Friday .. what did we do Friday..? Not much.. Stu cooked some turkey chops which were yummy, and we drank beer and watched some Star Trek.
Saturday was cleaning day. Think I spent half the day washing up. And vacuuming. And cleaning the bathroom. And Stu cooked up a storm.
We started with jarlsberg and extra tasty cheese, and cream cheese and sweet chilli sauce.
For mains there were lamb shanks slow cooked for ~7 hours with carrot, garlic, onion, tinned tomatoes and red wine. There was also a parsnip mash with parsnip, yoghurt, butter and wholegrain mustard. And also steamed beans, with a sesame seed paste, garlic and lemon juice, which was, er, interesting :)
Dessert was an apple and rhubarb pie.
The table looked quite cool.
Then Melita came over and food and conversation was enjoyed by all.
Today was round two of washing up, then we wandered over to a meeting of the Canberra Killifish Study Group, where geeky fish-type people gathered to talk about killifish and look at slides. The dude's tank setup in his garage was pretty cool.
Then to Scotty's for dinner, and finally back here to collapse.
Had a relaxing sleep-in/wake up, then headed into town to Cafe 66 for brekkie. I had a ham and cheese croissant and Stu had Tuscan Toast. The food was yummy but the service was pretty crap.
After breakfast did a bit of a town wander, seeing places where Stu lived/went to school and other such Stu places.
Came back to the motel and had leftovers from yesterday's lunch and dinner and also a bit of a rest.
Then wandered down to Miner's beach. It was cloudy/rainy and threatened to be miserable, but there were tonnes of terns and their babies, a baby gannet, and when we went for a swim the water was actually really warm - warmer in than out! Left when it started pouring with rain heh.
So then we came back and freshened up before getting fish and chips and beer for dinner and watching some telly.
Day 2 Pictures
I giggled at this sign on a Hog's Breath cafe in Port Macquarie.
A sailing boat in Port Macquarie
Garfish chasing a school of little fish
Anglican church building
Stu looking into his old high school
This sign cracked me up
Behind the old cemetary there are some nice walkways through a reserve
Dracula's grave?
Birds of paradise, looking remarkably like birds
Triplexes, with ridiculous looking roofs
Stu chasing a brush turkey
Kookaburra sits in a Norfolk Island Pine .. ok so the song doesn't quite go
Gosh Friday night feels like such a long time ago. Had my last full daylight drive to Canberra, and was stunned at how green the countryside is at the moment.
We had beer and sweet chili and sour cream potato chips for dinner .. naughty .. :) Watched some telly and ended up watching Ella Enchanted.
Saturday morning went out to Gold Creek Village to Cafe Injoy with A&S and the kids and had their all day breakfast, which was delicious
Then went across the road and caused a koi feeding frenzy
And the ducks wanted in as well, but one duck decided the whole pond was his and was chasing all the others away.
We all headed out to Belconnen to go to the fresh food market. The kids played in the giant mushroom, and the Stus found a sign that caused them great amusement
This amused me too
S&K&J came by in the arvo too which was nice.
For dinner we went to Pulp Kitchen in Ainslie for their six week dry aged sirloin, which was yummiferous, although I didn't quite go for the oysters they put on top. I've had two oysters in my life previous to this, now I'm up to about five :)
After dinner Stu took me on a magical mystery tour. He tried to convince me that we were really going home, but we were just going the wrong way entirely hehe. He took me up Mt Ainslie, where I took some photos of the city, but sans-tripod. So will have to back again at some point :)
He also took me to Manuka and we had a little bit of a wander around and checked out where all the trendy people hang out.
On Sunday we were going to go to church, but it was 9C and I didn't have a jumper (it was 35C in Sydney on Saturday - how am I meant to know to bring a jumper?? heh). So we didn't end up going out. Well not then. We did later to get coffee, and went to Big W and bought A Beautiful Mind.
While we were out I noticed how clear the sky was from all the rain all day Saturday and the strong winds in the morning, so made Stu take me up Black Mountain
Stu's work is down there
Belconnen Bunnings and the food markets just in front
Varekai in its final weeks in Canberra
Mt Stromlo, minus the forest around it that was devastated in the Jan 2003 bushfires
Cooked steak and veggies for dinner and watched A Beautiful Mind.
