Gem & Llew

Beginning of the end of the blog

2009-12-21T04:22:00.002-05:00

Well, this will be the second last post. Llew will also do one soon. It has been a wonderful time in our lives to do this blog. Going to the States was great and I hope everyone enjoyed reading about it here. Then moving to Rockhampton was a big change and had its good parts and challenges. But now it is all over. Llew and I are separating.

We have had a wonderful marriage for the last 6 1/2 years and 2 years before that together, and for everything we had, everyone we met, and all the experiences we had together, I am so thankful. I am so sad that it is ending. It really is tearing me apart, but I know it is for the best. It was a mutual decision, we were holding each other back and both of us felt trapped in different ways.

Now we get to look forward to the future. New things, hopefully good things, and moving ahead. Honestly, at the moment, I'm not sure how I am going to do it, but as I keep getting told, one day at a time. I am so thankful for all of my friends and family for being so supportive and understanding. Please bear with me while I regain my headspace and go through this process.

End of an era, but really only good things to look back on. This blog helps to look back on very many of the good things. Time for new good things, and you never know, perhaps another blog? Probably not. That too, was good while it lasted. You can find me on facebook. That's the next thing.

Goodbye.

Gemma Mann.

Rockhampton Fires

2009-10-25T03:10:00.012-05:00

On Tuesday October 13 the fires at Nerimbera started to spread towards town. As part of the SES I helped clear a fire break up in a creak north of Nerimbera. However, it didn't stop the fires. On Friday October 16 the fires started to come over the hills. Saturday 17th, at 3:30am I got the call that we had to go and start doorknocking houses withe the SES to advice potential evactuation. I got to HQ and the first thing they said was that Forbes Ave was the priority. That changed by 6am when we started knocking to Hinds St at Lakes Creek. After that area, we then did Forbes Ave, Woodland Dve, Magnolia Crs, and Archerview Estate. It was really strange doorknocking my own house.

Meanwhile, Saturday morning, Dad took some photos from around our house and street.
The house in the foreground is 3 doors up from us.

From our backyard.

This is the bottom of our backyard. Remember that post with the flag on it.

The notice to "prepare for relocation if required" that I delivered to many houses including ours.

At about 5pm we decided to leave after it went from a "be prepared" to "advised to relocate if your path is clear". We left a sign on the front door, and took one last look as the flames came over the hill.

Our neighbours stayed and these photos are thanks to them. That's our house on the left. They have a vacant lot at the moment with just a shed.

They started backburning 3 doors down from us. They had more long grass etc up closer to their house than we did.

Then the backburn went along to our neighbour's lot.

Then from their lot looking over into the back of our yard.

Remember that post and flag? This is our backyard with fire right up to it.

The fire fighters used the neighbour's hose and our hose, just to wet down the grass. They were really worried about our short, dry grass that would completely burn to the house in a couple of seconds. They managed to keep it wet and keep the fire at bay, though.

In this photo you can see the backburn in the front and the main fire line in the back. This was what they were trying to meet.

Still going. Conversation in our yard as the fire moved one house up. The next house after that had trees and grass right up to their house, but it still didn't burn down.

Our yard.

Then Sunday morning, the main fire came to the end of the street. Four houses up from us was where it met the backbrun and the firies had to work really hard to stop it coming up to houses.

They even had the crop duster plane to water bombing right there as seen in this picture taken from our footpath.

Later that day, from down the valley you can just see our house in the middle. All of in front had been burned out.

Once again there is that post and flag. Now there is nothing behind it.

On Monday we returned home. Neighbour on the left and our yard. The entire hill out from this was burnt.

During Monday, it came down behind houses on the next ridge and kept the firies busy.

Monday night, up the hill there were so many spot fires where trees were still burning through, but they didn't flare up into anything big again. For the next week we have heard trees fall over the hill and down the valley. Dozens Monday to a few by the end of the week.

