2021-April

The "Causa" is the food the ladies of Peru served up to the revolutionaries when there was nothing to eat. It has tuna, potato on top, eggs, olive oil, chilli, limes, onion, mayo, avocado. Victory and independence followed.

To go with the Causa, Louis brought along Zombicide the board game, and stood at the head explaining all the details. Marie, Andrea, Claudia, Lou, Esteban and Akemi. I think victory followed here as well - it's a collaborative game where we all lose or we all win against the zombies.

Easter was at Tim and Zdenka's. I often forget to get some snaps at these things, except for this one: Ang, Gabrielle, Stephen and Alexandra.

At Skyzone with David, Laurens, Kevin, Esteban, Lou doing some dodgeball. We got some 3 month pass thing, so we've been going there a bit. Looks like excellent exercise.

Anna sold her place at Sans Souci (means no worries). We were helping move. Vince stored some stuff at his place and had to move this beast thing out to Jason's.

Pergola is coming along...

2021-March

Goldie is settling in very well. The cats both tolerate her fine, as long as she doesn't come too close - then it could be a swinging paw or a hiss.

We got the edges of the fireplaces done. Cost $1600 which is not bad but still a fair chunk of $$ given the average wage is like $90 grand.

Dinner with the work colleagues: Sherry, Syed Qaiser, Irfan, Danesh, Sen, Jesse, me, Amy, Rhianna, Maheera, Erandi, Arijit, Syed Hassan.

Jaime, me and the fearless pidgeon. Jaime is a professor in epidemiology but has zero interest in the prestige or any kind of fancy stuff. His family is from a fishing town north of Lima in Peru. His dad was a car mechanic. Seems him and his brother did pretty well.

Another leak in Oli's window. The sill is below the exterior masonry, so any ingress of water gets fed down to us. Pretty depressing having a waterfall in the dining area. They came and fixed it: which involved pumping in some silicone.

Ollie is doing really well in basketball. He doesn't practise besides the once off weekly session. The coach Gus told me the boys aren't very serious and he seems a bit annoyed, wondering what they're there for. I guess it's more for the fun than the hard work or drills.

Gus is from Argentina and played professional for a bit in Spain, but the competition was too fierce. It's funny playing with him. He's so kind, you'd never guess of his extremely high standard.

We picked up some wood ready for the new deck and pergola. The cats on top of the shed, if you can see that.

We popped down to Canberra for Leo's second birthday or some such, maybe just because we haven't all been there for a long while. 

We sat around, caught up and ate food.

2021-February

 

Tony's birthday, happy birthday Tony.

We got the fireplace side detail put back in. A shame that the wooden quads were still in there, so we could have slowly chipped them out again.

Super wonky work from the builder.

Went to Port Macquarie, Flynn's Beach for the weekend. A good time, apart from a bit of rain. Spent lots of time in the pool.

Went to dinner with the work guys to Star Kebabs in Auburn. What a multicultural feast and experience that place is. Restaurants all over the place.

We went to Jason's for Emilia's christening. Marie was chatting with him, saying we're going to be looking for a dog. Ollie really wants one. He said you can have that one. So that day, we got Goldie, a bowl, a lead, a bed and she's been here ever since.

Ollie's gamer desk turned out awesome - great job done Ollie, perfect shape, frame and nice soft cover.

Here is a bottle of gin, made in Australia, 1 pint 6 fluid ounces. Seems it may have come before 1966 when Oz went metric, and has been sitting in Mum's pantry for 53 odd years. Guess she didn't like gin.

Jack and Allie set off on their trip around Australia. Jack has been busy fixing all the problems in the motorhome. Seems production raced it a bit as demand is crazy while everyone cannot fly out of the country.

A collection of scissors etc from Mum's place. I found them in the garage. Some are really nice. The shoe horn is from some old shoe shop in Newtown. Zoom the pic to check it out.

Dog loves jumping at the hose.

The cats were not impressed for about a week. But now, they're used to her. Still zero love between them. Mumma cat hid behind our bed for a week. Now she can sleep even when the dog is nearby, as long as the dog is relaxing and not running around like a, yeah, mad dog. I keep saying No! when she jumps on me. Poor thing is very confused since I'm calling for her to sit. Jumping is too tempting.

2021 - January

New Year's Eve was next door at Connaugh and Jamie's. Belle, Connaugh's sister, and Christina who lives two doors up, pictured. I guess this shot was taken this year.

Had one Japanese Slipper, then too many Negronis, can't remember what happened for the second half of the night. Dancing in the kitchen was good though. 

I picked up another Ultimate Werewolf second hand. The kids go nuts for this game, too much fun!

So it's so long to Mum's house which finally exchanged. We tried to mow the lawn but he mower battery was fairly crap. The back yard was hacked right back, never seen so much daylight.

Wednesday night trivia - maybe writing about this means we need to get out more, but we were out here.

Louis the board game king insisted on buying a card game: Muffin Time. This is a lot of fun, yet annoying as Lou wins it too much as well.

We went down the south coast for a long weekend to visit Tim and Zdenka. I wanted to ride it, so got the train to Nowra (Bombaderry), and rode via the National Park, a nice trip. Came back via the Princes Highway which was fast but not great. Went to the beach, ate to much, had a nice time. The town fair had a lot of nice riders. Met up with Tania, Stephane, Chloe and Sophia for a walk in Nowra.

The cats are getting along well together.

Ollie made his own desk. The finish is very high standard, no mistakes, very neat, k frame is a nice design. Well done Ollie!

Amelia had her first birthday/christamas/christening. Jason and Christie are now living on a massive acreage near Cobbity. Marie was telling Jason we're looking for a dog. He said, do you want this one? So we ended up taking Goldie home. She enjoys the space, but was causing problems with the sheep. She rounded them up and wouldn't let them move. So now we have a dog, and she is a top little dog.

Met up with Andy for the weekend. Pete turned up Saturday.