annarti | Entries tagged with adelaide

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: living room
Current Music: critical role

Man it's been a long time since I used this icon. That man has not played cricket in about 15 years.

WE WON THE SHEFFIELD SHIELD!!!

The Sheffield Shield is our domestic long-form cricket competition, which mostly people don't much give a shit about (like they get an attendance of a dozen people through the season) but it is the competition that feeds into the Australian Test team, which is the absolute peak of cricket.

South Australia hasn't won the Sheffield Shield in 29 years. I was 10 the last time we won, and I didn't register it at all. Darren Lehmann, who was babby in that last winning team? His son, Jake, was 3 at the time. Jake was playing in this game. He scored a century in the first innings.

Full context, this has been really building up since we cemented our spot a the top of the ladder and hence hosting the final, which has been like three weeks. Before, even, since like halfway through the season and we were still top of the ladder. Even that is umprecedented. Like still trying not to count chickens etc, but omg hope was ignited. And then we got to host it, holy shit. EXCEPT. Because it's officially footy season now, the AFL decreed they couldn't play it at Adelaide Oval. I mean it's only been the home of cricket in SA for the last 155 years and we haven't hosted the Shield final in almost 30 but fine. FINE. It's FINE. Cricket Australia offered to reschedule it to starting on Monday so it'd have a scheduled finish of yesterday for the footy on Sunday, and the Adelaide Oval staff all said that'd be plenty of time to turn it around from cricket to footy, but nope. AFL said no. Arseholes. The Shield final has always been in March, it's the footy season that keeps getting longer and longer and encroaching on cricket season. We ALLOW you to play on Adelaide Oval in what is still CRICKET SEASON.

So anyway that spat has been dominating headlines since last week, so this final has been in the conscience for a while now. I do wonder if they'd have gotten the same attendance if that controversy hadn't happened. There were like 5000 people there. It was so great.

Anyway.

We'd been pretty much dominating since day one. Yesterday, the Queenslanders fought back somewhat and set us a target today of 270. Tricky in the final innings--the previous record winning run chase was like 200 or something?--and we lost three quick wickets in the first session of the day, but then Carey and Sangha dug in, each made a century, and WE WON. TWENTY NINE YEARS.

As soon as Sangha hit the winning runs, the crowd of about 5000 jumped the picket fence and stormed the ground, swarming the two players as they were laughing and celebrating. We all ran up to the stand where the players all were and waited for presentations. Which. I mean. Normally presentations are done on the ground but, considering how much they've been showing the crowd storming the ground after the 95/96 final win through the week, they really should've expected a pitch invasion. I do hope they prepared for this. Didn't look it but maybe they did, idk. Anyway, they moved all the cameras and presentation stuff up to the balcony, and every new prop that came out got a huge cheer. The Shield itself got a roar like the team had come out because that thing is OURS NOW. For the first time in almost THREE DECADES. The SACA staff who were bringing out all the stuff were laughing every time their movements got cheered. Like, Shield out, big cheer. Carry over to the stand, crowd builds with anticipation, "woahhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH EYYYYYY!!!" It was just so delightful, so much fun, so much excitement from the crowd.

Then the boys came out and they were so happyyyyy just looking out over THOUSANDS of people when they're used to like the echoing claps of like five people. And they each had their chance to raise their hands to the crowd and make us go WOOOO again.

omfg it was so much fun. SO MUCH FUN. I've never stormed the ground before, it was awesome 8D

Hopefully we don't have to wait until Jake Lehmann's son is playing until the next one XD

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: living room
Current Music: primitive skills on youtube

For a change, I don't have a million things to catch up on. Is this what it's like to be organised? omg.

Fitness continues, running and walking around the Parklands, and I've finally come around to the bits I'm familiar with along the Torrens, which is the river that runs through Adelaide. Well, 'runs,' it's just sitting there at the moment, there being no rain to make the river flow, but still, felt a whole lot more lush and green than any of the northern parklands did. I'm less than a month now from the date I'll be attempting my 5km in 35 minutes, and feeling pretty sweet about it. Assuming I hit that (and even if i don't, tbh, tho I'll be surprised at this stage if I don't) I'll set a new goal of 5km in half an hour probably by the end of winter, then finally jetty-to-jetty in an hour.

OH I didn't go into the rewards bit! Every 5 kilos I'm rewarding myself with a new set of clothing items. First goal is undies, next will be socks, then bras, then pjs, then the one after that'll be my final goal so that'll be the whole wardrobe. Not all at once, but anyway. Baby steps. I hit the first goal a couple of weeks ago, so new undies! In the last couple of years I've really started making a conscious effort to try and buy Australian made, or at least Australian owned, and definitely natural fibres. I've had this page bookmarked since last year, so I've now bought one pair from everyone there. I'll give 'em all a couple of months of wear, then whichever's holding up the best I'll get a full set of. Currently think I'm most keen on Merino Country (made from wool, very comfy, comes in green) and Wonderpants (extremely comfy, also green) so we'll see how they go. It's been so long since I got new undies, this is the best.

March is coming up to when the writing comps I've been entering start drawing the winners. So far one's contacted me to say I didn't win, but eh. Honestly not expecting to place in any of them, but it's fun to be part of. I'm finally getting to write a story about my pigment hunter, who I've had ideas about for ages, so having a good time with that one in particular. Hoping to finish it tomorrow, then I can go back and edit for submission.

ALSO CRICKET. NOBODY CARES. BUT. South Australia is in the Sheffield Shield final! The last time we won it was 29 years ago! Today was day two and we're doing very well, planning to go down on Saturday, which'll potentially be the last day, and cheer on the boys. omg that would be so amazing.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: living room
Current Music: game grumps play ding dang rimples

My ankle is fully functional once more 🥳 I've been walking or running around, so far, three of the parks in the Parklands, with varying levels of interest, but mostly I'm just pleased I can finally use my ankle again and restart my workout. Despite the almost-month off, Garmin is still confident I can achieve the reset goal of 5km in 35 minutes, so that's a relief.

This was a busy weekend! On Saturday morning, caught up with Cassie's friend Maya, who was down for the week-ish, so we went for breakfast down at Brighton then a walk along the beach before it got too arse-bakingly hot. It was already 30°C when I woke up at 8:30 but it was still early enough that the Norfolk Island pines along the beach cast shadows in the beachy direction, so. Coulda been worse?

That evening, Amanda and I went to Orpheus, technically my second show of the Fringe after I won the freebie tix to Tommy's Naughty Forty last week. Orpheus was fantastic. Beautifully written, beautifully told, the little bit of audience participation with a comparatively small audience was so touching and I had a wonderful time 😊

Sunday~ was round 1 of footyball! Wherein Amanda won a free double pass through the Rainbow Crows so I got to go, too =3 We were behind the goals right next to the opposition cheer squad, who were St Kilda (Victoria). Preface: it has not rained since last year. On Wednesday, the forecast for Saturday was 39 with a 70% chance of 5-10mm, which are incongruous in Adelaide. I was dubious, to say the least. By Friday, the 39 hadn't changed but the rain had changed to Sunday, and was now a 70% chance of 0-2mm. By Sunday, it was a 70% chance of <1mm which... idk what that even means. A 70% chance of sweet piss-all? Does that mean a 30% chance of something? (spoilers: no, it doesn't)

So, during the game (which we won by 10 goals, 'spretty sweet), precipitiation started happening. 'Drizzle' would be a lie. 'Spitting' would be generous. When you're standing in the shower and you have that mistiness splashing off of you? That's what started happening. All the Victorians instantly got out their emergency ponchos and waterproof North Faces and being ridiculously prepared for rain. In Adelaide. HAH. None of the South Australians moved, except to knowingly roll our eyes at the Vics and wonder what the hell this weird wet stuff misting down from the sky was. Sure enough, the misting lasted about 20 seconds and that was it. That was our 70% chance of <1mm, not even enough to warrant wiping it off your glasses, it was that nothing.

