Sydneysiders: Keeping Ourselves Busy

(Two in a row! Go team Sydney!!)

It's been a couple of weeks since our last post. Jules is back at school, giving Dee the space to ramp up her job search -- with a twist, as she's looking to move into agile project management (i.e. scrum master, product owner, etc.). Not something she's (yet!) done, but seems like a good move (she'll be good at it) and will be something she can enjoy -- just as long as we can convince someone to take a chance! (She may invest in a scrum master course and certification, since recruiters at least will be looking for that.) Wish her luck!

We start week 4 of I Quit Sugar today, with a smaller than usual cook-up: I made some faux rice (cauliflower and broccoli) while Dee has made some delicious pesto (below). Thai prawn curry tonight, but this afternoon we're saying goodbye to our friends the (other) Masons -- they've sold their Annandale house and are off for a good long (12 months?) caravaning holiday. I probably don't need to tell you I'm jealous...

As mentioned on Hangouts, we're considering moving (e.g. to Concord) for considerably cheaper rent, a backyard (!!) and a slightly longer commute. It's truly bizarre how much rent varies from suburb to suburb, but considering Sydney has the second most unaffordable housing in the world it's nice to know we can save some money -- while still keeping Jules in the school he loves.

I'm keeping myself busy, too:

I'm training for the half-marathon in September (and have actually bought the entry!!). Gym and/or running most days and I'm finally seeing some muscle definition and fat minimisation (if not weight loss -- scales may not lie, but I'm 100kg (+5kg) and skinnier than I've been in ages. Must be all muscle?). As a reminder, a half-marathon is about 21km, and I'm currently running about 4km without a break ... so I've still got a way to go. (Hopefully more fat loss will help, too.)

Work isn't too busy, but I'll be finishing up on the project in a couple of weeks AND I'm a "founder" of another business -- a marketing friend had an idea (hush hush) and I'm coding up an Android app and backend for a demo which he can use to try to get seed capital. He's in London at the moment, but may come back to Sydney so we can work on it together. (I'm also going to launch my distinguished: clothing and accessories store tonight -- it's all about the hustle!)

But clearly I STILL don't have enough to do because I've also started writing a book on "full stack" engineering -- a little philosophy, a little technology and pointers to everything from Javascript to NoSQL to machine learning and AI ... oh, and to that end I've started a Machine Learning course this month (from Stanford, on Coursera). All in all, I can probably benefit from a slightly longer commute, just to get through my six-hours a week of course work!

Glamping in Glastonbury, a weekend in Wednesbury, and Chemistry with the Cubs

Hi all,

The last three weeks have simply disappeared! So here's all three bumpdates at once.

Glamping in Glastonbury

In Mid-May B & I decided to try to fit in a babymoon - a short holiday before bub arrives and changes everything. We started looking, with a few caveats - it could only be a weekend (B doesn't have much leave left for the year and we want to save that for after the little tyke arrives), somewhere close-ish (long car trips weren't that comfy for me), and obviously, not too expensive. And as the title suggests, we ended up glamping in Glastonbury.

We stayed in an ePod on the edge of a field - a little wooden building with a fridge, toaster and kettle. There was a Weber BBQ outside for cooking, and a private bathroom & toilet a short walk away. It was really relaxing to have a couple of nights semi-camping - food cooked on the fire, surrounded by greenery, listening to relaxing birdsong.. with the luxury of a real bed, blackout blinds, and access to a heated swimming pool! Divine! 

Saturday was our day for exploring (we arrived Friday and had to drive back Sunday). We started with a hike across fields to the Glastonbury Tor - apparently one of the most spiritual sites in the England. What a good place for a bumpdate:

From there we walked into town, past the Chalice Well (another spiritual site, but too expensive to look through a garden). Glastonbury is a strange town.. loads of hippy-type shops but with prices that seem above average. Bruce called them rippies (rip-off hippy shops, or shops for rich hippies). :-) After a tasty and random lunch (cream tea, chips & cheese ploughman's - all shared) we walked back out to the camp and had a swim. *phew* we certainly earnt our smores that night! For those who don't know, smores is a North American treat, we made ours by making a sandwich with chocolate digestives and marshmallows and heating it on the BBQ. :-)

All in all, it was a lovely relaxing weekend!
Some more photos here

Weekend in Wednesbury

Last weekend was British Father's Day, so Friday night we headed up to Wednesbury. We went shopping in Willenhall on Saturday, and visited Grandad on Sunday before going for a short walk around the Swan Pool.

And here is last week's bumpdate..

Chemistry with the Cubs

We've had a busy weekend this weekend! Yesterday Bruce had to keep 21 Cubs and 5 leaders occupied from 1pm-4pm. He hadn't been able to find any helpers, so I went along.

We ran three different activities - solar windmills, hydrogels (disposable nappies), and red cabbage chemistry. The first activity was engineering, the next two were chemistry (although hydrogels are a smart material and so they also fit under the materials engineering banner).

