Ten years ago today the mother and I left for a six week trip to Europe.

We did two organised tours - a Reformation Tour of Germany, France and Switzerland with Bruce Ballantine-Jones, and an Insight Vacations tour of Scandanavia; and we had a couple of days in Salzburg in between them.  

It was a pretty great trip and we saw lots of cool things.

Last year I got my photos online finally.  

So here's the trip! Enjoy!

Sunday.  28th.  Cooked up an epic lamb roast ($22/kg from Tathra Place in the markets) and veggies for dinner, then watched The Big Year (which some random dude on our holiday told us about).  It was a bit "serious" for all the comedic actors in it, but kinda cool.

Monday.  Slept relatively ok I think, for a change.  Spent much of the day geotagging holiday photos.  Stu also pulled out all the bedroom furniture to vacuum nearly 18 years worth of dust behind stuff...

Had some of Lily's Youfoodz for dinner.

Watched Professor T 1.5 together then I watched Taxi Driver which I've never actually seen.

Tuesday.  Took ages to get to sleep, epic restless.  Finished geotagging holiday photos.

In the afternoon we went to Palmerville for a walk and to do some birdwatching.  This Bell 206L-1 (VH-OAS) chopper had been buzzing around Canberra all day, Evoenergy checking powerlines.  

I hadn't walked along the new pathway yet

Such a fun shot..

Finished off Lily's Youfoodz dinners and the last of the salad

Then watched Professor T 1.6 together (end of season one) then I watched a doco on the Titanic - Titanic: Digital Resurrection.  Considering the effort they went to to digitise the ship, the computer graphics they also used were pretty cheesy.  Interesting though.

Wednesday.  April Fools!  Slept okish, only awake for an hour or two around 3.  Back to work.  Yeup definitely an April Fool.  Spent most of the day catching up on chats and emails.  

The sweetie cooked up a heap of veggies and I fried up some lamb, then we watched Professor T 2.1.

You can tell the sweetie was cooking - the potatoes are all lined up nicely ;)

Then spent the rest of the evening putting up reviews of all the places we stayed on our holiday in booking.com.

Thursday.  Took ages to get to sleep.  Mostly still catching up on crap at work.  Had a gin night at drinks but hardly anyone else turned up.  Sad times. 

Bus home (trying to save petrol) then made pizzas for dinner and watched Professor T 2.2.

Friday.  Good Friday.  Although not so good for Jesus back in the day.  Slept mostly ok.  Didn't get much done all day sigh.  Pretty much a nothing day.  We did go for another walk in the afternoon to Palmerville to try out Stu's new toy (all the bird pics I'll put in another post one day).

Kievs for dinner then Professor T 2.3.  I then watched "Challenger Disaster: Lost Tapes" from 2015, which was mostly footage around Christa McAuliffe.. (as an aside, I didn't know that her backup, Barbara Morgan, later went on to be a full-blown astronaut in her own right.. cool!).  Eerily, the peeps that are on their way to the moon right now used booster rockets from the shuttle programme.. that wouldn't be freaky .. at. all.   .. !!)

Saturday.  Only awake for an hour or two around midnight.  Spent literally the entire morning doing housework.  Sigh.  Went out with EB to have a look at the new road around the north/east side of the airport which was pretty cool, had a good long drive around the area, then went in to Quangers for lunch at the Royal Hotel (had a very nice caesar salad).

Air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport

Did you know they're closing down the air traffic control tower at Canberra Airport and replacing it with cameras done with remote control..?  What could possibly go wrong?

Swing bridge in Queanbeyan

Caesar salad at the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan

It's such a shame they haven't setup any sort of dedicated planespotting area with all the new works

Stu cooked a tuna bake and veggies for dinner then we watched Professor T 2.4.  I then watched Lantana which I'd never seen before.  Lots of unlikeable characters behaving badly.  Hurrah.

Easter Sunday.  He is risen!  Slept mostly okish I think.  Woke up 6am!  But 5am in reality. Sigh. Didn't achieve really anything all day.  Stu took Stumpy outside for a walk.

In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for afternoon tea and catchup with the family.  Pebbles wasn't being *quite* the scardey cat...

Leftovers for dinner.  The just-past full moon was rising and it was like, hey there's four peeps in between me and that bright shiny thing!  Pretty cool!  Then watched Molly's Game, which I'd seen on a plane but Stu hadn't seen.  

Monday.  Slept mostly okish.  Got a bunch of Europe 2016 photo stuff done, and a heap of jigsaw.  Stu has cooked up a bunch of veggies to have with some leftover lamb for dinner.

