Weekend

Another wkend has come & almost gone. Below are the gist of this wkend's update:

1. Freddie Mercury. Saw that a Freddie Mercury doco was on friday night but we were watching something else at the time, so could only look up the repeat on Foxtel. Great, 8:30. Still needed to get up early even on wkends! Good doco though. (Am going thru a Freddie Phase. Put the Queen Wembley concert on during my Wednesday morning recovery session & am now totally obsessed)
2. D's Cellar Tea. After wk's of preparation, the big day was yesterday. It was a sunny warm day & everything went without much hitch. It was held at the Gastineau-Hills' in St Ives, a beautiful garden. Some of the Poles were a bit crazy though
3. Lord of the Rings trilogy. Well, ok, so I didn't really complete the trilogy in 1 go like I have wanted for a long time, but I didn't get to watch the 1st 2 back-to-back. Home from Cellar Tea around 6-ish, & my brother was halfway thru LOTR 1, which, after a brief shower, I came downstairs & joined him for the rest of the show. After a brief session break to cook dinner, I immediately put LOTR 2 on in hope to finish the trilogy. Alas, by the time that was done it was 10, & I was rather buggered from the day. Have to leave it for another time. Probably something I should do AFTER I've finished the damn PhD! Guilted myself into reading an article & typing up some notes for the rest of the night.
4. Sunday mid-morning sleep-in. Have been suffering from a mild case of sleep deprivation all wk (averaging 6 hrs a night) I finally had a 10-hr sleep session, i.e., didn't get up until after 11 this morning. After a bit of breakfast & TV, I decided that I needed some physical/gardening thearpy. Luckily I have a couple of guava out on the front patio that I raised from seeds some time ago in need of the bigger pots that I also bought some time ago, so I ended up spending a couple of hours on them, plus underplanting with thyme & sage, repotting the tarragon that used to accompany the thyme, & repotted the hydrangea that looked like it could use a new home. Finally managed to have some lunch at 3.

Still half a Sunday left. See what I can conjure up for the rest of the wkend.

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Damn, sat & finished the trilogy instead of writing my chapter!?!?!

BTW, birthday shout-out to Raelene up in Newcastle

Birthing - didn't even go to lamaze

Finally put my head together & did some writing last night. Late last night though, but it's better than nothing. When I finally had enough, I went back downstairs to clean out my glass before heading to bed. Felt nosy so I turned on the aquarium light & low & behold the pregnant red swordtail that I had separated from the rest of the school into a 'birthing suite' was right in the middle of a birthing session! Seeing that swordtails are livebearers they obviously give birth to fully-grown fries (not the Macca's kind). As I'd never seen that despite the many birthing sessions that they had had this past yr, I proceeded to invade its/her privacy & stayed & watched for a fair few minutes. Every now & then it squirts out a newborn, which was still coated in its egg sac. After a few more seconds, it breaks out of its own egg sac & started swimming freely. A pretty good end to the day, even though technically it was the start of today (12:30-ish)

O' possum where art thou?

Barking dog. Quick shufflings in the ceiling. Empty mouse traps. Yep, sounds like the possums have moved into the ceiling of our rumpus yet again. I have a pretty gd feeling of where the main 'entrance' is. Just need to remember to look up possum man & be prepared to part with a couple of hundreds to evict the annoying critters. Yes, annoying. They look cute & all but when you're trying to watch TV & they keep doing quick-steps right over your head, the cuteness can just wear off like that.

Back to uni tomorrow & hopefully that'll be a big enough kick in the you know where for me to start seriously (re)writing again. Have only managed to to 1 3-paragraph section this wk plus the intro & conclusion. Spent the rest of the time TV-ing & playing Bombic. At least I've now finished all 26 levels of Bombic & promptly removed it from my laptop to avoid any further temptation. Unfortunately am also feeling very bored as a result.

Created specialist www's for my dog a couple of wks ago. Here are the www's: (1) (2)

The 5th season

Winter is barely half gone & the calendar is already turning into another season. The 5th season, in fact - social season! After the busy social schedule of April to early May, back-to-back-to-back social gatherings are, well, back on! Tuesday was the start of a string of gatherings. Sean boy is our Oxford practical exchange & he is scheduled to be here for about 6 wks doing research on Lebanese-Australians so naturally getting stuck with our Big Kev was the perfect setting for his work. He has actually been here for 3 wks already & I have been helping him out with mapping & CDATA (as usual, I've been left with the tag of the designated mapping guru. I'd much prefer 'desecrated' at this stage :P) Anyhow, one of us got wind that he 'fancied a drink or two' (& that's a direct quote. Who speaks like that down here, & in that accent?) so we decided to go up to the Royal & have a few drinks after a long day of tuts (I had 4 hrs straight from 11 till 3!!) and/or interviewing (the Sean boy actually got stood up for his interview. Again, something completely unheard of to me, & obviously had not happened to me, yet). That was the plan anyway. As we all made our own ways up to the Royal, we ended up spending the first 1/2 hr or so watching the boy chatting up a German girl who is also on practical exchange (worse still, both without drinks in their hands!) while coughing down car fumes as we sat outside next to a bus route. We did, however, manage to get Ian to dish out some dirt on a lecturer & a former secretary. Bussed & trained my way straight to Pennent Hills afterwards for the tennis. Good to have exercise to work off the alcohol instead of hair of the dog, but luckily it was stay-at-home Wenesday so it didn't really make a big difference if I did pick hair of the dog.

Yay, got my inivtation to the Drozdzewski-Gastineau-Hills (no, not a 3-way. Just a Pol marrying a hyphen) wedding today, which can only mean that the Cellar Tea that I helped organised is not far away! Finally picked up the wine list & went & bought my 1 bottle (& saved 1 for my own personal use :P) during lunch time. But before that, there's the amalgamated Rae's surprise b'day party & Anne's short farewell on Monday. Crap, that means I have to go shooping again for ingredients! Fine, I needed to head out on Saturday anyway for other crap.

Big Kev on jury duty this wk so the meeting on aims & objectives was rescheduled to next wk. That can only mean 1 thing - I'm left high & dry & 'aim'less (ha, aimless!). Seriously, am slowly (VERY slowly) re-writing Ch 6. I just wish I can get thru this level of the stupid Bomber man so I can concentrate on writing work again!?!?!

Ooh, pills!