December 2001

I have been watching Ned’s log for any sign of activity but there had been nothing for ages. Fair enough I suppose, blogging is less frequent on holidays for everyone.

But I looked today and there are a heap of new entries. So I figured I should write some also.

Lesson for the day - and here I am.

I have been wishing for some warmer weather but now I just want it to cool down. Now it’s not super hot. Not talking-about-it-for-years hot. But it is still too hot for me to want to do much.

Lesson for the day - about 25 would be fine.

I was talking to Kelly last night when I was at the video store getting some DVDs. We don’t hire a lot of movies except in Summer when there is nothing on TV and it’s often too hot to leave the house.

I was going to hire Run Lola Run but kelly seemed to think that Momento was a better bet. I resisted as it was an overnight but she talked me around.

I am not anti overnight but when I am hiring a few I don’t want to have my viewing order dictated by when things have to go back to the shop.

Anyhow it was so damn hot this afternoon that we watched it. It was crackingly good. What you think is the central question is terribly obvious in it’s outcome but the real beauty is that it is not the real point of the film.

Lesson for the day - even when you keep your eye on the ball it’s sometimes the wrong ball.

Now this is a very good example of something that I should have done a long time ago but didn’t.

When the sun sits high our backyard has pretty much no shade which is not much of a problem for me but is quite a problem is you are a dog.

Last year I build the big dog (we didn’t have the puppy then) and lean to out of shade cloth but she didn’t use it a whole lot. at some stage it got turned into a wee raft for them to sit on.

But with today being quite hot and there being more hot weather to come I decided that I needed to act.

So this morning I toddled off to Bunnings and bought 4 1.2m pickets (for the legs) and 4 longer ones for the top. I then bolted in onto the dog’s sandpit. Then I stained it with the leftover stain from the side fence.

It dried pretty quickly while we were watching Momento. So I wandered back to Bunnings and got the necessary fasteners to fix to shadecloth to the top.

And now puppies have a shady spot for when there are no other shady spots.

Lesson - better late than never.

I had hoped that being on holidays I might start to feel less tired. But now instead of wishing I was asleep most afternoons I am in fact asleep most afternoons.

Lesson for the day - the more I sleep the more tired I am.

Boxing day was pretty uneventful also. The highlight was when Nicky, Mum and I went to see Fellowship of the Ring at the Plaza.

I expected to have nightmares after it.

Lesson for boxing day - orcs are not your friend.

Christmas day was split between home, where we unwrapped and played with things we had given each other, Nicky’s family and then my family.

All went reasonably well with no punchups or incidents as such and we only got one person something that they already had. On the bright side it was the DVD of Best In Show (which Rad already had) so we’ll keep that and get her something else.

Lesson for the day- the best Christmas is an uneventful one.

No more sleeps to Christmas.

This morning I got a swish jacket, DVDs of Wallace and Gromit and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead, and heaps of socks and jocks.

So far I am doing well.

Lesson - it’s nice to do well on Christmas morning.

Yesterday we went to the Open Plains type Zoo at Werribee.

I had not been there before but ti’s really good. There are not as many types of animals as the regular Zoo but they are just wandering around in large grassy areas. The main thing to do is the bus tour (felt a little like Jurassic Park), aside from some child constantly screaming and it being too bumpy to take clear photos it was great.

Then we wandered around a couple of the walking tracks (pretty short if truth be told) and took some more photos.

Lesson for the day - something tells me it’s all happening at the Zoo - Simon & Garfunkle.

I am thinking that I might record a different version of April Fool and a radio version of It’s Not You (It’s Me) to give my Dad on CD. He told me that he has been playing the odd Shambolic track on his radio show (bless his cotton socks) but I think I can make better tracks now.

Of course they don’t have Tim’s guitar or Joanna’s backing vocals but the production itself I am much better at.

The only question now is do I sing “touched in the head” or “soft in the head”?

Lesson for the morning - radio versions are always less funny.