Tuesday morning woke up at 4:38 and never got back to sleep.  Hurrah.  Made a broccoli bake for dinner, will post that separately.  Evening was just UK photo labelling and an early night.

Tuesday night I slept somewhat better.  Stu didn't.  Le sigh.  Wednesday evening cooked chicken kiev and got up to 2794 UK photos labelled.  

Also in the evening David and I were on our computers when a possum walked onto the window sill outside the study window and looked in at us.  Twice!  (but not quite long enough for either of us to get a photo of it either time.  Possum was playing possum it was! ;) ).  As I went to bed I had that feeling again that our bedroom is a place I go to *not* sleep :(

Thursday.  Well I had a nice early night on Wednesday, but didn't get to sleep for FOUR HOURS.  Fricken hurrah.  David did very nicely go and satisfy a craving I had for Country Cheeses with cheese spread ;)  I haven't had Country Cheeses with cheese spread in probably about fifteen years.  I stopped eating them because, sodium.

The fog on Thursday took til about lunchtime to clear.  Then it came back.  At like 4:30pm ?!?  So weird!!

Evening was pizza and the first two episodes of Space Force.  The boys were cacking themselves.  I thought it was dumb.

Friday.  Awake for a while from 12:20 then up from 5:30.  Fog was gone.  Weird, because I thought it would be as thick as you could imagine.  Got up to 1400 of Dad's slides scanned.  I really hope Mum can find the book David thinks exists with details of all the slides, otherwise all this effort will be for naught - as the slides I'm scanning are not labelled other than a general topic and month/year in another book I have.  I mean some photos are pretty obvious what they are, and a month/year is sufficient, but so many photos are just a mystery what they are.

For lunch I cooked up some leftover rice with peas/corn, ham, soy, sesame oil, and a bit of leftover parsnip.  I let it get hot and a bit crunchy so that was really nice.  Really must learn how to cook paella.

In the evening we left work a little early and headed out to the club - first time we'd been out there since March.  We got the fire going and had some wine and some leftover pulled pork and had a very nice and quiet evening together.

Saturday morning Stu went to the committee meeting, and I spent the entire morning cleaning and organising the van.  Didn't get everything done on the todo list, but did clear out a heap of stuff.  Pity I didn't take any before/after photos!

Came home in the afternoon but didn't really do much.  Saw this dog saying hi on the way home.

Sausages for dinner and we watched Attack of the Clones.  I'd forgotten just how bad it is.  So much of the dialogue is completely cringeworthy.  I still have no idea how *anyone* would fall in love with petulant teenager Anakin.  So dumb.  

Any guesses what these are? :)

This morning I took a bootload of stuff to the Green Shed.  Mostly from the van, but also this little candle holder I bought when I first moved out of home in 2000.  It's very pretty and in a completely darkened room you can see the stars.  But in a normally lit room you can't actually see the candle from most angles, which makes it a bit of a waste.  I've only ever used a few times in the past twenty years, so thought it may as well go.

This afternoon I did get a bit more done on the todo list, and we had (will have - it's nearly done!) chicken cordon bleu for dinner.

Gosh what a crazy week and a half.  The world has gone mad.  Toilet paper hoarders should be shot.  

So Saturday a week and a half ago.  I can't even remember it.  Spent all morning tidying the bedroom end of the house and clearing the lounge room floor of all the stuff that got dumped in there when we cleared out space for Stu's study.  Did mostly minifig sorting of Vic's Lego.  Had salmon for dinner and watched Spectre.

Sunday morning I got up early and headed in to see the balloons.  I thought I'd go to the north side of the lake this year.  But as soon as I got out of the car I knew they wouldn't be going up - far too windy.  I was right.  Checked on Twitter and Events Canberra said it was off.  Oh well.  Ended up spending most of the day doing minifig sorting.  In the afternoon Stu tried to make some of his low carb bread but the oven wouldn't work properly.  Also, strangely, there was a light on in the back of the oven that I'd never seen before.  He finished his bread, and I cooked dinner (roast beef with veggies), with the bottom element, but I managed to burn the bottom of the veggies and the beef was a bit overdone.  I had made a marinade to try and use up some of the mustard powder we'd had in the house forever.  Soy sauce, olive oil, ginger, garlic, mustard powder, brown sugar.  Was actually really nice.  

