Wednesday.  8th.  Arrived home mid morning.  Had a shower and put on a load of washing.  Then spent ages unpacking and putting everything away.  Then I went into battle to get my photos downloaded.  The SD cards are easy enough, they "just work", well, when windows recognises them after inserting/reinserting several times before it'll read the cards.  The iPhone on this computer does seem to be at least presenting all my files (when I was away, I was finding that the phone simply wasn't even presenting all the files to windoze so I couldn't actually even back everything up properly.  Very frustrating).  At least they seem to work on my home computer.  Well, except for the odd jpg and mov file that refuse to copy - they copy with 0 bytes for jpgs, or simply unreadable for the movs.  At least I got most stuff off.  Managed to stay awake all day which was actually pretty impressive.  Washed my hair before dinner because I didn't think I'd feel like it after.  The sweetie got Chong Co for dinner which was nice.  Then I went to bed.

Thursday.  Slept from about 20:20 to 5:12.  Got up and backed up files to memory sticks.  Also got the last of the GPS tracks off.  Had breakfast with the sweetie at 54 Benjamin which was nice.  Had a good chat about a few things.  Had to be Neil at work, as well catching up on the over 500 emails I got while I was away.  Sausage sizzle at drinks so didn't need dinner, so the sweetie made himself a pizza.  Another early night.

Breakfast Roll at 54 Benjamin

Friday.  Went to bed at 19:30 and slept til a bit after 3.  Tried to get more sleep for another hour but gave up and got up after 4 to continue backing things up and catch up on RSS feeds.  Continued being Neil and catching up on emails at work.  In the afternoon a big disk array had a sad which took a bunch of stuff offline which kinda wrote off my afternoon.  And I couldn't see either so that wasn't much fun.  Called it at 16:15.  Tried to do some weeding but it was too hot.  Went through holiday receipts to start sorting out our holiday expenses and what David and I owe each other.  Chicken kiev for dinner.  We started watching the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett but I was struggling to stay awake because i was so tired.

Caught this super cute little gecko hiding under our recycling bin

Saturday.  Went to bed early again, but this time woke up around 1am and never really got back to sleep.  Sigh.  Used the fact I was awake to go see the balloons.  Except by 6:50 there were still no balloons aloft, which wasn't a good sign.  Sure enough, they weren't flying because the wind was blowing towards the airport.  Oh well.  So went and said hi to Neil.  Also stopped at the arboretum to see the commercial balloons that were out there.  Then home to do All The Things.  Did some washing and got the problematic jpgs and movs off my phone.  Also fixed the timestamps on all the movs and pngs because Apple messes with them.  Had lunch at Pattysmiths with the sweetie then did our food shopping.  Unboxed the Titanic and made a start on it.  Had Asian style salad for dinner, since we'd had such a big late lunch.  After whatever the last patching did, Notepad in windows is now tabbed.  But.  If you have multiple Notepad windows open, windows doesn't actually tell you the name of the file, they're all just labelled "Notepad".  Far out I hate windows.  Turns out this new "feature" is in fact a bug.  Sigh.

Crispy bbq chicken burger at Pattysmiths

Sunday.  Went to bed at like 7:50 and slept til after 5 hurray!  Still awake early enough to go do balloons take two.  It was quite breezy so I was surprised they took off at all.  And it was quite cloudy so not great for photos, but did get the sun a couple of times here and there so got a few nice shots.  Worked on photo renaming and filing (and fixing exif time data on photos where the time zone hadn't been set right).  Also did a bit of weeding.  Stu cooked a Japanese curry for dinner which was quite nice.  Then watched When Harry Met Sally. 

I decided to use the tin of blueberries in the pantry before they were like ten years out of date.  This tin was only six months past its best before..

Stu made Japanese curry for dinner

Monday.  Slept from about 21:30 til around 5:44 which was nice.  Had another day of doing All The Things.  Lots of house/fish stuff, photo processing, cooking, and a couple of sections of Titanic.  Such a busy day and nowhere near done on my todo list.  I don't have time to go to work there's just too much to DOOOOOO!!!  Super frustrating.  

Ten years ago today.

Ten. Years. Ago. TODAY.

I left Australia for two whole months to travel around the Middle East, Europe and Japan.  

