Christmas is coming, my brain is going splat...

... please put a penny in a poor Geordie's hat.

In which I discuss the joys of summer ('cause I forgot last time), the stresses of Christmas shopping over the internet, and the cultural mashup that is the Aboriginal Zorba!

Christmas seems to have come way too soon after my dear husband and I ventured into the world of joint finances. Toby keeps telling me he's "not a presents person" which is his way of saying "I think you should do all the Christmas shopping". But I have not yet come to grips with the fact that my money is no longer my money and that I can't just spend what I damn well like on what I damn well want to. I don't know what to buy for half of his family, and I don't know what is a reasonable amount to spend, coupled with the fact that I'm still not sure how much we have to play with once our mortgage and credit card has been paid, having only had one such set of payments which, in the case of the credit card, wasn't a full month anyway.

The good things about summer include Christmas and Australia Day

Nonetheless, I am, as usual getting into the Christmas spirit, although I missed the IT Christmas party when I went to Cudge's 90th birthday party last week, and then I missed the IT ladies' lunch yesterday because of my splattered brain. Clean forgot, went home instead, will explain why in due course. See, I realised that after whinging about summer I forgot to tell you what is so good about it. Well, Christmas is one thing. Another thing is that we get all the non-public holiday days between Christmas and New Year off work for free which is a real chance to wind down. Christmas doesn't seem as mental here as it is in the UK which I didn't like at first but am now beginning to appreciate. The other great things about summer are Australia Day where everyone gets together to listen to the best tunes of the previous year, drink beer, have barbies and generally celebrate becoming a federation. Crikey, what will they be like if they ever get to be a republic? And also being able to swim in the ocean at any time of day and the water is warm. Lovely.

What isn't so wonderful is Christmas shopping over the internet and I'm never doing it again if I can avoid it. Usually I shop a couple of months before Christmas for some lightweight items which I then lovingly wrap, stick in a huge box and send to my Mam and Dad's house, posting by the end of November or beginning of December. I used to think about Christmas only once my birthday was done with so it took me a couple of years to get into this new routine but now I quite enjoy it as it helps me get into the Christmas spirit. Plus, once you hit thirty, birthdays are less significant. This year has been so crazily busy though, and what with being homeless and moving house all around the time I would usually be doing my Christmas shopping, plus having a new niece and a friend's wedding to shop for, well it just didn't happen.

Online shopping craziness...

"No worries," I thought, in the manner of a seasoned pommie-living-in-Australia, "I'll just buy everything on that wonderful super-information-highway known as the internet. I shall enter the web 2.0 world of easy, interactive online shopping from the comfort of your own armchair," which may well have been the case had I settled for buying everything on Amazon. And I might well have been able to do this if I'd spent a little more time in the gift section - what doesn't Amazon do these days? But I had it in my head that I had to go to Boots or Marks and Spencer for my grandmothers. So I set about visiting a number of online stores, browsing for ideas, and constructing a list of potential gifts for every member of my family, of which there are ten that I buy regular gifts for.

No Boots for Buckle

Boots was a write-off right away. I didn't even really bother such was the effort required to merely navigate my way around the site. But eventually I managed to compile a list of prezzies from a handful of other sites.

Early last Monday morning I set about purchasing them, thinking it would take about half an hour. After five minutes I decided I was tired and had a headache and would call in sick. I planned to finish my shopping, then go back to bed before having a nice relaxing day, getting myself better and finishing some of my jobs around the house. No such luck.

Firstly, thinkGeek wouldn't take me to the payment section but I called Toby and he managed to do it from work (which is about all he can do with his work internet connection). Then to Prezzy Box where I had a few problems getting my voucher code accepted. No big deal really as it as a free £5 off.

Marks and sparks of frustration

I then trudged along to Marks and Spencer and keyed in the URL for the present I'd chosen to my sister; added that to my basket. Then I keyed in the URL for my Nana's gift. Added that to my basket. Discovered my sister's present had disappeared from my basket. Then looked into the basket and Nana's present was gone too. Strange. Added them again. Same thing happened. It was like someone was following me around the shop taking everything from my basket as soon as I put it in there. Tried a number of different ways around this; made sure scripts were enabled; used IE instead of Firefox; only went to one URL at a time. I think eventually it was this latter one that worked. I had to key in the product ID instead of the entire URL but you know... it's so long since I started writing this post that I can't be certain. Either way, Nana's gift then wasn't available in her size so I had to look for something else; the site (or the internet; or perhaps both) was excruciatingly slow; I kept adding things that turned out to have lead times of 4-6 weeks or be out of stock.

Back to the front

By far the most annoying thing about the M&S site was the fact that when I added something to my basket, it threw me into my basket too, with no obvious way of getting back to where I was. When I clicked on Continue Shopping I ended up back on the home page. It's the web equivalent of picking up a pack of M&S knickers, and being forced on placing them into your basket to look at everything else in there (just in case you wanted to throw anything out or get more of something; I don't care what else is in there, thanks, I'm just thinking about the knickers right now!) before being frog-marched to the front of the shop. What the?
-But I was in lingerie, take me back to lingerie.
-Sorry, you'll have to find your own way back.
-Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

EVENTUALLY, after many hours, I made my purchases, only to discover that I would have to pay £3 per item for wrapping! There were eight items for three people!! I didn't even calculate it because it would have been painful before converting to Aussie dollars. So I sent them to my Mam for wrapping. Thanks Mam.

I felt a bit bad about that so I decided her gift would be wonderful. I'd already picked out a beautiful blouse from Debenhams so I got on with purchasing that. Or at least I would have done had Debenhams not refused to authorise my AmEx card when using Firefox. And my Mastercard. And both when using IE too. Aaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh.

