We need a shield generator - Christmas madness

On to Christmas fun. Our fun began on Christmas Eve with the updating of the Christmas decorations. Although we put up our tree on the first day of advent (or at least I do - B2, being hindu, doesn't really care when the tree goes up, but joins in because it's fun), this year it was a bit of a rush job because that day happened to coincide with wedding anniversary celebrations on BOTH sides of the family. And then we were busy, so on Christmas Eve, when we'd finished tidying the house, we finished decorating the tree.
This year, we created a section of the tree with a Return of the Jedi theme. The story behind that is that last year we hadn't acquired a star for the top of the tree yet, but we did have a Death Star thingy designed to be stuck on car windows. What the heck, said we, it's a star isn't it? So it got wired to the top of the tree, and created quite a conversation piece.
Most especially, my brother Will insisted that we should have a family of ewoks living in the tree under it. This is not strictly correct, as what we had was a copy of the first Death Star, and the ewoks lived under the shadow of the second one, but what the hey. Only real Star Wars nerds like me would notice that.
So this year, even though we now have a proper star at the top of the tree, the death star made a comeback, only this time, we also had ewoks - in the form of some ancient stickers that I've probably had for twenty years, which I stuck on to cardboard and turned into decorations to hang on the tree. But this was not enough. Bhautik decided to dig out some old figurines he had, and now we've got Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Darth Vader and the Millenium Falcon as well. Not to mention a Darth Vader Pez dispenser. B2 put up most of these decorations with a constant muttering of "We need a shield generator, we need a shield generator, WE NEED A SHIELD GENERATOR. Or anything that looks like a satellite dish would do." Eventually I took pity on him and granted the temporary loan of the lid of a mini Bitty Bin that I use for keeping beads in. It was pink - bright, hot pink - but this didn't seem to bother him. It looked vaguely like a satellite dish and that was good enough. So he took lots of photos of the decorated tree, I finished wrapping presents, and we went to bed.

Christmas Day we went to Church (thanks B2 for accompanying me and not looking too bored), came back, had breakfast and then headed down to my parents' house for Christmas lunch. We had a great time, chatting online with Will (who is now living in London, although he went to his girlfriend Liz' house in Cork for Christmas) and catching up with all the family.
It was a great day, though it culminated in a major scare when Fergus (my 3-year-old cousin, formerly featured in the trip to the park) ran across the road in front of a car when we were all out the front seeing each other off. He is a very, very lucky boy. He came close enough to being hit that for a while we thought he might have been, but since a trip to hospital confirmed that the only injuries he received were a few scratches and bruises, we think he might have just fallen over. The poor driver of the car was most distraught (as you would be), but her quick actions probably made a big difference to the outcome. I think that Fergus has already forgotten the whole experience, but the rest of the family learnt a valuable lesson in how fast kids can move. One that it'll probably take us a while to get over.
Having been heavily involved in administering first-aid to Fergus (seeing as how I've been a member of St John Ambulance Australia for nearly 7 years), I was fairly exhausted by the end of the evening, so we came home, collapsed on the couch and watched a few episodes from the Goodies DVD I got for Christmas. Classic British humour, excellent for de-stressing.

Boxing Day was a bit quieter. We hosted B2's parents and his brother Kek to lunch, which was good fun. I successfully made malai koftas, which Rekha was very impressed with.

I think I'd better stop blogging now. My main reason for writing so long today was to distract myself from the fact that B2 went sky-diving today, in an effort to make me a full widow and not just a PhD one. Thankfully this effort has failed, he's called me to say he had a good time and that he'll be home soon. So thanks for reading this far, and byeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The re-reports

It's been a busy few weeks. I feel like I should give my version of events as to the ballet, restaurant trip and Christmas concert that B2 has already reported on. Then I'll get to be first to report on Christmas festivities.

First, the ballet. I know it's a rather cruel thing to do to a boy, taking him to see ballet. In my defense, I have to say that I had never been to see a ballet production either, and needed someone to accompany me. Also, and the greatest mitigating factor, is that he owed me for watching Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 with him. No more need be said. I was entirely justified.
Anyway, we had a pretty good time being impressed by the performances, but mainly enjoying laughing at the poor men who had to wear fairy wings and have such tight tights. Why did only the male fairies have fairy wings? It did seem to rather enforce traditional stereotypes about male ballet dancers. Oh, well. It was quite entertaining, in a "thank goodness that's over and now I've experienced ballet" kind of way.

