Random Thoughts of a Geordie Down-Under

Cat on bed

2010-12-02T16:32:00.000+10:00

I would have got to sleep much more easily last night if my big black flopsy cat hadn't climbed on top of me. Big hefty lump weighing me down. Purring in my ear. Little vocal pirrups now and theng. Pushing his cheek forcefully into my hand in the hope that I would give him some attention. Then I felt his pin prick claws on the bare skin of my arm. That annoyed me. I pushed him away. He came back.

Eventually he settled on the bed next to me, some quiet little purrs still happening but otherwise not really bothering me. He looked so cute I just couldn't help myself. I reached over and gave him a little pat.

Big mistake. Purrs got louder again. He sidled up closer and snuggled in once again pushing his head into my hand.

I ignored him.

He got the message. Or got bored and settled down to sleep next to me.

I slowly drifted off to sleep, my lovely cuddly affectionate pussy cat dozing next to me.

Then...

DOOF! Cat fully launched himself onto my head and purred loudly in my ear. Twice!

Hundreds denied vote in UK election

2010-05-07T21:16:00.001+10:00

It seems I am not the only British citizen unable to vote in this historic general election.

There are probably other disorganised and tardy ex-pats who didn't manage to get their registration organised in time. And, as I alluded to in a previous post, there were also those who forgot to register because no one bothered to knock on their door and hand-deliver them a form, as has usually happened in the past^*. More shockingly it seems that hundreds of people who actually were registered were turned away from polling stations at 10pm BST when voting closed.

Some of those people had been queuing for 3 hours!

Imagine that. You get home from work. You make the tea, feed and bath the kids, get them to bed, tidy up and do the dishes, pack the kids' school bags for the next day, maybe have a quick shower, sit down in front of the telly with a cup of tea and then think, "oh I'll just pop up the road to the school and cast my vote." You get there and there's a queue. "Never mind. It's pretty important. I mean, we don't want a hung parliament, do we?" You wait 45 minutes. Someone comes out and says "sorry love, voting's closed."

WTF??

It seems that those with ballot papers were still allowed in to vote but still... I find this absolutely shockingly outrageous. I have NEVER had to queue to vote. I've always just popped up the road after tea or on my way home from work and cast my vote. I think I've usually had a ballot paper, mind.

For a country that whinges at every election about low voter turn-out, that still hasn't managed to figure out a way to allow voting, or even registering to vote, online, this is ridiculous. Especially considering the expected hung parliament.

For the full story see Election 2010: Voters turned away as polls close

^* Strangely, the website with the original story (www.general-election-2010.co.uk) seems to have since disappeared.

Voting in the UK in the too hard basket

2010-04-20T14:24:00.000+10:00

I've given up. I really wanted to vote in this election but besides leaving everything until the last minute I've decided it's just too hard. Actually, it's probably because I've left everything until the last minute that it's too hard.

Basically, I'd like my Dad to vote as my proxy. He's got to go and vote himself anyway so it makes sense. Happy for my Mam to do it too. I mean instead. Obviously they can't both do it, given that we only get one vote each. Anyway, you get the picture.

The other option is a postal vote but today is the closing date for registrations for that, then they have to send out the ballot paper which I then have to fill in and get back to them before voting closes on election day. So, I think it's probably a bit late for that. Although I might still try my luck at faxing it through.

The problem with the proxy vote is that I have to register to vote with the electoral registration office that I was last registered with. This is in London. My parents are in the north-east. And frankly, when I move back to England this is probably where I'll be based. So I'd rather vote here than London, thanks. (I don't even remember which address in London as I moved about 9 months before I left the UK and I don't remember voting after that. But that's not to say I didn't.) There doesn't seem to be anywhere that I can register a change of address. So, if you don't register at your new address before you leave the country you're permanently forced to vote in your old constituency. It kind of makes sense. But not really.

So, it's all been thrown into the too hard basket. Which is a shame as it looks like an interesting election.

I'll do my research anyway and try my luck with a postal vote. So far, based upon looks alone, I think Nick Clegg looks the most prime ministerial, with David Cameron a close second.

So, maybe what I'll do is use this blog as a means to try to influence fellow Brits to vote the way I think I would vote. To summarise, here are the scores at the end of the first round:

Based upon the party leader's prime ministerial looks:

Conservatives 2
Labour 1
Liberal Democrats 3

I need more time Gordon!

2010-04-19T19:38:00.002+10:00

Here's the thing. I live in Australia. I am an Australian. I'm also British and I want to live in Britain again some day. So I have a vested interest in the government of both countries. In Australia, I am forced to vote, with the threat of a fine should I abstain, although truth be told, I know people who have missed many elections and I have yet to see any of them be prosecuted.

Britain, on the other hand, is a different story. I keep missing general elections. Last time I tried to register to vote by post only to realise I hadn't given myself enough time. I vowed that it wouldn't happen again. This time, I figured I'd register to vote by proxy and get my Dad to do it. I have no idea who I would vote for but I am a bit excited by the fact that the Lib Dems are in the running as they have usually got my vote in the past. Except for 1997 when I jumped on the New Labour bandwagon and voted Blair in and then stayed up all night to watch the results come in. Students. Pah!

So, when did Gordon Brown announce the general election? April 6th. When did I find out about it? This weekend. Almost 12 days hence. I think I kind of gathered that there was something of that ilk going on but to be honest they've talked about the possibility of an election for months. Make that years. And then there's all the other crap that's been going on, such as getting over a cold only to be knocked down by a stomach bug. And I'm super busy with everything going on in my life and haven't been keeping a very close eye on the news. So it was only this weekend that I actually looked up when the election was. May 6th. Ooohh... close.

Today I went online to register to vote by proxy. I would have done it sooner only the website didn't work on the iPhone so I had to wait until I had a moment on the computer. Do you know when you have to have your registrations in by? 20th April! That's tomorrow!! That's only 2 weeks after Mr Brown made the announcement. With the international postal service the way it is you have to be darn quick to make that deadline. And there is no other way to register. So, I can't vote.

I suppose I should just fill the forms in anyway in advance of the next election. I'm assuming that I will only have to go through this rigmarole once and not every election. But I can't actually be bothered to read the forms and find out. There's no incentive now that I know I can't vote. Oh well.... live and learn.

Update: Seems I'm not the only one having trouble registering to vote. And this likely lot are living in the UK too so they have even less of an excuse for not getting their act together. As an added bonus, my first name is mentioned in this article. It's always nice seeing one's name in print. Even if it isn't technically my name, it's the name belonging to the borough of East Lindsey. There you go, there it is again. Lovely. It doesn't happen very often for me. Usually it's misspelt. Lindsay or something. Unless you're looking at a website about Fleetwood Mac. Then you might get my first name and a little bit of my surname, Lindsey Buck, thanks to Lindsey Buckingham. Oooh... I almost feel another google me coming on.

