On Top of the World

Today we picked up our itinerary and other holiday stuff from the travel agent. We’re actually going, and we have a whole wad of paper to prove it! We also went into the city and I bought a bag to take on the plane with me. See left for a picture of the sexy item. Yes, it’s orange. The bright yellow tag was something I added afterwards - it’s all about distinctive baggage! At least I know that if I see someone walking around with an orange case with a bright yellow tag on it, it’s probably mine!

When I first saw it I didn’t really like the colour, but it’s started to grow on me. And now I actually quite like it. It also helped that it was over 60% off the price. And since it’s a Qantas-brand bag, maybe the people at the airport will think that I work for them and will treat me better. Or not. Or maybe they’ll think I’m rich (since the bags are quite overpriced unless you can get them for 60% off), and treat me better because of that. Or maybe they’ll just mug me. Bummer, I knew I should have bought a bag from Target.

We also got a couple of travel pillows, which we promptly tried out when we got home. We found them pretty difficult to inflate, until we read the instructions, which said to squeeze the valve when blowing into it. Aaaah - it was much easier after we did that!

All I have to get now is some TSA-approved locks, since any other lock is likely to be broken in American airports if they decide to look through my stuff. The cool thing about them is that they have an indicator to tell you whether it’s been unlocked and locked again, so that will be handy. I’ll see just how nosy those Americans are

We found some in the shops, but I saw some cheaper ones on eBay (the same locks), so I’ll get those instead. Even though it says it will be posted express post, I’m still worried about getting them on time (see previous post for an explanation of my paranoia), but I’m sure it will work out. I just have to learn to chiiiilll.

As it turns out, we’re not going to be meeting up with our boss in England - he gets in on the day we fly out. Dang. Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to meet up with him, but making a special trip to Oxford would have been out of the question.

One of the things we’re going to do in England is see Stonehenge. I’ve been there before, but M really wants to go, and particularly to go inside the inner circle (which I didn’t get to do when I was there). The tour we wanted to go on doesn’t operate in October, but there is one operated by the English Heritage people that goes inside the circle. The only problem is, they are held at 8am, and it takes over 3 hours to get there from London, so we’ll have to work out how best to get there. Probably the best thing would be to hire a car and drive ourselves, so most likely we’ll do that.

There’s an application form you have to fill out before you go, and on it you have to tell them what sort of cameras you’re taking, and whether you want to publish the pictures on a website, and if so you have to provide an accompanying letter detailing what you want to do with the pictures. I’m happy not to publish the pictures on my blog if they don’t want me to, but I wouldn’t want them to turn around and say that I couldn’t take a camera at all, just in case I did post them.

*****

And because Mandy told me to, here’s the delightful cowbell picture I’ve been tagged with…

The rules are that I have to display the picture on my blog, and then tag someone else with it who then has to display it on theirs… so, I’m going to handball it on to Steph - come on, you know you want to play! It’s certainly a lot easier than answering questions.

On Saturday I went shopping for clothes. I hate buying clothes, but I really needed some new jeans, so out I went. First I went to the factory outlets in Parkside, but they had absolutely nothing, so on the way home I called into another shopping centre. I tried on some jeans there, and after umming and aahing over which size to get, I decided on the smaller size, thinking that since jeans always give a little after wearing them, they’ll end up being the right size.

More than once have I been caught out when buying jeans - the last time, they were snug, but not too tight, and after wearing them once they were far too big and had a big gaping bit in the small of my back. This time I was determined not to fall into the same trap, so the jeans I got are bordering on indecent. Almost, but not quite. They’re fine on the legs, but my arse has no room whatsoever. I think I have a really disproportionate arse.

I would have got the next size up, but there was a little gap in the small of the back in that size, and I had the niggling feeling that that would just get worse with wear. Having said that, I’m now worried that these are going to be the only jeans in the history of jeans that won’t stretch, and I’ll always have to start getting ready 10 minutes earlier than usual just so I have enough time to get them over my butt and done up.

