A day later..

Thirty years ago today and the chicks have hatched and getting big!  Think there's only one though.

Thirty years ago today Mum took this photo of a birds nest in a birds nest fern!  With babies!

We had various birds make a nest in that fern over the years.  I think some honeyeaters, and some doves a couple of times.  Which is bizarre (for the doves) cause usually they're super terrified of going anywhere near people.

Backdating.  Oh hai.

Monday.  Scanning.  Work.  Actually wore shorts to work.  Ok so I was at home, but it still felt a little strange.  The only time I ever wear shorts to work is the day of our Christmas party at the lake.  Cooked the beef stew for dinner (I'd done all the prep on the weekend, so it was just a matter of chucking it in the slow cooker all afternoon.  Nice sunset.  Did my UK photo labelling, then caught up on RSS feeds, but no blogging.  Whoops.

Tuesday.  Scanning.  Work.  Saw my birds at lunch.  David came along and we noticed a flooded pit that shouldn't be flooded, so David called Icon water to come fix.  Did my UK photo labelling.  One more night to go!  Didn't feel like doing much else.  Filed some photos.  I thought I'd download my phone photos so I can blog them at some point.  Except Apple died copying the movies, as it always does, and no amount of disconnecting/reconnecting it would get it to even open the phone in explorer.  *sigh*  Hate Apple.  HATE.  Wondering if my next phone will be a Samsung.  I'm sick of Apple's crapfullness.  Did some blogging.

Wednesday.  Scanning.  Work.  OMFG no recycling pickup.  Suez workers want a 4% pay rise and are striking til they get it.  4% seems a little high to me given our rate of inflation, but they're prolly paid like crap to begin with, so whatevs.  But still.  No recycling pickup!!  Gah!! 

Went to Specsavers at lunch.  Honestly should NOT have gone to Specsavers.  There's too many staff and too many people and they're just not very well organised.  The first half of the appointment was fine.  The general staff did scans of my eyes, and then I got to see the optometrist and all that was fine.  But then she said I should do a field of vision test and I could either wait and do it now or make an appointment.  I asked how long it would be and she went off and found out and said oh they can do it now, and I'll see you straight after.  Sweet.  So I went to go have it but they realised someone was in the room, and did I want to look at frames while I waited.  No that's fine, shouldn't be long, I'll just wait.  So I waited.  And waited and waited and waited.  I saw the previous patient leave, but noone bothered to come get me.  When they *finally* did the test, they said, oh your optometrist has gone on break, it'll be twenty five minutes, do you want to look at frames while you wait.  And I'm like NO, you told me I'd just do the test then get to see the optometrist.  So he goes off to try and find someone else to look at my results.  Ten minutes later and I'm waiting and fuming.  So I get up to leave and the guy goes oh did noone see you and I'm like no.  So he goes to the original optometrist and she comes out of her lunch break to tell me oh your results are fine.  Fricken I could have just left and you could have called me if any issues.  Fricken hopeless.  So I was fuming at all the stoopid by the time I got back to work and then had to deal with all the stoopid at work, which of course I couldn't because I was in a crap mental state.  Sigh. 

I left early with Stu to go pick up the car.  And had wine.  Because it was that kind of day.  The highlight of the day was that I finally finished labelling all twelve and a half thousand UK photos!  But the drama of the day was not over.  Kit and Pete had missed a document that needed to be signed for their new house to settle, and so it was all going to get delayed and cost them who knows how much money to sort out, and then they'd be homeless until it all got sorted out.  Which is never great when you've got so many animals to look after.  And have to go back to work at some point but all your clothes are packed.  

Oh, and there was also the cicada I rescued when I got back from lunch.  It was on the wall in the stairwell of our building.  So I grabbed it and took it outside and got a few photos before it flew away.

Thursday.  Scanning.  Work.  Work drinks.  Continuation of Kit's dramas.

Friday.  Hadn't gotten a new box of slides out to scan (and couldn't get at it cause David's car was in the way) so went back and fixed up a few rolls of previous boxes that needed fixing up (eg straighting or cleaning).  Work.  Discovery and Mandalorian in the evening.

Saturday.  All the things in the morning.  Super productive morning by 9:30, although didn't get as much done after that.  Had to log onto work at lunch time to try and fix a stoopid firewall problem, but the vendor couldn't figure it out either.  Even after three and a half hours on the phone.  So that was a bit of a poo.  Went over to Chris's to see if he had any veggies going.  He had some zucchinis which were looking pretty sad, so he gave them to me for free!  Win!  Cooked the whole lot of them (other than a few of the worst bits) and had them with the beef brisket that had been slow cooking all afternoon.  Watched the episode of The Simpons with Tom Jones in it, and we were like, what was that spoof movie he was in, and realised it was Mars Attacks!  So we watched that after.  Rented from Amazon Prime.