Next! Don't bother.

Over the road to Next to find an alternative blouse. Found a nice one, went to buy it, not ready for 2-3 weeks. Found another one; nice piece of jewellery to complement it; through to check-out. I asked if they could gift-wrap it for me but they pretended not to hear. It doesn't seem to be a service they offer. So I decided to send it to my sister to be wrapped. But then something in the terms and conditions suggested that I had to be a UK resident. I thought about trying it anyway, with Clare's address but then thought of the heartache I'd feel when it rejected my credit card because the delivery address didn't match the card address. By this point I was unbelievably stressed and tired and had spent about seven hours at the computer doing what I thought would be a thirty minute job. I gave up. I was so distressed.

Eventually Mam's present came from Amazon because I have absolutely no complaints about their service whatsoever. I've used them for years and, unlike the other shops, this is what their niche is and what they set out to do and boy do they do it well. If ever I have to do my Christmas shopping online again it's all coming from Amazon. It's just so disappointing that I couldn't get what I wanted.

To top it all off, Debenhams made two $2.35 transactions on my credit card which led to it being blocked. Still trying to sort that one out. Internet shopping is like drugs (but far less fun): just don't do it.

Well, it's been a crazy week and I don't know where my head's at. I'm really looking forward to a bit of a break... the 2007 reflection post will come soon I'm sure but this isn't it. I'm going to leave you all with merry Christmas wishes for your festive season. I hope you all have a great time and that Santa is very kind to you.

To close, I'd like to share with you this YouTube movie that's very popular over here at the moment. It's an Aboriginal dance group performing traditional dance moves (traditionally used to communicate and tell stories), with a few updated steps thrown in, to modern music, often incorporating music from other cultures. Here, they dance to the Zorba! Brilliant. Enjoy and Merry Christmas.

Summer bloody summer

The gist is back as I discuss summer and its various merits and downfalls, plus, of course, an update on my lovable pussies. Once more, I am enduring the season of mosquito bites and sleepless nights as I get used to another hot Aussie summer.... read on for a classic Buckle update, the likes of which you haven't seen for a while.

Ah summer! That glorious time of year when the pool covers come off, the bbq heats up and Queenslanders sit back and take life easy; when the humidity and mercury rise to almost unbearable heights, the sun beats down when it isn't obscured by rain clouds and storms, men start wearing shots and sandals for work and I get covered from head to toe in red, swollen, sore and itchy welts from the man-eating mozzies. Just as my immune system was getting used to those few and far between beach-side mozzies, I am now introducing my poor pommie skin to a new breed of mozzie; the silty-forest mozzy (or something). So far the skin appears not to like it much, but then I was subjected to a few mauls.

Little black cat ruins fly screen

Thing is, I shouldn't really have any bites because generally I'm quite careful. I went for a walk after work last night and covered my exposed skin in Mosi-guard. However, I did then go for a dip in the ocean which probably would have washed it all off. But I already had some of the bites, and I suspect I got them whilst sitting in our supposedly mozzie-proof covered-in outdoor patio. Actually I know I did because I killed one, and felt another one biting me. When we moved in I did notice a few gaps in the insect screen. I think these have got much worse as Monty (the little black one) likes to climb the screens in an attempt to chase moths and geckos on the other side. Stupid cat - doesn't he realise they're on the other side of the screen and he can't get them anyway? I now have approximately 8 bites on the left-hand side of my body, mainly my arm, including one incredibly sore one right on the tip of my elbow. My right side is better off, with only one or two. Somehow I managed to get one on the tip of my right elbow too. I am fueling my sleep with antihistamines as I know I'd be awake itching all night otherwise. Plus, when I have this many bites my immune system starts to struggle and I feel unwell. God knows my immune system has enough to worry about at the moment with all the stress I've put it through lately. (Oh poor immune system! What about ME?)

Itchy bites aside, summer often brings sleepless nights anyway thanks to the heat and humidity. We finally took our duvet out of the cover and stuck it in the top of the wardrobe (walk-in, yah!) the other day after a particularly hot and stuffy night during which I barely slept and woke up like a bear with a sore head. I think we have our room sorted now but also thankfully a cool south-easterly weather system has come through bringing rain and cool breezes. Ah! Bliss!!

Large grey one leaves hair on floor

The other unfortunate side effect of summer is sinusitus, thanks to the humidity, and probably some dust and pollen in the air too. I had the worst headache thanks to my sinuses the other day. Even Toby has suffered from it this year. I vaccuumed all the tufts of grey fur the cats lovingly leave all over the floor whilst we're at work, just in case that had anything to do with it. Yes, Zadie's a moulter. Although they chase each other all over the house like wild fire they do have a preferred spot for their play fights, which is very considerate of them as this is where the majority of Zadie's hair ends up. However, as soon as I vaccuum the little grey tufts I discover that there's an almost imperceptible film of fine grey hair covering the rest of the carpet.

IT men are slobs

I would like to digress on the subject of my domestic life and adaption to summer for a short while to tell you of the downside of working in IT amongst a load of men. Some of the men in my office, and by no means all of them, I assure you, but some of them are actual slobs. They really are. You know when you cook something in the microwave and you don't cover it up and it goes SPLAT and when you open the door there's sauce or whatever over the inside? You know how if you're quick enough it's still uncooked and comes off really easily when you wipe it over with a cloth? Well, the majority of the men in my office appear to be unaware of this. Every time I have to clean sauce off the inside of the microwave I find myself spending 5 or 10 minutes scrubbing really hard to remove somebody's well-cooked stubborn muck from god knows when. And they leave dishes in the sink, coffee granuals and water all over the bench. They obviously are very lucky men with lovely wives who do absolutely everything for them but it annoys the crap out of me. I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for indulging me. If you're still reading, that is. (Well done if you are!)