I was really worried that I’d got the wrong size, so I spent the rest of my day looking at other people’s jeans, seeing how tight they were on them. There are lots of people who wear tight jeans, right? And they’re going to stretch a bit anyway… riiight? I think I’m going to spend the next few weeks wearing them whenever possible to get them to stretch. Either that, or I’ll just eat lettuce leaves so it’s not so hard to get my butt into them. Dammit, I knew I should have got the next size up, even though they weren’t really any looser except for the back-gaping bit.

Why can’t I have the kind of body where jeans just hug it in all the right places? Damn genes. And jeans too.

PS I think comments are fixed (touch wood), so if you were having trouble before, everything should be ok now. As you were.

I was officially abandoned at around 11am today because M had to go to work, and was then going to a friend’s place for a Party Pie Party. South Australia has two teams entered in our national Australian Rules Football competition - M supports one team, and his friend the other. When the two teams play each other, they have a Party Pie Party, where the only food on the menu is (you guessed it) Party Pies, and they watch the game and generally gloat when their team is winning.

So I was left to my own devices today. I went into the city and got my hair cut, then visited M at work, since it was only a small detour, and then went to the supermarket on the way home. Since it was a beautiful day, and I had a couple of hours of daylight left, I thought I’d go for a walk in the conservation park behind my house - beats a walk around the block!

So I set off, and after about 10-15 minutes, got to the section where it has the different marked trails that you can walk on. Since I only had 45 minutes until the park closed, I started off on the easiest one (which is the shortest), and thought that I’d walk for 10 minutes, and then come back so I’d have plenty of time to walk to the gates before they were locked for the day. So I walked along, and took some photos on the way back.

I was walking along the stretch of road that led to the front gates, and was thinking about the track that goes past the back of my house. I hadn’t walked back to my house that way before, and figured that now was not time to be experimenting with new routes, as the park would be closed soon, and it would be getting dark. So I kept walking.

I had the front gates in sight when I saw the aforementioned track. I thought, ‘what the hell’ and started walking up the track. And when I say ‘up’, I mean UP. It seemed to be a neverending uphill slope, and my legs were absolutely buggered. And still it went up. It seemed to be veering a little off to the left, away from the direction my house is in, but I figured that it would wind its way back in the right direction and all would be fine. In the meantime I was cursing myself for walking up the stupid track, thinking that if I’d just gone out through the gates and up my street, I would have been home by now.

The track finally levelled off (thank God for that), so I could catch my breath a little, but I didn’t want to slow down too much because it was past the park’s closing time (and I’d come too far up the track to go back), and I didn’t want to be stuck in there when it was dark. I kept walking and finally saw a house. HOORAY! I figured it was the one at the bottom of my street, but then noticed that it didn’t really look like that house, and the houses next to it looked a lot like other houses I’d seen further up my street when I’d gone on my walks around the block. I looked to the right and could see my street, and another street that came off it. Since my house isn’t near such a street, I knew I’d gone too far. D’oh.

So I thought I’d follow the fenceline, since I knew I had the right street, and I’d eventually have to end up at my house. So I followed the fenceline, down the hill, and down… and down… and down. This was no mean feat, as my legs were literally shaking from all the uphill walking, and I was getting a mild feeling of worry because my house is quite high on the hill, and the downward path of the fenceline was not looking promising. Have you ever got that feeling where you know you’re not actually lost, because logically you know how to get back, but even so, the surroundings are totally unfamiliar so you can’t help that little twinge of worry? That’s what I was feeling. All the while, I was still cursing myself for choosing to come this way, envisaging a night spent with the koalas and snakes.

Fortunately, however, I reached the lowest point of the fenceline, and it started going up again. I knew it would be a matter of time before I saw my house, and lo and behold, there it was. I have never been so glad to see my house. I climbed over the back fence (which was not easy because a. I’m short; and b. my legs were still shaking), and was finally home.

At least I got my exercise for the day. I so deserve the leftover pizza I’m having for tea tonight!

Today M and I went for a drive to Clare. After taking a wrong turn and deciding on the scenic route to get there, we had lunch in a nice pub and went for a walk around before heading back home.