More importantly, we won a game of footyball! Convincingly! This gives me hope for our season.

While watching, someone mentioned the score at the cricket, wherein we were 5/500-odd. When the footy finished, we'd declared for 600-something and already had two Queensland wickets, so instead of going home we headed up North Terrace to Karen Rolton Oval, during which time the Queenslanders lost another wicket, and turned up in time for the final session of the day. When you've finished watching your South Aussie boys flog some Vics, why not pop across town to wathc your other South Aussie boys flog some Queenslanders? :D Another two wickets fell in the final session of the day and we headed home, promptly forgetting to pop a bottle of Croser for the Crows because it's been so long, whoops.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Location: living room

Getting back into fitness again. Yesterday I ran a whole kilometre 😱 Zero ill effects from the ankle, but I'm doing this properly so today was a rest, though still doing something to keep the habit going, so I went for a walk around Himeji Garden. That header image really is almost the entire thing, so not very big, but it is gorgeous. Except there was a guy there on his phone, talking loud enough I could hear him all through the garden, so after like 10 minutes I gave up and just walked around the entire associated Parkland, came back... and he was still there. The full goddamn hour he was there talking loudly on the phone. ARG. Read the room, dickwad.

Anyway, walking aorund the parklands did give me an idea, to do my fitness in all the parks that make up the Parklands! There are 40 total, but that includes the six city squares, which are too small to be of any interest for running and are also surrounded by traffic, so 34 it is! Of course I would come up with such an idea at the end of summer/daylight saving, but oh well, we'll just see how much light I have to play with after work. It'll be a nice thing to change it up a bit. Tomorrow, I run two kilometres omg.

We've started organising the studio, finally. This has been my dream. It's gone from being my favourite room in the house to just the storage room and it's saddened me so much ._. Over the weekend we've gotten a pretty significant chunk of it all organised into boxes, instead of just the boxes of largely random stuff they came up in from Amanda's place, so they're all just lined up under the TV now with probably another two hours of organising left of what's still in there. Once we know exactly how much space each category (ie yarn/knitting, cross stitch, watercolours, sewing, drawing, etc) takes up, then we'll know how much shelf space we'll need and can purchase accordingly, if needed. Cross fingers not needed. And then I can use my computer at my desk again without feeling like I'm in Dad's study with five boxes about to fall on me ._.

God I can't wait to have a house with space for all this stuff. Next year, kitchen, then house 🤩

Current Mood: miffed (sodding ankle)
Current Location: living room
Current Music: primitive skills on youtube

How has it been over a month? Gdit and I thought I was getting better at this shit. I am better on Insta, so there's that, I guess.

So anyway, somehow it's March already, dunno how that happened so fast, but February went pretty sodding well. Finally got to Chihuly Nights at the Botanic Gardens. It's an exhibition that's been on since October and runs til April, of these massive glass sculptures all around the gardens. I've been several times during the day, because it's just a great place to go for a walk or run after work, but yes, finally got there for the night showing :D The stuff inside the tropical glasshouse was all new to me, since that costs money during the day, and god it's stunning. I mean the whole thing's stunning but... yay new things!

Last weekend we drove to Melbourne to see Green Day! It was SO awesome. Baby's first mosh pit, at the tender young age of 39, aww. Boys were fantastic. It was a bit of an anniversary concert, of their first album, Dookie, 30 years ago; and American Idiot, 20 years ago. They ran through both those albums, track by track, with stuff from the new album last year scattered around, so it wound up being like a 3-hour concert. I last saw them right there back when Marvel Statium was the Telstra Dome back in 2005 (better rundown here on the Adelaide concert, which was earlier that year) and I promise they rocked just as hard as back then. Billie-Joe Armstrong doesn't look like he's aged at all; Mike Dirnt (bass) does look like he's aged about 20 years; Tré Cool (drums) looks like he's aged about 40. BUT LIKE. Drumming is frigging hard work. Mike was often running up and down right in fornt of us and god, that man makes some fun faces <3 I got a couple of them!

The brought up one girl from the mosh pit to give her a mic and sing with Billie-Joe and, after like three seconds of deer-in-headlights panic, it as like she consciously chucked all her inhibitions out the window and just ran with it. She was running up and down the stage, air-guitaring with both the guitarists, also sang really well after the initial fear of holy shit people had been thrown away. Then at the end of her bit, Billie told us all her name was Honey, so of course the crowd started chanting, 'Hon-ey, Hon-ey, Hon-ey!' and it was just a delightful moment :D

Thank you, boys. I did, indeed, have the time of my life 🖤❤️

The final show of the tour was supposed to be this Saturday on the Gold Coast, but um. idk if you've heard but it's a little... breezy... on the Goldie right now. So sadly that one was cancelled :< I feel so sorry for everyone up there, woulda been awesome, obvs.

On Sunday~ we went to Cranbourne Botanic Gardens, which I've been excited to go to for a while now. So many native botanic gardens are planted to look like they do ~in nature~ but like... I already live in the Hills, the bush is literally right there. I don't want to come to a curated garden to see bush, I come to see curated garden. So that's what Cranbourne is, properly architecturally-designed native gardens, and it is stunning. From photos online I've already taken a lot of inspo for the Raykinian royal palace, but seeing it in person is so cool. The red desert one is what you see first walking in, then everything else surround that. I could've spent hours more there, but we got home around midnight as it was, so I'll just have to go again when I go back to Melbourne next. Maybe it won't bloody rain, too :P Seriously, can't remember the last time we had rain in Adelaide* but it was last year, the two-ish days I'm in Melbourne and I get rained on when I'm out in a garden with no shelter. Course, then we started driving home and it was clear blue skies by Horsham. Bloody Melbourne.

I~ have bunged my ankle. This happened last Monday, the week before Green Day, by stepping in someone's footprint wrong in the wet sand on the beach. It's not bad but has just enough of a twinge that it's clearly warning me not to do more than like stand on it. Clearly walking is out. Running 10km? HAH. So I have disappointingly not done any fitness since last Monday. I'm so pissed off. I was doing so well! Running was starting to actually flow and feel natural. Doing the fitness literally every day, even on both days of the weekend, had become just a normal thing I do. I was excited to see the little wheel of confidence (how confident my Garmin app is that I can achieve my goal) go up and up and break from the green Confident range into the purple Very Confident, Maybe You Should Make Your Goal More Ambitious range. I got my VO2 Max, which is a key number for fitness, go from 32 up to 34, just this year! One more point and I'll be up from Poor into Fair! I could even become Good! Not Excellent cos that's the realm of elite athletes and shit knows I can't be bothered with that.

