Back in Perth, so let's go to the Zoo

No posts for a month! Although in my defense I was with my main blog audience for 2 weeks of that :) So after a great trip back to the UK it was straight back into life back in Perth with work full tilt and trying to organise the last bits for the kitchen (which has been dragging on too long).

But the week went by very quickly and I had a week away over east planned through work. So before that J and I wanted to get out somewhere different and realised we still hadn't been to the Zoo here in Perth. We had heard some good reports and the weather was a balmy 25 on the sunday, so off we popped to see the animals. It was a fun afternoon and we seemed to be very lucky with all the exhibits and see all the animals doing their thing with our favourites being the Orangutan and Tazzy devil - see my picasa albums for all the photos :)

Can you guess which is my foot or my hand...

Jacobs Ladder

So Janice had a good idea to start doing Jacobs Ladder with Erin and I decided to join them one time. The first time seemed a good idea as I did it about 7 times and felt a bit sore, but it wasn't until the next day and the next day that my calf muscles reminded me that I hadn't done that kind of exercise for a while....

But a couple of weeks in, more goes at it and running the hill besides it is a good workout, especially when I don't get a chance to get on my bike due to too many client meetings!

Twas the night of the Evil Jester and the Mad Hatter

We were invited to Erins for a Halloween party and so decided to try and get a decent costume and I saw the Evil Jester one on a website, which as you know dressing up as a jester has been a theme for me off and on over the years, so thought it was a good fit. So I actually bought my first costume ever, as it was about the same price as hiring it and I'm sure I'll get to use it again.

And getting close to the day Janice wasn't sure what to wear so went out on a hunt around the second-hand shops and found a hat! So the hat grew into a full blown outfit of the mad hatter, of course!

Then add my mask as the final touch and you have a deadly duo......

Meet Oink!

Oink, the pig, who of course is a money(Piggy) bank! Well what else did you expect us to have as the first "decorative" purchase in a kitchen....And before you think I've finally lost the plot, it was actually Janice who got it and proud of the fact.

And yes this does mean that the kitchen is mostly complete :) Just the tiles to go now, which we believe we have chosen, a green and white checked pattern?! But that could change by the time we actually get to it.

So I have updated the picasa site with more pictures. But here is a "nearly complete" one!

How NOT to design your kitchen

Don't use drawers, unless you have thought about it VERY carefully! If you take nothing else away from this post, that's the key bit.

Especially after we thought we had been so careful in planning what cupboards (and drawers) to go in the right spots and had the Ikea designers out to review it with us, we discovered that the drawers at the end wouldn't open as the door frame was in the way, Doh! Then the drawer under the sink was a big choozer to store the bins in which covered the hole that the waste pipe from the sink was going to go in, double Doh! Good job Ikea kitchens are very modular and we could take back the drawer bits and change them for cupboard doors and shelves :)

Don't ask about the different colour white(off white) cover panels for the side of the cupboards that no-one noticed even as they installed them, that one and the some wonky handles mean that we're waiting for the Ikea supervisor to call us to get those changed.

AND, after the counter top was delivered (different company) and it was about 1.5cm too short %#$%##^#$, you can imagine I nearly lost the plot right then ;o) But that was fixed up very well and as of today we have some very nice counter tops on and it's starting to look like a real kitchen again, hurrah!!!!

A trip 'over east'

So here I am in Sydney after a few days over in Melbourne and then here last night. Discovered that arriving late at the hotel can be a good thing as I got upgraded to a three room suite, sweet! Means I had different rooms to iron my shirts in and then go to sleep.... oh party on is what I really meant!

After all the hard work I'm now sitting here in the pub enjoying a beer testing out blogging from my iPhone, looking forward to my third flight in three days, not!

But, apparently I will get home to mostly constructed kitchen as the cupboards are getting fitted today.

Anyway, gotta go as my food is ready. Salt and pepper squid, yum yum.

What happens when you get Janice, Ollie and a Lump Hammer together?

A lot of old kitchen cupboards getting SMASHED! Which is handy as we were ripping the whole thing out, which actually turned out to be easier than we thought and got it all out in a few hours.

