Thoughts And Recollections Of A Tree Spirit

Driving is Enjoyable Again Thanks to the Fooies!

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

For the last six weeks I have been driving Hayley’s car to work as she is on holiday. As I didn’t have my own transport when she left she very kindly let me borrow it (a HUGE thank you to Hails cos it’s been fantastic) and I have kept driving it up until the end of last week so that Mat could tinker with the Suzuki when he got home from work.

However, I have been driving the Suzuki this week as Hayley’s car is out of fuel and I haven’t got around to filling it up yet; lol, lazy or what! Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me last night that the Suzuki now has a CD player in it, something which Hayley’s does not have and something which Mat’s ute does have but due to lack of CDs we’ve just got out of the habit of using it. So, this morning I grabbed the new Foo Fighters album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, on my way out of the door and slipped it into the CD player as I drove out of the drive.

The first track was The Pretender which I banged out as loud as I possibly could:

Wow, I hadn’t realised how much I had missed listening to music of my choice as opposed to the radio. I’m not knocking the radio and Triple J has certainly introduced me to a few new Aussie bands that I really like, however, nothing beats listening to my faves at top volume, something which is hard to do at home when there are “neighbours to consider”.

This should mean my journey home is a lot more pleasant also. For some reason I’ve never minded driving to work as there’s never much on the roads at 6.30am and I normally have my head in the clouds, literally, gazing at the views as the sun is rising and trying to see good photo opportunities. The home trip, however, normally takes twice as long, it’s down hill so the views are disappearing and the rush hour traffic riles me no end (must get around to writing a post on Aussie drivers!).

I say music really is vital nourishment for the Body, Mind and Soul!

29.05.2008 Beats, Personal 9 Comments

Proposed Visit Home is Canned

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Mat and I were planning to fly back home to the UK towards the end of July and spend a few weeks catching up with friends and family. We got all excited and went into the Flight Centre a couple of weeks ago, only to find out that one return ticket to London was going to cost at least Au$2500. This was way more than we were expecting considering I got a return ticket from London to Sydney for a mere 700 GBP.

We were told that as well as being high season, the main reason for the inflated price was the fact that due to the Beijing Olympics starting in August, every man and their dog was heading out that way. This means that all flights passing through Asia have sky rocketed in price. Not good news for us, especially as it would have been a great opportunity to start making some wedding plans for the following August and not to mention the fact that we were really looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Hey ho, on the bright side we won’t have to scrimp and save every last spare dollar for the next few months and it might encourage others to come out here and visit us instead. Mat’s dad and his partner are already planning on a holiday to coincide with next years’ Mardi Gras. I think they are planning on spending a week with us in the Sydney area, a week up the Central Coast and then a week with Mat’s sister Libby in Brisbane/The Gold Coast.

I’m not sure what the living arrangements are going to be for visitors staying with us yet. We only have a one-bedroomed flat with an on-suite bathroom so this could make things a little awkward. There is a self-contained flat beneath ours belonging to the owners of the adjoining house that we are hoping they may allow us to use for such an occasion. However, if this is not agreeable then we will need to source some cheap accommodation nearby.

There are various websites I have looked at which have some reasonably priced flats etc. However, for hotels in Sydney or other cities it is probably best to look at www.hotelscombined.com. Compared to other sites like Expedia etc, they seem to best on prices. If Mat’s dad is going to celebrate Mardi Gras in style then he will probably want to spend at least one night in Sydney.

I am hoping that my dad will come out to visit us sometime, although he says it probably won’t be until the end of next year as he has already planned this year’s holiday. I’m not holding out much hope for my mum visiting as for various reasons she really doesn’t seem keen on the idea. It’s strange but Tom and Chris, our pommie student friends, are out here for less than a year as part of their college course and both their parents have visited, some of their friends and Chris’ sister came out on her own to visit also, not that I’m complaining :-P The most important person for me is my brother; if he comes to visit, which he said he was thinking about yesterday when we were chatting on the phone, I will be more than happy – so here’s hoping :)

27.05.2008 Miscellaneous, Personal No Comments

The Golden Orb Weaver

Monday, May 26th, 2008

I was intending on including these photos in my photography category as well as australian wildlife etc. because that was what motivated me to take them in the first place; I was experimenting with macro shots. However, when I started comparing my photos to those on flickr.com, what I originally was quite happy with, suddenly seemed terribly amateur and only good for demonstrating the spider itself as opposed to good photography. Then again, on second thoughts I guess I did set up the category to monitor my progress of the hobby and not as a gallery of best works so maybe I will include it after all.


(more…)

26.05.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Photography, Pictures No Comments

For Beer Lovers

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Now it’s not just a rumour that Aussies love their beer; after living here in Australia for over six months now I would say that most of the Aussies I have met most definitely appreciate an alcoholic beverage of the beer variety.