We are very glad it is all over. When we left and took our bare minimum posetions and Peanuts and went down to Yeppoon, we were not sure that we'd come back to a house. Good warning for everyone. In the end, the fire burnt 11,500 hectares and threatened hundreds of homes. Out of it all, only one was lost. Big congratulations and thanks to all the fire fighters, both urban and rural, both local and from afar.

More photos can be found at:
http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/photos/galleries/fire-mt-archer/

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/photos/galleries/rockhampton-bushfire/

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/photos/galleries/fire-threatens-forbes-avenue/

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/photos/galleries/aerial-photos-rockhampton-fires-chris-ison-rocky/

http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/photos/galleries/readers-view-rockhampton-fires/

Pizza Oven - Finally

2009-04-27T05:24:00.011-05:00

After digging out the hole a while ago, it was finally time for the first working bee. I'll let the photos tell the story of the laying of the slab...

The slab was laid and then sat there for a few months. It was "drying out". Next working bee was the brick laying. Thanks to the 'bring-a-brick" party, we were well supplied. Fons was the expert mortar man so we were well on track too.

Above the blocks was a layer of gravel and sand, then fire bricks. Llew and Luisa laid them with mortar round the edge. Then for the final working bee. The sand mold and the clay. Time to get dirty!

Use for old weber parts too!

With the oven taken care of, and only a week to the party, a set of steps needed to be built too, so Fons and I took care of that.

Sand bags for stopping the downhill crash!

Next load.

Steps coming together too.

Last layer done.

Some smoothing out and cleaning up and just as dark fell too.

The steps weren't done for another few days. So many screws!!!! AAAAAhhhhhh!

Friday night everyone was invited. Fired up the oven at 4pm and the first trial pizza (just a base) went in about 7pm. This is the last bit.

Then rolling out and topping the first real pizza.

Waiting patiently.

Watching... waiting...

Preparing...

Of course a few drinks helped.

Finally cookng that pizza.

YUMMMMMM!!!!!

It all worked so amazingly well. It was fantastic. About 30 pizzas in all, including 2 dessert pizzas with apple and caramel sauce. A wonderful time had by all and all were stuffed completely. Plan to have a pizza party once a month.

Easter

2009-04-20T03:03:00.007-05:00

For Easter we went to the Sunshine Coast. Now there is a saying: "Don't go to the Gold Coast and expect Gold, don't go to the Sunshine Coast and expect sun".
Too true. It was quite rainy and overcase. Only one little swim in the freezing pool and one little fish off the pier.
We drove down on Wendesday afternoon arriving at 7:30pm long after Pat and Ralph. The next morning we walked along Duporth Avenue and found a coffee shop for bacon and egg breakfast.

We then went to Sunshine Plaza and shopped all day. Llew joined the revolution and bough an iPhone. Just some trouble having Vodafone release the number - Goodbye Vodafone! That night we went to the Boatshed for dinner on the water front. Food was OK, but service was very poor. Wouldn't go again.

Friday was swimming and fishing.

Saturday we went to the plaza again - yes more shopping :) then had prawns and smoked salmon for lunch.

Saturday night we went to the Wyne Bar. Really good food, great souffle - the specialty. The service was better than the Boatshed, but still not good.

Yay Easter Sunday. The rest went out to the market at Cotton Tree and I waited for the Easter Bunny who came and left a couple of hundred eggs around the place. Such fun! Luisa really liked her massive kinder surprise.

The toy in the middle was big too.

The ordinary kinder surprise had something in it that we had actually heard about on the radio. A woman was asked by her son how the little green fuzzy rabit could have 5 legs. Look for yourself.

If you don't get it, the thing on the table on the right of the photo is actually an ear! Really.

The view from the apartment was over the Maroochy River out to sea. Fabulous except for the weather.

The pool, apart from being freezing, was usually filled with screaming kids and that echoed up the balconies and disturbed the peace.

Sunday lunch Mum and Dad drove up and had the day with us. We relaxed and drank a lot, ate wonderful chickens, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, and of course chocolate :) While most of us relaxed, you can guess where Llew was!

