Happy Brothday Birther

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GLENNK!

Happy Birthday Dad!

HAPPY 60th!!!

Hope you've had a splendid day.
(with lots of unlicensed dancing)

Lots of love and hugz

MST3K and the Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest

This weekend I attended an all-night film festival for the Sci-fi London Oktoberfest -- about 10 hours of icecream, red-bull and the hilarity of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K). On the programme it's listed as "Seriously funny {stuff}!", and it really was.

I arrived at the Odeon West End (near Picadilly Circus) at about 23:15 ... and then found out I was in the wrong place! Not sure how that happened, but suddenly the benefit of having Google Maps on a phone became very apparent -- even I could find my way, despite both my own lack of a directional sense and London's winding, Celtic roads.

So I wasn't too late. I met Allen "Conky" there; he gave me my (half-price) ticket and we wandered into the cinema.

Extremely comfy chairs! Free tea, coffee, icecream and red-bull! A couple of guys from EA (the games company) showing off their new XBOX 360 game (and a guy dressed up as the main character, how funny is that?!). I wasn't sure what to expect, but £15 for at least 4 movies I was ready to enjoy myself. So how happy I was when the organisers handed out "showbags" on the way in -- a bunch of DVDs (including a metal-cased special edition Voltron!), some badges, t-shirt transfers, little "build your own X-fighter" toys.

Even better for one attendee -- he got the "lucky" seat and ended up with a brand-new XBOX 360 and a bunch of games (all courtesy of Play.com -- thanks!).

So I was already in a merry mood when the movies started, and they turned out to be really, really funny. Take a bunch of bad, bad movies -- including the Worst Movie of All Time, "Plan 9 from Outer-space" -- and add a commentary by a couple of funny guys (actually one guy and two robots). The hours flew by, and before I knew it it was 9am!

We stumbled out of the cinema into broad daylight, squinting, dazed and confused. Whether it was the all-night laughs or the red-bull cola, I felt fine! A little bit dopey but certainly not tired, so I walked home and woke Dee (heh heh), trying to convince her to come outside and go do something!

About 5 minutes later I was asleep.

However, after 5 or 6 hours sleep I woke again, had a snack and went to see some comedians at The Comedy Pub with some friends and friends of friends (Joyce, Luke, Heather and Wayne). They were so funny too! Hard to remember the jokes; harder still to actually deliver them. After comedy we had a late dinner in China Town (I almost ordered pigeon, but settled on chilli and bean chicken).

Sunday we cleaned up the house, did the paperwork, and had a delicious dinner courtesy of Colleen (our housemate) who was really just cooking for her little brother :-).

Painting and Belly Watching

Hey all,

Just a bit of an update. We've started painting the baby's room.. you now all know the gender, so I don't mind showing you the colours :) We've got a light blue for most of it, and then a feature wall in a nice bright green. You can see photos of the progress here. The plan is to finish it off tomorrow, on our public holiday (huzzah!).. assuming I don't sleep in until 12 like I did this morning ;)



We also took a few photos of Cheryl for the week 24 BellyWatch. You can see them here.

We've been looking around for a cot and all the trimmings for the last couple of weeks.. we thought we had found the perfect one at Toys R Us (on sale no less), but unfortunately they don't deliver as far as Morphett Vale and we had no way of getting it from the city to our place.. and the local Toys R Us doesn't have it. Ah well, back to the drawing board. Assuming we can get the painting finished this weekend all we have planned for next weekend is steam-cleaning the carpet so we should have some time to look.

My general plan is to have the room all completely finished before you guys all visit in December, so we have a bit of time still.

Hap to bizle

Happy Birthday DAMIEN!!!  MOAR EXLCAMATION MARKZ AZ REQWESTUD!!

Ducky?

BellyWatch: Week 22

A little something special for this BellyWatch.. check it out over at my site (you'll need the flash player)

An evening at the theatre

Indulged our thespian hearts with a trip to Shakespeare's New Globe Theatre last night.