Thursday.  26th.  Got home from our holidays around 17:00ish.  I started the download of photos from the Canon and my phone and also the GPS and blogged the last couple of days of the holiday.  The sweetie ordered pizzas and we watched Professor T 1.2.

Friday.  Awake from 3:40 hurrah. Did some unpacking and house stuff. Went outside to check on my plants and was horrified to discover my chrysanthemum is dead. Sigh. It'd obviously had some issues previously, but when I got to it it was bone dry and all the green leaves (and little flower buds) had dried out.  I chucked it under the awing to get a good soaking and I'm just HOPING that there'll be something left alive in it to send out some new shoots.

Not so problematic..

Apparently we had a lot of rain...

Everything else was fine though, thanks Tony.  Didn't stop me being zombie tired *and* depressed though.

Got some stuff done but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I did get some pretty amazing support out of Region media though. Their RSS feed stopped working at the end of February (which I didn't notice because we were travelling and I wasn't really keeping up with most of my feeds). Looks like they were blocking automated clients - it still worked in a browser. Anyways I took a punt on their support address and emailed them, and shortly afterwards got a mail back saying they'd fixed it. .. !! .. And sure enough they had! I was impressed :) Kievs for dinner then Professor T 1.3.

Saturday.  So had an earlyish night and thought I got to sleep ok, but then woke up at 4:11 for a couple of hours. Sigh. So an hour late starting my day. Not as zombie tired though so that was useful - was able to process (rotate and rename) all my Canon photos from the holiday and back them up. Also started going through receipts/statements to figure out how much the holiday cost. Hint: it was a lot. We spent over $800 on petrol! Eeep! In the afternoon we went over to Annie's for a while which was nice. And brought home seven tv dinners that Lily had bought by mistake and couldn't eat (and no one else wanted).

Had said tv dinners for dinner (they were tasty!) and watched Professor T 1.4.

Then I watched Elio which was a bit of fun, but really just a fun kids movie. "Your disk is muted" haha.  Also watched a video Dave2 linked to about how Pixar is so fundamentally different now.

Sunday.  Bed normal time, awake for chunks of the night sigh. So I was fairly tired although not completely zombie tired. Ploughed through some of the todo list, and finished sorting holiday finances. 43% went on accommodation, 19% on food and drink, 10% on booze, 9% on petrol, 6% on transport (mostly the ferry to Kangaroo Island), 4% on entrance costs to things, and little bits on donations, tips, fees, laundry, parking and some I counted as gifts (for Tony as well as taking peeps out for dinner/drinks).

Sunday.  28th.  Stu wanted karaage chicken pizza for dinner. Whoops. Stranger Things 5.7.

Monday.  Busy morning of all the things. Decided to have another go at attaching the CanoScan 8400F on my main windoze 11 machine. I know it definitely used to work on windoze 11, but the last time I tried it it refused to work. So then I wondered if maybe I was just too impatient - anything I plug in with USB takes a full minute to appear to windoze. No idea why. It only seems to happen on my computer, has from day one. Anyways. It works. So all these years I could have been scanning on my main computer and not have to turn on my old computer to scan. Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Leftover turkey and veggies for dinner then watched Enola Holmes 2. Yay for dementia, even though we only watched it three years ago, I really couldn't remember *anything* about it.

Tuesday.  Early night, slept relatively well, but then of course awake from fivish. Realised my phone hadn't charged all night. Replugged the cable. Nothing. Then realised the wifi was off. Rebooted my phone but nothing worked. Then I noticed the clock radio was off. Great. Must have tripped a circuit. Yeah. At ~23:00. So half the house including three fish tanks and the fridge/freezer were off all night. Ice cubes were still frozen though so all good there. Most likely it's the old heater in the downstairs two foot. Although I replaced it a while back but never removed the old one, but now I can't remember which was the old one and which was the replacement. Will need to stick a thermometer in there (the old one wasn't heating properly). Also off was the cooler, so ran it on fan mode for an hour or so to try and cool down the house a little before today's 34C madness. Later Stu said he'd had an alert that the grid had gone offline, so maybe it was something to do with that. Not great that it would trip a circuit flipping to battery mode though. Another quiet day of fish and scanning and dotz.

In the afternoon went over to M&M's for a pool party/bbq New Year's Eve Eve which was nice.

It threatened to rain.  Then it did.  A lot.

I haven't seen these since I was in primary school!!!

Wednesday.  New Years Eve.  We're officially a quarter of the way through the century.  Mediocre sleep. Day of reflection (writing up my year in review post), slide scanning, Lego, dotz.