But all because of a bung ankle, that's just stopped. I can pause the actual training app, the one that tells me different running things to do each day, but that doesn't stop my actual body and fitness from going backwards. SO miffed. It's feeling much better just today, no swelling when I got home from work, which is a change, so I'm hoping by Sunday I'll be able to start working back up to doing fitness again. I'm not letting this slide, not this time. I've been doing so well and feeling so good about it, I won't drop it.

I've submitted four stories to various competitions, which I believe all start judging this month? So it'll be exciting to see if they go anywhere. First time submitting to competitions, I don't expect to, but it's still exciting!

Limes were $4.50 for a bag so cosmo's for cocktail hour tonight when Amanda gets home 🍸

OH and Sculptures by the Sea, that was in Feb, too. See, I'm good at Insta!

OH OH and I won a thing! Just on a whim I entered a radio contest to go see Tommy Little's Naughty Fortieth, which is basically part of the Fringe in the Garden of Unearthly Delights, and I won! It was a lot of fun =3 Opened with a stripper Fringe performer who uses FIRE and she was awesome. Then Tommy Little and Carrie Bickmore, who are said radio show, plus three comedian Fringe performers in Luke McGreggor, Ivan Aristaguierta (who is Venueulan and awesome) and Ross Noble came up to play Tommy's card game. Ross waid he got the single most Fringe experience ever, cos they didn't see the opening fire boobies act, but he was backstage. So what he got was this extremely hot, semi-naked woman (she had star nipple stickers and a gstring) wandering around with a giant cannister of parafin under her arm. 'No idea what the show was but it looks like fun!' XD That is indeed the most Fringey thing I've ever heard and I'm so pleased he had that experience X3 And he's been doing Fringe for frigging decades by this point. Ross Noble and Arj Barker are like the unofficial mascots. I LOVE THE FRINGE. And then walking back up Rundle Street to get back to the car, street closed with lights up everywhere, tables and chairs from the restaurants all out on the road, and this at like 11:30 on a Tuesday night. It's just such a fun, vibrant time to live here. Got another, this time paid, show happening next weekend, so excited for that one, too X3

All right now that's everything. Probably.

* If I don't even need to turn my windscreen wipers on, it's not rain. Also for the record, even that's only happened twice this year.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: living room
Current Music: game grumps play dead rising 3

Booze client has sent through updated pricing for the next period, so we're still printing and I'm still doing their artwork, WOO. We stay open for another week! My café I'd been going to every day since last Monday in the interest of supporting for as long as I could shut up shop yesterday, tho. I at least got six lunches in there, tho.

Australia-in-general update: about 4500 cases and 19 deaths. SA in particular is at about 330 cases and the only state or territory with no deaths, go SA! Yesterday we only reported six new cases, but today was up to 32. Still, Australia is starting to flatten that goddamn curve. Hopefully. I mean, we've still gotta give it another week-ish until the effects of last weekend's (and subsequently, this week) restrictions actually materialise, but signs are positive. Also, yesterday the government announced a massive 'JobKeeper' grant, which equates to $1500 per fortnight per employee for businesses affected by the coronavirus measures, which we certainly are. The idea is of course to keep people in jobs, even if (like me) you're barely doing anything, but on the fabled 'other side' people are still in their job and can more easily bring the economy back. It also means fewer people in queues at Centrelink getting welfare because this is all being handled through the ATO instead. I got sliiiiightly teary hearing that one. It doesn't completely cover my salary, but I feel like it moves us more comfortably from 'when' we close to 'if' we close. I feel like we can get through this now.

I've started doing the Kayla Itsines fitness challenge this week, and my legs cane. Yesterday they felt like jelly and after today they hurt. Yesterday was resistence stuff for legs, so step ups, squats, lunges and so on, which I was going to do at the local gardens but they closed at 4 so I went to the beach. Today was 35 minutes of running, which I did not manage =( I've been trying to sort of work up to it through the last two weeks since Walk Week but the longest I've made it has been 26 minutes before breaking. Today I got to, like, 10 minutes. I'm blaming jelly legs. I'll get better!

Also, for the record, Adelaide beaches aren't crowded even in normal, peak-of-summer times. We Adelaideans generally like to have a good 10m between groups at LEAST, and frankly the bigger the space the better. Every time I've been to the beach these past two weeks I've seen, like, ten people between me and the distance. I've seen two ladies on benches, one at one end of the bench and the second at the far end of the bench next to it, having a socially distant conversation. I've seen people swerving to avoid other people. My local supermarket has hand sanitiser at every door and gloves to wear while in the store. On the escalator coming up the other day, I saw a bunch of three dudebros come in and each use their elbows to press the button and get sanitiser out without a word, except the one dudebro who went, 'Aww yeah, hand sanitiser!' I know people are big on posting about those flouting the social distancing but I like to notice the good. SA's the only state not enforcing fines for people breaking the 'no more than 2 people gathering' social distancing. Of all the countries to be in during this, I feel so, so goddamn lucky to be in Australia, and I feel like us and WA are doing the best here. Mostly us. We're doing SO much testing per capita you guys.

America, on the other hand, terrifies me. I mean, look at this shit, and Trump is proud of how America's doing? He is a horrifying man to have in control of America right now. 'We're leading the world in testing' OH MY GOD YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT. You were charging $1500 for tests for AGES. When South Korea was doing 20,000 tests a day, you'd done barely 5000 grand total. More than half of Australia's cases came from America. 'America sneezes and the world catches a cold,' and right now we're so goddamn scared of what's going on over there. China and Italy were/are bad, but America's the real one being held up as What Not to Do. Dunno how the rest of the world, especially the US itself, is reporting on that cos I've really just been stuck on the ABC the whole time but I'd be interested to know.

ENTIRELY UNRELATED I'm going to buy a yuzu tree this weekend :D I've been looking for one for ages, but they're so rare in Australia that you can only get them when they're in season, which I learned last year is now. So I just contacted one place that lists a bunch of uncommon citrus on their site, but not yuzu, in the hopes that maybe they do have them they just don't advertise. I just got an email back asking if I'd like them to label one for me to pick up asap. Hell yes I would. I'mma get that on Saturday. So that's exciting!

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: living room

Have new phone, which is neither green nor waterproof, but it was cheap, so that'll do. Ankle also healed! I can do the fitness again! Which has meant Walk Week happened as planned last week! This was a thing I made up after having had this list of walks printed and mapped out for about two years now. I've done a couple of them here and there, but for Walk Week I made to do one a day for the week, particularly picking that week because of the public holiday Monday and also daylight savings is still in effect, making most use of time after work. The idea was to basically replicate as best I could when I was in Japan, where despite eating any deep fried dough on a stick that I came across, I still lost two kilos because there was so much walking.

Day 1 (last Sunday) was at Mount George and, because that went more quickly than I'd expected, the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. Mount George looked gorgeous, stunning views across the Hills, but it was so close to the freeway that there was no point where I couldn't hear it. One of the best things about bushwalking is being entirely enveloped in nature, and when there's this constant sound of traffic it sort of takes the serenity away. Botanic Gardens were as delightful as ever.