Watched BBT and Picard in the evening.

Monday I woke up at Dentist Time and probably only got another half hours' sleep, so zombie day Monday.  We did do our food shopping in the evening.  Even the fresh food was mostly sold out this time.

Got home quite late, but still made a zucchini noodle "carbonara" (not actually carbonara, but cream, bacon, mushrooms, garlic, herbs, cheese).  Yummo.  

Tuesday had the slight hint of a sore throat and cough.  Ordinarily I would have gone to work anyways, as I felt ok.  But in these uncertain times I decided to work from home because I could.  It was highly unlikely to be covid-19, as there were only like half a dozen cases in the ACT at the time, but you never know.

Managed to get some toilet paper from Chris's and made pasta bolognase for dinner.  After dinner we watched Labyrinth, to celebrate 30 years ago to the day that I first saw it on St Patrick's Day in 1990.  I've seen that movie probably fifty times, and yet I somehow never knew that Kenny Baker was in it as part of the goblin corps!!

Oh I forgot to mention we finished the Mandalorian at some point last week.  Remind me I need to put on the last two episodes for David some time.

Wednesday I worked from home again.  Not sure I was really sick or just imagining it.  No fever.  Still only the slightest hint of a cough/sore throat.  If it was a cold it was the mildest cold I've ever had.  The day was crazy busy.  Finished geotagging day 4 of our USA 2004 trip in the evening.

Thursday.  Not sick anymore.  But still at home.  I suspect I'll be working from home for the next several months.  Although I might have to pop into work every so often on the weekends to rotate out my backup drives.  Missed drinks (which as of writing tonight was the last drinks until further notice).  Sad times.  Watched The Big Short in the evening.  Somewhat topical at the moment with the economy in freefall.  While noone can really quantify how many people die as a result of increased unemployment, it's very likely a thing, and even if people don't die, the misery caused by losing jobs/houses/marriages would be immense.  I do wonder about the mass unemployment caused by shutting everything down because of the coronavirus pandemic and how many people will die as a result of that, versus from the virus itself.  

Contrails crisscrossed the sky all day Thursday, this is a set of five of them in the evening.

Friday was playing with SNMP V3.  In the evening I watched both versions of Lady and the Tramp.  All the reviewers on IMDB on the remake generally hated it.  It was actually quite similar to the original in terms of plot, just fleshed out a little in places.  I was pretty impressed with the CGI generally.  Did they use real dogs and just superimpose the faces?  Or were the dogs all CGI?  I should Google that crap.  But what I did find a bit jarring was the interracial marriage in 1909 Missouri.  Just wouldn't have happened. That and just some of the dialogue was too "modern" ("I missed you guys"). (And how could a "poor" musician afford such a huge house anyway?).  If they'd set it in modern times and not tried to make it look like a period piece, I think it would have worked better.  

Friday night couldn't get to sleep for hours, so ended up sleeping in a bit, which made me feel like half Saturday was wasted.  Grunt.  But did a bunch of house stuff, and picked more parts for another six Lego sets in the afternoon.  "Watched" the Blue Danube on YouTube, followed by Rhapsody in Blue, and then put on my Fantasia 2000 DVD, and finally The Planets.  Was a pretty great afternoon actually.  We felt like a pandemic movie in the evening.  Netflix has taken down Contagion, so we watched World War Z.  "Zombies" aside, I found it all a little what the?  I mean, why would the UN send out a rescue mission for someone that didn't even work for them anymore?  Doesn't make any logical sense.  

