I first met Aunty Di and Uncle Graham when our family started going to St Clements thirty years ago in 1989.  Although at the time they were just plain Diana and Graham.  It was only when Chrissie came back from New Zealand in the middle of 1989 that they became known as Aunty and Uncle.

They became good friends of the family.  My parents would often play cards/games with them, and they went on multitudes of church bushwalks and weekends away together.  

In recent years I saw them at various parental type birthdays, and several times when they came down to visit Chrissie.

Graham and Diana on their 25th Wedding Anniversary

Diana, Dad and Graham about to walk across the new Woronora Bridge

Graham and Diana with Dad and Mum at Sydney Aquarium

Bushwalking group walk to Nellies Glen in Blue Mountains.  Graham and Diana, Dad, Jeff Anderson, Garry Le Clerc

Diana and Graham celebrating Mum's birthday at Sizzler

Diana and Graham celebrating Dad's birthday at Tradies

Graham and Diana celebrating Mum's birthday at Tradies

Diana and Graham at our wedding

Graham and Diana celebrating Mum's birthday at Tradies

So we were all in utter shock and disbelief yesterday.

See you in heaven guys...

Monday we worked through my firewall issue from Friday and figured out it was a bug in their (second) latest code.  Do vendors not *test* their $#!+ anymore???  (this is in addition to our proxy vendors admitting to a bug in *their* latest code this week as well.  Completely hopeless).  In the evening there was a massive white tail spider in the middle of the hall.  And then when I opened the door next to it to see if there were any more, the handle fell off.  I might have actually screamed at that.  My heart couldn't take two shocks like that!

Tuesday we had a lovely dinner at EffanC's - beef stroganoff.  Great to catch up with them after their holiday.

And I finished Candy Crush.

!!

Well, until they released 30 more new levels later in the week.

Wednesday I was going to split up my backups, so brought home the two 2T drives.  But one of them hadn't been used in a while, so there was a lot of copying to do so it took all evening.  Didn't get to do the other disk, but it was done fairly recently.  Now have to rework the schedule.  

Thursday I watched some of Hans Zimmer in Prague which was kinda cool.  Except for the I whip my hair back and forth cellist, she was pretty annoying.  A lot of his soundtracks sound quite similar.  But he actually talked to audience and played multiple instruments and seemed like he was having a great time.  Cool stuff.  Later had a drink with Kit and Pete and lost a game of Kismet.

Friday I got stitched up at 54 Benjamin.  They kindly split our bill, but unfortunately charged me for someone else's lunch (either Dave or Connor's) which meant I paid $5 more than I should have :(  (Connor gave me some money just in case it was him which was nice of him).  Two expensive Friday lunches in a row.  I think I've done my dash there for the time being.

I got home tired and cranky from a crazy exhausting afternoon.  Had leftovers for dinner and watched Sixteen Candles, which I think I saw when I was in high school and not again since.

Saturday I was at work all day doing upgrades.  In the evening we watched the start of the newest season of Veronica Mars (!!!!) and The Spy Who Loved Me.

Today I chugged my way through my todo list, achieving quite a lot.  Also did some food shopping.  And created my first S3 Bucket.  Cooked a carbonara gnocchi from the Women's Weekly Gratins and Bakes book I've had for years but never used.  And made some meringues with the leftover egg whites.  And more Veronica Mars.

A long time ago, we used to be friends..

In February 1968 my Mum flew on this little plane to Tasmania for a holiday with a group of friends, travelling around Youth Hostels on the island.

This photo was taken by her in Launceston.

Ten months later the wing broke off due to metal fatigue caused by a maintenance error and it crashed near Port Hedland killing all aboard.

That metal crack had been forming for several years.  My Mum could just as easily have been killed in a crash on that plane!

Quite a sobering moment really...

So Wednesday afternoon my bowels were feeling a little off.  Nothing unusual, can get that sometimes (all too often) if I eat too much bad food.  Or even regular food.  After dinner I was pretty gassy and burpy, moreso than usual.  

But throughout the night it got worse rather than better.  Woke up at 4:00 in some discomfort.

No nausea, so unlikely to be food poisoning.  

Oh wait, wave of nausea Thursday morning but overcame it and went to work.

Another one hit me at work but overcame that as well.

By the third wave I thought I'd let it have its way.  Maybe I'd feel better.

But I didn't.

So after feeling like crap I decided to go home at 10:00.

Lay down but couldn't rest - too uncomfortable.  I had a tiny piece of cheese and a little water but not really very much.  

