That Happy Feeling

Straya Day Long Weekend

Yesterday was Australia Day, commemorating the landing of the 1st Fleet in Sydney Harbour on 26/1/1788 (1/26/1788). The eleven ships and approximately 1000 souls had arrived at Stingray Bay (later changed to Botany Bay) a week earlier, following a recommendation from James Cook who sailed up the East Coast of Australia in 1770. But there was no fresh water, and too much sand to develop a penal settlement, so the expedition's leader, Captain Arthur Philip sent a scouting party north by boat and found a harbour which seemed a a suitable place to start a British colony.

We get a holiday tomorrow, because this year the day fell on a Saturday. In years past, if this has occured the celebrations etc occured on the holiday, rather than the actual day, but common sense prevailed a few years ago and now all the celebrations occur on the 26th. Citizenship ceremonies throughout the country, outdoor and backyard barbecues, parties, ferryboat races, surf carnivals, and general bonhommie usually occur. Yesterday seemed to be a successful day for the organisers with no trouble recorded.

Check out the Google dot com dot au gif.

The weather is still fine today so I'm going to venture out and see what occurs.

Happy Birthday Duchess!

Hey, Hey, Hey

Its a beautiful day. 77/25 degrees F/C at 08.30, headed for a high of 89/32. I'm just having a breakfast of tea and crackers/cheese before heading out to enjoy it. Possible thunderstorms this afternoon so I think I'll take a brolly just in case. Bushfires in Victoria, the occasional shark sighting and subsequent newspaper beatup, not to mention the cacophony of cicadas mean its truly summer in Australia.

A busy but non hectic week and a quiet day yesterday, ending with a couple of beers at my pub of choice.

Choir returns to its regular rehearsals on Thursday evening and we've had a ressonable degree of interest from people wanting more information and thinking about joining, so hopefully 2008 will be a good year.

There's a little bit of turbulence on the work front, mainly a move to Parramatta, which is the demographic centre of the city. That, unfortunately will add a 45 minute train trip (express) or about an hour (non-express) each way of my journey, and mean getting up even earlier than my current 5am start, when I'm working 7am shifts, but after the body gets used to it, I'm sure things will work out.

Apart from that, the cicadas and the occasional bird call, all is calm and quiet.

Have a great week, and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New

No snow at all in Australia, at this time of year, so no ringing of happy bells across same. Instead, we should be celebrating at the beach, but the tides are up, the surf is huge, and the beaches are closed, as being unsafe. And there's the odd shark lurking just behind the "break" just to add that Amity type intensity.

Christmas was great. Spent it with friends. After exchanging presents with my sister-in-law, nephew and niece (brother was apparently working), I was off to spend Christmas with a long term friend, his wife and their family. (they're grandparents, and younger than I am - does that make me an old fossil, or what. We used to have a Christmas ritual where every Christmas we'd visit the guy's parents on Christmas Morning. Sadly his folks and mine, have "passed over", but the tradition continues, and now I'm a regular for Christmas Dinner with them and their extended family and I wouldn't miss it for quids. I took a bus about half an hour up the peninsula, waited an hour for a ferry, it took 25 minutes to cross Broken Bay and my friend came to pick me up. Spent the rest of the day socialising with friends, old and new, eating, drinking and making merry. They were kind enough to ask me to stay overnight. Next morning was a bit of a sleep in, a clean up and then it was back onto the ferry for the return journey, and then another wait for a bus back home.

I had all of last week off, so didn't have to work until Saturday. New Years Eve was quiet. I thought the neighbours were getting ready to party by playing Abba, fairly early, but that was a rather dubious ring tone, which only rings once then stops.

Changed the ringtone to the generic Nokia waffle until I can find something, or make something with a little oomph which will last more than a few seconds.

Work today was fairly quiet, but it was a great chance to catch up on a lot of the detritus that on a busy day we don't get around to doing.

I spent most of the evening getting to understand IMovie 08 only to have it crash on me at the last. Maybe the poor old G4 Apple laptop hasn't got the grunt to make it work.

May 2008 be great to all of you. May you find peace, prosperity, joy, love, fulfilment, or whatever it is you're seeking.

Happy Hogmanay folks.