Yrae Chronicles

I saw a meteorite last night :D As I was running at Glenelg, I saw this bright white light at a weird trajectory for a plan, then realised it was going WAY faster than a plane like 3-4 times as fast. Then I saw its tail! All sparkly orange-blue-white fire, not very long but definitely visible. It was very cool :D

I've decided to put the half-hour 5k on ice. Scheduled the weekend before my birthday, but we've now hit the shitty trinity of cold, dark and wet* for doing fitness after work, and it's just not fun. Every day last week I was very much of the 'just get it over with' mindset, rather than really pushing myself to improve as I had been for the previous 5k. Particularly on days when it had been raining, just the intense Do Not Want was a real suck to get past. I managed it! But... it was also at that time nine days into winter. Sure, I've been able to push through the Do Not Want until now, but I've got three months of this shit. So that one's on ice. I'll pick it up again probably on 1 September, or when daylight savings comes back again on the first weekend in October.

I'm not giving up on fitness, not even giving up on the half-hour 5k, just rescheduling that one until probably end of spring, maybe into December, and I'll do more indoor-friendly fitness things through winter. I've got workouts on the Garmin I can do, two YouTubers who do workouts you can follow along with, and I want to give a shot at yoga and/or pilates, too. When I get back from Sydney next week I'll book some single sessions at various places around home and work, do some of them and pick my favourite to keep something up there through winter. Also keeping up the 10,000 steps a day, because I'm at a current streak of 86 days and it'd be pretty cool if I can hit 365. Walking or running under my own steam is still doable, it's just the intense stuff the training plan gets me doing that I'm struggling to motivate myself to do XP

Sydney~ is happening next week :D Amanda and I are going to see Critical Role and also Supanova, very excite.

* It started raining properly late last week 🥳 Is it drought-breaking? Remains to be seen, probably not really going to know before the end of winter, but it's proper steady, soaking rain that means I don't have to keep watering the garden, don't have to fill up a jerry can of rain water from Mum and Dad for drinking water at home and I can just get it out of the tank tap. It's great.

WORST. INTERVIEW. EVER.

But let's forget about that. I've spent my evening pampering myself, waxing legs and cutting nails so I look pretty all over, 'cept hair which gets cut tomorrow morning, FINALLY. I would've got it cut a month ago normally but have deliberately left it.

I'm packed! And I've packed a SKIRT! And tops WITHOUT SLEEVES! Because Sydney's forecasting low 20s and we're only going north from there so CROSS FINGERS for nice weather. My birthday is 21 and sunny omfg. Warmest birthday ever.

And now I'm getting excited about Quay again. And Cassie and I are talking about an onsen in the Blue Mountains.

I AM SO EXCITED. IT'S TOMORROW EEEEEE!!!

BAAAACK :D An hour late due to that, but at least I missed that.

Sydney was awesome <3 Weather was absolutely PERFECT, Pancakes on the Rocks were delicious, the Rocks markets were lovely and tasty and sparkly and I bought things, the Harbour looked freaking STUNNING, Lion King 3D was squeefully nostalgic, and all my people were as fabulous as ever. MORE TO COME when I scrounge pictures off of people. I forgot my camera on the touristy day then brought it on the geekery day. Cos I'm a champion like that.

I love Sydney :D

So Mother's Day was last weekend :D Yeah I'm going to put more effort into updating in a timely manner one of these days, I swear >>

But yes. We took Mum and Gran (Dad's mum, who is 92 going on about 70) to Monarto Zoo, huge open-plains zoo out in the middle of nowhere. It ws SO much better than when I last went, which was admittedly a good 15 years ago. There's about a dozen giraffes now, one of which came RIGHT up to the bus with her big beautiful eyes, then gallopped off when the bus made noises she didn't like. Heaps of gazelley antelopey type things, pride of lions (six lionesses and a pimp. I mean lion), and omg the baby rhino was adorable~ <3 He kept making all this effort to stand up, stood there proudly for about two seconds, then plonked back down on his bum next to mummy. SOCUTE. Chimps were fun, too. And~ stuff.

BUT THEN. The main event, so far as Colin and I were concerned, was our dinner :D Sent Gran off to do dinner with one of her other sons, then we put on a mini-dégustation for Mum <3 The idea came from Colin when we were looking through the recipe books for ideas and couldn't decide between the mussels or the scallops for entrée, so why not do BOTH? :D AND WE DID. And it was awesome.

Started with paté and crusty bread, the only point where we cheated and bought Maggie Beer's Pheasant Farm paté, because it's awesome, we couldn't do better, and paté is complicated.