Day 2, public holiday Monday, was Noarlunga South to Moana, which was suitably dramatic. I walked along the clifftop on the way south then along the very wide and occasionally very rocky beach on the way north again. These berries which I know nothing about were growing all along the footpath. I figured, if they were poisonous, they wouldn't be so prevalent so I gave one a taste. More like a tiny plum, with the shape of the stone inside, and somehow sweet, salty and sour all at once. Odd little thing.

Day 3, back to work and fitting my walk in before sunset, here's the Marion Coastal Walk. Everyone who's been a student in SA has been to this park. Just look at all the geology going on! Sugarloaf! Giant boulders dumped on the beach by an ancient glacier! Layering of sedimentary rock and folding and colapsing! Also nice sunset. Which mostly happened while I was on a sodding detour through suburbia while the footpath was under maintainence.

Day 4, Andrew's Walk in Andrew Perry Reserve, very close to work. This one was odd and I don't know how it made a 'take your breath away' list of walks. I'd made it barely a kilometre in and came up against a quarry that I couldn't get around. I tried following the creek but it was just suburbia, so I gave up and went to the Himeji Gardens instead. It's tiny and hence not fitnessy but it WAS gorgeous, so I felt better about that =3

Day 5, covering two closeby walks in the Adelaide Uni loop (not sure how that made the list, when the whole of Linear Park was already on it) and the Folks on the Hill walk in North Adelaide, an historic walk looking at some classic houses and buildings. I felt like a proper tourist in my own city doing this one! Right down to scaffolding covering one of the landmarks. If you've ever been on holiday with me, you'll know I'm cursed with this kind of thing.

Day 6, the Waterfall Walk at Belair National Park, which I'd kinda wanted to hold off on until there was actual water falling but I've run out of walks near me that I can do after work. This one was kind of disappointing because of all the weeds. That first one of the waterfall (well, cliff)? All the green at the bottom of the cliff, ALL down that valley, it's blackberry. Finally get out of the blackberry and up away from the creek and you get into the bush, then back down again at the end and there's heaps of hawthorn and olive trees. Belair National Park requires that you pay if you're going in with a car (I parked out the front because I'm here to walk, so let's walk through the park), which I'd always assumed went towards, y'know, protecting the park. It's still ridiculous since all parks are maintained by the government anyway. But to see all the weeds? Especially knowing they'd just done some burning off at the top of the hill in November, it was disappointing.

Day 7, my triumphant finale, Linear Park! Following the River Torrens from its mouth at Henley Beach into the city. I started feeling it by the time I got to the city, rested a bit for lunch, then the way back was made of ow. My feet absolutely caned. Left foot had three blisters, somehow the right had none. But I made it! And then Mum and I went out to dinner to Apoteca, not technically as celebration, but it felt it! We decided to have a girls' night out while Dad and Colin were having a boys' weekend in Melbourne. It was awesome.

So over the course of that week I walked 93.25km (on actual walks, I'm sure I cracked 100 by just generally getting around) and lost 1.5 kilos! Victory! I'm so proud of myself for achieving this, especially when it was looking like my ankle would be stuffed and I wouldn't be able to do it at all, so to actually do it every day... I'm stoked. I even felt excited to do each walk, even Linear Park, as intimidating as it was. MADE IT. Next challenge, I'm going to do the Kayla Itsines thingo, because shuddup that's why. Next two weeks I'm gearing up for that. I've been jogging on the beach to build up endurance and also make sure my ankle is indeed healed. So far so good.

In other news: the bleedingly obvious. Yesterday I went shopping for the first time since the panic buying started and... that was an experience! I already knew about the TP situation, obviously, and knew it'd largely extended to pasta and tinned food, though there was at least some of that still on shelves. Of flour, which I needed plain flour (or thought I did, turns out I already had a bag I hadn't yet emptied into the jar thank GOD), there was one 500g bag of fancy pants wholemeal self raising flour. Fresh veggies were all business as usual. Some of the missing stuff was weird, though, like milk. There were a few 1L cartons and half a shelf of Pura 2L but the rest was GONE. How even? How do you stockpile fresh milk? What are people doing, keeping it in the freezer? Milk doesn't freeze well, also it'd take up a hell of a lot of space. Also, I needed coathangers. There was one three-pack of fancy wooden ones for $6, which is way more than I'd like to spend on coathangers. Why coathangers? Went around the corner to Target and got some there in a 5-pack of wire ones for $5, much more like it. I did have to get the last two bags of fancy pants kitty litter, though. I'm sure Rory'll know the difference.

Finally, after years of meaning to do it and not getting around to it, I booked flights to Sydney to see Vivid! Vivid is now cancelled. Go figure. Still going to Sydney, though, and also Brisbane. This'll be happening for two weeks at the end of May/beginning of June, assuming Qantas and Tiger aren't both bankrupt and completely grounded by then, but y'know, playing it by ear. I might just have to wear a HAZMAT suit going to Sydney.

Watching sport with no crowd is weird. We had the first of three cricket matches against the Kiwis with no crowd, and it was so quiet you could hear the guys' pads squeaking in the stump mike as they walked out to bat. 'The crowd errupts!' cried Mark Waugh at the fall of a Kiwi wicket. 'Look at him, that one guy down there clapped... How'd he get in?' The next day the Kiwi government announced that anyone coming into the country after midnight that night would be subjected to a 14-day quarantine, so the Kiwis went home and that was the end of the series.

AFLW, which I've been going to every local match of this season, just watched on telly this time. For some reason the friends and family of the visiting team were allowed into the stands, so our home ground had about 20 away supporters, applause echoing in the stands. The mens' season is due to start tomorrow and, at this stage, they're still going ahead, but I mean the odds of the season actually getting to the end are pretty slim. If there's so much as one case among the teams they'll call it off, I'm sure. The women's game without the 10k-ish crowd noise is weird enough. Mens' game, with the 50k+ Adelaide Oval empty, will be surreal. The frigging MCG holds 100k and we'll be able to actually hear the players talking to each other.

This morning PM ScoMo put a level 4 travel warning for the entire world. That's the highest it goes. It's just a straight up 'do not travel.' We've never done that before. Ban on gatherings of over 100 people, but we've been very strongly reassured we're not going into lockdown. To have any real, lasting effect, we'd have to go into lockdown for 6 months, which isn't sustainable. Schools are staying open, because kids are pretty much unaffected by the thing and, if they were to close schools, it'd put more people at risk because who are the kids going to be staying with? At-risk grandparents. That, or parents are going to have to stay home to look after them, and the biggest thing is to keep everyone working, earning money and subsequently spending money to keep the country moving as best we can.

Work is... quiet but still trucking on. Printing isn't one of the vulnerable industries at this stage, we're still getting our orders for business cards and pull-up banners, but we've got time on our hands to prepare should we need to start working from home, setting up Microsoft Teams and OneDrive and accessing webmail and all that, if neeeded.

Laura's due to give birth next month, so that's super exciting :D The hospital's only allowing two guests sum total, Colin counts as one, so to be fair on everyone they're not having anyone else in the hospital and will just allow people to come by their house on case-by-case basis to see bub. So they'll basically be on their own lockdown, which is sad but necessary and, if I'm honest, probably a bit of a relief for them. Legit reason to stop the constant stream of people into their house to see babby!

