I call masked lapwings "gak gak birds" because.. gak gak gak gak gak... whenever you get anywhere near them.

The other week a pair setup a nest.. in the middle of a public car park. 

So I know these guys nest on the ground, but surely they could have found somewhere more.. private..

Silly birds..

Sadly the day after this they abandoned their nest.  Guess the stress of it all got too much.

This is a Wasgij jigsaw David brought over at one point.  As always these are a lot of fun.

Jim bought me this as a parting gift when he left the team.  The birds were a lot of fun and I did those quite quickly.  The blue on the other hand was HARD.  Completely flat colour.  Fortunately there was a good variety in piece shapes so took ages but was at least doable.  The other thing I liked about this jigsaw was the packaging.  The jigsaw came in a sealed snap-lock bag, so once opened, the jigsaw could be placed back in a snap-lock bag - no losing pieces!  So good.

I finished the fourth installment of the Disney 40320 piece behemoth jigsaw at the beginning of September.  I knew as soon as picked out the bag (at random) that it would be this because it was so green.  As always, the picture is not *quite* reality from the movie.  

David and I spent an entire day just doing this 1500 piece jigsaw a couple of weeks ago.  This was a club jigsaw I brought home because they were clearing out the office.  I got two boxes of jigsaws - win!

Another from the club office cleanout.  Only three hundred pieces, so just a bit of fun.  Sadly a few pieces missing because the box was not sealed and bits had gone everywhere.  Found some but not all.

This was a fun 1000 piece jigsaw, also from the club cleanout.  The art is by Royce, who did the art for the 24000 piece Life jigsaw.  So I've done some of those planets before!  David and Kat and I did it again together the other day.

This 500 piece one of St Lucia I started last Monday night with the intent I'd get a couple of nights on it.  Except I finished it in an hour.  Whoops.  Also from the club cleanout.

Whoops so I didn't post all weekend..

This ring tail possum was at the club on NYE.  I touched its tail because I could.

Friday was super hot.  The birds were suffering.  Crows and magpie larks were coming to the fountain at the Labor Club to get a drink and cool off in the shade.

Did our food shopping and came home.

Saturday I did some housework, and got a bit annoyed that it feels like I'm *always* cleaning the house.  It's just never ending :/

We did jump in the pool to cool off though which was nice.

In the evening we went over to EffanC's to have a glass of bubbly and some cheese before we went to the movies.  

Wine at the Palace

Then back to their place for a fairly late dinner (of some very nice quiche and salad).

Sunday was more suffering in the heat.  

In the afternoon mum came down from Sydney to stay.  She *finally* had a swim in our pool (for one reason or another it'd never happened before).  I had a beef stew going in the slow cooker all afternoon.  For dessert we had Heston Blumenthal's Hidden Orange Pudding.  I'd seen these advertised on tv before Christmas, but didn't get one.  Then on Friday saw them for half price so grabbed one.  It was pretty good.

And today was back in the deep end trying to stay afloat again.  

15-17.8.14

Friday night (after several disasters at their end) Marc and Jo arrived in town for the weekend.  We chatted til quite late.

Saturday morning we went into town for some breakfast at Mocan and Green Grout.

And we also had got some tapioca and persimon.  The tapioca was nice but the persimon was a little tough.

I took a *lot* of photos of this dog trying to get one of him with his tongue out.  I got a few.

There was also a honeyeater that needed documenting

Then we went down to the lake to document more birds

Then we went for a drive up Mt Ainslie

There were more birds :)

Marc and Jo went off to visit some other friends so we came home and chilled out, then went and did some food shopping.

We cooked up a *lot* of mushrooms (and had some leftover cause we bought too many) for Marc's strog

It was delicious!!

We put on Frozen after dinner while we chatted, then Rocky Horror.

In the morning Marc and I cooked up a storm for breakfast while various spouses dozed.  Bacon, eggs, hash browns, onions and mushrooms - yumm!

Then chillaxed and didn't do anything exciting.  They left later in the afternoon on Sunday.

Half of my battle with blogging these days is the whole *effort* of downloading, selecting, resizing, stripping geodata and blogging photos.

I have several weeks of photos to blog.  Over fifty actually.  Eep!  Lots of birds, funnily enough. 

Also, during the week I have nothing much to say.