On the way to Clare is a town called Tarlee, and I quite like the signs marking the start and end - when you enter the town, you are greeted with the following sign:

Nothing really unusual there. But when you leave, you are farewelled with this sign, which I thought was cute (the sun was right behind it, so the photo’s not that good):

At tafe at the moment we’re doing Deaf History Studies. The topic was the Ottoman Empire, which I knew nothing about, so it was very interesting. It’s weird that in school I absolutely hated history, and stopped taking it as soon as I could, but now I find it really interesting. I have a memory like a sieve though - I forget dates and times etc (which is why I was so bad at school), so every time I watch history programs, even if I’m fairly familiar with the subject matter, there’s always something I’ve forgotten, so it’s as though I’m seeing it for the first time. I guess that’s good and bad. Anyway, one of the things that the teacher said was that the Sultan of the Empire chose which of his sons would become the next Sultan after his death. After this choice was made, his other sons were executed. Who says that life isn’t one big popularity contest?

After class, a friend and I went to our new regular place, Hungry Hippos. It’s actually called Hungry George, but I called it Hungry Hippos one day and that’s what it’s been ever since. Hungry Hippos is located on Hindley St, which has long had a reputation for being a pretty dodgy part of town, with lots of bums, beggars and drunkards. It’s also home to a fairly decent strip joint, but I digress. When we first started going there, we sat at a table close to the edge of the place, overlooking the street, where we were invariably asked for money. The last few times, though, we sat further inside, where they have some rather comfy lounges. I was thankful that we were sitting there last night and not on the edge, because two guys came in, with one of them looking quite scared, and the other being aggressive, yelling at the first guy. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the other guy was trying to placate him, although the other guy wouldn’t have any of it. He made a few lunges towards the scared guy, and threw a couple of punches. They did the cat and mouse thing for a bit, with Aggressive Guy walking out into the street every now and then, and Scared Guy walking inside HH, seeing what AG was doing. Meanwhile, my friend had got up and I called her back, worried that she was going to try to get between them. She was only going to the staff bit to ask if they were calling the police, which they had.

A little while later, SG left Hungry Hippos and walked up the street, and a few seconds later I saw AG running up the street after him. SG hightailed it to the other side of the street, and came back into Hungry Hippos, with AG walking down the street just as a police car was cruising by. I don’t know what the policeman said to him, but my friend overheard some people on the street jeering AG, saying “you’re not so tough now, are you” etc. AG really was a Class A Wanker.

Fortunately, times have changed since the Ottoman Empire, but I guess the moral of the story is still the same - don’t piss anyone off, especially if he’s a Sultan or your girlfriend’s ex.

It’s somewhat overrated and commercialised, but Happy Valentine’s Day anyway. If you celebrate it, I hope you had/are having/will have a great day, and if you don’t, I still hope you had (etc) a great day

Yesterday I drove out to one of the dodgiest suburbs in Adelaide to pick up some stuff I bought on eBay. Ordinarily I would just ask them to post it, which I did for another seller who also lives out there, but I was too much of a stinge to pay $8 for postage when I could just pick it up, and I wanted to take my car for a drive to check that it’s ok after my last towing incident. Now that I think about it, though, it probably wasn’t such a good idea, because it would not have been pleasant if I’d broken down there. But I didn’t, so it’s ok. So I set off on the drive, trying not to ram the people in front of me who were doing 80 in a 100 zone. HELLO! Use some gas for goodness’ sake, people. Or better yet, drive in the left lane, which is what you’re supposed to do unless you’re overtaking. Idiots. There were slow arses in the left lane, and more of them in the right lane. Sigh. Other than that frustration, I made it in one piece, and to be honest I was happy to get my stuff and leave as soon as I could. I know I’m making it sound like the worst place on earth, which it’s not (I assume), but it really is a bleak and depressing suburb. I think next time I’ll just pay the 8 bucks. On the upside, I got some cool stuff for not much money! Gotta be happy with that.

M and I went to the beautiful beachside suburb of Semaphore a few days ago, because M was having his hair cut (he likes his regular guy!). While he was having it done, I went for a walk down to the beach, and to pass the time, I thought I’d take some photos.