Late morning and I'm doing the doctor google thing.  Symptoms were edging towards appendicitis.  Even though I wasn't in any real pain, just strong discomfort.  But it did hurt when I poked around my appendix.  Decided not to eat or drink anything more "just in case".

So drove myself to the walkin clinic.  Stu had already paid for parking for the day right there anyway, so no problem leaving the car there.  It was probably about 12:45 when I got there.  Had to wait ages, and was feeling very uncomfortable.  Eventually they took pity on me and I think I might have got bumped up a position.  The nurse had a bit of a poke and thought that yes I should probably go to the hospital.  Called the sweetie and he drove me over to the hospital.

Had to wait quite a long time there as well, so it's well and truly mid afternoon by now.  Had explained my symptoms to the triage nurse on the desk, and eventually got seen by a doctor.  He did a bit of a history and poked me a bit, and then stuck in a cannula (in my very dehydrated veins, first go, to his credit) and took some blood.  Asked me for a urine sample (did I mention I was dehydrated?  and I'd peed when I arrived at the hospital, so that was a bit of a challenge).  He asked for mid stream but got end stream, there was so little.

So he comes back shortly after and says he's admitting me - yep, likely appendicitis.  18000 white blood count, elevated temperature and some of the classic symptoms.  Fun.

So I'm in a bed in emergency.  Eventually a surgeon comes by and gets all the details all over again (I've told the story four or five times today already).  They were considering a CT but decided not to (for unrelated reasons), and at 16:45 decided to load me up with fluids and do an ultrasound at 17:45.  By 17:35 my bladder hurt like hell.  How was I going to hold it in for another half hour (at least) ??  Then around 17:45 they were like, meh, not going to bother with the ultrasound, just going to do the surgery.  So I peed! Yayyyyy!!   (dude for ultrasound eventually turned up - at 17:55 - I really don't think I would have lasted that long).  I did get sick again though because I was so hungry (it's a thing I do, don't ask).  Nothing there though except bile.  Hurrah.

The sweetie had gone back to work in the afternoon, and went home to get changed.  I let him know where I was up to, that they were going to do surgery, so he thought he'd grab some dinner on the way in and then come see me before I went off to surgery.  Except maybe around 18:30 off I went, and never got to see him :(:(

Got wheeled through the hospital upside down and backwards, which is somewhat disorienting.  Went to the OR prep.  More doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and told my story yet again.  They asked me to say in my own words why I was there, and I said "for an appendectomy" and the admitting nurse scolded me for my American usage - "it's appendicectomy didn't you know??"

Then in to the OR.  Everyone was gloved, but still *touching things*.  I'm sure that pen and paper isn't sterile... hrmmm.  

Scooted over onto the operating bed and got poked and prodded some more.  Pain killers (they weren't wrong about making me light headed) and the next thing I knew was calls of Karen Karen Karen and it was all over.  A couple of hours later.  Couldn't feel any pain (figured that would change) and felt quite tired.

After about twenty minutes waiting for my heart rate to lower I got wheeled to my room for the night, and I'm like, where's the sweetie?  He was just outside! Yayy!  He'd called my mum and some family/friends to let everyone know what was happening, bestest sweetie ever.

So there's still more poking and prodding and checking obs, when I all I wanted was some food and to brush my teeth and go to the toilet and go to bed.  But everything operates on hospital time.  They'd wander off and it'd be ten or fifteen minutes before they came back.  So it was after midnight by the time I got to turn lights out.

Not that I slept very well.  I don't really like sleeping on my back but on my sides was too painful.  A teenager came in across the way in a lot of pain.  The lady next to me had all sorts of complications and also in a lot of pain.  Had my pulse and blood pressure read a couple of times.  At 4:00 when they came in for something I said I may as well go pee again.  Dozed but didn't really get any sleep.

The morning dragged on as well.  They said I could go home that day, but I got a steady stream of various people come by.  Breakfast (I was starving) wasn't til 8:45.  

The sweetie came by at some point too.  But nothing much happened.  A bit before midday my temp was up a little and I was in a bit more pain, so I was worried I was getting an infection.  But likely it was just the panadol wearing off that I'd had at 5:30.  Time kept dragging.  Had a late lunch (probably too much food) but still waiting around to go home.  

Finally FINALLY I could go at about 14:30.  

