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...

The new year started for us in the Bermuda Triangle! It was 9am Caribbean time, 12am AEDT time. Stu was in bed and I was eating breakfast. And I watched the Sydney fireworks. Live. On an ocean liner. In the middle of the North Atlantic. I love technology :) We actually managed to stay awake til midnight ship time and heard them sound the horn to mark midnight.

So our overseas trip of the year was just the tail end of our North Atlantic crossing and Caribbean cruise. Had four days in New York which is not nearly enough time. Came home via Singapore on the longest commercial flight you can take (for now) - 18 hours!. Early in February I went up to Sydney to visit Mum for a post-Christmas catchup. Went and saw a Lego show, took the River Cat to Parramatta and caught up with Pam, and later with Daniel and Fi. Didn't get to see the Cartans on the Sunday morning which was a shame because Doug Cartan died later in the year. Visited Luc and Lizzi for Ryan's penultimate donut photo and saw Cordeaux Dam on the way home. We went down to see Kit and Pete several times - in March to see their house and go to their engagement party, in July for a visit and to do some wedding planning and go to the zoo, in November to do some wedding planning and meet and ride Kit's new horse Jet, and in December for their wedding. Went and visited David in Junee in June. In August I went up to Sydney for Diana and Graham's funeral, and Chrissie and I geeked out at standing in the spot we met thirty years and a couple of weeks earlier. Came home via Dapto that trip to meet up with Kit who wanted to look at a horse (not Jet), and had a fun drive up Macquarie Pass. In November we went to Melbourne for the weekend to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with Hannah and Rita.

Work was pretty decent this year. My life is four things: source, dest, port, protocol. Simple. Except way too many people don't understand basic client-server communication which is pretty frustrating. Whenever I had the time I would clean things. Our section disbanded (or was announced it would be disbanded) around February 14 - exactly one and a half years after I started in that section. I went back to comms but kept sitting in the same place for a while longer until they did a bit of a floor reshuffle. Fortunately I was able to get a seat away from the corridor and things stayed pretty stable which is essential for my mental health. Socially there was a big event at the beginning of the year which included an Escape Room, and dinner at the War Memorial, Laser Tag, and I ran a trivia night for it (using mostly recycled questions). We won a trivia night in April which meant we ran one in September. Had a whiskey night in June and a ball in October. Our drinking buddies dropped like flies though - Lachie, then Doc, then Hannah. Very sad times. Ran our annual Christmas party at the lake again, but it was very smokey and numbers were down - only about 40 this year!

On Valentines Day I had my appendix out! My first ever general anesthetic and first ever hospital stay. Then in April Annie had hers out too - didn't know these things were contagious ;) After surviving the plague ship (don't travel in northern hemisphere winters with old people - everyone gets sick) and not even getting sick when Stu did, I had a very small cold in February, but then survived all winter without getting sick again, only to get one in September then another one in December. The one in December was the worst and I was coughing for a couple of weeks, including being sick at Kit's wedding. Insomnia was a lot better this year but still got bouts of it.