On Monday we drove home in lots and lots of rain. Most of the way to Gin Gin it bucketed. After Miriam Vale it was pretty dry. Overall a relaxing weekend and great to catch up with both families.

New Year's Eve

2009-01-03T23:16:00.007-05:00

New Year's Eve with Marianne and Luke, we wanted to push the envelope a little. We decided to do an Iron Chef! Luke, Luisa and I picked the ingredients and judged and then Llew and Marianne cooked together. Not a competition, just a challenge. So the ingredients were decided Tuesday night - Macadamia nuts and lychees. Wednesday saw shopping then chopping!

Start with the stock.

Pork and lychees - ready to be made into something marvelous.

Duck and lychees - ready to sizzle.

Ground macadamia nuts - adding crunch.

Hmmm, cake, brandy, lychees, jelly...?

If you can't stand the heat in the kitchen... add a fan to the airconditioning! It was still 30C (86F) despite the extra measures, but it was worth it.

Meanwhile, the judges kept their cards close to their chests.

Champagne - well, it is New Year's Eve.

Cracker of a time.

Ready, steady,

GO!

First off was a lychee puree champagne - great.

Combined with macadamia cream and pomegranite glaze on crackers. Wonderful.

Pork and lychees was nice, but can't beat the lychee glazed sweet potato chips!

Eating the pork.

Duck breasts with macadamia fennel dust and a lychee chutney. Went well together.

Duck leg with lychee sauce and honey macadamia nuts - all specially presented.

Lastly, lychee and macadamia nut trifle.

Absolutely delicious!

All up, a great meal and they scored really well. Some new flavours introduced to our lives and some great things to remember. Best of all, it managed to keep us awake until well after 11pm! So we only had a short while to digest before the fireworks on TV, party poppers here and wishing everyone well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

2008-12-29T00:26:00.004-05:00

Later Christmas day...

Not safe for gingerbread men,

And Santa seems to have missed the gingerbread house.

About 2pm we went to friends' place for drinks, food and cricket! It was Luisa's first time playing cricket. She got the hang of bowling really quickly.

Get him out!

And she was a natural with the bat.

Time for serious stuff - shoes off.

Then as all good Aussie backyard cricketers, a hard earned coldie.

A bit later and it was time for dinner.

First up - prawns.

Then baked ham - huge.

And turkey.

Then grandma's plum pudding and custard. It is flaming - just can't see it.

Boxing day saw "My Bar" sign go up.

The 28th saw a lot of wood chopping in the kitchen and the installation of the new induction stove by Luke. Llew had to cook on it straight away.

After it all, Peanuts was exhausted. Just let me sleep! But who wasn't like that?

Christmas

2008-12-24T20:22:00.009-05:00

'Twas the night before Christmas

and all through the house

were smells of Llew's cooking

and gingerbread house.

We cracked all the crackers

and put on our hats

everyone got one

including the cat!

We had beer

we had wine

and cheesey fondue

Oh how devine!

It was just like in Germany,

except the weather was hot

but we ate all the fondue

snowing or not.

The last advent day

Peanuts wants paper!

One present each

to start off the caper.

Outside for a drink

Watched the sun set
A few phone calls home

And one stuck inside pet.

Next round of food

Was fondue hot pot

With beef, lamb and veges

tradition or not.

A family portrait

with all of our crowns

And then it was time

For the next round!

Chocolate fondue

with lots of cream

fruit and marshmallow

Oh what a dream!

Finally Christmas

and morning appeard

But we had to eat first

Pancakes! we cheered.

With sprinkles or chocolate

or maple syrup

However we had it

we gobbled it up.

Finally time

To open the gifts.

Santa delivered

and into we ripped.

Santa was generous

with big ones and small

We had so much fun

opening them all.

There may not be much snow

and it may not be white

But Merry Christmas to all

whatever your plight.

