One Degree of Separation

The Gist: I keep bumping into people I know and I went to a comedy show. I've no idea where all the other words came from.

You know you've been living on the Sunshine Coast too long when you start bumping into the same person more than once. Or you go out for dinner and one of the other guests happens to know someone you do. Really well. In Australia there are only about three or four degrees of separation. Pin-point it down to south-east Queensland or the Sunshine Coast and it's more like one or two. It's spooky. That's started happening to me so I'll be moving to Melbourne next month.

I went to a comedy show last night. This was quite an exciting event as such things rarely occur on the Sunshine Coast (unlike bumping into people you know) and it's fair to say that in the three years I've been living here I haven't been to one. Not one! Somewhat different to living in London where there was a world-class comedy club (Jongleurs) just down the road from me (that's London-speak for "it's five minutes that way on the number 77"). It was the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (which was on when we were down in Melbourne but we weren't organised enough to get tickets) Roadshow and it was pretty good. Unfortunately, Ross Noble wasn't there, which is good because my friend informed me that she hates him. (What? Sacrilege! She obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word "funny" or "f***ing hilarious" or "oooh... he went a bit far there, don't you think?") However, we bumped into someone we knew (it happens more often at "cultural" events such as these because they occur so rarely that everyone on the coast goes. In fact, it's strange if you don't bump into everyone you know. And yes, they really do class a comedy show as a cultural event.) So we bumped into someone we knew (again) but that's not the point. The point is that these people told us that Ross Noble will be being funny at Nambour Civic Centre on June 1st. Guess what I'll be googling today.

The point of today's post was originally to share with you that I drank too much beer last night, went to bed feeling sick and have woken up with a sore head, after having weird dreams where Toby, me, my sister (possibly my mother but I really can't remember) and a couple of random infants and a hamster all lived in one tiny house that seemed to consist of only one room. The hamster was psycho and spent the entire time running around and around the house squeezing its little self amongst wires that seemed to be all around the skirting boards for some reason. It really went too far when it tried to squeeze through a hole the size of a five pence piece (or five cents if you'd prefer) in the front door, which I'd been telling Toby we should fix before the weather gets much colder. But again, I digress. That really wasn't the point. But it has given me an interesting idea for future blog topics. Dream analysis! Oh don't get me started. I had a great airport dream the other night. Scary but anyway, I'll share that another time.

The two stars (in my opinion) of last night's show were Mark Watson, a funny, almost hyper welsh dude, and Fiona O'Something, an Irish-Australian alcholic with anorexic sisters and a really scary mother. She left her baby in Liquorland once. It was like a horrible view of my own future when she told that story. I've asked people to remind me, should it ever become relevant, not to let me have more than two children because I will start forgetting them. Every day this week I've managed to forget something. Yesterday was a classic example. I had a meeting with the salary sacrifice lady (how scary does that sound? I don't want to sacrifice my salary, thanks. I quite like it) and I'd emailed her to ask what I needed to take with me. She didn't really ask for much. Just my payslip really. So what did I do? I took my payslip home with me on Tuesday. And then left it there.

Actually salary sacrificing works out quite nicely. I'll be getting about 30% of the cost of my laptop back. Yes! I finally bought a laptop and I'm most pleased because I'm blogging on it right now. It's still not quite set up the way I want it because it only arrived on Monday and I've been very busy drinking and laughing and stuff. So unfortunately I am forced to use Internet Explorer and as such my blog looks s**t, as per my previous blog. If you use IE and you can't see the posts, here's a tip: scroll right down. It's down there somewhere. But then if you're reading this you've probably already figured that out. Sorry about all the swearing by the way; that's the hangover. For those of you that are interested I bought a Dell Latitude D820. It's super fast and has wi-fi so I'm quite happy. It looks cool when it's open because the inside is black. But the outside is a naff silver. I also have a super duper wireless keyboard and mouse. I could write a geeky post about why I chose this laptop (it was cheap!) but I'm not really in the mood today. Another time, maybe.

One of the guys at the comedy show last night was really odd, not very funny and I don't think I'd recommend him. His name was Sam Simmons. Avoid him. Do not pay money to see him.

Oh, just before I go, guess what?! We booked our flights to the UK! WE'RE COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS - YAY!!!!!! Looks like we're going via Dubai (send your travel tips!) and we should be in London around 9th December. We're trying to arrange it so we'll get there in time for the weekend. So who's hosting the party for us?

I really have no idea why I woke up this morning with a hangover and thought it would be a good idea to blog so I'm going to stop now.

Just give me the gist

For all you busy people out there who, like my good pals Brent and Praj, only have time for the gist I have for you this week a) a short post, and b) a link to a website that gives you the gist of books. How fantastic an idea is that? No longer to you have to sift through boring old industry or professional development books. Now you can cut to the chase and go straight for the jugular, leaving much more time for fun stuff such as reading novels, windsurfing, making jewellery, watching TV (ohmigod the final of Dancing with the Stars is on tonight! How exciting) or movies, gardening, bowling, socialising, whatever takes your fancy really because I know you all spend far too much time reading business books.

So, in order to prevent this short post becoming a long post, here's the link: Get the gist (A.K.A Get Abstract)

Weekend In Melbourne

Finally, our long awaited weekend to Melbourne happened last week and it was so much fun. We originally had flights booked for February but had to cancel because Toby couldn't take time off work. Fortunately for us the airline made a change to our schedule which made it really easy for us to get our money back as we just told them we couldn't make the new times. And even though these flights were a bit more expensive we got some extra time down in Melbourne thanks to the Anzac Day public holiday on Tuesday 25th April.

The CIS Old Boys Club Reunion. L-R: Toby Clewett (March 2003), Praj Basnet (October 2005), Lindsey Buckle (still suffering), Brent Dacre (bad influence, started the whole thing, May 2005), Shuwana Shiraze (contractor, went to Lithuania for a cold spell, the mad monkey, between USC and RMIT), Stephen Fenner (contractor, unassuming yet surprisingly good at blowing smoke rings after a few cocktails apparently, approximately November 2005)

When we got there we dropped our bags off at some RMIT offices where friends who used to live on the Sunshine Coast now work. It ended up being something of a team reunion as we all used to work together in the team I currently work in at the University of the Sunshine Coast. I am currently not thinking of joining them down there but mainly because they work on the student system and I don't and have no desire to either. It has been something of a sick joke in the office over the past few months that those people coming to work in a tie will soon defect to RMIT. The IT Director didn't seem to think it was funny though and her blood turns cold at the mere mention of the word RMIT, and the names of some former employees (you know who you are, Brent). Fortunately I don't think she bothers to read this so hopefully the photograph won't freak her out too much. Maybe I'll make it my screen saver just to tease her. Just kidding (you never know she might read it and I don't want to be one of those people who gets sacked for writing stupid things on their blog).

I do miss those guys, especially Brent and Praj whom I worked closely with for quite a while and whom some of you may remember used to have a blog I linked to, which I removed when they started getting lazy. For old times sake we went for a few drinks along with Praj's girlfriend Tracy and it was just like old times only different. For a start it was in Melbourne, secondly it was cold and thirdly there was a decent choice of bars. Much fun was had.

Unfortunately too much fun was had and too much drink consumed for us to think about bothering to go see the people we'd actually travelled down to stay with, Jon and Kristina, good friends from Brisbane. Shame on us! We'd been hoping they'd join us and keep us in check but after a week at work they were tired and wanted to chill out at home. We finally loaded our sorry selves onto a tram (actually, the others did it for us because we were confused small-town folk) and Jon good-naturedly picked us up from the tram stop and drove us home when really he probably just wanted to punch us. By the time we got home Jon was chilled out and started cracking open the beers. It was really good to see them again and I'm so glad they forgive us for turning up so late.

On Saturday J&K took us to the Victoria Markets which are huge and impressive and full of pretty much anything you might want to buy grocery-wise. The deli section was phenomenal. Every sort of bread, cheese, cold meet, nuts, olives, nibbles, dried or smoked fish, just everything. I was gobsmacked. And the fruit and vegetable section looked much fresher and more inviting than the supermarket. I'd love to have somewhere like this to do my weekly shopping even if it was a bit crazy and busy with people moving around all over the place and getting in your way and huffing and puffing at me just because I wanted to stand in the middle of the aisle and take photographs.

Jon and Kristina live in a nice suburb on Port Philip Bay, called Elwood, not too far from St. Kilda. They live about a minute's walk from the beach which is perfect for Jon who's a keen windsurfer and can just carry his rig over the road and through the park. They've made lots of nice friends locally and whilst Jon and Toby went for a sail on the windsurfers, Kristina and I went for a civilised drink at a local bar with a couple of Kristina's friends. I have to admit that despite the cold I was tempted to windsurf. I even took my wetsuit with me but having not seen Kristina since June last year I was keen to spend some time with her.

