Dose of Doctor Who!

Christmas usually brings the Doctor Who Box Set, and this year was no exception. Thank you Mum and Dad!


I was doubly excited last week when I saw an advert for the Doctor Who Christmas Special, to be broadcast on Boxing Day! Usually we have to wait a few months to get it here - they must post the film over on a slow cruise ship or something - but this year they managed to post it before the snows closed the airports.

You can guess what I was watching last Sunday night. Did anyone else catch it? What did you think?

I am going to try to ration myself on the box set, and make it last as long as possible. I am not sure though if I can manage. Whee!

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What the duck?

Today I caught up with my friend J, who is on a whirlwind trip back to Australia with her husband and their new baby daughter! It was lovely to see her, and meet her gorgeous girl, as well as catch up with a good chunk of J's family too.

J brought with her a gift for her niece LittleA. LittleA's mother K is a mad Star Wars fan and the duckies that were gifted were very cute and so apt! The names of the little duckies were Pondtrooper, Duck Fadar, Princess Layer and Luke Pondwater. Oh how cute.

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Pretty pottery

My sister E is always two steps ahead of the crowd, and her wedding gift to us was no execption. No, we didn't get the whole menagerie pictured, just one of these lovely Sharon Muir planters, complete with its own saucer! Actually ours might be a herb pot, as it has holes in the bottom. Our mother tried to suggest that it could be used as a salad bowl, however dad and I really couldn't see the practicality of that.

E actually did buy us a gift off our registry as well, just in case we didn't like the planter. Bless.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS

I hope that you have an excellently awesome Christmas!!

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BUILD: Making a home

It has taken us a year, but finally work on our new house has started! The process has been long and drawn out, but the boys are finally on site and have started work on the foundations and slab.

The photo you see is our block of land before work began. It is pretty bleak! However hopefully soon we will have a new home.

The block is much steeper than we realised when we bought it. This did not deter us however it has meant that there is some mad earthworks to be done in order to build the house.

I am planning to post progress photos and updates as we go, so stay tuned!

Crab season!

It is crab season again! The boys went out last Friday in search of the creatures. Pickings were slim - they only found six crabs that were sized - and for some reason we ended up with all of them. I was not complaining!

Even though they were not overly large, the crab meat was sweet. When I eat seafood I try to pick as much out fromt he crab as I can - no wastage. My sister E gave me a handy set of tools, they never saw any use until I met C. Now I have found many uses for them!!



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WWotW: Column

The word colum struck my notice this week. It was part of a document template at work, and if they had only used it once I might have let it pass without comment. Twice though on the same document indicates misspelling rather than mistyping.

Otherwise whoever wrote the template was actually talking about a person.

Column noun any vertical block of words or numbers =

Christmas cards

It feels like Christmas has crept up on us this year. Do you send Christmas cards? For years I felt guilt for receiving cards from friends and not sending any in return. A couple of years ago I got myself organised, wrote a list of friends and their addresses and by the first week of December I had posted out forty cards or so.

The following year it was even easier as I already had my list!

This year however I feel very disorganised, at least as far as Christmas is concerned. We have only just (nearly!) finished writing thank you cards for our wedding, and suddenly Christmas is in three days time!

I have started. I have sent cards to our overseas famly and friends, and I will slowly go through my Christmas card list. Some may not receive theirs until after Christmas, but I figured that it is the thought that counts!

My list will be somewhat expanded as well, as I will endeavour to send a Christmas card to all of the family and friends who shared our wedding celebrations with us, in one way or another!

The cards that I buy every year are from the Oxfam Shop, so I am supporting my favourite charity as well as the ideal of Fair Trade. The cards are printed on recycled paper, using soy based inks and the process is chlorine free.

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Fruit mince pies!

I love fruit mince pies. They are one of the things about Christmas that I look forward to every year! Last year I attempted my first ever home made fruit mince pies and I enjoyed them so much that I wanted to share them with my friends!

Two weeks out from Christmas though and most people already have plans. Still, I managed to scrounge up four friends and we enjoyed an afternoon of fruit mince pies, apple custard glen, white christmas and vanilla slice!

I was excited too that I was able to pull out some of my pretty china. Clockwise from the bottom left corner are Royal Albert Moonlight Roses, Royal Albert 100 Years 1900s Regency Blue, Royal Albert Silver Maple (vintage), and Duchess (vintage). The two vintage sets were Kitchen Tea gifts from my friend L and my sister E. Yay!

I was also able to use our new Noritake Toorak Noir teapot, sugar bowl and creamer. So very excited to use our pretty crockery.

Recipe, tips 1 and tips 2.

Market days

It has been a few weeks ago now since E and I checked out the Christmas markets on offer. I was late meeting her for the Subi market - our original plan was for me to go to her house around 4.30pm and then we would walk down for the start of the festival at 5pm. Our plans were thrown out of the window as C and I needed to meet a man about a retaining wall for our new house. These things happen and eventually he dropped me in Subi at 7pm to catch up with my sister.

We popped into Mr Sparrow, a shop with an eclectic mix of old and new and all things beautiful. It was then onto the Subi Festival and Subi Upmarket for a power shop! There were many beautiful items but I had no excuse to buy many of them so I was in admiration mode. See here for my purchases.

We tried to find a restaurant to eat dinner at, unfortunately for us they were all packed due to the festival and so we ended up heading away from the crowds and into town to eat! It ended up being our first of three Chinese meals in the space of a week. Not that I was counting.

The Sunday afterwards E and I went to Fremantle to check out the Bazaar at Fremantle Arts Centre. It was a fairly mellow event, with a mix of familiar and new stalls! The flavour was definitely Fremantle. We also browsed through the Home Open exhibit. It features selections from the private collections of a range of Fremantle artists, and the display was fascinating. I definitely recommend a look if you're down that way.