And it was a blood bath.  Ok so wine.  And it wasn't even mine.  What a waste of wine ;)

Sunday kept our social distance but had Maccas for brunch.  But Stu wasn't feeling the best (he probably got whatever I had, but again, a super mild case of whatever it was), so he stayed in the car while I did the shopping.  All three butchers at the markets were closed because they'd all run out meat, and chicken shop was closing up.  And it wasn't even lunch time!!  So got all our fruit and veg.  Then popped into Bunnings because David wanted me to get a new light for the oven, but they didn't have what I needed so I ended up getting the wrong thing, le sigh.  Also needed some cockroach and moth deterrants.  Then to Coles to get meat and some other bits and pieces.  There was some meat there, certainly more than last time.  I told the checkout chick that all the butchers at the markets were closed, and she said they'd sold out of meat completely on the Saturday as well.  I will be really pissed if I hear of people throwing out fresh food because they hoarded too much and couldn't get through it.  That would be so wasteful and so WRONG when there's people that can't even get food at the moment.  Put on dinner when I got home (slow cooked beef stew). 

David pulled the oven apart and found the cause of the mystery light - it was the back fan force element arcing.  We were lucky it didn't burn the house down or electrocute the sweetie.

He also installed a new clothes line for us, because the old one was falling apart (we'd already had one of the four lines break and the others were looking fragile).

Bestest brother ever!!

Spent all afternoon cleaning the oven, and had the beef stew for dinner, followed by Robot Chicken's Star Wars episode.

Monday I woke up at Dentist Time.  Again.  I got up for a bit this time, but didn't help much.  Blah morning.  Meanwhile David was sourcing parts for the oven.  He found a place he could get an element, but he also wanted to replace the cooling fan, which I think died years ago.  He wouldn't be able to get that for another two days, so it'd mean extra work and delays and would it really be worth fixing a probably nearly thirty year old oven?

Also.  Ewww.

So we bought a new one.  Whoops.

I wasn't in any fit mental or physical state to be out buying home appliances.  So I don't know if I did the right thing.  But we did get a fairly good discount on a discontinued De Longhi, so maybe??  The worst part?  Those hours wasted cleaning the old one :(:(:(

The afternoon was filled with too many dumb meetings and by the end of the day I really just needed a drink and an early night (which I had).

Monday night I slept really well, felt good all day.

Tuesday night (last night) I woke up at 1:20 and stayed awake for over four hours, mostly stressing about All The Things.  Mostly whether we'll be able to get food in the coming weeks/months.  And what all those unemployed people are going to do about food and rent and mortgages and kids.  At 5am, after a massive meltdown, I got up, had a double shot of Baileys, turned my alarm off, and eventually fell asleep a bit after 5:30 for two hours.  I was still super tired today though.  

Tonight I walked down to the end of the street and back.  Only nine minutes of walking, but I haven't done *any* walking in over a week.  Normally I get twenty minutes a day at lunch, so I've been feeling like a big fat blob.

In the past week, airlines have shutdown their flights, there's been travel bans, restaurants and "non essential" stores have been shut down.  My next holiday has been postponed for two years.  We were going to see the Passion Play in Oberammergau, which I've been wanting to see for over thirty years.  I find it somewhat ironic?  strange? weird twist of fate? that they've had to postpone due to a plague, when it was a plague that brought about its existence in the first place.  Luckily they've only postponed it and not outright cancelled it, as Mum might not be around for the one in ten years.  She might not be around in two years either if Covid-19 hits her.  Stay away from people Mum! :)

Stay safe (and home!) everyone!!

Last Tuesday morning I started scanning Dad's slides. There's about 7000 of them. I'm aiming for one box of 36 a week (more if I'm not too busy), which should mean I could get it all done in about four years. If I don't die of Covid-19 first. I had a play with the dust and scratch filter and it pretty much works like magic. I should have used it on Mum's slides. Oh well. I'm still impressed how well my 14 year old scanner works (Christmas present from the sweetie in 2005). Tuesday evening was washing, blogging, Lego sorting, geotagging (some of Day 3 of USA 2004 trip). I also started to try and figure out the catalog numbers for the hundreds of Vic's minifigs, and what sets they go in. He sure has a lot that don't belong to any particular set he had, so he must have gotten large quantities of loose Lego not in sets.

Wednesday evening the sweetie took me out to dinner because he's the best sweetie ever.  Went to Kinn Thai and had softshelled crab again, and orange duck.  Yumm.  Then more Lego and minifig sorting and finished geotagging day 3.

