Small boys, food, work and other joys
January 8, 2017 Leave a comment
Nachos, wine and battles againat demons make for a perfect afternoon and evening. This year we have played less D&D than since James and I met, what with being in Adelaide so long and most of our stuff being in storage. So a long session was ideal – though I definitely ate and drank too much by the end.
January 6, 2017 Leave a comment
Our day may have started looking like this, but by the evening we organised enough space to entertain in our house for the first time – appropriately enough D&D with the group that facilitated James and me meeting.
October 14, 2016 Leave a comment
Good to be back playing D&D, even with borrowed dice.
November 9, 2015 Leave a comment
Monday involved another view from a plane as I flew to Sydney to meet with a delegation from Korea.
After two hours of talking to the Koreans, they presented me this beautiful scroll – which says “strongly but smoothly” which is a perfect motto. They then told me it was worth about $1000 so any hopes of hanging it in our new house once built were dashed because I have to declare it and hand it over to the Department as an asset. But at least I can hang it in my office.
Tuesday morning was walking to school with Jude and Zac.
An interesting presentation on the workforce of the future and the impact of technology. There are some gaps that robots and software can’t fill – or it will remain economically sensible for humans continue to do those jobs for some time to come.
A slightly failed pavlova by Jude became Eton Mess with lemon curd, mango and blueberries.
Here I am early in the Senate Estimates day. Waiting in the waiting room.
Here I am, six hours later.
At least it gave me time to admire the Parliament House light fittings.
Sun beginning to set.
Off to training again. Three weeks in a row is probably a record for this year. Oh well, next year perhaps there won’t be so much travel and injury. I managed 22 laps in 5 minutes, which wasn’t entirely terrible given the year of injury and lack of training – but given Sebastian and Jude are both 27+ I think I need to lift my game.
Post derby beer with James is very pleasant. We do like our quiet beers together at Bentspoke.
Thursday night was my first cricket outing for the season – watching Jude’s first game. He batted well and did a solid wicket keeping job as his team won comprehensively so all good. And I got to chat to a friendly magpie.
Some more Arkham Horror – it was a horrible night of slaughter.
Friday night Happy Hour at work. Subho, our Deputy Secretary, was exceedingly pleased with himself for winning the AFL footy competition, while Peter from my branch took out the NRL competition. I did not participate as that would require me to pay attention to either AFL or NRL.
G&T with my Sinkonah tonic syrup. Yummy.
Sebastian received his black cthulhu in the mail – it was particularly evil.
Jude and Zac filled in some spare weekend with some old school game playing: fighting it out with Risk.
The boys were back at derby training on Saturday.
Sunday morning was Zac’s first cricket game for the season. I scored which required a fair bit of concentration – there are a lot of extras. And there is the weird multiplier etc. I managed to get myself sunburnt in the process also.
Finished off the week with a touch of D&D.
October 4, 2015 Leave a comment
My Monday morning walk-to-school companion. It takes about 20 minutes to walk to school and then it takes me about 20 minutes to walk to work, which makes a decent morning walk. And much more pleasant now the spring is here.
And the Turner Parklands were looking especially magical.
Long day in the office. This week was to be super stressful at work as suddenly all the incoming Minister briefs had to be updated and somehow coordinating the whole thing fell to me for skills.
It was raining a bit Tuesday morning, so umbrellas for everyone.
Some time out of the office to take Sebastian for his final mould for his braces to go on the following week. He’s been very stoic about it all.
On the couch, watching the tv.
A crazy busy day at work. my new unicorn shoes helped me to get through it. Sebastian had made fun of my shoes, and told me that he was “sure your friends in kindy will like them.” Teenage sass.
Quick escape from the office Thursday for Chinese National Day celebrations. Got to hear the speeches, say hello to the appropriate people, but didn’t have time to stay for lunch.
Thursday night with most of the incoming Minister briefs done and dusted it was off to Adelaide where I caught up with the folks and then had a senior officials meeting before heading home less than 24 hours later.
Here are the boys. Serious business time as we headed to Jude’s grand final. He had already played, and won, the semi final that morning.
It was a close game and ended in a tie. Hockey ACT declared Joint Premiers, though we think Jude’s team should have taken the honours because they were higher on the ladder. But Joint Premiers is better than no premiers!
The medal presentation was after the match.
Jude was pretty pleased with the results of his first year back in hockey!
When then had celebratory morning tea at LSR.
Meanwhile, the cthulhus were gathering. Who knows what plans for world domination they were hatching.
I got introduced to the household’s newest board game, Colt Express, which is rather fun, even if I appear to be somewhat hopeless at it.
Jude and I then headed off to the CRDL derby so Jude could participate in a half time juniors demonstration match. Sebastian would have played too, but his ankle was playing up and he had a grand final of his own the next day.
Then it was home to watch some tv with George.
Grand final number two for the weekend. Nick was there on godfather-equivalent duties to watch.
It was nailbitingly close for much of the game, but in the end Sebastian’s team took it out.
Again, the presentation followed on quickly.
And so both brothers came away Premiers!
After taking derby training for Carnage, it was back to end the week with some D&D.
August 16, 2015 Leave a comment
Another Monday, another walk to school with Jude.
On Tuesday it was both Jude and Zachary.
And still jolly cold.