Rested with the sweetie for a while, but didn't really sleep.  Then he went off to pick up Fiona from Jolimont, and they went and had beer and meat on a stick.  Well not quite.  They did to go to Bentspoke for beer, and to the multicultural festival for potato on a stick (and a couple of other things).  Because I'd had such a big late lunch I had popcorn for dinner.  Because, fibre!  Watched some old episodes of Naked Chef (man he was so *young* when he started, and Jules was just his girlfriend hehe).  Started watching Muriel's Wedding on Netflix, even though I have it on DVD.  Silly really.  Then Stu and Fiona came home.  They brought frozen chips so we heated some of those up.  But it did mean I went to bed a lot later than I wanted to.

Had some panadeine (from my stash before they stopped selling the stuff over the counter) and actually slept quite well.  Was able to sleep on my sides for some of the night, and slept in til about 7:30.  

Today Stu and Fiona went off to do some food shopping and I watched the rest of Muriel's Wedding and Netflix and tried to select photos for the holiday slideshow.  I've been mostly just sitting up.  I was never a fan of lying on the couch anyway (hurts my back unless I get things just right), and it's a lot harder to get up from the couch.  This afternoon has mostly just been chilling.  Nice and quiet like.  I also found the web archive of Julie Powell's blog, so have been reading that from the beginning.  Not really sure why some people hated it so much.  It reads like someone just doing it for themselves, not out to make a name for themselves.  She does sound like she was burning the candle at both ends though!

My butt does hurt from sitting so much though...  normally I'm bouncing up and down a *lot* more!

So an eventful couple of days.  But of everything, from appendicitis, to surgery, to recovery, the single most painful thing of the whole experience was them taking off the sticky tape holding in my cannula!   (followed by holding my pee for the ultrasound that never happened :) )

Or in this case, no electricity.

There's a reason they used asbestos in electrical cabinets...

So 6:50 on Friday morning the power went out.  Usually this is an old fish tank heater that's getting faulty.  Except the RCD was still switched on.  I flicked it off.  But then couldn't get it to flick on again.  I turned off everything I could in the house but no change.  Several messages and photos back and forth back and forth to David before I noticed the melted plastic...

At that point we knew it was serious and we'd have to get the professionals in.

Fortunately, FORTUNATELY, we were able to get it looked at the same day.  I shudder to think of going three days without power.  Would have needed to find friends with fridge and freezer space...  The fish would have probably been ok this time as it's a lot warmer than it was in April.

Someone let the smoke out..

Upshot of all of this is now each of the two power circuits has its own RCD, so if a fish tank trips it'll only take out half the house...

So Saturday I did actually have a pretty good day.  The morning was mostly house worky type stuff, and the afternoon was mostly photo sorting type stuff, So Much Photo Sorting.  The idea being to group the majority of my "friends" photos together so that I can just burn dvds for people all at once.  I got through about two different sets of friends.  Partly. 

Just before 17:00 the little brother type person arrived and I was like, right, let's go shopping (the sweetie had only just gotten home and didn't feel like shopping).  So did food shopping for the evening and the week.  So much quicker with David than Stu haha!

In the evening went over to R&F's with the extended N-Gang for some lovely curries.  Was quite a pleasant evening and late, but not stoopidly late.

Sunday the sweetie went to work *again*, so David and I spent the entire day doing a 1500 piece jigsaw which was completely unproductive but pretty cool.  We finished it over dinner (of roast chicken).  I considered going to take fountain photos during the day but by the time I checked its running times it was too late.  Oh well.  Kit and Pete also came up for a while over dinner.

Last night the sweetie and I both slept terribly.  Even though we went to bed early, him not getting to sleep and me waking up and staying awake for hours took its toll.  Stu couldn't concentrate and ended up going home after lunch.  I would have gone too but had too many things to do, so struggled through the afternoon and took a bus home. 

Tonight ended up being a washing, beer and pizza kind of a night.  Way too early in the week for that sort of thing, but I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on photo labelling.  So at 19:45 I declare it bed time.

Also I was playing Candy Crush on the bus this arvo and hit the "five extra moves" button by accident.  There went another 10 of my gold, reducing me to 1 gold left.  I think I've used the gold I've collected on Candy Crush about twice deliberately, the rest of the gold has been wasted by phone upgrades or just ridiculousness like that.  I rage quit it and don't know that I'll go back any time soon.

Last Thursday we went along with EffanC and Scott to Pialligo Estate for a "Meet the Maker" dinner with wines by Shaw and Smith.  This was a much smaller event than the Brokenwood dinners I've been to, but just as good.  Their head chef could do whatever he liked foodwise to showcase the wines.  A lovely evening of great food, wine and friends.