Because I only tend to blog about stuff I've done, and I don't tend to do anything much interesting during the week.

But I've been really impressed with my SIL blogging every day this month and I feel bad being so slack with this blog.  I really do love the archive of my life I keep here.  

So I'm going to try again to blog more often.

Today I had my Sadie cap on, and cut the rules down on one firewall from over two hundred to a little over one hundred.  Cleaning makes me happy :)  Mind you it's a lot easier to clean up other people's messes.  My own messes are harder because I'm lazy :)

Some Red Rumped Parrots were in the park the other day

And there's magpies nesting in the Westfield sign

Galah at Aranda Oval

Magpie lark at the Lighty

Pelican being chased by a raven at Lake Ginninderra

Galahs just chilling by the side of the road

4.2.14

Mum's pretty much stopped feeding the birds but still puts out water in the bird bath for them.  They love it.

So last weekend (well really the weekend before.. sorry, I've been a slacker) we went down to Bermagui for the weekend.  We had a slow start and left Saturday morning and didn't arrive till nearly 4pm.

Cheese!!  I wanted to stop here and try cheese .. maybe next time..

A crappy photo of the Wallaga Lake bridge, which was recently used as a film set for Angelina Jolie's upcoming movie "Unbroken".  The bridge is meant to be in Japan!

When we arrived at Bellbird Cottage B&B we got out of the car and it was all BELLBIRDS!  They were peeping all around the bush and it was a lovely welcome!

The B&B is delightful.  They only rent out one (very large) room and it's downstairs and has its own entrance, so it's very private and has a wonderful bush outlook.  

I was sitting on the toilet for this photo..  :)

On the first evening they bring down a cheese platter as a welcome, so it was lovely to sit and nibble cheese and look at the bush and listen to the bellbirds.

We chillaxed for a while before heading out.  Unfortunately we were a little too late for the seaside fair, so we had a wander around Sculpture on the Edge.

This was probably my favourite - it's made with the tops of milk bottles and old bicycle tyres and has solar powered strings of led lights mingled through.  I would love to have seen these at night.

Wandered down to the wharf to find some dinner.  The cafe was booked out, so we got some fish and chips from the outside servery.

It was about 7:45 at this point, and there were fireworks scheduled for 8:45.  It was threatening to storm on us, so we went and found somewhere that we could park with a view of the fireworks.  This is the spot we found.

The fireworks were actually really good for a small country town

Had a pretty good night's sleep.

In the morning they brought down a fabulous breakfast with a yummy variety of food.  In fact there was so much food we couldn't finish it all, and I packaged up the leftovers for our lunch!

Then it was off to meet up with some people at the beach.  It had been raining in the morning and it did look a little miserable to start with, but the weather cleared into quite a nice day.

Came back to Bellbird Cottage and chillaxed and listened to the birds and sipped some wine.  Lovely!

Then we met up with J&H and D at Il Passagio down at the wharf for dinner.

A very nice salt and pepper squid

Polenta chips - crispy and yummy

Quite a nice steak

Good panna cotta

The next morning was another amazing breakfast

Saying goodbye to Bellbird Cottage - we hope to be back one day!

Went via the foreshore to hack some portals

Stopped by some cliffs and took photos of birds

Scratching himself on the wing?

Stopped at the rather green Blue Pool.

And headed home via Cooma.

Stu fell in love with this place overlooking a beautiful valley and across to Brown Mountain.

Fred Piper Memorial Lookout.  On a clear day you can see the ocean.

Glider south of Canberra

Hume Solar Farm

And then we were home.  A bit tired from what seemed like two days of travelling, but it was lovely weekend nonetheless.

Before Dad died I started collating a list of silly things my Dad used to say.  There turned out to be quite a lot.  And I'm sure I've missed heaps.

As mentioned yesterday, there were a few random song snippets, such as "they're coming to take me away hey hey" and "beep beep, beep beep, his horn went beep beep burp".  Somewhat relatedly he'd sing "Sunday driving, Sunday driving" when we were out and about on a Sunday.  If we saw a delapidated building in our travels, the parents had a running joke that it was a "prospective youth hostel".  