So, on to the restaurant trip. It was fun, although I have to admit that it is not a restaurant that I would recommend for vegetarians. Not that the vegie fare on offer wasn't good (it was very tasty indeed) or that the service wasn't up to scratch (it was very fast and friendly) but, as B2 has said, it wasn't all that fresh and it was quite expensive, or at least would have been without a gift voucher. The location was great though, and I guess what it comes down to is that it is primarily a seafood restaurant. Still, we had a very good night.

And the concert. Wow, yeah, the concert.
I suppose before I start talking about that I should mention the reason we were going to it, which was that my singing teacher, Nadia, had organised it. I'd heartily recommend the singing lessons to anyone living in the area, or even passing through. She creates a very comfortable atmosphere that makes it easy to learn. Even if you feel nervous about learning singing in a group environment; I was before I started these lessons. It's fun. You learn to blow really long raspberries, how to make good cow and duck noises, and yeah, how to improve your vocal technique as well.
Anyway, the concert. It was a charity concert to raise money for the "Musos Keeping It Real in the 'burbs Fund", which organises cross-cultural experiences for disadvanted groups (including opportunities to perform overseas, pretty neat). The music was brilliant, especially Masood's performance of a few traditional Persian works and Nadia's singing of "On Yoolis Night", an Old English Christian song, with Les' accompaniment on didgeridoo (or, as it should properly be called, yidaki) - an absolutely fantastic combination. If I get time, I'll write a full review up here, but in the meantime, keep an eye out for any further "Blue Gem amongst the Stars" productions.

Well, that wraps it up for the re-reporting. Since this blog post is already very, very long, I'd better write a new post for the Christmas festivities.

I have an ipod

Well, actually it's an ipod mini. I've actually had it for a while. B2 won an ipod nano and so he gave me his old mini. At first I went, "thanks, that's nice" and put it aside. I don't like listening on the bus or out walking, I feel like it distracts me.
But then I started going to the gym, and found that I kept getting distracted and slowing down on the treadmill/bike/rowing machines. In comes the ipod, and now I'm addicted.
Most of the music on it is what B2 left on it when he gave it to me. I've left most of it on there (the stuff I deleted was mostly too quiet for the gym) so my musical education has been getting a bit of an extension. It's been good. Listening means I'm more likely to start going too fast than too slow, but mostly it just keeps me at a gentle rhythm. The problem is that although I've been listening to come good things that are new and interesting, I've got no idea what they are because the ipod is in my pocket. I'll have to take it off shuffle I guess.
Anyhow, no more to write at the moment, I've got to start getting ready to go to the gym. Ipod at the ready.

We went to the park...and down the coast

Now that I've finally posted about the trip to the zoo (btw, I probably should mention that the zoo in question was Taronga), I feel free to mention a more recent trip out.

A few weeks ago, Luke, Imogen and I ventured on another small outing, this time accompanied by their younger brother Fergus and also by B2. Yes, he made it. No PhD widowhood for me this time.

We had a great time. Fergus discovered the "Spoon of destiny" (I wouldn't let him play with the bottle opener, but he discovered the spoon made a great noise when rattled inside our stainless steel cups), Luke, Imogen and I practiced our photography, and so did B2 - playing with the camera tripod which was an early Christmas present. He did some great panoramic shots, which can be viewed through links on his page.

Also, last weekend, I was a non-widow again when we went down to Jervis Bay with some old uni friends. We had a great time, and indulged in some serious sandcastle building. I started off with a very simple sandcastle, and managed to convince Ray to join in:

Of course, I was surrounded by engineers. It wasn't long before they had decided to pitch in with their version of what should be done:
And very soon we had a magnificent sandcastle which contained no part of the original architecture. Such is the way of all great cities.


Images from the weekend are available here. It involved the boys spending a lot of time playing with a rubber chicken. I'm told that close contact is the way to be infected with bird flu, although Marc assures us that his chicken should be free of H5N1. Still, I should be safe - I didn't get too close, and it's still not transferable between humans.

Back-date this one....trip to the zoo

This post is WAY overdue. In fact, considering the topic of this post actually occurred before I started this blog, I've decided NOT to cheat and back-date it, but you guys can just pretend it's been backdated.

Anyway, on with the story. Back in early August, I took my cousins Imogen and Fergus to the zoo. B2 was going to come with us, but owing to my PhD widowhood I almost ended taking them by myself. At the last minute, B2's brother Ketan decided to come.

We had a great day, looking at the animals, practicing our photography (I'm particularly proud of managing to focus on the shrew), eating sour worms and generally having fun.I tried a few times to email some of the photos to my aunt, but alas, they were too big. So now they're up on this site, hopefully they'll be accessible. And the rest of you can enjoy also.