Poached coconut chicken breast salad, with 2017 sauvignon blanc

Asian BBQ style prawn, chili, with 2015 M3 chardonnay

Duck jungle curry, with 2016 pinot noir

Sticky beef ribs, steam rice, Asian crispy brussels sprouts, with 2015 shiraz

Pecorino, spiced quince, with 2009 shiraz

Deep fried banana

Wow this has certainly been a busy year, and a very very social one. I left writing up the friends and family section til last because it just seemed to go on forever and ever!

Our year began at home, with Ben and EffanC over for nibbles and a small party. Annie and the family came over the next day for chaos and Turkish food. Saw Scott and Kerry and the kids on the first day back at work before they went home.

We had one holiday this year - a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 out of Hong Kong (with a couple of days in Macau beforehand). I was super excited about it, and it lived up to expectations. Although I felt like we didn't quite belong there, on account of not being retired highly paid executives. We never made it to Queensland this year - things were just too *complicated*. I did do two day trips to Sydney to inspect my flat. And there was a work trip to Melbourne for two days.

At work I swapped teams after not quite fitting in with the old team (I'm too dumb for that team!). Still doing much the same work, but with different technology. The project I joined had been going for about two years, and I figure I have about two years of work to clean up the mess that has been made! I had a little bit of weekend work doing upgrades to various things and monitoring of some events. The majority of my new section is in Melbourne, so we went down in September for a two-day planning session. The highlight of the trip was the amazing flight down, and catching up with David twice. We ran a trivia night in March. Unfortunately the winning table weren't going to be around to run the next one, so we asked the second-place getters if they'd do it. They said yes, but never did it. So I'll probably run another one in February or March. We had a whiskey night in June which was a bit of fun. I went with the sweetie to SplunkLive! and I'm *still* bitter that a big data company couldn't get the distribution of tshirt sizes right. We had a DAIS video night in August, as it had been way too long since the last one. Finally, I ran our annual floor barbeque at the lake for forty people and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I was pretty healthy this year. I had a bit of a cold in February, and then another one picked up on the Queen Mary 2 (it was going around the entire ship), but after that I didn't get any more colds all year. The other thing we got on the way home from our holiday was a bout of gastro, which hit Stu just after we got home, and me a day or so later (although I seemed to only get a fairly mild case of it). I went to the dentist after one year instead of twenty and will probably keep going regularly now. I did battle with insomnia quite a few times during the year. Usually for no apparent reason, although it tended to be associated with a sore spine and/or a brain that wouldn't shut up. I rage-quit on Stu's bed earlier in the year and more often than not sleep in the spare room. That room has the bed Yvonne gave me in 2005 which has a much firmer mattress than Stu's. I don't get a sore spine *as much* in that bed, and my restless legs don't play up nearly as much there either (don't know why that is - different fabrics??). We've been meaning to go shopping for a new king size bed, but we just haven't gotten around to it yet.

We saw a lot of F&C (EffanC) this year which was really nice. Went to their place a number times and had them over here as well. Also saw Scott with them a few times. We saw quite a lot of Kit, with various combinations of Serena, Ben, Sarah, Anita and Pete. David came to stay in January, April, August and December, and Mum came to visit in February and August. Only saw a little bit of Annie the family - they came over for a Turkish feast in January, we went to their place for dinner in March, had them over here in April, their place for cake for Noah's birthday, and them here for Christmas dessert. Saw even less of Potty and the family - seeing them at the beginning of the year before they went home, Kerry brought over sick kids in July, then everyone came at Christmas (twice). We met Chrissie's new boyfriend in January, and by July they were living together with a baby on the way. I've gotten to go to a few of the ultrasounds which has been pretty cool. They came over for our first hanami party, and we had Zac come and stay in December so Chris and Mike could celebrate their anniversary. Nat and Andrew came over for our second hanami party, but sadly that was the only time we saw them all year. We had Damien and Amanda over for dinner in May, and went with them to Olive at Hawker in July, and saw just Damien for drinks in August. James and Rachel came down for a cake decorating course in May and they stayed with us which was nice. James also came down for work in November and we caught up for dinner at Bella Vista. We met up with Jenn at Chong Co in January, and had Jenn and Nick over in June for dinner. Jenn was getting set for a foodie trip to Mexico, which she went on later in the year and we got copies of her travelogue which was pretty cool. Had dinner with Luc and Cynthia and the boys when they came down in January, had @Chrispycon and Anne over for dinner in June, went to a barbeque at @CLBradley's in June, had dinner with Luc when he was down for work in September, and went over to Lachie's for darts (which I was crap at) and Jenga (which I didn't lose at) in November.