Today Stu went to work and I telecommuted. The connection was a bit laggy, but I think that it's actually my work computer which is just chugging these days. During my lunch break I went shopping, and did a scrumptious pork roast for dinner. And Stu has a few days worth of leftovers to keep him going :)
A- Available or Single? No, engaged to Stu :) B- Best Friend? Stu C- Cake or Pie? Pie (most fruits) D- Drink of Choice? Orange juice E- Essential Item? My digital camera F- Favorite Color? Aqua blue G- Gummi Bears or Worms? er.. worms mabye H- Hometown? Sydney, Australia I- Indulgence? right now, Doritos cheese supreme J- January or February? Dunno. January probably - usually quieter at work, but too hot K- Kids and Names? Don't have kids L- Life is incomplete without�? Stu M- Marriage Date? Dunno yet. Maybe October. N- Number of Siblings? One O- Oranges or Apples? Probably apples. I like oranges, but they are too sticky/messy P- Phobias/Fears? Cobwebs Q- Favorite Quote? Live long and prosper R- Reasons to smile? Stu, I'm healthy, and got enough money to do some of the things I like S- Season? Spring T- Tag 3 people? I don't tag U- Unknown Fact About Me? er.. dunno V- Vegetable You Hate? Brussel sprouts aren't very pleasant. W- Worst Habit? No comment :) X- Xrays You�ve Had? My left foot, my chest, my teeth (don't have that one though) Y- Your Favorite Foods? Roast pork with crackling, cheese flavoured potato crisps, my potato bake Z- Zodiac? Leo
Had a quiet day today, not doing either of the things we had planned. Instead we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and some Star Trek, went shopping for a dinner set (didn't find any we liked), drank tea and ate some yummy food (including some Krispy Kreme's D&Y brought over last night and leftover potato bake).
Didn't want to get up today. Except that I woke up at 4:45 and couldn't get back to sleep, so gave up, got up and went to work.
Had a nice weekend with the boy. On Friday night made Stu watch Amelie, which he enjoyed, which I knew he would heh.
Did a little food shopping on Saturday morning, then went down to Scotty's to give him Stu's ADSL router. My theory being that as soon as Stu didn't have a router, they'd activate his adsl. Scotty has adsl2 now, and got 1.7mbit download speeds - sweeeet! Had scrumptious lunch there, then went and visited Scotty's new block of land.
Then a trip to Magnet Mart, where we could see the storm closing in
Relaxed in the afternoon. Cooked a mini beef roast for dinner which was yummy.
After dinner we went out to a visit the partner of a colleague of Stu's, who has his own observatory in his backyard (he also has a *waycool* model collection). Because of all the rain and storms earlier in the evening, noone else turned up. In fact it was still raining when we arrived. So we didn't expect much. But at about 9:30 the clouds began to part and they fired up the telescope.
It was *totally awesome*. It's a 14" reflector, mounted in a shed with a powered roof. We looked at the Orion nebula, lots of star clusters, the tarantula nebula, a double star, and finally Saturn, which was spectacular, very clear (even through a very fogged up telescope), and you could even see a few of its moons. And because noone else came, Stu and I had as much time as we liked to look at things. Around 11 the clouds closed in again so we went inside and watch an episode of Cosmos. Consequently got home quite late.
Slept in Sunday morning, and had some "home-made" cheese kranski for breakfast. Sunday afternoon was spent making models (I finished a small jet on Saturday, and worked on my Batwing on Sunday). Later in the afternoon we went for a little walk, and had a look at one of the houses I'd found on my property searches. On the way saw some lovely little red-rumped parrots (Psephotus haematonotus)..
.. and a pair of crimson rosellas ..
Then headed out to Yass for dinner which was very pleasant. And so another weekend came to an end.
On the way out of town, noticed the tower was all lit up so snapped a dodgy pic of it out the window (really should have stopped but someone was behind me).
The day at work was a bit of a waste. At least it was over fairly quickly.