I say I'll keep on top of DW entries but it never sodding happens. Still, at least I get around to it eventually? Right?

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: living room
Current Music: australian open, djokovic winning speech

Happy Australia Day two days later! This summer has been absolute balls and I feel like Australia Day this year was really all about the CFS volunteers et al. One of my Dad's mates is a CFS volunteer and has been doing stints in NSW, obviously Cudlee Creek and over to Kangaroo Island. The amount of time these people are sarificing to go into the teeth of these bastard fires time and time again is just insane.

Alex was over for a bit of a whirlwind weekend from Sydney, landing on Saturday for a 30th birthday on Sunday then off again that night. I picked her up from the airport Saturday morning and we headed up to LOT.100, which I've been meaning to do... well, since it opened, really but especially this summer. It's a sort of Hills booze collective place, joint cellar door between these five beverage companies: Hills Cider Co for the cider (my favourite cider), Mismatch Brewing for the beer (they have fruit flavoured beers!), Adelaide Hills Distillery (who make 78 Degrees gin, among other things), Ashton Valley Fresh for the non-alcoholic juices and, most importantly, Vinteloper for the wine. Vinteloper was one of the wineries that lost every single vine to the Cudlee Creek fires and, like every other business affected, they haven't been asking for donations but instead just saying BUY OUR STUFF. GIVE US BUSINESS. So we went there to do just that :D LOT.100 itself is perfectly fine, though from the pizza oven you could see one of the hills behind them was distinctly more brown than others, so that's terrifying.

So yus. Got a pizza and a cheese platter for lunch, a glass of rosé and a glass of red, then two bottles of shiraz, two of rosé and one of pinot gris to take home, along with some cider and beer (both flavoured with Davidson plum, aww yeah).

We then Googled antique shops in the general area and cruised up to Birdwood via Woodside and Lobethal, straight through the middle of the fireground. This was the first time I'd been through the fireground since the bushfires and my god it's terrifying. Entire hills behind Woodside burnt. Trees literally right on the edge of Birdwood turned to charcoal. One house that was just a few bits of corrugated iron sitting in ash. Acres and acres and acres of brown vineyards and burnt orchards. Entire chunks of forest where the road went through it with the trees completely black right up to the very top, their leaves bleached white to ash, and just imagining these towering walls of fire reaching that high; and then, right in the middle of it, a house still with its rose bushes out the front. This is the stuff that always amazes me in bushfires, the stuff that doesn't burn. Just imagining the inferno the fieries had to deal with, and they saved not just the house but the roses. I dunno that just... feels more real. They're volunteers. This isn't their job, they're not just getting it done and moving on, they know the roses are just as important to save, cos that's life. To whoever lived there, they love their roses. It just touches me to see that.

Every time we saw livestock we cheered them. Well done, cows and sheep, you survived a bushfire! Cos there were plenty of photos during the fires of livestock wandering the streets after the owners just opened the gates to give them the best chance at survival.

The gum trees, of course, will be fine. Give 'em six months and they'll all be covered in fluffy green pompoms cos that's what they do, but the rest is going to take years to rebuild. I still need to sit down and figure out exactly who I want to donate to. Red Cross just kinda puts it all into general revenue so your dollars aren't necessarily going to end up with the people you're donating to, so that bugs me. I want to go directly for KI, since it'll be a while before I can take leave to get over there and spend money on the island. I've been up to the Cudlee Creek fireground and spent money there, going to the T20 Showdown this Sunday (it's Crows vs Power but they're playing cricket I can't wait) but still need to work out an actual solid donation.

Anyway. Sidetracked. We visited three different antique shops, specifically looking for jewellery because Alex loves her some antique sparkles, and finally found some proper vintage stuff in Birdwood where I enabled her into buying a ring. Cos it was pretty! And the fire was RIGHT THERE at the end of the street! And it's not like it was hellishly expensive, and it was pretty! So she bought it. I'd seen a necklace of freshwater pearls out the front, all in different colours, and then inside found some earrings of the same multicoloured freshwater pearl variety. So I got them both.

We've also decided our next girls' trip will have to be KI. SA Tourism Commission has ditched the current campaign in favour of #BookThemOut and, ngl, made me tear up first time I saw that. I've always been a parochial South Australian, always try as much as possible to buy SA stuff, and this just makes me want all the more to go do SA things.

Vinteloper's first vintage back had better be called 'Phoenix' or something I swear to G.

Current Mood: rejuvenated
Current Location: living room
Current Music: strikers vs thunder, t20 live from adelaide oval

"A Reduced Threat has been issued for the Cudlee Creek fire which is now Contained."

FUCKING CONTAINED. I'm so happy. That last incident update made me teary to read. Incident/advice/warning updates are more like this sort of thing. Y'know, fire is here, travelling that way, crews in attendance, locals advised to be vigilant/activate their bushfire action plan/it's too late to leave. That sort of very official, warning kind of thing. That last one is just throwing so much praise and thanks at the fieries and locals.

'Monday's excellent outcome' like... You guys, yesterday was as bad as the day it started. Hot and windy and scary, and shit was already on fire, but none of it got out. They did so much for like the full week prior, earth moving and backburning to get a damn perimeter around this thing, and they did it. It's fucking contained I'm so goddamn happy.

Fieries, man. Fieries.

Current Mood: calm

Three weeks ago it was still winter. I was at the cricket and it was cold and wet and everyone was in winter gear, complete with Crows scarves and beanies cos Cricket Australia doesn't make scarves and beanies. Last week it was spring! We got, like, a solid six days of spring this year. That's a lot of spring because spring is a lie. It's winter up until mid-December, then you get a week of spring, tops, and then BAM you're on day four of 40+ and everything's on fire.

Hey look everything's on fire. Must be summer. IT WAS WINTER THREE WEEKS AGO.

The Advertiser is Helpful. (I mean, they're not wrong. Also lol 'cool in the night' that very night it was still 37 at midnight.)

Mostly, though, fire. I'll just preface all this by saying I'm safe, my family's safe and I promise if I'm ever in a danger zone I'll evacuate (as will be described below) but yes. For now, my bit of the Hills is fine and dandy.

So, fire. NSW has had it shit for ages now, and that's undoubtedly what's been making international news, but we sadly got our bit yesterday. Catastrophic fire conditions (which is the worst) which doesn't necessarily mean something will catch fire, it just means that if something does catch fire it's going to be a shitshow. We've been through plenty of catastrophic days where no catastrophe actually eventuated. Yesterday, manymany things caught fire. Big ones on Yorke Peninsula, in grasslands just off Main North Road, stuff on Kangaroo Island which seems to have been worse today than yesterday, started by dry lightning.

The big one, though, has been the Cudlee Creek fire, which I'd been monitoring all morning, then we went to end of work/pre Christmas lunch at a pub whose aircon was not coping with its fourth day over 40. Those poor waitresses and kitchen staff, omg.

For the record, I live in amongst all those little greyed out <!&rt; marks in the bottom left of those maps. The red indicates the warning area, where you should really be evacuating, and the hasshed-ut bits indicate the fireground. Individual icons indicate reported incidents--exclamation points being small, localised things (like a house alarm, tree down, car accident, that sort of thing), fire is when general nature is on fire and (not visible here, but they'll come in a sec) little houses with fire are buildings on fire.