There's nothing like a good blog post.

2010-04-16T13:12:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since I bothered with a good random Geordie Down-Under post. Indeed I have sadly neglected my old mate for my younger babies, In Production and lindseybuckle.com. But this was worth sharing.

Brief intro: Tourism Australia have a new campaign. Someone's spoofed it.

This site contains photos, in the spirit of the Demotivational Posters, that basically take the piss out of Australia. Well, someone's got to do it. Some of them are a bit wrong, in my opinion, such as the photo of Lindy and Azaria Chamberlain with the caption "There's nothing like a dingo eating your baby". I mean, the poor love died for chris' sake. But there are lots of very funny ones, such as "There's nothing like an oversized boxing crocodile" or "There's nothing like birds that will eat your face."

Check it out. It's in blog format so there should be some new uploads now and then.

And just to be fair, here's the link to the original campaign. It's not as funny though.

A slightly belated Happy 2010

2010-01-06T19:36:00.004+10:00

Yes, that's right. I've ditched the i today. I tried to think of something witty but it only ended up sounding trite: iHappy New Year; i2010; iSurvived the Noughties... that sort of thing.

2010 is a number rather pleasing to the eyes, don't you think? It's a bit futuristic looking. I finally feel like we have arrived in the 21st Century. The previous years just didn't seem quite worthy of that accolade but 2010, two thousand and ten, or twenty ten, however you say it, is a fine and proud number. Incidentally, I have yet to place myself in one camp or the other and continue to use the two monikers interchangeably.

After having a wonderful early evening barbecue with close friends and our offspring, then arriving home by 8pm to dispatch said offspring to the Land of Nod, I spent my New Years Eve under the Christmas tree, reminiscing about New Years gone by. I didn't go too far back... just 10 years. It seemed appropriate somehow to reflect on the first decade of the millennium, especially considering the entrance into it was so highly anticipated and celebrated. Besides which, I'm not sure I can remember any further back than that and it hurts my head if I try.

So here's a quick rundown of my past ten years New Years.

1999/2000

A highly decadent, indulgent and intoxicated affair. A grand party in London in which the DJ marked the turn of the millennium with Robbie Williams' "Angels", which was enthusiastically sung along to by all present. One couldn't help but wonder if he had selected the wrong track number. Surely he meant to play "Millennium"? The evening was ended catching up with another group of friends and watching the sun rise, no mean feat in London in the dead of winter. Incidentally, the night before was the last time I lay under the Christmas tree, this time with a bottle of wine, four friends (it was a big tree) and garbled conversation.

2000/2001

A rather dull New Year's Eve with my then boyfriend on holiday in South Africa. We went to what could have been a great party if only we'd known anyone else there. I wore a t-shirt proudly declaring "Keith Tweed" in silver letters, after Cherie decided we should all do a Madonna-Britney and wear t-shirts with each others' names on them. Shame all my friends were in London then. I was the only saddo in South Africa wearing one. Still, it did make me feel rather connected to my missed friends.

2001/2002

My housemates and I had no plans whatsoever. My boyfriend had no plans either. Yet somehow we managed to do completely different things. He went to a White party on the west side of London, bloody miles away. Stupid idea to wear white at New Year, especially when you're a red wine drinker. So me and me mates walked to a local nightclub instead. It was crap.

2002/2003

My last New Year at home before The Big Trip. I went for a curry with my parents (arghghghg) before heading to my Gran's for a G&T. Cheryl phoned me in tears telling me how much she was going to miss me when I left. I drank the least alcohol on any New Years Eve since I was 18, possibly younger. Still, we'd had a lovely frosty walk earlier in the day and saw a sparrowhawk catch a finch. Marvellous.

2003/2004

First New Year in Australia. An Australian friend was over from England so we went along to a party in a holiday apartment with his mates, having spent the early part of the evening with Toby's brother and his wife (and their friends), who had to stay at home because they had a teeny tiny baby. We watched some fireworks from the apartment which was quite high up. Surprisingly, it was a bit chilly on the balcony. I started downing cocktails and was having a rather nice time until Toby dragged me home not long after midnight because he wanted to go for a surf at 5am. Bo-oring!

2004/2005

We had just arrived on Lady Musgrave Island for what turned out to be the holiday of a lifetime. After a day of travelling and setting up camp we were knackered and in bed by 10pm. I was a bit sad as this was the Christmas my dad's sister passed away.

2005/2006

This turned out to be the best New Year's Eve since 1999/2000. We were on a beach holiday at Angourie in New South Wales. We had a surprisingly large party, given we were from out of town. Oscar was filming the party scene for Surfer Sutra. I, having already played my part (beach babe, of course), was kicked out along with the other beach babe and the disciples. We took a bottle of gin and a camera to amuse ourselves. We sang 80s songs and took stupid photos. Blue Steel and Angry Pirates were born and haunted us for many years to come.

2006/2007

In UK and I became a godmother for the first time, to my gorgeous godson, Joshua, son of my oldest friend, Catherine. As Catherine and John have kids and we'd been out all day (and John was bladdered) we stayed in that night. We attempted to watch a film but realised we were just staying up for the sake of it and went to bed. Watched the fireworks in bed then slept. Not very rock n roll.

2007/2008

First New Year as a married woman. First New Year in our new home. It was also Scott & Lucie's first New Year in their new home. We celebrated by having absolutely no plans. Ended up having dinner at Scott & Lucie's then headed up to Point Cartwright with a bottle of champagne to watch the Mooloolaba fireworks that never happened because of the terrible weather. Ended up hanging out at Point Cartwright with said bottle of bubbly in the driving, torrential rain. And wind. Gusty, gale-force wind. Lovely.

2008/2009

Humungously pregnant. Had dinner at Libbette's then a few of us drove to Point Cartwright and watched the Mooloolaba fireworks. A spontaneous night that turned out rather nicely.

2009/2010

Another spontaneous "I've got no plans, you've got no plans, let's have no plans together" kind of a night with Scott and Lucie again. These are turning out to be rather good ones actually but I think that maybe next year we should endeavour to actually do something. But, as we have children we probably won't.

If you've read this far, wow! Are you procrastinating or what? Happy New Year me lovelies.

iHate Bloody Government Forms and Bureaucracy

2009-12-29T21:18:00.004+10:00

Frankly, I find it hard to believe I haven't written more angry posts about government forms, but looking back over recent entries I see it is about 15 months since my last whinge on the matter. Which isn't too long when you think about how inactive my blog has been in the last year.

However, I can think of at least one other incident in that time frame, which didn't make it into the blog world.