It rained during the week.  A lot.  Looky at this - the new Belconnen swimming pool they dug out the past couple of weeks!

Thursday was Gin night. Four of them tasted like, well, gin. One was a bit more interesting. And there were two flavoured ones - shiraz, and earl grey. They looked, smelt and tasted of those respective drinks. Cool stuff. Well the shiraz one was, the Earl Grey tasted like tea. We had F over for pizza and tv after.

Friday evening I had to work. My work was only about a minutes' worth, but I stuck around in case they needed my help with anything (or if I'd missed a firewall rule somewhere). Bailed at 11pm.

Saturday I checked in at work and everything seemed to be going ok. So midmorning we headed down the coast (via Belco to pick up a present for Pete). The blackened bush started at Nerriga (most of the town was saved) and stayed black the entire way to the coast. Absolutely heartbreaking. It was actually amazing to see just how much property had been saved though. In places it was completely burnt bush all around, and in the middle there would be a house intact. Amazing job done by all involved, especially the firies.

And because it's Australia, you have bushfires one week, raging floods the next.

We headed straight for Huskisson and went to the beach briefly because, coast.

Then had some lunch, picked up some supplies, then headed for Kit's. Their place was basically completely surrounded by fires, but their street was saved.  At Bewong it looked like the firies stood on the highway and said "you shall not pass" .. 

We setup the house then waited for Pete to get home. It wasn't a complete surprise because his mum spilled the beans, but he was expecting just his sister and maybe a couple of his local mates, but instead he got a small crowd so that was pretty cool :) So yeah nice party, and only one tantrum haha.

We had dessert first.  Because that's what adulting is all about.

Akubra party!

The itty bitty bbq gas bottle ran out, so they hooked up the house one to it.

I was up at normal time the next morning, but then had to wait hours for everyone else. Eventually Kit got up and I could copy all the wedding videos for them. Had some brunch, then we headed home.

Was too tired to do much Sunday arvo/evening so just had a quiet one and an early night.

Monday it was full steam ahead rearranging the house. Stu had been wanting some study space for quite a while. He tried setting up a space downstairs last year but he never really liked it. So we emptied out the dumping ground room, brought up the couch and swapped the tables around. It took all day. And now everything from the room is spread all around the house. Which is stressful in itself. hrmmm.

We also went out at lunch to do our food shopping.  We hadn't been in three weeks so we were pretty bare.  Of course the empty shelves were something to behold.  No toilet paper, almost no tissues or paper towel (people thinking they could use that instead of toilet paper??).  Very little rice, pasta and long life milk, no flour.  Just madness.  

Cooked curried sausages for dinner (to use up some of the curry powder that's been sitting in the spice cupboard for ten years or more).  They were pretty good.  I'll put the recipe separately, because I have this feeling I'll be using it again heh.

Tuesday woke up at 1:30 with hurty and never got back to sleep :( So zombie day Tuesday. It took about 14 goes of disconnecting and reconnecting my phone on Tuesday night to download the seven videos I'd taken at the party. Fricken HATE Apple.

Wednesday we finished season 6 of Big Bang Theory - half way through!

Tonight I've been watching the 1970 Ned Kelly which I've never actually seen.  There's not much on IMDB about it, but it does note it was filmed in Braidwood, and look at that!  So it was!  Fifty years later and all the buildings are still there (screenshots from the movie and Google Street View).  Enjoyed it more than My Brilliant Career.

I brought some glow sticks home from the party.  Six days later and they're still actually glowing.  !!   Although very faint now.  The first couple of nights the phone could still take pretty decent photos of them.

Some time ago Kit gave her blue tongue lizard, Stumpy, to Chrissie.  With everything going on in her life at the moment she redelegated him to me.

So now we have a lizard in our front entranceway :)

But that meant clearing out all the clutter that's been in the front entranceway for at least five years.  Mike offered to have a go at selling it all (which is why it was all still there - I just hadn't gotten around to photographing, packaging, weighing and listing everything).  So we did a trade.

