End of summer - Feb 08

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Geo: -33.8671, 151.207

5 Feb 08

So it's done nothing only rain for 4 days solid now, we were minding our nieces and nephew for the weekend as S&F had gone out of state to a wedding, so the rain was a bit of a challenge, fortunately kids like swimming in the rain and we found their rain coats so we had a expedition to the park for the 1 of the 2 dry hours this weekend, turns out it was the babies 1st time on a swing and he loved it. The other dry hour was 9.30am Sunday morning when I took the girls - one of which had been up since 6am and had done a cookie raid - bike riding, what an auntie.



I dunno how people with kids drink, I was at a work 'do' on Thurs with a free bar and then was with the kids from Friday evening and I am only over my hangover now Tues. morning and even today I slept it out til 10am! So well done all you parents, its exhausting 😉



So I am not sure if this is autumn or summer now as the kids are gone back to school and the tv series are all re-commencing like they do in Sept. at home. Mind you 1st Feb used to be spring at home and Mum just told me its minus 5 and snowing in the west of Ireland.



7 February 2008

Not to be obsessed with weather but I just got caught in a thunderstorm at lunch time and as it was so relentless I had to give up sheltering and make a break for it and I got so wet my office mates were all bawling laughing at me and saying I looked like a drowned rat. I can honestly say this has never happened to me in Dublin. I think NSW is actually in monsoon season now even though it was not heretofore known for its monsoons. Apparently Sept 07 was the 1st time the Sydney water dam was over 50% in 3 years, and what month did we arrive, d'oh. If one more person blames me for bringing this weather I think I will nut them!



8 Feb 2008

Godless heathen that I am I didn't even realise it was Pancake Tuesday & Ash Wednesday this week! No evidence to remind me about 'jiff lemon day' or seeing people with smudges of black on their foreheads, pagans.



But super Tuesday in the American political nominations was exciting on TV, am all into Democratic race now. Am thinking Obama is very smooth but Go Hillary.



13 Feb 2008

I came into work and everyone was gathered around the t.v., then I saw why .... the Aussies officially - wait for it - said sorry to the poor oul' wronged Abo's. See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australi as-stolen-generation-to-the-mothers-and-the-fathers-the-brot hers-and-the-sisters-we-say-sorry-781543.html. History in the making as they say and good to see I say.



14 Feb 08

Tried to host our 1st dinner party last weekend but had to cancel as C. was sick, then tried to bring my sister out for lunch on her birthday on Tuesday but some stupid delivery man fooked that up so she couldn't come (C. and I went anyway!). Then I texted our neighbours A to see if they were free for a drink tonight but she said she had a hot date, finally it dawned on me it's St. Valentines Day, or International Hallmark Love Day as it's known in our house. I bought C. some sweets in red wrapping yesterday but he said if they were Valentines sweets they'd turn to ash in his mouth, he still ate them though : ) I saw St. Valentines Cards for $1 yesterday, nice ones, can you believe that? In Dublin they 'd 10 euro on 13th Feb! Maybe it's cause St. Valentine's bones/relics are in a church in Dublin (Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in case you didn't know)



My shopping gene has switched back on as I am now 10% lighter than I was when I arrived here so I felt the urge to buy clothes finally yesterday and succeeded. We are also on a quest to buy a gooood coffee machine this week but it's all gone a bit 'Danish' with shopkeepers not being interested in making a small fortune in one sale!



My nephew's 1st birthday on Sat. so there's big family barbeque on in the new mansion, it's our 1st Aussie bbq (cause weather has been so shite).so it better be good or we are telling the world the aussie bbq is a fallacy.



Update: The bbq went ahead, hurray.



29th Feb.

Last weekend went for a birthday dinner of A (as in P&A from previous blog entries) in a great Indian in the Crowie on Sat. night, meet a few new people there which was interesting enough, but let's face it's not exactly too easy make new everlasting friends in your late 30's and other peoples friends aren't necessarily the way to go. Still though I am getting on great with a kiwi girl I work with, as in someone not related to the extended family I found by myself, mon Dieu. Work is mad busy, so it's all work, gym (at lunch time :-)) and each weekend recently there seems to have been a family birthday on with my niece's 7th on this coming Saturday. I have taken a mad fit of baking - soda bread, scones, banana bread - am good at the breads, who knew.



In Movie news: Did anyone watch the Oscars & the 2 people from Irl/Czech accept their Oscar for Irish movie 'Once' for the music or something, they made it for 100k on 2 handicams and now they have an Oscar, how cool is that? We saw the poster at home in Aug. & someone in Dublin 8 had put in a P in front of the Once in the exact same font, it looked great but it will always be 'Ponce' to us. Yes I watched the whole Oscar show (mainly to see the dresses) cause I am a loser with nought better to do. Have ordered 'Once' anyway as I do my dvd rental by post, jesus you'd swear we lived in the out-back not a city of 4 million.



Saw 'Easy Rider' on tv last night, C said I saw it in college but I have no recollection (pre bang on the head) but it was good to see a classic and possibly the 1st road movie.
Rented another classic film this month Tin Drum (German) - mental! And just saw Tim Burtons 'Corpse Bride' which I meant to do since early on in Cph. Oh and a good aussie indie one 'Little Fish' with Cate B. v.g. v. low level & we also saw with S&F the very Oz indie film 'Noise' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0809931/ & on tv we saw a danish horror 'Cecile', I quite like the oul DK films now. I got 'Dreamgirls' too & hated it as I didn't cop on it was a musical, like I knew it was about music but I didn't expect the talking bits to be sung & I HATE musicals (blame over exposure as a child), there was bit of that in Corpse Bride too but it wasn't too bad.



It's a leap year day today, dunno anyone who proposed, but it's also last day of summer here, or "what summer" as the papers are saying, it was the wettest in 16 years and the coldest in 8 years (not cold by Irish standards just 23-25degrees instead of 30degrees). I don't care about the temperature it's the raining on many weekends that got me and apparently it will continue to do so for the rest of this year til Spring in Sept. Still we have been in over 18 degrees for a nearly a year so not complaining really.



Roll on autumn.....

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