At "the club" we went to a couple of swim nights, and several socials at the club. One of them we did pea and ham soup, and another we did Christmas in July for forty people.

Pretty quiet year for the fish. I got some more danios for the two foot, and a couple of bristlenose catfish for my big tank and the two foot. We did get another tank from Chrissie as well which is quite a nice little tank. In the big angel tank is the angel, two big (probably female) danios, a cory, the bristlenose I bought, and a big bristlenose I got off Chris. In the upstairs two foot there's five danios, four rummy nose tetras and a bristlenose. In the little tank from Chris are her two clown loaches. They're really too big for that tank but haven't decided where to put them yet. It could really use a bristlenose as well, as the tank gets direct sunlight so there's lots of algae starting to grow. Downstairs there's four danios and the platy I got off Chris two years ago. Stu has two guppies in the little tank on his desk, and heaps of fish in his four foot. We bought expensive LED lights for two of the tanks instead of regular fluoros, but one of them died after only eight months which is very disappointing. Hoping the other one we bought doesn't die as quickly.

I didn't get any new Lego this year, although I did get a Nanoblocks Empire State Building for Christmas. I did a bunch of jigsaws throughout the year including a very cool 3D one of the Sydney Opera House. I finally assembled the 24000 piece "Life" jigsaw, because I figured I *had* to before I could get going on the 40320 piece "Memorable Moments" Disney jigsaw! I had fun with papercraft as well, making some Villarceau circles, completing a geodesic dodecahedron and two geodesic octahedra (or hexahedra), making a four frequency geodesic icosahedron which is pretty spectacular (and I had this hanging from the roof at work for a while which is probably how they noticed ceiling cat), and an icosidodecahedron and a geodesic icosidodecahedron.

For some reason I always mention the weather in my year in review posts. This year seemed quite cold in winter, but the pool only froze over a couple of times. We had hail and snow on the same day in August which was pretty exciting. October seemed like a very cold month, and as per usual December had its fair share of cold days as well. Not that I'm complaining, I'd prefer it to be cold than hot. Our evaporative cooler works very well, although I swear last summer was the most humid summer in Canberra ever (the evaporative cooler doesn't work very well when it's humid). This summer we've used it a little and it's quite lovely. I'm even noticing a temperature inversion now - often it's cooler upstairs than downstairs! But the best part is being able to use it on fan only to simply bring cool air into the house once it's cooler outside than in. In the past it could be quite cool outside, but still hot inside simply because the air is so still and there's no crossflow ventilation. Having the fan bring it in is wonderful.

At the end of last year I was considering getting a backpack vacuum cleaner because I *hate* dragging a barrel vacuum cleaner around. David suggested we get a cordless one instead. I was a bit reluctant because they are essentially glorified dustbusters, and all the ones we saw had rollers that just tangle up hair. But we ended up getting one anyway. It sat unused for probably six months, but I've finally gotten into the habit of doing a room or two per day, and now the house is actually getting fully vacuumed every week. Amazing! Our Cisco switch died while we were on holidays in March. And we never did get the NAS working again with it - it's still going through a little old 100Mb switch. Our home internet has always been bad here, and getting steadily worse. When we got back from holidays it was completely unusable. We called Internode to have a look. They got Telstra to have a look, and confirmed a problem with the line something like 400m away. They fixed this and things did improve somewhat, but our internet is still painfully slow (2Mb down). Netflix seems to buffer relatively well but Stan is abysmal. We're hoping NBN will improve things a little, but given that our node is like a kilometre away I doubt it's going to be amazing. My blog and hosting/email was offline for a few days while we were on holidays. Possibly a DOS, but don't know if it was ever explained. Then Vic sold everything off and retired. I'm wondering how long it takes them to figure out this hosting is a freebie and either shut it down or make me start paying for it. I really really need to move this blog off, but it's such a huge beast it's going to be very difficult. Even backing up the site via FTP takes a couple of days. I might have more luck tarring up the whole thing into one file which would transfer more quickly and efficiently, but I'm hampered by not having any shell access. And I couldn't find the perl script I used to have which lets you run commands interactively via the website (yes I know - super dangerous, which is why it's not online, and hence I can't find it). We had dramas with our dvd players. The video on my old dvd recorder kept dropping out, and it was getting worse. The PS3 dvd part stopped working years ago. I even had issues with my old Toshiba. So in the end we spent $80 on a new player that will play everything including media on usb stick. The remote is faulty - any time you press a button it fires off the action multiple times. But we got it working with our Harmony remote, so in the end didn't bother to swap it (especially since JB HiFi price matched it with Big W). The old Android of Stu's that I used for Ingress got so old that the Play Store wouldn't work anymore, which meant I couldn't update Ingress, so the thing essentially became a brick. Maybe I could still use it as a media player, since my phone doesn't have space for that sort of thing. I upgraded my five year old iPhone to 10.3.3 without any dramas. It's faster after unlocking than iOS 9 was which is pretty cool.