That evening Jon & Kristina invited Luke and Kate around for dinner. Luke and Kate are yet more friends of ours who decided to move to Melbourne. What is it with Melbourne that has made everyone suddenly want to go live there? I mean it's nice and everything but it's not that great. I liked it because it was cold and city-like, with older buildings and a bit of character. But I wonder if I lived there if the novelty of that would wear off and I'd start thinking it would be really nice to live somewhere a bit quieter and warmer and with a nice beach, like the Sunshine Coast. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with Kate and Luke too and the dinner was scrumptious: morrocan chicken with figs or dates or something. Or were the figs and dates in the ice cream Kristina made? It was all yummy anyway.

L-R: Kristina, Kate, Luke (and me - kind of looks like his head is directly on top of mine), Toby and Jon, wearing an oven glove in case you were wondering what that weird white thing is.

Kate got very excited when I told her that I was taking a photograph to put on my website and made me promise to email her the link. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember where I put her email address. Although, I imagine if it really was a case of doing it to save my life I'd remember. Sorry, Kate, I hope I get this to you somehow.

The next day Jon very kindly offered to drive us around some wineries. We headed out towards Mornington Peninsula, stopping on the way to check out the famous brightly coloured Brighton Beach huts, which are very cool. I pondered the pressure that must be upon the owners to have the grooviest beach huts and I wonder if there are guidelines as to how they have to be maintained. One of them even had the Australian flag painted onto it.

Brighton Beach Huts: brightly coloured!

Mornington Peninsula was beautiful. I was very excited by all the autumn leaves as I haven't experienced proper seasons for such a long time. In Queensland the leaves fall off the trees all year round and they seem to go from green to yellow to brown, completely missing out the red bit which is the prettiest. We spent some time enjoying the coastline and the countryside but mainly just the wine. It was really good, and brave, of Jon to offer to chaffeur us around. Thanks to our yummy meal and lots of wine the night before no one could actually taste any wines in the first place, which is a shame as apparently it's really nice. We knocked them back anyway and after lunch we really got into it and started actually making purchases. Here's a lovely photo of us outside one particularly nice winery, our arms full of bottles of wine.

Nice leaves, nice friends, nice wine.

After dinner that evening Toby and I had one more friend to catch up with. Pete's in a band and so lives the life of a night-owl which is considerably different to how Toby and I live. Nevertheless, despite a day on the booze, another big scrummy dinner courtesy of Jon and Kristina (asparagus pasta this time....mmmmm), and just being generally knackered, we dragged ourselves out with Pete. We didn't regret it. He took us to The Espy in St. Kilda where we watched a band called The Nudist Funk Orchestra or something. Thankfully, they weren't nude but they were funky.

Our last day in Melbourne was spent just chilling and wandering around J&K's neighbourhood. Someone had suggested we go to see the penguins on some island in the bay but that seemed like a long way to go so we went to see March of the Penguins instead. It was lovely.

That's all for now folks. Sorry for another long post. As usual, there are more photos at http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/20060425_MelbourneAnzacDayWeekend

The Unprofessionals

I'm upset with my rental agents. They will remain unnamed of course, otherwise I may get myself into trouble. The title of this post is merely an indication as to how I feel they have conducted their business in the past (although with regards to professionalism they are slowly improving). That is all it is. A title. Make of it what you will.

I honestly have never known such a fussy house to live in. We have inspections every six months and it feels like much much more, to the extent that we've started looking for evidence as to whether they are in fact occuring more often. The house is slightly more difficult to keep clean on account of the fact that it's large and has many residents, most of whom don't clean up after themselves and are so disgusting that they leave their droppings everywhere. I hasten to add that most of them are spiders and ants. We have the occasional gecko lodging with us and now and again a cockroach visits to steal food. Toby and I put our droppings in the toilet or the bin (depending on the kind of droppings) and we are quite good at cleaning up after ourselves. The insects, on the other hand, take a lot of looking after. The spiders in particular like to make webs so they can gather dust. I don't know why they like dust so much. Perhaps they read my weird dust post and they're saving it up for when it becomes important international currency.

The lady that used to deal with our property has given us a few headaches in the past, mainly due to her Jekyll and Hyde personality. One moment she'd be quite normal and the next she'd be snarling at us and jumping to her own defence at everything we said no matter how innocent. Before inspections I'd run around cleaning and tidying until the house was spotless and sparkly. And then she'd leave a note saying "Window sills need dusting" and it would turn out there was some dark hidden corner of the house that I never ventured into with one dusty little window.

Besides all this I am working quite hard at becoming a good housekeeper, mainly thanks to the friendly advice the agent leaves after the inspections ("Clean mould from windows." Mould? What mould? "Tend to gardens." We've got a garden? So we do, would you look at that!).

I've even been known to voluntarily take down all the net curtains and wash them and a few weeks ago I took to cleaning the windows. This was no mean feat and despite spending an afternoon two weekends in a row doing it I didn't quite get it finished, especially those pesky windows that are behind security/fly screens because you have to remove the screen to get to the outside of the window and it's the kind of palava you leave until you have the time for it really.

After the run-ins we had with our previous agent (which I won't go into in detail mainly because I can't remember them) I was rather pleased to hear that we had a new agent assigned to our property. I found this out when I called them up regarding another inspection that was imminent. They chose a really inconvenient time to call round. I'd been sick the previous week (with 6WMV) and had only managed rudimentary cleaning that weekend. They gave us slightly less than a week's notice and chose to come around the following Monday, the weekend after the wedding.

Frankly, I was far too busy to care about the whole running around making the house sparkly and clean. We live in a clean house and we take good care of it so I decided the agent could take us as she found us. Which was just as well really as we didn't get home until 10pm on Sunday night anyway. We'd brought Toby's cousin back with us so I called the agent to warn her there may be a young man sleeping in the house and could she give him a call to let him know when she'd be there.

Turns out it was two days before she actually made it to our house. I think that might be illegal because the written notice was for the Monday, not the Wednesday but I'll let it slide (for now).

The other day we received a notice from the agency asking us to tend to the garden (damn irritating in itself as Toby spends almost every weekend we're at home cutting the grass but I'm not going into this right now). The thing that got me was that there was a little note attached to the back of the notice. Guess what it said. Go on, have a guess.

"Windows need cleaning"

Ah! Well! There are no words. I was dumbfounded. "What does she mean 'windows need cleaning'?" was about all I can manage. The *&^$&$(#$ windows are (*$#%*#$& clean!!! I cleaned them! I spent hours cleaning them. Just a few weeks ago. Without anyone having to ask me to do it. I just did it. All by myself. It was my idea. They look great. (Except for a couple of the bedrooms which I didn't get around to and maybe the dining room window and the pesky windows that are behind security/fly screens but it's a work in progress and I was going to do it just as soon as I had a weekend at home and got a goddarned chance to do it!!!!).

I am incredibly hurt by this and am seeking comfort in the thought that the windows I did clean may have made the ones I didn't clean especially noticeable. But really, there's nothing worse than working hard on something and feeling all proud of yourself just to have someone to not only not notice, but actually ask you to do the job you have already done!

Come back Mrs Hyde, all is forgiven. And I promise I'll deliberately leave something unseen to so that you have something to comment on at the next inspection.

Sorry for the long ranting post. I really needed to get that off my chest. 'Preciate your time. Thanks for listening er.. reading.

Honey, the ants are eating the sealant again!

Okay so I didn't quite manage to get back to blogging over the Easter holidays despite the fact that I do have lots of little stories and nice photos I'd like to share with you all. No, I spent most of the time researching laptops which are called notebooks these days. I don't like that term because it makes me think of something containing paper which you would write on with a pen and that's not really what I'm looking for. Anyway that's a whole other topic and for all you geeks out there I will blog about it someday and soon.

What prompted me to write today is the recent discovery that the ants in my bathroom like to eat the shower sealant. I noticed this a few weeks back when a good crowd of them had gathered on the edge of the shower screen. I was wondering what could be intriguing them so much so I leaned in to take a closer look. Imagine my astonishment when I realised that they were eating the sealant between the glass and the metal frame. Suspecting this could not be a good thing for the future of the shower screen, not to mention the health and safety aspects of the bathroom, I gave the ants a quick warning by splashing them with water which they don't like because apparently they can't swim, blowing on them and yelling "Run away ants. Go home because I'm about to take you out. This is your final warning". Most of them heeded my warning and those that were left got wiped up. I figured I was doing the colony a favour by removing the stupid ants from the gene pool.

This morning they were back again but on the other side of the shower screen and this time they were really going for it. They were so into it they didn't budge when I splashed them. What is it about the shower sealant? It doesn't look that yummy to me. I have come to the conclusion that I live with a bunch of crazy, starving ants. Does anyone have any idea why the ants would eat the sealant, whether this is bad for the shower screen or really won't make that much difference, and what I can do to stop them (if deemed necessary)?