The secret to a long life is....

There may have been more I wanted to talk about. For example, I probably wanted to tell you how I was late for work this morning because Monty insisted that I give him a cuddle by climbing up my back (whilst I was kneeling on the floor) and sitting on my shoulder purring into my ear; or maybe I wanted to tell you about how he climbed into the bathroom cupboard today and wouldn't come out so I shut the door thinking "ha! that'll teach him, I'm going to go and feed the other one whilst he's in there and he'll soon learn not to climb into cupboards then refuse to leave" only to see him bounding down the hallway towards his feeding place. He's a regular Houdini; the other night Toby got very cross with him for roaming around on the bench so he locked him in the laundry (which is where they sleep). As there is a cat-flap from the laundry to the patio where we were eating dinner, he got the heavy doormat and laid it against the cat-flap. First Monty tried to pull the cat-flap open (clever!) but eventually through sheer persistence he managed to move the mat slightly by repeatedly pushing the flap with his nose, until there was less pressure and he was able to pull himself through.

But anyway, I wanted to end by telling you I think I may have discovered the secret of a long life. On Saturday night we went to Cudge's 90th birthday party, Cudge being Toby's paternal great aunt. Although she had a health scare about three years ago (in which the doctors gave her about 3 months to live; pah! what do they know?) which has left her somewhat frail, she still lives alone (with some hired help, friends and family popping in now and then) and is totally switched on. The family gave her a digital photo frame which we stuck a load of photos onto and she wanted to know where the photos where stored and how, what digital meant, and what would a USB stick look like if she cut it in half? She has an amazing interest in a diverse range of subjects and has friends within many age groups, including my own. So, obviously that is a large part of it: keep up interests, occupy the mind and, for as long as possible, the body; but be gentle with the body and don't push it too much. She also has a faith in God, and whilst I'm not religious myself I think looking after your spiritual health and having some kind of faith definitely contributes to a long and happy life. However, I think the key is the fact that she never married and had children. That's the real secret to a long life. (She seems really happy too, by the way!)

Rainbow over Sydney Harbour Bridge

I was looking back through some really old (well, four years) photos and found these ones that Toby and I took down in Sydney when we saw a rainbow over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was a really solid intensely coloured rainbow. I figure it's not often you see something as spectacular as that. This was before the days of my supa-dupa Olympus camera though, so the pictures aren't of a great quality.

The jolly Sydney Ferries man

We could see the other side of the rainbow too but we couldn't find a pot of gold unfortunately.

Herding cats on Groundhog Day with IT cowboys (or catboys)

Do you ever feel like you're going round and round in circles? Do you often get the sinking feeling that you're in some kind of sadistic extended real-life version of Groundhog Day? Do you ever find yourself repeating a task you completed months before only to have been told that "actually we don't need it after all", only to then months later have the same request made, only to then be told that it is no longer a requirement and so on and so forth? Do you work in IT?

I never would have thought that my work in IT could be likened to trying to get the cats to bed at night but then my boss showed me this YouTube movie, which she used to communicate to one of the University big-wigs how it feels for us poor IT folk when requirements keep changing, conflicting requests come in, processes are by-passed and communication is poor or non-existent.

Perhaps we need to start enticing the University executives with biscuits. Works with the cats.

Things you don't see every day - and that's a good thing - No. 1

Ever see something that makes you think "that's the stupidest thing I've seen all week"?

Yesterday whilst driving through Mooloolaba to meet a friend I noticed a lady trying to cross a road next to a roundabout. She was on a traffic island and between her and the roundabout were two cars. The third car had very kindly held back to allow her to cross the road. This lady had a white stick which she was waving around in the vacant patch of road ahead of her. This led me to assume that perhaps she was blind, or had some visual impairment. Fair enough assumption I think. Not according to the driver of the third car who was sitting behind the wheel frantically motioning for the lady to cross the road. Hello!!! Which part of waving a white stick vaguely into the air in front of you did you think was done just for the fun of it? I only hope he didn't go onto to beep at her; how confusing a situation might that have been?

Cool new slideshow feature

Check this out! I was going to blog about the election but instead I thought I'd draw your attention to this cool slideshow feature on the right-hand of the site. Very handy for those of you who can't be arsed to actually go check out my web albums yourselves. Not so cool for those of you who rely on the email updates. You'll have to come to my site to see the slideshow. Only downside is you can only set it to look at one album. Currently that's the wedding album (which you're all probably really bored with by now) but I'll change it every now and again. If you hover over the slideshow you'll see a toolbar which you can use to pause or go to either the previous or next photo. Clicking on the slideshow opens the photo within the web album in a new window. Pretty nifty.

Little furballs

Once one grows up and buys one's own home, one must also assume the responsibilities of an adult and do such things as gardening, DIY and home-baking. One must also start considering the very serious subjects of procreation and, more importantly, pets. Usually what one does in these circumstances is get a dog. You see, dogs require quite a grown-up and responsible attitude. They need lots of love and attention, and many breeds need to be walked twice a day. A dog is a big commitment and to be seen walking one's dog is to be seen as a committed and responsible grown up (who likes the outdoors). I am a committed and responsible grown-up (you don't get much more committed than a marriage and a mortgage) and I do quite like the outdoors but I don't think I could give a dog the attention it needs. I always feel a bit sorry for dogs whose owners are out at work all day, then do things in the evenings, and then pop off to a friend's place for the weekends. And, if truth be told, I am a cat person.