Saw a bit of my family. Saw Mum in Sydney in February. David and Kat came to stay in April. Took them out for a bbq at the new van. Mum came to visit in June and we went down to Junee to visit David. Later blacklisted Kat from ever coming here again - I can't stand the way she treats David and there's no way I could be civil to her if I saw her ever again. David came to visit in October and we took him out for his birthday and then on a tram because he was going to interview for a job driving them. David got the job, and moved in with us in November (had to clean out space in the bedroom, bathroom, pantry and study). Mum came down at Christmas for a couple of days. We saw a little bit of Stu's family too. The other Stu came over for dinner in January. Kerry and the kids came to see the balloons in March and dropped in to visit. Dropped in to see Annie and the kids in April and save Daisy's life (emergency cash supply). Scott and Kerry and the kids dropped in briefly in October. Saw Noah on his 18th birthday. Stu and Annie and the family came over for Christmas lunch. I saw a bit of Chrissie during the year. Went over for a couple of low key dinners in January (hot cross bun ice cream!) and December, saw her the night her aunty and uncle were murdered and we just tried to process, had a few lunches out and about, and a nice BBQ on Anzac Day which also included her Dad, siblings and their partners. Saw quite a lot of EffanC and the N-gang which was great, including a couple of dinners at R&F's, various visits back and forth and dinners out at Pot Belly and Malaysian Chapter with EffanC including an election night event and New Years. We're still missing Kit and Pete and the chickens although did see them a few times during the year. Other than the four times we went down to the coast, they also came to stay for Tarun's wedding in March. Went wedding dress shopping with Kit then had dinner at Old Canberra Inn for Pete and Leisa's birthdays. They came back again in April to see Kit's brother before he went home to Germany. Kit came up again in May for Katie's sister's funeral and her friend Sophie's wedding. I organised Kit's Hen's at the end of November - Laser Tag and dinner at George Harcourt with drinks after at Moby's. And I ended up being a bridesmaid at their wedding after it became too difficult for Audrey. We farewelled Stewie and Cath (again) in February. Fiona came to stay the weekend after I got my appendix out, but was pretty stressed about it because everyone was sick and I couldn't sleep in the spare bed. Jenn came over a week later for a Turkish feast, and we caught up for drinks with her in October. Went to see Doc's new place with a big group of work peoples which was lovely. Had a couple of dinners with Hannah, at Dumpling Inn and Pizza Artigiana so Stu could get to know her before we went away together. Had our annual hanami part with Nat and Andrew, although I was sick the original weekend and the flowers were mostly all gone by the time they did get to come over. And went to @CLBradley's 60th at Ciscos.

Spent a bit of time at our social club. There was a Finnish night in March, with a wallaroo joey. Not to eat - that's Australian, not Finnish ;) In April we bought a well-established van off another member to give us some space to move (our old van was just barely big enough to sleep in, and even then not really). Sold the old one for a lot less that we paid for it because it had a leak that we never fixed and wasn't in great condition. Spent a bit of time cleaning and decluttering the new one, but there's still a long way to go. Had Chris and Ian's anniversary there, it's been a shame that I've had to miss two of them over the years. We did Christmas in July again for a huge crowd. Had a couple of nights there in August, including the AGM on Stu's birthday (doh!), and another night in September. September was a Chilean night, which was great, but some people really need to learn to better estimate catering. I mean a bit of overcatering is fine, you don't want to run out, but you also don't want an entire fridge full of leftover food - both cooked and uncooked! Went for Oktoberfest in October. We missed the Christmas party because we were down the coast at Kit and Pete's wedding. We were going to go out at New Years, but I was too nervous about the weather and potential for fires.

Pretty quiet fish year. I discovered my angel is a girl - she laid a couple of batches of eggs! At the end of the year I had four active tanks. The angel tank, with the angel, a cory, and a sucking catfish. The two foot, with three black neon tetras and a sucking catfish. Chrissie's little tank, with two clown loaches and a sucking catfish. And the downstairs two foot, with one large danio. Stu has his four foot which is always covered in algae because the lights are too good and there's not enough algae eaters, a tiny tank on his desk with a white cloud, and a little tank downstairs with a white cloud. There's also four empty tanks that were for killifish but they all died. I want to restock my tanks, but needed to prove I can take care of them first (ie, making sure at least one of them gets a water change every weekend, so no more than four weeks between water changes for each tank).

Nothing much on the Lego front either. I'm still working on sorting out Vic's Lego. It's extremelly slow going. It takes a good chunk of the weekend to do pick parts for six sets, so if there's anything on on a weekend nothing would happen. Really need to get back into it, as I really want my tubs and floor space back.

Not so many jigsaws this year either. I feel like there's too many other important things to do to "waste time" doing jigsaws :( Similarly with any of my other hobbies.

The weather was *hot* when we got back from overseas in January. We had the cooler running for three weeks straight. There were a lot of thunderstorms at the beginning of the year too. Had a duststorm in February. Then drought with a dry winter and super dry November and December, and the shroud of bushfire smoke for most of December.

Around the house.. I took a few days off at Easter to have a ten day break, and we Marie Kondo'd the house - well, clothes, linen cupboard, under the house a bit, some of the garage, and the pantry. David came during that break and replaced the light in the fan light, and also the kitchen lights, with LEDs. Had the sewer pipes eeled in May and he cleared a blockage at the same spot twelve metres in as last time. For Christmas I treated us to new towels - the first time in my life I've ever had matching bathroom linen - loving it!

