Me too!

I'm also coming back to the land of sunshine for a spell.

Hope it's a good spell, one that brings some rain to Australia (but preferrably not when I'm there) and some sunshine to England (preferrably when I'm there).

I'll be arriving in Melbourne on the 1st December and flying out again on the 7th January. I don't get any fancy 5-star hotels or anything but my flight was relatively cheap, so I'm not complaining.

Is there anything that anyone would like me to bring specially from the UK? I plan on bringing my clothes in a carry-on bag and my backpack full of fun things (to be replaced with Aussie fun things for the trip back).

I'm not sure when I'll be where just yet - I have a lot of people I need to catch up with and a limited time to do it. But I plan on being in Bendigo for about 2 of the 4 weeks! Including Christmas. So I can catch up with everyone and do some sewing and find some well-fitting clothes. *grin* Yes, it IS that difficult to find good clothes here that I will fly all the way to Australia to get some. hehehe.

I have a lot more to talk about, but long posts are silly, so that's all from me for now.

*big hugz*

p.s. the photo is from Glenn and Chris' Manchester Adventure at Easter (oops.. it's taken me a while to upload the photos)

We're coming home after all

Today we bought our aeroplane tickets back to Australia for December-January, after a weekend of research and planning (for both the cheapest tickets, and how we were actually best going to pay for 'em).

In the end, we had a good deal from Austravel which Dee printed took into Flightcenter to see if they could beat. It was with Cathay Pacific, each leg was 11hrs and we had 6 hours in Hong Kong to see a few quick sites (e.g. giant Buddha statues).

When she got there, they couldn't match it -- the Austravel booking system was down. So Dee spoke to them on the phone and found out that the price we were quoted was for August only ... and we're one day into September! Bollocks!

Luckily, the Flightcenter people were nice and agreed to beat the "new" best Austravel price. They also looked around for some other options ... and so we're not going to Hong Kong anymore!

Instead, we're flying Korean Air via Seoul. Again, 11 hour legs (not too bad providing we can sleep). Better yet, because the flights don't connect on the way home, we're getting put up in a 5-star hotel in Seoul! We get in at night, stay at the hotel, and have until probably lunchtime to check out some of Korea.

Fun!

(Cross-posted on glennji.org too)

emails please

Dad has changed the computer to the new one he has built. Only problem is I can't find the old address book even though the old hard drive is in the new computer as well as the new hard drive. Solution is for everyone to send me an email so I can add you back as a contact. Glenn has already. It was great to talk to Glenn and Dayna this weekend. I rang Glenn but couldn't get through. When he rang five minutes later I thought he'd got my message. It turned out to be a subliminal message since he hadn't checked his actual messages but just decided it was a good time to call.
Good to know Dayna will be coming for December and has her job to continue until July next year. Also now know Glenn and Danielle are coming from the 15th December until 15th January and will be in Bendigo from Christmas afternoon and few days after, at least. Maybe we should look at a Boxing Day party. Will you still be here then Dayna? I have Friday's off so I'm wondering about a trip to Adelaide mid December, coming over on Friday, staying for the weekend then driving home on Monday.(I'd take Monday off) That way we could bring Christmas gifts and show Dayna your house. It will depend on her plans.

Go Goldfields

We won AGGREGATE at the state championships. our places were March:HM/4th, Clubs:HM/4th, Freearm:1st, Rods:1st, Aesthetics:3rd and Medley:2nd. wow after that maybe just maybe we can do it again.

Wow I'm going to melbourne

Wow i cant belive that its CVI time already. well tommorrow i'll update the bandwagon with my places.

BellyWatch: Week 18

Just a quick update to say Cheryl is immune to pavovirus so no slap cheek for us. We thought it was pretty safe but got the blood tests anyway.
I don't know what's going on with the colour in this photo, next time i'll try to take it with less sun behind her :)

Horsham Comp

well as you know i had my first comp on sunday. Well the seniors got runners-up aggregate and we got 3 3rds and 3 2nds i thought that was pretty good. thanks to nanny and poppy i got there on time and safely.

Photos from our Victoria trip - lots of Daria, because she's new and little.

Make with the clicky click

Egg-cups and make-up

The origins of the word "cocktail" are murky at best, but it's possible that it was an Anglification of the french "coquetier" (pronounced approximately "cocktay"), meaning egg-cup. Legend has it that in 1795 an apothecary and mason Antoine Peychaud mixed brandy and bitters and served it, in egg-cups, to others in the masonic temple. (Interestingly there is still a brand of bitters called Peychaud's.)