It was a super-busy day - we spent the morning collecting everything for the workshop and then the afternoon running everything (and cleaning up). As a treat, we stopped at Wagamama for dinner on the way home (mm, ramen). We ended up being out of the house for more than 12 hours, and my ankles certainly showed it (where did they go?!).

On the up side, we had some lovely weather at Swansea Bay Campus, so this week's bumpdate is from there:

Today we had our first antenatal class, it ran from 10am until 4pm. We were asked to bring along sharing food for lunch.. but apparently it isn't something that the British do. We took a tasty salad (mango, strawberries, bacon, chicken pieces, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms and a yellow pepper - using veggie "meat" of course).. and we'll probably be eating it for the rest of the week! Other contributions included crisps; crackers and hommous; shop bought flapjacks and slices; grapes and watermelon; and cold pizza. O well.

We now have some idea what to expect next month (! Time flies!!).  We've got the second (and final) class next week. It's quite an intensive course but we couldn't fit in any of the "slower" classes (that run a couple of hours each week for 5 weeks) because either B or I were away for one of the sessions! We're lucky to have found any course that we could get to!

I've got two busy weeks before I start my maternity leave - I'm off to Aberystwyth tomorrow, back Tuesday.. then with training sessions in Swansea, ChemNet events in Treforrest and an open day, I'm already looking forward to sleeping all day Saturday! Bruce also has a busy June.. but he's promised me that he has no events booked in from mid-July - in case bump decides to arrive early. :-)

Everything is going fine with bump.. lots of moving and kicking (often when I want to sleep). We still don't feel ready, but we did get a pile of baby clothes from one of my friends (she got them in the grand tradition of hand-me-downs). Once I'm on leave I'll wash everything and get the Moses basket set up and all of that kind of thing. It's really weird to think that the due date is only four weeks away!

Apologies for another mammoth post. I'll keep the next update shorter. :-)

I want more power tools

We've got a bit of a break between visitors so I thought I should write a quick update.

We were expecting Darryl at some point before the baby was born, but he surprised us by calling us a few days before the weekend to say he'd be here along with his family. Luckily I had just spend a large chunk of the previous weekend cleaning the spare room (for the guys to come and fix our shutters) so we were okay. It was great to see Darryl, Alicia, Charlotte, William and Spencer, and although Oscar got a little upset about having to share his toys early in the week (especially after his nap when he was still tired) by the end of it he was happily (for the most part) playing with everyone. He seemed to like following Charlotte around, copying her, and later he and Spencer both copied each other.. which was good, because they were playing together, but not so good if they both wanted to play with one little toy :) I think it's a small taste of what's to come for him though. Daz was brilliant.. he made us the wardrobe (which we're still in the process of filling), fixed up the front security door, reattached the linen press door.. just generally did those tasks you really need power tools to do. We repaid him as best we could with beer and chocolates, but I think we still owe him big time.

This weekend Rach arrives, which will be great too. She's staying for a week, and I know Os is going to love having family here who don't want to ride on his bikes or read his books ;) Sadly Rach wont be bringing power tools to fix up whatever is left, but that's okay.. I think Chez has got a day off work so I'm sure they'll get up to no end of hijinks.

Speaking of Chez, she's doing really well. Only 10 weeks to go, and the little girl is very active. Os calls her "baby sister" and occasionally points out toys for her :) The time seems to be flying by now. We put up some photos of Cheryl so you can see her belly too.. I don't think it's as big as it was for Ossie. Either way I'm sure you'll agree she looks beautiful.

And me.. I'm on a weird low-carb diet. I'll write more about that when it's over if you're interested.. Then I'll have final numbers and the like. Either way, it seems to be netting a result for me, which is good.. because I do miss delicious carbs.

...and rest!

I've had a busy couple of weeks working hard taking physics to the public. You can see a great photo of me engaging with some policemen on the IOP blog. The days haven't been especially long (we were out on the South Bank from noon until 5pm) but they were very tiring. The weather was great for us - sunshine and around 28 degrees every day - but it made it difficult to sleep at night. Especially when it was still 27 degrees in my flat when I got home at 8pm!

I went to Ireland for the weekend, we took Physics in the Field to Spraoi in the Park. It was a great event - in a sunny park in the middle of Waterford. Unfortunately our kit didn't turn up, the courier who assured us overnight delivery just didn't deliver. I'm glad that we use common house-hold object for our tricks, it meant that Alex and I could just head to the Tesco supermarket and buy everything for the weekend. We didn't have any logos or giveaways and our stand looked a bit haphazard but people still enjoyed learning about our tricks and often came back to our table again and again. :-)

Today I'm at home, waiting for a parcel delivery. I've realised that I have been writing my address wrong - Willesden Green in the tube station and the suburb is Willesden. But it's easier to write the address as follows (and I've updated the Contacts page too):

The Annex
24 Aylestone Avenue
London
NW6 7AA
UK

Please update your address books and tell Nana too.

Time for someone else to update the Bandwagon. :-)
p.s. Glenn, when you're back can you update the buddy icons?