Considering it feels like we don't eat out all that often, it seems like we ate out a lot. I tried Master Hin Dumplings at the mall. Very average dumplings. I'm surprised they're actually still there. Went to Chong Co on Australia Day and had their delivery a couple of times. Went to Gus's with the sweetie in February. Malaysian Chapter and Pot Belly a couple of times with EffanC, and for a work farewell lunch. Indian Pantry with Cath. Had Pho Hub with Neil. A couple of work lunches at Chompy's. Had Yat Bun Tong at least once with the sweetie. Possibly only made it to Dumpling Inn once this year - to meet up with Hannah so she and Stu could meet and we could discuss Harry Potter. The sweetie took me out to Temporada on our anniversary which was expensive but excellent. A group of us went to Rashays for their $5 lunches in May. We haven't been back since. Tried Tasting China and Akiba which were both pretty good. Went to Chez Kimchi a few times. They're ok but their menu is just a mess. Had Disappointing Sushi (aka Hero Sushi in Canberra Centre) a couple of times. It always meets expectations - it's always disappointing. We had Pizza Artigiana a couple of times. The first in July to meet Hannah's flatmate Rita who we were going to see Harry Potter with, and again with Stu in August. Tried lunch at 54 Benjamin a couple of times. Nice, but a bit expensive to do too often for lunches. Had Alice's in July, the Lake George Hotel in Bungendore in August with EffanC, Bella Vista on my birthday, Happy's in December. Tried out Yarralumla Kebabs' new store in Belco. Pro tip - take a knife and cut one in two and split it with someone - otherwise you'll feel to stuffed at the end (even Stu finds them too big!!). And went to Bharat International with some work guys. And there were several treks to Kingsley's ;)

It seems I wasn't terribly creative in the kitchen this year. Or maybe I just didn't document things. We ate one of Kit's little roosters and made a couple of lasagnas with her tomatoes. I had a lot of fun with puff pastry - making cheese and vegemite scrolls, pizza scrolls and cheese twists. Made tacos a couple of times. A large kit works a lot better with three people than two ;) Made a gnocchi carbonara bake a couple of times. Also made cheesy hash browns which are always pretty awesome. And made a huge batch of gingerbread biscuits for Christmas.

The only theatre/shows/exhibitions I saw were two Lego things (Lego Cities by Ryan McNaught in Sydney, and a private Lego Christmas Show in Ngunnawal), and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Melbourne.

The only movie I saw in theatres was the Lego Movie 2 - the Second Part.

Saw a lot more movies on TV. As well as invididual movies which I won't list, we (or I) also carried on watching movies in series. Including:

• Kung Fu Panda 1 and 2
• Sherlock Holmes 1 and 2 (Robert Downey Junior version)
• The Hobbit 1, 2 and 3
• James Bond movies, starting in April, still haven't quite finished
• Paddington 1 and 2
• Bridget Jones 1 and 2
• Molly Ringwald teen movies (except Breakfast Club cause that's kinda boring)
• A few Tom Hanks movies
• Twilight saga
• Die Hard 1, 2 and 3 (haven't had a chance to see the rest yet)

Watched a surprising amount of TV too!

• The Good Place Season 3
• Tidying Up with Marie Kondo
• Discovery Season 2
• Fuller House Season 4
• MacGyver Season 1, start of Season 2
• Homeland Season 7
• Brooklyn 99 - up to season 5
• Death in Paradise Season 3
• Lego Masters
• Veronica Mars Season 4
• The Good Place Season 4
• The Amazing Race
• Fuller House Season 5

I'm not a big reader but did get through some books:

• Heaven is for Real - Todd Burpo
• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and six more - Roald Dahl
• Silicon Snake Oil - Clifford Stoll
• Little Brother - Cory Doctorow
• The Cult of LEGO - John Baichtal and Joe Meno
• You Always Remember the First Time - edited by B.S. Johnson
• The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
• On the Road - Jack Kerouac (never finished)

And as always, I finish off with a big list of other bits and pieces..