First: dinner at Harry's Bar in the city. Named after a famous cocktail (coquetier! eggcup!) bar in Venezia, Italia (Venice, Italy ;-)), Harry's of London shares, well, nothing with it's Italian namesake: it's a wine bar and restaurant, and the wine is Chilean, Australian and French rather than Italian. Nevertheless, the food was good: I had gnocchi (maybe Italiano!) with prawns; Dee tried the risotto (ooh, maybe it's more Italian than I gave it credit for). We ate with a friend of Dee's, her partner and two of her friends, and although we were both tired and didn't really like the idea of meeting new people just then, the night turned out okay.

Apparently Harry's in Venezia is really expensive; in London the bill was cut down to a more manageable size by a mid-week special: half price on the total bill if you have 2 courses. It was cheaper to have a main and dessert than to just have a main! Now that's a savings plan I could get into. Guess there is some good in the credit-crunch -- with all the bankers out of work, swanky places like Harry's has to let rabble like me in!

After dinner we wandered down towards the Thames and across one of the many bridges, the city beginning to sparkle as dusk mellowed to dark. Behind us, Wren's St. Paul's loomed ominously, whilst ahead the whitewashed walls and thatched roof of The Globe warmly invited us; it could've been the late 1600's, with both Globe and the great church rebuilt after the Great Fire of London. Or so I imagined.

We handed over our little cardboard tokens and shuffled up the wooden stairs to the top gallery, whereby we were afforded a near-birds-eye view down upon the stage the the players. We sat upon hard wooden benches, eschewing the hired cushions that those of less-hardy temperament (and posterior fortitude) felt necessary. Shortly the strains of a light tune played on lutes and horns signalled for quiet; a hush fell upon the crowd.

The play's the thing, you see, and the thing in this case was a jolly little tale, "The Merry Wives Of Windsor". A comedy, although I could not say whether t'were the skill of the Bard or that of the players that made it so; t'was a genuine laugh-out-loud, raucous comedy. Ooh, look thee upon these words! T'is like the particular, peculiar method of Shakespeare's own art hath soaked my brain; stewing in olde English forms of yore, it cannot help but express itself as I pen this journal!

So: perched upon hard benches (of birch or cedar) we watched a tale of clever wives, jealous husbands, bellicose doctors and rotund knights and laughed. Sooth: I could not decide whether Shakespeare so influenced English humour, or whether the comedic endeavours of Fawlty Towers and it's ilk were the influence for the players of this tale; in either case, you've not seen impotent fury until you've seen a skinny English gent in a badly-fitted wig first tempting a knight to make advances upon his wife, then cursing that she, in appearances at least, entertains such carnal ideas with said knight.

"CUCKOLD!!"

(Comments in thy best rendition of olde English please.)

Our sunny Saturday

Damien and I decided to make the most of the nice weather on Saturday
and headed to the beach for lunch. We went to a Japanese restaurant where we had yummy food and a nice view. We then went for a little walk on the rocks. Damien went out further than me (I was afraid I'd lose my balance) and he found a seal! We finished our outing with some icecream and a bit of shopping, hehe! It was a really nice day :)



Oh yeah, and here are the ultrasound photos. The first is the baby's skull (spooky! I think it looks a bit like uncle Glenn ;) and in the second the baby is giving us a bit of a wave. The baby is doing well. I feel it moving more often and instead of quick little jabs I can feel it moving around and 'rolling' more. Sometimes it feels like it's doing little somersaults! :) And I have feeling good. I've been enjoying some long sleeps and afternoon naps, and Damien has been looking after me very well. (I have to admit though, my afternoon nap today wasn't because I was particularly tired, there was just nothing good on TV! :)

BellyWatch: Week 20

I'm a bit behind on the updates but here's the photo from last weekend. We bought a gorillapod tripod, so I was able to wrap it around a post out the back and solved the low-light/shakiness issues of earlier shots.

We also had the ultrasound on Monday. This was a longer one than the last, where they check the baby's organs, skeleton, that kind of thing. They didn't see anything wrong, which is good.

We also found out the baby's gender.

I've told Mum and Dad, Nana and Lisa.. Dayna, Glenn and Dee, we're happy to tell you guys but we don't want to post it here just in case you'd rather not know. You can give us a call if you'd like, or else post here and we'll tell you :)

Apart from that things have been pretty much the same. The baby is kicking with enough force that I can feel it through Cheryl's belly, which is quite exciting.. and it's about time I thought about decorating the baby's room too. I want to paint it.. but first I have to clear it ;)

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)

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 :)