This was the vexation caused by the crazy decision to place the application for the Baby Bonus and a child's Medicare card on the same form, despite the fact that they are dealt with by different offices. I had no end of trouble with this. To start with, the very first question on the form told me that if I didn't already claim family assistance I must not proceed before either calling the Office of Family Assistance, or filling in a form online. The name of the form was not given and a direct link was not given either so I chose to call instead.

Well, this was back in February/March, just after the Victorian Bush Fire Tragedy and the lines were jammed with people who needed assistance, so after days and days of trying I put some effort into finding the form online. Then, I discovered that I needed to register for Online Services, only the part of the site where you register was down and, it turns out, I needed a Customer Reference Number, which I didn't have because I wasn't born here. So two problems there.

Days later, after having the phone on constant redial, I finally got through to the office only to have some woman try to fob me off by telling me to fill in the form I was trying to complete in the first place. Then she tried to get me to do it online and I told her the website was broken. She wouldn't have it and told me I just needed to get a CRN and to be honest I can't really remember the details but I insisted she help me and she spent 45 minutes getting my details three times. Apparently the system kept booting her out. Then she said that my details would have to be linked to Toby's details but he was in a different location and had to be transferred over and this was as much as she could do to help me today. What?

So, I asked her to send the form that I'd been trying to get online and when it arrived it asked the same bloody question as the first form, and again, told me to phone or get online. Grrr..... I gave up. So Phoebe had no Medicare card and we couldn't claim any of her medical expenses. But that was all sorted out for me when we went to get her jabs and couldn't without a Medicare card. The doctor's receptionist sent me to the Medicare office and the lovely lady there helped me with everything.

This got me my CRN but I'm pretty sure I then had to spend about a day online completing a form to see if we were eligible for some tax benefit thing (we weren't), answering questions about everywhere I've been in the last 3 years (because that's relevant).

And now, I'm going through it all again.

The latest issue is the Child Care Rebate. The lady at daycare told me to fill this form in before my payment was due on Christmas Eve so that I could find out how much I had to pay.

Well, I tried. I spent days doing it again. I had all manner of problems, including the website going down. I had to answer the same crazy questions about all the holidays I'd been on in the last 3 years, and then I had to answer the same for Phoebe and Toby. And this is the bit that really gets me. They asked me which document I travelled on so I gave my British passport because I'd travelled more times with that than with my Aussie one. On the next page it asked me what sort of visa I had, despite the fact I had already answered a question indicating I was an Australian citizen. I assumed this was because I'd given them a foreign passport number so went back and changed it to my Australian passport number. It still asked me the same question. Don't they realise that you don't need a visa if you're a citizen? Anyway, I told them what my last visa had been (it was a mandatory question) but missed out the number (which wasn't mandatory).

When I finally finished, I was told that my claim couldn't be processed before I took proof of my citizenship and my visa into the office. I don't really see how I can show them proof of something I don't have but I'm assuming that I'll be able to explain myself and point out the stupidity of the system to the no-doubt intelligent humanoid behind the counter.

This morning I received a text message saying,

"You made a Family Assistance Online Claim on 22/12/09. Please return the requested documents ASAP if you have not already done so. Do not reply by SMS."

A bit brusque, don't you think? Some might even say rude. And very impatient. Especially given there have been two working days since 22nd and we were only 2 minutes into the third one. Nevertheless, I strolled on down to the office today, thinking that if I went to Medicare instead of Centrelink, perhaps the lovely lady could help me again and maybe explain why Medicare made out my rebate cheques, for bills I'd paid in full, to the doctors, rather than me. Yet another example of federal government department nonsense. As if I haven't paid those rather expensive doctors enough (nearly $300 in one case).

Guess what? Medicare was shut. I hopped on my bike and rode down to Centrelink, which is apparently my local Family Assistance Office. Guess what?! Shut!

So there they are, sending me demanding text messages making ridiculous requests for documents that don't exist and then they aren't even bloody there to receive the damn things. So now I have to go back again. Do you know what? I'm bloody pissed off with the whole damn thing. I suppose I am asking for money but wouldn't it just be typical if they decide we're not eligible for a rebate. I tell you what, if that happens again, I'll be a tad annoyed.

iGoogle

2009-12-17T14:54:00.006+10:00

(Yes, I did recently purchase an iPhone and as such all posts from now on will have a good old Apple iIdiom as its title. It works particularly well when the suffix is a verb.)

I haven't googled myself for a while, and after reading someone's Facebook status warning that Facebook allows your public profile to be indexed by search engines (many social networking sites do by default), it prompted me to wonder what the latest search engine results for "Lindsey Buckle" are.

I was strangely satisfied (and a tad concerned but not really that surprised) to find that the majority of results on the first page were actually me. After all I am the centre of the universe. But then there probably aren't many (if any) other Lindsey Buckles in Australia and Google probably knows where I am and assumes I'd be more interested in local results.

Obviously you can perform the search yourself but just for the purposes of fleshing out this post a bit and helping those of you too lazy to be arsed but nice enough to spend the time reading this, here is a summary.

Firstly, I'd like to complain that Google asked me if I meant "Lindsay Buckle". Jeez Google, not you as well. I do know how to spell my own name you know, even if the rest of the world doesn't.

In the top spot is this blog... but not for the reason you might first think, i.e. that this is Lindsey Buckle's blog (that's the second item), but because once upon a time, quite a while ago, I blogged about there being another Lindsey Buckle in the world. I discovered this the last time I decided to Google myself for fun. You might be relieved to know this isn't a frequent pastime of mine; the previous post was written 2 ½ years ago.

This time I discovered a third and fourth Lindsey Buckle in the world (and I seem to remember a fifth one contacting me on Facebook at some point but I'm sure she was a Lindsay so not the same really). I don't think there are any other Lindsey Buckle Clewetts though.

The third listing is my Facebook public profile, which displays my photograph, lists some friends and rather embarrassingly announces that I'm a "fan of Gi Fernando", a friend who had some silly competition with his colleagues to see who could get the most fans. I'm not sure I really want that piece of information presented to the world. I find my friend list rather random too. It isn't in alphabetical order; it isn't a list of the friends I interact with most often; it doesn't even seem to be in any sort of chronological order. It's just purely and simply random and probably isn't a good representation of my real friendship group. Oh well.

Next is some random from Arizona's Facebook page. She's blonde and is a fan of Michael Phelps. I wonder if her friend list is as random as mine.

Next we have the fourth Lindsey Buckle's Linked In profile, followed by the article in the Sunshine Coast Daily about our wedding webcast, then my Linked In public profile, which doesn't say much about me at all really. Then some PDF about the fourth Lindsey Buckle. You're hogging my Google page, dude! S/he sounds really boring; s/he's a "Senior Actuarial Analyst", whatever one of those is. People looking for me will be extremely disappointed if they find those pages instead.

