Thursday, January 25, 2007

It's a new era

Australia Day without the Hottest 100. In theory I could stream it, but with no Internet access at home and the world's most rigid IT system at work, it's not looking good. Still, there are BBQs to be had and kangaroo meat to be consumed. It's not going to be an entirely Oz free day. I plan on being as Oz as possible at work, 'occa' accent and all. I might even go to a Walkabout. It's going to be great.

Hope you all have a wonderful Australia Day!

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SNOW!!

Yesterday on the way to work we stopped along the way to throw snowballs at each other. SNOW!! We woke to find a couple of inches of white on everything (including the parsley, which was less than happy about it), and got very excited. The world looks so pretty in a white coat.

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Standing on my soapbox

An article in today's Australian cheered me enormously. I spluttered with anger and incomprehension for a good month last year at the government's behaviour regarding the ACT Civil Unions Act, which (very briefly) allowed those in same sex partnerships similar rights as those in 'real' marriages.

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Sunday, January 14, 2007

And another, slightly clearer photo


From the side of a dual-carriage way in Surrey. There are many things I like about this shot, not least of which is that it shows blue sky.

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Getting oot and aboot


(though actually South West and not North or Wales as the bad accent might have indicated)

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Thursday, January 11, 2007

The times, they are a-changing

Tomorrow is my last day in job number 4 of 2006. I chose to leave after only a relatively short amount of time, and I'm going to a job I think could be great, but there are things I will miss about this position. The 20 minutes door-to-door commute, the views from the 35th floor (particularly at sunset, it's really quite stunning), the people. But most of all, the sense of ownership and achievement in a big project. In the last couple of weeks I've started to feel on top of the job and have been working quite hard on my intranet project; designing and creating one from scratch is something I've previously had no exposure to, and found more than a little overwhelming to begin with. Today, my penultimate day, we've managed to install the server and start creating. It's quite exciting. But perhaps it's a good thing to be leaving now: if I stayed much longer I might slowly morph into an incurable geek (please be kind and leave this one alone! I know it's an easy shot).

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Monday, January 08, 2007

Building castles in the sky

Still the two of us... just in case you're curious, this IS still the Vaughn and Margie blog. Blogger recently changed platforms and Vaughn has yet to move his account over to this new one. Hence, you see my profile to the right and not Vaughn's.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard

I've been doing some longer than usual hours at work this week, trying to finish of the first stage on the intranet project I've been working on, and making sure things are in a fit state to be handed over to the next person. Yes, I'm leaving. Job number five in 12 months starts on the 15th, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be working in the corporate department of the last firm I worked for (as a temp) as a Professional Support Officer. It's a big jump toward where I'd like to be, and I feel very privileged to be offered such a position, usually given to lawyers with several years experience.

But what I meant to write about was the various blogs I've been reading during some of these longer than usual hours. It mightn't come as a surprise to any of the Brenans out there, but I think I'm addicted to food blogs. Almost half of my RSS subscriptions are to food blogs, and each morning I arrive to several new mouth-watering recipes. My favourite blog at the moment is Milk and Cookies, written by a Sydneysider and filled with wonderful recipes and pictures. It was one of the many things that inspired me to buy a blender this week. I'm very excited about it, and have been having lovely daydreams about all the nice things I'm going to cook with it. Vaughn, inexplicably, wasn't so excited. Strange as it may seem, he wasn't really very interested in hearing about the specifications of different machines and why it is important to have a range of speeds and a dough hook. Bizarre. I'm sure he'll come round, though, when the cakes start appearing. And meringues. And crepes. And smoothies. And mousse. And...

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Belated Christmas greetings

A belated merry Christmas and happy new year to all (from one who relies on work for internet access)!

This morning when I logged in to my work PC an alarmingly large number of blog posts floated on to my screen. My various inboxes were neck deep in letters, emails, magazines (work related!) and other less interesting things. It's mid-afternoon now, and I'm finally on top of it all enough to read friends' Christmas and New Years wishes, and to feel mildly guilty for my lapse in blogging duties.

We had a lovely break, with various Christmas and New Years festivities. Christmas day saw us lunching with friends for our first 'orphans Christmas', then partying with our neighbours until the wee hours of the morning, playing twister and limbo, group drumming and singing. These same neighbours also cooked us breakfast the next morning, the lovely people. All in all, a wonderful couple of days.

Other things that kept us entertained and or busy were, in no particular order: our bed broke (because we were cheap and bought a crappy bed - minds out of the gutter, please), an impromptu 4-day visit from one of my very favourite people, the fireworks on New Years Eve, a tummy bug, the post-Christmas sales.

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