Cookoween!

Happy Halloween!
On the most accessible night before All Hallow's Eve (Saturday!) we held a weird food diner. The party-goers, Ruth, Emma, Amy, Andrew, Felicity and I, met in the Central Markets to have coffee and a meal (with Mark). Felicity wheeled out her recipe book and we all chose an obscure vegetable/fruit to cook.
Amy cooked Idli and Daal.
Ruth cooked a Paneer curry with peas.
Felicity cooked Bitter Gourd.
For dessert Felicity chose Jackfruit and Banana spring rolls.
Felicity, however, was unfortunate in her choices. The Jackfruit was not ripe and the recipe mentioned nothing of the sticky, sticky glue that seeps out when you cut and squeeze the Jackfruit. And the Bitter Gourd was bitter. Really bitter. Shouldn't really surprise us I suppose.

Andrew and I made Jack-o-lanterns

From Haloween

Of course, Australians don't grow pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns. So Andrew and I carved Capsicums. Felicity, ever the traditionalist, went with a Butternut Pumpkin. The innards of this pumpkin went on to make a fine set of scones.

Rhododendron Valley - Mt Lofty Gardens

I had planned to abandon good intentions of further blogging tonight as image uploading is seriously lagged. However, Jasmine has curled up on my lap so I will write one more before going to sleep. The Mt. Lofty Botanic Gardens are just up the road from our place. Now is the time to go to see the display of Rhododendrons and Azaleas. A few weeks earlier there were also a lot of Camellias in flower. We made a last minute dash on a Sunday afternoon - about 15 minutes before closing time - to have a look.

To maintain order, I've backdated this one because Felicity forgot to post it.

From Flowers

Meadow's Country Fair 2006

Well, it is no big surprise to anyone that I am very behind in writing my blog. After calling friends in Nagoya today I am now feeling inspired to add some new entries to the Luck Monkey site. As there are several months to catch up on I've decided to go with the most recent first (which will be last if you start reading from the top of the page - oh well). Sunday 15th Oct'06 was the annual Country Fair in Meadows - a small country town south of Adelaide. We went because I had seen a quick glimpse of a banner in town and I thought it was for one of those in vogue country farmer's markets (I'm on the hunt for good plant bargains). However, when we arrived it turned out to be like a mini rural Royal Show - lots of wholesome family entertainment (sack races, hay bale stacking and milking (cows, not hay) competitions etc etc) plus an assortment of food, sideshow and trading stalls. We did find some plants to buy - and of course we couldn't resist some fresh spun fairy floss!

Incoming!

This isn't a post. This is a notice of an impending post.
I have a couple of nifty photos to put up, but it's too late tonight, not enough time tomorrow night or Friday night. By the end of the weekend I'll have at least three photos, and update on the house and cat and maybe even a word or two from Felicity.
Anyway, back to Kill Bill.

Hunting 101

Ahah! The fluffy multi-fluoro coloured thingamee can't escape me now!
What's this, it's not moving - trying to trick me I bet!

Triumphant at last!


.... for Glen, who's missing his little girl!

Cat Pics

Okay, this post writes itself.

Cat

I really hope the video conversion is working. It supposedly has six minutes to go, which will make it 13 past midnight when it finishes. Then I'll convert it so that other people can watch it. Perhaps I should post it to YouTube instead. I'll listen to the comments.
Don't let the past two months fool you, we do intend to post regularly again, once the insanity stops.
But I don't have a clue when that might be.
There should have been some fanfare a couple of weeks ago, when we moved in - and I fully intend on providing it. Also there should have been a rant on crime, dodgey builders and cement dust. There were a couple of other items to celebrate, but I want Felicity to announce them.
The video is done. Now to convert.
I'd like to point out that Windows Movie Maker would be quite useful if you could save in a useful format, with useful dimensions. PAL would be good too.
Okay, the video is done, converted and only 12Mb. Don't click on the link on a slow connection!

Okay, uploaded it to Google Video after all that. Enjoy. (It didn't take a short time to upload, either)



The noise on the video was the fan on the laptop. I was using the EyeToy as the camera. If this causes anyone trouble, hit the comment button and tell me.
Oh, and by the way, her name is Jasmine.

