Sydney Celebrations

Have been absent for a few days - drove down to Sydney for a little bit of debauchery. And no, do not have iphone or whatever you call those things, so have not been able to update blog on the run. Am old-fashioned. Retro, one might say.

Sydney was... Sydney.

Awesome time celebrating St Patrick's Day, and an engagement party, with some mad Irish people and got to catch up with all my besties.

Back home again after quick stop at auntie Mia's in Bellingen, where we indulged in some cinnamon rolls.

That will be all for now, have got some very urgent gardening to attend to.

Busy Beach

What is this - Bondi Beach???

Very busy beach this weekend. And no, it is not Bondi - although you could have thought so! It is of course Main Beach, Byron Bay...

Have discovered virtues of going to beach late in afternoon and staying until dusk. A time habitually referred to as "Shark Feeding Time" by me. This undoubtedly makes the swimming experience more exiting.

We all like to believe that sharks never swim between the flags. Between the flags is people-area. It is, however, unlikely that the sharks are aware of the flags. If they are, they most likely refer to it as "the buffet."

Hubby always says sharks are non-aggressive. Sort of like black-snakes.

Sure.

New Snake!

Highly exiting animal spotted no less than three (3!) times around house! She has moved in. Check her out.

FYI - Red Bellied Black Snake. Venomous, but shy.

Garden Waste People

Because we live in a jungle; we have a monthly service entitled "Garden Waste Collection." Without this, we would go under.

This basically means we have two huge "baskets" (approximately two times two metres each) for depositing weeds and, you know, assorted branches, leaves, vines and so on - that regularly need removing unless house is to be swallowed whole by nature.

Anyway, it has been a long-standing joke between myself and hubby that these "Garden Waste People" do not actually exist.

Yes, the baskets have been collected each month, no problems there. But for well over a year - we have never SEEN them. Several theories have included:

- They don't exist (I said that one already)
- They are aliens that collect green waste using super-silent and fast spaceship
- They are invisible
- We have seen them several times and even had coffee together, but simply forgotten (unlikely)


BUT today, coming back from beach, I have SEEN THEM! Was so excited had to rip out camera and snap photo. See!!!

That is the truck parked below driveway; one of our basket-thingys next to it. Also could observe a dude (from Earth) pushing them down drive-way using trolley.

So you see, everything has a natural explanation.

Another War?

According to Wikipedia (authority on everything, which you may these days use as a source for school-essays - yes really):

"Jumper ants cause more deaths in Tasmania than spiders, snakes, wasps, and sharks combined."

Jumper Ants... Not Jumping Ants like I said.

But am assuming they are the very same species now confirmed to have atleast one nest in garden. Possibly two.

Last thing we need after whole bush-turkey debacle last year. Seems assorted wildlife feel that our garden is fair game. Sanctuary of sorts. Suppose previous resident has put out this vibe. Her opinion was
"everything goes - except cats".

We would like to modify this somewhat, to, say - something like
"everything living on property will be expected to pay rent, if failing to do so, will be violently evicted using any means necessary - also cats still not welcome".

Things Ants do not like:
- Hot Water
- Vinegar
- Lemon
- Hubby

Sunrise and Ant-bites

Beautiful sunrise viewed from balcony...

Hear rest of state is experiencing torrential rain and floods - for once we are spared, having beautiful weather! Decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by doing some well needed gardening - so now covered in what hope is ant-bites (as opposed to spider bites). If was bite from poisonous spider would most likely be already dead, so am not too worried about it.

Hi mom.

Discovered ant-nest in garden. Large ants which according to Swedish Neighbour are called "Jumping Ants." This is because they are very malicious and will aggressively jump at you in order to bite you. They have been harassing us and Neighbours for months. So it's payback time. Hubby is going... hrm... sort them out.

A Big Day

Had a couple of friends stay a night - took them to Treehouse in Belongil for pizza, as we normally do when visitors are here. We are probably more excited to go there than visitors. As usual hubby and I were pretending for a few minutes that we might order a pizza and a salad to share; followed by ordering a pizza each.

Today is a big day. Today, for first time since June 2010 - am getting my hair cut. There shall be NO before / after picture. Sorry to disappoint. It had somehow passed me by - but have recently realised hair is disaster of gigantic proportions. Looks bad, also hair falling off leaving piles of it all around house. And I hate vacuuming.

So today is the Day. Going to be something of a challenge for hairdresser.

By the way, I have great respect for hairdressers. Used to think hairdressing was probably really easy; until unfortunate incident involving myself, a pair of scissors and hubby's hair.
That sad episode ended with hubby's mother having to shave his head. Ever since then, I respect hairdressers and appreciate the difficulty of hairdressing.

Back in the day, when living in Sydney's Inner West - used to be so lucky as to live with a (former) hairdresser. Was so sweet. He would cut hair in exchange for two bottles of Yellow; one for me, one for him.
Yellow was consumed during styling. Not sure how this was possible, but always thought it looked absolutely great after it was done and the bottles empty.