Then thanks to Glynn and his trailer we were able to get all the old applicances and cupboards in one trip to the tip (which turned out to be Ollie's favourite part of the day :)



Its all about safety

 And just in case we didn't have enough to do we took a trailer full of mushroom mulch to spread around the garden, including the new vege patch (which will be another post).

The Kitchen is in the house!

After a 5 hour marathon in Ikea on thursday night (with a break for meatballs, of course) we managed to load the 3 trolley loads (Yes 3) of boxes into the two cars (good job they have fold down seats). Then the last haul to get them all into the spare bedroom, nobody welcome to stay over right now...unless you enjoy sleeping on boxes!

Thank god I'm not putting all THAT LOT together :)

Less is more (hopefully)

So the oven and stove top are disconnected and sitting in the back garden, thanks to the electrician. And we now have a big hole in the wall where the one used to be, hopefully the rats won't "drop-in" for a visit! Well, I haven't heard one in the loft for a while, so hopefully they are all dead or done a runner...

Janice on guard duty, where the oven used to be...

And so the exodus of the kitchen continues, with most of the cupboards are now emptied into the spare room and the big smash happens on the weekend, with Marc and Glynn coming round to help with a powertool or two.

Say goodbye to the oven and HUGE sink

Stove top used to live here

Warmer evenings and sunsets

Now the evenings are warming up it's the perfect time of the year to wander along the beach front walkways, especially between Trigg and Hillary's. So to escape the paint and house chaos we took a walk the other night which was a cloudy evening so not expecting much but cleared up at the end and got a cool sunset

Slow sync flash in action

Just to prove I do still exist (yes, I'm wearing my painting clothes)

The last guy in the water

Painting party, without the fun!

So the painting is in full swing with the ceiling done in the kitchen and hallway and after many decisions the paint colours for the kitchen have been chosen and colour number one is done!

And just for a laugh, we decided to paint the doorframes and then of course the doors of all the rooms (except kitchen/laundry) just to keep us a bit busier...So been painting and flipping doors after work and getting them back on one at a time, with only two to finish on one side.

Yes, its Janice doing the work again...

So why does EVERY door have to have a different type of handle to take off

Yup, 80's yellow door frames

Nice and white, that'll do for the next 20 years

Kitchen shennanigans

So after many debates and discussions the kitchen "reno" is starting! We now own a new sink(one and three quarters for you sink junkies out there) and a swan neck mixer tap (so I can fit all those big pans under there that I have to wash - feels like back working at the hotel kitchens....). Also, decided on the electric hob with the wall mount oven which meet J's requirements (although they are still at the warehouse until we need them).

So time to get the contractor guys sorted for plumbing, electrician and a bloke to help cut a hole in the wall to fit the new oven and cupboard. Got 2 out of 3 sorted yesterday and went to good old Ikea to get the cupboards ordered, so the main bit still to source is the counter top although we've decided on the type of it, just need a place to buy it now!

Better get going as we want it finished by the time I leave for the UK in November.

It's gadget time with the iPhone

So after pulling a few strings we managed to get some iphones v4 in work, which is about time as we were sorely lacking in the gadget department, especially being a techno-geek as Glynn and Marc are fond of telling me!

And thanks to Dad's excellent photo skills and Pippa being a lovely model I have a new background wallpaper.

She's back and has new boots

So good to have J back and we celebrated the 30th birthday with Glynn, Sue, Ollie and Alice over at their place with a roast beef on the webber! After a good night out at the C Restaurant (did anyone know Perth had a revolving restaurant?!? Now you do).

Then when not looking (of course) Janice finally found the boots she has been looking for at a bargain price, thanks to some birthday money too!

Diving off Rottnest, about time...

After a trip over to Melbourne for work the winds were looking pretty calm, so decided to take a much overdue dive trip off Rottnest. Booked with Dolphin Scuba and we left Hillary's at around 9am Sunday morning. An interesting mix of guys on the boat, as they were running a tech course of advanced nitrox and decompression (still not convinced there is a real call for that unless you are a wreck junkie!).

I buddied up with two guys who had been out a lot and were the classic underwater photographers who jumped in the water and basically ignored each other for the whole dive, so I just hung around one of them, just in case. The first dive was more north-westerly of the island and a good dive with a lot more life than the in-shore reefs and better visibility although there was still a good swell coming through. The BIG downer was coming up and being told a Minkie Whale was swimming just around the boat and we missed it......