I spent all of last year labelling the twenty four thousand photos my parents and I took.

And I spent the last month or two frantically culling photos for the blog and getting them online.  

And I did it.  Photos from that trip are finally online.  My parents would have seen all these photos because they got copies of everything back in the day.   And I did get the Israel ones online years and years ago.  But noone has ever seen the rest of them, not even the sweetie.

Also.  The Titanic sunk a hundred and ten years ago today.

Sunday.  Not backdating!  Lamb roast for dinner.  Except it was two small roasts not one larger one, so the cooking time was very much reduced.  Which meant the garlic didn't cook fully.  So I stuck it back in the oven.  This has to be among the tastiest things on earth ;)

Monday.  Even though I was zombie tired from not sleeping well Saturday night, I still took *ages* to get to sleep, but at least finally slept ok.  It was so *windy* today.  I put my washing out on the line, it was probably dry in about three minutes.  Scanned a roll of negatives.  Had an ok day, doing cleaning and deleting old production stuff :)  Did music but no weeding.  Sausages and salad for dinner.  Into season 22 of The Simpsons.  Did a "first pass" cull of three days of Eurasia 2012 trip.

Tuesday.  Slept ok.  The questions started as soon as I logged in and didn't let up for nearly an hour.  Found it super frustrating in the afternoon because everything was blurry and I couldn't SEEEEE.  I don't know if I was tired which made it worse, or if not being able to see made me tired.  Did some photo culling before dinner.

Wednesday.  Could see the screen in the morning, although it got worse during the day.  Clearly I'm too old to be sitting at work all day staring at a computer screen.  More cleaning with HBZ's help.  And finally sat down to plan cleaning of another set of firewalls (that a previous cloud admin completely botched up and made an epic mess of).  Uunifetapasta for dinner.

Thursday.  Had to *go* to work.  Blerf.  There's still way too much covid around for me to be feel comfortable doing that.  And the office is *noisy*.  People yapping away everywhere, super annoying.  I went to talk to Neil at one point and found myself on TWO people's cameras in two different meetings.  So I went and sat back down until they were off their calls.  Hate being on camera hate hate hate.  Still, the bar was open so that was nice, first time in three months.

Friday.  Ok day.  Grilled the last of some bread I got the other day in the toasted sandwich maker with some parmesan cheese each side (and leftover KFC). Epic good.  Late getting off work because Neil was stressing about upgrades, although turns out what he thought was a problem wasn't a problem after all.  Doc Oc pizzas for dinner, then finally watched Zero Hour! (which Tony took it upon himself to reencode for us, and this time it worked perfectly, even streaming straight off OneDrive and casting from my computer browser). OMFG it was HILARIOUS.  Not because it was actually funny, but because Flying High is pretty much identical to this movie.  I mean I already know there were chunks of it the same, but I had no idea almost the entire movie, from plot to character names to the dialogue was pretty much verbatim.  I mean I could even quote this movie in a lot of places because it was all the same.  My brother would probably appreciate this, you should have a watch :)

Saturday.  Urgh couldn't get to sleep for *ages*.  Maybe even non-Dominos pizza will cause me insomnia.  I still got up to go see the balloons though.  Except I really didn't like the new location (Patrick White Lawns, in front of the library).  It was all very cramped and there was no *view* - no landmarks (other than the library if you could make your way through the crowds to get to the north side) and surround on all sides by trees.  So went somewhere else instead, which worked out a whole lot better.  Pics in a separate post.  Went and said hi to Neil afterwards.  The day was just house/photo/jigsaw stuff.  At lunch we did a Bunnings run (to get vermin poisoning stuffs), as well as Asian Supa for some bits and pieces and Officeworks (to get a decent reem of paper - to try instead of the Coles paper we have which keeps getting jammed - not sure if it's the paper or the printer).  Mostly just jigasw in the afternoon.  

Just a few weeks it was 181.9.  Just the other day it was 199.9.  Saturday 209.9.  omfg, madness.  See we should all be working from home to save petrol given the current crisis.

How cute is this teeny little cow that Stu painted? :)

Stu cooked dinner - a vegetarian Japanese curry which was very nice.

Watched Operation Finale in the evening.