At least I don't have the problems some Bangladeshis have been discussing on the ICT Bangladesh Yahoo! Group (according to APC magazine). Apparently they are quite adept at preventing "Mr Ant" from getting inside their laptops notebooks and eating their circuit boards and wires. Tips include, creating a moat around your laptop (I'm sorry but I'm really struggling with this "notebook" thing) because ants can't swim, keeping food away from it, moving to Saudi Arabia which apparently has no ants (a bit drastic but could work) and drawing a chalk line around the outside of the machine (but not inside the machine which would not be good). Apparently this works best for cockroaches (what?!). Personally it brings to mind crime scenes involving dead laptops. By far the best quote is the following:

"Go to the residence of Mr Ant. Say good-bye by destroying his colony"

Wise words indeed.

As one who is soon to be purchasing a laptop and lives with a crazy bunch of sealant-eating bathroom ants, I'm a little worried. I shall be purchasing a Naphthalene ball which I shall place inside my notebook so that "insect will hate [my] notebook and [I] will be charmed with sweet smell."

It's a nice day for a white wedding!

Saturday 8th April was indeed a nice day for a white wedding which was just as well because we went to one. Well, actually it wasn't that white, more a sort of vintage-silk-and-lace-in-an-off-white-almost-very-pale-green-kind-of-colour wedding. Well the dress was anyway although it was much nicer than I have described. I'll have to see if I can find a photograph. Unfortunately I didn't get too many of the bride and groom because when the photographs were being taken we took the opportunity to take a family photo whilst we were all dressed up so here you all go. This is my Australian family. Ah! Bless, aren't they dead canny?

This weekend we're back at Toby's parents' place so that Toby and his Dad can build a carport, only Toby kinked his neck on Thursday night so has only been able to do light work. This meant that his mum and I have had to do a lot of the heavy lifting tasks. Let's just say it has been an interesting exercise in communication, planning, "authority" ("respect ma authoritaahh!!!") and teamwork.

I think I'll probably be back with more photos and updates before the end of the Easter break but just before I sign off for today I have to share some exciting news with you all. My best friend Catherine and her hubbie John have just had their second baby, a boy called Joshua John. He was born two days ago and she has already sent me through some lovely photos of the baby with their (almost) four year-old daughter Jessica. I hope they don't mind me mentioning it but I'm very excited by this news and can't wait to see them all again when I'm next home.

Hermit Crab

Try as I might I simply can't think of a song with lyrics relevant to a hermit crab. For some inexplicable reason the words "Froggie went a hunting, he did ride, a-hum" keep springing to my mind and clearly they have absolutely nothing to do with crabs. I'm not even sure if they are the right words.

Anyway, because it was so beautiful at the weekend we went for a snorkel. It was so calm we were able to jump in off the rocks, something we can't usually do as there is nearly always at least a titchy tiny bit of surf. Usually we go off the beach and swim up a sandy channel and out around the rocks. We were at Shelley Beach in Caloundra. The visibility wasn't great, I guess because of all the storms we've had lately, but everything else was perfect. There were lots of fish to see and we tried to photograph some but they didn't come out too well due to the low viz. So instead we hassled the hermit crabs in the rock pools where we sat drinking beer after our snorkel. We even saw some weird hermit crab convention where they all climbed on top of one another (kind of like "pile-on", that weird game we used to play at school where one kid's on the ground and everyone else piles on top of him, except they were walking around). I got a movie of it which I will put online when I get the chance to edit it. Goodness knows when that will be.

Why I love living where I live...

Beautifully calm Buddina beach on Saturday 1st April 2006.

"Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, oh I do like to be beside the sea."

Why I love living where I live....
... because occasionally I can force myself to get out of bed, put on a bikini and walk for about two minutes until I encounter a beautiful paradise such as this beach where I can either go for a walk in the sunshine watching sandcrabs scuttle into their burrows, or I can comb the beach for interesting and unusual shells washed up in the latest storms, or, as I usually choose to do, I can dive into the crystal blue waters and really wake myself up.

Besides the fact that most of my best friends and family aren't here, why would I want to live anywhere else?

It's a bit different to the angry ocean featured in my poem anyway.

Ah Grasshopper....

Confucius says "is this a grasshopper? I'm not sure but it looks like I imagine a grasshopper would look." Wise words indeed.

"You give me fever in the morning, fever all through the night".

So sang Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Madonna and indeed it's what I was thinking early last week. Yes, I've been sick. Still am actually. And according to the lady in the local health shop it's a virus, it's doing the rounds, lots of people have been getting exactly the same symptoms as me, it lasts six weeks and there's nothing! NOTHING!! you can do to make it go away quicker. And she knows. She probably knows more than the GPs because I think more people spend a couple of minutes popping in to the health shop than a week for an appointment followed by an hour in the waiting room. So I have now resigned myself to the fact that I am going to be somewhat indisposed for the next 4 1/2 weeks. Thankfully, the worst of it seems to be over and I'm regaining some kind of normality in my life but sadly I am watching people around me drop like flies as they develop the Six Week Mystery Virus (or 6WMV as it is known in medical circles). I'm just praying it isn't bird flu. Which is silly really because I'm not even a bird.

Anyway, one fortunate aspect of being sick was that I got to meet my good friend Confucius. That's him in the photograph, hanging onto my sick tree. I don't think the tree has 6WMV as it has been sick much longer than six weeks.

I just have to say, before I pop off, that the weather has been absolutely stunning lately and that I have been taking lots of photographs. I am going to try and upload one a day or every couple of days for your perusal, rather than driveling at length about nothing very much (although there'll be a little bit of that around too because I can't help it. If you don't like it you know what to do about it.*)

Oh yes, and the other fortunate thing that came out of being sick is that I successfully identified Mr Clack (I think). He's a Little (or Brush) Wattlebird, a kind of honeyeater. I have not managed to get a photograph of him yet as he's a bit elusive but you can find one at Birds in Backyards. Honeyeaters are beautiful birds but very noisy. Their squawky calls just don't quite match their elegant form. Last week I spotted a striking blue-faced honeyeater, lots of photos of which can be found at http://www.birdphotos.com.au/bluefacedhoneyeaterweb/index.htm.

Anyway, enough about birds. I'm popping off now. Til next time...


(* For those of you that don't know the answer is leave a comment. Or send an email. I love hearing from you all. That is, of course, assuming that anyone other than me or the guys in the office bothers to read this blog. And the guys in the office only read it because I excitedly yell "I've updated my blog" and then stand over their shoulders watching them until they pretend to look.)

Blogspot now lets you add photos

I've just discovered that you can upload photos to blogger. Previously I have had to find somewhere else to put them and then link to them from here but now I can upload them directly. So happy with this am I that I have decided to share with you a photograph I took of Toby last Saturday, running down the beach to jump in for a dip in the ocean.

Kookaburras and Clacking Evidence

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he."

What do you know, after bemoaning the fact that the kookaburras rarely grace our neighbourhood with their presence, both here on this blog a couple of days ago, and last night on the phone to "me mam", I heard a kookaburra this morning. Such a lovely sound, unfortunately drowned out a little by the surrounding clack-clacks. I only heard him call once and then again but further away so clearly the clack-clacks were too noisy for him too.

I have revisited my presumption that clack-clack is female. I'm so confused by all the different types of birds around our way and the different calls they have at different times of the day and for varying reasons, that there is no way I can tell for certain that the little bird I saw with her chick was Mrs Clack.

I also think I may have translated incorrectly, I think what is in fact being said is "this is my tree so stay out of it. And by the way, I was awake first this morning!" which leads me to the conclusion that it is a territorial call and therefore more likely to be coming from a male bird.

After sleeping late two mornings in a row (I was awake before Mr Clack, as were a number of other clack-clacks over the past couple of days), my bird was the first awake again this morning. Bless! Yesterday I recorded him so that I could share his beautiful singing with you all.

Play or download an audio recording in MP3 format.
Or, you can listen to (or download) a smaller .wma format.
Or, go ahead and view or download the movie so you can get the full effect, see just how dark and early it is and experience my blurry tired eyes. The movie takes a little while to load so please be patient.

If ANYONE can identify the bird by its call I'd really love to know what it is so please leave a comment.

Tick-Tick Joop Joop Click-Clack

I haven't started this week's post with a quote because the title is, in fact, a quote. I assume you're wondering what that means and what sort of crazy person would say such a thing so you mightn't be surprised to learn that it was not a human who uttered this nonsense. It was, in fact, a bird. And in Birdish it's quite a profound statement. It means "wake up. I am the [king/queen] of the tree and I command you to wake up. It's a beeeeauuutiful day and you're about to miss it, lazy bones." Or words to that effect.

And how do I know this? Well, I've been living with it on and off for the past 18 months. Let me introduce you to Mrs Clack (formerly, but not affectionately, known as The Clack-Clack Bird until we discovered her with a youngster and realised she was probably female, not, as we had previously thought, male). Mrs Clack is very fond of the tree outside my bedroom window and is fast becoming the bane of my life. At around 5.15am most mornings (the precise time changes according to the time of year because obviously birds go by the amount of daylight rather than the actual time but suffice to say there isn't very much daylight when Mrs Clack starts), Mrs Clack makes herself comfortable in the tree and then begins her call.

Tick-Tick Joop Joop Click-Clack.

