Not long to go now and the baby room is ready, mostly. With some photos to follow now I might be authorised to take some and circulate them! So look out for some soon...
Can't believe we will have a little "creature" to look after soon and the changes life will bring :)
in the meantime I've one last dive (for a while) to go on Sunday and we're heading out for a deep dive off Rotto.
Will have to post a few photos of the huge belly too :) Although you may have seen some on crackbook?!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
A fish feast for Easter
Planning on having the crew around for an Easter dinner and we thought we'd get a whole fish for the BBQ and I might have said make sure you find a decent sized fish to feed us all. So Janice found a 3.5kg Barramundi....
And it turned out yummy indeed! Very meaty and went very well with the coconut rice.
Then last year I was presented with a lovely set of "bunny ears", so thought I would return the favour to Janice :)
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| Getting ready |
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| Janice going "Jamie Oliver" on it |
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| All dressed and ready to cook |
Then last year I was presented with a lovely set of "bunny ears", so thought I would return the favour to Janice :)
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| But she makes it look good |
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bullseyes off Rotto
Going through some photos and videos from some dives around Rottnest over the last month or two and added a video to YouTube of Bullseyes with a random footballer sweep.
And a bunch of new photos, including some from my latest dive this weekend along the Kwinana Grain Terminal Jetty, with none other than the recently returned to the water, Mr Rowlands :)
And we spotted a couple of these amazing nudibranchs that aren't even in my most extensive new book of JUST nudibranchs..... the identification quest continues?!?!?
And a bunch of new photos, including some from my latest dive this weekend along the Kwinana Grain Terminal Jetty, with none other than the recently returned to the water, Mr Rowlands :)
And we spotted a couple of these amazing nudibranchs that aren't even in my most extensive new book of JUST nudibranchs..... the identification quest continues?!?!?
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| Mystery Nudi... |
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The Evolution of the Bump
As it's getting near the time of the arrival of the mystery baby (and due to popular demand) I thought it would be good to do a little series of photos of Janice and her "bump growing"!
Only 7 weeks to go, seeming very real now :)
Only 7 weeks to go, seeming very real now :)
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| Only just found out I'm pregnant, so carrying on as usual |
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| Marcs 40th birthday party (one of the few sober ones) - about 2 months |
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| Last Christmas by ourselves! |
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| Some practise with Layla |
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| The bump is cooling off - Approx 4 months |
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| A Janice classic stripey top at Gnomesville |
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| Enjoying Perth "snow" (feather storm) - about 6 months |
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| Can you guess which one is Janice :) |
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Dad and Norma in Perth
This post is about a week late, due to my unplanned work trip out to Singapore (another post in a few days, once I've sorted the photos out).
But had great time with Dad and Norma out for their first trip to Perth and to be here for my 40th... (see previous post).
We visited the local sites, including seeing the Sculptures in Cottesloe as the timing worked out very well.
Also, cruising round Freo, Hillarys and the west coast beaches was very pleasant as the weather had dropped to around 30 with some light breeze, much better than the sticking 35-40 we had been having.
Then a break down in the Margaret river area with our base being just outside of Dunsborough, which turned out to be a good change from where we had stayed previously.
Between us we got A LOT of photos, but with me being so slack at putting this post up Dad has already added a good selection of them up to his Picasa albums, so I'll send you there for a change.
But had great time with Dad and Norma out for their first trip to Perth and to be here for my 40th... (see previous post).
We visited the local sites, including seeing the Sculptures in Cottesloe as the timing worked out very well.
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| My favourite for this year |
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| A lazy afternoon at Hillarys |
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| Obviously in Australia with a boxing Kangaroo! |
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| Two good looking guys or what |
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Party at the beach
Finally admitting I was going to be 40, we decided to do a party at the beach and went for Trigg beach as it has a great grass area with some covered tables and a good sheltered area which isn't too rough in the waves.
Janice organised some good stuff quite sneakily, including my balloons (featured in the background) and an awesome birthday cake with a very appropriate theme :)
And in another 20+ years I could look this good :)
Now I can be a proud member of the "40+ Ex-Ellesmere Port Catholic High School - who now live in Perth" club.
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| Looking good with my 40 hat and Everton shirt |
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| A scuba theme, obviously :) |
And in another 20+ years I could look this good :)
Now I can be a proud member of the "40+ Ex-Ellesmere Port Catholic High School - who now live in Perth" club.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Meal fit for 40 year old to be
A lovely meal at Xanadu winery near Margaret River with Dad, Norma and Janice. To celebrate/commiserate the impending big 40!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Feels like we're in Cairns
[Not to confuse people actually paying attention, but this post was written a few months ago, but just found it unpublished, so have just published it!]
AND thinking about it and my previous 42 post. If I had published this post when it was written, then I wouldn't have had 42 posts for last year, so seems the universal power must be in control here ;o)
Yup, there must have been something in that cereal this morning!