Most of my old buddies from the UK will be well aware of this but it may be news to some of my antipodean friends. In fact, I surprised some very good friends last week by announcing that I intended to have a cat. James responded with, "I didn't know you were a cat person" and for a split second I was prepared to defend myself and humour his love of dogs until, to my delight, I discovered that both James, and his wife Melissa are also cat people. This is a marvellous thing to discover about two people you already love. See, most people in Australia are dog people, and not only are they dog people but they actively hate cats. They see cats as evil, arrogant creatures (the point being...?) that pose a threat to their wildlife. As if white man clearing the land so his hungry cows can graze, digging big holes in the ground and pulling out coal and gold, concreting beach forests so they can build ocean-view high-rises, and flooding rivers to make dams isn't any sort of a threat to the wildlife or the environment that supports it. Evil? Arrogant? Threatening wildlife? Pot? Kettle? Black?

Anyway, to cut a long rant short (too late, Buckle), I received an early birthday present this year in the form of a cat. Well, actually two! Toby and I visited the local animal shelter at the weekend. I had decided I'd like two cats (even cats get lonely if their family leaves them alone all day), and that I'd like a male and a female. Toby wanted one kitten. We had to walk past two enclosures of adult cats before we got to the kittens so of course I stopped by for a chat.


Because all of the kittens were boys I chose to take a beautiful Russian Blue (cross, I think but I know nothing about pedigree cats) 15 month old Queen home too. We have named her Zadie (because her name at the shelter was Mercedes, which is terrible, but shortening it to Cedes (or Sadie) didn't work because I have a good friend called Sadie (hi, Sades) but then Lucie misheard me and thought it was Zadie and it kind of stuck). She's a little chatterbox who loves attention but isn't particularly cuddly. She's still quite playful and is a lovely addition to the household.

The kitten is 3 months old and his name is Monty. He's a mentalist and gets himself into all kinds of scrapes. He's a bit greedy and probably should have been called Wolf because he wolfs his food down and then starts on Zadie's. He goes nuts when the food is being prepared and tries to climb up on the bench. He'll find the highest thing he can sit on to get as close to the food as he can and today he suffered for it when his tail got caught in the drawer his food is kept in. He loves cuddles and will sit on any part of you that is available.

They get along very well together and chase each other round the house like Tasmanian Devils. Zadie frequently reminds Monty who's boss by pouncing on him and pinning him down. They both rush to the front door to greet us, purring, when we come home.

There are more photos here: CrazyCats , although not too many because they're both hopeless at staying still for the camera and are far too interested in whatever it is I'm doing resulting in lots of black and gray blurry photos. I'm sure you'll be hearing many more stories of their craziness in weeks to come.

Sexist, me? Shut up man, woman!

I have so much to tell you all (like, we moved into our new house - yay!) but things are so hectic at the moment. However, I read something on the web today that tickled me so much I just had to share it.

The "Ernies" are annual sexism awards, now in their 15th year, voted by women for the most sexist remarks uttered within the public arena. Some of them are downright insulting and unfunny (such as Australian senator Bill Heffernan's comment that opposition deputy leader Julia Gillard was unfit to lead because she was "deliberately barren" which, incidentally won the Gold Ernie of 2007) ; I won't mention them here.

Others however, are so unbelievably stupid that one can't quite believe that the men (as it is mainly men who win these awards, strangely) who uttered them were in the slightest bit serious when they did so (hopefully many of them weren't). It is these comments that I wish to share. Don't worry too much about who these people are - I haven't a clue about some of them - just bear in mind that they are all men who are, to some degree, in the public eye.

• Industrial Relations minister, Joe Hockey, on his wife's pregnancy: "It's exhausting for me, her being pregnant. I don't know why, during the birth process, they only focus on the women."
• Warwick Capper: "Expectant father Darren Jolly needs to get his priorities in order. The birth of your first child is special, but if you're a machine like me, there's more children to be had than premierships."
• An advertisement by Ingham's for chicken: "Breast awareness week" (Love it!)
• Mufti, Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali accused Australian women of being "uncovered meat".
• P&O advertisement: "Seamen wanted" (Come on, girls, get a grip; these are FUNNY!)
• Totally unfunny and inexplicably wrong, I almost daren't publish this one but I'm embarrassed to say it made me giggle, until I considered the context and then I was horrified, of course. Rene Rivkin's driver, Gordon Wood made an unusual request to a morgue attendant whilst identifying his girlfriend's body: "Do you mind if I look at her tits?" (Maybe it's fair enough that he wanted to sneak one last peek?!)

To see more (and see the photo of Warwick Capper that has me suspect he could have been serious) check out the Nine News' photo gallery.

Excuse me, is this your life?

Well, well, well, how things change. Since my last post I have bought a car and a house and gained a niece. That is a lot of new things. Big things too (except for my niece; she's quite small, although a big concept, being the first of a new generation in our family) and it's only been a month.

I've been meaning to tell you about the car for a while and in fact asked Toby two weeks ago to take a photograph of the two of us but somehow we didn't get around to doing it so you'll have to make do with a photo her previous owner, Linda, sent to me:


As you can see she's a lovely little three-door Mitsubishi Mirage, born in 1998, which is a modest age for a car. She's just the right size to run me around the coast pretty quickly and is so much nicer than the bus, although not necessarily more comfortable; my sciatica copes better with an upright position on the bus than the car seat position and associated leg work. But I'm working on that too, and my dodgy shoulder which has plagued me for years, with a comprehensive remedial exercise program in the gym. I'll be right as rain again in no time. We even took a trip to Brisbane, the big city, together at the weekend with Lucie and, thanks to our inability to get to anywhere we wanted to go without going to a few other places on the way, we got to see a fair amount of the city known as Brisvegas, or just Vegas as Aussies love to shorten everything... even names they've nicked from elsewhere.