• Started blogging weekly on Sunday nights, as that seems to happen more consistently, and get my photos online in a more timely manner
• Still raging that Apple sees fit to modify the timestamps on my photos and screenshots - on the phone!!
• Posted my Canberra 1986-2016 blog to Reddit and got a lot of nice comments
• Android (at least the last two Stu's had) has a SUPER annoying bug where the forward facing camera has no date taken exif data saved. Makes it harder to geotag the photos.
• Finally filled up my 2T drives with backups, had to split them out. Also bought a 4T drive to have room for everything. Took nearly a week to copy everything
• Found "Tent Go Bye Byes" on the internet so Mum could finally see what all the fuss was about in 1983
• Finished scanning all of Mum's photo prints
• Saw the Balloon Fiesta
• Took a stack of Tupperware to the Green Shed
• Read all of Julie Powell's "Julie and Julia" blog (started and got a good chunk of the way through in February after I had my appendix out, finished in September)
• Collected all the Coles Stikeez. And Little Shop 2
• The neighbours got ducks, although they didn't keep them for too long
• Got asked to be a bridesmaid at Kit's wedding. Got the shoes for the girls
• Finished scanning all of Mum's analogue photos. Started on her slides.
• Got our democracy sausage in May
• Finished labelling all 10000-odd photos from our last trip
• Created an S3 bucket for holiday photos. Still haven't gotten around to doing anything with it.
• Filled with rage at Qantas' website and general customer service, booked my next trip with Emirates instead
• Three cats we know - Pookie, Celeste and George - all had to be put down
• Processed and labelled all our Hong Kong and Singapore 2016 photos and got them into the blog
• NBN screwed us over - disconnected us during upgrades and never bothered to reconnect us. Had to get a tech to come out and fix it. Found out a while later they'd downgraded our speed from about 25mb to 12mbit. Bastards. (Edit: they broke the connector, hence only half the speed, later we got it fixed)
• Microsoft FINALLY enabled control-backspace in Notepad!!
• STILL raging at Apple and the inability to copy timelapse (and even regular video) files to my computer
• Bought a toasted sandwich maker - loving that
• David bought me a new frying pan (and another one at Christmas)
• Had my hair trimmed. Trimmed is an understatement.
• Got my North Atlantic trip fully labelled and blogged
• Didn't see blue sky in Canberra from before Kit's wedding til the end of the year
• Saddened by the bushfires that raged through south-eastern Australia
• Played some escape games on my phone which are a lot of fun
• Watched both Christmas Carols events. Carols in the Domain are pretty tacky but Melbourne's Carols by Candlelight is still ok.
• Spent the last couple of days of the year tidying and organising the house, and catching up on blogging

We finished out the year at EffanC's for a quiet evening with great friends.

Sunday night a week and a bit ago, David dragged me out to Ngunnawal to have a look at a private Lego display.  I was a bit hesitant because, kids, crowds, but we got there right on 18:30 so it wasn't crowded yet.  It was actually pretty good.  They had a lot of commercial sets, but they also had a big town centre with a Disneyland parade and a lot of "fun stuff" going on.  A lot of fun.

So after not really getting any sleep at all, I was a bit of a zombie on the Saturday morning.  I raided my food supplies and had some cheese and salami for breakfast.  Had a shower and wandered out to the shed to help setup.

The others surfaced, and we started getting ready.

Audrey steam-ironed the dresses.

The dresses all hanging up.  Guess which one is mine?

The makeup and hair ladies came around 9-9:30.  I was first to get makeup done (this is sans-lipstick).

Chloe plied me with champagne (Henkell) while I was getting my hair done.

Ending up with a sort of "messy bun" style.

We even got little flowers glued in.

Kit got us all matching jewelry.

Chloe's mum did the flowers.

I had time to go and photograph some of the setup.  This was where the ceremony was held.  Such a pretty spot.

Hazel did an amazing job with the flowers.

The tables had books and bottles and greenery and it all looked very rustic.

Kit's mum prepared a stack of fruit, and there were some party pies and sausage rolls which became lunch.

Kit getting her hair decorated.

Kit all ready.

Then it was off to the ceremony.  Being in the ceremony I didn't get any of my own photos.  Not that I would have been allowed anyway, they said "no photos" which would have made me PISSED at any other wedding.  I can understand not wanting people to take photos during the ceremony, but where's the harm in letting people take a few photos during the entrance and setup? #grunt.  