Sunday.  Slept well for a change.  Forgot to have breakfast (routine was out of whack), so ended up having bacon and eggs (Pialligo bacon yummm) which was quite nice.

The day was house/photo/jigsaw stuff.. doing All The Things.

Sunday.  24th.  Not backdating :)  Butterfly lamb roast for dinner.  Put on Hocus Pocus, because Bette Midler, but wasn't watching it very closely.  Instead I was planning out an itinerary for Italy if we end up going.  

Monday.  Woke up a bit after 1am and never really got back to sleep (except for a couple of small sleeps between 4:30 and 6).  Zombie day.  Trying to sort out a big mess and not functioning very well didn't help.  It was a KFC drive through for lunch kind of a day.  Ended up rage quitting the day at 16:30 because I'd had enough and I was too tired.  Had beef cheeks cooked a week ago for dinner, and even managed to label 109 photos, which isn't as many as I need to do, but still better than nothing.

The garden is a riot of colour though!

Tuesday.  Slept much more betterly.  Still trying to sort out the mess at work.  Spent most of the day on it.  Short power outage at lunch.  I reckon they were prepping for Thursday and had a whoopsie.  After work was weeding (out the front), music, dinner, then spent ages trying to find some music files and I hadn't even started labelling by 19:39.  Hmmm.  I did manage to finish day 44 - arrived in Japan!  Was watching Lie to Me (Depraved Heart) and had to LOL at the house in Pasadena that I'd literally just seen in Beaches the other night!

I then managed to label day 45, which doesn't really count as a day - this was the trip from Tokyo to Osaka.  I also watched the first couple of episodes of You Can't Ask That on iView.

Wednesday.  Took like an hour to get to sleep, then woked up a bit after 3:30 and never got back to sleep.  I'm so fricken tired of insomnia.  Brain dead zombie morning.  It was a KFC good-thing-I-brought-extra-on-Monday for lunch kind of a day.  I don't even remember the afternoon.  It was a couple of beers and chicken kiev for dinner kind of an evening.  I did manage to label 84 photos though, so 205 behind for the week.  Hopefully can make that up over the next few days.

Thursday.  Slept relatively well.  Power went off around 9am.  Had a guy from some Not Registered for GST company show up to give us a quote on some garden work.  I asked if he was fully insured and he said yes, but I'm just worried.. all seems a little.. dodgy..   Then did some jigsaw and some paint by numbers, then we headed out to do some long-needed shopping at Bunnings.  Spent ages there trying to find All The Things.  Got maccas on the way home (the power had actually come back on around 11:35 - a couple of hours earlier than expected).  Did a bunch of gardening and planting plants with the sweetie in the afternoon but then not too much else, and some music practise.  Basically just a nice day off.  Watched a bunch of tv including Lie to Me and You Can't Ask That in the evening.

Friday.  Up at stoopid o'clock to do some upgrades, but testing was delayed because half the people testing had no power at home due to storms.  The morning dragged on because I started so early, and they finally gave us the go ahead to do the other half of the upgrades *very* close to lunch.  So got that done then headed out into covid-infected Canberra for a farewell lunch for Luke at the Lighty.  First time I'd seen any of my colleagues in two and a half months!  But I was a bit late arriving and so ended up sitting in the sun.  As soon as I finished lunch I asked to swap seats with someone who is not allergic to the sun, but the damage was done - I'd been sunburnt :(   Not that I knew that to start with, and it was actually a lovely afternoon catching up with all the guys.

Saturday.  Did some weekend stuff in the morning including a couple of loads of washing.  And cheesy hashbrowns for breakfast :)

Then late morning we headed out to the club for a bbq lunch (first time out there since late July).  Stu swam and I tidied up the van and finally setup the "pantry" - a chest of drawers I bought at the Green Shed months ago.  Brought home a bunch of food that had been sitting out there for years, tidied everything up and loaded a couple of the drawers with snackages and tea/coffee.  Then I was finally able to give the coffee machine a home, and could move the kettle off the only bit of bench space next to the sink.  So the whole space is a lot tidier.  There used to be a little table here with an oven on top of it and all the food and containers and crap on top of that, but the oven couldn't be used there because it needed a lot more space around it and we never cook out there anyway (we just take leftovers or bbq).  It's not quite what I wanted for this space (I wanted a cupboard that was a bit bigger), but it'll do for now.