Next up is a foreign Facebook page and finally a post on Mark Lynas' website discussing whether I should fly home to my family in the UK. It was interesting reading this again as I initially thought not much has changed but ended up noting some stark differences between my life then and now. The sentiment and dilemma persists though but this is a point for discussion in another post at another time.

The Surfer Sutra movie starring Toby is the first item on the second page. I hadn't watched that for years but it brought back some memories, such as the fact that I wasn't allowed a speaking part due to my out of place accent, and the party scene, where the "beach babes" and "disciples" were kicked out of our actual New Year's Eve party during filming so we consoled ourselves on the driveway with a bottle of gin, bad singing and a camera. Thus were born the Angry Pirates and Blue Steel photos, which have plagued every gathering since. I also regained the memory of what my husband looks like without facial hair and how his bald head looks a bit like an egg.

I lost interest after that.

We Wish You A Merry Chocmas

2009-12-04T20:00:00.003+10:00

Or should that be Merry Chocmassive Children with Big Fat Bellies, No Life and a Penchant for Chocolate that will haunt them until they die?

My beef? I want an advent calendar for Phoebe. I don't want it to have chocolate in it.

She's not even 10 months old. She's never tasted chocolate and I want it to stay that way for a fair few months yet. Besides which, I just don't like the idea of chocolate advent calendars, at least until she's a few years older. Eating chocolate every day is not a habit I wish to instill in my child and I want her to appreciate the magic of Christmas, not to expect some kind of gift every day.

The wonder of an advent calendar is the mystery of what is behind the door, not the knowledge that it'll be a piece of chocolate but you don't know what shape it is. Who cares what shape it is? Just give me the goddam chocolate. And then once the chocolate is gone you're left with an ugly bit of moulded plastic which obscures the picture behind it.

Don't get me wrong, when I was a kid I loved chocolate advent calendars, especially (English) Cadbury's. My sister and I would usually share one and we'd take it in turns to eat the chocolate. I seem to remember that I was even days (because my birthday is on 2nd) and she was odd days. But I hated the look of the calendar once the chocolate was gone. It seemed so used up and desolate and yes, ugly. We usually had a card one too and that was always much prettier. Auntie Betty always gave me an advent calendar for my birthday. A non-chocolate one. But we didn't have chocolate advent calendars until we were around 8 or 10 years old. They probably didn't do them before then.

So why am I whinging about this? Why not just go and get Phoebe a non-chocolate advent calendar and be done with it? Well, I tried and you would not believe how difficult, if not impossible that is, at least where I live. I know we're a little way into December but I've asked around a bit and I get the impression that the lack of such calendars is not a result of them having sold out. One shopkeeper told me that the years that he gets them in no one wants to buy them so he didn't bother this year and another assistant told me that he'd never even seen one.

What is the world coming to? Hallmark, what are you playing at?

Why do we complain about childhood obesity and then let Christmas become just one big eat-fest? For a month!! Bring back the magic of Christmas, I say. Be gone, materialism; be gone buying expensive, useless presents for the sake of it; be gone the expectation of a chocolate every day in December. Bring back the wonder of choosing the perfect gift, no matter how small or inexpensive; of wrapping it up and making it look beautiful; of placing it under the tree and admiring it in the weeks leading up to Christmas; of watching the excitement, surprise and appreciation on the face of the recipient on Christmas day; of opening the advent calendar to see what lies behind today's door and to watch it morph from one big picture into a mosaic of tiny little ones.

UK friends and family take note; if non-chocolate advent calendars still exist over there (and I sincerely hope they do or there is no promise for the future of our fat society), please send one over for us next year. Many thanks... oh and happy December!

iZumba

2009-11-29T10:04:00.003+10:00

Finally I get to update my original blog. I have been somewhat quiet of late due to my recent change in status to that of mother. It takes a fair bit of my time and I decided way back when that I didn't really want to harp on about all things baby on this blog. So I set up a new one, dedicated solely to the creation of my family and development of my children, at linsinproduction if you're interested.

So last week I got to do something non-baby related for a change. I zumbared (or whatever the past-tense verb of Zumba is, if indeed there is one). I left hubbie in charge of the tea-time household duties (i.e. putting the baby to bed), although I was a dutiful wife and had dinner cooking in the slow cooker (man, I'm good!), and I headed into town and met me bezzie (who also left her hubbie at home in charge of the baby) and we tried out the latest fitness craze to sweep the world.

If you search google for "latest fitness craze" you'll get all sorts of things, like hula-hooping, can-can dancing, skipping and even inflatable gym equipment. But they're all wrong. The latest fitness craze for anyone in Australia who watches daytime telly is quite clearly Zumba.

So, what is it? Well, without looking up the official definition, my take on it is that it is salsa dancing on speed, with a bit of street dancing or hip-hop thrown in, done to crazy South American dance music in a darkened room with disco lights. Unlike aerobics there is less pressure to conform and you're encouraged to ad lib a bit. Even the instructors ad lib, which is very confusing to a beginner.

"What's that wiggle she threw in there? I missed that. I'll do it this time instead. Oh... she didn't wiggle this time. Now I feel like a fool."

It was SO MUCH FUN!!! Which is exactly the intention. The idea is that you get fit whilst dancing and having fun. Having done, and enjoyed, both latin dancing and belly dancing, this seems to be much better for fitness. I suppose for Lucie and me the novelty of being out at night without our husbands and babies added to the pleasure.

Unfortunately, for a lactating mother still in her first year after giving birth, and with the softened ligaments that come with the territory, it is kind of hard core and a bit hip-wiggly. I spent so much time thinking about the different moves I was "supposed" to be doing that I didn't really pay enough attention to my core muscles and I put my back out. It's easing up now (a week and a visit to the physio later) but I am back to the basics of doing my hip flexor stretches every day just like when I first started physio for a similar injury about two years ago. So this week I'm resting but you can bet I'll be back zumbaring again next week. And if anyone's interested, I'd love the DVDs for Christmas so I can get really good at it.

Here are some Zumba-related links if you'd like to find out more:

Australian Zumba site

About Zumba

Zumba on Wikipedia

Zumba on YouTube

Why I love living where I live... (part 2)

2009-04-26T19:41:00.002+10:00

...because I can go swimming in a 50 metre open-air pool on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Autumn, with a wide lane all to myself (and no one in the lane next to me) and watch birds flitting over the water catching insects as I breast-stroke my way along. Absolute bliss!

See Why I love living where I live... (part 1).

Buckle has been approved

2008-10-16T10:17:00.005+10:00

I checked my citizenship application this morning and it seems they have finally approved me. I have no idea why it took them so long: almost 6 weeks. How come they didn't just take one look at my application and say "oh she looks like a nice girl; we'll have her. Tick"? But at least they have finally come to their senses and realised they would be proud to call me an Aussie.

