-
Falling behind
I have been working on a post from my birthday for a few weeks now. It’s not so much that it’s long but I’m trying to include photos and that seems to take a lot of time. I will hopefully have that up in a day or two…maybe within a month of my birthday if I stick to it long enough.
Meanwhile, the year continues to pass by so quickly that it’s hard to imagine we’re near the end of the fourth month already. Despite the passing of the months, the seasons have been a bit more sluggish. We finally saw the beginning of autumn weather a couple weeks ago after a particularly warm start to April. The nights are definitely much cooler now but summer has not left us just yet. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty warm and it’s going to be hot on Friday, hopefully the last gasp of summer. Then we are due for possible showers over the long weekend. I won’t hold my breath at this possibility as it only leaves room for disappointment. I think it’s quite possible we will be watering our yard well into winter this year.
That said, the Scientist and I are going to an outdoor concert venue on Monday night to see Neil Finn and Paul Kelly perform. We believe it’s more likely to rain then than at any other time. Of course, it could very well rain at the venue but not here at home. It’s located in the Perth hills, which have had considerably more precipitation than we have in recent months. This will be the first time seeing Paul Kelly and a first solo Neil Finn show for us. It’s a special Anzac Day show called Songlines and will also feature Lior And Ben Merito, singer/songwriters from Australia and New Zealand. It should be a special night of  Australian and New Zealand music in the hills overlooking Perth.
-
Blanket of smoke
I smelled smoke last night, just like many summer nights, and thought little of it. This morning, it was still smoky and when I looked outside, there was a thick blanket of smoke obscuring the sky and the sun. Apparently the sun had look quite stunning earlier while the sun was still visible. There is a big bushfire burning about two to three hours south of us along with another one even further away on the southern coast. It was quite pleasing to see blue sky break through finally around the middle of the day after some strong winds helped break it up. Tonight, the house again smells like smoke and conditions will likely be similar in the morning, although less severe.
-
Stuff
I didn’t end up doing quite the things I intended to do today. But I did managed to accomplish a little anyway. I made up for two days of no exercise by doing two hours of exercise on the Wii Fit. I worked myself harder than usual and tried the more difficult levels of some of the exercises, especially within the aerobics category. I found I did far better than expected on a couple activities so feel a bit more confident to continue at the harder levels.
Game Fanatic saw the doctor and all is fine. We may need to see a physiotherapist at some point to strengthen his ankles. Previously she called it a strain but today she was saying it was a sprain. Not sure which it is but I suppose they both take some time to heal.
I received a jury summons a while back for later this month. Because I have full time care of children fourteen years of age or younger, I am eligible to be excused. I finally had that witnessed this week and mailed it off today. If I could be sure it would only be for one or two days, I would go ahead with it because they will keep sending one every two years until I serve. This was my second summons and I’d guess I will get two or three more before I am in a position to take it on.
We spent most of the evening watching the opening ceremony for the Olympics tonight. We’re in the same time zone as Beijing which is rather convenient for us. I couldn’t help wondering at the further pollution caused by all the fireworks but they were quite a sight. The ceremony was good overall but I don’t think it was as good as the one in Sydney in 2000. Strange to think how long ago that is now. Lego Lover likes to watch the parade of nations with all the different flags but he got bored after a while. When I found a list of the countries’ order online, he went off to play and we called out to him when a country of interest was coming up. Game Fanatic did stick around the entire program although he was reading the Scientist’s Far Side comic books at the same time.
Blogged with the Flock Browser -
Blowing in the wind
This morning almost half of our back fence blew over during yet another storm. We heard a huge noise, thought it was the shed, then looked out to see the fence down and a good view into the neighbors’ yard. Our neighbor was on top of things, called insurance and a fence company for quotes quite early. Because of his quick work, we will have the fence repaired on Wednesday. This is the first storm damage we’ve had in the thirteen years we’ve lived here so I suppose we’ve had a good run and it was just our turn.
The storm has continued throughout the day and into the night. We’ve had lots of rain, hail, gale force winds and more wind along with thunder and lightning for brief periods. I made the mistake of opening the front door when the last hail was falling, only to get soaked by rain and hail blowing into the house. At the moment, the rain seems to have stopped but there are still periods of strong winds and it’s quite cold.
Blogged with the Flock Browser -
Wet days
Today was yet another very wet day in our neck of the woods. It started in the latter part of the morning and rained steadily all afternoon. The weekly newspaper deliveries have been delayed until tomorrow in homes of a break. I believe we will have an early and rough allergy season ahead of us in the spring.
I went on a search to find a dvd of To Kill a Mockingbird but have had little success. It seems it will be necessary to purchase this one online. I will note that I found a two-disc set that seemed like a brilliant deal until I realised the dvd was in 4:3 rather than widescreen. The slightly older release has fewer features but I can live without them if it means I get the widescreen version instead.
Blogged with the Flock Browser -
Meandering through Whiteman Park
Oh, my body is so sore right now. It was newspaper delivery day (for our weekly paper route) so I went out on my bicycle for most of it. It was a nice thin paper today…good for quick deliveries but not so much money involved. Anyway, that took me a little over an hour.
After I showered, Lego Lover and I went off to Whiteman Park to look for native birds and trees. We didn’t have much luck with the birds. We mostly saw crows and magpies which we can see pretty much any time we want. I did see some galahs just before we left but that was exotic as we found on this particular occasion.
We walked from the village of the park to the Mussel Pool, which is about a kilometre away. There’s what’s called a Children’s Forest along the way and we passed through its many areas in the course of our journey. Lego Lover normally would complain of tiredness but he was having a nice time being “in nature” as he puts it and did quite well. We’ve been worried about his lack of exercise lately. He’s perfectly normal height and weight but his fitness is very poor. So I am making an effort to get him moving more often before he suffers problems from inactivity. He quite enjoyed running around today so it was well worth the short trip (we live five minutes from the park and it’s another five to reach the parking areas).
We both took our cameras but discovered the batteries for his camera were dead. He hasn’t tried to use it in a long time so it should be no surprise. We will have to recharge them before we make another attempt. I took quite a few photos in the course of our meanderings and will try to post some soon. I need to reinstall my photo editing program before I do that…I’ve got so many photos on my camera that it will have to be soon.
Down by the Mussel Pool (that as far as I know has no mussels), Lego Lover played at a tiny playground for quite a while. It was interesting to watch as the sky went from clear blue to mostly dark grey over the course of about forty-five minutes. We had another stop at the big playground at the village when we went back. LL was happy that there weren’t many kids there and had a great time playing. I pretty much had to drag him away before it started raining.
We have plans to go there more regularly, maybe once a week or fortnight to help us with our current project on Australian birds and trees.
I got plenty of exercise today but the body isn’t so happy about the over-exertion. Also, I realised the inserts of my shoes are now well over a year old and need to be replaced which is a likely explantion as to why my knees feel so unstable these days. I’m thinking of seeing a podiatrist before I get new ones so they can tell me all I am doing wrong to my feet.
-
Rain
I was abruptly awakened this morning by the sound of rain outside. As soon as my mind registered the rain, I jumped out of bed and ran outside to bring in the clothes I had hung up two days ago. Of course they are now damp so two days obviously wasn’t long enough to dry them. :)
In my early morning bleariness, I looked at the clock and it said 8:30. But as I was rushing outside, I thought to myself that with the time change it should be much brighter than it was. Once I was back inside, I checked it again to discover that it was actually 6:30am instead.