I spent all morning photographing (almost) everything before Mike took it all.  After which time I was hot and sweaty and the cooler was doing nothing.  So spent most of the afternoon and evening sorting Vic's Lego.  

Tonight I watched two episodes of Building Giants - one on the cruise ship Meraviglia which was awesome (built in the same shipyard as the Queen Mary 2, and a lot of the same construction techniques), and one on the Copenhagen new metro line which was pretty cool.  And then an episode of Heston's Feasts which was a bit of fun.

Got about five minutes of rain which was awesome but not nearly enough to make up for having no rain for the past few weeks..

Wednesday Kit came over briefly after work for a bit of a cool off (not that she actually went *in* the pool - just her feet!).

Thursday the little brother and Kat came up with the tv and stayed.  Kit and Ben came up as well.  Stu was a little anxious about *stuff*, Kit had decided to quit her job, and all the extra people in the house made for a very strange night.

Friday the sweetie and I had a random day off.  Stu went to the doctor, then we had brunch in town.  Came home and started pulling out stuff to give away and throw out.  Took a whole heap of fluoro lights and old magazines to Revolve and had a walk through the Big Green Shed which was fun.  Also took several boxes of books to Lifeline.  But didn't get too much else done.  Watched Back to the Future II in the evening.

This morning went along to the Mint Open Day.  I'll leave that for a separate post, but their event management and crowd control was just plain awful.

So mum was here overnight Christmas night.  So didn't really get anything much done Boxing Day morning (we did beat the rain on a walk down to Chris' and raced back up during a brief lull - it pretty much rained solidly all day which was *awesome* for Canberra).  Around midday she headed down to visit the little brother in Junee.  I built SPACESHIP!! as well as started a jigsaw mum brought down for me.

In the evening Kit and later Ben came up for a while.

Yesterday morning I completely tided up the fish tank corner of the garage.  Things had been dumped there for months and you had to climb over things just to feed the fish.  Felt so much better to be able to go up to the fish tank without tripping over anything.

I also cleaned the kitchen and then almost completely cleared out the fridge.  I pulled everything out except the condiment shelf, cleaned the shelves, threw out some yukky stuff (including something of Potty's that had rotted in sealed plastic cups that once they were out of the fridge expanded and went off with a BANG - it was soooo loud it made my ears ring and I screamed.. Stu put ear plugs in and took the other cup outside and popped it out there), and then rearranged everything back into the fridge in an orderly fashion.  Felt so much better to have a clean fridge and be able to find everything again!

Then mum arrived back from Junee so didn't get anything much done after that.  Leftover roast pork for dinner.

Today while mum was out and about I spent probably six hours tidying the "workshop" corner of the garage in front of my car.  Mostly just organising all the crap that had just been dumped there over the past year or so.  Felt so much better to be able to walk around that area of the garage without tripping over anything, and be able to find stuff again.

Also did a wander to feed Doc's cat, and pickup a key to feed Annie's cat.

Last night was one year since dad died.  I've been listening to the list of "Dad songs" I posted last year.

Mum is doing well, and loving her new life in the retirement village.

There's some things I miss about dad (his technological knowledge and some of his quirks), and some things I certainly don't (his grumpy personality).  

I still have dreams that he's still alive, or that he recovered and came home to a house/garage that we'd cleared out of all his stuff.  The number of times I said "sorry dad" while we were getting rid of his stuff.. I think it haunted me slightly.

Yeah so what a marathon effort that cleanout was!  It took us about sixteen months, although it really accelerated in the last two months when mum had to move out.  I well and truly lost count of how many trips to Sydney I did!

So spent a couple of hours downstairs today looking around at all the stuff and taking lots of photos of it all.  Correction, photos of a fraction of it all.  What I thought was going to be big job is going to be a *huge* job.  And the little brother definitely needs to inspect it all as well before we even consider getting rid of any of it.  That, and waiting to get a more definitive diagnosis about what's happening with dad.

We went and saw Dad again this afternoon, and he was still depressed.

Then went to Ikea, but the thing I wanted to buy was out of stock - doh!!