To be honest, the thought of dual citizenship is a wee bit strange. I could never give up my British citizenship because I feel British through and through. Even though there may be some elements of the British psyche that bug me, I just can't help it. It's who I am, it's how I was brought up, it's who many of my close friends and relations are and despite its faults (and in some cases because of them) I love it.

That said, I do feel increasingly Australian. You can't live here for five years, immerse yourself in the culture and not let it rub off on you. Obviously there are things that bug me about the Australian character too, but it's much easier to fob that off saying "oh but I'm British" ("and far superior" is the inference there, I suppose). When I return to England I remember my Britishness but my Australianness is also highlighted: that's the bit that makes me different to my fellow Brits. And my Britishness makes me different to my fellow Australians. So, I'm neither one nor the other and I guess that's the way I have felt for a while now.

So, although I can never be constantly 100% Australian, or constantly 100% British, I can now be sometimes 100% either, or always 50% of both. See what I mean about it being a bit strange? I think I will still have to barrack for England in international tournaments, and the "friendly rivalry" between the two sporting nations could very well tear me apart, but I do think I have the best of both worlds.

Now I just have to see if they can squeeze me into the last citizenship ceremony of the year in 2 weeks. I'll practice my national anthem in the meantime.

Australians all let us rejoice
For we are young and free
We've wealth for toil and earth to soil.... no , that's not right
We've wealth and toil and earth and soil... nope
We've wealth and soil and Mrs Doyle
Preparing buns for tea... no hang on, that's Ireland.

I am a pantheist.

2008-10-09T14:10:00.003+10:00

I have just discovered that I am a pantheist. I have often struggled to define myself in religious terms. Sometimes I'm a christian (by birth, not practice), other times I am an entirely non-religious atheist and then there are times when I'm a naturalist/universalist/believe in the inter-connectedness of all things known and unknown spiritualist and why isn't there a word for this? Well, apparently there is. It's pantheism and I discovered this when reading the following passage in Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion:

A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them).

This is what most of the world's religions are: theists. Clearly, this isn't me. Although the small part of me that is Christian, the part that was christened when I was five, which clearly is a very small part of the thirty-two year-old me, still wonders if God knows when I'm naughty and will send me to hell as punishment, and can be known to make a quiet prayer when there's something I really want (or don't want) to happen. But deep down, I know it isn't going to make the blindest bit of difference. But wouldn't it be cool if there were a such thing as miracles?

A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs.

Now this is an interesting concept, and one I haven't really considered. However, as Carl Sagan said, "if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." Gosh, how I laughed when I read that. Still tickles me.

Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.

So there you go. Dawkins does go on to argue that such "believers", if they can indeed be called as such should refrain from referring to their metaphorical spiritual force as "God":

The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.

I am happy not to call my interconnecting energy God, but I would like a name for it. However, for now I am happy to put a name to my general belief. Pantheism. I shall now go google and wiki it just to be sure that that's what I am. I'm only up to page 41 of the book so there's a good chance I could change my mind by the end of it but "sexed-up atheism"? I can live with that.

How could I forget?

2008-09-15T15:18:00.005+10:00

Silly me! Of course I have something to report... well not exactly yet but the thing is about two weeks ago I did the Australian Citizenship test and then, after getting 100% (I'm such a girly swot), I applied for citizenship. As part of my preparation for the test Toby kept teaching me the Australian national anthem. It's surprisingly catchy. That's about as exciting and interesting as that story goes.

The website that I applied on is typical of all goverment (or at least Department of Immigration) forms; that is, bloody awful. You have to visit the site a few times in order to know where to find things and even then, when I want to check on the progress of my application I have to go through about 12 screens of the application process to find it.

UPDATE 19/09/08: Richard showed me today that there is actually a link directly to the login section to check my application about one click into the site. It's just the pages are so damn long, and it was right at the bottom, that I missed it. So, still not an entirely user-friendly site but not as bad as I thought. I take some responsibility for that particular problem.

The form itself asks for a Citizenship test reference number. The paper given to me after the test had two references numbers on it but neither of them were called Citizenship test reference numbers so it was anybody's guess as to which was the right one to use. Thankfully, my British colleague, Richard had recently applied so he helped me out a bit, although really he was just guessing too and I don't know why I listened to him anyway as his application was delayed whilst they conducted an "internal investigation".

After I'd applied I was directed to a form which detailed what I had to do next. This involved filling in a proof of identity form and getting someone important to witness it. (I immediately thought of my friend Libbette as she's a teacher and apparently none of my other friends have important enough jobs.) The form indicated I would also have to get a passport-sized photo witnessed. Passport photos are difficult things to obtain here on the Sunshine Coast, lord only knows why. No such thing as passport booths you see. You end up having to go to photograph processing places. I could only locate one place that did them in the surrounding area and it wasn't en route to anywhere for me that day. Richard told me I didn't need a photo because they took one when I went for the test so I phoned them to make sure. The lady who answered said I didn't need to send anything else in, not even the proof of identity form. She did follow this, however, with the comment, "if we do need anything else, we'll contact you," which probably means she didn't really know. Rich had been given contradictory information from people he'd spoken to on the phone so he suggested I send the form in anyway. I got a colleague who's a Commissioner for Declarations (whatever one of those is) to witness it (because I forgot to ask Libbette) but so far I haven't managed to remember to post it.

So that's that. Rich and his wife, Sue have their citizenship ceremony on October 31st. It only seems to be us Brits who are humoured by the fact that they will become Australian citizens on Halloween. I guess it's not really an acknowledged celebration here. It's summer here at that time of year and Australians don't feel the need to break the depression of increasingly shorter, darker days with random holidays such as Halloween and Guy Fawkes. That, and they have no pagan history. Not that Fawkes was a pagan but to say Australia has no history would have caused an uproar and wouldn't have been strictly true. The Halloween ceremony is the last of the year, the next one being the biggie on Australia Day on January 26th. I'm really hoping I can squeeze into the same one, or one before that as I don't fancy making my pledge in front of all those people whilst 8 and a half months pregnant. Suppose I'd better get that form sent off then.

Australians all let us rejoice for we are young and free...

'Allo 'allo

2008-09-15T14:02:00.003+10:00

I'm a little surprised at how long it's been since my last post. Work has picked up and has been quite busy and I haven't really had much to say on any other topic. Still pregnant, still painting the house, nothing much to report.

Except, I just have to tell you that there is a South African guy at work who sounds like one of the German officers from 'Allo 'Allo, either Captain Hans Geering (the one who hangs around with the fat Colonel and prounces Colonel as it is written), or Lieutenant Hubert Grubert (the one with a crush on Rene). Either way, every time he talks I have to giggle and when he talks to me it's terribly embarrassing as I struggle to keep a straight face and not immediately burst out with "Ha! Did you know you sound like one of the German dudes from 'Allo 'Allo??? So funny!!"