So, that's the car. Nice colour, don't you think?

Now, the house. You have no idea how happy Toby and I are to no longer be homeless. We move to our new home a fortnight today, and here it is:


It's a lovely, medium-sized three bedroom house, which is actually quite large for us, with a double garage, en-suite, walk-in robe, decent sized garden, two living areas and lots of cute little features, such as a spa bath, a covered outdoor area (to fox those damned mozzies), an in-ground sprinkler system connected to bore water (that's water that comes from under the ground and smells like rotten eggs, which basically means we can continue to water our garden in a drought but the house is in an area of high rainfall anyway so we may never have to use it, which is good because I hate the smell of rotten eggs), a vacu-maid system (some weird sci-fi thing they use in hotels, where you plug a tube into a wall and it automatically vacuums stuff up for you, or something), a walk-in pantry/larder with light (my favourite thing after the walk-in robe, I think) and a wood fire - very useful in winter as it's quite a cool house.

More photos at OurHouse.

Actually, being homeless hasn't been as bad as I thought. It's more of an irritation than anything else really. I think being homeless and unemployed would be a bummer but it's not too bad when you're employed. The extra rent we've been paying for the convenience of a short-term rental is helping us get used to not having some of that extra money we'll be paying towards our mortgage, and we haven't had to deal with bills etc. The first couple of weeks we spent staying with friends until our short-term rental was available. That was fun, but a bit more stressful as we didn't feel like we had our own space, and no doubt our friends felt the same, plus they live quite a way from where I work and so does everyone else it seemed, which made my drive to work long and at times stressful as I sat in traffic moving about 2kph in first gear. Our friends had their house on the market so the place had to be kept spotless most of the time. Most of my clothes were in boxes which kept getting moved into the garage, which couldn't have been further from the room we were staying in. When I found myself traipsing to the garage one morning to get some knickers to wear, I knew things had reached a new low. All in all, it's been fun getting to know new areas but I can't wait to settle into our own place. And get a cat. Then my life will be complete. Until I think of something else I want. Like a widescreen plasma TV. Or a new light-weight aluminium hybrid bike.

Do you know what the best thing is? Until we come to rent our house out, if indeed we ever do, I don't have to deal with another rental real estate agent ever again!!! You don't know how happy that makes me.

And last, but by no means least, my beautiful niece. Born at 4.10am BST on Wednesday 3rd October, vastly overdue and a little chubber (8lb 15.5oz!) as a result, she was named Lucy Grace. Or Lucy-lu as I have dubbed her. Clare has gone one step further and started calling her Lulu. She's also known as "sick machine" as she has a very upset tummy and has perfected the art of projectile vomiting, something which may come in handy in eighteen years when she goes to university.


I think of all my new things I'm especially pleased with my niece and can't wait to get back to England so I can play with her properly. I'm very proud of my clever little sister, Clare, who seems to be settling quite well into motherhood and is obviously "stoked" with her lovely daughter. Well done, and congratulations to Clare and Alan. Can't wait to catch up with you both in person.

Now, to wrap it all up I'd like to share with you an interesting photograph and story I read today, of a man who crashed his aeroplane and managed to destroy the entire cockpit except for the bit he was sitting in - fortunately. Amazingly, he came away with only a few broken bones.


For the full story see The Age: Please remain seated for landing

Things you see every day but don't really notice - No. 2

Sign above the window next to a colleague of mine's desk:

"Place items for storage into the slot below and push"

The humour of IT folk - ya gotta love it.

Making the world a smaller place

Okay, so I'm supposed to be working but I just had to share with you all the following email forwarded to my mother from the Sunderland Echo. (Yes, we made the Echo too!) Perhaps I am in some small way making a difference in the world. Okay, so I didn't actually do anything technical, but I did get married.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 05 September 2007
To: Echo News
Subject: news item on 'wedcast' australian wedding-echo sept 5th

I was very interested in the above news item as parts of my family are similarly unable to attend a family wedding, to take place in Perth Australia in February next year. The groom is British and is my nephew and the bride is Australian. The idea of being able to participate in the way described is very exciting. I wondered if you might be able to pass on my contact details to the person who managed to arrange this to see if it might be possible to set this up again and what the cost might be. I would be most grateful if you could help in any way.

We spoke to a copywriter from Telstra last night. They're planning on writing a testimonial to use for publicity and advertising purposes. Perhaps they should get together with BT and produce a "How-to". Anyway, it's nice for us to see emails such as this, as the wedding seems like a lifetime ago after all of the house hassle of recent weeks. Incidentally, tomorrow night we're off to see our official photographs with our wonderful photographer, Tanya (who, by the way, has chosen our wedding for her double-page advert for 2008!!). How excited am I?

Addicted to Facebook?

Are you addicted to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn? Do you spend more time online than you do working? Do you find yourself checking your email, looking at friends' photos, reading your Facebook wall and then suddenly realising it's coffee time and wondering where the morning has gone?

If so, I have just the cute little application for you. It's called Notworking, a little counter that tells you how much time you're spending networking, or not working, when you should be working. Of course, we can always justify at least part of our time online, such as checking out the Answers section of LinkedIn for your industry and when you're in the web field, such as I, there are many, many excuses ("I'm just evaluating Facebook to determine it's usefulness as a marketing tool for the University. Honest!"). So, to help out with such situations the Notworking counter can be paused as necessary. It can also be reset, useful when the truth becomes embarrassing.


