Day 213

Nutmeg is certainly becoming more than a lap cat, more like a lap hog, this is now a regular position for her to assume in the evenings.  Not curled up, she prefers to be stretched out and purrs the house down :)

Day 212

back to the grind of driving to and from the office and lining up to leave the carpark area.  I sometimes wish I didn't have a company car and didn't need to travel around during the day so I could get public transport and take in the sights instead of concentrating for that extra hour or so home.

Day 211

Temptation stares at me every day I buy my lunch from this tiny little cafe opposite work, today I didn't resist, it was too sweet and after such a big 3 days in melbourne I decided I had earned it.

Day 210

Last day in Melbourne for work today, looking forward to getting home a lot.

Brendan  and Nutty greeted me at the front door around 11pm and this is what greeted me......

Thought I'd stepped back in time to the 70's or 80's! My reaction was shock and brendan's was to laugh as he'd achieved his goal.  It was removed within a few minutes of me being home thank goodness!

Day 209

more hotel room shots... anyone able to guess what this might be?

Unusual for a hotel room to have decorations.

Day 208

off to melbourne early for 3-4 days for work.

hotel rooms are really boring things, this was the most exciting thing in it, the bedside lamp reflected in the mirror behind the bed and frosted glass surrounding the bathroom (very weird!)

Day 207

Finished off making Lemonade marmalade and a sweet Orange marmalade.  Oranges were navels so sweeter than a normal marmalade the lemonades and oranges were form mum and dad's trees and there was still double or triple the amount of fruit left.

I have only used about 1/3 of everything mum gave me and I've still got several kilos of oranges and about 12 lemonade citrus left.  I'm thinking of making lemonade curd and orange curd and might experiment with a play on preserved lemons with the lemonades as they are older fruit and are quite tart with a lemonade rather than lemon flavour.

Day 206

Still sick but feeling much better.

Nick and Kristy are up this weekend, and it was so nice to get out of the house and into the sunshine.  We headed to Yellowmundee regional park in far western sydney so Nick and brendan could head off on some single track mountain biking.

Kristy and I took our cameras and walked on some of the fire trails and scooted around some of the wider single track more like a track able to support 2 bikes next to each other in some parts and indulged our photographic pursuits.

I did a lot of experimenting with exposures and shutter speeds and was impressed yet again with the flexibility of the manual controls of the G11.

Day 205

3rd day sick, yucko.

nothing taken outside, spent most of it in bed and answering some urgent emails for work.

Who's in the bag?

Nutty and her new toy catepillar lol

Not sure if her obsession with climbing into bags is normal or not, she also loves sitting in cupboards and is quite comfortable with us shutting the door on the pantry while she's in the bottom where her food is stored and leaving her there for an hour or more (I forgot the other day and several hours later she burst out of the cupboard).

Day 204

2nd day off sick today, came down suddenly with it and struggling to take a pic worthy of uploading.

lying around all day I ventured out to the lounge room and was half sitting half lying on the lounge.  Nutty took the opportunity to snuggle on my legs.  Usually I have them stretched out and she curls up on my shins, seems she was happy enough to make do.  She sat like this for a couple of hours.

Day 203

Another macro, this time of a plant pressing that fell out of one of my native plant books.  Osothamnus diosmifolius is the plant and it's a favourite.

Day 202

Bit of a macro of a lemon from our tree, the stuff that looks like dirt was stuck on and I couldn't scrub it off so not sure if it was a citrus rust or just stubborn.

Day 201

Cloud formations around Bredbo on the drive home from Jindabyne. There's often unusual cloud formations in this area, I've got quite a series of photos now.  Love how the clouds are intertwining.

random bug committing hari kari on the windscreen around Lake george.  Perhaps it was as surprised as us to see a little bit of water in the "lake"?

Day 200

Wow, day 200 out of 365.  Time is flying by faster than I could have imagined which makes me even more grateful that I started this project this year, so much going on.