This is me and the sweetie afterwards.

And I did get a few of my own other photos after the bridal party photos were done.

Including one or two of Kit and Pete.

And a couple of the venue

There was pizza for dinner, and speeches and dancing, a pretty fun night.

At the end of the night the wedding party stayed up a little longer just hanging out which was pretty nice.  Did make for a late night though.

Three weekends ago we headed down the coast for Kit and Pete's wedding.  We left on the Thursday after lunch.  I was still sick and coughing and had been in bed all morning.  Hurrah.  

Driving down Smith's Gap we saw the fires over at Braidwood.

This was the last weekend we were to see blue skies this year.  As I write it's been three weeks since we saw properly blue sky (except maybe a day or two).

This C-130 water bomber (N134CG) had just left HMAS Albatross.  

We stayed at the Springs Shoalhaven, quite close to the wedding venue.  Pleasant enough place.  It had a pool although I didn't have a swim (Stu did).  Both those beds were *very* soft.  I took the single to give myself a bit of distance from the sweetie with my coughing.  

We chilled out for a bit, then went next door to the Ex Serviceman's Club for dinner.  It had a lovely aspect, facing north over the golf course.  At the far northern end of the golf course was the venue for the wedding. 

Pasta I had for dinner

Spent half the night coughing.  Of course.

Stu thought it might be nice to have room service breakfast on the Friday, so we ordered that the night before.  Unfortunately because I'd had so little sleep I really wasn't hungry when it turned up at the appointed time.  It was nice enough though and I would have enjoyed it on another day.  

I pretty much spent the morning in bed.  We were waiting for word from Kit to see if they needed our help transporting anything or setting anything up, but they were running late and a bit frazzled.  In the end the sweetie and I went into Nowra to get some supplies (I still wasn't very hungry) and stuff for the wedding.  Then we headed all the way down to the end of Greenwell Road to have a look at the water.  That was quite nice.

Dropped the sweetie back to the motel, then met up with Chloe, Katie and Kit so we could all get our nails done.  I've never had my nails done professionally before.  

The result!

Picked up the sweetie, then it was off to the rehearsal.  There were quite a lot of people there and it was a little bit chaotic, so took quite a while to get through.  

Dropped off the sweetie again, then to Kit and Pete's to load up the car with food.  Swung by the motel on the way back and got Stu to drop me at the venue with all the gear/food.  He'd had a rotten time at the Ex-Serviceman's club - it was super noisy and crowded and he had to wait *forever* for food and couldn't even go get another drink because otherwise he'd have lost his table.  Poor thing.  Then he headed back to the motel while I stayed at the venue.

At the venue four of us girls stayed in the "Bunk House", while Kit stayed by herself in her own room (at Chloe's recommendation to get a better night's sleep).  

Chloe got us some takeaway burgers for dinner (and very nicely got me a kids meal so it was a lot smaller ;) ).

Chloe and Audrey made up little bubble blowers.

And Katie and Kit made up decorations.

I supervised ;)

I slept on my inflatable mattress.  Or rather, I *didn't* sleep on the mattress.  I was so stressed about my coughing/snoring keeping Katie awake, that I couldn't get to sleep til very very very late.  And then I woke up early.  I think I might have gotten about two hours sleep.  How to recover from a cold - get lots of rest.  Yeah right.  Vowed never to sleep in the same room as anyone else (aside from the sweetie) ever again in my life.

Anyways.  I'll leave the day of the wedding to the next post.

This magpie was hand raised by the owners of the venue, and hung around while we cleaned up.  Very cool.

After driving Pete's ute back to their place late morning, with everyone's cars full of *stuff* that we'd spent all morning packing up, we finally headed home.  

We couldn't even see Smith's Gap through all the smoke.

This was leftovers of a massive antipasto platter that we had at the wedding (I put it in the fridges overnight, everyone thought I was mad heh).  We didn't need to do any food shopping that week - we just ate this all week!

Sunday afternoon watched the finale of The Amazing Race.  I quite enjoyed the season, although with a limited Australian budget they only went to two other continents (Africa and Asia).  After "the influencers" went, there wasn't really anyone I *didn't* want to win, except maybe the nurses, they came across as a bit dumb.  Good on the guys that won!

