Headachey

What is it about me and night shift?  It's been cool almost the entire Summer.  Lovely, in fact and we've been enjoying it immensely.  But the two times I've been on night shift, that's when it hits 37C!!  It was cool this morning, so sleeping was easy, but once it warmed up, forget it.  And I've had this permaheadache since about 3am, hoped it was just lack of sleep, but have finally caved and taken some neurofen.  And it's not really going to cool down until Friday, when I finish night shift.  :P

I do feel a little bit accomplished as I finally managed to post of the lovely you-beaut, guaranteed non-toxic, recycled rubber tree wood toys from Poland that I bought for my friends Helen and Vanessa's babies.  The purchases were made back in September, so why I'm patting myself on the back for posting them is anyone's guess.  I hope they are well-loved by the recipient little ones and handed to the next little brother or sister afterwards.  :)

I'm also very excited as I bought tickets to see Colin Hay play at the Corner Hotel on Friday night.  Ever since we saw him on a Scrubs DVD last year, I've wanted to know more about what he's doing now.  Now I will.  Yay! 

Noojee trestle bridge

With the lower petrol prices and fine weather, Darren and I have been getting out a bit on the weekends, seeing parts of Victoria that we haven't seen yet.  Both of us being from somewhere else means that there's still a lot that we haven't seen in our home state. 

We went out to South Gippsland to visit a brewery to visit the Grand Ridge brewery to buy some beer because Darren's really keen on it.  We were a little surprised to find that it was basically a dodgy country pub (complete with locals propping up the bar), but the beer was good and we stopped at the bakery to buy lunch.  I had a LASAGNE PIE.  Well, it was basically pasta, but who puts pasta in a pie??!  And OMG it was good.  I'm sure Darren had serious food envy as he had a boring old pastie!  It's worth mentioning too this bakery, the Strazleki bakery, had fabulous sweet treats as well.  Real rumballs and some delicious apple slice thing, which we fought over afterwards!  

Anyway, we decided to loop around through the Yarra Valley coming home, which took us through some wonderful forest and some crappy little old timber/mining towns.  We got lost in Noojee, near the bottom of Mt Baw Baw, but then stumbled across this: the Noojee Trestle Bridge


We had a little walk over the bridge and it was a really lovely spot, with a little stream and huge trees and everything.  (added bonus: no flies!)



It was just lovely.  Used to be a railway serving an old tin mine, but now it's part of a walking path into the town of Noojee.

As an added bonus, on the way, we came across The Big Pheasant.  Darren loves Big Things.

My cat is mad, and and obituary of sorts

I just wish he (Barry, the cat) would either go out or come in.  None of this going out for 15min, coming back and yowling at the door to be let back in, the yowling to be let back out again, only to come back again 5mins later this time.  And repeat.  I think it's related to the weather (looks like it will be crap today), and he's not sure about wandering around in it. 

Well he seems to have settled for the next few minutes anyway.

My one NY's resolution that's stuck so far has been to stop going to the SOz board.  It's been ruined.  I've posted about this before on LJ, but it makes me sad that all the people I see now agree that it was a fun place for a while, but we're all happier catching up in private get-togethers now.  We went to the Brisbane meet in July and it was the best time I've had at a SOz thing in ages, because of the people who were there.  So we've concluded that we must remember it as a shining happy place where so many of us met lifelong friends and partners (ours being the first wedding, but there's two this year, and also five other couples at the moment who are at varying stages of commitment - which is impressive for a small message board).  I can't help but wonder how it would be if Chocky had lived.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who does.  Looking back, it feels like the sudden loss of him triggered the beginning of the end.  Perhaps it was ending before it started, who knows? 

Things SOz has given me:

1. a husband, words can't express how I love him
2. several amazing friends across the country
3. an education about veganism (something I'd never really heard of until SOz, which seemed to attract vegans in droves)
4. Kwan Yin in Brisbane
5. Kinokinuya in Sydney, and the vegan yum cha before it closed down (sob)
6. A home in Melbourne, a place I've always wanted to live, but never really thought I would
7. Acceptance that loving the things I love doesn't make me an insane geek with no mates.

So thanks SOz, for so much.  Boo to the people who took it away from us all. 

Fantasy live list

One of my friends posted about bands she would have liked to have seen live - had she been born earlier.  Which made me consider the same thing.  Of course, hers was basically a list of punk bands as she was mostly lamenting not having been born at the height of the punk era, but I thought it was worth a ponder based on my own tastes.

• Kiss (still possible, but come ON),
• Bob Marley and the Whalers (I just think it would be fun),
• Boom Crash Opera (did see these guys once in Darwin, but they were so fucking amazing I wish I'd seen them a second time even though Wikipedia tells me they are still together, I'm not sure it'd be the same now we are all pushing 40),
• ELO (my secret shame),
• The Tea Party,
• Abba (hell YES!),
• Bowie (Thin White Duke era),
• Queen (sob!),
• INXS (same reason),
• Prince before he got all wierd (Sign'o'the Times era would be good)
• Madonna's Blonde Ambition tour. I used to have a video of that Live in Barcelona. It got played until it literally fell apart.
  

There's more, but I'll stop there.  I guess I was curious about where this list would take me. 

Random thoughts in a list. Because I'm lazy. And because dot point posts get mistaken these days for Twitter feed and ignored. :P

1. I'm not making an NY's resolutions because they never work. But I am hoping that once the Xmas food's gone I'll start making better food choices for myself.
2. I'm pretty meh about 11.  Then, I'm not a screaming fan of 10, so I'm more willing to give him a go than some people seem to be. 
3. I wish Barry would make up his mind.  Yesterday he went out and was gone for 8 hours until we started searching the neighbourhood for him.  Today, he kept coming back after 2 minutes to see if I was still here.  Weirdo.
4. I wish this stupid throat infection/sinus infection/achy thing would leave me be already.  It's been 5 days and I'm all blocked up and wheezy.  Yay.
5. I enjoyed Xmas and NY so much this year I might even be willing to do it next!
6. Mum's getting mopey about not having seen us since October when they were here for Kenny Rogers.  I guess I should look to booking flights soon to make her happy.  Not that I mind going, but we have responsibilities now.  (Barry)
7. I was sad to take down the Xmas tree and the (I want to say bitchen) wreath of sleigh bells we got given for our front door.  Next year, the deccies go up much earlier.  Whee!
8. I backed into someone in the carpark at work yesterday. :(  Was tempted to just drive off as no-one was around, but in the end my stupid protestant upbringing got the better of me and I left a note.  Couldn't see much if any damage to the victim car, but it's in the eye of the beholder.  Still waiting for the call from then owner... did I get lucky and they agree with me?  Stay tuned.