Today we had an early start at 7am as we set off on the two hour drive up the coast to Eumundi markets. Once I cleared the one way systems of the city, and noted the four police cars in under an hour catching people speeding, it was a long straight drive….. 100 Kilometres of long straight road in fact! But with the cruise control on and the music going it made the drive more pleasant. We arrived, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, though we could see the hundreds of tents all set up in fields. We parked up, and set about exploring. One small area of the market was a permanent fixture, all with the individual stalls inside, we browsed around looking at all the wears and I felt fully refreshed and awakened after ... read more

This morning I extended, all be it very slightly, my morning run. I didn’t notice the temperature being any hotter than normal on my run, but the cycle to work was crazily hot, even at 7.15am. It took Rowena and I a fair while once we arrived to cool down, even with the air con blasting! Another day of working on the Chromos, proof reading documents and bits and pieces. This evening I decided to try a local triathlon club (Reddog club) swimming session I had seen advertised at the swimming pool I now frequent fairly often. When I checked the website I was required to take fins with me – thinking this was a new piece of tri equipment I was not familiar with I looked it up online, but no, it is just normal ... read more

Well after all yesterday’s sport and fresh air I slept very well. This morning we were actually running the chroma experiment, filling a specialised chroma box (soild wood box with glass lids to lift up and areas to slide in water underneath) with hot water to make the box environment very humid, pouring the soil solutions into petre dishes, making little wicks and then letting the prepared chroma paper absorb the soil solution. In all, with regular hot water top-ups to maintain the humidity this took around an hour. Then the chroma paper went back in the box to dry. The rest of the day was spent preparing some more soil samples, proof reading documents and writing sections for documents. Tuesday evening is Rowena and I’s girly evening, so when we got in we painted more ... read more

I woke up at 5am, not so pleasant for a Sunday, but it’s warm and sunny so my body clock is telling me it’s time to get up. Read on my kindle for a while and caught up on a few emails. Matt had plans today so was out until lunch time. Rowena was watching some episodes of UK sitcoms she likes, and then put a cooking programme on with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. It was quite interesting, especially when they were teaching some students how to cook fish and how easy it was. Mental note to self – must cook more fish when I get home, not just the trusty Salmon recipe or eating it from a can! The cooking inspired me to cake a cake for the week, so I found ... read more

Normal morning routine and no ill effects felt from playing under water hockey yesterday. We drove into work this morning as Rowena needed it for going to the doctors this afternoon. Luke (the boss) wasn’t in the office, so it was just the three of us working away. Usually at work when the boss isn’t in the office it’s a lot more relaxed, but you can’t get more relaxed than here, so it made little difference! Proofing and checking a different document today, and then in the afternoon I was using the microscope analysing some compost samples. Using the microscope and identifying the different types of life – fungi, bacteria, amoeba’s etc brought back very funny memories of AS Biology which I emailed to Amelia, to remind her about when I got home. I accompanied Rowena ... read more