Monday was too busy to actually achieve anything much at work.  hrmm.  I did manage to get dinner/washing/kitchen done by 19:25 which was nice.

Tuesday wasn't much better at work - so busy I don't know where to start, and when I do start it's just interruption after interruption.  So much smoke around too!  And I totally ruined David's day by preempting Christmas shopping on him.  

Tuesday evening went to Chrissie's for dinner - some yummy fried chicken, skewers and fried rice.

We started calling the smoke Five O'Clock Charlie because it keeps coming around in the evening.

Tuesday night I couldn't get to sleep - stoopid restless legs.  Then work up really early.  Hurrah.  Got cranky at Italian Bite putting the price of their small place up from $7.90 to $9.50.  So went to Ali Baba, only to get cranky at them because they've downsized their kebabs - meaning if you ask for a small you get a small, but it's the price of their "original".  So $9.90 for a small.  Not. Happy. Jan.  They'll go out of business at that rate, with Yarralumla kebabs offering about four times the food for only $5 more.  

Wednesday night I went to bed early, but another night of restless legs keeping me awake late.  Zombie day Thursday.  Finished BBT up to the end of season 4.  Had a wildly unhealthy lunch with the sweetie at Kimchi.

Friday I woke up at 4:15 stressing about the party.  Then. Smoke.  So. Much. Smoke.  One guy thought we should cancel, but I already had all the meat.  We thought about doing it on prem, but the poo-pooers probably would have had a hissy fit, so we went ahead with the lake anyway.  Noone did any running around, we just chilled and ate and drank and had quite a lovely time, and there was even a slight breeze to make it all less unpleasant.  At one point there was just me and twenty-eight other boys ;)  Unfortunately there was a *lot* of extra food as there were less people and it was so damned hot.  I caught my duck again, although I didn't catch her wings so she was a bit more stressed and uncomfortable.  Then she pooped on my hand haha.

Came home and we watched Die Hard 2.

Saturday morning I woke up at 5:00 stressing about the leftovers.  Because that's what I do.  Le sigh. 

Spent much of the day scanning mum's negatives and labelling Singapore photos.  David and I had some of the leftover sausages in the morning, and we didn't die of food poisoning, w00t. I might have made gingerbread cookies.

Went to the Green Shed in the afternoon and did a bit of shopping in Gungahlin.  Finished off last week's lamb for dinner, watched some BBT, then Carols in the Domain.  We haven't watched commercial television in literally months, and when we turned on the tv guess what, a commercial.  Le sigh.  I reckon there's more adverts and promotions and just *fluff* than actual singing.  Next year I might time it.  The Sydney one is always a bit lame.  No Ode to Joy or Hallelujah chorus, and only one or two hymns.  And I was surprised that they allowed candles during the total fire ban, but apparently they're allowed for "religious ceremonies" so long as there's suitable containment.

Today was pretty much all just housework and getting the place tidied up for Christmas and having peoples over.  I did play through the "Rime" escape game which was pretty good.  Got stuck in a couple of places where I didn't even realise you could click on certain things.  The "ending" was a little odd, and got a bit complicated, probably wouldn't have been able to solve it without walkthroughs.

And there's a big white bird outside our window eating Kit's plums.

Yeah so Sunday night had a great night sleep but woke up with a sore throat Monday morning.  By Monday evening I knew I was getting sick.  Didn't sleep well - in fact was in bed for four or five hours before getting any actual sleep.  So Tuesday spent most of the day in bed.  Watched a documentary on Die Hard (from "The Movies that Made Us").  

Slept quite well Tuesday night so worked from home Wednesday.  But OMFG the STOOPID!!  Just dealing with people who don't understand basic networking, or in fact how their own applications work.  So frustrating.  Even the brother type person got cranky at me and I just wanted to rage quit the whole day.

Got the sweetie to trim my hair.  Asked for two inches, got six.  oops.

Wednesday night I was awake for hours coughing and so zombie tired Thursday morning, so gave up on that day as well.  Spent all morning in bed, then we got ready and headed down the coast for a long weekend for Kit and Pete's wedding.