The tick-tick bit is a little like the sound of dice rattling in someone's hand. Or, remember those percussion instruments we used to play at school which were marrow-shaped and hollow with corrugated wood on the outside and a stick you'd use to stroke it with? Kind of like that. A rapid sound. That's the warning that she's about to start.

The Joop Joop bit is fairly self-explanatory and nearly always precedes the Click-Clack and sometimes appears on its own. The Click-Clack sound is like the most horrendous squawking sound, more like a screetch really. Like Creek-CRAAAWK. Like fingernails down a black-board.

Mrs Clack doesn't seem to like incredibly wet, ridiculously windy or terribly hot weather. I seem to recall that she doesn't think much of particularly cold weather either. So around this time of year she reappears from wherever she's been over the summer and reclaims her position in my tree. And then clacks. Loudly. At 5.15am. Every morning. I am very tired.

On Sunday morning I was determined to lie in and catch up on some much needed sleep so I went outside and shook her tree. She got quite a shock and flew away. I smugly went back to bed but within minutes she was back, clacking away. I went out and tried to shake the tree again but this time she was ready for me. Knowing quite well that she was perfectly camouflaged she stayed very still and quiet, pretending that she wasn't there. Of course I knew that she was because I'd heard her, and certainly hadn't seen her fly away but try as I might, I couldn't get her to budge. Within minutes of me retiring to my bed she was clacking away again. I resorted to ear plugs, shutting the window and putting the fan on.

I'm still a bit tired but I'm starting to get used to her and I'm resigned to the fact that I have to wake up at 5.15 every morning. This is fine so long as I go to bed at 9.30pm. The problem I have with Mrs Clack is her inconsistency. She clacks you for months and then nothing. Peace and quiet. This goes on for months and then you get used to it and before you know it she's back. This morning I awoke at exactly 5.15am - before Mrs Clack. It was overcast, you see, so she got confused by the time. But she's got me into waking up at that time now and this will be my life for the next few months until I either figure out how to get rid of her or the weather turns too cold and she decides she'd like a cosier tree to clack in.

Kookaburras: cartoony
with funny dreams.

People living elsewhere in Australia are awoken by kookaburras. This usually happens in places known as The Bush, which actually means The Countryside. Kookaburras are very jolly birds. They look like cartoons of themselves and they have very funny dreams that means they wake up laughing. "Koo-koo-koo-hahahahahaha". They're noisy but they've never bothered me when I have heard them. It's a nice sound to lie in bed to. Unfortunately we don't have very many kookaburras where we live. We have lots of clack-clack birds though and they position themselves in various trees around the neighbourhood. Sometimes another bird wakes up before Mrs Clack and you can hear it somewhere in the distance. This can be beneficial as it can give you a chance to don ear-plugs, shut the window and put on the fan (such is becoming my morning ritual) before she gets started and wakes you up good and proper.

I'm not sure what kind of bird Mrs Clack is - I rarely see her and birds are hard to identify by their call alone - but someone once suggested a little friarbird and whilst this isn't her as she's much prettier, it's the nearest thing I've found so far to her call. Check it out and see how you'd like to listen to this constantly for about 15 minutes (feels more like 60!) every morning - and then multiply it by 100 because Mrs Clack sounds much worse: Little Friarbird call.

Tomorrow morning I will attempt to go outside and record Mrs Clack's call so that I can put a link to it in my next post and share it with you all. Watch this space!

Wild Weather

"It's raining men! Hallelulah it's raining men! Every specimen! Tall, blonde, dark and lean, rough and tough and strong and mean...."

It isn't raining men. It never was raining men. And I thank the Lord for that because I imagine going out in a manstorm would be rather perilous. Imagine being hit by a man landing on you from a great height. In the song the men came from The Heavens and everyone knows that The Heavens are up a great height so I think you might die if a man fell on you from that far. Certainly the man would die. No, really it doesn't bear thinking about and I am very glad it is just a silly song and not a freak of nature that occurs occasionally. That really would be climate change gone mad.

Straddie Main Beach in wild weather.

I started with that line for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's about rain (kind of. Perhaps "take me dancing naked in the rain. Cover me in ecstacy" would be a better choice but that's far too provocative for a family-friendly blog such as this) and we have had some wild weather lately that included lots of rain. Secondly, after last week's tribute to Jennifer Rush I decided it would be nice to start as many blogs as possible with either a song or a quote.

So, what was so wild about the weather? I imagine that I hear you ask. Well basically it was a non-tropical cyclone with lots of wind, lots of rain and huge waves. And what better place to go during such an event, than a beautiful tropical island in Moreton Bay. Yes, that's right, we all decided to go to Straddie (North Stradbroke Island) and an interesting experience it was too.

We drove down to the ferry on Friday night in absolutely bucketing rain. We caught the ferry over in absolutely bucketing rain and a fair bit of wind. We drove to the house in the rain. We woke up the next morning. It was raining. And a bit windy too. And then, the rain stopped. It was as dark as an English winter's day but it wasn't raining and so we decided to go for a swim. As you do. "We're on holiday and I don't care what the weather is like, I'm damn well going for a swim!"

The boys decided to surf. The girls watched them from the hilltop overlooking the beach and got a little bit freaked out when they realised that those little things that resembled pin heads floating in a bowl of tumultuous washing up water, framed by waves the size of a frying pan (we're sticking with the washing up bowl here although I concede that it's not a very good metaphor) were actually their friends, boyfriends and husbands. They jumped off the rocks and within seconds were pushed a kilometre up the beach and back to the shore. The girls heaved a sigh of relief. The boys ran back to the rocks and jumped off them again. The girls freaked out again. The boys were pushed up the beach and back to shore. The girls heaved a sigh of relief and ran down to the beach for a swim. Well, more like a frolic really. Swim here and you'll end up on Fraser Island (which, for those that don't know, is a long, long way north of Straddie) before you know it. No, definitely not a good idea to take your feet of the bottom.

By the time the girls got to the beach the boys had disappeared. Then Mindi and I, saw our respective partners right at the top end of the beach heading towards rocks with huge waves bounding towards them. We decided to run down the beach and over the headland to see where they ended up but the sweep was so strong we couldn't keep up. They ended up two beaches away and by the time we got there they'd run back down to jump in off the rocks again.

No one caught any waves that day and later in the paper we read that a wave buoy measured a 17m wave. That's bigger than a telegraph pole! And I can believe it. I saw the surf lifesaver's boat go over a wave the size of a house.

Later that day we walked around the gorge in 60 knot winds (that's what they felt like anyway). The broken off branches and uprooted trees freaked me out a little and I started to wonder if this was one of the least clever things I'd done. The gorge itself was like a wild pot of double cream. Mark and Toby couldn't help themselves and they jumped in, wishing that they were accompanied by babes in bikinis. Every now and then a huge wave would come hurtling up the gorge and completely swamp them both in foam. The waves splashed up the sides of the gorge making it look like it had been whitewashed. The coolest thing was the fluff that was blown off the top and then floated up and away like snow falling backwards. The wind was so intense we found bits of snow-foam in amongst the foliage right around the other side of the headland as we ran back to the car.

We had a fun party that night with lots of food and for those of you that bother to check the photos out I feel I must point out that I started the whole Pumpkin Head thing. Some of you won't find that too hard to believe. There is even a photograph of me actually balancing the Pumpkin on my Head. No, really there is. I just don't have a copy of it. But I'll get one and I'll prove it to you.

The next morning we awoke to a flood in the hallway and no power. Then we remembered the fun we'd had the night before, throwing roti breads at the ceiling fan like frisbees and watching it getting sliced into pieces that ricocheted off in all directions. My, cleaning up was fun!

The photos are in the usual place, but in case you need a reminder go to http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/StradbrokeIsland_MadWeather/

That's the Power of Ten

"Cos I am your ladeeeeeeeee, and you are my ma-a-an, whenever you reach for me, I'm gonna do all that I ca-an. We're heading for somewhere, somewhere I've never been. Sometimes I can't fight it but I'm ready to learn about the Power of Ten".

Ah! The dulcet tones of that 80s one-hit-songstress Jennifer Rush. Probably not very accurate lyrics, and slightly modified in recognition of the ten year birthday of the University of the Sunshine Coast, which, in case you hadn't guessed, is where I work. The uni kicked off its (hopefully) year long celebrations last week with a staff photo and a party. The photo consisted of us all dressing in white shirts and then standing in the middle of a grassy area of campus in the shape of a ten, waving our lovely new free (as a thankyou for participating) Power of Ten* hats for an hour in the heat of the midday sun (thankfully there were a few clouds) whilst various media and the vice chancellor flew over us in a helicopter.