March-April Redux - Part One

Hi again, It's been a while and there have been too many posts simply apologising for not posting. I've tried to reduce the whole March-April-Now period into a few photos and simple explanations, but we took over 800 photos over that time - it gives you an idea how busy things got. I've managed to cut that down to 22 photos, but if I take out the arty photo experiments, and all the house photos we can bring it down to 10. Some of the things deserve a full post, but, as always we can only hope that sufficient free time is just around the corner.

In March, the Fesitval and Fringe provided us with plenty of opportunities to distract ourselves and spend money on live performances. We saw Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen (as reviewed below). We got to listen to Jazz in the Botanic Gardens and we got to see the Big floating stuff at night. It was pretty.


March was also quite warm. Felicity found her Japanese Fan print Jimbei and put it to good use. I just moped about complaining about the heat. Here's a tip for travelers planning on visiting Adelaide, March is a very busy time of year and can be hot! I don't think I'm fully describing fully how hectic March was, but remember I'm leaving out all the developments on the house for the moment.





But it was not all happy times. On the 25th of March my Nanna, Maisie Millard, passed away. I am truly glad that Felicity and I were home at the time my Mother got the news. We all cried but at least she didn't have to deal with it alone. Nanna Maisie achieved her wish to look after herself for the whole of her life. She raised six children, each of whom had three children. That's a lot of grandkids! The entire clan gathered in Heywood for the funeral, and pretty much the entire town turned out to see her off. She was buried next to her husband Jack (Shakey) and the cemetery has spectacular views of the sea.
I had hoped to make all that a special post, but I could not leave it forever. Nanna was a great and kind person, and was the person I wanted to see most whenever we came to Australia. Bill said all these things much better than I can. The most lasting memory I have of her is arriving at the farm at night, in the cold, after driving for four hours from Melbourne airport, and flying for over 30 hours before that, and feeling super excited that we were back to see Nanna.

The visit to Heywood also reunited us, miraculously, with Luck Monkey. Felicity gave me Luck Monkey way back in 1998, when I was looking for work. I took him with me in my pocket for an interview and got the job. He went everywhere with us. Then, in Christmas 2000, he went missing. We figured that he fell out of the car when we unpacked and got left on a driveway somewhere. So, for 6 years he was lost to us. On the day of Nanna's funeral we were in her house getting ready, and I looked over at the display of things from her grandkids that she kept on the heater and there was Luck Monkey. I like to think that Luck Monkey was keeping an eye out for her for the last few years and that she somehow knew we would find him when she was gone.

I think I'll wrap it up there for now, but take this image as a preview of our Easter. I've also removed the 'puresento' section from the sidebar and thrown in a link for my DeviantArt page, where I'll put our artsy stuff.

We're Still Here

Really, we are.
We were there, Sydney, but now we're back. We're also very busy. Really busy. A lot of stuff went on this month, after last month, where we did a lot. It's still going on.
I'll tell you about it later, when I have time.
Next month's posts are going to be interesting. We'll start off with all of this months posts we didn't get around to posting, all of March's posts we missed, then go crazy with posts about the house.
It's nearing completion.
I won't actually say anything more now, as I don't want to be too optimistic, and I won't not say anything at all, because I don't want to be too pessimistic. They're working on it. There's more to go, but not a whole lot.
Also, the progress thing on the side (which I can't see right now) has been updated.
And now, so has the blog.

Drafts

As I mentioned before, we bought a fridge. It is a very nice fridge. It is a very expensive fridge. It is a very deep fridge. This is good because it means it can hold a lot of food. This is good because it can hold a lot of big things like salad bowls. This is bad because our cupboards aren't very deep. This is bad because it sticks out 35cm.

I've had this draft waiting to be published for over a month. I wanted Felicity to write it, but we went and got busy. Er, we've had a really busy month. Fringe, Festival, Election, Work, Work, Driving, House,... you get the picture.

This Picture, in fact.

The house is steaming along. We've paid our third progress payment, which is needed after the bricks and roof reach substantial completion. Which means it just has to be mostly done. Which means it isn't. The roof is done, and has been since the bricks were delayed for two weeks. The bricks are mostly done. So we have to pay. Well, we have to get the bank to pay and then pay the bank interest. So, as the house progresses, you get to ease into the feeling of immense debt. The only bit left of the bricks is the difficult to get to gable of the garage, the front nib walls either side of the garage door, the bit above the kitchen window and all of the window sills.
During our incredibly hectic last week, the insulation was put in. (Well... yeah, I'll leave that for later) The plumbing for the fridge was put in. (Also... this one later too) and the gyprock went in for the ceiling. And then all the walls.
Makes a big difference, does walls.
So, it is good.