When someone did something wrong, he'd say "nooo that's not it, try it again", as per Yosemite Sam.  Actually my brother and I changed the default error beep to that wav file many years ago on the parents' computer, and we had months of laughs because they couldn't figure out how to change it :)

When anyone offered him tea or coffee he'd say "I don't drink, don't smoke, don't drink tea or coffee, don't go around with naughty women".  This was appended in later years with "because I don't know any".  Actually this is why he thought it was so unfair that he had a brain tumour, as he didn't use a mobile phone either.  Still, he'd also say to people "I'll have a vodka and orange. Hold the orange" and at other times "Hello officer, I'm not under the affluence of incahol" in a slurred voice.

Regarding physics, he'd say things like "It's only the lack of heat that makes it cold", "It's only the weight of it that makes it heavy" and "It's not the fall that kills you it's the sudden stop at the bottom".

He could be quite negative (actually that's another story entirely).  But with Mum there'd be such things as "I earn the money, she spends it", "Whatever you say dear", "Yes boss" and "I'm always wrong".

With us there was the whole "Seven eights!!" thing that haunted David around Western Australia in 1984.  David was in primary school and learning his times tables, so on the holiday Dad would call out random times tables for David to give the answer to.  Except he kept tripping up on seven eights.  So Dad did it over and over again getting quite angry with David about it.  Mum said Dad changed on that trip.  He had issues with his camera and basically became a lot more negative and grumpy about things from that point on.  Mum thought he had a mid life crisis at that point.  He'd get annoyed at us for "drop" or leaving things around the house, but actually he was probably the worst offender.  And if we ever happened to burp at the table he'd say "oink".  To which after 1995 I'd respond "la la laaaa" :)

He'd get very frustrated with "yellow lights!" even more so than red ones, and also "Sunday drivers".  If a someone was heard shouting or speaking loudly, he'd say something like "We heard you the first time" or "ahhhh shaddap".  And if someone was incompetant they "couldn't organise single track working on a single length of N gauge".

He loved cockatoos, and the family had one when he was growing up.  So there was always "Scratch cocky" and "Hello cocky" and "G'bye! G'bye!" in screechy voices.  The doves he used to feed were "girls" because they were birds, so it'd be "hello girls" when they came down.

He liked cats, and whenever he saw one he'd say "I tawt I taw a putty tat", or simply a realistic meow (actually he'd meow at pretty random times too).

He loved cheese.  Or "ratfink".  And if anyone ever said "say cheese" for a photo, he'd say "Coon", his favourite cheese.

Whenever he got home and wanted to get changed he'd say "I'm going to take me pants off".  I use that a lot myself now too.

Many every day objects got different names.
"Soviet" was a meat pie - soviet spy in rhyming slang
"Serve you right" was a serviette.  I use this all the time, which confuses people sometimes.
Police were sometimes pronounced "poh-lice", or just "the fuzz"
"Screaming ice" was ice cream
"Gobbies" was his word for potato scallops
"Jackie" was a kookaburra
"Franks" meant thanks
"Probabully" was probably
"Grey shirts" were the train ticket inspectors.  He had an irrational thing against authority and beaurocracy.
"Woofit" meant "what's for tea?"
"Crick" was creek
"Rake" was a lake
"Crouds" were clouds
"Riv-her" was river
"Hurro" was hello
"Martian bastard" was a Mars Bar
"Chew and spew" was McDonalds
"Chif and phips" was fish and chips

And there was plenty of other random $#!+ .. :)

"Pong!" - obviously a response to ping!
"We want a funny story from" - sometimes said at random at the dinner table
"Growl, grumble and gripe, da dum da dum da dum" - the da dum bit might have been appended by my brother, can't remember
"Around the corner and into the straight comes beetle bomb" - or BDL Bomb, after the number plate of their old car
"Screech crunch tinkle tinkle" was a car accident
"Sparkle-arkle-arkling" usually referred to fizzy drinks
"Arc arc arc" or "stone the crows" whenever crows were around
"Die quietly" if someone was coughing loudly
"No bull" for no kidding
"Me three" instead of me too (I use this too)
"Me think that 'mazing" if something was good
"Bless me" if he sneezed
"Oh girl. You can't say oh boy, that's sexist".  

When my friend Luc first met my parents he said to me later "I can understand you better having met your parents".  Maybe anyone that's just read through the above list of words and phrases will see what a crazy Dad I had and understand how I came to be so completely silly :)