Also!  Flowers!

We actually didn't stay the night, but came home instead.  Both of us felt like it was a Sunday afternoon because we usually come home from the club on a Sunday.  Cooked some mushrooms and macaroni and had creamy mushroom mac and cheese for dinner.  We had salad at lunch.  Honest.  ;)

Watch Big in the evening, which I haven't seen since the late 80s.  And some episodes of You Can't Ask That.

Sunday.  Today.  Busy day trying to cram in two days of weekend into one essentially.  Stu even got lots done too which was nice.  Didn't have too much time for any fun, but did do a little bit of jigsaw and one short session of paint-by-numbers.  Had a second guy from Not Registered for GST company show up asking if we needed any work done, and I'm like, you guys came just the other day.  If this company can afford to have employees, surely they'd have enough turnover to need to be registered for GST?? hrmmmmm!!

Stu found this in his four foot tank - how cute is it!

The poppies have started flowering too

I guess I've filled in the gap in the middle since last week.. that's about it though.. 

Dinner will be leftover butterfly lamb, with a bunch of fresh roasted veggies.

Thirty years ago today some of Mum's family went to the Auburn Botanical Gardens and Japanese Garden.

The cousins, minus David

Me and a peacock

Sunday. 12th.  Backdating.  Doh.  Roast chicken dinner which was very nice.

Monday.  Ok day, was Neil all day because he took the day off to go to the dentist.  Which means I try and fix all the stoopid problems I see.  I can't help myself ;)  In the evening was looking for paperwork from the Eurasia trip to help with photo labelling.  Was actually feeling super panicky/anxious about the fact that there's just not enough *time* to get everything done.  Labelling Louvre photos in the evening.  Only managed 35 photos before dinner, which was a bit late (leftover brisket), and only 75 done by 8pm.  Turns out labelling things in the Louvre is hard work if you want to do it properly.  Still hadn't blogged for the week.  hrmm.  Managed 156 all up for the evening.

Tuesday.  Ok day, although I felt like I didn't get much done in between talking to people all day.  41 photos labelled before dinner (of leftovers), and 116 done by 8:04pm.  77 behind, hrmm.  Finished day 35 in Paris though.

Wednesday.  Ok day.  Finished up yesterday's slide scanning fixing, but hadn't brought up a new box yet, so scanned 12 of Stu's negatives that he took on a youth group boating trip on the Hastings.  Also managed to clean the kitchen.  Bit of a late finish, so no labelling before dinner (of filled gnocchi with sweet potato salad).  After dinner was trying to deal with my computer which had some stoopid windoze process running taking up all its energy.  Spent an hour trying to shut down as many things as I could, so didn't end up doing any labelling at all. 

"Filled gnocchi" - that I got a while back because Coles had sold out of regular fresh gnocchi.  Just fried in butter which was very tasty.  Salad is rocket and sweet potato, with toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seeds and feta, with a honey and olive oil dressing.  Yumm.

Thursday.  Ok day.  Pretty much a standard Thursday.

Friday.  Had an RDO (random day off), which was the first one I'd had since July (and I was definitely feeling it).  Spent the day trying to get on top of All The Things.  In the late afternoon put on Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, which was a bit silly.  Leftover brisket and veggies for dinner.  In the evening watched Words Bubble Up Like a Soda Pop, which Stu described as Japanese Mall Rats.  Kinda sweet but a bit silly.

Saturday.  A day of All The Things.  Caught up on this week's photo labelling which I was behind on.  Other than that the normal Saturday of trying to do house stuff, project stuff, photo stuff and have a bit of fun in the middle.  Put on Bridget Jones's Baby later on while filing photos.  Stu cooked creamy pasta with mussels for dinner which was very nice.  In the evening watched Enola Homes which was a bit of fun but pretty silly, and too "modern" for a period piece.  (I've been a bit spoilt by a documentary we watched on our last cruise about anachronisms in movies, and how modern values colour period movies).

Sunday.  Much the same as Saturday but with fewer time limits.  

I might have bought myself a new toy during the week, which arrived in less than a week, from America, on a Sunday!

