weekends

Some weekends seem to drain away too quickly and before you know it you've rolled into Monday without so much as a shower and a plate of microwaved nachos.
If you're clever you can anticipate the impending Weekend Time Warp and actually structure the passing of the hours into a check list of yeses. The more yeses the greater the sense of accomplishment.
Some weekends present with this not-waiting-for-you attitude and yet you manage to pull the rabbit from the hat and actually achieve something.
These are the best weekend.

What did you get up to on the weekend?
I smashed The Weekend into a hundred delicious pieces.

Friday included a lovely chat with Jules from Le Bar about Islay and which distillery gives the best tour. A measure of a great bar, in my mind, is the presence of hooks under the bar. Thankfully Jules has a beautiful idea to bring his bar up to that level. We've heard more about the upcoming renovation and can't wait for her to open. Really.
Added to the beautiful garden in some way. Put the steel caps to use with some very necessary drilling support.
Bought enough coaxial cable/tacks to get the shitty digi box to work. Great, now we have TV back in our house. It's just as shit as it was before.
Wandered into a 'garage sale'; the woman was selling bilums from her time in PNG, back when it was only a place for anthropologists and cannibals.
Delivered glory to my stomach, thank you The Premises.

Pretty happy with that. And dinner hasn't even been constructed yet.
Yet to get to Sunday.

BAM
nom nom nom nom nom ...

Miss Saigon

I ingested the first act of the Miss Saigon musical soundtrack today in about 6 bursts. A day in the field taking water samples from a kayak is nothing without a themed musical accompaniment for those short driving sessions between sites. The entire musical was not only sung beautifully by the cast of the UK tour of 1995, but also by Penny, my field work colleague and Captain of Goodness. She's a bit like a life coach, really. I get to come on field work with her, she picks the music for the day, she drives the car as I soak in as much about the Western Suburbs as I can and she explains the history surrounding the aforementioned sonic delight in a manner which a historical nonce like me can deal with.
I now need to see Miss Saigon! After West Side Story I can't really name many other musical productions. To appease the suffering of my friend Niki, Yes, I will add Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to that list!

Gone To Work

Quick survey of the office:

Tom is looking for "the funniest thing I'll ever see" on the internet.
Pete is going to empty the compost bin.
Pod pets are dead.

It's all happening.

Draw polyline. Snap to node. Assign elevations at invert. Correct lengths.
After being stuck in the lobby for half an hour this morning, my work day has had a sluggish start. Someone on level 12 is a serial toast burner and I won't be surprised if we start being scanned for gluten on our way in to the building from now on. Fire alarms and disabled lifts aside, today I shall conquer Mordialloc Main Drain. Or at least digitise some Water Level Lines and SX points at the 2d/1d interface.

Burns Nicht

January 25th is Burns Night. A celebration well known through much of Europe but sadly it doesn't measure as a blip on the Australian calendar. Rabbie Burns is Scotland's darling poet and the 25th is his birthday (back in 1759). Maybe you know him from penning 'Auld Lang Syne'? He came from Ayrshire which is on the south west coast of Scotland. Given I was there in winter, I thought Ayr was quite a nice town. Apparently once you've lived there for a year you hate everything in Ayr and want to kick yourself for not getting out sooner. Shem shem. Burns Night is very big on mainland Scotland. I make this geographical distinction because Ben assures me it holds as much significance on Shetland as it does here in Melbourne.
Despite our indifference to the poet I felt it was a beautiful opportunity to celebrate something Scottish. It also turns out Jan 25th marks 1 year since Ben and I met at the Ro Ro on the morning before Up Helly Aa.
Ben invited a Scottish friend of a Scottish friend who's fae Perthshire du kens. He's been in Australia for a year and a half and had just got engaged on the Sunday! Plus my oldest bestie has finally come home east again after years of trawling the West with her fella living out of a car and having the wildest adventure. We were good friends in high school and used to get up to all kinds of shit. So it was a bit of a couples night at the Manningham Manor as we celebrated Burns' Night with the traditional Burns Supper. The formula for Burns Supper is thus:
* 1 x haggis
* neeps and tatties (swede and potato)
* whisky
...and of course the Toast To The Lassies, The Toast To The Laddies and the all important Address To A Haggis (which was recited by Calum by heart in his creamy Scottish accent.)

I stalked out the delivery of the last haggis to all of Melbourne at the DJs food court. It was epic. Rob's British Butcher in Dandenong is the King of Haggis. This was the most delicious haggis I've ever had- better than in Scotland!

We started with mussels because I first cooked (Shetland) mussels when I was in Scotland (fresh from the Partick Farmers' Market) and they're easy and cheap this time of year and delicious. Haggis, neeps and tatties was yummers. Ben went to the market and bought bones and made a gravy that was pure dead brilliant. We had a drop in visit from the supercouple Astrid and Cameroon so it was a very casual but very lovely dinner party. To heal my mum's anxious thoughts, yes, we did recite a wee bit of Burns poetry, token as it may have been!

Unfortunately the night did not conclude in burling with a ceilidh. Sadface. I've got that Boston Two-step nailed. There was no sign of tartan and there were certainly no bagpipes. But our fringe Burns celebration was both delicious and fun. So I think that's a win for everyone. Happy birthday Rabbie!

For the Foodies

I found something delicious and lovely.
Trotski and Ash.

Melburnian musings and recipies.
Boy it looks good.
I do hope my frineds Deb and Niki take a look.

I plan to attempt crumpets very soon. That's about as far down the list I got but my it looks like there are quite a few treasures hidden in there!
x

Yes please, Seb Brown.

The Darien Venture

The Darien Venture
Excellent band.
The Darien Scheme
Abysmal attempt at colonisation.

Listen to the top one, read the bottom one.