The actual post will seem pretty boring after all this, but onwards anyway....
Another storm forecast for today and had some rain and bit of thunder earlier.... then about 30 mins ago the lightning started. So like any sad, photographic lunatic I'm grabbing my camera and tripod (sorely under used lately) to head outside and try and capture some lightning shots.
It was mostly sheet lightning in the clouds, so really just lit up the area making the 9.30 dark look like early evening nearly (with the help of some long exposure times)
If you really want get a sense of it you can check out my "video" on my youtube channel. Which is in reality only audio as it was too dark, but is some classic phil rambling to amuse you....
AND thinking about it and my previous 42 post. If I had published this post when it was written, then I wouldn't have had 42 posts for last year, so seems the universal power must be in control here ;o)
Yup, there must have been something in that cereal this morning!
The actual post will seem pretty boring after all this, but onwards anyway....
Another storm forecast for today and had some rain and bit of thunder earlier.... then about 30 mins ago the lightning started. So like any sad, photographic lunatic I'm grabbing my camera and tripod (sorely under used lately) to head outside and try and capture some lightning shots.
It was mostly sheet lightning in the clouds, so really just lit up the area making the 9.30 dark look like early evening nearly (with the help of some long exposure times)
Then the rain started to come over so I headed inside....and not a moment too soon as it erupted like a classic "Cairns tropical storm" - you were wondering where the title was from....go on admit it!
Massive winds and LOTS of rain, very cool, because I'm indoors in the dry of course. Tried to get a shot of the rain coming off the veranda (with the help of the green garden light). But as you can see, should have used the tripod again and wouldn't normally put a photo up of this quality, but it's the affect we're after
I "sea" horses
OK, so not one of my best titles. Was probably trying too hard and took some misguided inspiration from the new Sherlock Holmes series, which is really good IMHO.
Anyway, back to the plot. I decided to join up with the club to dive the Rockingham Wreck Trail as I hadn't done that site yet although heard a lot about it. It is effectively 5 or 6 small wrecks including 2 Cessna planes with a bunch of ropes connecting them to help with navigation and the fact that it is an easy shore dive, so used for a lot of training. The visibility is generally bad and on the day it was blowing about 15kts, which looked like this:
But as you might have guessed there was a good reason for me doing this dive and it is all about "seahorses", which although I've seen one or two before I have never seen many on one dive. So armed with the camera and some skepticism from what I heard and the site (just stuck in the middle of a sandy bay), we took the plunge.
Well wasn't I made a fool of, because as soon as we descended and followed the rope out to the deep wreck (about 17m) we started seeing the little blighters! Everywhere..... They were clinging to the rope, swimming next to it and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
Relying mostly on their very good camouflage and presumably unappetising look, they don't move very fast so made some willing photo models. Could have taken a lot more, but my buddy was not a photo geek so didn't want to drive him too mad, especially as I managed to do that later when I realised my car key holder we took diving had leaked......not so bad for me as I take the old car with old school key, but he had a new remote key which probably got fried!! Sorry Gregg.
More horses of the sea on picasa album.
Anyway, back to the plot. I decided to join up with the club to dive the Rockingham Wreck Trail as I hadn't done that site yet although heard a lot about it. It is effectively 5 or 6 small wrecks including 2 Cessna planes with a bunch of ropes connecting them to help with navigation and the fact that it is an easy shore dive, so used for a lot of training. The visibility is generally bad and on the day it was blowing about 15kts, which looked like this:
But as you might have guessed there was a good reason for me doing this dive and it is all about "seahorses", which although I've seen one or two before I have never seen many on one dive. So armed with the camera and some skepticism from what I heard and the site (just stuck in the middle of a sandy bay), we took the plunge.
Well wasn't I made a fool of, because as soon as we descended and followed the rope out to the deep wreck (about 17m) we started seeing the little blighters! Everywhere..... They were clinging to the rope, swimming next to it and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
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| Yeha, there she(he?) goes |
Relying mostly on their very good camouflage and presumably unappetising look, they don't move very fast so made some willing photo models. Could have taken a lot more, but my buddy was not a photo geek so didn't want to drive him too mad, especially as I managed to do that later when I realised my car key holder we took diving had leaked......not so bad for me as I take the old car with old school key, but he had a new remote key which probably got fried!! Sorry Gregg.
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| Some were bright orange, like this. Same species though, I think. |
More horses of the sea on picasa album.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
A real live wild praying mantis
Who'd a thunk it! Getting ready to go to work and on our back screen door was a praying mantis, how cool!!!!! I'd never seen one outside of a zoo type place before, so grabbing the trusty camera, macro lens and gorilla pod thingy we had a little photo shoot.
Then a couple of days later I saw a tiny bug running round on my BBQ, then looking more closely it was actually a tiny baby praying mantis, I kid you not! Crazy indeed :)
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