You can estimate your hourly rate and stick this in. It then calculates how much money you could have earned during the time you've been procrastinating online. For example, I could have earned $4.63 during the time I spent writing this, working out my hourly rate, and creating my screen shots. Trouble is, I did earn it and it really isn't that much money so this is much more useful if you're working for youself and earn big bucks. The other thing to bear in mind (in fairness to myself) is that I am only doing this because I had to restart a development server that stopped responding, so for at least $1 of that time I would have been sitting twiddling my thumbs anyway. As it is, I have been doing a service to industry by spreading the word about this FREE application and making others aware of their wasted hours.

If you want to get this little app for yourself then you can download it from Website Repairs. It even floats over your other windows so there's no ignoring it.

Total time spent on this blog: 00:18:55
Total cost: $7.30

Yes, we really did get married!

With all the usual stress of moving, and the added trauma of not having anywhere of our own to go to, along with the fact that we don't have a moment's rest because we're still house-hunting, it's easy to forget that just a month ago we were celebrating our recent nuptials. The day went by in such a blur that I have to keep looking at the photos to remind myself it really happened.

Well, I had another reminder today. Grandpa called last night. He turned 80 on Sunday and was phoning to thank me for his birthday present. But there was more. Gran told me she'd taken the Sunshine Coast Sunday clipping of our wedding webcast story down to the office of the local paper where she lives in South Shields, The Shields Gazette, thinking they might be interested to see it. Were they ever! As Gran put it, she "opened up a hornet's nest". My grandparents, parents, sister and brother-in-law, were interviewed and photographed on Grandpa's birthday. Gran said they had a hoot and everyone was laughing so much she was worried about how she might look in the photographs. But I think she looks great in this one. Mam is worried about what her mother, my Nana, might think when she returns from her cruise and finds she missed out on all the action. I think she'll be a bit miffed but hopefully she's having a good enough time on holidays not to mind.

If you are interested in the article you can find it online at Shields bride makes cyber-history, which makes me sound a bit like one of the cyber-men from Doctor Who (back in the 80s). It fails to mention that the streaming is only really believed to be a world first due to the use of mobile technology but there are a few other little-known facts in there that you may not have realised.

For example, the aisle I walked down was 10,000 miles long. This amazed me. The walk up the long path from the car to the park, and then scrambling through the bushes took a while but I had no idea it was that far.

You may also be surprised to discover that my pregnant sister was sipping champagne at Aunty Betty's house. I thought she was at home in Newcastle being tee-total, the naughty minx.

I love the fact that they mention the friend in York that let it slip. You know who you are. Kidding! It wasn't a big deal that I found out that morning and in fact, I think it was a good thing. It actually slipped my mind until Doug said "Wave to all the people in Newcastle" and, had I not known, I probably would have frowned at him and said "What you talking about?" which wouldn't have looked anywhere near as cool as the clip Channel 7 used of me waving at the camera.

According to Mam they made the front page (see this screenshot of the website), page 5 and an editorial. I'm sure we'll get to see a copy just as soon as we have a house my parents can send it to.

A little bit of fun to make you smile

I was going through some old emails at work and found this so, to lighten the dull news I've been suffocating my blog in lately, I thought I would share it. Beats telling you about vacuum packing duvets anyway. It's best read out loud.


Why Computers Sometimes Crash! By Dr. Seuss.

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort,
and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,
that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;
then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, '
cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang.

When the copy on your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk,
and the macro code instructions is causing unnecessary risk,
then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

It's official and here's the plan

This is just a quick update to let you all know what's happening.

Firstly, we have received notice that we have to be out of our place on 4th September. We haven't found anywhere to buy yet so we're packing all of our stuff into storage and staying with friends in Coolum for two and a bit weeks, with a slight sojourn to Yeppoon next weekend for Praj and Tracy's wedding.

Consequently this week is packing hell as we sort through what we don't want, what we want to keep with us and what can be stored in time for the removalists coming at 8am on Saturday. This morning was spent on the phone trying to organise cleaners, carpet cleaners, removalists and insurance, the latter of which is a complex nightmare. I still have to book us a post office box and have our mail forwarded to it and find out when we can pick up the keys at the storage space.

After a couple of weeks of crashing with Bec and Adam we are moving into a pretty expensive holiday apartment. Cheap for a holiday apartment but expensive long-term. Mind, I suppose we don't have to worry about bills and the bonus of this place is that it has broadband access so I can get back into skyping folk. It's on the river at Maroochydore so should be a good base for house-hunting and will be something a bit different to what we're used to. We're there for 6 weeks.

I don't know what will happen after that. It's only a 2 month plan. I'm hoping to have a house by then because things like insurance get even more complicated after 3 months. If not, perhaps we'll just put the rest of our stuff into the storage facility and naff off on a super long honeymoon.

This all means that we haven't been able to have the gifts from our wedding registry delivered so, whilst I have an idea what we've been given, I don't know who gave what. It also means for those gifts we have already received, we haven't really had time to take stock and write thank you notes. So, apologies to everyone who has sent us stuff. We're really grateful and plan to write to you all just as soon as we get settled somewhere permanently and have had our gifts delivered.

I have to go now. There is so much to do. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on.

Almost homeless

Whilst I'm on the computer updating my blog, I may as well tell you that 12 days after our wedding, whilst in the middle of a major bout of homesickness as my parents were leaving the following day and I hadn't seen them for 3 days, we received the news that the new owners of our house want vacant possession. In other words, they're kicking us out. Unless, of course, we're willing to commit to paying them $400 a week for 6 months!!!