Back home Sunday night.  Still sick.  Still coughing.

Back at work today.  Still sick.  Still coughing.

My todo list is out of control.  The house is out of control.  

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Monday night was washing, dinner, tv, kitchen and suddenly it's 19:43.  Sigh.  Did do some holiday photo processing and blogging though.

Tuesday was dinner, BBT, kitchen but only 19:00 - better.  Patched and rebooted the computer.  Half an hour later.

Wednesday.  Sucky day.  Realised I'd broken stuff and had to fix it.  Realised other people had broken stuff and I'm *still* waiting for them to fix it.  Had leftover lamb for dinner and inflicted our last holiday slide show on David.  

Thursday we went to Bharat International, an Indian grocery store that has a restaurant attached.  I had goat curry which was ok, but a tad spicy for me and very bony.

A guy at work had this tshirt which was pretty cool.

Didn't you know it's *never* lupus? ;) #bbt #housemd

Friday was the first of the work Christmas parties.  Quite a lovely afternoon.  Didn't go bowling because it was too hot and sunny. 

Had a drink with Kit in the evening which was really nice, before she headed off to the pub with Katie.  Watched The World is Not Enough.

Saturday got bits and pieces done in the morning while Stu went off to the club and Kit slept in. 

In the afternoon was the first of Kit's hen's events - Laser Tag!!  Except there was only ten of us, so they put us with fifteen little 10-11 year old girls.  It was chaos.  Fricken Little Girls everywhere.  And they'd hang around in little packs or pairs.  The worst thing was some of the expressions on their faces - they looked like psycopaths or something - no emotion whatsoever, they would literally just stare at you and expect you to move on.  I'd have been a lot happier if they'd actually looked like they were having fun.  Still, our team of five (Kit, the bridesmaids and Leisa) won both games.  I came fourth in the first game and second in the second, and Kit won the second which was pretty cool.  

Came back to my place so we could get changed and get ready then headed out again.

This time to the George Harcourt.  Those guys *seriously* do not want business.  Well not if you want to book anyway.  During the week I tried about five times to get through to the function number - 0423 257 978 - but they just wouldn't answer the phone.  I left a message once which they did *not* return, even though I explicitly asked them to to make sure they'd received my message (because last time I left a message a couple of months back when I was trying to make the original booking, they never returned my call).  I tried one last time to call the function number before calling the pub directly, but they answered this time.  I asked them to please change the numbers from 15 to 18.  I bet you can guess what happened.. yep, they never ammended my booking.  Not impressed.  Fortunately it all worked out and we all fit in.  (I won't even get started on the fact they don't do "doubles", even in a high glass, yet they will happily sell me two at once, or apparently you can get it on the rocks - so you could mix it yourself.  Makes no sense at all).  

But anyhoo.

Had a pretty good night there and Chloe and Katie had a couple of party games which were a bit of fun.  Chloe and Kit and I split two dishes (arancini balls) between the three of us, which was a much more sensible quantity of food.

At midnight Chloe drove Kit, Katie and me to Moby's.  Had a couple of drinks there (these guys don't take cards at all, all a little dodgy).  I was trying to hold out for Kit but I just couldn't keep up with the youngsters so called it a lot earlier than them.  

Sunday I woke up pretty much at normal time, because that's what my body does.  Had a bit of breakfast (loving our toasted sandwich maker) then attempted to get more sleep.  Failed, because that's what my body does.  Still, I rested for a few hours, so wasn't as tired in the afternoon as I would have been.  Made toasted cheese sandwiches for Kit and Chloe before they went home.

Around lunch time I logged on to do a cutover of mail to our new environment.  Except we had a really really bizarre issue that I just couldn't figure out.  So rolled back the change.  Didn't figure out what the problem was until today.  Stoopid dependencies.  So what should have been a ten minute job had me online for 2.5 hours :(  #grunt.  Watched some Amazing Race in the afternoon, and BBT and Good Place with the sweetie in the evening.