The party was held the following evening on campus, outside the ICT "cheese-grater" building where I work, which was quite risky as it is a bit stormy at the moment and there was an impressive rain storm in the afternoon whilst they were setting up. Thankfully the weather held off, although organisers weren't quite brave enough to place tea lights in the Chinese-style lanterns they'd hung around the place, on account of the wind. There was free food served from Asian-style street carts, lots of free booze and, of course, yummy chocolate birthday mud-cake, each with a little number 10 on it (cute). There were a few little chats and a documentary about the uni and how it all started which was quite interesting. It's a very small university so I knew most of the people on the film. There was also an exhibition in the art gallery of aerial photographs of the uni at various stages of development, including the big 10 pic we'd taken the day before. And we all got a free commemorative book, which was nice. The last few boozers were just leaving at around 9pm when the heavens opened and it bucketed down on the poor techies who risked life and limb to clear away all the electrical equipment.

Meanwhile, I've been keeping busy at work. I'm still dying to sort the study out but have spent little time at home. We popped down to Brisbane a couple of weekends ago for Mindi's birthday. Had a yummy meal and caught up with some friends we haven't seen for a while. Then last weekend it was off to Highfields, near Toowoomba, to see Toby's parents. The house was a bit quiet without his dog, Tango running to greet us. Unfortunately Tang died last year after being poisoned by a tick and this was our first visit since then. Tomorrow we're off to North Stradbroke Island (also part of Mindi's birthday celebrations. This girl beats me with dragging it out. But then she is only 24 so birthdays are still worth celebrating and, to be fair, her boyf surprised her with the meal. Tried to anyway). The boys are very excited as there is some cyclonic swell coming through. Me, not so much, as there is also some unimpressive weather hanging around at the moment bringing rain and wind. The university even keeps threatening to close in case of flooding. Ho hum. I shall take lots of books to read and hope things clear up and that I find a beach which doesn't have waves that will kill me.

So long.

* The Power of Ten is the uni's 10 year birthday logo by the way.

Dust! Anybody? No?

Remember the sketch in Little Britain where Marjorie Dawes is asking the "fatties" whether certain foods are High In Fat or Low In Fat? "What about dust? High in fat, low in fat? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No?" and so it went on.

Well, would you believe that according to Tim Flannery in The Weathermakers dust is very important? Who would have thought it? There I was thinking that it was just something that fat people ate to lose weight.

According to Tim, "dust is important stuff, because tiny particles can scatter and absorb light, thereby lowering temperature [doesn't seem to work in my house]. These particles also carry nutrients [presumably why people can eat it if they want to lose weight] into the ocean and to distant lands, assisting the growth of plants and plankton, and thereby increasing the absorption of CO2. Around half of the global dust in the air today originates in arid Africa, and the impact of the drying is so great that the planet's atmospheric dust loading has increased by a third [whatever that means]."

Apparently climatologists think this will have an impact on something but so far they don't know on what, or to what extent. But they're working on figuring it out which is good to know.

So there you go. You can now look at your household dust in a totally new light, knowing that it is important, lowers temperature, helps plants grow and in some way may or may not contribute to something to do with climate change or some such thing.

Incidentally, in South-east Queensland, where I live, the summers get so humid that the dust gets damp and sticks to things in a really disgusting manner. More like scum really.

(In case you were wondering, dust is low in fat.)

Evolution in Action

Last week some colleagues and I were chatting about 1976. I can't actually remember it being, as I was, just a wee bairn (that's "baby" for all you Aussies and southerners) at the time but ten years later I suffered a bout of eczema and was told by my doctor and my mam that I'd also suffered it in 1976 and interestingly both years were extremely hot (as hot as it gets in Newcastle anyway). This then led my mother to reminisce about the hose-pipe ban (yes, we get them in England too) which led me to conclude that the summer of 1976 must have been hot and dry.

Meanwhile, my Australian colleagues were recollecting an entirely different situation in which 1976 was extremely wet, the wettest year any of them could remember. The contrast was interesting.

The following day I read in The Weather Makers (The history and future impact of climate change) by Tim Flannery, a well known and controversial Australian scientist, that 1976 was a particularly harsh El Nino year and that it was a pivotal year in the history of recent climate change. The following year brought drought to many areas, including the Galapagos Islands. Here scientists witnessed something quite astonishing. As they watched in despair the majority of the region's 1300 native finches, famously used by Darwin as an example of evolution, died leaving a population of only 180. These birds survived because they had the largest beaks and were able to crack open tougher nuts. Of the survivors, only 30 were female. Imagine the kerfuffle when the rains returned and the mating season began. 150 males trying to mate with 30 females. That's a ratio of 5 to 1. It's not going to work really, is it? Not surprisingly, the majority of the males didn't get a look in and those that were successful in mating with the females were, once again, those with the largest beaks, enabling them to viciously fight for the honour of reproducing.

These two events resulted in a measurable increase in the average size of the Galapagos finch's beak! Thanks to Darwin's research biologists were able to compare the new average with 200 years worth of beak measurements and concluded that they may have witnessed the evolution of a new species.

I find it amazing that evolution can happen over such a short period of time. It's beautiful, yet also a little scary. If that's what one hot summer can do to a species, what does the future of climate change hold for the rest of us?

The Weather Makers is a fascinating read and I'm bound to end up blogging a few more interesting snippets of info from it so watch out. (I'll try not to get on my soap box though. I seek merely to inform!).

Interestingly, whilst looking for links for this blog I came across an article on BBC news warning that the recent UK winter drought could have "serious consequences" and that south-east England is the driest since 1976 (Concerns over UK winter drought). Hope you get some rain soon.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours (whom they can borrow a Chinese cup of bruising from)

I thought I'd better pop by and say a quick "hello" just in case anyone actually reads this blog and is wondering where I have got to and what I have been up to.

Well, not that much really.

But I'll give it a go anyway otherwise this would end up being a really short and boring post. (Some of you might say "better than a long and boring post, Buckle" but I shall pretend I didn't hear you).

Toby's friend from university, Scott and his wife, Lucie have been staying with us for the last three weeks whilst they set about moving to the Sunshine Coast. Yes, that's right! Finally, someone has taken notice of our ravings about how wonderful life is here and have made the move to join us. Like me, Scott and Lucie (hereinafter collectively referred to as The Bradleys because that's much quicker to type) came straight from six or so years in London. Scott probably had a better idea of what to expect having already lived in Cairns and Brisbane and possibly other places around Queensland, but Lucie, being Czech, has only really experienced Europe and, like me when I first arrived, is experiencing certain cultural differences. Particularly, she discovered early on (as did I) that mayonnaise is not actually mayonnaise here but is in fact salad cream masquerading as the more superior, creamy, delicate on the tongue mayo that we become used to in Europe. If you want real mayo make sure you go for S&W. So far it is the only thing I have tasted here that remotely resembles mayonnaise.

The Bradleys actually move out of our place today so it'll be strange to get home to an empty house. It's okay though as they're only going around the corner so no doubt we'll see them again tomorrow. It'll be just like on Neighbours. Which is actually quite a scary thought.

A few weeks ago (Jan 25th) we had Australia Day which is where you don't have to go to work so long as you spend the day being Australian. Obviously this consisted of going to the beach for a body surf, listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 on the radio, having friends around for a BBQ, eating too much meat and drinking lots of beer.

Since then Toby's office at Noosa have released the new strategic plan for the shire, the culmination of years of hard work and lots of playing with maps by Toby. We had a little celebration for that and in the same weekend friends of our's, Adam and Bec, had an engagement party (congratulations) and invited us all around to celebrate in the beautiful, large, airy and spacious, gorgeously decorated, (room for expansion) house (with double garage, lawn and huge wooden deck!) they have just finished building. (Not jealous. No really, I'm not.)

I've been keeping up with my windsurfing and have discovered the joys of southerlies in Pumicestone Passage. Rather than bore the non-sailors amongst you with descriptions of my attempts to tack and talk of the maximum wind speed I have managed not to fall off the board in, I thought I'd just show you a photograph of the passage. But I couldn't really find a nice one, so instead I have uploaded a picture I took last year of a view of the Glasshouse Mountains from Happy Valley in Caloundra.

Glass House Mountains (and Pumicestone Passage if you look hard enough) From Happy Valley

See the water? Well, see the next stretch of water beyond that and beyond the sand bank with trees on it (which is actually the tip of Bribie Island)? Yeh, well that's Pumicestone Passage (and if you can actually see it you have the best eye sight in the world). Sorry, it was the best I can do but I think you'll all agree it's a jolly nice picture anyway. To see a bigger version click on the link and go to Flickr.

My shoulder is playing up again. Toby and I have discovered a thing called Trigger Points, thanks to advice and a good book recommendation from my friend and massage therapist, Nirvana. (Such a suitable name for a massage therapist, don't you think?) Toby has now purchased a theracane. It's a weird looking contraption, the general idea being that you use it to apply pressure to trigger points. Trigger points are small knots of muscle, "exquisitely painful"(??) on application of pressure, which refer pain to other parts of the body. I haven't quite got the hang of the theracane yet but Toby is having hours of fun and can be found theracaning various points in his back and neck most evenings. I think he might be addicted to it. Personally, my back and shoulder muscles are so bloody tight it's like one huge trigger point. No chance of finding a small grain-of-rice-sized knot in amongst that mess, I can tell you.