Tuesday I flew up to Sydney for the farewell for the Skillaroos – our Australian team to compete at Worldskills. There are 26 of them competing across everything from hairdressing, restaurant service, IT and manufacturing. It was lovely to see Jessica Martin, a former silver medal winner at Worldskills – Jess has come to India with us to demonstrate her skills – as well as a bunch of other people from the sector. Fingers crossed that the team will do well – we have usually been in the top 10, but slipped to 13. In order to be selected, the competitors have to go through regional and national competitions, then spend a lot of time training outside their usual training to ensure their skills are honed. There was also a wonderfully entertaining speech from Paralympian Sam Bramham – I recommend hearing him if you ever get the chance.
Still wearing my brace when I could get away with non-standard work shoes, I went usually colourful. It is also a year since i was in Tasmania with Sebastian and bought this skirt.
In the continuing-cold theme, Sebastian found a chunk of ice when leaving the house.
Thursday was a meeting and lunch with the Chinese Embassy folk, so I thought I had better wear appropriate footwear. My ankle does seem to have gotten a bit more back to normal.
Walking home – at least the sunset is getting later now.
Zac spent some time constructing his birthday Bionicles.
D&D! Although we are still less regular than we used to be, we are managing to play still reasonably often.
Friday night Jude and Sebastian were off at a birthday party, so I met James and Zac for Grease Monkey burgers. Very good but not the amazingly amazing burgers I had been led to believe. Still would definitely do again – especially once they have the outdoor area licenced.
A surprise thank you bottle of wine in the mail from Hugh Hamilton was rather a bonus.
George does rather enjoy lolling on the couch. I think he was as appalled by the cricket as we were.
Saturday morning and Jude, Sebastian and I walked to Jude’s hockey. His team have been doing very well this year.
Then it was derby training time.
A big highlight for the week was the annual Black Sheep lunch at the Boathouse with lots and lots of Hugh Hamilton wines. It was a glorious day, the food was outstanding, the wine excellent and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
After a brief snooze on the couch, Jude, Zac and I caught a taxi over to the Indonesian Embassy for a shadow puppet show: Gugurnya Gathutkaca – The Fall of Gathutkaca. The boys have been studying shadow puppets at school, so when I got the invitation I figured it wa an excellent opportunity. The performance was quite entrancing and it is interesting that the tradition involves the same kind of slapstick fools to lighten up the mood as you see in a Shakespearean tragedy. Much fun.
August 9, 2015 Leave a comment
This has been a super cold winter in Canberra and frost has definitely been the norm rather than the exception. Another cold morning to begin the week.
Back in the office after a week overseas I was very excited to find (work) James had completely cleaned my desk. I don’t think it has looked like this since we moved in.
This semester (home) James has lectures until 5.30pm. We met on the way home for a sneaky beer together, coming home to find that the boys had done a good job preparing food ready for cooking dinner and Sebastian had made lemon pudding because he was bored with playing computer games. Very delicious lemon pudding. Having a small boy who loves to cook in the house is excellent.
Tuesday night I was back at derby for scrim. Towards the end I had an awkward fall, and for a short period of time was worried that I had done something quite serious to my ankle. After two hours in Casualty with James though, I realised the pain wasn’t that bad, I could walk on it and the swelling hadn’t got any worse, so we bailed and went home. As it turns out, it was sprained – a bit of ligament damage but nothing super serious. Very glad we didn’t stay at Casualty til 2am to discover that.
Hairdresser the next day. Learnt that Axis Hair, my regular hairdresser for a super long time, have just joined Sustainable Salons and now something like 95% of their waste, including hair, is recycled or reused. This is excellent news, particularly if you have as many foils in your hair as I do each year. Brilliant to see some entrepreneurialism, environmentalism and social conscience all working together. And my hair also got quite blonde.
What happens when automatic mail servers go wrong.
Sebastian was back cooking more later in the week. His new challenge for himself – icecream.
We got back to a bit of adventuring. Our (currently) Thursday night campaign stretches way back into the past – the beginning of the campaign started 9 years ago. We’ve had secondary characters for five years and our newest set of characters who interact in the same world have been around for a couple of years now. It does mean we are all quite fond of our characters nowadays – and there are lots of complex, layered campaign in-jokes.
While much of the weather has been frosty and clear, there has also been a fair bit of foggy and freezing too.
I love this particular decorating of the bin area on Lonsdale Street. Oscar would approve.
With a swollen ankle and compression bandage, I’ve been sticking mostly to wearing my converses or the like at work. Also I figured flat is better until the ankle heals a bit. Fortunately though, the sprain hasn’t really stopped me walking on it at all.
Friday night, impromptu dinner at Elk & Pea. Because we can.
Sebastian’s caramel icecream tasted good, even if he was unhappy with it because he had slightly burnt the caramel. it went quickly though.
Saturday morning was time for Jude’s hockey. Sebastian came along to watch and hang out with his hockey friends. Jude’s team have been having an excellent season and won another game.
Afternoon was time for some boys on skates.
Winter evening coming on with bird and moon. I do like the look of bare branches against the sky.
Time for a lovely wine with dinner.
The boys were off screens for a few hours. Jude decided to try making a zombie hand, which sadly didn’t work too well, but he had fun in the process.
My foot and ankle was looking well bruised by Sunday. Fortunately looked a lot worse than it felt.
An afternoon at home – why not make gnocchi? Delicious once fried in butter. Sebastian isn’t the only one who can do fun cooking things.