With a family of currawongs demolishing the plums on the self-seeded plum tree.  

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth,"[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death'[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Finished re-reading the New Testament today.  The verses above remind of The Holy City from carols, so fun timing.  A new heaven and a new earth will be pretty awesome.  But for now we can just be content with a new year...

Photos to be added when I download them on the weekend.

Sunday.  21st.  Got home from Sydney, had a little bit of leftovers for second dinner.  Then watched part 2 of the GameStop documentary.

Monday.  Slept somewhat better. Back to work though. After two loads of washing and tidying the kitchen of course. Sigh. Did up the finances from the Christmas Party. Ended up with ~$14 leftover to carry forward to next year. Not too bad. Fixed up the rest of our tickets and reports dashboards in the afternoon. Stu cooked up some yellow curry vegetables for dinner which were quite nice. Finished the GameStop documentary. Stressed at how little time I have for everything. The todo list I started in September for the end of the year is only like 1/2-3/4 done. Still heaps of photo stuff I never got anywhere near completing. And now I have a whole heap more photo stuff to do. And I have to spend all my days at work. Sigh.

Tuesday.  Revelation 5:12 "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
Awake from 4ish. Did some music before work. Instead of any housework or weeding. Tried to get a pac file working at work. Made one change that worked but couldn't get another change working, so that was pretty frustrating. Then looked at another cleanup job I want to do. Leftover pork for dinner then watched part 2 on the pirates - Grace O'Malley (we watched part 1 on Francis Drake the other night but don't remember which night). Did some processing of my Canon photos and did some writing up of the past few days.

Wednesday.  Christmas Eve.  Okish sleep. Fixed a couple of scripts that were broken at the last upgrade - they changed Display_Name to DisplayName. Thanks. Not. Probably need to check a few of my other scripts as well. Other than that mostly just tidying up. Made a peppermint slice after work. Possibly added a bit too much water to the icing as it didn't really set. Or maybe I was just too impatient. Probably that. 

Did some Christmas music on the sax. I can get through them without too many mistakes now. Leftover pork and potato bake for dinner. Then we watched Die Hard 2 and the Carols by Candlelight. The Melbourne carols are degenerating a bit these days into the silliness that the Sydney carols have. I haven't watched the Sydney carols in years because it's just too cheesy. And of course all the good songs that you could sing along to get played during the ad breaks.  Played Carols bingo..

Denis Walter..

Tim Campbell and Paulini..

Hallelujah chorus..

Casey Donovan..

Silvie Paladino..

Marina Prior singing Angels We Have Heard on High..

David Hobson singing The Holy City.. apparently his 13th time..

Uncle Doug Heywood..

Fun times!! We missed Ode to Joy and All I Want for Christmas is You at the beginning though.

Thursday.  Christmas Day. 
Revelation 11:15 "The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever."
The timing of reading that was pretty funny..!
Slept like crap. Spent most of the morning prepping and cooking lunch (even though I did a bunch of prep yesterday afternoon). We had an epic feast of roast turkey, blue cheese potato bake, brussels sprouts with bacon and hazelnuts, sweet potato, sage and onion stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce and garlic bread (not shown).

There may have been a little bit of leftovers..

Note to self: don't follow the instructions on the box and put a frozen turkey in a baking dish in a hot oven...

Pretty annoyed about that, we use that baking dish all the time.  #grunt.

Did some Christmas music on the sax and did some dotz. Stu went over to Annie's (I didn't go because Lily was sick and I didn't want to then get sick for my only week off I get at home all year). I didn't even eat that much lunch but I felt full all afternoon and didn't feel like dinner. Dinner was a couple of beers and the last of the mulled wine. Watched Enola Holmes to see Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

Friday.  Slept okish. Went to Coles hoping to get some eggnog but sadly they'd sold out. Did pick up a few other things we needed though. Christmas stuff is not on special yet though.  It was super quiet both on the roads and at Jamo, so that was nice. Came home and tidied the house. Did some rescanning of Mum's slides. In the afternoon was Dotz and Lego, and watched David sailaway.

Leftovers for dinner I think, then Stranger Things 5.5. Tried for an early night. Failed.  Didn't help that I was getting ready for bed when I remembered to go look at some Christmas lights down the road.

Satruday.  Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. With going out for lunch for Tony's birthday in the middle.

I got the cheeseburger - w/ house pickles, American mustard, ketchup and diced spanish onion with salad ($23), only the photo I took never saved so you'll have to take my word for it.  Here's the sweetie instead with his fish and chips with apple slaw.

