A very traditional sort of Boxing Day at my Mum's house ... Family lying around reading books and watching the Boxing Day Test (cricket) match on TV! After a very large lunch! Cooking and eating being the other traditional activities!
Sadly Tendulkar didn't get to 100 this time, but there's still the 2nd innings to come!
Even Amber the dog was (sort of!) getting into the spirit of things!
I'm definitely feeling better today! Still coughing but apart from that, things are good! Have spent the weekend working on websites (current and upcoming) and watching the cricket. Hoping (fingers crossed!) to get to yoga tomorrow.
And as requested, here are a couple of photos of Jedda, taken today.
Australia Day long weekend is the end of the summer holidays for schoolkids - it's back to school next week! I had a really lovely long weekend - took the Friday off too, making it a 4-day weekend. I've been down the coast staying with a friend in Ocean Shores (which is about half an hour north of Byron Bay).
We had such a great time - went swimming in the surf almost every day. Went out for dinner with some friends on Saturday night, and a party on Sunday. Saw the wonderful film Milk - which I highly highly recommend, and also found time for lots of talking, plus of course keeping up with the cricket (Australia vs South Africa, one-dayers) and the tennis (Australian Open).
Did try to go to the wonderful Sunday Bangalow market, but just as we drove into Bangalow the heavens opened and a real tropical downpour ensued. I ended up being dropped off in the town while Vic went to do a small amount of shopping in the markets. But it was chaos - shops were sweeping water out the doors, the only business being done there really was in the coffee shops! And in the markets, apparently the stallholders were there but everyone was just sheltering under their stall umbrellas and wondering if the rain would ever end!
Yesterday evening we had to go out to a party, and were forced to leave the tennis with Roger Federer at 2 sets down, seemingly headed out of the tournament! Luckily there were a few tennis fanatics at the party, and after a while someone managed to turn the TV on (with no sound!) But that match had finished and we were convinced he'd lost till someone else got his laptop out (mainly to get some music playing) and we discovered that amazingly Federer had come back from the brink and won the next 3 sets and the match!
Since then I've come home via the cattery where I picked up young Jessie from her first (of many to come in the future!) visits there! Had the usual complaining all the way home but she is happily snuggled up between my back and the back of the sofa now, purring away!
And tomorrow back to work, and more importantly, yoga at lunchtime!!
Back home after a nice Christmas down at my Mum's. Ate lots of wonderful food (too much of course!) and enjoyed good company! This photo was from the Saturday Christmas lunch (the 2nd one!) - typical Aussie Christmas. Everyone collapsed reading their presents, and/or watching the Boxing Day Test Match (cricket) ...
The weather was pretty dismal for the first few days I was down there - I can somehow never remember how cold it can get in Bowral at Christmas! In Queensland it's usually heat wave conditions, and so when I pack I manage to remember to throw in a pair of jeans, cardigan and a couple of long-sleeved teeshirts and think that will do it. Wrong! On Christmas Eve we took the dog to the dog park (off-leash area) before going on to some friends for drinks. It was drizzling, cold and the grass was wet. No one there could believe I'd come down with only sandals to wear. I don't wear any other shoes in summer!! And so my feet and sandals got progressively wetter and wetter! And the people we were going to were not the sort where you could kick off your shoes and go barefoot!
But I don't/didn't mind, really! I had a lovely time. Managed to do some yoga a couple of times. Peter, my nephew, told me that his work was offering staff yoga and he was enjoying that. Can't remember what sort - definitely not ashtanga. I guess that'd leave people a bit too sweaty to go back to their desks!!
And then yesterday I collected the new kitten on my way home from the airport. (No, it wasn't on the way at all unless I had moved north of Brisbane, but ...) She spent a couple of hours hiding behind the sofa and/or fridge, but then got bolder and ventured out. By the time it was bed-time she was ready to snuggle in my bed! Right now she wants to help me type this blog! I'm sure I'm going to be exhausted running after her for the next few weeks!
Yes - I'm on holidays now! Not back to work till Monday 5th January.
Had a big day today - had to get up at 5.15am to get to the hospital for 7am to have my first immunoglubulin infusion - blogged about in my lymphoma blog. Apart from anything else, I was dying to get out of there as we were having our work Christmas party at lunchtime today, in some botanical gardens nearby. The infusion turned out to take a bit longer than I'd thought (hopefully it will be quicker in future) and so I didn't get there till 1.15pm. But they'd all waited for me to start.
And we had such a lovely time! Even though it was predicted to be an extremely hot day - 37degC! - trust us to pick the hottest day of the summer to have an outside party! But we had a nice shady place to sit and eat and talk. (And fight off the scrub turkey that was hoping for some scraps!) One of the people brought her 7-8 year old son Isaac with her. And we had a (child-sized!) cricket bat, stumps etc. and ended up having a great game of cricket after lunch. It was hilarious - lots of diving to catch the ball from the boys, and underarm bowling from the girls! Plus the work humourist Paul was shouting out lots of hilarious comments and 'sledges'. (I know a lot of these terms will mean nothing to people who don't follow cricket, but ... !)