Not only that, but these new owners came to view the property 3 days after our wedding when we had specifically requested that no one disturb us as we wished to wind down, enjoy our time off work and replenish our energy supplies after the excitement of the wedding. We were under no obligation to let them in as we had not received a form requesting entry - it's a legal requirement that estate agents give us at least 24 hours written notice if they require entry to the property. However, they told us that they'd taken time off work specifically to come and view the property and, being a nice person, I felt a bit sorry for them and gave them permission to come in. Fat lot of thanks I'm getting for that now.

The real estate agent had even sent Toby a text message the day after the wedding asking if she could show someone round the property that week. When she called the house two days later she said, "I tried to call you on Saturday but there was no answer". Now, I don't want to be horrible about this girl because she's very pleasant and people I know, know her, and she's been as cooperative as she could be (apart from changing the agreed open house time from 11.30am to 1pm which was quite inconvenient) and she even negotiated a 6 week extension on our lease to get us through the wedding period... but there is a limit as to how many concessions I can give someone. Is she stupid? How many people do you know who answer the phone to a real estate agent trying to sell their rental home, the day after their wedding, when they're staying in a 5 star penthouse honeymoon suite, with friends and family from all over the world staying nearby? Not that we were even at home to answer the phone. And before you ask, yes, she was fully aware that we'd been married the previous day. Jeez... I will be pleased to get out of this place and not have to have anything more to do with these people at least for the time being.

What this all means is that we have to be out of our place by the time the purchase settles on 7th September. It's not official yet as they only have to give us 14 days notice (due to the fact that our lease ends on 31st August), plus the new owners are waiting to hear if we're willing to give them $400 a week. I expect we'll receive notice sometime this week. Unfortunately, we're not even going to be here on 7th September as our friends, Praj and Tracy are getting married up in Yeppoon, near Rockhampton, and Toby is a groomsman. So I suppose we have to be out of here the weekend before that. Which is two weeks away. Aaaarrrrgh. We haven't even had our wedding registry gifts delivered.

I was going to phone the Sunshine Coast Daily and give them Chapter 2 in their World Wide Wedding story, a bit of a sob story to go with their fairy tale... the local press love this kind of thing... and I probably still will but Toby and I got very distracted yesterday by a house we've decided to buy. Actually we tried to buy it two months ago but the offer fell through. Fingers crossed it's second time lucky... watch this space!

More wedding photos online

I have just uploaded some photos from my camera and my parents' cameras. You can go directly to this album at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lindseybuckle/OurWedding or you can go to the wedding homepage at http://wedding.clewett.org where there is a whole host of additional links. Keep checking the wedding homepage as we are still uploading new albums.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree...

... or on a fence.

After the excitement of the last two weeks, and the stress of the few months before that, I am now unwell. There's never a good time to be poorly but it's a particular shame right now as it was my last few days with Cherie and my parents and we have just had a party for Toby's extended family to celebrate our wedding. I did a lot better than I thought I would but getting ready for it was a bit of a struggle. Who wants to tart themselves up, make their hair look posh and squeeze into a wedding dress when all you really feel like doing is getting into your slippers, comfy tracksuit pants and snuggling under a blanket with a cup of hot honey and lemon?

But I digress. I really just wanted to share with you this photo I took of a very cute kookaburra who came to sit with us whilst I, Toby and my parents lounged on the grass of Ravensbourne National Park putting off the inevitable goodbyes which soon followed and have left me feeling very sad and far from home.

And here is Mr Burra showing us his best side, with a bush fire in the background.


One last thing worthy of note: this is the 101st post I have made to this blog!!!

Poetry: With You

This is the poem I read out at our wedding on Friday. I wrote it back in January shortly after Toby and I became engaged.


For you I crossed oceans wide and blue.
For you I traversed lands exotic and new.
For you I left those close to my heart.
For you I embarked on a brand new start.

With you I explore a new homeland;
We run across its golden sands.
With you I dive the ocean so warm,
And sail over waters flat and calm.

With you everything is exciting and new,
Your innocent enthusiasm always shines through.
With you the world is bright and alive;
I can do anything with you by my side.

With you I have explored the depths of my spirit,
The good and the bad, everything in it;
And you've opened up your soul to me,
And we discovered together how to live and to be.

With you I have met new family and friends,
And nourished a love that will never end;
And as we embark on a long life together,
With you I know I will be forever.

I'm a page three girl!

Over the course of the past few days I have become a wife, a local celebrity and a page three girl. That's three fairly major items ticked off my List Of Things To Do Before I Die. Not bad for a weekend's work.

Just married!

Many of you will know the story but for those of you who don't, it all started about two weeks ago when I was finalising all the preparations for the wedding. I realised that some of the jobs I'd given to Toby weren't being delegated. Or done. So when I sent his brother and best man, Andrei, the order of events and his list of jobs, I casually mentioned that it would be great if we could web-cast the wedding so that family and friends back in the UK could watch it and feel as though they were a part of it all. If anyone could do it, Andrei was the man, being a network engineer at one of the local councils and an out-and-out techno-geek and gadget dude.

It was never mentioned again. I didn't ask Andrei about it because I knew it was a lot to achieve in a short space of time, that if he was going to do it he'd do it anyway and didn't need me stressing him out by asking every couple of days but also because I was so busy with everything else that I didn't give it much more thought other than to occasionally think that it would be a nice and very cool thing to do and to mention to people that it may happen but it would require them being up and at the computer by 6am.

