Headed out for brunch.  Went to Black Pepper which is our main haunt.  Service is often a little slow there, but today was particularly bad.  Got there at 10:35, but they said there would be a 15-20 minute wait for a table.  So we went for a walk.  

Came back at 10:55 and were seated straight away.  But didn't get our food until 11:40 :(:( So was very hungry by that stage.  But the food is pretty good and today was no exception.

Went for a trip to the other side of the lake afterwards to feed the birdies (and the little fishies).

Autumn colours were all over the place (I still haven't taken many for the RiotACT), the red is at home.

Some bugs at home..

A little butterfly

And these little bastards are destroying the cherry tree :(  Hoping it's got enough energy to come back ok next spring, and then might need to figure out how the heck I can stop them if they come back next year :(

Other than that, really just read news feeds all afternoon (and put away the two jigsaws).

Nice quiet weekend as always, with jigsaw-ing, spa-ing, swimming, walking, star gazing, drinking beer, eating pizza (and plenty of other junk food).  Even got a swim in the ocean at Myrtle Beach on Saturday - water was a bit chilly but not too bad.

Spent a lot of it doing the jigsaw.  The stuff that's left (maybe 700 pieces) is just dark leaves and blotchy sky.  Really irritating to do.  Just want to get the thing finished so I can put it away and get the table back.

Today we went out for breakfast and did some food shopping.  

These boats were down at Lake Ginninderra

The spider is still there near Black Pepper

The sweetie was feeling very tired mid afternoon, but instead of succumbing to sleep we decided to go for a drive and a walk.  Went down to Government House and walked around Weston Park.

I'm one step closer to getting Yarrangobilly pics online - they're geotagged at least now :)

We got a spot just east of the gravel at the end of Anzac Parade.  Toilets were an issue.  One pair servicing a huge area had a queue with probably fifty people in it.  So wandered further east and found a group of eight with no queue.  Go figure (although later apparently the queue was massive, so wondering if I jumped a queue without realising it.. shrug..).  People on the RiotACT were complaining about the queues for toilets too, and lack of food outlets that were advertised. 

Anyways.  Was there just in time for an FA-18 Hornet to buzz the crowd.  Man those things are loud!  Then had a beer and tucked into a picnic dinner.  Dinner was hastily put away when it started to rain, but fortunately it didn't rain for too long.

Fireworks started at 8:30.  Played with the camera trying out different settings, and taking *lots* of photos :)

Fun night, glad I went :)

Today I was slowed down but refused to be stopped.  Stu had been wanting to go out for breakfast, so we went to Black Pepper.  It was very crowded, and after nearly getting blown away outside, we only got rained on a little bit.  But the food was yummy yum.

Went down to the lake and photographed some swallows and a blue dragonfly.

Then went to the other side of the lake to feed the swans/ducks/coots etc.

Home via Gem Aquatics.

This arvo I didn't do much, really just read news feeds and started working on my 3000 Ravensburger jigsaw (which I've never actually done myself - I lent it to Marylon once and I helped a bit then).  And photographed all the Harry Potter Lego from last year.

Tonight scanned 69 photos, mostly from 1994.  Photos included a series on Snowy, my budgie, my 21st birthday and some miscellaneous photos.

This was my budgie, Snowy, that I got for Christmas (or thereabouts) in 1993.  Had him (her? - Dad always thought it was a girl and called it a Widgie) for five years.

My 21st Birthday Cake, with Alphie (sequel cockatoo to Alphie, the Alphatech mascot at my Dad's work which got shipped off to South East Asia or some such convoluted story)

This is looking down the maintenance shaft of Sydney Tower.  My mother and I climbed Sydney Tower's steps - all 1385 of them!

Aftermath of an "Oops" at Waterfall

Have also eaten enough food to last a week in the past couple of days.

Grunt.

I did do the first couple of water colours in my new calendar...

I'd been looking at this calendar since late last year and umming and ahhing about whether to get it.  I almost got it a couple of times.  Then when the calendar place dropped to 70% off I decided to get it.

There's three a week - one for Monday/Tuesday, Wednesday/Thursday and Friday/Saturday/Sunday.  I doubt that I'll be able to keep up with that (I only did two today!).  I was reminded of why I'm not the hugest fan of water colour paints - they're actually pretty tricky to work with to get strong enough colours - yellow especially is awful.  I prefer runny paints.  Not that I've painted anything in twenty years apart from model kits.

Anyways.

Here's the first two (original to copy on the left, my lame attempts on the right)

Today I just felt blah though.  Dunno why.  

Didn't get much done.  Did play with my bucky magnets for a bit.

I was going to work some more on the wedding photo book but it was being a bumhead so gave up on that.

Went out in the arvo to drop off some old fluoro lights and a battery at the recycling place, then dropped in on Scott and Kerry before doing our food shopping.

Was still feeling blah when we got home.  I didn't feel like cooking and neither did the sweetie. 

So I had a TV dinner.

Yesterday was pretty hot but not as bad as Saturday.  So did get a bit more stuff done.  We did our food shopping and for dinner I cooked some yummy salmon, asparagus and potatoes.  Potatoes were perhaps slightly underdone but the rest turned out pretty well.

We were even civilised and ate at the dining room table! :)

(pic taken half way through the meal :) )

Then they came back to our place and we played Buzz (Nat won one and I won one), Creationary (had some fun collaborative play), Pictionary (Stu and I won) and Mario Kart (Nat won - who else? ;) )

Super fun afternoon :)