Pre Christmas

2008-12-24T20:05:00.002-05:00

Luisa baked lots of Christmas cookies.

We wanted a real tree - but this is Rockhampton! We bought a small tree for next year, but it has to mature. So meantime... A plastic one!

Spreading out the branches.

Done. Family and friends.

The war of the Cristmas cake. One is Llew's, the other Pat's, but I'm not telling which is which :)

My gingerbread house.

Luisa's gingerbread house.

I made an advent calendar and Luisa has been opening one every day.

Thanksgiving

2008-12-17T02:19:00.004-05:00

We had to have traditional thanksgiving with all the American bits. Turkey - slow cooked. Had to order it especially from the butcher.

Stuffing, candies yams (sweet potato and maple syrup), green bean casserole (from scratch, not cans), homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potato and corn bread. Yummy.

Had the engineering team over with their families. Good company.

Of course lots of champagne - even though it was Thursday night and we had to work on Friday!

Perfection!

Cheers to Thanksgiving past and present!

Carving...

Eating...

And all wrapped up by 8:30. A very successful night! Thanks to all!

Some views

2008-11-09T05:35:00.005-05:00

Been very busy with work. Now Llew has finally finished teaching and marking, but now is full ball on the conference in 4 weeks from today. I have been doing a lot during the week and then just want to do nothing on the weekend. I especially don't really feel like spending any more time on the computer. Hence the lack of blogging in the last 2 months. Not a lot has happened. We are enjoying the new house. Had a house warming party. Had friends over for dinner. It is getting hot. 35 or 36 C the last two weeks. Still cools down remarkably in the evening and we get a nice breeze up on the hill here. The hot weather has made for plenty of bushfires though. Below are some views from various times.

Couple of weeks ago, fine, warm, cockatoos, cat...

Nice sunset with only a little haze and smoke.

More of that...

Then some more smoke came. Really red, but hard to breathe!

Started getting so bad that we couldn't see the city.

No more red sunset - not really any sunset at all.

The only hope was rain, but clouds come and go, no rain.

In the end, there was a total fire ban and it was really choking. This was about the worst on Saturday evening after more smoke blew in and settled in the valley.

Earlier, the kangaroos in the backyard didn't seem to mind.

Then Saturday night - hallelujah! Lots of down-pouring rain from about 11pm! Tonight was a much better sunset! Hope it doesn't get smokey again this week.

Photos of the move and the new house.

2008-09-12T19:57:00.009-05:00

Starting to move things...

Boxes, all piling up.

Ah, the help was great.

Sheesh, so many boxes!

We can fit them all in, just need a little engineering!

Yep, and the bed will fit too.

2 truck loads and 7 car loads, it was time to unload. Easier said than done!

By about 2pm it was time for a beer.

First meal in the new house. Thai take away and champagne! Of course all we had at that point was a picnic table...

View. Need I say more?

The back yard. Slopus Maximus.

The patio will eventually need a roof as it has already rained and was annoying.

Lots of wildlife!

First meal cooked. It was pasta.

This table is actually small than we wanted - they delivered the wrong one! 6 weeks wait for the replacement, so they have left this one with us for the while.

On the hill, in the middle, at the top. Yep, that's it!

The garage needs some work, but at least we can fit the car in.

The bar has prime position next to the kitchen. It is fabulous!

Pool table is also in a good location in the main living room.

A few bits here and there to make it right.

and ta-da. All ready to live in!

Stupid internet!

2008-09-01T18:51:00.005-05:00

It is really hard to live-blog when the internet drops out!

We went to collect the moving truck and when we came back, the internet had dropped as per many a Saturday morning/midday/afternoon when there are too many users for the poor country (huge, nation-wide, half of duopoly) to handle. Then, of course, they could not move the internet to the new place until Wednesday despite being contacted last Thursday.

So the move, in hindsight, went like this:

10am - picked up budget rental truck. Llew drove it to old house. I drove to new house with already packed car-load and meet Dad there after off-loading his car.