Sunday.  Houseworks in the morning.  I'm having to close the blinds on the south-east side of the house in the mornings now.  Our lovely pistachio tree that used to shade the house in the morning is gone, which is super sad.  Did a bunch of poking around with my hosting trying to tidy it up a bit.  Backing up files and rearranging things and deleting things and generally tidying up.  Still a lot of work I want to do in that space.  Culled photos for our North Coast holiday, and spent *hours* blogging it.  Also did a whole bunch of backdating of other blog entries.  If you don't use an RSS feed reader you may want to go back in time a few months, there's likely all sorts of entries you may have missed ;)  Leftovers for dinner.

It wouldn't be me if I wasn't backdating ;)

Wednesday.  Slept quite well after our long drive home the day before.  Ok day I guess.  In the evening struggled through the todo list that was a long way behind on account of being away for four days.  So no UK photo labelling this week.  Backed up my computer, but couldn't connect to the NAS.  It seems likely that windows is refusing to talk to such an old version of SMB/CIFS.  The laptop which hasn't been patched for a little while can still talk to it.  Apparently 20H2 will fix it.  We shall see.

Thursday.  Poor lonely Santa.

In the evening had pizza and the second episode of Mandalorian.

Friday.  Caught up on three boxes of slide labels (slides had been scanned just hadn't done the data entry).  Soooo nice to be at home.  Went and saw some of my birds at lunch.  Did a bunch of cleaning on the mail servers.  Because that's what I do.  The new neighbours started moving stuff into their garage (they organised to get access before settlement to start moving stuff).  Stu cooked gnocchi for dinner and we watched From Up on Poppy Hill which was very sweet.

Saturday.  Smashed out all the things.  Did some scanning and housework and achieved a weekend's work by 9am.  Gathered stuff for tax in the morning.  Went out for lunch and did a huge food shop.  

In the afternoon cooked all the things.  

I cooked up some mince with onion and taco spice for taco Tuesday.  I cooked all the meat/bacon/onion ready to pop in the slow cooker on Monday.  And I cooked up a veggie loaded san choy bow mix for dinner that night.  

Took three hours.  Yeup.

Watched second episode of Discovery.  Her hair grew too much for one year.  Just sayin.

Sunday.  Another productive morning of all the things.  Spent quite a bit of time sorting out the piles of packing materials (boxes, bubble wrap, tissue paper etc) we have in the garage - organising it all so we can find it when we want to sell stuff.  Cooked a huge lamb roast for dinner, with epic leftovers.  Basically over the weekend I cooked most of our food for the fortnight.

We're into season four of The Simpsons, and up to the third episode of Discovery.

Slept really well which was nice.

We hung out with Jeff and Ruth for a while and watched all the rainbow lorikeets having their breakfast.  Funny little birds, it's a pity we don't get them in Canberra.

Midmorning Jeff dropped us off at Little Bay so we could do the walk up to Trial Bay Goal.  In fact we'd done this walk before - last time we were here - just in reverse.

Jeff picked us up and we headed back for a lovely bbq lunch.

After lunch we helped Ruth with her laptop.  She is *exactly* like my Mum when it comes to computers.. hrmmm

Had a bit of a rest, then went to Trial Bay Beach for a swim.  Caught this adorable little crab.

Then headed back.

Had some snacks and drinks with Jeff and Ruth, then went down to the flat to rest and have some dinner (Ruth had left some lefover chicken stirfry).  Then I went up to watch the Masterchef Junior finale with Jeff (Ruth had gone to Bible study).

Then to bed.

Backdating.. cause I'm a slacker!

Saturday.  Blogged my butt off trying to get everything caught up so I could move it all across to a new host.  Then backed everything up again.  Sausages for dinner, BBT and part 2 of The Dismissal.

Sunday I moved the nameservers for kazza.id.au over to Ventra IP, while leaving the A record for the website pointed back at CIA.  Made sure mail was flowing ok.  Then I sat down to try and get the blog working.  Except it wouldn't work because VentraIP doesn't support DBD::mysql, and don't support perl module installation.  I did have a bit of a go at getting cpan to get it, but I'm too dumb for that sort of thing.  Got pretty depressed about it all.  Did some housework in the afternoon and setup beef cheeks to cook.  Had EffanC over for dinner which was nice.