It was a really lovely day. I looked at all my workmates and thought what a great bunch of people, and how sad it was that in a couple of months we'll mostly be scattered in different jobs either in the University or elsewhere. Kind of an 'end of an era' time. It will be really sad to see it all end. No more outrageously funny emails from Paul. Cup cakes from Kylie at morning tea. No more morning tea sitting outside the front of the building with everyone each day.
But, once again, a really lovely day, some great memories to store up!
Well after the awful fiasco of England snatching defeat from the arms of victory in Adelaide (2nd Test match) at least they're off to a good start so far. Australia won the toss and (of course) elected to bat, but they've lost 2 early wickets, including Ponting (arguably the best batsman in the world at the moment) bowled by Harmison!!! Fellow cricket-lovers will understand the exclamation marks!!
Christmas parties all round - tomorrow is the work Christmas lunch - we're going for Yum Cha in Brisbane, which should be good! Not for my waistline or yoga practice, but otherwise ... :) This time of year you just have to let go of a few things - there's always next year!
Yoga practice is slowly coming back. Flexibility is pretty much back - but that's the easy one for me. Strength is another matter entirely. But it will come - I keep telling myself! Christmas/New Year is also a difficult time to keep a yoga practice together. I'm going to be at Woodford (Folk Festival) as usual on Boxing Day till after New Year's Day. I've done a yoga class there in the past but this time they've put it on later, at the same time as the Festival Choir practice. So I think I'm just going to self-practice at the campsite this time.
Well, the binding is coming and going (on the right side) and nowhere on the left! But I guess it's all good (as they say!). In class on Monday Richard helped me with supta konasana - gave me a few pointers. I'm still finding it hard to come back over with straight legs, and also avoid that big crash down onto the floor!
While I'm in London I'm intending to go to Hamish Hendry's shala. It's only about 15 minutes on the tube from where I"ll be staying. Must email him next week to check it's OK ...
Went to a rehearsal for the Brisbane River Festival 'Sing for River' concert that I'm singing in (along with about 500 other choristers) on Sunday. We had a great time! We're singing 2 or African songs and I was a bit worried about trying to learn those words, but when there were about 300-400 people all singing, it somehow all worked!! The concert is this Sunday - and we've got to go to a tech rehearsal on Saturday from 5pm to 9pm!!!
And then there's the cricket! That concert is going to seriously interfere with my cricket-watching!! Even though I really want England to win, I can't help but be in awe of Shane Warne's bowling. His private life may be all up shit creek, but he is such an outstanding bowler. Quite possibly the best bowler alive at the moment.
England won the test match!!!! What an amazing match that was. Only 2 wickets left and 107 (?) runs to get, everyone thought it'd be over in 10 minutes! (Although the ground was completely sold out!)
But it went right down to the nail. In fact, when Australia only had to get 15 runs I had to stop watching - the suspense was too much! So I was watching Doctor Who (which I'd taped) and switching back and forth every couple of minutes. And, of course I ended up missing the winning moment!!!
But such a great match! And people have been mumbling about how boring test matches are and we should stick with one-dayers or even the shorter 20 over ones. Ha!! Well, that's woken everyone up to how wonderful Test matches can be ...
btw - I love cricket, in case you hadn't realised ... :)
Went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant with some of the uni choir I sing with yesterday - it was fun! There were about 20 of us - we didn't sing at the restaurant (as threatened!) as there were heaps of other people there - but maybe they'd have liked it?! Who knows ... :)
We're rehearsing a whole lot of Gilbert & Sullivan stuff from Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance and other pieces - lots of 'tarantara tarantara' etc! It'll be a really fun performance, but I'll be in London when it's on! (Or maybe Portugal?) Still, I'm enjoying the rehearsals even though I won't be in it ... (But I will, I will, I will be practicing for The Messiah in November while I'm away!!)
After that I went to the afternoon mysore yoga class, which was great. (It doesn't start till 4pm so I figured 3 hours was plenty of time between eating and doing yoga if any yoga people notice)
Ended up watching the cricket on TV last night - the Ashes tour. I have to come out and say it - I'm barracking for England! I'm just fed up with Australia always winning - it gets boring! From the news this morning it looks like England is close to winning the 2nd test - hoorrayy!! (But better not get too excited in case the Aussie bottom order bowlers manage to bat better than the batsmen!) I'm dying for England to win! In fact I want them to win the Ashes, not just one or two tests!!
on my iPod/iTunes: Don Shiva - Bollywood Lounge
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