Second dive was better, over a good section of reef (Roe reef) that had some great swimthroughs and of course some of my favourite little critters, nudibranchs :) Including this tiny, tiny (approx 5mm long). Next time I have to take my camera! Dropped down straight to a scorpion fish too, just don't get too close. A good range of coral, sponges, ascidians and seaweeds hard to identify half of them. Several types of filefish, leatherjackets and some fun boxfish hiding under crevices.

Great just to be out on the boat out on the sea as well. Something very calming about it :)

Probably not going diving this weekend, looks like it's going to be golf with the lads!

Weekend of diving

Not that J would stop me diving, but with more time on my hands I took the opportunity to get some more diving in. Out with Marc diving in the river along Blackwall Reach on Saturday, which was all good until we jumped in for our 200M surface swim and discovered the tide was going out and so quite a fast current.... next time check the tide tables! So we dropped under as it was easier going and made some good headway, collecting golf balls as I went (ended up with a pocket full). Then surfaced not too far from the buoy we were heading for in the first place which we then took down to the wreck. But of course the cruise back to the entry point was a breeze :)

Then I booked on with Mindarie dive to go out with them sunday morning. The wind was light (offshore too)but some decent sized swells coming through so we couldn't get out to the outer reef. So ended up at Burns Rocks and "the clumps" some small bommies only about 1/2km out from the marina. Fun dives with two guys I'd just met (as you do) but not great viz due to the swell. But we found a new anchor on the first dive, which one of the guys was very keen on, so let him take it up and have it for his boat. And a cool little lined dumpling squid (I think) was something different to spot!

Tis the night of J going to Canada

So off she goes to Canada tonight, leaving me to fend for myself.....beans, beer and diving it is then ;o)

Off back to Guelph for her birthday, her dads and various other parties and of course to see the new babies.

So looks like I'll have to keep busy playing on and under the water, with a little bit of housework in-between for balance!

The latest update on the house is the bathroom being painted by "yours truly", which was fun for the first 2 coats as it's been ages since I've painted. But another 2 coats later to cover the stupid $%#$%# gold swirls that the previous owner liked was not on my master plan. But does look a lot better and lighter, I hope you'll agree!

Burn baby burn

As we are both partial to some open fires and to look appropriate for our new house, we just acquired a "chimnea"! Now if you're like me and haven't been to Mexico you may not know what that is, so here you go.....

A big terracotta chimney like pot, that gets nice and warm, which we thought would be a great idea for this time of the year. Obviously excited about burning stuff we had a go tonight, but have realised why it recommends some sand and tiles in the bottom to raise the fire level up a bit, so you can get to it more easily and it heats the top section more quickly.

So just need to go scavenging for wood from everywhere now :)

Day trip out to Mundaring and York

The view of Mundaring reservoir from the Dam wall! As much as I'd like to claim this one for myself, Janice took it.... With my excellent teaching of course!!

The rest of them are on the picasa site with some of York, as we went exploring round there after Mundaring. It was a good day to get out of Perth for a day and test out the new car (called Frank....thought Kath would want to know) on the open road.

House warming party

Before we had been in the house too long we wanted to have a house warming party, so organised it for saturday afternoon. We thought the afternoon would be better as we could use outside, because it's getting cold as the sun goes down.

We had a good turn out with the crew coming, Phil our old next door neighbour, quite a few from my work and one person from J's as most of them were already booked up. But we hadn't made it clear enough that we wanted to cater for everyone, so most had eaten or had to go onto other things that evening, so we had loads of food left over and I won't need to visit the bottleshop for a few months :)

Really nice to have people over and the fact that we could actually have the party for our first home!!!

The 4 hour guide to a business meeting in Karratha

A meeting today in Karratha, so we flew out at 7.30am arrived at 9.30, had toured round the "town" and seen all the sites by the time we started the meeting at 11. Then the meeting ran a bit shorter than expected, so finished by 12.30 and rather than wait around (great exploring as a tourist or going out on a boat, but not in your business clothes) we managed to get back to the airport and change to the 1.30pm flight, so back in Perth by 3.15.... Got to be the quickest return flight to somewhere I've ever done :)

It was good to get some sun and heat for a few hours though!