11:15 - Truck load and Llew and helper Adam arrive at new house. I leave new house back to old house.

12:00 - take third car-load to new house. Boys go back to old house.

12:15 - sit and look at the view for 5 minutes. Wow. Back to old house.

2pm - Dad has been back for 4th car-load and is back at old house. Both cars loaded, plus Adam's car and the truck. We have almost everything, and all we need for today. 3 cars, 1 truck, 6 people, 1 cat, and off we go.

2:30 - I waited at McDonalds drive-through for 15 minutes while they do this new thing that they are so proud of which is to only make the burgers when you order them. Yes, wanting 6 burgers and 6 fries is obviously too much for drive-through! (Sorry Alice, we succumbed to what we thought was fast food).

3pm- We are all sitting on the patio looking at the veiw, eating McDs and drinking beer. Job well done.

Live-blogging the move (as per Normal)

2008-08-29T17:03:00.006-05:00

8am - Llew unplugs the TV, stereo and Xbox.

8:02 - Llew complains about how heavy the kitchen cabinet is. That's called good quality!

8:23 - Peanuts is not happy as the beds are cleared.

8:51 - Llew starts sneezing from dust.

8:52 - Many boxes moving downstairs.

9am - With cheering from Alice we pause to look around... Still so much stuff!!!!!

9:30 - HOT. Pepsi. Cars getting loaded. Waiting to get truck.

The start of the move

2008-08-29T16:51:00.004-05:00

T'was the night before the move,
and all through the house,
none could get past boxes,
not even a mouse.

In the half packed state,
there was nothing to do,
except to watch TV
while the pile of boxes grew.

Be bathroom was being used
for one last time.

The bedrooms were tidy,
(Well except mine).

We still had to eat
so there was still stuff around
we needed a few chairs
or sit on the ground!

Peanuts was disturbed.
Something was on a roll

and the cat from next door

was poised to take control.

2 month snapshot

2008-08-22T18:15:00.006-05:00

The last 2 months have been busy, as usual. Here are some of the major things we did.
Marianne and Luke came to visit. Played pool and ate.

Luisa from Germany arrived for her 12 month exchange. She is feeling colder than we are!

We took her to Michael's for lunch and to see the beach.

We went to Brisbane. Went up to Mt Coot-tha.

Llew graduated from his PhD.

I had a birthday.

Nice holiday at the beach in Scarborough.

Luisa made a version of schwartzwalder kirschtorte. Sorry Robin, it wouldn't post!

Llew made a fabulous rendition of Persian food. Well, he did have the best teachers. It was almost identical!

I had my PhD accepted and Mum and Dad sent flowers and a letter to Dr G E Mann.

So, that's your bloomin lot!

We have bought a house!

2008-07-11T04:43:00.004-05:00

We didn't want to jinx anything so we have waited until we got guaranteed finance and the inspection passed to blog about it. So here it is! It is in North Rockhampton in the suburb of Frenchville and it has to be one of the most prestigeous addresses at Forbes Avenue. We didn't pay anything like a prestigeous price for it - real bargain!

There is a lot of bush around and we have a huge backyard. The only thing, that is not shown on the picture, is that it is up a HUGE hill. The backyard goes Dooowwwwnnnn. It is really high! We had looked at the houses on the next 'hill' just south of the house and then went up to Forbes and it was amazing how low the others looked.

These are the pics from the realestate website so still have the sellers' furniture in it, but it gives you a good idea. This is the front. The driveway is a bit steep on the left, but that side of the garage is going to be my workshop anyway :) That's why we needed a double lock up garage! The door on the right is a double entrance door.

This is the side. The neighbours are going to build up to the left, but it will take away hardly any view. You can see how steep the back yard is on the right and it just keeps going like that!

And then the view! Well, some of it anyway. It goes around to the left up the valley. Gorgeous!