Before I knew it, it was Friday morning, the big day and all of my preparations were falling into place. I'd spent a lovely morning with my bridesmaids Lucie and Cherie, waking up in time to photograph the sunrise over the point where we'd be having the ceremony later in the day, then going back to bed again because it was bloody early, then popping out for a nice breakfast at my favourite cafe, Raw Energy and doing a bit of shopping. We'd had a relaxing evening the day before, being pampered at our honeymoon suite at Peninsular by the girls from Tranquility. I had a phone call from my friend Sadie in York, wishing me all the best for the day and telling me she was setting her alarm for 5.45am so she could watch it on the web. That was the first I knew that they'd pulled it off and I was so pleased they'd done it without hassling me for email addresses.

As with all weddings we did have a few things go awry. Our friend and videographer, Oscar missed his plane from Sydney because his taxi to the airport was two hours late picking him up. We sort of expected this anyway as there is an ancient gypsy curse which deems that Oscar, taxis and weddings do not go together. Thankfully Jon stepped up with my Dad's video camera to do the deed.

We had to trek through the bushes in order to get to the bottom of the aisle and make an entrance. I changed from sensible (but bling) flip-flops to my posh wedding shoes at this stage and we were greeted by Jill and Melissa who took our handbags and warned us the CD player wasn't working. I was scheduled to walk down the aisle to Fleetwood Mac's Songbird, a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics sung beautifully by Christine McVie. But instead I got to walk down the aisle to one of our friend, Pete Wheldon's own compositions. I asked Pete to play at the ceremony a few months back and he asked if we could play a CD for the procession down the aisle. He ended up having to play it himself anyway and he did a brilliant job.

A series of events led to the scheduled order occurring later and later than planned. By the time I arrived at Point Cartwright my friends and family had been logged onto the internet for about 45 minutes. By the time the party kicked off with our bridal waltz that evening we were about two hours off schedule. This all made the day fly by even more quickly.

The ceremony was lovely, so much fun. Anna and Jon did lovely readings for us and Anna looked absolutely stunning in a gold dress with black accessories. We even had an excited peewee join us at one point screeching his approval so loudly we couldn't hear the celebrant. The rings didn't go on very gracefully, due to the heat, which deserves a mention actually because the weather was perfect. We couldn't have asked for a better day really and in fact, it got much cooler the following day so we were quite lucky.

I forgot all about the web-cast until Doug asked me to say hello to friends and family back home. Doug did a great job following us around with the video camera, laptop in a backpack, interviewing all the guests before the wedding. Andrei, lovely brother-in-law that he is, has chopped the recording up and stuck it online in 4 separate chapters so those that couldn't watch at the time can still see it.

Now I think there is a bit of a story regarding how it all came about but I don't know too many details. Andrei used his knowledge and expertise, and possibly some contacts to sort out some bandwidth details. This resulted in Telstra, the Australian equivalent of BT, getting involved. Word got back to a guy that Andrei and Toby know in Telstra about the wedding, Doug made some mention of sponsorship and before we knew it the local press were all over it.

Being interviewed by Channel 7.

During the photos following the ceremony Andrei came over and told us that the local TV station, Channel 7, wanted to interview us for a segment which I think will be broadcast this evening. What a spin-out!!! Then the next day, the local paper, The Sunshine Coast Daily called us and interviewed us over the phone. We made page 3 AND the front page!!! Andrei has stuck links to the newspaper clipping and the webcast on the wedding web page at wedding.clewett.org. This blog even got a mention. You can read the article online. Toby and I both had an absolutely fantastic day and really did feel like movie stars. Thanks to everyone involved.

The newspaper article

Now, I've struggled with this section of the post because I must point out some errors in the newspaper article, which is difficult to do now that they've advertised my blog and may even read it themselves but I just can't let it lie, I'm afraid. The journalist seemed like a lovely man; he conducted the interview in a very short space of time and over the phone, and really didn't have much time at all to write it up before the paper went to print. At times it was quite difficult to hear him so I can see how things might get mixed up or overlooked. So with all due respect to him I have complied the following list of erors. These are minor errors but I am pedantic.

1. As is evident by the URL of this blog, I am Lins, not Linds, but that's okay; it's a common mistake that many make.
2. Coco is a perfume by Chanel and my grandparents are not accustomed to sipping it of a morning, as suggested by the article.
3. I am a geordie, spelt G-E-O-R-D-I-E, not Jordie. This is a common mistake amongst Australians so perhaps if I explain it comes from the name "George" it will help them to remember the correct spelling. Knowing Aussies and their funny little ways, they probably sometimes spell George J-o-r-g-e anyway, in which case that little snippet won't help in the slightest.
   
4. I do not have relatives in York but my lovely friends Sadie and Tim live there.
5. At no point during the day did I have tears streaming down my face. I did have a slight tear in my eye because I'm not completely unemotional but the only thing that was "streaming" was the web-cast.
6. I do not remember hugging the computer. My dad remembers me taking it in both hands and adjusting it slightly so we could see better and I think I put my ear right up to it because it was very hard to hear. I can only guess that this little action was misconstrued as a hug. It makes a good story though... much better than mine.
7. Toby and I did not say that the live cam feed stops at the honeymoon threshold. I only clarify this because I was specifically asked by someone yesterday. It kind of goes without saying though, doesn't it?
   

If any of you out there are reading this because you got the link from the paper than welcome to the wonderful world of Buckle!! Or should that be Clewett? Or Cluckle? Blewett? Bucklett? Any which way, I'm still Lins, I'm still a geordie down-under and I'm now also a wife. Must dash... presents to open :-)