Neither of us were hungry after lunch so we just had a bit of garlic bread for dinner. Stranger Things 5.6. Managed a slightly early night.

Sunday.  Slept relatively well. Repeat of my ideal retirement day - getting house stuff and fish stuff and some photo stuff done in the morning, Lego and dotz in the afternoon. Also some music.

In the last couple of weeks windoze has changed its definition of sort by date.  It used to sort my in tray of photos to blog by the date taken in combination with the date modified timestamp, so I could view the folder in real chronological order.  Now it sorts by date modified.  Which is super annoying because now I can't view them as I want to blog them.  Funnily enough Chrome still does it the good way, which is dumb that it's different, but also good because otherwise it'd be a pain trying to figure out the correct order to post photos.

Also annoyingly the turd neighbours that had the staffies that killed each other have gotten themselves another barky dog.. it was barking for ages again last night and today although has been quiet most of the afternoon.  Damien's wife three doors down yells at it sometimes to some effect.  But I was getting stressed today that this would be my new normal.  

Watched bits and pieces of the carols again on YouTube while posting this so that was a bit of fun!

Sunday.  16th.  Stu cooked up a pasta bake and a cabbage bake to use up a bunch of things in the fridge that needed using up.  

Then some Stranger Things (I think).  

Monday.  Logged onto work to be NEIL for the morning and did a handover after lunch. Got paperwork done for the proxy cutover change that I'd prepped but would be leaving to Con/Ward to do.  

Tuesday.  Holidays!

Thursday.  27th.  Got home around lunch time.  Lost one potted strawberry plant due to the heat and epic WIND.  But look at the haul!!  

Thanks Tony for looking after all our plants and animals :)  Spent some time unpacking, downloading GPS and photos etc.  Later in the afternoon the sweetie dropped me off so I could get a blood test done, then I dropped into work drinks.  KFC for dinner then Stranger Things 4.3.

Friday.   Got to sleep briefly but then awake for a while because I was HOT. Was looking at Kiama temperatures before bed, so didn't realise it was actually going to get *cold* overnight, but it was lovely! Had a busy day just trying to get caught up with life, including taking last year's Christmas party cans for recycling (finally!!) and getting a bone density scan (which they could do *today* which was pretty impressive.. I thought I'd have to wait weeks).

Kievs and some garlic bread I made with bread from the last club function leftovers. Stranger Things 4.4.

Saturday.  Slept like crap. Took ages to get to sleep, then awake from 1 for ages then awake from 4 for ages. Sigh. Got ready and headed out to the club.

John had cut a Christmas tree which we setup and then I spent an hour or so decorating. Good fun and it looked super cool.

Then R&F turned up and I helped all afternoon with the cooking. The night went really well.

Sunday.  Slept okish (mostly ok til around 4:45 then awake for a while). Went up to the shed and spent an hour or so tidying up and washing up.

Had to evict this five-legged grasshopper first..

Then home. And spent much of the afternoon putting up our Christmas tree and decorations.

I've been a zombie today and have achieved very little.  I have, however, blogged my recent trip to Adelaide.

"Been away, sorry". 

"I'll upload my travelogue prolly tomorrow"

bwaahahaah

Nearly 21 years later...

My parents and I went up to Queensland in April 2004 for Uncle Colin's wedding with Sandra.  We took two days to drive up, and two to drive back, with the wedding in the middle.

Today I finally posted blog entries for the holiday and the wedding.

Queensland 2004
Colin and Sandra's Wedding

Thursday.  Boxing Day.  Took a while to get to sleep but then slept mostly ok.  Weeding first up then planned out my todo list for the break.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Pizza for dinner (from Dominos - eep!) then Death in Paradise 11.1.

Sole survivor mini capsicum

I did the Plonk beer advent calendar again this year which was a lot of fun.

Friday.  Slept mostly ok, except for the storm around 04:00.  It wasn't very big and it was very quick to pass over, but I did still get up and disconnect the computer.  Alternated between house stuff, Lego stuff, dotz and blog reading.  Leftover Christmas Eve feast for dinner.  Then watched a documentary on AlphaGo - the first computer program to be able to beat top level human players.  

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Weeding before it got hot.  Then got a random Blue Screen of Death which was a bit upsetting.

Alternating All The Things, although didn't get very far through it before we headed out for a big pantry shop.  Brunch/shopping/lunch and three hours of my day just GONE. Sigh.  Luv-a-duck Peking duck for dinner.

Death in Paradise 11.2 then back into Amazing Race celebrity edition (v2).