This time prawns were on the menu

So after convincing Marc to come diving this week with encouraging words like "dark, freezing and you'll be attacked by weird looking critters" (divers are a strange lot.....). We took to the water with the "big" torch working as expected :) and my new wetsuit top with integrated hood, toasty!

We headed straight out to the area where we hoped we would find a mix of prawns(as I had a prawn net this time) and crabs(thicker 5mm gloves on). The prawns were definitely harder to catch as they are small and fast, then even when you think you've snagged one on the bottom, they burrow into the silt and vanish! I managed to grab one good size crab for Marc and then he got another, but unfortunately while helping me with the "savage" prawns the catch bag came open and his crabs scuttled off... If you want to know how much you can hear people when they are laughing underwater, it's a lot!

All in all, we wouldn't survive long in the stone age as hunters gatherers (three prawns and one crab), but it was fun and warmer this time too.

Apparently there are some seahorses to spot when you're not scrambling round chasing critters for the catch bag, so we might take the more leisurely route next time to check them out. Will let you know!

The proof is in the pudding (if crabs were made of pudding)

So after last nights dive for a feast, we wanted to try out the crabs while they were fresh after being stored overnight in the fridge. And of course, the longer they were there, the more creeped out Janice would get!

So Janice cooked up a lovely red wine and shitake mushroom risotto and I got the "big pan" out with some water boiling for the crabs. With a quick peruse of the internet for some cooking tips, we decided to go with the same basic plan as the lobster and just boil them for about 8 minutes.

Popped them in looking all blue and they turned out all fresh and cooked, like so....

 And it was worth the cold, pain and effort as they were yummy indeed!! Just like a sweet version of crayfish, maybe even better..... And after the battles with crayfish and eating them this was a lot simpler now we have a system and easier to get rid of all the leftovers too.

They are planning some more dives for the coming weeks, so might do it again I think. With thicker gloves and go after the REAL BIG ones this time, ha ha! Well sounds like a plan anyway.

They call them "blue swimmer crabs"

That's because they swim bloody fast! Well, when I'm diving in the swan river as I was tonight, trying to catch them, they did dart about avoiding me and the other two divers. Especially as you lose them once they are out of the beam of the torches, which in my case wasn't very much at all as I was using my backup smaller torch at the time :)

It seemed a good suggestion at the time to try and catch some prawns and crabs in the river. Except for it being COLD..... although my dive computer told me it was still 16 degrees (that's about 60 in old money), I didn't believe it for a minute.....brrrrrrr!

But was fun and would do it again, as long as I had another layer on and make sure my main torch is working properly! And caught three good size ones, so crab for dinner tomorrow night.

Do you know who I am?

I'm finally an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional)! What does that mean? you may ask. Well, it means that I have actually got round to doing some microsoft exams, specifically architecting and configuring SharePoint.

Now I know I've been doing this for many years and probably should done the exams a long time ago, but you all know how much I love studying and didn't have any real drivers to do it earlier. It does get registered against me so I have this as a recognised certification, but also importantly is that it goes towards the company maintaining the microsoft gold partner status.

And like most of these things the studying and practise exams were harder than the actual exam, so will have to be a bit more pro-active in the future in doing the new versions of the exams as they are relased.

Am I more proud of my MCP than my MSDT (Master Scuba Diver Trainer) certification....I'll let you decide ;o)

Is it a Dualis or a Quashqai?

Depends upon where you live, it seems...

So, we have just bought a new car, a nissan Dualis (also called a Quashqai in the UK, and I thought Dualis was a weird name!) It is a raised hatch type thing with AWD (that's 4 wheel drive for part-timers) so we can get along some tracks and on the odd beach.

It's black, which is different to all the other white cars, but apparently in WA not the best idea as it absorbs the heat on the hot days, but with air con being much better nowadays we hope that won't be a real problem. Time will tell :)

So will have to get out and about on some trips soon to test it out, just not let Glynn and Marc get involved or they'll have me off down some crazy tracks to "test it out"....

We've become a 2 car family

Tried to avoid getting another car but it's difficult here in Perth and now that we are living a bit further inland, which makes the commute further for me. Got a deal through work for a car allowance which makes it a better deal so started looking seriously and after many deliberations, that nearly made the house choice seem easy we went for a test drive of a Nissan Dualis we decided that was the model we wanted. Good timing gave us access to an ex-demo model with very few kms on the clock, so was too good a deal to pass up.

