Thursday night: Slept til 4am then woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

Friday night: Went to bed at 9:30pm.  Got up at 9:30am.  Only slept six of those twelve hours.  Spent the other six hours stressing about the party and the fact that I wasn't sleeping.

Saturday: Did a bit of house organising but not really enough.  Was too tired.  Went out for kebabs for lunch, then did party shopping.  And nearly killed people because there was too many of them in once place.  Came home and cleaned the house, but not really enough because we only had an hour and a half and there was just too much to do.  Chris P arrived at 4pm, then Neil, who forgot the salami so Stu went with him to get it.  Then others turned up in dribs and drabs for the next few hours.  After about an hour I finally managed to have a drink.  And finally another.  And finally started to relax.  And then finally to start enjoying myself.  There was *tonnes* of food.  We bought eight packets of frozen food to cook over the course of the night and it all got eaten (and the neighbours came up very late and brought some frozen pizzas and they got eaten too).  I spent so much time trying to make sure I talked to everyone that I didn't really talk to anyone, which was slightly sad.  A slow cooker and a half of mulled wine was drunk, along with a whole recycling tub full of beer and wine.  I think people had a good time?  Certainly the last of them didn't leave til 2am!

Windy took a few photos (thanks Windy!), but this was my favourite - a "Cognac of Chrises" (and a small ring-in whose middle name is Chris).  There'd have been eight if Henrch and the other Chris Bell had been able to make it!

Sunday:  woke up early (apparently that's what happens when you drink) but didn't get up til around nine.  Chris got up before me and cleaned up the entire kitchen and living room!  It was amazing!  She was my little cleaning fairy!  Quiet morning with Chris and Zac (Zac's quite a lovely kid, as kids go) and Potty, and we shared some of Chris L's bread and marmalade for breakfast.  Saw Chris off at lunch time, then tried to get ourselves and the house back into some semblance of sanity.

In the afternoon I went to Brick Expo, but I'll save that for another post.

Sunday night had a nightcap before bed, then slept very well from about 9:30pm til 6:30am.  I needed it!

Monday: Spent all morning dealing with fallout from the weekend's work.  

And it looks like life might get super complicated in the next little while...

So yes.  A whole week has gone by.  Whoops.

Had a roller coaster week at work.  Days where things went well and I was fixing problems all over the place.  Days where nothing went right and I felt like it should have been beer o'clock by 10am :(  Got a new computer so also had a bit of time making sure that was setup.

Tuesday night we met up with Dan (the cousin version) at The Wig&Pen for drinks, and then we went to Iori for dinner.  I'd had wagyu beef at Coo some time ago and it was awesome, so thought I'd try it at Iori.  It was pretty fail.  Not melt-in-your-mouth at all. Oh well.  But it was a good night catching up with Dan.

Friday night Neil opened the bar for a farewell, so we gate crashed, which made for a pleasant start to the weekend.

Saturday morning we went to Black Pepper for breakfast.

Then we did our food shopping and came home.

Spent pretty much the rest of the weekend (aside from visiting Annie and the family on Saturday night) cleaning and tidying the house.  Made a lot of progress on things that didn't matter so much (like the garage and dungeon) and not so much on the things that really need doing (like vacuuming).  But the study floor is almost clear now which is pretty miraculous.

George climbed a tree this morning

Ever wonder what over 25000 pieces of jigsaw would look like all mixed up?  Anyone want to find out? ;)

Saw two different rainbows several hours apart today.  Yet we didn't get any rain!

My Dad turned 70 on Sunday.

So we trundled up to Sydney.

And I figured if I was going to be in Sydney, I'd try and catch up with some of my Sydney friends for part one of my birthday bash.

Stu wanted to fly (to get points so he can get Virgin lounge access).  So we spent obscene amounts of money on flights and a hotel.

But let me backtrack a minute.

I'd decided that we should go to the Löwenbräu Keller, as it was central for everyone, it had pork, and it had beer.  I thought that we could have a lunch, and people could stop in for a drink afterwards if they weren't able to make it to the lunch.  Except when I made the tentative booking they said that they were a restaurant and everyone had to be dining.  This they underlined.  Well actually they said that everyone who made a reservation had to be dining.  And they wanted a $20 deposit for everyone.  And we had to order off one of the very restrictive set menus.  So that was my drama last week.  Anyways.  I got my RSVPs and made the final booking and paid the deposit, and fortunately on the day everyone showed up who said they would, and no surprises.  But more on lunch later.