Hmm.

Birthday

Birthdays are a good time of year to reflect on changes that occur as we grow older and wiser. According to tradition I always think back on previous birthdays as far as I can remember; what did I do, where was I - and so on.

Until I get to about 2006/7 - anything before then is kind of a blur.

Anyway.

2011: Byron Bay: Lovely meal at restaurant outside Byron - early night, home.

2010: Sydney: Out on the town with bunch of friends - in spite of having some sort of eye-ailment rendering me practically blind, still managed to have too many drinks and stay out too late. Was middle of week but friends are hardcore drinkers...

2009: Amsterdam: Japanese restaurant with a couple of friends. Fairly early night, rode bikes home - nobody fell over.

2008: London: Was terribly depressed, hated what was doing and also thought was getting too old. Can now look back on this moment in time knowing life was about to get a lot better; also I was not bloody old! Now I am old.


Things I have said in recent time which I would have sworn blind I would never say if asked 10 years ago:

"Old toothbrushes are excellent for cleaning purposes"
"I need a good grater"
"I don't eat dead animals"
"I couldn't live in a big city"
"I'm always asleep before 10"
"I have to do some gardening"
"I just ordered five new recipe books"
"I simply must get a leaf-blower"
"No thank you, I am not drinking today"
"Is it Friday? I didn't realise"


Hubby took me to lunch this year - awesome little cafe called the Concious Cafe, in the Bay.

Raw cacao and banana rice-milk smoothie - very nice, as it would want to be for 8 bucks! But the food was quite cheap...

Lista

Sett en till kul lista som jag tänkte fylla i, när jag ändå sitter i någons annans hus och passar hundar... (fick se den här hos Emmy)

Namn: Anna

Stjärntecken: Fisk

10 ord som beskriver mig: Otålig, snäll, organiserad, glömsk (därför viktigt att vara ytterst organiserad), envis, empatiskt, ostabil, känslig, generös, okonventionell.

Ordspråk: "A free coffee is a free coffee"

Yrkesdröm i gymnasieåldern: Yrke?

Hur gick det med drömmen: Alldeles utmärkt.

Det viktigaste (och jobbigaste) som hände mig 2011: Det var ett ganska lugnt år på många sätt. Renoveringar kan vara mycket stressiga.

Var jag firade milleniumskiftet: Madrid.

Fem vanliga maträtter jag gör: Wok, Lasagne, Burritos, Veggie-Burgers, Falafel.

Godis top 5: Chips, chokladbollar, banan-muffins, valnötter, vindruvor

Fem saker jag är bra på: Laga mat, snacka, dricka te, organisera projekt, festa.

Tre saker jag är dålig på: Ha tålamod, hålla huvudet kallt i en kris-situation (se nedan för ett exempel), och sova.

5 hobbies jag gillar: Läsa, yoga, film, resa, dricka öl / vin

5 saker jag inte gillar: Kyla, jobb, insekter och små djur i allmänhet, folksamlingar, korkade människor

Fulaste kläderna: String-tros-bikini, shorts som är skyhöga i midjan men så korta att man ser hela häcken (??), oformliga tält-klänningar, one-piece (vill gärna ha en dock), allt i läder.

5 favoritleksaker: Är inte speciellt pryl-intresserad.

Viktigaste världsfrågan: Luftföroreningar, nedsmutsning av hav, coal seam gas mining, svält (och den västerlänska kost-hållningen som ingen vill ta moraliskt ansvar för), och så vidare...

Ovanlig talang: Jag har en mycket flexibel tunga.




Exempel på kris-situation, samt min hantering av densamma:

Helt plötsligt för några timmar sedan upptäckte jag en äcklig vit liten mask (bara en cm lång ungefär) på golvet i köket - jag tänkte fy vad äckligt - sen såg jag en till, och en till - och insåg att hela golvet var fullt av hundratals små sådana där jävlar!!! Jag som hatar alla former av kryp! Maken är förstås på jobbet så det var ju bara att börja städa och försöka sopa ihop de jävlarna... Varje gång jag sopat finns där 100 stycken till... Jag släpar ut sopkorgen och återvinningskorgen utanför och dumpar dem utan att titta efter (så nu står de ute i solen och stinker), och sopar igen, städar lite i köket... Men fortfarande finns maskar var jag än vänder mig... Jag har tagit hur mycket rescue remedy som helst för att undvika panikångest... Vad FAAAAN- städar aldrig de här människorna??? Hur Zen-like får man bli?! PEST! *nästan gråter av panik*

Jag hatar kryp!!! Och jag är knappast OCD, jag dammsuger aldrig i princip - men lite rent får man väl hålla omkring sig!!! Jag känner för att ropa på mamma... MAMMA hjälp!!!

Holiday?

Going to be very busy looking after dogs again, realise blog has had just about enough dog-pictures - so will hop on next when have got something interesting to say - which is not dog-related!

Almost like mini-holiday.