These days, "cocktail" means any number of mixed drinks, usually with an interesting slant on presentation - the colour(s) of the drink, preparation of the glasses and/or interesting "accoutrements" like bits of fruit or little paper umbrellas. Cocktails can be alcoholic (and usually are) or "virgin" (unsullied, unaltered, without alcohol).

Our Cocktail Night started with a long day in Camden looking for costumes - specifically looking for costumes for Marilyn Manson and Emilie Autumn. Camden has such a large - and authentic! - goth following/community that I felt way out of place. Until we bought a couple of studded wrist-bands and belts, that is.



With the sun sinking oh-so-slowly in the west, we headed home for the arduous task of frocking- and making-up. Okay, not arduous - I just had to stand there whilst Dee got to work with "pancake", eyeliner, lipstick and about 3 metric ton of blue eyeshadow. (In turn, I drew the little love-heart on her cheek ... and that's about all she'd let me do!)



In the meantime, Colleen (above) had made all the food and decorated: the light-bulbs in the hallway and lounge were replaced with some pretty red ones (it's not a filter in the photos!) and there were fairy lights literally everywhere.



It was a good night, although it felt like we spent more time on the costumes than the party!

More photos, naturally.

Barossa and art sales

Hey all,

As promised, I've put up photos from our trip to the Barossa with Yuko and Akira on Flickr - check them out yo! We managed to fit in quite a bit of Australiana for the tourists - we had meat pies for lunch, vegemite on toast, feeding kangaroos and holding koalas :) It was an action packed weekend, and we owe big thanks to Cheryl who did all the driving and drank none of the wine.

In other news, the print I have in the Rialto Exhibition has sold! It was the first one to go, and it sold midday yesterday. It cost $300, which after the cost of printing, the frame, and a small hanging fee leaves me with a very tidy $166. It's officially my first exhibition and my first sale from an exhibition all in one :)

Update time

heya everyone i thought it was time i update the bandwagon. well they have finally started demolising the old school. i have my 1st comp on sunday the 17th and schools going well.

Viva la Cuba siempre ...

Not quite Spanish sunshine, but this weekend we went to the Carnaval del Pueblo (which Google Translate tells me means "carnival of the people"). It's a Latin-American festival, and was recommended by Glenda, Mark's girlfriend who lives in Barcelona. (Yes, I love the fact that one of my friends has a Spanish girlfriend ... and they met in Italia! Lot's of places to sleep on people's couches, methinks.)

But not quite Spanish sunshine (yes, I'm jealous ... pronounced "hyealous" in pseudo-Espanol fashion). In fact, so much "not quite Spanish sunshine" that we were rained out and headed to Angel for tapas and cocktails at a restaurant called "Cuba Libre" instead.

Many cocktails later we decided we were having a cocktail party! With a theme! And costumes! So in a couple of weekends we're having the inaugeral "Pop Star Cocktail Party".

But the question is: Who should I go as? (No points for saying "Moby".)

Google Street Views

Hey all,

Google street views are available in Australia.. which means if you haven't seen our house yet, you can see what it looked like in the heat of summer at maps.google.com.. and they've even gone so far as to do the streets of Talbot

How cool is that?

i'm going on holiday!

After days of rain and grey clouds, I'm just about to get on a bus then a plane to head to Spanish sunshine. woohoo!!

I will bring photos back and maybe send some sunshine while I'm away.

*big hugz* to everyone

BellyWatch: Week 15

Just a quick update with a photo of Cheryl so you can all see how she's progressing.

We went to a kid's birthday party today, lots of screaming, pushing, running around.. it makes me glad we're only going to have one baby and not about 6 ranging in age from 1 - 3. It was good fun though, plus we got a lolly bag at the end: Score.

We didn't get any bags of lollies or chocolate after Cheryl's birthday but we did go out for pizza and ice-cream on Friday, and shopping on Saturday.. so all up, it's been a good weekend. We even found time to clean up the house, because next weekend Yuko and Akira from Japan are visiting Adelaide.. that should be a lot of fun, keep an eye out on flickr for the photos :)

That's all from me, we'll post another photo in a few more weeks or so i'm sure