Excited to pick it up tomorrow and go cruising around in the new motor :)

Welcome to our new house

A well overdue post to introduce our new house to the world!

It's just over 3 weeks that we conned the crew into helping us load up the van, trailer, cars and anything else that moved with our furniture and belongings. We were not as prepared as we thought we would be, a case of denial and "oh God, not another move" I think was to blame. But everyone helped out and Sue was on a mission to make sure we did it all in one day, as Janice and I were looking to finish off the next day. As it happens that was a good idea as we still had a car load of clothes, etc to move over after we finished cleaning the Scarborough beach villa. So after three very busy days, we went back to work for a rest....

We are now in an area called Yokine. Not quite as close to the beach as we were, and would like. But reality has to take hold at some point I suppose :( But all that said it is a lovely area and looking forward to discovering more of it over the coming months.

The first weekend after was a good time to "attack" the garden as it has become quite overgrown and it was green collection time, so we got some tools and hacked away :)

I'll put a bunch of photos up on my picasa site in the next day or two as I don't have them here on this PC right now.

My excuse for not posting something earlier is that after a week I was then away in Melbourne on business for 3 days and then Sydney the whole next week. Sydney was an entertaining week with us doing an impromtu presentation at the Australian SharePoint 2010 Conference, rather than just sitting back and enjoying it. I wouldn't recommend preparing a speech "the night before" for something like that, but Clayton and I managed to make it look professional enough (I hope) and got some good interest, so all happy from the companies perspective.

Good to be home and I think Janice agrees, mostly :) Now it's time to plan the new kitchen!!

The case of the imploding window

So we came home last night after meeting up with the mob and the kitchen patio door window was shattered?! What is really weird about it is that is appears that no one was trying to get in, as they clearly could have once the window was broken AND the outside screen was untouched.... It looks like an impact but then nothing (like a brick or stone) outside either! The table against the window is just there to fool you, as I had put that there earlier.

One of those times I was glad we were renting so we could just call the real estate and tell them and they arranged for the glass guy to come out and replace it, for a not so small fee! So all good now, but fear we may never solve the case :)

Nudibranchs are everywhere

Well they are on my dives anyway,  although that may be because I do seem to be a bit obsessed with them lately, especially as I am concentrating on more macro photography and they do make willing models who don't move around too much. Except for this guy who was floating all over the place in the surge, as I was out just on the outside of the reef at Mettams Pool. So I managed to catch him(gently of course) and get him (her?) into a more sheltered spot.

For those of you that haven't read my other ramblings or not had the pleasure of diving, Nudibranchs are fascinating slug-like creatures with the frills being their lungs on the outside (hence the name) that come in all kinds of colours and textures. Typically found more in tropical waters, you can still find a lot of different species (or class, phylum...) in the Perth waters as I've already found more than are listed in the books for this area!

Also, discovered that when you have a weight in your camera housing, you need to fix it down somehow or it can end up right in front of the screen and prevent you from seeing what you are photographing for most of the dive..... Doh! Oh well, you live and learn hey :o)

House countdown time

So just had final view of the house and all looks good, although don't think she actually cleaned it since we viewed it! But all things checked out and just want to get in now and start making it feel like our own. I did see what Janice was talking about with the kitchen and especially the cooker, that will need replacing sooner than later.

So just over a week to go.....

A year in, that went fast....

Only a few weeks ago was our one year anniversary of arriving in Perth! Hard to believe in some ways but then we have been pretty busy...

Speaking of which we had a great camping weekend two weeks ago with Marc, Claire and Eavie up in Yanchep. Even if it was "freezing", as it must have hit about 9 degrees, that's right, less than double digits in the temperature range for the first time in about 8 months :) Was a good, relaxing weekend with some early morning fishing, which Marc was successful with and I just got soaked by the waves as we were on the rocks (not the best idea in hindsight).

Then got a proper dive in with my underwater housing only last weekend while J was off for a walk with Erin. I just went to Ammunition Jetty, which is a small jetty down in Coogee. Has some great life all over the pylons, so works well as a place to hang out underwater and get some macro shots. As you can see I still need some work with the housing but it was good fun and with clearer conditions on a "proper" dive it should give some good results.