Bored!

2008-08-27T16:00:00.000+10:00

I am so unbelievably bored.

Apart from one or two notable exceptions, no one has sent me an interesting email in days, and even Facebook is a bit like Scarborough in winter at the moment. Not that I've ever been to Scarborough. I've never been in summer, let alone winter, but I imagine not much happens there in winter. If there is a lot going on in Scarborough in winter then Facebook isn't much like it at all. It's possibly more like the moon. But less cool because the moon has a good view of the earth and the whole low gravity thing going for it.

That said, Facebook did recently go through quite an interesting and fun phase where I got to laugh at lots of old school photos (including class photos from when I was 9 and 13 ish). My sister's friends have started putting old photos on now too so I've been having a good giggle at them.

Work is boring. I've finished off a lot of jobs and those remaining are in a pending state whilst I wait for various colleagues to get back to me. What's the bet they all get back to me at once demanding immediate resolutions?

Knocked up

It's probably about time I made an official announcement on this site that I'm having a baby early next year. Thank god! My pregnancy is the only interesting thing going on right now. It's quite fascinating once you get into it but I think I'm stretching the limits of how much even that can entertain me. (I won't go on about it by the way - I have another blog for that purpose - but I will mention it when it's relevant.) At least I know I'm unlikely to spend my days next year sitting on my arse whinging about being bored. I'll probably be wishing for such days to return to me.

Don't get me wrong, I can find plenty to occupy my time and mind with. I have millions of jobs to do at home (just not necessarily the money to do them), there are a gazillion things I'd like to read and as for things I'd like to do today, well, I've already been to the dentist and I plan to go to the gym but I also need to get petrol, fish and possibly some noodles because I can't remember whether we have any at home. The trouble is that these are not things I should be doing in work time and hence getting paid for.

Laptop battery bingo

I'm fairly pleased with myself at the moment in that I managed to successfully purchase a new laptop battery from eBay. My battery hasn't worked for about 6 months, which kind of made my laptop less of a laptop and more of a desktop, which isn't really what I forked $3000 out for. I tried to do this some time back and was bamboozled by the fact that none of the numbers on the batteries on eBay seemed to match those on my battery. I had already tried to get one from Dell and they quoted me $175 which seemed like rather a lot of money, given my computer was only 18 months old, and surely a battery should last longer than that.

I kept periodically returning to eBay and getting bamboozled so eventually I decided just to buy one from Dell. At least that way I could be sure of getting the right part and didn't have to try and figure anything out for myself. This time they quoted me $290!!!! For a battery!!! A new Dell laptop costs $750 and that comes with a battery! So I did a bit more research and discovered that the confusion is caused by Sony's insistence on measuring their batteries in watt hours (Wh) when everyone else uses miliamp hours (mAh), sneaky devils.

Thankfully, there is one common component on all batteries and that is voltage. Once you know the voltage and either Wh or mAh you can do a simple conversion using the formula:

watt = amp * volt

or

amp = watt / volt

Thanks to camerahacker.com for helping me figure this out.

It's probably a bit more complicated than this but it was close enough. I found a battery with similar power outage on eBay, which I could get shipped from Hong Kong for $87!!! What a bonus. A saving of over $200! At that price I figured I could take a risk as I wasn't able to get full use of the laptop, and I wasn't likely to pay $300 for a new battery. Well, the battery arrived yesterday and I'm happy to say seems to be working well. Kudos to me and ya boo suks to Dell!

Willie Wagtail pursues wife

Just for fun, and to stop everyone else becoming as bored as me, here's a lovely little photo of me and a Willie Wagtail on our wedding anniversary the other weekend (that's mine and Toby's anniversary, just in case that sentence caused any confusion). It was taken at Point Cartwright, near where we were married and the little bird seemed to be oblivious to the fact that I am now a married woman and was following me around rather ardently.

Right ho! I think I have procrastinated enough for one day. I shall go and do something a bit more worth getting paid for but probably terribly boring, and perhaps amuse myself with some Skunk Anansie (that's the kind of mood I'm in) for the remaining hour of the working day.

TTFN!

Do you remember the one with the Dambusters?

2008-08-11T15:27:00.006+10:00

For some inexplicable reason, possibly relating to the deluge of old school photographs that are currently finding their wicked little ways onto Facebook, today I started to reminisce about really bad old music.

It may also have been due to the discussion in the office as to how London is possibly going to outdo Beijing in the Olympic Opening Ceremony and ideas as to what the London ceremony might consist of.

The Hairless suggested:

"I am thinking of Charlie riding in all dolled up in his medals and feathered hat upon his faithful steed Camilla mumbling "I'm here Mummy...where is the fireplace that needs lighting?" sounds like the best option."

Sanchez preferred a cockney theme:

"I can see Chaz and Dave getting a good cockney knees up going and the pearly king and queens performing a dance.

"Then we will bring on an army of chavs to drink 5 pints of stella and have a fight.

"I think the finale will involve the Queen waving her hand as usual.

"Quality...."

I liked the cockney theme but went for something a bit grander:

"I think there'll be a million morris dancers prancing around the stadium with their handkerchiefs and sticks, jangling their bells, followed by a massive 500 metre may pole with lots of coloured ribbons and more prancing around.

"Then about half a million cockneys, accompanied by pearly kings and queens and the odd beefeater, will march in and do the lambeth walk. Then we'll bring in a huge replica of the spanish armada, light torches all around the stadium to signify the warning of the armada's approach, then set the ships of the armada on fire (and they'll be full of fireworks so there'll be a massive firework display... in fact... we might even have a few of them sail up the Thames just to be a bit beyond-the-stadium, like in Beijing) and use that to light the torch before flying off to bomb a German factory."

Before I go on, can I please point out that I do not advocate the bombing of anything German and that reference was meant to be purely tongue in cheek. However, Sanchez picked it up and suggested a Spitfire flyover and some tribute to the Dambusters, to which I recommended getting all of the athletes to dambust around the stadium on their march, to the Dambusters music, arms outstretched pretending to be aeroplanes, or fingers round their eyes as goggles.

This, of course, is what triggered the old memory of the song that used to always get played at parties where everyone did the actions and sang along to the Dambusters theme. I got confused and distracted at first by the Superman song (remember that one? Comb your hair, spray, Superman!!) but eventually I identified the Dambuster one as being The Music Man. Both were recorded by Black Lace to annoy people at parties for the duration of the eighties and most of the nineties. And so, for your delight and delectation, here are some awful YouTube versions of both. Reminisce to your heart's desire.

Randoms doing the Superman song at work:

Black Lace sing Music Man on Top of the Pops or something. Bad copy but it's the best I could do. Dambusters are about 2 minutes 50 seconds in for those that can't bear to watch the whole thing.