We topped off our day with a visit to the new B&M Store, where they stock a delightful range of all things felt and beautiful objects. They are another reason now to visit that part of High Street Fremantle.

Sleeping well while camping

Chad and I are off camping in the new year for a few days. Last time that we both went we borrowed his parent's camp bed. This year he wanted our very own!

Here 'tis. It looks much more comfortable than a mattress on the ground, and comes complete with a valance to make it look more homely. There is a bedhead too so that our pillows do not fall off the end!

To be honest I always thought that camping was about doing it rough, but apparently it is all about the comforts away from home. We have two car fridges to take with us (40L and 60L) and will be running one as a freezer and one as a fridge. Last time we went one couple even brought their deep fryer. I thought that was taking it a bit too far...

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This picture is my wallpaper at work...

This week I went back to work after taking time off for our wedding and honeymoon. Everyone was interested to hear how the day had gone and whether or not we had a good time in Bali!

I changed the wallpaper on my computer to a wedding shot. It seemed the appropriate thing to do. Usually my wallpaper is a scenery shot that I have taken on my travels, to remind me that once in a while I get to leave Perth.

I quite like this shot, even if the boys at work said that it was taken in the "boob garden", due to the naked nymphs in the fountain that you can just see in the background.

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New Edition

E and I attended the launch party - "an evening of fun and frivolity" - for the New Edition Bookshop on William Street in Northbridge.

I have been a fan of New Edition in Fremantle for a while, ever since I wandered in one day and saw the prominence that they placed on Booker Prize nominated books and all things literary. This was while they were still on the main drag (Market Street).

My sister E, usually sharp on all of the trendy stores in town, initially believed that it was a religious bookstore (due to the name!) but has since revised her assessment.

Never judge a book by its cover!

They really know how to put on a party, with the wine free flowing, yummy nibbly things and live entertainment.

We were both keen to buy a book but the press of the crowd was too much. I like to browse well before I make up my mind on what to buy, so we will definitely be back later when there are less people and more room to move!

We also wandered past the newly opened Fox Hunt and tu. C was with us by this stage so we saved those stores for another occasion.

Go Gorillaz!

E and I went to the Gorillaz concert last night at the Burswood Dome. It was AWESOME!! The concert itself was such good fun, the music flowed for a couple of hours and there were some awesome special guests.

I was curious to see how they handled the fact that the Gorillaz are cartoon characters, and it seems that a massive screen and huge band were the way that they coped! We were treated to Little Dragon and De La Soul as the support acts, and both acts made it back on stage during the Gorillaz to join in the fun! De La Soul in fact are part of the Gorillaz performance group and it was awesome to see songs being performed live!

Damon Albarn, the main voice behind Gorillaz, was in fine form and he bounced his way around the stage and tried to get the crowd enthused. At one point he commented on our "weird" venue - I cannot remember his exact words - but what he said rang true! Getting into the Burswood Dome is fairly straightforward but exiting through the airlocks is a pain in the rear, as the crowds bank up behind the revolving door bottle neck.

It was such good fun and E and I were buzzing as we made our way home! I half joked that we should fly to Adelaide tomorrow for their next concert. Woo!

Locked out

I managed to imitate my sister today and lock myself out of the house!

I grabbed my keys and pulled the door shut... then realised that the one key that I needed to unlock all of the doors was still inside the house! I had taken it off my keyring this morning to take with me to the gym (rather than lugging the 7 keys plus torch that I usually carry), and hadn't managed to put it back on my keyring.

Thank you to my father who kindly drove over to let me back in!!

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To market!

E and I are off to the Subi Street Festival including the Subi Upmarket tomorrow night. It should be a blast! We went last year and I ended up buying three pairs of shoes. Hmm... anyway we will have our eyes open for Christmas gifts! I have not been thinking too hard about what to buy people but with less than four weeks to go I shall have to get my thinking skates on!

On Sunday we are planning to head to Fremantle to check out the new B&M Store and I think that a visit to the Bazaar at Fremantle Arts Centre will also be on the cards!

Almost forgot - I must put up our Christmas tree! Tradition has it being put up up on the 1st December, do you think that anything bad will happen to me if I defer it until tomorrow morning?

WWotW: Marriage

I thought that today's word was topical on a few fronts, given our recent wedding (yay!), the current debate here in Australia about same-sex marriage and the recently announced royal nuptials.

I find it interesting that the dictionary definition specifies a woman and a man, part of the wording being debated with respect to same-sex marriage.

Marriage noun a legally accepted relationship between a woman and a man in which they live as husband and wife, or the official ceremony which results in this =

Domesticity

We bought a new iron today. Yay! I have been using a second hand one that I acquired about seven years ago, along with a clunky ironing board.

My sister described the ironing board as "hardcore". I would describe it as "heavy" and "every time I pull it out it marks the wall".

So, a new iron has to call for a new, lighter, and non-marking ironing board, right?

Or at least a new ironing board cover.

Dandi have some lovely covers, they are very tempting but I will resist until I have a new ironing board!

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Getting back on the track

I like to exercise but I struggle to keep the momentum going on regular* sessions. When we got back from our honeymoon on the weekend I had not done anything for two weeks, and was feeling flabby and unfit. I have managed to motive myself to run on the last two days.

On Monday I felt slow and unfit and it was a struggle to finish 23 minutes! Yesterday I fared better. I ran my summer circuit in a reasonable time of 35 minutes and my foot feels fine so it is all good!

We have been threatened with hockey preseason timetables so I am expecting the mad exercise to begin in earnest again soon.

* By regular I mean maybe five times a week. I can usually manage once or twice a week but that is not enough!

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