So Saturday morning we got up and got ready and headed to the airport.  And after complaining a couple of weeks ago about Stu getting to fly in one of Virgin Australia's ATR 72-600s, I got to go in one :)

Took off to the north, with a view of Canberra and the new Majura Parkway, but a lot of fog around still (delays all over the place because of heavy fog in the morning, and was a bit stressed that our plane would be late or cancelled).

Actually to say was a bit stressed was putting it very mildly.  I was totally stressed out all morning - about the lunch, who would/wouldn't turn up, the restaurant being bumheads, getting to the airport on time, the plane being on time and on and on.  Was feeling quite queasy until we got to the airport and our plane was going to be on time .. 

But carrying on ..

Because it's such a little plane, they don't have the full food service where they sell food/drinks.  Instead they have complimentary drinks and snackages for everyone!  So that was pretty nice of them.

Flew almost right over the top of River Island (it was on the other side of the plane)

Then up over Campbelltown and in from the south-west.

M7-M5 junction

Holsworthy

Look Mum I can see your house from here.. and mine (under the clouds).  Looking into the sun, so not much more in the way of good shots for the rest of the flight.

Bate Bay looking very blue

So off the plane and onto the Airport Train.  I've never actually taken this train before.  Reason being: it's a complete rip off!  $31 for the two of us to get to the city.  Absolutely ridiculous.  And of course, there was trackwork, so we had to change trains at Central.  At least there *was* a train to Circular Quay - when Stu went a couple of weeks ago, there were no trains at all in the CBD.

Carnival Spirit

Walked up to our hotel, and were able to check in.  Fairly basic hotel room, but very nice and a pretty decent view.

Then we wandered down to the Lowenbrau, and even though we were fifteen minutes early, we were only *just* the first ones there heh.

No good photos of Marc/Ryan and none at all of Emma/Charlotte.. doh!

So everyone arrived and they brought out meat.  So. Much. Meat.  This times four!

We got the "Schmankerlplatter" which was $39.50 and the cheapest of the options we were forced into having by the Lowenbrau.  I was really annoyed by this, as it meant people couldn't go for a lighter lunch if they wanted to.  One thing's for sure - I'll *never* be booking to go to the Lowenbrau again.  If opportunity arose I'd still go there, but I'd never organise an event there again.

*Fortunately* they were happy to package up all the leftovers, and Stuart R and my brother took them home.  So at least a quarter of all that food didn't end up going to waste.

And the pork was pretty damned good.  And there was other meat too.  For those that wanted it ;)

So after lunch, since the Lowenbrau were being buttheads about not wanting people to drop by casually, we headed up to the Argyle for drinks.  Fiona, Stu, Chris, Daniel&Fi and me and the sweetie went, and were joined by Fran, Jake, Ric, David and Yvonne.  Where we stayed til early evening :)

The Argyle's unisex bathroom.  The funky pods at the far end are the urinals!

So all in all it was actually a wonderful afternoon.  I hadn't seen Chris in twenty years, and I'd never even met Stuart R (except online, and he had actually thought I was a boy which gave everyone a good laugh ;) ).  And all sorts of lengths of friendships in between.  The only sad part was not having enough time to catch up with everyone for as long as I'd have liked.  Oh well.. will have to make more effort on future trips!  And convince people to come visit ;)

Stumbled back to the hotel.

Picked up some snackages on the way back to the hotel, thinking we might get hungry later on.  But we never did.  Too much meat!

However the hotel had put out a little bit of cake and a macaron for my birthday - how sweet of them :) (when they asked at checkin if I was up for a special occasion I said I was :) )

Enjoyed the view briefly before collapsing into (a very soft) bed.

Yesterday we went out to the club for a Christmas in July lunch.  As usual there was a feast of food thanks to R&T and A&J.

Lunch included, but was not limited to, lots of potatoes, turkey rolls, corn, salad

Dessert included, but was not limited to, rum balls, chocolate mud cake, trifles

And then.. it snowed!!

That was pretty exciting :)

Afterwards we debated staying the night, but the sweetie had some work to do for uni, so we came home, as he thought it'd be easier to do at home.  That, and it was *freezing* out there.*

This morning there was still snow on the mountains out past Queanbeyan.

There probably would have been snow on the Brindabellas too, but we didn't leave the house all day, so we didn't see.

Bit of house tidying today, and then my tax man came to sort out my tax.

And so endeth the weekend.

* Freezing in the both literal (snow) and figurative (feels like) senses of the word, for people that want to complain.

Well not for Stu anyway ..