Today I woke up with sore throat but felt mostly ok.  Busy day as always.  But the sore throat wouldn't go away and by evening I was definitely starting to feel sick.  Fricken great.  I don't have TIME to get sick - I'm too freakin busy both at home and at work to get sick.  Had dinner with the sweetie at Happy's, then did a small food shop.  And instead of me doing All The Things that I need to do, I'm going to go to bed as soon as I've hung out my washing.  I certainly don't have the energy to fight with Apple to get my photos, so I'll update this entry with photos later.  

I'm backdating this entry to a week ago.  I was sick last weekend so didn't feel like blogging, then it all got too hard.  I'm also using a View to a Kill quote even though I didn't watch it last week, because otherwise I would have had two to use this week ;)

Monday I got home and put on my washing and sat down at my computer only to find the internet wasn't working.  Rebooted the router but it didn't come back.  Messaged a few people around - turns NBN were doing work all day Monday resulting in various outages.  Damien's internet came back but ours didn't.  And there was *nothing* on Internode, iinet, Aussie Broadband, Telstra or TPG's websites about the planned (or, as it turns out, unplanned) outages.  Fricken useless ISPs.  Stu got home and logged a fault with Internode.  It ruined my plans for the evening (labelling photos) because you need the internet to see geo location of photos.  I did do a whole heap of filing of photos from the past few months though.  But even then I got frustrated because I couldn't check geo locations of photos I was filing, or Foursquare history to confirm locations. 

Also on Monday I had to drop the rent on my place in Sydney by $40/week.  Turns out there's a surplus of unit rental accommodation in Sydney and prices are dropping.  Hurrah.

Tuesday there was still no internet.  So no photo labelling, just more filing of photos.  Internode messaged Stu to say they wanted someone on site all Thursday morning.  #grunt.  

Wednesday someone accidentally broke everything, so stayed back til 21:30 helping fix everything.  The equinox sunset shone all the way down the floor which was pretty cool.

Thursday I flexed off to wait around for the internet to be fixed.  At about 10:20 a dude turns up and barges into the house wanting to see the modem.  I mean literally - he didn't wait to be invited in.  I was pretty cranky about this because this outage WAS NOT OUR PROBLEM.  NBN caused the outage, they should be able to fix it without even needing to come anywhere near our property.  So he looks at the modem and of course gets sad by the fact we have our connection patched into a patch panel and not a direct connection from outside.  Then he wanted to see where the connection came into the house and I showed him the corner of the roof and said way up there.  Anyway he had a bit of a sad and got on his phone and said he was going to go check the node.  Yeah you do that buddy.  I did a bunch of gardening out the front while I waited for him to come back.  About an hour later he came back.  He checked the line and plugged the modem back in.  Checked on my computer and all good!   Yayyy!  Yes, NBN had disconnected us on Monday and hadn't bothered to reconnect us.  Happened to a house three doors down too apparently.  Retards.

But.  Flowers!

Hopped straight on a bus to work (even got a free ride!).  Had quiet drinks and pizza leftover from Wednesday night for dinner.  Had a chat to Kit about her hen's night.

Friday met up with EffanC for drinks and pizza at the Pot Belly (pizza three nights in a row hrmm) then adjourned to their place for a while.

Saturday I woke up with a sore throat.  So a slow start and didn't get too much done.  Then it was hurty which stuffed up the afternoon.  Did food shopping quite late.  Realised that at some point recently, Microsoft FINALLY enabled control-backspace in Notepad!!  I've only been waiting for that for twenty years!!  Still not enabled in our work SOE though.  Watched The Crimes of Grindelwald in the evening which was a confusing mess of a movie.  

Sunday still sick.  Had a long lie in although very little actual sleep.  Played through a whole heap of escape room games.  The first few I found were really good, but after that the ones I played were pretty lame - incessant ads (even *in the middle* of doing puzzles) or would lose progess if you got out of the game you were in.  We had to cancel the hanami lunch with Nat and Andrew because Nat was worried about getting sick.  We did have a beer and some honey soy chicken chips anyway.

Tried to sleep in the afternoon but failed.  Stu cooked salt and pepper squid for dinner.  Watched the last episode of Veronica Mars season four.  I could see the ending coming like an invetible train wreck and I was NOT impressed.  It was a total slap in the face which ruined the whole last season.  Everyone on IMDB was *pissed* and I don't blame them.  

Early night Sunday, and decided I wouldn't be going to work Monday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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