And a great patio to admire it from. One day we will probably put an insulated roof on so we can enjoy it all weather as at the moment it might be too hot in summer and if it rains...
The window and door on the right hand end are the master bedroom. The second window is the second bedroom and the main door leads into the dining room.

Here are the lounge and dining rooms as taken from the side of the kitchen. The entrance is basically beside the TV to the right (out of view), behind the wall on the right is the study, and further to the right is the door to the garage. On the left is out to the patio and behind is the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom.

The kitchen may look a little small, but it feels bigger when standing in it. There is always room to expand. The door at the back is the walk in pantry, and out to the right is open to the other part of the dining room, or breakfast alcove, if you wish. It is not gas as Llew wanted, but he thinks he will put in an induction stove since Marianne can't stop raving about how wonderful they are!

The main bathroom with bath and shower. All to Luisa and guests as we have an ensuite!

Yep, this is the master bedroom (our room) with the ensuite on the right and the walk-in-robe on the left. The door to the hall is beside that. Behind is the door and window to the patio. On the far right are two windows looking down the backyard.

The second bedroom. These two rooms are oriented such that the walls the two beds are against are back to back. So the window in the second bedroom looks out to the patio too.

There is a third bedroom which is a decent size too, enough for a double and with built in wardrobes, that will be for Luisa.

Overall, we think it is wonderful and really couldn't go past it. It was just what we wanted and had fabulous views and a great price to boot! More photos after we move in.

Lack of posts

2008-07-08T03:04:00.002-05:00

Yeh, yeh, been slack. Been busy to tell the truth.
Many things have changed since previous posts. I am not going to be working in Gladstone for one thing. On Friday June 13 I put in a written job application. On Friday June 20 I had an interview. On Thursday June 26 I was told I had the job. On Friday June 27 I completed the forms. On Monday June 30 I started work!

It was an incredibly fast process but they needed someone to take over at least a week before the previous person left. That was last week. This week I am more in self-propulsion.

So, what am I doing?
I am the First Year Experience Coordinator at the Student Support Centre for the whole of the 6 CQUniversity campuses plus distance students. BIIIIIGGG! Important :p

Yeh, what does that mean?
I organise the orientations and make sure they are run consistenly across all 6 campuses (and a few other places for distance students). That involves coordinating faculty, administration and everything to do with the week long event in Feb and 3 day event in July. This past weekend was the mid-year orientation which was already organised, but I helped run it and had a learning experience.

Next part is the student mentoring program where we get 2nd year or above students and allocate them to all of the first year students at all campuses and distance. Big job, especially when I really don't know what is going on.

Third part is much smaller and is one of the scholarship programs.

The great thing is that I can work towards improving all of these things so that the students in the future have as best experience as possible. Actually that's the biggest part and I get to call in all my research skills and find out what others think too. Not to mention data analysis of surveys and focus groups.

Along with that, I have made contact with my Physics students and started to answer their preliminary course questions. That's so much fun.

So more later. But if you want a blog with interesting photos of an amazing European adventure, see the Normals blog!

Cabinet

2008-06-30T17:02:00.002-05:00

A few posts ago you would have seen the skeleton of the kitchen cabinet. Well, here it is (almost) finished. I still have to make a drawer to go in the bottom, but at least it is useful now for what Llew wanted it for.

These were the important part. They are for all of his cutting boards and trays.

We also could put the microwave in it and have room to store more things on top.

What have we been up to?

2008-06-21T02:11:00.004-05:00

Started the week not doing much. Just a little on the kitchen cabinet.

Wednesday we had a little trip to Gladstone to the CQU campus there. I had a meeting with the guy I will be doing some Materials research with in the coming months. It all went well and I saw all of the labs there. Llew came with me and talked to a few people there about a course they lecture and robots. We had some lunch and then drove back. It is about an hour and a half drive each way (110km).

One thing Gladstone is famous for is the aluminium plant. Guess where it is? Hint: It processes bauxite.

It is also one of the largest coal ports in Australia. Right near the CQU campus and the lovely marina.