Yesterday morning was a pretty slow start.  Got out the door eventually and went to This Cafe in Gungahlin for brunch.  I had eggs benedict, which was reasonable (although the bacon was on the side which was a little odd).  But we were sitting by the door, which didn't close properly, and let a gale in every time someone came through, until the sweetie leaned over and closed it.  Most irritating.

Went out to Wintercon at EPIC and had a look around.

Then did our food shopping and came home.

I did a bit of cleaning of PVC goo with acetone in the afternoon.

After dinner we went over to Annie's for a while to catch up.

This morning I got a bit of housework done in the morning.

Then Stu got a phone call from Annie.  She'd fallen (in Sydney - she'd gone there to take the kids to the zoo) and wanted to come home but couldn't drive.  So the sweetie flew up to Sydney to rescue her.  He even got to go in one of Virgin Australia's itty bitty little planes.  Slightly jealous heh.

In the meantime I tidied up the laundry which has been a disaster lately.

Dinner was pea and ham soup that the sweetie had put in the slow cooker before he left.  It was pretty good.

I'm finally cancelling the last of our Aussie Farmers Direct orders.

We started off getting the couples organic fruit and veg boxes last year.  But there was no way the two of us could get through the boxes each week.  So we dropped back to fortnightly.  And even that was a struggle to get through.  The number of times we had something leftover, or simply too much food to eat and not enough freezer space to freeze the leftovers, was so great that in a fit of rage a couple of months back I cancelled the order completely.  

We were having similar problems with the milk and orange juice orders we were getting.  A week and a half ago I dropped our order back to fortnightly, as it would usually take us three weeks to get through two weeks of deliveries.  I checked the delivery calendar last week and there was nothing due for last Wednesday so I didn't put out the cooler bag.  But in the morning there was one milk and one OJ (don't know what happened to the other OJ - either just not delivered or stolen).  Grunt.  So I thought we wouldn't get anything this week, given that we got something last week.  But no, more damned milk and OJ turned up this morning.  This time the milk bottle had a small hole in it and was leaking all over the front porch.  There's now eight litres of OJ in the fridge, two litres of milk in the fridge and another four litres of milk in the freezer.  This is ridiculous.

Plus their website *sux*.  It's a pain in the posterior trying to even figure out if you're due for a delivery in any given week.

So while I like the *idea* of Aussie Farmers Direct, the impracticality of it all is killing me, and I'm cancelling.  If I can figure out how.  Have I ever mentioned how much their website sux?

Whoops so it's been like a week since I last blogged..

Friday night the sweetie and I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Saturday we went to Pulp Kitchen for breakfast.  I ordered a small breakfast raclette with a side of Pulp Kitchen bacon.  Except the waitress thought I said streaky bacon.  No, I said I wanted the chunky bacon (like I'd seen on the RiotACT).  The sweetie ordered a regular cotechino sausage meal.  Well I got streaky bacon after all (not that I'm complaining - it was really good), but the sweetie only got a small meal.  But the food was awesome and I don't think they charged us the full prices that were on the menu.

Then we did our food shopping and went home.

Fiona arrived in the afternoon, and we sampled the caramel slice I'd made for the evening to make sure it wasn't poisoned! ;)

In the evening we went to Mishi's for a games night.  Chatted for quite a while before playing Citadels which Stu brought along and wanted to play.  I think I might have played it years ago, but I didn't really like it - it was a bit confusing to start with.  And then I got all my gold robbed three rounds in a row, which was completely demoralising (and, as it turned out, game changing - that loss of gold was the deciding factor in where I ended up placing in the game (fourth out of six)).  So yeah not a game I'm enthused about playing again.

Sunday morning we took Fiona to Pulp Kitchen.  This time I had "eggs anyhow with three sides", and this time I made a point of specifying the chunky Pulp Kitchen bacon. The sweetie had savoury granola and Fiona had the breakfast raclette.  The chunky bacon was pretty good, but possibly not as good as the streaky bacon :)

Went to The Front afterwards for more coffees (I had a babycino)

Stu and I didn't do much else for the rest of the day while Fiona did her own thing.  We had a beef stew for dinner that had been slow cooking all afternoon.

Monday night we (us and @phonakins) met up with @chrispycon and @NathanaelB at King O'Malley's for drinks.  I'd actually met Nat a couple of weeks ago at Jamo, but I wasn't 100% sure it was him so didn't say anything.  Tweeted him later and it turns out it *was* him heh.  So nice to actually finally "meet" him :) Came home afterwards for leftovers.