So I've actually been wanting to learn the clarinet for long time.  I learnt the recorder as a kid, but it has a very limited range which can be frustrating.  I read a bunch of reviews that said the Jean Paul CL-300 was probably the best value for money in terms of pretty decent quality for not a crazy price.  Turns out it's a lot harder than a recorder to play, who knew! I was expecting to be able to blow into it and make a sound, but it's a lot more complicated than that.  And I'm really going to need a neck strap so I don't get RSI in my thumb/hand.

Cooked All The Food in the evening - roast pork for dinner, and some mince for dinner during the week.

Watched the second episode of Connected (Poop) (we watched the first episode - Surveillance a little while ago), then I watched another episode of How the Mind Works, on memory.  

Monday.  I already covered this in the last post, but here's some pictures of the disgusting looking black goop that is @notquitenigella's Asian Beef Cheeks.  Served with rice and cabbage it's soooo good!

Tuesday.  Woke up cranky that I was so far behind in *everything*.  Mainly photo processing and labelling.  And that I had to go to work when I just have so much to *do* at home.  I was so cranky that I didn't even feel like singing along to the Hallelujah Chorus when it came on the radio :(  Had an ok day at work though - planning for a new server build.  Super late home though.  Leftovers for dinner, then blogged two blog entries and labelled a hundred and fifty photos or so, so all is not lost (at least not any further behind than I am already).  

Wednesday.  Ok day.  Jim organised a bunch of us to go to Belco Kebabs.  I split one with XL which ended up with a sane amount of food for the two of us, and they do Monday-Wednesday $10 kebabs at lunch, so it only cost us $5 each!  Amazing value.  

Home late.  Sorted photos from the past week and selected some for the blog.  Only 57 photos labelled though, now a full week behind.  Finally finished the lemon cheesecake for dessert.

Thursday. School holidays at the mall.  Kill me now.

Drinks was pretty good, got to try some of the wines I missed out on last week because I didn't go in.

Friday.  Still pretty quiet due to peeps not being able to deploy new servers, so time to find things to do.  Played with getting trusted certs installed on an admin interface, and planning a bunch of cleaning.  Three of my birds came to see me at lunch.  Did twenty minutes of periwinkle hacking (ten minutes at lunch and ten after work).  

Our chrysanthemums come out a little early for Mother's Day..

Watched some tv with the sweetie in the evening, then I watched The Color Purple.  Most of it was pretty darned depressing.  Got a bit better at the end.  Found out that Netflix will now give you a few weeks notice if something is planning to be cut.  This was one of them - last day to watch April 30.  Fine, except you'll have to regularly check your Watchlist to keep an eye on things, because it only notifies you about things ending soon.  And I'll be pissed if they pull tv shows we're in the middle of watching before we get a chance to watch through them.

Saturday.  All. The. Things.  !!  Got through a massive long todo list of stuff, mostly houseworky type stuff. 

Making slow but steady progress hacking my way through the periwinkle

Also lunch out and some food shopping.  In the afternoon I finished watching Challenger: The Final Flight documentary on Netflix.  I still tear up watching that footage.  Go figure.  

In the evening Rob and Fiona came over for epic roast lamb, great conversation and sackbut playing!

This beer was very interesting - a Belgian beer matured in red wine barrels!

Sunday.  Today.  Cooked potato and zucchini cheesy hashbrowns for brunch

I used two potatoes and an old zucchini that needed using up, which was a heap of food, so didn't actually need any lunch!  I think I had a bit of cheese on a cracker, and a carrot.

Other than that, a pretty quiet day, really not getting much done other than a whole bunch of blogging - some recent entries, as well as some This Day in History posts.  Some of those won't show up in an RSS feed because they're backdated, so when I'm caught up I'll give you a link.  

Stu prepped Japanese hotpot, which promises to be yummy!  (this isn't everything, there's still meat to be prepped)

Edit: added more pics of the hotpot later:

At least I'm not backdating for a change ;)

See aforementioned note on being a slacker.  Backdating.  

Monday.  11th.  After work I'd labelled my quota of Eurasia 2012 photos by dinner time.  Which was leftovers and salad.  Then continued writing up my year in review post.  Then came the news that David had gotten a train driving job out of Cootamundra and would be leaving.  For some reason that just made me feel a bit sad.  Happy for him of course though!  Couldn't get to sleep til nearly 1am, probably just trying to deal with change.

