Yrae Chronicles

My New Year's Eve was significantly smaller than it has been in previous years--just me, Mum and Dad with copious cocktails and the Sydney fireworks on telly. Still, was a nice, quiet evening.

Earlier that day I also bought a tray of pratia from the local native plants nursery, then planted them all down the front end of the garden. The place is in the middle of the Belair National Park and I had no idea it was there until Mum took me back in September-ish. Normally I get them from Bunnings for about $6 per plant. From this nursery, though, they're normally $4 per plant, and because I got the whole tray they did it for me at wholesale, $2.90 per plant. If only I'd known about this longer! This is pretty much the last I'll need to get of it, I hope. I've got them spotted all over the back area now, so it's up to them to grow into themselves. The far end, where I planted them in autumn, have pretty much covered the ground with just a couple of bald patches yet to go. I'll leave the whole lot for a year or so, then any remaining patches I can fill in with a few new plants. It's looking good, though, and there's enough there that I can walk on it. It's so, so soft and cool, much nicer to walk on than lawn. Love it. The only remaining garden plan now is calla lilies, which will go in where the daffodils are, but I'll need to wait until you can get bulbs of those. Daffodils come up in August, die back in October, lilies come up to replace them in October/November. It'll be glorious.

Meanwhile, my holiday is sliding away too quickly. Four days left? Seriously? I'd hoped to write a chapter or two at least, but I've only just been able to start on such things today. I did get all the memories added for figjam and yrae, so that's that off my back. God it was dull, though it did get me wanting to write again. I used to write a LOT of minifics, doing those 15min fics and such once a day for years. I also went a long, long time between chapters. Like, a quick chapter was a month, and that's when I was at uni and living with Mum and Dad. This year I'm hoping to hit chapter 20. I feel like last year I really hit the groove of how to consistently write chapters--write about them in the Spoiler Book before writing the chapter itself. It's amazing how many issues I could easily out in that time, instead of coming up against a block midway through page two and just waiting until it sorted itself out, usually four months down the track when I'd finally realise I needed to backtrack and start the whole section again. Now, though, I think I've got it. Let's see how this practice will apply to Steel.

Ummmmm... It's hot. I've been watering the garden every day over 30, which has meant every day since I knocked off work. Tomorrow is 41, so that's fun. (no it isn't). I will park myself in front of the cricket and hopefully bang out the rest of this chapter.

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.

Last day in Japan =( During which we shopped and ate in Osaka. Honestly there's nothing here but food photos. OSAKA X9

( Day 17 Thursday 23 March: Osaka )

Day 15, still in Tokyo, souvenir shopping in Ikebukuro and saké!

( Day 15 Tuesday 21 March: Ikebukuro )

Day 13, featuring Harajuku, Meiji-Jingu shrine in Yoyogi Park and Odaiba. Oh yeah. We got busy in Tokyo.

( Day 13 Sunday 19 March: Tokyo )

Day 11, featuring Miyajima island, part one of The Handbag Fiasco and Mount Fuji.

( Day 11 Friday 17 March: Miyajima, Fuji-san )

Day nine, final day in Kyoto, featuring comparatively few photos because it was mostly shopping. Also the imperial palace grounds.

( Day 09 Wednesday 15 March: Kyoto Imperial Palace Grounds, shopping )

Day seven at Nara, featuring deer and giant Buddhas!

( Day 07 Monday 13 March: Nara )