No, I prefer to pay Nirvana to do it. Much more relaxing. Last night she performed "cupping" on me. It sounds rude but really it isn't, although the resulting effect is somewhat like vacuum cleaner shaped lovebites all over one's back. And when I say vacuum cleaner shaped, I mean imagine the perfectly rounded shape of the sucking end, not the shape of the actual vacuum cleaner. Check out this link for a bizarre pictorial example of cupping in action. It certainly wasn't an unpleasant experience and despite standing in the cool air (all oiled up and feeling cold) for 45 minutes afterwards, waiting for a bus that never turned up and tensing my newly manipulated muscles every time the wind blew, I do feel remarkably better and more energised today than I have all week.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to revive my 'puter so I can do all my blogging from home and perhaps even provide you with some other treats, such as edited movies. Wow! Won't that be fun? Unfortunately that's a little way off as there is a fair amount of work to do to sort out the study and determine the most economical way to get 'putered up.

Anyway that's the latest, although not necessarily the greatest, from me. Apologies if this is a bit dull. I can attribute this to lack of sleep caused by horrible aching sensation in the shoulder. Am just about to fall asleep at my desk now. Bye zzzzzzzzzzz.....

Angourie Holiday Photos Are Online

I never did get around to writing about our New Year holiday in Angourie and it's a bit difficult now as it was so long ago. But I did finally get around to putting my photographs from the trip online so feel free to check them out at http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/20051231_Angourie/.

Just briefly, six of us rented a beach house for a week from 27th December in a little village called Angourie in New South Wales, 4 km south of a town called Yamba. Angourie is famed for its surf breaks as it has beautiful beaches and there is always a protected spot.

The six in question were Toby and I, Mark and Mindi and Oscar and Jackie, friends Toby knows from his uni days who live in Sydney. Staying nearby was Mark's flatmate Guy and his family who were visiting from Hong Kong and California. For New Year's Eve even more folk arrived, including Pete and Daneale, friends who were with us on our Lady Musgrave Island paradise holiday last New Year.

It was a great trip, the weather was fantastic, we surfed and snorkelled. I met a squid for the first time and we saw lots of sting rays. We did yoga on the beach, ate good food, went on nice walks, windsurfed. Oscar's latest hobby is movie making so we spent a fair amount of time filming a five minute movie for a film competition he wanted to enter. Everyone got to play a part. Toby was the lead: a guy who is a bit of a lout and then has an epiphany and becomes all zen-like. I was a beach "babe" he tries to chat up only I wasn't allowed a speaking part because of my "weird" accent. Don't worry, my time will come. There is an aspiring actress within me as most of you who know me I'm sure will agree. I just need the right part and Oscar clearly didn't have it (although where he got the idea from that I could be a beach "babe" frankly is beyond me.) I'm yet to see the footage. I do hope I sucked my belly in enough. Didn't help that I got to beach-babe with Jackie who is a beach babe and has beautiful Croatian tanned olive skin. So, I'll be hoping that I actually look nothing like me really so that I can pretend it was someone else. The weirdest thing was wearing stage make-up to the beach!

My blog looks TERRIBLE in Internet Explorer

I have just discovered that my blog looks awful in Internet Explorer. All the text is really big - good if you're a bit short-sighted I suppose - and there's a massive block of just nothing at the top of the page so that you have to scroll down to actually read the posts.

I never use IE. I don't trust it and I don't particularly like it. I much prefer Mozilla FireFox and can heartily recommend it to anyone. But anyway, there are probably other equally good alternatives to IE out there.

So this post is just a quick apology to those of you who use IE and think my blog is awful. Really, it's not. Not if you have a decent browser.

Let me know by way of a comment on this post whether you use IE - I can probably figure it out from my stats anyway but at least if you leave a comment I know it's really bugging you - and if there are enough of you for me to care then I'll think about fixing it up.

But really, you probably shouldn't be using IE anyway. Not if you can help it.

Diving on Straddie

WARNING: This is a very long post. If you want to go straight to the photos then feel free, although the blog does explain them a bit.

I have just had a fantastic weekend. Isn't it great to get to work on Monday morning and be able to say that? To really feel like you made the most of your two days off work?

Friday night saw Toby and I packing bags ready for an early morning start. Things were looking bad when we couldn't find my wetsuit. We were about to go over to North Stradbroke Island (known as Straddie) with the sole intention of scuba-diving. We hadn't dived since we were on Lady Musgrave a year ago and had heard great things about Flat Rock just off the north eastern tip of Straddie. Well, not having a wetsuit was just awful, not just for this weekend as we were sure I'd be able to hire one, but we started thinking of how I wouldn't be able to snorkel and how I wouldn't want to do much else water-based once the water cools down in a few months. Not only that but shopping for a wetsuit is not that much fun and this one had been a gift from Toby almost three years ago when I first got here and point blank refused to spend more than five minutes in the water during the winter. Besides which, where on earth was it? We just couldn't figure out where it had gone to and my last memory of it was washing it after snorkelling a couple of days before we left Angourie. I couldn't believe I'd lost it and was so annoyed and upset with myself but also couldn't understand how no one else had picked it up either.


Beautiful sunrise

We had an exceptionally early start the next morning. We woke up in time to leave the house at 4.15am and drive down to Cleveland, east of Brisbane, where we were meeting Mark, Mindi, Guy and Nobina and getting on the ferry. For our efforts we were rewarded with a remarkable sunrise with deep reds and oranges (and I just kept thinking of the "red sky at night" poem which I think does not end well for the red sky in the morning). We got to the ferry just on time and loaded our gear into Guy's car. I could have kissed Mark when he said "is this yours?" and thrust a lump of black neoprene into my hands - my wetsuit - but I made do with jumping up and down and hugging him, excitedly exclaiming "my wetsuit" like an idiot.

We arrived at the house we were staying in, where the dive operation is run from, at about 7am and no one else was awake so Ken, the boat driver, suggested we go for a surf. I swam and read whilst the others surfed and by 8.30am we were preparing our gear. There was a fair amount of swell so we launched the boat from a protected beach. It was so much fun speeding out through the surf and the boat was airborne a couple of times as we jumped over the waves. It only took a few minutes to get out to Flat Rock but then we had difficulty getting the anchor to catch and it became more and more of a mission for me to not get sea-sick until eventually I had to be helped into my gear by Toby and Ken because taking my eyes from the horizon for more than a few seconds was too risky and there's only so much kitting up you can do without the use of your eyes.

Finally we got in the water and then got under it as quickly as we could because, as anyone who scuba-dives and gets sea-sick will tell you, that's the only place where you're going to feel okay. The surface of the water just doesn't cut it - moves too much, you see.

We went down to about 18 metres, maxing at about 22. The visibility was good - at least 15 metres and it was nice diving in a group. There were about 10 of us in all although we all eventually got separated into our buddy pairs. I immediately got disoriented, as usual, and so followed everyone else around although I was frequently distracted by things I found to photograph.

This was one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking things about the dive: taking my digital camera down for the first time. It brought a whole new dimension to diving and made me look at everything in a different way. I learnt a lot about what to do and what not to do and I know I have a whole lot more to learn so I can't wait to give it another go.

So, what did we see? Well, we saw lots of leopard sharks, which are beautiful. They're large, docile creatures who mainly hang out on the bottom but, like most marine life, are very graceful when they do spring into action. We saw a couple of turtles - probably green turtles - including one exceptionally friendly one which came to say hello to Toby and I during our safety stop and sat with us for a while just chatting. Unfortunately this was after I'd switched the camera off. Toby stretched the friendship a little too far when he decided to pat the turtle who consequently decided he'd had enough of us and made off - just as I was preparing to take a picture. We saw a huge shoal of reef bannefish and lots of pairs of butterflyfish. There were lots of anenomes and urchins, soft and hard corals, the usual beautifully coloured tropical fish and some larger pelagics. We saw wrasses and gropers and about three huge eagle rays flying overhead. Apparently there were also some bronze whalers (sharks) in the vicinity, as seen by some of the other divers in our group, but thankfully we didn't see them. I think that might have been scary.


Leopard shark swimming past fish

It was a beautiful dive and I had an absolute whale of a time, if you'll excuse the pun. Unfortunately, thanks to the sea-sickness it was over all too soon as I started to run low on air. We surfaced, gave Ken our tanks and weight-belts and then snorkelled whilst waiting for the others. Actually, Toby snorkelled. I just hung out on the float line trying not to be sick. Even in such deep water there was a lot to be seen from the surface, including a shoal of yellow-tail kingfish and one of the hugest turtles I have ever seen which surfaced for air not far from the boat.