And just for a laugh, and to show I'm not proud, here's one of the old photos a school friend put onto Facebook, depicting me and my good friend Bev, her with classic poodle perm and me with scary Michael Jackson-style white-face make-up:

Everything is arbitrary

2008-07-31T15:39:00.003+10:00

We recently had the University website redesigned by an advertising agency. One of the requirements was that the site must conform to Priority 1 World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at a minimum, and that it should also conform to Priorty 2, preferably Priority 3.

On delivery I noticed they had a green box with white text. The green was mottled and graduated and became yellow in places. It was obvious to me, with my reasonably good eyesight, that white text is not easy to read when on a yellow-ish background (it doesn't really take a genius or a blind-man to figure that one out now, does it?). So the Marketing team sent the image back to the agency and requested a new one.

The new one was much better. I could definitely read it. Just to be sure I ran the colours through an online colour contrast analyser. The difference in colour and brightness was still not quite enough to meet the Priority 2 WCAG checkpoint 2.2 regarding colour contrast. However, it was pretty close so I left it up to the Marketing team to determine whether they were happy with it.

They weren't.

The agency sent another image along with the following comment:

"The algorithms are a useful guide to ensuring sufficient contrast and colour difference, but the precise thresholds are somewhat arbitrarily chosen (strange that the human eye works in such neat numbers, 125 and 500 ;)"

Isn't this a bit like saying:

"Hmm, it's a bit strange that water just happens to boil at exactly 100°C, isn't it?"

"How perculiar that 1 Litre of water weighs exactly 1 kilogram."

"Strange, don't you think, that a day is exactly 24 hours long?"

Well, I've got news for you Mr Smarty-pants-Multi-media-degree-don't-you-know-Ad-agency-man, a day isn't exactly 24 hours long. We make it that long so that it's easy to measure. Water only boils at 100°C because we decided that would be a good way of measuring temperature. Time is arbitrary, everything humans measure with is arbitrary. Don't you think perhaps they decided that 125 and 500 were nice, round, easy numbers to remember and developed algorithms accordingly? Dear me...

Grammar Nazi: Gil Mayo corrects "would of"

2008-07-18T11:53:00.006+10:00

One of the reasons I like Gil Mayo (The Gil Mayo Mysteries, ABC1, Thursdays 8.35pm) is that he is a stickler for grammatical correctness. The show doesn't contain much "laugh out loud" material and is at times a bit weird and contrived, but occasionally it hits the right spot and extracts more than a mere chuckle from me.

A classic scene was when Kite, the Welshman, was asking for a code and the others kept asking "a cord?" until he put on his poshest English accent and pronounced code with a long vowel. It's a phonetic joke and hard to transcribe onto paper (or blog) but suffice to say, having experienced a similar encounter myself when ordering a vodka and coke in a London bar ("a cork? What, like just a vodka and er.. a cork?"), which resulted in me also having to adopt my best posh English accent, this scene certainly had me laughing out loud.

Another scene I chortled away at occurred last night and went a little something like this:

Neil, the accountant: I was afraid he'd lose his job.
Clair, the bar owner: Well, he would of.
Gil, the grammar nazi: Have.

Miscellaneous conversation follows, then:

Clair: I resent the implication that he would of.
Gil: Have.

Refer to my previous post, Should have, should've, should of to see just why this tickled me.

Grammar Nazi: The Importance of Order

2008-07-17T12:47:00.006+10:00

Read the following paragraph from the BBC News website:

Mr Rudd issued his landmark apology for the abuse and discrimination the country's indigenous people have endured since European colonisation in February, soon after taking office.

The order of the wording implies that the European colonisation of Australia occurred in February. Colonisation occurred over two hundred years ago; Rudd's apology was made in February. This is a surprising grammatical, or rather semantic, error from an institution such as the BBC. The paragraph should have been worded:

In February, soon after taking office, Mr Rudd issued his landmark apology for the abuse and discrimination the country's indigenous people have endured since European colonisation.

What a massive difference to meaning is made by the order in which those few words appear in the sentence.

World Youth Day

2008-07-16T13:05:00.002+10:00

Crowds at the official opening of World Youth Day. From: www.news.com.au

Had anyone reading this blog heard of World Youth Day before about a month ago? Have the British residents amongst you heard of it at all? I don't know whether I've been sleeping under a rock for the last 32 years or whether an almighty fuss is suddenly being made of it in Australia right now but I hadn't a clue what it was until a few weeks back.

For those of you who are still clueless, it's a massive meeting of young Catholics. It happens about once every three years and it's an international event. Despite the name, "World Youth Day", it actually happens over about five days. (I always was sceptical about the story of creation happening in seven days and now I suspect it was actually thirty-five, which is still quite impressive.)

Basically hundreds of thousands of these young Catholics congregate on a city (in this case Sydney) and party and pray for a few days. That seems like such a strange combination of words to place in one sentence: Catholics, party, pray.

I will probably be flamed for this but I am astounded at the number of enthusiastic young devotees being portrayed on the news (every day). I always thought of Catholicism as the kind of religion that kids were dragged into (often literally and hungover) and given names like Mary and Bernadette and Joseph, because their parents were Catholics and their parents' parents were Catholic and no one ever questioned it. Most of the Catholics I have known stopped practising as soon as they left home, and have felt forever guilty about it, and everything else for that matter. It seems like such an old-fashioned religion somehow and I suppose I imagine young folk getting more into the relatively modern protestant denominations of Christianity, such as Pentecostalism (HillSong certainly seems popular in Australia) or not bothering at all.

World Youth Day is expecting 125,000 international visitors. The opening mass at Darling Harbour yesterday attracted over 150,000 pilgrims and the papal mass on Sunday is expected to address a congregation of half a million. According to the World Youth Day website it is the biggest event Australia has ever hosted, attracting more overseas visitors than even the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and providing Pope Benedict XVI's first ever visit to Australia. The television coverage is greater than the Tour de France and the Olympics combined, although I suppose there isn't too much to report on the Olympics at this stage. Still, I am finding the extent of the coverage of an event I had never even heard of before quite bizarre. Images flash on the screen of young people wearing their national colours and World Youth Day t-shirts shouting, singing, being generally rowdy and happy, fireworks and pop concerts, not the sort of things I ever associated with the stuffy old Roman Catholics.

It's all been a bit of an education to me really. Catholicism can be cool (in a Guy Sebastian kind of a way) and Catholic kids know how to party (as long as it all wraps up by 10pm and involves a few prayers here and there). Sydney must be a crazy place right now.

Oh, and just for the record, I think priests should be allowed to be gay. Unless they're Catholic, in which case they can be gay but celibate, merely because Roman Catholic priestly sex is against the rules.