So that was how it was developing yesterday. Started the top left of that red blob, north-westerly blew it south-east and devouered Lobethal and Woodside, then a cool change hit and brought with it cool winds (it only got to 23 today), fuck-all rain, dry lighting that started the fires on KI and a change in wind direction, so now the goddamn thing looks like ( this )

Or even more specifically, this. The fireground is the size of Adelaide. Those little pockets there, if you zoom in on Woodside, for example, are where the fieries have managed to keep it back from the actual townships. Yellow means it's downgraded from 'Emergency' status to 'Watch and Act' status, which I'm unclear on because the latest report from the CFS says it's still uncontrolled so idk. Maybe it's just because the conditions aren't nearly so bad as yesterday. Also this from my favourite insta, which is terrifying.

I wish I'd taken a screenie of this before the cloud came over. You could see the plume of smoke on the satelite image from the fire, but I mean... you have to zoom in to see it. Pan west and the shit that's going on in NSW right now is horrifying. If you look at that in daylight (ie not the infra red overnight) then all the dirty-looking cloud cover you can see over half the country is smoke. Cricket match I was watching tonight from Canberra was abandoned because smoke blew over the ground and it looked like this. Victoria is not on fire and yet Melbourne looks like this.

I think WA is okay. They seem to be not on fire. Well done WA!

Oh also, Cudlee Creek was started by a tree falling on power lines. Not fire bugs, thank god.

But yes. In closing, I'm safe. The cool change is now blowing the fire in the complete opposite direction from me (on that map above, I'm around about where the lone greyed out <!&rt; is in the bottom right-ish). It'd have to get through the whole Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area, which is much more heavily populated than where it is now and hence much easier for the fieries to navigate by road. It'd also have to jump the freeway, the big red wiggle going through said Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area. So yeah, I'm safe and I promise I'll tell you if ever I'm not ♥

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: living room

COOL CHANGE YESSSSSSSSSSS oh my god it was only 28 degrees today and I had legit goosebumps when I went to lunch. Drops of water fell from the sky but only of the variety that sit on the ground for about 20 seconds before evaporating and making it humid. But I mean. At least it was so humid that the garden was still damp after I watered it last night, so that was a nice bonus. Didn't have to water the garden today, woo.

So yesterday it was foreccast for 47, right? We exceeded it. Forty-eight degrees Celcius. That's a touch over 118 for my American lovelies. D'YOU KNOW WHAT? NOT KEEN. I'm not sure I can put this into words someone not Australian will understand? But anyway. When it's hot and you stand in the sun, you can feel it burning your skin. I guarantee this is a uniquely Australian thing, because we have no ozone. Trust me, you can feel it. It's not just hot, it's actually burning as you're standing there. So that's normal omfgHOT. That's like... 35-42 hot. Everyone in Australia has experienced that kind of hot. It sucks, but you get a day or five of those every summer.

48 is a solid six degrees on top of omfgHOT. It feels like that in the shade. It feels like the sun is burning your skin while standing in the shade.

It hit 40 by about 10am and just kept piling on a degree or two every hour until we maxed out at 3pm. The aircon at work was really struggling, so even inside it was probably nudging up towards 30. In the absence of blinds, we taped a piece of pull-up banner stock to the window when the sun came around that side of the building and that made a noticeable difference.

Then I had to get in the car and drive home, and that suuuuucked. Even parked in the shade, the steering wheel was burninating so I was holding it with my fingernails. Pumping the aircon, obvs. Got home, had dinner and went straight to the beach.

Glorious.

The sea was glassy-flat and there was absolutely zero chill factor. None of the hugging yourself as the water inches up your knees, thighs, bits, belly--none of that. It was practically tropical. There were pockets of water so warm it was like someone had peed there, only they hadn't because these pockets were fully the size of a human and also nobody was within 50m of me.

So I did my fitness, swam half a k or thereabouts, and floated there until I got bored, basically. Then I got ice cream because fuckit. I felt like it was cooling down at, like, 8pm. Checked my phone and it was 40. It had indeed dropped eight degrees, woo.

And that's the story of how I survived 48°C. I feel like I need a tshirt to commemorate the occasion, to go along with my I Survived The Statewide Blackout commemorative cap of... whenever that was. 2016? Meh.

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: living room
Current Music: australian open

There's a Dara O'Briain sketch where he talks about being in Australia and seeing the weather report for Adelaide, where the "overnight minimum is twenty-seven degrees Celcius." So he jokes that if that were to happen in Ireland, he'd shake the kids awake and go, "come on, kids, we're going to the beach!" Can't find the sketch, but the point stands. Also:

im dun.

killme

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: living room
Current Music: new year test, the ashes, live from scg

Happy new year for realsies, now! I've had a delightful holiday. Having Alex over from Sydney I've practically been a tourist in my home city, which is a lot of fun. We've been to many an eatery for amazing food, omg. The Adelaide food scene is so brilliant right now. I love that this is becoming our major tourist attraction cos I can make use of it, too X3

Jamie's Italian, however, I'm going to make the recommendation that we scratch from the traditional almost-Boxing-Day lunch. The food was great, but dear god the hassle of getting there. As the holder of the credit card I was in charge of booking, because early booking got us a 20% discount or something if we did so in November. So I made our booking online towards the end of November, but didn't have any option there to pay. I got an email warning me that this booking meant nothing until I had actually paid. So I rang four or five times over the weekend, never spoke to a human, left a couple of messages that nobody ever returned, until finally, on 29 November, I got an email with a link to pay. Sweet! Paid money, happy days, we're going to Jamie's Italian.

The week before Christmas, I got another email telling me we needed to preorder our actual meal and if we didn't then our booking would be cancelled. No deadline to this preordering, but we panicked and put in our orders, hoping that the weather on the day wouldn't make the choices stupid. Sweet! Preorders made, happy days, we're going to Jamie's Italian.

Two days before, I got ANOTHER EMAIL. Please confirm your booking. If you don't then we'll keep all your money and you don't get your table. OH MY GOD. Click the confirmation, this now being the fourth time I have confirmed that yes, we're coming to Jamie's Italian. THANKS. JESUM CHRISTMAS.

We turn up, one member down because she had the flu but without getting any refund for that, and we're told that they've sold out of one of our meals. I'll just allow an ellipsis for that to sink in.

...

HOW. We booked a MONTH ago. We paid a MONTH ago. We PREORDERED TWO WEEKS AGO. That is just unacceptable. Luckily for us it was the number down whose meal was somehow 'sold out' but dear gods above that's atrocious. I have less complicated bookings with international travel. This is a goddamn restaurant booking, and in the end it achieved nothing. So no. Not happy, Jan.

Food was good, though. Paté was awesome, though they had the gall to charge us another $7 for a few extra bits of bread, fish was delicate with its nice crispy skin, though the piddly little shrimp the size of the last joint on your pinkie finger would have been better as two or three nice big SA prawns, and the panacotta was perfect. But the service was slow, for being less than half full and pre-paid and pre-ordered I cannot get over this. They knew we were coming and what we were ordering. I just. That's it. No more Jamie's Italian for me, they don't deserve my business.