Our next stop was Manta Ray Bommie and apparently this is the time of year to see mantas. Unfortunately, it was not my time to see mantas and although there was at least one around, which Nobina and Guy spotted, I didn't catch it. This was a much shallower dive - around 10 metres. There was less coral and more rock. More leopard sharks, lots of little stingrays, a wobbegong, blue damselfish, a little black anenomefish in his anenome (they are so cute!) and a small moray eel, possibly a white-mouthed moray. The challenge here was the incredibly strong currents which seemed to be running in all directions, usually opposite to the one we were swimming in, if I may be so bold as to use the word swim. In actual fact it consisted more of kicking like billy-oh (whatever that is, maybe it means kicking like a billy-goat which we probably were doing) and pulling oneself along the bottom by grabbing rocks. Just to stay in one spot required immense effort. Infinity Pools have nothing on these currents. My talents as an underwater photographer were truly tested as I struggled to operate the camera (which is huge when it's in its housing) with one hand whilst using the other to cling to a rock. Toby decided he liked a particular leopard shark so much that he was going to lie down with it and give it a cuddle. I amused myself by taking photographs of urchins and anenomes whilst pretending I was in a really strong wind tunnel (which is what it felt like) but after 5 minutes of that my patience had worn quite thin and I dragged him away. Well, actually I just prised his fingers from the rock and the current swept him away. On our way back to the boat we saw a little jelly fish floating on the surface of the water. As we approached it started to flash lights at us - red, blue and green up and down its sides. It was very cool and we later identified it as possibly being a harmless Comb-jelly or Sea Gooseberry.


Toby and his new best friend.

We were extremely knackered after all that, especially as we had a considerable swim back to the boat. When we got back to land (oh yes, sweet non-moving land!), we ate lots, slept, drank beer, ate more, slept again and then some people got back on the boat and did it all again on Sunday morning but Toby and I decided on a more sedate snorkel at The Gorge. We've been here a few times and there's always lots to see but visibility can be an issue. We saw another shark, which I think was a brown-banded catshark, an eagle ray, a shoal of butter bream, which are my favourite fish, possibly stemming from the fact that they entertained me on the saftey stop of my first ever open water dive but also because they're very friendly and will just gather around you and come right up to your mask eyeing you up. They're so cute. The highlight here for me was the group of about 50 squid that were just hanging out about a metre below the surface, their eyes glowing. Very cute and only the second time I've seen squid whilst snorkelling.

We were exhausted by the time we got home on Sunday afternoon and after a nap and some food we cycled down to the new Lake Kawana Community Centre for a Xavier Rudd gig. It was soooo good. We missed the support band but got there in time to see some aboriginal dancers who were very cool. With a beautiful voice a little like Ben Harper or Paul Simon (apparently both influences of his) he plays all his own instruments (didgeridoo, drums, shakers, guitar) at the same time. Very impressive.

I won't bore you any further with lists and lists of cool stuff we've seen. Enjoy the photographs.

Poetry: A walk on the beach during big surf

Crashing Wave
Originally uploaded by LinsB.

Ok, this is another first for my blog world.

Some of you already know that I make vague attempts at writing poetry. For the past few years I've wondered whether to share it. And now I've decided I will. I don't make any claims to be a great poet, I don't particularly want to be a great poet, it is merely a way of expressing myself when I'm inspired by something. If you like it, then great, if you don't then it doesn't matter. I'll pre-fix any poetry post with Poetry so you can avoid it if you wish.

By the way the title of this post is not necessarily the name of the poem (it doesn't have one) but it's what I was doing when I thought of the poem.

Here goes....

Like a mother, she nurtures and soothes.
Her earth-children seek refuge in her belly,
And admire her beauty and power
As they frolick in her embrace.

But today she is different, uncalm.
Her swollen, lumpy anger warns us to stay away,
She could turn on us at any time.
The children choose to watch from afar,
Unwilling to risk surrending themselves to her forevermore.

She rises and swells,
Her pride dark and heavy as she glistens in the sun,
And she sends her bands of white warriors
Marching onto the land,
Forming lakes and rivulets,
Depositing their foam flags which say,
"She has been here and will come again",
Before retreating to the frontline,
Ready to march again.

Today she is not angry,
She will not invade.
She merely seeks to warn us that she can,
To remind us to love and respect her,
That she provides us with food, water storage,
Transport and play.

And as we watch in awe we realise
That without her our world would be very different.

Good news for Climate Change

I don't normally blog about this kind of political stuff but those of you who know me well will also know that short of becoming a tree-hugging hippie I'm fairly passionate about climate change and other environmental issues. Recently I've been wracking my brains about how I can make a positive change to the world, trying to figure out what needs to be done to slow down the race towards higher global temperatures and sea-level rises that seems to be occurring for the sake of an easy life and fast cars. I figured that there are two things that need to happen.

Firstly, the general population needs to be educated. And not just about the doom and gloom statistics of coastal areas being underwater in one hundred years, crops failing due to dought and plagues of disease-ridden insects converging upon our happy homes. People need to know that it can be okay. They need to know the best and worst case scenarios and what positive action they can take to ensure we head towards the best-case rather than the worst.

Secondly, governments need to take action. They need to implement policies, introduce taxes, ensure that the costs of making positive environmental changes outweigh those of doing nothing. The Australian government hasn't done much in this respect so far and that is probably because they aren't pressured to do so by the public, which could be because the public doesn't fully understand climate change, or if they do, they feel overwhelmed and that there is nothing they can do about it.

Which is why I was really pleased to see one of Australia's top environmental scientists (I was getting ready for work so I actually missed who it was) on DumbRise this morning presenting a piece on Climate Change for Dummies. From what I could gather (whilst flitting through the living room with my toothbrush in my mouth) it was real basic stuff, such as what is a greenhouse gas and how does a greenhouse gas contribute to global warming, but this is great stuff, because this is the kind of TV show that the majority of the population watches, and these are the people that can make a change, the people that have a car for every person in their household, people that drive their huge fuel-guzzling 4WD round the corner to the newsagent, people who get a fleet of plastic carrier bags in the supermarket and then throw them all away when they get home, people that drive their kids to school, leave the TV on all day and lights on all night, people who can make very minor changes in their lives and together make a difference to the future of the world. Let's hope this is the beginning of something.

By the way, for those of you that don't know DumbRise is my "pet" name for Sunrise, a morning TV show a little bit like TVAM, or Good Morning Britain or whatever the ITV show is called now, but not as good. And that's the best morning TV show I can find on Australian terrestial TV. There is no equivalent of the BBC News Breakfast Show and it's been driving me crazy for the past few years. Hence the rather cruel nickname.

I went to Christchurch, New Zealand in November...

.... and finally I have got around to writing about it.


Toby and I outside a winery. Yum.

The first few days of my trip were taken up by the ANZ PeopleSoft SIG/Oracle HEUG - whatever it's called these days (boring work conference thing - yawn which actually wasn't too bad but is definitely not good blog subject matter). The weather was awful: cold, wet and windy but I didn't really care, partly because it's so rarely like that in Queensland that it was a bit of a novelty and it kind of reminded me of home, and partly because I was so darn busy I hardly got any time to spend in it. The public telephone and calling card system in Christchurch frequently drove me batty as I tried to contact Toby back in Australia to finalise the details of our trip over the weekend.

The conference finished on Wednesday and after a wee bit of shopping and some organising I was met by Ann Buckle, wife of Don, cousin of Colin (my Grandpa). These are the New Zealand contingents of Buckles and, until very recently when I shifted continents, the lone southern hemisphere representatives. Ann drove me back to their lovely little home, put me up in their very comfortable spare room and cooked me a yummy dinner before I crashed out.

Christchurch is quite pretty as far as cities go. It's small too - only 350,000 occupants. I did a bit of sightseeing whilst I was there. I was lucky enough to catch an Ansell Adams photography exhibition at the Art Gallery and also a very interesting Korean exhibition, full of what are probably more accurately described as "installations" than works of art. It was quite fun, the signature piece being a snake made from computer keyboard keys protecting a nest of eggs made from PC mice (or is it mouses?). I also checked out the museum which was quite impressive and had an interesting exhibition on Antartica amongst other things. I travelled on the tourist tram more out of laziness than anything else. I learnt a few bits and pieces but can't really say it was worth the $12.50. There's a lovely little river winding through the city, called the Avon. And you can punt along it (or at least be punted). Punting along the Avon in Christchurch (which is in Canterbury)? It's all very confusing.

Toby arrived on Thursday night and his plane was late. He was three hours behind us so he was okay but Don, Ann and I struggled to stay awake and get him home from the airport. The next day Toby and I wandered into town via Hagley Park and the Botanical Gardens which are huge and very beautiful. Upon discovering a patch of daisies I regressed to a 7 year old and insisted on sitting amongst them making a daisy chain which I then fashioned into a necklace. I could never quite manage that finishing touch as a child so obviously my jewellery making skills are coming in handy.

After marvelling over the many huge trees, which were apparently planted by the settlers when they arrived and chasing birds catching worms we found ourselves in Cathedral Square and waited for our guide to pick us up and take us on the Vin de Pays Wine Tour for the afternoon. We were the only two on the tour and had a great time visiting five wineries, starting with a luncheon platter in the first. The countryside was interesting and the weather was surprisingly hot. Apparently the Waipara Valley where the wineries are has its own microclimate a few degrees warmer than Christchurch so we sweated in our jeans. The wines were good - although not spectacular. I was surprised to find I preferred the usually heavier whites, such as the Chardonnays which were actually quite light, and the lighter reds, rather than the Sauvignon Blancs I usually go for. We bought ourselves a couple of bottles of port and desert wine as we went along the way. At the final winery, Pegasus Bay, I finally found the wine I was looking for, a beautifully crisp, fruity Sauvignon Blanc. So obviously I bought a couple of bottles. However, when I got it home and looked at the label more closely I realised that it was actually grown in the Marlborough region of New Zealand, confirming what I already thought - that Marlborough does the best whites in the region.