Tuesday.  Slept a bit late.  In the evening was up to Mum and Dad's photos of Hong Kong for our Eurasia trip.  They travelled separately to me (because I was planning to go via Japan on the way back) and the group had a daytime layover in Hong Kong.  Because I can't help myself, I geotagged all 78 of Dad's and all 59 of Mum's photos of their day there.  It was pretty easy, because I could tell exactly where they'd been on account of having gone to those exact spots a year and a half later.  Just needed a bit of street view assistance for the driving photos.  There was one tricky one of some buildings in Fortress Hill, which was really nowhere near anywhere you'd expect them to be when getting a bus from the airport to Central where they took the Peak Tram.  

Wednesday.  Another night of not getting to sleep til very late.  Had to *go* to work, blerf.  Finished writing up a test plan of sorts for the proxies.  Then started building new mail servers. 

Well and truly past the twelfth day of Christmas..

Stu was meant to meet Damien at the Pot Belly for a drink, only Damien forgot, so I went and had a drink with him instead.  Sausages and salad for dinner.  Backed up my phone, backed up my computer, then labelled all of Mum and Dad's Hong Kong photos, and then it's after 9pm.  Blerf.

Thursday.

Oh hai snail.  Can you please get off the middle of the path so I don't squish you.  You're lucky you didn't end up as Stumpy's lunch!

Had a drink with Neil and Wello at the Labor Club. 

Stu got this set of clickety-clack keys to test different keyboard styles

Then had Dr Oc pizzas for dinner.  Started watching a Japanese anime show called Laid-Back Camp, which I really enjoyed and we ended up watching four twenty-three minute episodes.  It's photo-realistic, and you could actually go to all the places they go to.  

Friday.  Spent most of the day on a call with a vendor helping us with a POC of a firewall product.  So.  Draining.

I did get this funny photo of Stumpy planking at lunch

After being on the phone all day I just wanted TV dinners for dinner.  So got a couple of veal cordon bleus from Chris's.  Then watched some more Laid-Back Camp.

Saturday.  Slept ok.  Did all the morning things, then helped David load up his car to take the first load of things home.  I really didn't think he had all that much here, but we completely filled the car and there's still a lot to go.  

We might have had our new mattress arrive!

Went out to do our food shopping.  Also to pick up pills from Chemist Warehouse.  I was going to use the app to order my pills so I could just go and pick them up.  Except the app said they didn't have any in stock.  So I went to the counter when we got there to ask, and I could literally see them on the shelf behind her.  She got them down and was like, oh yes they *are* in stock.  So I was going to grab them and go, except she's like, but you can't, there's a queue.  And I'm like, THEY'RE RIGHT THERE.  FFS.  Apparently it takes chemists literally fifteen minutes to stick a name tag sticker on a box of pills.  WTF else do they do????  Pathetic.  Continued on with the year in review post in the afternoon. 

Stu cooked dinner - sukuyaki hotpot!!  Inspired by Laid-Back Camp.  With real (and very expensive) wagyu beef that the butcher kindly sliced thinly for us.

Then we watched The Professor and the Madman which was pretty good, altho apparently Mel Gibson had a hissy fit that they couldn't film in Oxford and refused to promote the film.  Stu had the book at one point, but we couldn't find it - even if he didn't give it away in our recent purge, if it was still there it would have been behind all the Lego boxes.  

Sunday.  Took ages to get to sleep - tired and restless.  So a bit of a nothing day.  Put on beef brisket in the slow cooker at lunch.  In the afternoon we pulled apart the old bed, and setup the new mattress and linen.  I had a look at the bed frame we were looking at at Ikea, but I'm glad I read the reviews, because otherwise I wouldn't have found out that the frame is actually too small for a king size mattress, and we would have been stuck.  Finally finally posted my 2020 year in review post.  Go to the archives if you're one of those silly people that doesn't use an RSS reader.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ten years ago tonight the sweetie and I left for a holiday to Japan and the UK.  This was one of my rare holidays that all the photos are online in the blog.  I've spent the last couple of months actually labelling *all* the photos from that trip, with a view to getting more of them online than just the highlights in the blog.