Around the house, we discovered our shower was leaking, probably from old cracked grout in the corner. We scraped it back (mostly) but still haven't regrouted/siliconed. It's on the todo list for our staycation! The snifter valve exploded on our hot water system, but I still haven't gotten around to calling up Aquamax. It's on the todo list for our staycation! We had a heap of pool dramas this year. At the beginning of the year there was way too much stabiliser (sunscreen) which meant the chlorine didn't work at all. Got that under control with a bunch of water changes (dear Adelaide: you're welcome), but then this summer the pool has been unbuffered and unstable and keeps going green, even with adding plenty of chlorine. Sad times. Possibly the pH has been too high, so have adjusted that, vacuumed the last batch of algae to waste, raised the total alkalinity and added a bunch of chlorine and *hopefully* it'll settle down now. The tenants of my flat in Sydney moved out after seven years, and the place needed to be fully renovated, costing me something like $16000 :( Did two trips to see the before and after. Good news is it's getting a lot more rent now that it's all shiny again.

We didn't eat out too much this year, and when we did it was generally when meeting up with other people. We did go to Bella Vista a few times - for our anniversary, for my birthday, and when James came to visit. We only went to Dumpling Inn a couple of times because they were closed for much of the year. Both times were with Chris, Mike and Zac. We also tried The Scholar in Dickson with them, but I wasn't impressed with the very slow service. Also wasn't impressed with Chinese Inn at Kippax where we went for Sarah's birthday. Went to Hero Sushi in the city a couple of times, the first experience a lot better than the second. Went to Malaysian Chapter with Cath and Scott for Stu's birthday, and Chong Co with Jenn. Only had brunch out a couple of times this year, once at Market St Eats at Belconnen markets and once at Gus' Place. We often have lunch at Saigon Streetfood when doing our food shopping, or sometimes Ali Baba or more recently Alaska Seafood. We did get to try out a few new places too - The Courtyard Restaurant at Mercure with Luc and Cynthia when they were in town, Olive at Hawker with Damien and Amanda, and Black Fire in Braddon with Luc. We tried out Mills and Grills pizzas this year which are pretty good, and Stu loves the karaage chicken pizza from Pizza Capers. And finally I went with Neil to the Brokenwood Wine dinner at Monster Kitchen and Bar in Hotel Hotel.

I tried a few new recipes this year. Lemon ginger chicken from a Coles magazine was very nice, beef cheeks from Not Quite Nigella was also pretty good, and Jamie's five ingredient Asian fishcakes were simple but nice. Stu cooked Scotch eggs a couple of times, and pork larb a few times. I had a go at fondue, but didn't follow a recipe so the cheese split. Chrissie gave me a book of fondue recipes, and I got a proper fondue set, but we've yet to have another go at it. Kit and Serena's gardens provided an excess of produce that we happily used up, and we got to eat some young roosters that Kit had raised and processed. I made Anzac biscuits on Anzac Day, caramel slice at least three times, a mint rocky road and a cheesecake.

Didn't see any theatre or shows or exhibitions this year.

The only movie we saw at a cinema was Silence - in Hong Kong!

Stu likes to watch tv while we eat dinner. I feel like being forced to sit in one place for three quarters of an hour is pretty stressful, especially on weekday evenings. Having said that, some shows are better than others and with some shows it didn't feel so much of a burden.