One last thing, as we're on the subject of religion, isn't this a brilliant headline:

Mormons make missionary position clear

I love it! The best thing is, it's about young (male) mormon missionaries posing semi-naked for a calendar. Brilliant.

Eating soup with a teaspoon

2008-06-25T14:11:00.002+10:00

Today at work I had to eat my soup with a teaspoon.

It was a frustrating experience. It occurred because of a lack of resources (i.e. normal-sized spoons). The teaspoon was an inadequate alternative, particularly because some of the vegetables in my soup were bigger than teaspoon-size. Whilst I achieved my goal of consuming my soup, it was a lengthy experience and my enjoyment was diminished.

Eventually I found a cheap, plastic spoon in my desk drawer. This wasn't as shiny and smooth as the teaspoon but at least it allowed me to get a reasonable mouthful of soup.

I can see this might prove to be a useful analogy some day.

While my ukelele gently weeps

2008-06-18T18:05:00.006+10:00

I don't usually do two posts in one day but this was just too good to ignore.

Driving home, listening to Triple J, the presenter announced a much requested repeat of a hawaiian chap playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps .... on the ukelele! With visions in my mind of George Fornby singing about cleaning windows, I listened on. What I heard amazed me. This guy, known as the Hawaiian Ukelele Wizard but whose real name is Jake Shimabukuro, has a wonderful talent and can make the ukelele take on a whole load of other sounds, such as flamenco and classical guitar. Apparently Hawaiians learn to play the ukelele at school in the same way that Brits and Aussies learn to play the recorder. Most then move onto the guitar but Shimabukuro stuck with the ukelele and made it his own.

Here is a YouTube movie of him performing While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Stay with it, the break about 2.45 minutes in is fantastic and the low res movie can barely keep up with his lightening fast hands. There is a higher resolution movie of him playing this in concert but it's 8 minutes long so I'll let you go and check it out yourself if you're interested. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=3mEqEe-PIC8&feature=related)

It's also worth checking out his website and YouTube site. He has some great original tracks (e.g. Let's Dance) and his version of Ava Maria is just beautiful (navigate to the Gently Weeps album in his audio player). I think I know what my next CD purchase is going to be.

Chunky soup

2008-06-18T15:26:00.003+10:00

What's with all the chunky fancy soup these days?

Ever just fancy eating something from your past? By that I don't mean a 10 year old beef and tomato Pot Noodle, rather something that you used to eat and perhaps don't anymore? I caught a whiff of something in the office today and it reminded me of mulligatawny soup and I thought, "well there's a thing I haven't eaten for a while. I wouldn't mind a bit of that."

So off I trundled down to the supermarket and I found myself the soup aisle but no mulligatawny soup! There was beef and potato curry, even beef massaman soup and Malaysian laksa soup and lots of other fancy foreign ones but no straight-forward mulligatawny, nor, whilst we're on the subject, was there any good old traditional oxtail soup. There were all these "chunky", "hearty" soups but I didn't want an entire meal, I just wanted a nice can of Heinz mulligatawny soup.

Maybe it just never made it to Australia.

I'm happy to say that tomato soup did still seem to be available. That was my mainstay as a kid especially when I was sick (or poorly as we say in the north of England) and I tell you something, it made me feel better every time. Perhaps I should have got some to make me feel better about not having mulligatawny.

Dolphin Watching

2008-06-17T09:32:00.007+10:00

I've been quiet because since about 5th June I've been laid up with a bad back and have been unable to sit at the computer for more than five minutes. Here's a quick summary of events.

Some time during the week of 19th May: I ride my bike 7.5km to work, then home again. I get a sore back.

Some time during the week of 26th May: I ride my bike 7.5km to work, then home again. I get a sore back again. I decide that 4km to the beach might be okay but 7.5km to work is too much and that I won't ride my bike to work again until I have one with a smaller frame. Toby suggests that I actually have a virus that he's got and that is going around people at his work. It makes you sleepy and gives you a sore back. I point out that I'm not sleepy and that it's the second time I have had a sore back after riding my bike and that I want a new one.

Sat 31st May: About two hours after getting out of bed everything becomes too much for me and I have to go back to bed today. I spend the weekend drifting in and out of sleep. Toby tells me I have the virus.

Thurs 5th June: I do a first aid course all day at work, which mostly consists of bending over on knees performing CPR on a dummy with no legs and arms, and comforting and administering first aid to crazy imaginary drunken mountain bikers and aggitated electricians. My back twinges. Go to yoga. Tell instructor but do mostly the same stuff as the rest of the class. Back twinges even more on way home.

Fri 6th June: Back still twinging. Go to pilates. Tell physio back is twinging. Do lighter version of the exercises. Then drive to supermarket and over-load basket with morning tea goodies for the team. Drag heavy bags into work and back goes into spasm. Most painful. Spasms all day. Sitting at desk makes it worse. Go home that night and collapse on floor in painful teary heap. Stay there a while.

Sat 7th June: Woke up in pain. Toby gave me a massage. Spent most of the day flat on back on floor on top of my hot water bottle. Toby's mum did the housework for me. Toby did all the cooking.

Sun 8th June: Woke up in pain. Spent day lying around, stretching and massaging back (with a tennis ball). Was convinced I'd be all better in the morning.

Mon 9th June: Wasn't better. Was exhausted and frustrated. Long weekend but just more lying around and stretching for me. Did a teeny bit of gardening but couldn't spend too long doing anything. Went to yoga and this time concentrated on back problems and did lots of gentle stretching. Started to feel much better.

Tues 10th June: Took day off sick and went to physio then for short walk. Then stretched, slept and massage. Still hurt.

Wed 11th June: Went to work. Set myself one task then left when completed which took five hours. Back was seized up a bit by then. Went home and slept.

Thurs 12th June: Same as yesterday only I exchanged my pilates appointment for another physio session, which helped ease things up a bit more.

Fri 13th June: Local public holiday (Nambour Show Day a.k.a. Maroochy Shire Holiday). Went to Straddie for a weekend of camping. Packing was hard work. Back seized up after sitting in car but spent rest of day lying flat on back in sun at campsite. Started feeling much better.

Sat 14th June: Felt much better and even managed a lovely coastal walk with Toby, Scott and Lucie.

Which brings me to the point of my post. On this walk we saw a pod of about thirty or forty dolphins surfing the (rather large) waves, jumping, spinning and all in all just having a jolly good time. It was such a beautiful sight and kept us entertained for a good 10-15 minutes before the dolphins started to head back out to sea again. Toby took some photos but I haven't looked at them yet so don't know if they'd be any good. The next day we spotted plumes from two whales obviously travelling up the coast together. Apparently loads of whales had been spotted that day.

My back still gets a little bit sore after sitting at my desk but it feels so good to be mobile again.