New Year's Eve was at Stam's mum's place. Stam is Alex's friend from school who has moved to Melbourne, then there was also Linda and Hanh and of course me and Alex. Great little group we are :D I was once again in charge of cocktails and other booze, while the other guys got the food together. We've learned from last year! No reheated frozen food for us, all freshly made and great, with dip and cheeses from the previous day at the Central Markets, yummy chicken wings, sausages, and beautiful home made mousse, Eaton mess and mango jelly/pudding/thing. I did manage to forget the cocktail shaker, though. And the martini glasses. We made do with an empty bottle and wine glasses, and then it was brandy Alexanders and golden dreams all 'round! And bellinis, and gin and tonics, and straight bubbly, and some weird Irish thing that needed diluting with soda water because my god it was sweet.

It was a great night. Just an awesome bunch of people having fun and getting happily drunk, nobody threw up or pushed anyone else to do so... I love these girls <3

Alex and I then spent a couple of days spending my many hundreds of dollars of Westfield, David Jones and Myer vouchers on clothes and some makeup. We shopped, and then we dropped. I'll take photos at some point but right now it's 41 degrees and I can't be arsed. Just in case I don't get round to it: This top, this skirt and also the cream tee she's wearing with it, which has gold dots on it and will go well with my red jeans, this jumpsuit (I KNOW. ME IN A JUMPSUIT? It's really cute, though!) and this dress. There's a pair of denim shorts, too, that I can't find on Myer anymore but I'm sure you can picture denim shorts. Less exciting (or more exciting? :O ) I got three new bras: that one which is much prettier and brighter than in the photo and that one both with their matchy-matchy undies, and that one without the matchy-matchy because the only pair of matching undies left were a size 6. Also got foundation, liquid eyeliner and fiery red lippy, so that's fun :D AND ALL OF IT FREE MONEY! I had two $200 Myer vouchers from work Christmas bonus of the past two years, another two $200 Westfield vouchers from cashing in my credit card points, and a $50 David Jones voucher from the Qantas points I got going to Japan last year. Still got about 150 Myer dollars left that I'll keep to get some new jeans for winter.

Also on sizing, I am officially a size 12 now! It was one HELL of a morale boost going clothes shopping, you guys. I'm used to hoping to fit into a 14 but realistically getting the 16 off the rack, too. Now, I fit a 12 quite comfortably from every brand I tried on. Some of the stuff I got was a little firm, but I'm doing the same fitness as I did in the first half of last year so I should be able to drop another ten by winter, at which point jeans shopping. But omg all that work I've been putting in has been paying off so much. Health year has worked :D

On Wednesday we went to the zoo! Because Alex and Stam still hadn't seen the pandas, so they've seen them now. It's been a good decade since I've properly been to the zoo, so to see just how much has changed is incredible. Really only the SE Asian rainforest walkthrough and the sealions are the only bits I recognise. Everything else is entirely different. There's beautiful jungle all over the zoo now, both for the animal enclosures and for us to just walk around, and it's so lush and gorgeous. Sadly a fair few of the old stalwart animals have died in the last year, most notably the tiger and one of the two orang utans, and the two flamingos are, like, 80 years old now, and since we got them the laws on bringing in birds have made it highly unlikely that they'll be replaced when they die, too. That said, the meerkats are always adorable, the sealions were fun, otters were such slippery cuties. Only got to see the red panda's beautiful tail and not the rest of him, but the pandas themselves were reasonably active, so that was good.

Finally, last day on Thursday, we went out to lunch again and followed that up with Jumanji, which was surprisingly great. From the previews, I always thought it could go one of two ways--either be really really awesome, or really really cringe-worthy. Happily it was the former. You will believe Jack Black was a teenage girl trapped in Jack Black's body. And The Rock was an awkward geeky boy. The action was fun, the comedy was bang on, I laughed a lot and it was great :D Nice bookend to the trip--we went to see Thor (again) on the first day Alex was here, and Jumanji on the last. Good clean fun action movies :D

I also bought a laptop, but holy shit this post is long already and I'm going to leave tech talk for a later date.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: home
Current Music: game grumps play sonic 06

It's 31 degrees. It's also 10:30pm. It was 40.2 degrees, making Adelaide officially the hottest capital city in the world for Christmas Day. Suck on that, Cairo! Screw you, Nairobi! In your face, other desert-like nations!

Christmas was delightful! I hosted, being as there were only five people attending with an outside chance of a sixth. I figured it was the prime opportunity, since I really can't fit more than that around my dining table. I made these for nibbles, only realising as I was cutting up the cucumber that I didn't have any toothpicks but whatever, we made do. Prawns with a Thai marinade for entrée, then Mum helped out with the mains. Because my oven really only has room for the turkey, and also it was forty goddamn degrees, I did salads instead of veggies. One with mango, avocado, cucumber, coriander and a chilli, which I make all the time through summer for myself because it's awesomely fresh and yum, and one from a recipe book with spinach, nectarines, capsicum, toasted almond flakes and crispy proscuitto. I wouldn't crisp the proscuitto next time. It was amazing when it was raw, and lacklustre once cooked, so leave it as is. The stuffing also had mango, then bacon, onion, sage and macadamias. Mum glazed the ham and brought that over along with a cold rice pudding which was just delightful.

It was all lovely! Fresh and summery and the aircon worked beautifully. While Dad was carving the turkey, the doorbell rang and the outside chance of the sixth turned up in the form of Laura! As a nurse, we hadn't expected her until at least 3, 3:30, but she timed it perfectly to be there for lunch yaaaaaay!

ALSO
Alex is here! Not here but in Adelaide for Christmas/New Year. I'm seeing her on Tuesday for movies! Moana, Star Wars and Assassin's Creed.
Shopping on Friday was insane. I had to park three streets from the supermarket. Usually the supermarket carpark is big enough but no, not two days before Christmas!
It's still 29 degrees.

Current Mood: chilled
Current Location: living room
Current Music: before the grumps ~ danny interviews suzy

Today it has been:

o 33 degrees and dry
o hailing
o not just hailing, but golf-ball hail. In ADELAIDE*
o still 31 degrees at this point
o bright sunshine again not even 20 minutes later
o more giant hail
o while it was sunny
o ALL THIS in the space of an hour and a half
o it is now humid af and still 23 degrees

Yeah climate change is ttly a myth =|

* Adelaide hail, ftr, is ball-bearing sized. It has never in my entire 31+ years been bigger than ball-bearings. GOLF BALLS WTF.

Current Mood: chill
Current Location: home
Current Music: night drive loneliness ~ garbage

Pamper day was so beautiful I highly recommend doing one.

For starters, the weather was perfect which is just amazing, because it's still winter. It was forecast for 30 and sunny and not windy and it was literally the best day since autumn. I mean, still dunno what a 30-degree-day is doing in what is clearly winter, but hey, we'll take what we can get.

So, I headed down to the beach and started by going for a run. But 'narti! I hear you cry. That's not pampering at ALL! It's pampering my ego. It makes me feel good about myself to do the fitness, so this was a good start indeed =3 Also this was, like, 9am because apparently that's how I wake up now when alarms aren't involved. DOGS EVERYWHERE. I swear every dog in Adelaide was down at the beach that morning. They were all very well-behaved, though. None came within five metres of me, or even looked like doing so, so that was nice of their owners.