So we intended to head up to Thredbo and head out from the top to the Ramsheads, but we were a combination of lazy and turned off by a couple of mates who said the skinning was hardgoing due to a pretty low snow year.  We knew that up the top of thredbo would have been much better, but took the easy option and decided to do some wedding stuff while we were here.  So ceremony and reception location in the picture, snow on the hills behind :)

Love this fireplace at an Italian place we eat at sometimes.

Day 199

Not bad from a car travelling at 110km/hr.  Managed to capture a couple of stars in the top right.  Like the gradation of blue evening sky :)

On our way to Jindabyne for our first weekend skiing, snow willing....

Day 198

chilling on our bed one morning, brendan is still in bed....

Love how she's folded over herself, doesn't look comfy but she stayed in that position for quite a while.

Day 197

textures and patterns in a close up.  Still absolutely loving the G11, though I do have to remember that I've changed settings or customised a set up etc.

Day 196

A moth not doing such a good job of camouflaging itself

Day 195

A friend is in her last year of studying Chiro and needed a handful of new patients to reach her quota for the semester to pass, so I helped her out by making an appointment :)

She looks professional!

Blood pressure was all good too 118/74 which is standard for me

Day 194

2nd gardening effort and I was determined to dig a new hole in the clay....... 2 hours later I had successfully dug 1 hole.  Didn't help that we didn't have a mattock, only a long handled shovel.

After a trip to one of my favourite nurseries for advice I returned home with some Gypsum and potatoes.  The spuds will be 'planted' no dig garden style in the front yard to help break up the clay.  As soon as I said where we lived the nursery guy suggested both gypsum and potatoes, apparently planting potatoes when you first moved into a new house used to be common practice to loosen up the soil.  Can take a couple of seasons, but I'm prepared to wait for that :)

Sugar cane mulch was put around the hardengergia climbers I bought for along the side of the house to create some privacy, just need to get some wire in the next few months to train them along it.

Day 193

What you get when you leave used matches out on the bench.  She absolutely LOVES chewing them to pieces, burnt end first.  Crazy cat

Day 192

My skis, well one pair at least.  these are my backcountry skis as they have AT bindings on them.  Love the design and they are a really light and fun ski.

Day 191

This is pretty self explanatory, leave food out, even just an empty container and she's into it very quickly!

Day 190

We ordered from our local Indian takeaway tonight and were slightly alarmed as we plated it up to find this.... Mystery item that we figured out was a lamb dish we'd chosen.  tasted nice, despite it's suspect shape and colour.... lol

Day 188

Pre birthday Thai lunch for Nat at work today, forgot to take a pic!  So here's a stand in, if the spoon wasn't here it'd be hard to tell the difference!  mmm pad see ew!

Day 187

Trying to get attention or just keeping warm?  We had the temp down on the aircon and she sought out every warm spot possible, even taking herself off to the lounge room cupboard at one point.

Day 186

A bit of a change today a bit of cross country mountain biking at a nearby reserve.  I was very distracted by the plants and was a lot slower (and much less fit) than brendan and nick so was a long way behind most of the time.  I caught up each time they stopped :)

nick 'screaming' down the steepness...... (sarcasm hat firmly in place).  If it was any steeper he'd stop

nice parklike areas, lots of regrowth but the understorey and ground level species diversity (that I spied as I rode past) is substantial!

Love a field of Kangaroo grass!! Just gorgeous :D

Day 185

Brendan's bucks day has arrived and the boys have organised this for him to wear to the pub.  Cooma Vinnies comes through yet again!

Day 184

Rushed and very late lunch, 3pm, today. mmmm steamed gyoza goodness :)

Day 183

Granny's funeral today.  What an amazing woman, more so as she wouldn't have thought she was.

Waiting for my sister so we can head to the funeral

L to R: Dad's cousin, Granny's sister, Grandfathers niece and another sister of Granny's

Nutty was very pleased to see us home.  Note the little bit of tongue poking out haha