Slept well.  A day of All The Things.  We did do a quick Bunnings run and food shop.  I'd already voted during the week so didn't get a democracy sausage (I think a lot of places aren't doing them anyway), but Bunnings has started up their sausage sizzles again, but they load the sauces for you.  So not quite as pretty as a photo as my actual democracy sausage featured on Atlas (Gastro) Obscura :)

Stu cooked dinner which was lovely of him - grilled eggplant with a sauce of miso, mirin, and sake.  Quite yummy.

In the evening we watched the first episode of season 3 of Discovery.  I enjoyed the first season, but the second season just got way too convoluted and hard to follow.  The first episode of this season was fine, hopefully this season won't be as complicated as the last.  Up to episode 9 of Against the Wind.  

Sunday.  Today.  For once I'm not backdating.. craziness I know!  Woke up at 3:45 to go to the loo but didn't get back to sleep for hours.  At 4:51 I got up to have some cheese because I was hungry.  Apparently just a little bit of eggplant and rice isn't enough to keep me full all night.  I did eventually get a bit more sleep, including have a dream that I was staying at Dooce's house, and it was *massive* and Stu for some reason was sleeping in some other building on the *campus*, and I was talking to Leta about what life was like being the daughter of such a famous blogger.  So a pretty slow start.  Did a few things on the todo list.  I was going to do some more Lego part picking of Vic's sets, but by the time I'd gotten the files organised and found the sets and gone through them for what they had already it was after lunch.  Then we went and visited Annie/Stu/Immy, and then came home and did cooking and photo processing and blogging and suddenly it's nearly dinner time.  Hrmmmmm.

Backdating, cause I'm a slacker ;)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I might have eaten too much ;)  

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

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

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

Backdating, cause I'm a slacker! ;)

Monday.  Slept well.  Ok day at work, although I felt like I was waiting for everyone for stuff, and I was just in limbo.  Leftover brisket and salad for dinner.  Got kitchen cleaned and UK photos done by 19:30 so got stuck into blogging.  An hour and a half later and still not caught up.

Tuesdsay.  Went to the chemist at lunch.  But the markets are closed Monday/Tuesday which made for an eerie place to go.  But they did have Floriade there too!

Wednesday.  Woke up at 4:30 and never got back to sleep.  Another day of stoopid meetings.  Was going to wait for the sweetie, but I'd had enough by 4pm and went to meet the sweetie for a drink, followed by dinner at Happys.

Thursday.  More expensive drinks at Pot Belly.

Friday.  Woke up at 3:30, think I only got about fifteen minutes more sleep just before 6am.  Hurrah.  Lunch with Tony/Jess/Keira at Herbert's, but I'll stick that in another post.  In the evening headed into Belco for C's birthday pot luck barbeque.  A whole crowd of "neurodiverse" people, such as are her friends :)  A very pleasant evening by the lake, and we were among the last to leave, and still managed an early night :)

Saturday.  Logged into work to try and finish off some work I didn't have time for on Friday (too much stoopid) but Notes had crashed, so it was a sign to just shut it all down.  Then we headed out to the club.  Stu read a book outside while I did another coat of primer on the main benchtops, and started some more of the cabinetry as well.

The boys had stained the dick as well

Happy hour started super early (like 15:30!) and Rob and Lyn brought *heaps* of food, which ended up being our dinner.  We avoided the various parties around the place and had a nice quiet evening by the fire (not that we needed the fire - the day had been super hot!).

Sunday.  Woke up at ~1am and didn't get back to sleep for like four hours, and then only had a little more.  Heard people going home from parties at 3am new time (2am old time).  Headed home in the morning (we could have stayed another night but Stu thought we should go home). 

Found out all that yellow stuff around Canberra is Cape Weed, an invasive species from South Africa.

I was so tired it was a bit of a nothing day.  All I managed to achieve was towel washing and jigsaw.  Had roast pork for dinner and watched Ponyo.

Monday.  Woke up at 5am (new time, so really 4am old time).  But!  All the things!!  Had a really productive day.  Started watching Against the Wind (more on that in another post).  Did some blogging catchup, although no UK photo labelling.

Backdating, story of my life ;)

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

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

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

And the kitchen light fitting caught this epic centipede.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Came home and watched third episode of High Score.

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

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

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

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

Canberra has escaped relatively unscathed from COVID-19 (so far).  We had a spate of cases right in the beginning, but almost all of them were from returning overseas travellers and their close contacts.  There was a single case in June from a diplomat returning from overseas.  And in July there was a few linked to a family returning from Melbourne during their spike in cases.

Life for us hasn't changed too much.  As I said at the beginning, for us it just meant seeing less of our friends and not eating out as much.  As those restrictions were lifted some months ago, we have been able to catch up with friends more often, and we've been out for meals more often.

We're mostly doing our shopping fortnightly so we don't need to go to the shops as often.  We've done some shopping at the markets and I get most of our milk and orange juice (and beer!) from Chris's.  And our last two big Coles shops have been delivered, so we haven't set foot in Coles in over two months.

I think I'm about the same weight as pre covid.  I would normally eat lunches at the food court every day so that hasn't been happening, but I would also get quite a bit more walking in.  I'm still going for a short walk at lunch every day and seeing three or four groups of magpies.  Lunches are either leftovers or noodles or toast or whatever.  Not terribly healthy.

