I’m baaaack. Back home to regular electricity and internet and noise and convenience and all the joys and ills of modern life.
My friend couldn’t water my plants for me so I may have lost my hot lips salvia (which I think is severely root bound anyway) and my scotch bonnet pepper (which I don’t use much of). The manzano chili was in an over exposed location and looks very shriveled and sad, but I think it’s still salvageable with lots of pampering over the next few days. Please come through my precious, you are quite tasty and fruitful.
All my indoor plants are super happy though.
Welcome back to good old Melbourne!
$1 billion of cocaine found in a Sydney apartment. Difficult task for cops to inventory $900 million in cocaine. I hope all $500 million dollars of it stays accounted for.
It’s gonna be a good Christmas party at HQ this year.
A White Christmas indeed
🎵Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow 🎶
Hopefully they’ve got a car big enough to transport all $350 million dollars worth of cocaine back to the station.
I wonder what $200 million worth of coke looks like.
Probably twice as as much as to $100 mil worth the cops found in Sydney
$50 mil worth of coke can get so many people high
Two Christmas markets! Firstly Aachen’s, looking at the Cathedral that Charlemagne commissioned in 796, then Baden-Baden’s in the fog. Both were good markets, with some good variety of stuff and not too much tat. The lines for food and drinks at Baden-Baden were ridic, whereas they were much more manageable in Aachen. Cologne tomorrow!We’re planning on a Christmas Market related holiday next year and have been enjoying your posts. Hoping that you will do a recap upon your return!
I wasn’t going to recap, but maybe I will now!
That looks beautiful!
Got a couple hours to kill at Canberra Airport and trying to find some inspiring/thought provoking podcasts… have a few episodes of Conversations downloaded, and am getting through a short BBC one on a British cult.
E: the same girls choir group has come and gone from the main entrance area like 4 times now singing the same songs. I admire their mental tenacity in not being utterly sick of the same 5 songs
E2: boarded a bit late. Boo, middle seat again. But it’s a short flight. Fat lady next to me smells vaguely like fish but they’ve upped the air freshener in the plane so that’s a relief.
May your flight be swift and safe.
Sounds like trimethylaminuria but don’t tell her that.
Am stressed out over Christmas. I am every year though. It’s the money worries, and the hoping everyone likes their gifts worries, and the “I hope I don’t screw up with the lunch” worries. Same shit every year.
Miniest is sick; caught something from kids at her end-of-year class party last Friday, who admitted they were sick but didn’t want to miss out on the fun and food🤦🏻♀️.
Spending the last week of work doing a full dismantling and cleaning of anything that can be dismantled and cleaned (and probably a few things that can’t!) Then I will have that experience of wanting to relax and do nothing while my kids, who’ve been waiting all year for me to have time off, will be constantly requesting/demanding that we do something. It’ll be like weekends but 10x longer. I will wear a Grinch tshirt or two.
It’s a very stressful time. You can only do as much as you can do, though. Don’t give yourself a nervous breakdown trying to be everything for everyone and leaving nothing for yourself. ❤️
I have swollen lymph nodes. I wonder what infection I’m fighting this time?
Hope you’re not feeling too badly there and that it doesn’t take too long to recover from.
Oh thanks mate. Hopefully my lymph nodes fight it off before it ravages my body.
Just wondering off topic, did you find the Perth crowd for the test cricket a little underwhelming?
It didn’t seem like they had a lot of people attend though I have t looked at the numbers or compared to past years.Also I wished Lyon got his 500th at the MCG. Having a full stadium celebrate that would have been godly.
Yeah the crowds in Perth are generally smaller anyway because of travel distance. Melbourne and Sydney and even Adelaide have bigger crowds because it’s easier to get to.
- last lunch notes for the year…phewAnyone got any feel good stories, looking for a pick me up for this depressing “summer” weather.
Alright so this is something that people might not be aware of. There are special Santas now. Santas that know Auslan, Santas for the blind and Santas for autistic kids that don’t like the hustle and bustle of shopping centres.
Kindergartens and schools hire a special Santa and the kids get allocated a time with their families so they can get to know Santa in their own time in a relaxed atmosphere that they know. Parents can then take natural photos.
How good is that? Ok who cut up an onion?
For context I work with young children.