Later on (at least I think it was this night, if not was around here some time) I was looking at IMDB for The Dismissal, and went to see what else Max Phipps had been in.  One of the things was The Miraculous Mellops.  It sounded vaguely familiar so I had a look - and I did remember watching it nearly thirty years ago!  Although all I could remember about it was the girl with the crazy hair and the Grand Baby, although I have a feeling I know who the next Grand Baby will be.  Started watching through it and have been watching episodes on YouTube here and there over the past couple of weeks.

Monday the usual.  There was supposed to be early fog and a top of 13 or 14.  But the fog never lifted and it only maxed at about 7!

Tuesday passed 2000 of Dad's slides.  Cooked a lamb roast for dinner.

Tuesday I tried to have an early night but that didn't work because Stu was late in coming to bed, plus I was uncomfortable and stressed and I couldn't sleep and I was so frustrated I had a meltdown.  Twice.  Didn't get to sleep til well after midnight, and was awake in the middle of the night for a couple of hours as well.  So Wednesday was well and truly a zombie day.  At lunch time I tried to get tickets for the 747 joy flight out of Canberra, but once again, Qantas is EPIC FAIL to deal with as a company.  I couldn't find anything on their website mentioning the flights or tickets at all.  Eventually about twenty past twelve I finally saw an ad on the front page.  I clicked through.  By this time it said Sydney had sold out.  But Brisbane and Canberra seemed ok.  So "searched" for the flight but got an error.  After reloading a couple of times it said it had all sold out.  Fricken typical.  

Moved some crap downstairs at lunch, but didn't go see my birds.  Had a bit of a look at different hosting providers.  Chicken kiev for dinner because I didn't feel like cooking.  But no BBT!!  Season 12 is not on Netflix!  Bastards.  Yay for a wonderful end to my day.  Not.  

Thursday I watched The Parent Trap, Linsday Lohan version.  I first (and last) saw it back in 2004 and quite enjoyed it then, and enjoyed it again.  I remember thinking Lindsay Lohan was actually pretty good in that movie, and was a bit sad when she went off the rails a few years later.  The remake was *very* similar to the original, except the ending, and the Concorde! :)  Oh we also started The IT Crowd.

Friday we finished watching The Dismissal.  I normally have little interest in politics, but this miniseries was very well done and educational (and if you haven't heard of it - go listen to the recent The Eleventh podcast - it was really interesting too).  Except we were ripped off because the most famous line uttered by Whitlam isn't actually in the movie!

(we got a little distracted by the 80s shots of Canberra, and this typo of November)

Saturday had hurty overnight so slept in a bit.  House stuff, lunch, shopping (Coles had toilet paper! ha!), cooked dinner, and cooked up some taco mix to save having to cook it after work during the week.  Used chuck steak to make the Asian style beef cheeks, because Coles didn't have any beef cheeks.  I also doubled the recipe because we never seem to have enough of it.  Chuck steak was ok but not quite the same, just the wrong texture.  Watched Ready Player One, which we last saw on our last cruise.

I like how the glass here didn't fog up..

Sunday I had a bit of a sleep in - til 7am!  Although didn't really get anything done all day.  Went for a walk around Aranda bushland with C in the afternoon.

Did roast chicken for dinner with a blue cheese potato bake.  Watched the first half of the original 101 Dalmatians.

How good is this?

(From @JessHarwoodArt)

Stu and I are definitely owls.  Other than working from home and not catching up with friends on weekends, everything is much the same.

So our COVID-19 routine is not too different to general reality.  I started working from home on March 17.  Mainly because I had the hint of a sore throat and cough, and while it was extremelly unlikely to be Coronavirus (what with only about half a dozen cases in the ACT at the time), I didn't want to be *that person* that spread it around. 

My home setup is *ok* for working from home.  The biggest problem is my monitor setup.  At work my primary monitor is on my left, and the secondary is to the right.  At home my primary monitor is straight in front, and the secondary is smaller and off to the left.  So everything is a bit backwards for me.  Also I'm in what would be the formal dining room of the house, between the kitchen and the living room.  So just need to be a bit mindful of having Stu or David seeing stuff they shouldn't (which really isn't much).  We're lucky because our work is very well setup for people to work remotely, and our infrastructure supports it quite happily.  The only tricky situation came with all staff broadcasts flooding our internet links, but they've started streaming those to an external website, so even that is not such an issue anymore.  Skype, however, sux donkey balls.  It's fine for text chat, but that's about it.  Anything more is just asking too much of it.