Jake's been growing these at work. I suggested they'd make great fish food :) I said they'd last about 2 seconds in with the fish. Well we sacrificed two of them. They lasted about 2 seconds. Actually that's probably overestimating it. I think one of them went in under a second to one of the guppies in the macquarium. Jake didn't have time to bend down to watch heh. I think the same guppy got the other one too. The betta was just far to slow heh
So after helping move, we wandered back to Stu's where we rested for a bit, then went and hunt and gathered some food for dinner (kangaroo and some fried veggies, very yum). Then we went for a walk to the top of a hill, with the intention of looking at the comet again. While we waited I took photos of crap.
But it just so happened that we were also in time for the Australia Day fireworks. Which we watched and I attempted to take photos, playing with exposure settings, being too distant to get anything worthwhile. But then the scheduled F-111 "dump and burn" happened. I snapped the shutter without having time to change my last setting - a 10 second exposure - oops! But it did make for a fairly spectacular photo..
After the fireworks, there was a mass exodus of people off Mt Ainslie. Which in itself was amusing..
And then I went back to taking pics of comets and Southern Crosses and the like..
On Saturday morning (gosh it feels like forever ago), we met up with Damien for brunch at Carlo's in Watson. There were so many yummy things on the menu I didn't know what to pic heh. Then we headed over to Cancon. Well the boys had fun. I played solitaire.. ;)
Stu cooked a yummy stir fry for dinner, then Scotty came over and we watched "Mallrats". Talk about a waste of space movie.. lol
Today we wandered over to Annie & Stu's for lunch, then back here for a scrumptious lamb roast for dinner.
Well this was a bit before the weekend. Jake got this way-cool helicopter off ebay and was flying it around the office.
Drove down to Canberra on Wednesday night. Whereapon a little too much wine and champagne was consumed. Oops.
Slept in a bit Thursday morning, then wandered into town. Dropped into Stu's work and met a few of his colleagues, and visited Damien and got this very cute pic of him..
Then we meandered over to the Wig and Pen for beer and lunch with Scotty. Scotty couldn't resist being silly for this pic of the very different beers we ordered.
Had a little rest at Stu's house after that, then wandered back into town, via kangaroos at Weston Park ..
.. to where our cruise boat was waiting..
Damien gave us tickets for this as an engagement present. The whole night was fantabulous. It was such a pleasant atmosphere and the food was great. We even got to see the comet, which I think I was more excited than Stu was hehe. I spotted it first, and everyone else out on deck saw it too.
After we got back to Stu's, Orion was in such a good position I couldn't resist getting out my tripod and taking pics of it. Sorry to Northern Hemisphere readers, it's not my fault he looks this way to us :)
This morning we got up at the crack of dawn to go help Scotty move a fridge, but we could have had another hours sleep by they time they all got organised.
We took photos of bugs while we waited...
And then it was off to help Annie and Stu move house. Except that most stuff had been done when we got there, there was just a few bits and pieces, and all the big furniture stuff, which all the boys did. I mostly just supervised :)
I think this is a good location for their tiger, whatchareckon? :)
So. The weekend. Had the boy here which was lovely as always.
Saturday was a very quiet one, we just went for a little walk to the shops to get some food and the paper, but otherwise didn't do anything much.
Sunday was also fairly quiet, going to Bunnings to try and find some new taps. Got one set, but they didn't have any more, and failed at our attempts to install them because we couldn't get the plastic thingie off the metal thingie. WD-40 *may* help, but I don't have any. So that was a bit of a failure. Sunday night we went to Alan and Marylon's for some fizzling and Alan's famous beef stew. Also some lovely cake that George made (for our engagement) and some divine cheesecake that Angela made (for her birthday). Had a breakdown when I got home cause my mouse wouldn't work and it was dark and I couldn't make it work and eventually had to reboot. Sigh.
Monday Arian and the girls came over for an early lunch (platter of cheeses, salami sticks and veggies with dressing-dip - yummo!) and then we went off the Nasho Park for a swim. It was exceedingly pleasant - so much so that we stayed a lot longer than we planned, and as a consequence all got sunburnt. Well except Arian who applied so much sunscreen she looked like she'd been painted white hehe :) As we got home so late, Stu decided not to drive home tonight, so I have him for another night yayyyy :) Well another couple of hours really. We had an instant roast pork dinner I scraped together from various leftovers, and even had some crackling.
And now time for an early night in preparation for a *very* early morning tomorrow...
