the quiet revolution

Dear life,

Could you please slow down a little bit? It's all a bit crazy at the moment.

Kind regards,
T.

Of course, life's not going to listen, so please bear with me for the next 5 weeks or so until we get things back under control. Work has gone utterly mental: I've got 3 trips away to deliver workshops and a shed-load of work to do before and after each of them, plus a progress report due and another project that's been languishing needs to be wrapped up and delivered to the editors, all by the end of May. As Gordon Ramsey would say, fuck me!



Weekends are also epically busy. Last weekend we went down to Hobart on family business (congratulations to both Rui and Amanda who recognised my view of Dusk over the Derwent estuary, taken from Mt. Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania - you win my everlasting esteem), and this weekend coming I'm photographing a very good friend's wedding. Needing to say I'm shitting myself over that one just a little.



The weekend after that we'll be belatedly celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary. The original plan was a romantic get-away of camping and hiking down at Mt. Barney, though since I get back from Mackay at 9pm on Friday night it's most likely to be an exhausted weekend of catching up on sleep and re-aquainting myself with the couch! We'll see how we do though - hopefully I"ll manage at least a day trip and a bit of a bush walk.



Speaking of bushwalks, here are a few more photos from sunset atop the rather scenic, if somewhat freezing, Mt. Wellington. No we didn't walk up - we didn't have the 5.5 hours it would have taken to get up and down again - but we did go for a shorter bushwalk down at Fern Tree before we drove up. No doubt I'll get around to putting up those photos sooner or later. In the meantime, please enjoy the ( view )

Today I'm in one of those obnoxious sort of moods where you're bored but don't want to do anything.



I'm very tired, but I've had too much caffeine to sleep. Besides, I'm tired because I've been beating my body clock into submission all week, and my body clock is naturally rebellious. The concept of a 24 hour day is completely foreign to my metabolism, which swings somewhere between 28 and 20 hour rhythms. This morning I woke at 6, got back to sleep at 6:45 then got woken by the alarm at 7. It was nearing midnight when I nodded off. Anyway, we had plans for the morning: a ride to the Newfarm Farmer's Market for breakfast and a little shopping. We got to the market at 8am and it was already populated by 3 times more than a reasonable amount of people. Also, people with little shopping carts need kicking repeatedly until they learn to to leave their carts sticking into the stream of traffic when they come to a stop. And that stopping to have a chat with 3 of your mates in the middle of the walkway is a really mean thing to do, especially when none of you have bothered to get your carts out of the way. Next time I'm wearing steel-caps.



Anyway, we eventually got breakfast, after feeding the muffins we first bought to the birds. I had poffertjes and a very good pastie, while Alex had a German hotdog of some description. Oh, and coffee! We bought some lovely-looking radishes, kipfler potatos, swiss-brown mushrooms, Lancashire sausages, a pork pie and a delicious-looking loaf of rye bread with caramelised onion and caraway. There wasn't any change left from $50 after that. So much for farmer-direct discounts! A little after 9 we'd had more than enough of the crowds and went on our way. In future I'll remember to get there by 7.



The ride back home was eventful. As well as nearly being taken out by a flung-open car door (abuse-inducingly nearly, though I didn't hurl any it was deserved) I found some old tram-tracks in Teneriffe to catch my wheels in and spotted lots of rather photogenics things but I couldn't be bothered stopping and pulling out the camera. I know, I know, but I'm feeling very photographically de-motivated lately. It's partly the pain of post-processing with my computer problems, partly getting frustrated with the limitations of my camera and largely laziness. Anyway, I eventually did take some shots because there was a cruise ship in harbour at Hamilton (and a veritable sea of people waiting to board her). So here you go: The Pacific Star (a little worse for wear).



After that we stopped for more coffee and cake closer to home, then I failed a blood test - no matter where she stuck the damn needle not a drop would come out. *sigh* Now I have to go all the way to Kedron tomorrow for another attempt. Boo, hiss, etc.

Ok, so tonight's dinner was good enough that I think I should post about it. I made Fish Curry on Red Rice, following my standard make-it-up-as-you-go-along method and I think it worked well enough to warrant me writing down what I did. It would have even been healthy if it weren't for the entire can of coconut milk I put in...