Our work drinks are still closed, although that may change soon.  During the six months of the lock down we drank through eight cases of Corona beer.  In the last couple of months the guys that have been in the office have gone up to the Pot Belly for Thursday drinks.  While it's good and all, it's *very* expensive compared to drinking at home, or even at work.

We've been encouraged to come into work to work more often.  Which is a shame because I could happily work from home and *never* go into the office.  But they won't let us do that.  So on Thursday I went into work - for only the third time since March - and exactly six months to the day that I started working from home.  I'll probably go in once a week to start with, unless we get an outbreak here.

Travelwise, the trip to Europe with Mum got postponed two years.  I found it somewhat ironic that the whole reason the Passion Play in Oberammergau came to be was because of a plague.  And this year they had to cancel (postpone).  Because of a plague.

Our cruise next year has finally been called off.  But again this one has been postponed a year.  Let's just hope there's a vaccine developed in the next year otherwise even then things will be in doubt.

We missed out on going to Tasmania for Stu's 50th, but did have a nice long weekend in Tumut which was really nice.

How's everyone else's lockdowns going?

Early on in the year the sweetie decided he wanted to go to Tasmania for his 50th birthday.  We'd go down for a long weekend and just have a nice quiet weekend in Hobart.

Then Covid-19 happened. 

We couldn't plan anything in advance.  We couldn't even guarantee we'd be allowed across the border into NSW much more than a few weeks in advance.  So we sat on the idea and wondered what we might be able to do or where we might be able to go.

Then in early August Lorraine Elliot of Not Quite Nigella blogged about her trip to Tumut, Tumbarumba, Gundagai and Yass, including a visit to the Tumut River Brewing Company.  I thought a brewery tour and a weekend in Tumut sounded like a great idea and suggested it to the sweetie.  He thought it sounded like a great idea too.  The Sunday before we planned to go down I called up to see if tours would even be running (because, covid), and they were, and got ourselves booked in.  I didn't book accommodation until the day we left, because I didn't want to have to go through the drama of cancelling if one of us got sick in the intervening time.

We took the slow way to Tumut on the Saturday, via Adaminaby, snow and dams.

Sunday morning we visited Blowering Dam and the Tumut lookout before walking up to the pub.

The brewery itself is setup in an old store building, and the pub is setup next door in what used to be a tyre store.  Out the front all the tables are full of people enjoying lunch and a beer in the glorious late winter day.

There's a hand santising station out the front, setup like a beer tap!

Inside is full of comfy couches, and the day's live performance act, Toby Mobbs, is getting setup.

We enquire about our tour booking.  It seemed to have gone astray, however there's two other groups for a tour booked, so we pay and go in to sit down.  There's a couple of different options you can get - the tour; tour and tasting; or tour, tasting and meal.  We opt for the latter - tour, tasting and meal.  This includes the talk by Tim Martin, one of the owners, four 7oz tasters, and a burger or mini pizza.  All for $35.  Absolutely excellent value!!

We start with a pint of Full Grunt and enjoy drinking a beer in front of all the equipment.

While we're waiting, we have a look around.  There's the processing tanks, as well a series of fermenting tanks.

On the other end of the building are the stores of grains and hops, and cans ready for canning.  The canners come and setup in the middle of the floor and can on the spot.

On one side is a keg cleaning? filling? both? station

12:30pm rolls around and Tim gets started on his story.  Two guys have a dream to make great beer.  They all live happily ever after.

Not quite!

The story has been going on for years, and has been one drama and set back and battle after another, over and over and over again.  Which is such a shame, because they do in fact make great beer, and the brewery is an amazing thing for Tumut to have going for it.  

We have a couple of breaks during the talk (once you break that seal.. ;) ), and we get started on our tasters.  You get four tasters each, so the sweetie and I worked our way through eight different beers.

Some of the others got the Full Grunt burger and were raving about it, so for lunch we got one of those, and a mini pizza.  I wasn't quite concentrating when I went to order the food - I should have gotten something a bit more adventurous than pepperoni ;)  Sadly the sweetie had eaten half the burger before I got a chance to get a photo!

After telling the story of how the brewery came to be, Tim then went into the details of the beer making process, explaning the whole thing from start to finish, and how they use locally sourced ingredients where possible.  Did I mention this brewery is great for the local area? :)

And if you want to know about the bubble wrap marks on the side of the vats, you'll have to go and take a tour to hear the story!

After the tour is done, we head back out into the lounge.  We grab another pint each and listen to the last couple of songs by Toby Mobbs.

His last song of the day is "Three Cities" about "coming from" three cities - Albury-Wodonga and Wagga Wagga.  

I also have a bit of a wander round the pub.  

The bottle wall is amazing.  There's all sorts of historic bottles and cans there, and it was cool to try and pick ones I'd had.

We had a thoroughly lovely afternoon there, and it was a great way to spend Stu's 50th (even tho that was the next day, shh! ;) ).

The next morning on our way out of town we dropped in to pick up a mixed case of beer.  You can buy them individually, or in four packs, six packs or cases.  We opted for six different four packs, as the four packs were already bound and easy to pick up.

Tim saw us there and brought out a small glass of a sour that's nearly ready for canning.  It was very refreshing - it will be good in summer!

I truly hope Tim gets a "happily ever after" - he's put in sooo much effort!!

PS, as I started writing this this afternoon I was chatting to Tony, and he said Tim? or someone from TRBC was at Herbert's just down the road!  Today!!  And I missed it!!!  Gahh!!!!  They also tapped their 50 Shades of Purple last night, I'm going to have to get down there to try it!!