As Australia is so multi-cultural there are probably a lot of people here with friends or family back in America. As most of my friends and family are back in the UK I know how hard it can be to organise birthday presents and the like to be sent back. So what better way to show someone who lives in America you care about them than to give them a membership to the beer of the month club?

Beer of the month club ships all over the US. For only $31.95 per month they will deliver a 12 pack containing four different types of freshly brewed, fine, hand-crafted beer to your door from different American microbreweries all over the US. Not only do you get to give a great gift, you will also be supporting small specialist local breweries.

If your special someone is not into beer, instead of the monthly beer club you could opt for the wine or cigar of the month club amongst other options. With no minimum membership period this gift can suit any budget. In fact, it sounds so good I will have to see if there is something similar based in the UK :-)

23.05.2008 Miscellaneous 1 Comment

Linkin Park – What I’ve Done

Friday, May 16th, 2008

I love this song, it’s my favourite of Linkin Park’s since “In The End”. It was the theme tune to the Transformers movie which we watched a couple of months back; I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. Subsequently they have been playing it on the radio a fair bit over here.

16.05.2008 Beats, Personal No Comments

An Early Morning Photography Session

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Mat & I got up rediculously early yesterday morning (5am) as Mat had to go on a two day job down south. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it as he would be staying away overnight and it would be our first night apart since I got to Australia. However, Mat said it would be a good character building exercise (lol) and practice for when he goes on a lads’ off roading “no girls allowed” weekend. Hmm, I’m not so sure about that but I did decide to make the most of the early start by going down to the beach before work and catching the sunrise.

I have found a nice little cul-de-sac off the main road where I can park and either sit in the car and watch the waves if it’s raining or go for a stroll along the sand. This has now replaced Leckhampton Hill which I used to use for my early morning stroll and chill out before work back in the UK.

I have always had an interest in photography and just recently I have been newly inspired and motivated by Nico, at work. He is a very keen and accomplished photographer and has kindly been giving me some hints and tips, the main one being “practice, practice, practice”. So relishing the opportunity to take some seascape photos I was on the sand of Narrabeen Beach by 6am, a rich orange glow just starting to rise over the sea.

To cut a long story short I spent half an hour taking photos (95 in total) and then got to work an hour early so I could download them and inspect the results. Most of them were useless but there were a couple that had potential and Nico, who was also in early, kindly suggested that I picked my favourite and he would post-process it for me. Now I know one can use Photoshop or the like to edit photos but I didn’t realise until recently that it is an important part of the photographic process. Nico spent just ten minutes performing his jiggery pokery and here is the result:

Before:

Narrabeen beach at 6am - as taken

After:

Narrabeen beach at 6am - post processed

The main things done were cropping to improve the composition, lighting adjustment and sharpening. I am pretty chuffed with the results and although it is obviously better to take a great photo to start with it’s good to know certain things can be adjusted afterwards. I can’t wait to learn the process and then maybe I can improve some of my other shots.

Anyway, I have now added a “photography” category within this blog so I can log my ongoing progress.

09.05.2008 Personal, Photography, Pictures 2 Comments

Cold-Blooded Little Cutie

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

One early morning this week it was particularly cold (for an Australian Autumn) and I was busily working away at the office when Sam, our in-house mechanic, came in. As he approached he opened out his hand to reveal the cutest little baby Water Dragon I’ve ever seen.

Actually it was the first baby Water Dragon I have seen out here. He (or she) was about 2.5 inches long in body length and was lying very still in Sam’s hand not looking particularly healthy. Sam said he had found him in the workshop and he was obviously very cold so had brought him in to warm him up a bit.

The first thing I thought about doing was taking a photograph but unfortunately my camera battery had packed up earlier when I had tried taking pictures of a particularly beautiful Liquidambar in full Autumn colours (something not overly common in Australia as the native trees do not shed their leaves in Autumn but instead continually drop leaves throughout the year). Sam suggested I look after the little thing until he had warmed up a bit, something I was all too happy to do, and then left me to it.

I got on with my work one-handed for about ten minutes and then suddenly he started to perk up a bit and wriggle about. I let him climb over my hands for a while until it was clear he was feeling a lot more chipper and then I took him outside to find a nice big flat rock for him to bask in the sun on. It was still a little chilly but as I lowered him down he jumped out of my hands and took up position in a good spot.

I’m guessing the little fellow would probably have been fine without mine and Sam’s assistance but I don’t think a little TLC did him any harm either. He certainly seemed happy enough when I left him on his rock. It’s just a shame I didn’t manage to get a photo but hopefully I will get another chance to snap one at some point.

02.05.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal 1 Comment