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Hit 15000 in Candy Crush (nearly 3000 levels this year, 5000 in the past 18 months).  I really want to stop because the ad experience is just so trash, but what else am I going to do when I wake up at 5:30am??  Probably should delete photos off my phone.  I have like 60000 photos and the thing is nearly full.  

Maccas at Emu Bank was super quiet in the morning and there were no kids in store.  Parking was easy everywhere around Belco.  Shops were (generally) uncrowded.  I guess everyone must be down the coast.  All The Things.  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3.

Monday.  Slept ok, but awake 5:30.  Feeling the same Monday morning stress I feel every week.  Yes I didn't have to go to "work" but my todo list is a full time job and my break is too damned short to get it all done.  As of 9:15 I'd been at it two hours and hadn't had any "fun" yet.  Sigh.  All The Things.  I swear my todo list is only getting longer not shorter.  I've barely had any time for "fun" this break.  Having to file all the Lego and do my blog year in review certainly didn't help.  Lost another congo tetra.  Resealed the shower.  Over the past couple of months mould had been growing *behind* the sealant.  We're guessing water is seeping down from the grout further up.   So pulled all that off, exit-moulded it, cleaned/dried it, and resealed a lot further up the wall.  Even managed to use the existing tube of sealant.  Did I mention I've barely had any time for fun this break?  Leftover Christmas feast for dinner.  Death in Paradise 11.3, then the finale of The Amazing Race (celebrity edition v2).

Tuesday.  New Years Eve.  Took ages to get to sleep - restless legs.  Then awake early.

Can you see?

A full on RAT was under the daisies when I went on my daily easter egg hunt to gather lemons.

Morning was mostly housework.  And Oh The Humidity.  And then all the blogging.  Have I mentioned I've barely had time for fun this break?  I did finish filing the Bricklink order though.  We lost another line on the ExtendaLine this morning.  This time it jammed into position part way out.  But it won't let me extend all the way, so can only go half way now.  Won't go in *or* out.  Doesn't bode well for having to wash sheets.  Why is everything so crap these days?  #grunt.

Sunday.  18th.  When we were in the butcher we asked about the "rump cap" they had in the fridge (I'd never heard of it).  Like would you slow cook it or roast it.  He said to roast it.  So we did.  And it was amazing!  So tender and flavourful.  Loved it.

Then watched Iron Man 3.  I would argue that anyone with a huge house like that in such a prominent location, the owner would probably be "public knowledge".  ie, giving out your address would be a bit pointless because any sort of basic search would probably turn it up.  I could be wrong of course.  Also, the movie failed with its assumed knowledge.  There were mentions of "New York" but the last time I saw Iron Man in New York it was for his expo.  I think there was one mention of aliens.  But yeah pretty much a fail in terms of filling people in that had only seen the first two Iron Man movies and none of the rest of it.  I still have no idea what happened to him.

Monday.  Stu had another nosebleed overnight but this time it went *everywhere* :(  Didn't sleep well after that.  Another busy day.  Toulouse sausages and salad for dinner.  Spent two hours uploading Tassie html to the blog.  Was hoping to get it all done.  Only got half way.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day.  Finished getting Tassie photos online, well at least the day photos, not the food/hotel ones.  I still need to fix the style sheet and scripts on all my blogs so it's hardcoded https so they'll render properly.  In my copious free time.  Sigh.  But @kapgar and @blogography have both managed to post comments recently, I thought they'd either stopped reading or given up posting on my broken site heh.  Hi!!

Wednesday and Thursday.  Bit of a blur.  Super busy days at work.  We did sneak out for a Lighty lunch though.  Their caesar salad is pretty epic - more bacon and cheese than lettuce!

Friday.  Slept like crap.  Busy day trying to catch up on tickets.  

After work was Dark Matter in the Pub with EB. 

It was interesting but OMFG Too. Damned. LOUD!!  We used ear plugs.  I think I should keep some in my bag permanently.

See!  I'm not the only one that thought it was too loud - three or maybe four other people in view blocking their ears as well!!

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Finished culling Queensland photos.  Finished doing Tassie food photos.  House and Lego stuff.

Kievs for dinner (that I got from Coles during the week).  Watched Miss Potter.  I had no idea what it was going to be about.. until I saw a picture of Peter Rabbit heh.  Quite a sweet movie.

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Felt totally flat all day.  Didn't feel like doing anything much.  Sigh.  Didn't turn the heater on this morning, it was 17C when I got up.  Did some photo stuff, Lego, music, food shopping.