Tuesday was a very weird day.  The fog didn't lift all day.  This was the back view at 5pm:

And then later in the evening some bogans came along and rolled our neighbour's car onto its side :(:( I heard something odd and looked out and saw it, but nobody around it, they must have cleared off pretty fast.  Neighbour called the police but not much they could do.  Fortunately there was very little damage - even the side mirror had just folded itself flat and not been smashed off!

Tonight we just ordered pizza for dinner.  It was that kind of a night!

And so now I'm caught up :)

Yesterday afternoon (after doing our food shopping) we headed out to the club.  Chris did some rather nice soup, and some amazing jacket potatoes with a whole slew of wonderful toppings.

Oh and Peter may have done a nice salad :)

We .. well we did desserts :)

The caramel slice was from a recipe I saw in the newsagent last week.  Snapped a photo of it and attempted to make it on Friday night.  But after taking it out of the oven it was completely solid on top and I thought it was an epic disaster.  Saturday morning I topped it with chocolate anyway, thinking if it was a complete failure I'd make a Violet Crumble Cheesecake Slice.  But as I cut it up I realised it wasn't such a complete disaster after all!  And in fact people liked it!

I also made an apple crumble from an untested recipe I found online.  Actually I only used the topping from that recipe, I used another recipe for the apples.  But it was untested so I had no idea if it would work.  But it did!  Hurrah!

After dinner we played Geoff's version of "Crazy Whist" which was very silly but a lot of fun.

Didn't sleep too well in the caravan.  Not really sure why, I was warm enough even though it was freezing*.  I disturbed some kangaroos at 6:30 going to pee .. hrmm.

J&H did bacon and eggs from breakfast and we used the leftover potatoes as well so that was pretty nice.

We were going to do some stuff with the caravan, but in the end just came home.

* I mean freezing in the figurative sense as it wasn't freezing *inside* the caravan.  Apparently people aren't clear on the difference between my figurative and literal speech.  However it did in fact freeze outside overnight, and there was plenty of frost on the ground to prove it.

Pretty quiet day today.  Didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to :(

Dropped by Annie's, had lunch at Fortune Box and did our food shopping.  Spent seemingly half the day starving - in the lead up to lunch, and in the lead up to dinner :(

Later in the afternoon I downloaded and spent entirely too much time playing Run That Town.  It is, as described, quite addictive, completely drawing you in.  It starts off a bit slow.  You have enough money but not "clout" to get things done.  Your ratings go up or down based on the popular decisions of your area's demographic.  Which means turning down an airport in a Canberra suburb might get you a big down vote!  Once I got the hang of reading the popular opinion, I tended to get rated favourably.  Plus I was spending lots, so my popularity went up, peaking at 84%.  But then I started to be spending more than I was earning, which meant if I was going to last the ten years, I had to fuss about not paying maintenance on things, but then having to turn it back on before the things fell into disrepair.  Towards the end there were less proposals so pretty much just sat there watching popularity slowly dwindle.  Finished off with 17426 points, 63% popularity.  No idea if that's any good!  Think it was pretty mediocre.  The game crashed on me twice.  And a major annoyance was having to scroll a *lot* through all the public works to look at them and turn maintenance on/off.  Don't know if there was an option to do it any more efficiently.  Not sure I'd play it again.  I probably would with somewhere in Sydney where I've lived.  So yeah a couple of hours wasted there.  Whoops.

Last night we had our work ball, which was Alice in Wonderland themed.  Definitely a lot more people dressed up for this one than the last one.

Seven of our group.  There was a lot of red!  Doc's Mad Hatter was pretty awesome.

Got to wear the Lego heart necklace Nat got for me a while back

A cheshire cat and another mad hatter

The room and tables looked lovely

For entree I had "wood roasted hot smoked king salmon, cucumber, red radish, dill scented creme fraiche, betroot jelly", which was very nice

For mains I had "prosciutto wrapped corn fed chicken breast, broccolini with almond broad bean and herb risotto, chervil oil" which was also pretty nice

Desert was the same for everyone - "chocolate pecan tart, chocolate fudge, clotted cream".  I'm not a fan of pecans so this didn't do it for me.

Stu hid out in one of the side rooms for a while to escape the noise and crowds, and ended up playing a couple of games of chess (which he won).

The band was pretty good and not too loud which made for a nice change - didn't have to yell to hear each other.  Only complaint was a tad too much emphasis on seventies music.

Was a great fun night, with good company, food and champagne, singing and dancing.

Today we didn't do much, other than going to visit Noah and Stu and do our food shopping.