• Sherlock - season four
• Fuller House - season two
• Star Trek: The Original Series - finishing up what we started last year
• Star Trek: Voyager - the entire thing, which took most of the year and was the most stressful to have to watch
• Homeland - season five
• Black Adder Goes Forth - borrowed off Annie years ago but hadn't gotten around to finishing, watched this on my computer
• Monty Python - season four - borrowed off DC years ago but hadn't gotten around to finishing, watched this on my computer
• Air Crash Investigations - various episodes watched online while doing other things on my computer
• Australian Survivor - season two of the current incarnation - the only commercial tv we watched all year
• Fuller House - season three (in two parts)
• Dad's documentaries - stuff he'd taped off tv over the years. I've been working my way through them while I do jigsaws downstairs in the summer months
• The Good Place - season one and the first half of season two
• Rake - season four

Books Read

• Tales of Two Cities, various short stories
• Bones Never Lie, by Kathy Reichs
• Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader
• The Barefoot Investor, by Scott Pape
• ET: The Book of the Green Planet, by William Kotzwinkle
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nets, by Ken Kesey
• No Place to Hide, by Glenn Greenwald

Other stuff

• Kit had baby bunnies but Vicki killed them by "playing" with them
• Neil won Ali Baba's "Chance to win $1000000" - but that's all it was - a chance to win. He didn't actually win the $1000000.
• Went to the Multicultural Festival with Chrissie for beer and meat (and potatoes) on a stick, while remembering Dad from three years earlier
• Had to do some actual clothes shopping for formal and other nice clothes for the cruise. Material Pleasures was awful, City Chic was much more successful, then again so was Vinnies and it was a lot cheaper
• Went to the farmers markets in April but I find it too stressful and it's too early for Stu so we don't really like going
• Stopped going to Coles at Jamison for the most part, because Jamison couldn't be arsed putting in enough trolley return bays around the car park
• Made a classic 80s space guy costume for Kit's 30th birthday party
• Had a brief play with IMosaic
• Setup a blog for the Queen Mary 2 with photos of the ship
• Went to Shepherd's Lookout and down to the river with Kit
• Paid off our mortgage
• Went to Hall Markets with Kit and Pete
• Got access to my old CIA mailbox and downloaded seven years of mail
• Setup a blog to compare Canberra between 1986 and 2016, sent it to the RiotACT but they didn't link to it. Johnboy would have.  Just sayin'.
• Had to be official photographer for Roz's 60th at The Abbey which I found very stressful
• Saw some of Kit's chicks hatching
• Kit had more baby bunnies but they died, we don't know why
• Had my democracy sausage photo feature in Atlas Obscura 
• Got long service leave
• Accidentally bought Twisties that make your tongue turn blue. I couldn't eat them. Ewww. Stu said it wasn't the only thing that turned blue..!

Saturday 23.12.17

Dropped into Chrissie's to pick up keys and instructions for animal feeding, then did our food shopping for the week.  

Sunday 24.12.17 - Christmas Eve

Spent pretty much the entire afternoon cooking.  I cooked up a Christmas caramel slice (flavoured with a little ginger and spice), a cherry/raspberry white chocolate cheesecake that looked like crap, whoops, and then a 2.8kg piece of roast pork, as well as potato bake and roast veggies.  In the evening we had our Christmas Eve feast and watched new episodes of Fuller House, and started watching season four of Rake.

The fridge is choc-a-block full!

Monday 25.12.17 - Christmas Day

Had a relaxing and quiet morning because I didn't need to do any cooking.  I did clean up the kitchen, the bathroom, and the vomit some animal had left on our front patio - gross!!!  The sweetie and I went out and did a little pokegressing, then dropped into Chrissie's to feed the animals.  Came home and did a final bit of house tidying (and found out both families were coming for dessert, not just one).  After lunch (I had leftover pork and potato - yum!) Annie and the kids came over for dessert, and a little while later Scott and the family came over as well.  There was so. much. dessert.  And I'm not even a big dessert person.  My teeth hurt just looking at all the sugar!

By the time everyone left the sweetie and I were completely exhausted from *people*.  I cooked up the section of crackling that had been under the roast and so not crackled, and had that for dinner.  In the evening just Fuller House and Rake.

Tuesday 26.12.17 - Boxing Day

Did a bit of decluttering in the spare room - pulled out a pile of clothes to give/throw away, and started separating some of the stuff in the entrance way of what to Green Shed/Freecycle/eBay.  Cleaned the kitchen and family room window sills and trimmed the thyme which had been going a little crazy and tidied up all the herbs.  Did a bit of jigsawing, and worked on my new Nanoblocks building.  In the evening we went to Kit's as she and Pete were having a barbeque and a bunch of their friends came.  Stayed up probably a little too late, but it was a nice night.