I’m walking around doing my yard duty and one of them comes along with me to do my rounds, only a young one at about 6 years old.
We were just talking about what we do in our spare time or on weekends and holidays and wage tells me she does a lot no of swimming lessons.
I tell her that I’m no good at swimming and that I’ll probably never learn to do it properly. She promptly turns around and faces me and tells me never to give up and that I can do it one day.
Made my heart smile on the inside.
The Hogfather movie is available on youtube for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrCjpnghSWw
Best xmas movie ever I reckon.
Bill and Ted pictures coming shortly. 👍😸😸
Like a real life story or book story?
I’ve been listening to an audio book on Neanderthals. They were very intelligent, hardworking and neat and tidy peoples who kept their homes clean.
Which is much better than my nuclear physicist BIL and mathematician husband who are dreadful passive aggressive slobs.
I think part of the defense of a maths PhD is pointing to the dried food on your tweed.
Denisovans are the coolest, from our area of the world, more mysterious.
I’m skeptical that they could make such broad sweeping assumptions based on such little evidence.
I am somewhere between a slob and a neanderthal.
Chooken is in the oven, this time I made a mustard, lemon , garlic and thyme marinade. I baste every 20 minutes
Packing everything up for the camping trip starting tomorrow, really really hoping the spot isn’t packed to the shithouse (I’m of two minds about how busy it will be since so far this week I’ve notice everything’s not been super busy yet).
The way the public holidays fall this year make next week the one that’s attractive to take off. Take three days of leave, get nine straight days off.
Just about everyone at work is still in the office this week, and just about everyone is taking next week off.
My office is closed for that week, and if you’ve worked here longer than two years you get thosr extra days off for free!
That’s what I was thinking, so many folks in my office were working right up to the end this year because of what you mentioned.
We were directed to take those 3 days off. Only essential support staff are allowed to work them.
I’ve got those 3 and then until the 15th off 😎🛳️
nah, my work closes last friday before xmas, then reopens first monday after the NY week. So I’m off until the 8th anyway.
Not that it matters, everyone is just fuckin’ around and getting paid for it this week anyway
the amount of P plater fourbys leaving pakey over the weekend with swags on the roofracks says it might be fairly busy out in Gippsland. Are you headed east?
We are heading inland up north. I’m thinking we might luck out with folks more likely to head out to the coast this time of year.
Hopefully not too far, regional NSW is supposed to be cooking!
Nah still in Vic and far enough from the border we are still getting low to mid 20s.
I’ve been looking at the pictures of those cave paintings from France and Spain.
Not only was it awesome that the pictures survived these ~35,000 years but they are rally good art. The artist was talented and hard working , these can’t be the first pictures they drew, it takes years of practice to be that good.
Maybe they also drew on open cliff faces and tanned hides, neither which would have survived.
I love the handprints. I can imagine in my mind’s eye, when the job was done the artist getting their family to put their hands on the walls and they spray paint to make the handprints.
It’s amazing it has survived so long too. When you look at animals like Przewalkis horse, you realise they were drawing and shading the artworks accurately for what they saw in nature around them. It’s also interesting that recent analysis of the handprint sizes has discovered that many of them were made by women, so presumably the art works were too. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art
so presumably the art works were too.
can’t presume anything
that’s why I wrote “they and their” , not him or her
But here’s what I do know, it takes upper body strength and stamina to hold your arms up for hours to paint on a ceiling and to paint accurately.
Well Melby stunning weather today. Lol
For real. It hasn’t rained in a minute, so we’re due for some clouds.
Back to hoodies and uggs it seems.
I’m glad it’s a little bit cooler today. The humid week last week did me in 💀
feels like friday
Yep it feels like a week of Fridays this week leading into the holiday
I have tomorrow off, so it does feel a bit like a Friday for me. Three whole days of freedom await me!
Feels like Monday II - Electric Boogaloo :|
Tomorrow is Monday III - Third time’s the charm.
Hope so, because i’m not working Thu-Fri so that’s my Friday!
So I guess that makes today technically a rather nasty Wednesday?
I’m so confused :D
i am very excited about seeing family-grade friends on saturday
how do i concentrate, do stuff, and not just AHHHHHHHH until then
I recommend just ahhhhing, it might be theraaaaahpeutic
AHHHHHHHHH