Later on in the year I would then go for a swim, cool off and just starfish on the surface, but the ocean's still pretty arctic and I never got deeper than my ankles. The beach was packed, of course, but it was only kids under 10 who decided to pretend the water was nice. Literally no adults deeper than ankles. The sand was still lovely, though, and after I'd changed into my lovely floaty summer maxi dress, I walked up the beach to breakfast. Zesty eggs with avocado and a big iced coffee, aww yeah. I always have to wait for a table to go there, but it's so worth it. I love that place.

Stayed there for a bit and read, then wandered back to the beach to sit on the lawn and read some more until my only appointment for the day, the massage 8DD After all the shovelling of tonnes of scoria and tonnes of dirt and tonnes of white pebbles, my shoulders needed this badly. It was awesome. She didn't do my face/scalp, which was sad, but she did spend longer on hands and feet, and you know me and hands. I also got some hand cream for myself, and two bottles for Mum and Laura for Christmas.

I never really did lunch, because breakfast was filling enough, so just grazed on tasty treats. Because it was SO gorgeous, ice cream, and a little lime and coconut cheesecake with another iced coffee. Bracegirdles was perfect. They have an upstairs section which was completely empty, and a balcony looking out over Jetty Road. So I just stayed up there with my book for the rest of the afternoon. You can see all the way down to the beach and back to the Hills, and it was so warm and delightful. Best day 8D

I finished off by getting a gourmet lamb pizza from my local with some garlic bread and watched two X-Men movies and it was perfect.

I cannot recommend a pamper day highly enough. I'm still feeling awesome from it three days later. Do it. Do it now.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: home
Current Music: wearing the inside out ~ pink floyd

WOW. THIS CERTAINLY HAS BEEN A WEEK. JESUM CHRISTMAS.

So, because there's only a slim chance that this would make world news, yesterday this MASSIVE ARSE STORM happened, which apparently in some places was like a category 2 cyclone. As a result, THIS HAPPENED. TWENTY TWO TIMES. Those things hold up the power lines that carry power from Victoria to SA, and 22 of them fell over. 3:48pm, the entire state of South Australia lost power. We looked like this and also this.

At work, we spent about half an hour just hanging in reception, sitting in the dark, intermittently trying to get onto the SA Power Networks website to try and get an eta for our power, but (unsurprisingly, in hindsight) couldn't get through. Phone internetting in general was frigging impossible. Couple of customers came in telling us about chaos on the roads because the traffic lights being out, and even the CBD was in blackout. 'Wouldn't it be funny if the whole city was out?' we laughed. YEP. By 4:20 we gave up, realising we weren't going to be reconnected for a while, and went home.

Google, in a wild display of optimism, predicted it'd take me 27 minutes longer than usual to get home, and also recommended that I'd save ten minutes by going through the CBD. Which. No, Google. I'll normally trust your judgement on traffic, but nnnnnno way in hell am I driving through the CBD with no traffic lights. Also it took about an hour longer than normal, which wasn't really so bad, considering. Cos of course, every set of traffic lights out, we don't have enough cops to man every one of them to direct traffic.

Got home, lit candles and used the last remaining dingey daylight to tidy the house a bit, put away the stuff I'd bought on the weekend, then ran a nice long bath with the plan of going to bed once I got bored. 7:30 the power blipped back on again, so I didn't have to go to bed with an apple and a bowl of Weet-Bix for dinner.

And apparently we're due to have more of that in the next, well, now-ish, apparently. GOODIE.

Current Mood: proud
Current Location: home
Current Music: 1955 ~ hilltop hoods

Say what you like about the Hilltop Hoods but they're from my city--my SUBURB, even!--and I love them.

( Hilltop Hoods - 1955 )

Never has a song sounded so Adelaide.

I don't tell 'em where I'm from, I tell 'em where I'm close to
And I can go through an Atlas and show you on a map but
You'd still look me sideways and treat me like I'm backwards

SO. GODDAMN. ADELAIDE. To Poms and Frenchies I had to describe where I was in relation to Sydney, which for Europeans is two or three frigging countries away, and they still wouldn't get it. People who haven't even heard of Adelaide, Poms asking me how to pronounce it... like... she was your queen, guys, we just named the city after her.

Tryna put where I'm at on the map 'cause where I'm from
Would never get a mention

Well I mean. That's unlikely to ever happen, but damn if they're not trying, and seriously I cannot emphasise how important that is. Everyone famous from Adelaide no longer lives here, and often they try to hide the fact they're from Adelaide at all. Adam Hills splits his time between the UK and Melbourne. Lleyton Hewitt lives in Sydney. Sia lives in the States. Cricketers and footy players disappear as soon as they're good enough for an interstate team to snatch up. There's a reason we're parochial in SA; because if we don't love ourselves, literally the entire country will just keep making jokes of us, anyway.

But the Hilltop Hoods are still here. They don't hide it; they take pride in it. And I goddamn love them for it.

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: Anna P's
Current Music: who really cares? ~ powderfinger

"No white, no snow-melt, no ice-bound lakes, just birdsong strung across a cobalt blue void."

Cos sometimes winter does that. I rode down to the beach today, which took all of 25 minutes, got myself a piece of grilled butterfish and chips for one (which, being a fish and chip shop, means two pieces of grilled butterfish and chips for a respectable-sized Italian family) that I ate on the lawn, then walked pretty much the length of said beach over the course of the next hour-ish looking for driftwood. Didn't find any, but I did get a bunch of pretty shells and rocks and a shard of mother-of-pearl so that went well.

GLORIOUS. The only way you could tell it was actually the middle of June was that nobody was in the sea except stupid dogs who'd lost their tennis balls, and all the people were rugged up in jackets and scarves. Much fish and chips on the lawn and kids running around with ice creams still happened, though.

Bummed around GW2 for about two hours when I got home, literally accomplished nothing but just ran around Divinity's... Whatever It's Called going OMG THE PRETTY. I found a sinkhole and a freaking STUNNING city garden and a little... memorial gravesite type place where there were no people and the lag was nonexistent, so that was nice. I will need moar ram for release, tho. One frame per second really doesn't make for great battle experiences. I died on a wurm :<

I've also spent $50 on skin shit to make my bacne go away. I WILL REPORT BACK. In, like, a year apparently. YEAH~ 'this time next year' seems to be coming up a lot in my plans. Looking for a house, full-time graphic design, 74kg/size 12, no more bacne, all of it is 'this time next year'. June will be a big time, apparently. GO ME.

Hot chocolate mix is going well but requires further testing. I've got the cocoa-to-sugar proportions right, just need to figure out the spices.

Now I'm going to reconnect with my formative years and watch Trigun because it's been TOO LONG.

Current Mood: elated
Current Location: Anna P's
Current Music: aus vs india, odi from sydney

lakjsdgha Still elated about the cricket last night. OH GOD IT WAS EPIC AWESOME akjsgha I love my boys. Whatever the hell happens here on Tuesday for the international final, nothing can come close to the absolute elation of the state win. But I'll get to that with photos in a sec. For the moment, ( playing with new camera! )

I also took some arty photos of leaves and bullrushes along the river, so I'll stick them up on

h_bee after the cricket set. HEE new camera so shiny~

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Annarti

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