I took a few panorama shots, and shots of the jetty, and then I thought it might be cool to take a closeup of the seagulls. There were some sitting in a group, so I edged closer, trying not to scare them off. When I got within a few feet, one by one they calmly stood up and walked off. Well, fine! So I approached another group, only to have the same thing happen, all very casually of course.

It was actually quite amusing, and in the end I didn’t really care about the pictures, but it was more an experiment to see how close I could get before they got up. They made no hurry about going, it was just as if they planned all along to get up at that moment, and me being within their personal space wasn’t the issue at all. It reminded me of when I was waiting at the bus stop a couple of months ago, and a guy kept edging closer to me, and I kept walking away, but trying to make it look as casual as possible.

A friend of mine recently bought some land down south, and I went to visit her on Wednesday. She has two horses, one of which was already at the land, and she was moving the other one there that day. They’d never met before, and she wanted me to take some photos of them for her. The meeting didn’t go quite as well as she was hoping - the female went up to the male and sniffed his butt (as you do when you meet someone), which was met by a swift and strong kick to the chest. Damn, that was a hard kick - it produced quite a hearty ‘clonk’. Luckily horses have stronger chests than we do - after that, I made a point of not going behind him! A friend of ours got kicked by one of his horses, and the bruises he got were awful. Yeeeouch.

I took lots of pictures, but this was my favourite by far - it’s just too cute! The one in the picture is just like a puppy - he follows her around everywhere, and nuzzles her - it’s adorable.

M and I went to have a look at some land at Auburn today, which is in the Clare Valley. We’d heard an ad on the radio for land being sold there, so we thought it might be worth a look, particularly as I was keen to go back to Clare after the last time I’d been through. Since Auburn is on the way to Clare, we went to Clare for lunch, and thought we’d call past the land on the way back.

We had quite a nice schnitzel at one of the pubs, and then went to see the land, which turned out to be quite a disappointment. Oh well. In truth, I didn’t actually expect that we’d come home as new owners of a block of land, but it was worth a look anyway, and the drive was nice! The two photos here were taken in the car on the way home.

Before today I thought I might like to live in Clare, but I have now changed my mind because a) it’s a damn long drive to work, even if I work on the north side of town, and b) there are just too many slow-driving tossers using the road. It was ridiculous - stupid slow people holding everyone else up and not even pulling over to let people pass. Use some gas already!

Oh, something I’ve been meaning to mention for a couple of days and which all of you who comment will already know about, is my new comment code thing. Sorry if it’s a pain for some people, but I was so sick of deleting 300+ junk comments each day, I had to do something. Most of them were being filtered out and didn’t actually appear on my blog, but sometimes they sneak through and it’s just such a pain. I just know that one day I’ll be writing an enormous comment in reply to other people’s comments, and I’ll forget to put in the code and lose the whole thing. I’m trying to get into the habit of copying it all to the clipboard before I submit, just in case I’ve put in the wrong code or something!

Holidays are almost over - I have to go back to work on Monday. They always seem to go so fast, and then it’s work again - another year starting again. It’s kind of weird.

I had a great day today. A friend came over, and she, M and I went for a walk in Morialta Conservation Park. We did the easiest walk there, which was really nice, and took us to First Falls (there are 3 altogether). I’ve put in a picture of it, kindly borrowed from the Morialta site. We sat down on a rock near the falls and it was just beautiful. We’re going to go on one of the more strenuous walks next time, when we’re better prepared. I was sure there was a kiosk there, but it turned out there wasn’t, so we were starving by the end of the walk. Next time we’ll take some food and we’ll be able to climb up a bit higher. The scenery there is fantastic - I was wishing I had a digital camera so that I could take some photos. Next time maybe.

Afterwards my friend and I went to a nearby cafe and sat there for a few hours, eating and chatting. It was the perfect day for sitting outside and enjoying a coffee. It’s days like that when I wish I didn’t have to work, and I could spend a lazy weekend sitting outside and not worrying about getting up early on Monday. *sigh* Now I just have to come up with an idea to make us rich, and we can retire young and happy.