Red Bull Air Race

Not having seen the air race live before we took to the south shore of the river with Marc, Claire and Eavie and the other 20,000 people just last sunday. It was a surprisingly hot day compared to the cooler weather we have been having, so good to find some shade under a tree to enjoy our picnic.

We had a good view as the course is actually quite small, probably only spread over 1/2km square in the river and so the planes really do pull some hard G's on the turns... And took my tripod for the camera which I hadn't used in a while to get some good actions shots!

Our Easter "Staycation"

We had a chance to get away up to Jurien Bay with Marc and Claire and some others but weren't really up for it, so stayed around Perth with the other 10% people left and had a good 4 day "staycation".....my favourite new word as we "stayed around for our vacation"! I know, either very cool or a total loser, I'll let you decide?!?

We actually got out on a few local trips, biking around John Forest national park and down at the beaches on the boards. Although we didn't end up diving which was a shame, mostly because I wanted to test out my new underwater housing. After years of looking for a housing for my Lumix FZ7 I found out about the ewa-marine housings, which are basically heavy duty plastic bags with a screw seal and fixed glass port. So with some birthday money (thanks Mum and David) I decided to go for it and got one ready to try out this weekend. So with no diving in sight I resorted to throwing myself into the surf with it to test out the waterproof abilities and "fingers crossed" not ruin my camera! All good news and even though the viz was terrible (obviously in the surf zone at the beach) I was able to prove it didn't leak and took some interesting photos of the brighton beach seaweed.

The house all still a go as the seller got her finance approved, so just waiting on our finance now which we expect to get in the next week or so! Janice already on her 10th kitchen design, so will be interesting to see what we end up with....

The second most stressful day of my life

So after looking at lots of places to buy at various areas around Perth we have had an offer accepted (just waiting on finance - so 95% there!). Was a tad stressed on saturday actually signing the contract and committing to a bucket of cash for a long time..... I know everyone else does it, but didn't help my strange head.

It's in a good area called Yokine, just over the east side of the freeway. So further from the beaches but in reality only about 15 mins drive, so still easy to get to.

Fingers crossed it all goes through over the next couple of weeks :)

My black haired diving wife

Yes, Janice all of sudden decided to go for black hair instead of darker brown. Secretly to hide some of those pesky grey ones that have started creeping in lately.

As you can see she was thrilled for me to take a photo to show off the new hair colour...
[ooops Janice saw the picture and made me remove it.....]

But more exciting is that I finally decided to buy the second dive tank which is useful for boat dives and so we could get out on a dive together. So with an easterly wind blowing to give some calm conditions we got up and headed to Hillary's to dive off the wall towards "boy in a boat" reef. After lugging the gear up and down the rocks we got in and had a fun relaxed dive and although the viz was not so good we did find some cool nudibranchs (yes, I am obsessed with them) AND THEN I saw a piece of seaweed floating along before realising it was actually a weedy seadragon!!!! Very cool as they are pretty rare in the grand scheme of things and tough to spot, looking like seaweed. They are amazing creatures and just float along with the surge. Unfortunately my new camera housing hasn't arrived so no photos..... so you'll just have to believe me, or ask Janice. So when I get that housing you can bet I'll be hanging around there again hoping to see another one.

The house hunting begins...

And I forgot the mention in the last post that we have got the pre-approval for the mortgage, so the house hunting begins in earnest. Which translates to Janice looking feverishly and me kind of getting into while I try and cope with the fact that I finally have to pay "how much!!" for the rest of my life..... until I win the lottery or get eaten by a shark anyway.

We would like to keep the lifestyle we have currently so are desperately looking in and around the north-west beaches areas, which doesn't give us a huge option for house options, but as they always say "location, location, location" is where it's at.

So watch this space...

When the Mother comes to town

Not been very busy with my blog entries over the last month, in part due to being out and about as Mum and David have been over for approx the past 2 weeks. Had a great time going off on the odd day trip and giving them the tour of the west coast Perth metro beaches so they could appreciate the everyday life in Perth.

A trip to Rottnest was very relaxing as we chose well going midweek, just after the long weekend so avoiding the hordes and it had been 38 degrees the day before too, no thanks. Went to a few different spots on the island too including the lighthouse at the highest point of the island which gives you a great 360 view.