Then~ next one was me, with the mussels done in an awesome creamy bacon, garlic, leek and cider sauce and omg it was good. Next was the scallops, me with a bit of Colin, in that he barbecued them (PERFECTLY I might add) and I did the rest (sauce and potato/garlic/cauliflower purée. For those keeping track, we're up to 10 cloves of garlic for the meal now). Then Colin's turn came up with~ a lemon and passionfruit sorbet doused in Omni (cheap bubbly) to clense the palatte. Next was Colin's mini filet mignons, also barbecued PERFECTLY and omg so smokey and yum, with a salad by me~ that Mum said could count as a course in its own right, so count it we did! :D And finally, dessert by Colin, sticky mocha and date pudding.

Including the paté, seven courses all up. Yeah~ we're never going to top that XD Mum was just grinning the whole time, so we felt good :D And it was much fun! I like cooking fancy stuff =3



In other, completely unrelated news, I'm going to Sydney~ in September~ for the annual CFUD meetup that I missed last year :D Looking at fares right now and~ yeah. I don't care about the bad press Tiger gets, it's bloody hard to look past them.

Qantas: $304
Virgin: $253
Jetstar: $238
Tiger: $99.90

SEE? Less than a hundred dollars return to Sydney, people. You can't beat that. You couldn't DRIVE there for less than a hundred dollars. I'll hold off and see if any intriguing specials come up from Qantas or Virgin but~ not expecting anything. $99.90!

Happy new year!

I think Sydney's lead-up to the fireworks were more exciting than the fireworks themselves. They do a batch for 10 minutes at 9pm (I guess for all the kiddies who have to go to bed) and that was bloody impressive, seeing them going off all around the city, off the bridge and up and down the harbour. Then at 10pm and every 15 minutes from 11pm there was just one big lot that went BANG to remind you that it was 45/30/15 minutes to go. This big lot was, like, five or six HUGE ones set off from the ten or so vantage points along the harbour/city. Ver big, very exciting, very Sydney.

Then the actual fireworks, the ones at midnight, only went for 10 minutes themselves =( The GFC even hits Sydney's new year fireworks, it seems. Usually goes for, what, half an hour? 45 mintues even? Nope, all over by 12:10. Still, seeing the waterfally thing they do off the bridge live and in the flesh was pretty bloody awesome. And shooting them off in all directions from the bridge, with another display in front of me, one behind, one off to the right somewhere in the city, and the glow of whatever was going on the other side of the bridge... it was pretty spectacular you guys. Short sharp and shiny :D

Walking up George Street to get to the train station afterwards was kind of epic. Roughly half of Sydney was squashed into the street and sort of flowing towards the station in a kind of vaguely organised melée. But we got a seat on the train back, so yay :D

Also, today we made chocolate crackles :D They need more sweet, really.

OMG IT'S TWENTY-TEN :DD I repeat the saying of the day and ask, where the hell did the decade go?

edit~ oh also, I sent everyone messages but my phone's come back and said two didn't go through. Won't tell me which ones tho, so I have NO idea =/ If you're a love of mine and didn't get a message, blame the Aussie phone network XD; I DO LOVE YOU I PROMISE <3

I should possibly update, though we haven't done a hell of a lot as yet. Sydney has been most un-Sydney and been cloudy, cool and often raining until around midday today, so we've been bumming around watching things and cooking. So yeah. I've now watched Merlin up as far as it goes and finished off Code Geass last night (and nearly cried again at the ending, alsjkdghas).

Annnnnd as a result of watching Merlin and wanting to quote the Black Knight all through the related episode, or go "It's only a model" every time someone mentioned Camelot, we rented Monty Python and the Holy Grail which Cassie had not seen. I know, blasphemy, right? She reckoned it moved too slowly. I cry D: She can join Dad in the 'people who don't get Python' camp =(

Today we went to see Avatar with Jess, which was SO incedibly worth it. Yes, the plot and majority of the characters were predictable, but holy crap so much of the wow-factor. It was very impressive. Creatures possibly a little too neon-coloured, but they live in a forest that glows in the dark so it makes sense, just not the route I would've taken. Still. Shiny shiny movie and worth seeing :D

They had that ad for Yalumba in the previews and I had state pride >>

Jess: Are they using wine to sell South Australia?
Yalumba Vineyards: *are pretty*
Me: Nah, they're using South Australia to sell wine :D Loooook at my staaaaate <3
Jess: It is very pretty.
Me: *^^*

Then we bummed around the shopping centre and that made me feel like I was a country bumpkin :< Frigging Sydney and its 4-level shopping centres they say are small >> This area looks like a mix between the Hills and Burnside. 'Svery pretty. But the Hills are prettier. Shh. Don't tell the New South Welshies

Monday night we made a kickarse spag bog. No really. It was AWESOME and you wish you had it.

edit~ OH. And I found FUIC in the supermarket. In two litre cartons. I can live happily here for two weeks :D

Flight to Sydney for New Year's Eve/Cassie's 21st, booked! Mmm, return trip for $90, yes please.

Why yes, I did only just get back from Queensland two weeks ago. I like travelling :D