Stu started working from home about a week and a half after me.  It took him a while to get the hardware/software he needed from his work setup.  But once he got that he's been doing ok.  We had started to setup my Lego room as a study for him before any of this started (with David mostly taking over the other desk in the dining room study, Stu wanted his own desk and private space).  It worked out really well for him to work in that room.  This weekend we've done a whole heap more rearranging.  Stu pulled out *lots* of books to be given away (sadly Lifeline are not currently taking donations due to covid-19 so they're just piling up at the moment).  I took all my models (well, all the ones from the big shelves) downstairs, and Stu took all his work/study and some of lifestyle books upstairs.  The bookshelves are super messy and unorganised right now due to all the rearranging, but I still need to get rid of the Lego minifig workstation on the table before I can pull out all the remaining books for sorting.  And it's starting to get really cold down there, so running out of time.  I suspect the bookshelves will stay messy for a while yet.

David has to keep going to work outside the house.  He's a shift worker, and unfortunately for him, we're home all the time now, which means he can't watch DVDs/Netflix while we're at work.  Well at least not on the TV.  He could probably setup his laptop to watch things with headphones if he was so inclined.  His work also means that if covid-19 does start spreading in Canberra, he's on the front lines for exposure, and it's probably inevitable that it hits our house at some point over winter.  

Lunches during the week are almost always leftovers of some description.  Pretty simple.  What has been suffering though is any sort of exercise and vitamin D.  Usually I would get a ten minute walk each way to go get food for lunch, but if I'm just heating up leftovers I don't get that.  So I've started going for a little walk at lunch.  Usually only about ten minutes, but enough to get me out of the house, get the blood circulating, and get a little vitamin D.  

Probably the single nicest thing about working from home is the lack of commuting.  I've been using the extra time in the mornings to scan more of Dad's slides.  I've been smashing out two boxes a week.  The evenings are a little less structured.  I've got a little list of things to do in the extra time between 5pm and 6pm, but haven't really done too much constructive with the extra time.  I am able to knock off work when I want to though, and not either have to wait for the sweetie or catch a bus.  So that's really nice.  My flex time is a bit too high at the moment, so will try and ease that down a bit, then will keep mostly fairly regular hours, which will also be nice.

Shopping is the biggest challenge of all of this.  I want to minimise how often I go out, so need to do bigger shops when I do go (and go by myself which is super sad - the sweetie and I have always gone shopping together).  There's three people eating here, two of us eating all meals at home, which means we need a lot more food in the house.  If I'm shopping fortnightly I have to get stuff for the first week that has to be eaten quickly, and stuff for the second week that lasts longer.  Fridge space is a huge issue at the beginning of the fortnight.  The supermarkets are out of various things at various times, so there's no guarantee that when you do go shopping you'll be able to get what you need.  I haven't seen toilet paper in Coles since we got one of the last packs when we got back from Pete's 40th at the beginning of March.  Fortunately I've been able to get it at Chris's so we haven't run out.  As I mentioned in another blog entry, we don't eat a lot of packaged food, mostly fresh food.  But the stuff that we do use all the time (tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and rice) has been difficult to get.  Again, I've been able to get things from Chris's when really needed.  

The rest of my routine hasn't changed.  I still get up at the same time (Stu plays on his phone a little longer before getting up).  I still shower and wear the exact same thing - my uniform of jeans a tshirt, with a jumper when it's cold.  I do the same things on the weekends - housework stuff and whatever projects/hobbies I'm working on.  I don't have any more time on my hands than normal, so it's not like I have time to binge watch anything.   Maybe if we do get sick we can binge watch stuff.  

The clutter is getting to me though.  We have things that need to go to the tip (like our old oven), or the Green Shed, or Lifeline.  But while I think the tip and the Green Shed are still open, I would classify them as non-essential.  So we have piles of stuff around the house.  And Stu could really use a better desk in his study, but we can't just go shopping for a new one.  Well, again, we probably *could* but we're trying to be good about this whole staying at home except for essential stuff thing...  

The only other significant change is not catching up with friends.  We would go out or have people over I guess on average every other weekend.  So that's not happening (other than a couple of virtual catchups).  It's a little sad, but remember, we're owls.  We like keeping to ourselves :)

In all of this we have been extremelly lucky/blessed.  We haven't had to stress about losing our jobs, or have to take care of kids as well as work, or wonder where the money for our next meal is going to come from.  2020 is sure going to be one hell of a year .. 

Twenty years ago I was now officially out of home but I still didn't have all my stuff yet, so was still getting organised back at the parents'.  One Thursday night I snapped some pics of rainbow lorikeets that Dad used to feed in the back yard.  Rainbow lorikeets are lovely little birds but sadly we don't get them in Canberra.

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...