And of course a trip to Rottnest is not complete without a beer at the hotel at the end of the day while waiting for the ferry! Note the Pipsqueak cider in the background which Janice got Mum into as her new summery refreshing drink, much to David's delight.

Then we took off north for the weekend to Jurien Bay and to see the Pinnacles (it had been a while since we had done some fun tourist trips). Definitely impressive if you go for sunset as the light and shadows really make the landscape "pop-out" for those of us sad photograhic people who are into that kind of thing.

Perth Festival of Arts and Blah

So here I am avoiding having to watch Janice's favourite reality show "Show you think you can dance" and thought why not use the time to tell you about our art experience last night. The Perth Festival of Arts is on at the moment and we looked at the various productions going on and thought one looked interesting, called "Seven boards of skill" (or something similar). It was based on a chinese board game and featured 12 ish chinese acrobats performing around these giant (2-6m) high blocks and shifting them all over the stage. It was interesting, at first.... then got a bit "operatic arty" and you can only watch so people stand looking meaningful and run around the stage doing the same thing 3 times, for so long ;o) And not as acrobatic as we imagined, except for some half decent kung-fu and tai chi they threw in now and again. About an hour would have done for me, so not quite into the last 20 mins or so.... Hey ho, you have to try these things, don't ya!

On a completely different note for those of you that know Aled (Blah), he has just bought a house out in Wellington which looks very nice from the photos, you can see for yourself on his blog too: http://www.aled-evans.com/. Pretty jealous as we are just starting to look into the house buying scenario seriously, so have all that fun to go!

Finally, a boat dive

After a few false starts and several good shore dives I managed to book onto a dive charter out of Mindarie marina about 30 mins north of Scarborough beach. It was just a small boat (10m) run by Mindarie Dive but was considerably cheaper than other charters and good value for the money. The swell and wind weren't co-operating too well so we didn't head out to the outer reefs and started out at Burns Rocks and then the second dive at Honeycomb reef (or the Archers). Good buddies which always helps and we had long and fun dives in the surge, just wish the viz was a bit better.

Some good life and interesting swim throughs, a few schools of buffalo bream (not good eating, so lots of them around). Several good western nudibranch's and a cool yellow one I haven't identified yet as it's not in any of my books...

So keen to get out again and dive the outer reefs and then will have to get to Rotto for some dives as well. Glad I got my tank and nice having a small alli tank as I don't need that much weight with my 5mm or 7mm suit and as most the dives are on average 5m and shallower can still easily get an hour from the tank without worrying about it.

Where did January go?

So just been out celebrating Glynn's birthday tonight and realised that Janaury had flown by without any blogging at all! In my defense it has been busy with family and friends over as we had Bob and Louise over for about 2 weeks and Andy and Sharon for a quick weekend hit in the middle of it. Was a fun time as we got out to Rottnest and did a Winery in the Swan valley (my first one I was surprised to realise, although I had done all the breweries a few months earlier....) Then had a great time down around Margaret River for 5 days, cruising round the beaches and rock pools, as well as seeing our first real surf waves, they were big.... must have been 12ft or more. I was happy to watch them from afar :o)

And then after everyone left it was back to work and reality with a bang, especially after several weeks off over Christmas as well. So busily back into things with a presentation to do at the SharePoint Saturday conference this saturday, should be an interesting day.

Then only a few weeks and Mum and David get here :)

Welcome 2010

So here we are in 2010.... where did 2009 go?!? I suppose moving house, country, job and entire life does tend to make the year go quite quickly. So looking forward to seeing what the "real" summer in Perth will be like and make the most out of it down at the beach.

New years eve was a blast at Marc and Claire's with their Hawaiin theme party which Claire put a lot of work into (which apparently was THE theme for New Year). It was a good laugh, including pool volleyball at around 11pm and the limbo competition, which I sucked at....

As Christmas and New Year have rushed by, we are looking forward to Bob and Louise arriving, following shortly after with Andy and Sharon for the weekend. So, it's back to work for 4 days and then off again to enjoy our visitors and a trip down to Margaret River and the south-west. I'm hoping we make it down to the big Karri forests and maybe the tree-top walk which I have heard is good fun.