Wednesday 27.12.17

Had a bit of a slow start.  Did a water change in the angel tank.  We'd been planning to meet up with Potty etc to see a movie, but in between deciding which movie/session to see and actually booking it, they sold out.  We met up with them at the mall anyway for lunch (I also needed a few things at the shops so did that first).  Then everyone came back to our place for dessert take 2 (and the kids had a swim as well).  So I had to put away all the stuff that I'd spread out on the lounge room floor back into the spare room, where it's now out of sight out of mind :(  We put on the animated live action The Jungle Book to watch in the afternoon.  I say animated because just about the only thing that was real in the entire movie was the kid.  Still, it wasn't too bad.  I did the edge for the World's Most Difficult Jigsaw while watching.  By the time everyone left the sweetie and I were completely exhausted from *people*.  That and an entire day gone with pretty much nothing to show for it.

Thursday 28.12.17

Alternated between fifteen minutes at a time doing some deep cleaning in the bathroom, and doing the big jigsaw.  In the evening (it was Thursday after all), the sweetie ordered an epic pizza from Dominos.  It was nice enough, but it was sorely lacking in pepperoni, which was pretty disappointing.

We watched The Space Between Us, which was nice enough, but some of the problems with it annoyed me (spoilers!!) - like being able to have online chats in real time - don't you know there's a three to twenty-four minute delay each way on comms (depending on position in orbits)??  Or what are they going to feed the kid?  I'm sure they didn't send any baby formula on the mission!  And I did call out the father very early on.

Friday 29.12.17

Just a few bits and pieces in the morning, including testing the dead LED fish tank light in the fitting downstairs.  I bought the LED light in April, but it died a week or so ago.  I'm pretty pissed off about that because the light was twice the price of a regular fluoro light, but it only lasted half as long.  I'm also pretty pissed that we don't have a receipt, because the sweetie doesn't tend to keep receipts.  Going to have to make a point of always getting him to give me receipts when we go shopping.  I know exactly when we bought it, and it should be in the sweetie's credit card statements, so going to try our luck getting a refund or replacement.  Moral of the story:  AquaOne is evil, and their products are crappy (always have been).  We bought another LED light in October that's still working, but we don't have a receipt for it either, so can guarantee it's going to die shortly too :(

Went into Belco to get our pool water tested.  Good news is our sunscreen levels are now down to the correct levels after last summer's dramas.  Bad news is there's no buffering (total alkalinity), which means it's all a bit unstable.  And even though our test kits say there's plenty of chlorine, the pool shop testing says there's none.  *sigh*

Went into the city for doctor stuff and lunch.  We went to Hero Sushi which is usually crowded and pretty good, but it was half empty and all the hot food was cold which wasn't much fun. Mostly just sorted pairs of pieces in the little jigsaw in the afternoon.  Had a swim then added a bunch of pool chemicals.

Saturday 30.12.17

Finished The World's Most Difficult jigsaw (it's not) fairly quickly in the morning, then finished the Nanoblocks Empire State Building.

Worked on the big jigsaw for a while in the afternoon so could finish it by the end of the year.  Serena came over after seeing Kit, and had a quick swim.  We watched Coyote Ugly in the evening which I first saw on the plane to the USA in 2000.  I didn't realise I'd seen it again back in 2003.  

Sunday 31.12.17 - New Years Eve

Was awake from dentist time to about 5:30am, then only managed about another two hours sleep after that.  So pretty tired and a very slow morning.  Watched Cinderella while finishing off that section of the jigsaw.  It's a pretty lame movie actually.  I don't think I've seen it since I was a kid.  There's a whole heap of just slapstick, and the "love" story is pathetic.  How do you fall in love with someone without them even saying a word??  Sure you can get a bit of a crush, but that's not really enough to live "happily ever after". 

Went out for lunch at the markets and to do our food shopping.  We didn't do much shopping as none of the butchers were open, I was super tired so couldn't even think about vegetables (and Tom's was very depleted on stock anyway).  We did pick up a huge pile of fish for $19/kg though, gave some to Kit, froze some, and will have it as a couple of meals in the next few days. 

This afternoon has just been catching up on this blog, and I've still got to finish my year in review post.  I started off well this year, taking notes for most of the year at the beginning of December.  But then everything just went crazy before Christmas and I kept putting it off.  It's probably half done so need to do that if there's nothing else I do before tonight.  We have no plans yet for New Years.  I'll be lucky to stay awake!

The sweetie has been feeling a bit off colour the last couple of days, but we did end up going out for his birthday last night - met up with Cath and Scott for dinner at Malaysian Chapter.  Nice food (deep fried anchovies are actually edible! Who knew!) and good friends made for a pleasant evening.