Once deposited back at Cathedral Square we went off to the cinema to see the very Christmassy The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, more than a week before it was even due to be released in Australia. I loved it. It took me right back to my childhood and made me want to read all of the books again. Tilda Swinton was excellent as the ice queen.

The next morning we headed back into town and onto a bus to the beautiful harbour town of Akaroa, armed with my new toy - an underwater housing for my camera. Akaroa is on Banks Peninsular which is the remnants of two old volcanoes, their craters now filled with water forming Littleton Harbour and the harbour that Akaroa sits on. It's a lovely little fishing village with a heavy French influence - even some of the street names are in French. We didn't look around too much though because we'd come with one purpose in mind: to swim with dolphins.

The dolphins at Akaroa are the rarest breed in the world, living only in New Zealand, and one of the smallest, averaging just over a metre in length. They are called Hector's Dolphins named after Sir James Hector, a scientist and curator of the Colonial Museum in Wellington, who examined the first specimen of the dolphin. We booted and suited into extremely thick wetsuits and sped out on a very fast boat, looking for dolphins to jump in the nippy 14C water with. At first it seemed like we mightn't be in luck, although the tour company did promise to fully refund us should we see no dolphins and to give us half our money back should we see them but not get to swim with them. It was breeding season and we weren't allowed to get in the water with a mother and calf. We did see such a pair from the boat though and the baby was tiny.

Eventually, after jumping in and out of the water a couple of times, we found an interested pod of about 12 or so dolphins and hopped in the water with them. They put on an amazing show of leaps and twirls out of the water. I think they spent more time watching us than we did them as the water was pretty murky and it was a matter of luck as to whether you had your head below the water and were looking in the right direction when a dolphin happened to cruise by. And when you did it was an amazing feeling. They would swim so close you could almost touch them (except you're not supposed to as they have very sensitive skin) but they were also very fast and were gone before you could comprehend what had happened. I tried to swim after one but he was way too fast for me and the murky water freaked me out a bit once I was below the surface. Toby had the knack of diving much more than I did and a few times the dolphins dived down with him and then swam back up with him. All in all it was one of the most special experiences I have ever had. I tried to get the hang of the digital camera underwater housing beforehand but we still ended up with a lot of terrible pictures of not much at all, a film of the lens cap, 1 second films when we thought we were taking still pictures, and an incredibly long movie of not much at all apart from some very arty shots of the mountains, some lovely singing as I played Snorkel Disco to attract the dolphins, and the dolphins' clickety-click responses. We got a couple of gems though, including a 10 second movie of a dolphin swimming right past me, echo-locating, and Toby took a couple of good photographs.


Hector's Dolphin leaping out of the water

Download the dolphin movie. This is an MP4 file so you'll probably need something like Quicktime or VLC Media Player to play it.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with the lovely Buckles, Don, Ann and their daughter Janet and I must thank them for being so hospitable and for putting up with us for so long.

My very brief encounter with New Zealand has left me eager to explore more. It's a beautiful and varied country, reminding me a little bit of home but still very different. I have uploaded some (lots!) of our photos to a server Mark set up for me (thanks Mark!). Check them out at http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/20051218_NewZealand-Christchurch/

Happy New Year!!!!!

Well, whaddaya know, it's 2006!

This is a mega-short post to say Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you all had a great Christmas. I did! We stayed at home this year and Toby's immediate family joined us. There was lots of food, presents and champagne. Then we went away on holiday and had a great time and a fantastic New Year's Eve party - the best I've had since 2000!

Unfortunately whilst away I damaged my mobile phone slightly (it got very wet) and is now refusing to play nice so I have been unable to text anyone and say "hi" or indeed to pick up any texts you may have sent to me. Perhaps you could send your good wishes again via email as I'm sure some of you have tried to contact me over the festive period.

I am in the middle of writing an update on our trip to Christchuch before Christmas and will hopefully finish that soon and then let you know all about our great holiday in Angourie over New Year.

Hope to see most, if not all of you before 2006 has ended. Take care everyone and I hope you all have a fantastic year. Please keep in touch.

Oops, I seem to have suddenly turned 30!

I am Sailing!
Originally uploaded by LinsB.

Thirty, flirty and thriving. Yes, that is now me. I must say it suits me. Not only have I suddenly become thirty but since doing so I have also become a very good windsurfer and an excellent driver. I am very excited to see what other things I have also suddenly become good at.

I discovered my ability to be good at windsurfing when Toby bought me a beautiful brand new Starboard Go and a gorgeous sail, which just happens to be the same colour as the board: A girl has to look good when she's out on the water. Somehow, I just seem able to sail this board and I'm confident that in no time at all I'll be bumping and jumping (just as soon as I find out what that actually means). See, I even have photographic evidence!

I am having a great birthday. I say "having" because I just know it isn't over yet. On my fourth day I acquired a box of Roses and a Pet Rock (1975 fad) which I have named Rosa as the original rocks were Rosarita Beach stones. I spent the afternoon trying to train her. Like the original rocks Rosa is very good at sitting and staying but she won't come when I call her and she's no rolling stone. I tried to give her a helping hand at rolling over but her eye fell off which distressed her no end. Luckily I managed to fix her up with some blu-tak and now she looks much cleverer than she did before. It is now the 7th day of my birthday and yesterday I received a fun "snow scene" photo frame with photos from our camping trip to Swanage in August and an Aussie-style rubber duck from Cheryl and Scotty. I haven't named the duck yet.

I had a great birthday out on the water with my beautiful new board. Then I grabbed a few bits n pieces for my 1975 party on Saturday night before heading out for dinner with Toby at a lovely place right on the bend of the river, called Picnic on the Rocks. After torrential rains on Thursday and continuous raining on Friday it wasn't possible to sit outside and enjoy the sunset as we'd hoped. It wasn't even possible to see the sunset. Which saved me from being mercilessly attacked by evil mosquitos. Every cloud and all that.

Anna came to visit me on Saturday and, poor girl, if she'd been hoping for a relaxing weekend in Queensland she sure didn't get it. I immediately put her to work moving furniture, then Toby got her peeling potatoes. She kept trying to escape to the shops but she didn't know where they were so couldn't. Eventually we got everything sorted out and meandered down to the beach with a box of toys for the start of the party.

We spent the next few hours drinking champers, swimming, sunbaking, playing beach cricket, frisbee and some crazy velcro ball thing and building sandcastles as the first of my guests started to arrive.

Eventually we dragged ourselves back to the house just as the second set of guests started to arrive. I switched on the groovy disco music and flashy lights, threw the chilli on the stove and then ran off to get showered and into my groovy disco gear. When I emerged 15 minutes later I didn't recognise my own house. It was absolutely full of people wishing me Happy Birthday, thrusting gifts into my hands and asking me where they could cool their drinks. The whole evening is a blur, the main memories of which are fighting my guests to get from the kitchen to the dining room and back again (why is it that people love to stand in doorways at partys?), dancing to mad 1975 music, blowing bubbles with Zoe (who was hilarious when she gave me my birthday present as she insisted on unwrapping it for me), losing my drink repeatedly, saying hello to people, saying goodbye to people, getting a surprise birthday cake (beautifully decorated by Toby's mum) and making a crap speech demanding that everyone dance despite the ever-present danger of losing one's hand to the low ceiling fan that was spinning around like a ballerina on speed.

We had some great efforts at the 1975 theme. We had some hippie chicks, some groovy gals, disco divas, drag disco divas, a couple of romans with MCMLXXV across their chests, Bjorn Borg, a hooker who charges $19.75, a Jaws theme (with, sadly, half-eaten teddy bears stuck to their t-shirts) and the Black Knight from Monty Python's The Search for the Holy Grail, whom everyone thought was Ned Kelly and who insisted he couldn't help serve the food, although he'd love to, as he only had one arm, having lost the other in a fight with a guest who insisted on passing from the dining room to the kitchen despite the knight's cries of "None Shall Pass!".

I have to thank all my lovely Australian friends for making it such an amazing birthday and ensuring that I didn't get homesick at all. It was great. And thanks to all my wonderful friends and family overseas, whom I miss dearly, for remembering me, sending me cards, gifts and text messages and for making my birthday last almost a week (and still going!)

The party (and some more windsurf) photos are on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/79031873@N00/sets/1281005/ If anyone wants a full size quality image just send me an email and I'll mail as large a size as I can.

I'm off to Christchurch in New Zealand next week for a conference so I may be a bit quiet for a little while. I'll fill you in on what's happening down-under just as soon as I can.