This good.

Final note:When we described the fridge size problem to Megan at Harvey Norman Renovations, she sorted it out that day. I think we're going to have to pay for her brownie points in actual brownies. If we can't catch any, maybe I'll just have to cook Hugh's recipe.

The Garden on Unearthly Delights

Tonight we went into town to get the car serviced. You see, our radio played up a while ago and Holden offered to replace it. (the radio, not the car) I started university for the year today (Cognitive Science: Minds, Brains and Computers - interesting subject) so we arranged for Felicity to finish a bit early and meet me in town.
Of course, she didn't get to leave early but that doesn't matter to the story. The car was left in the shop and they replaced the stereo only to find that the new one didn't work at all. Oh well, no matter. The timing of this all enabled the following events to occur;
We went down to the Garden of Unearthly delights, a sectioned off piece of parkland regaled with a trapese, a ferris wheel, food stalls, clowns and a number of stages set up in fantastically original and atmospheric circus tents. One of them, the Bosco theatre, is nearly 100 years old, made of wood in Holland and toured Europe before the first world war.
Well, we walked a circuit of the Garden and picked up a guide to see if there was anything we had to watch. As it was, there were a number of options but we were not fully prepared for going out for a show. Then we were visited by the front door's woman of the Bosco theatre.
She asked if we were seeing a show tonight, we replied that we were not sure.
She asked if we had heard of 'Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen', we begged ignorance and requested a description.
She told us of an unusual and original act, brought to the Festival at great difficulty and employing a strange array of comedy and music. She told us of the instruments they played.
Guitar, Clarinet, Violin, Piano Accordian, Double Bass...
Felicity's ears perked up. A sly grin appeared on her face. I imagine mine mirrored hers as the top hatted woman asked, 'Would you like some free tickets?'
Sweet.
Which leads us to this;
A review of Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
Mikelanglo accepts the stage with a more than passable Hungarian accent, a passable Dominik-like face and an amazingly deep voice reminiscent of Topol. Each member of the troop takes on the persona of a strange, turn of the century European musician traveling with a circus and performing in the dark, forgotten places. Their music was thrilling, eerie and sublime (I admit to not really knowing what that word means, but I know it's appropriate to use it there) As Felicity has commented several times while listening to the CDs we bought after the show, their music is entirely unlike modern, mainstream music. It is rich, soulful and skillful. The lyrics contain real meaning and feeling and each piece is a dynamic story, usually disturbing and emotional with no room for simple choruses and riffs.
Awesome stuff.
Here's some really tiny pictures of the event. (tiny because they're blurry)

House update and poor excuses

The brick work is almost finished and we are very happy with how it is looking so far. This week the walls inside the house should be started and the doors will be put on the outside - then we won't be able to go inside the house when it is all locked up. It will be very strange and I expect annoying too that we will not be able to see how it is going inside. We are so used to be able to walk all through the house (and through the walls before the bricks went up).
Well, it has been too long since I have written on here and I must apologise sincerely to everyone who has been checking for updates over the last couple of weeks only to be disapopinted - in fact, I would understand totally if no-one reads this until an email is sent to announce its publication on the site. Things have been even busier than usual over the last few weeks. We are trying to get some jobs done around the house that need doing before we move in - this mostly involves a lot of digging and moving of dirt. On top of this there are two major festivals in Adelaide at the moment so there is a lot to see and do. If you are not familiar with the Adelaide festivals please visit www.adelaidefringe.com.au to get an idea of the events that are happening. Check out the "Garden of Unearthly Delight" - it is such a fun place to spend time at night. There will be more posts about our festival experiences in the coming days (weeks or months should probably be inserted as the time counter here). They announced that the Fringe festival will become an annual event (before it was every two years) so anyone thinking of visiting us (this is particularly addressed to our friends in Japan) -late February / early March should be a really good time to experience Adelaide - and the weather is perfect at this time of year too.
Don't forget there is plenty of room for people to stay at our home - it has been designed with 4 bedrooms so that our out-of-town friends can visit in comfort ............hint, hint, hint : )