Thursday I went in to work with Llew and talked to the coordinator for the Physics course I'll be helping teach. It is Engineering Physics and involves thermodynamics and waves. I got the study guides and have started going through them. I actually have an easy job because I am looking after the flexible learning students. That means I have to be available to answer questions and help them with their online work. I don't have to lecture, even though I am a lecturer. Then I'll have marking to do for those students too. Don't worry, there probably won't be more than 30 students!

Friday I had a job interview for a first year coordinator position for the student support centre. I thought it sounded research focussed in the description, but it turns out to be very admin focussed. I don't think I'll get the job, as I have not had much experience with it, but even if I do, I'm considering putting my PhD qualifications to a more appropriate use. At least now I have had some interview experience.

Today we started sorting out the boxes stored down stairs. We really wanted to find a few things, some we did and some we didn't. We have now made a new list of the contents and put a few more bits permanently into plastic tubs for unlimited storage with easy access. Bit more to do on that tomorrow, then I'll get back to this cabinet! Llew keeps telling me he needs to put the cutting boards and baking trays away!

So, there, no more asking what have we been doing. Now you know.

More woodwork, and...

2008-06-14T06:33:00.005-05:00

I finished the desk! And it is in its final resting place. I am very pleased with the colour and finish and I sat at it and it feels good.

My next project: a kitchen cabinet for Llew. There will be a drawer in the bottom, vertical slots in the second shelf, the microwave on the third shelf and storage on top. The front of each will have moulding and it will all be stained the same colour as the desk.

Now on to Llew's endeavours. Apart from working, he has, of course, been cooking. Fabulous hamburgers.

The best Thai green curry ever. Of course I did not have the coriander and chili on top, but it was delicious with toasted coconut.

Peanuts thinks it's all not worth it.

Long weekend

2008-06-09T03:04:00.006-05:00

This weekend was a long weekend with Monday being a holiday. Llew's parents were coming up so we tidied up. During that job, we decided to rearrange the lounge so that all couches can see the TV properly. Thus we moved a bookshelf and bits and pieces. Looks better now.

Also cleaned up the kitchen. Yes, we had a hole for the fridge and no, the fridge does not fit in it by about an inch on top! Oh well. It's OK where it is and it's only for a little while.

Once the parents arrived, we had to think about food. Saturday night we thought simple and went to the restaurant attached to the Travelodge called Riverside Restaurant. Don't go there. Just don't. Very slow for food to come out. All the food was overcooked (despite being asked for medium lamb). The fish of the day had no flavour and all the salads were predominantly onion. The meals were expensive and no way worth it. Sunday lunch we had booked into Michael's at Yeppoon. It had been recommended to Pat. I will extend that recommendation to everyone too. Despite the 25 minute drive, it is WELL worth it. It was cold, overcast and windy, but still great to sit out on the balcony. It looks straight onto the beach and ocean. The menu is quite varied with a great selection of all three courses. At the moment they offer 2 courses for $45 or 3 courses for $55. We thought that at that kind of restaurant at that price, the courses would be small. No. They were a good size. The entrees were decent, a lot of people could eat that as a main. The mains were quite large and I had trouble making a dent. Llew helped me out after finishing his, so I think his was not too big for him. Then Llew and I shared a dessert sampler. We were asked what was best and which we would have next time. We both think the sampler was the best! A bit of everything. YUM. Even with a few beers and 2 bottles of wine, it was very reasonable. So, come and visit us, and go there!

So we drove home via Emu Park and looked around the area. Emu Park is nicer than Yeppoon and we think would be a nicer place to live. We played pool and drank beer all afternoon then had a simple BBQ for dinner. Now, this is, of course, Llew's version of a simple BBQ. Saturday night when we came home from the bad dinner (we were early home even after all the waiting, because we didn't have dessert), Llew ground up some annato seeds and other spices, then blended that with garlic and onion and then we marinated chicken thighs overnight. The BBQ was in the weber, with real hardwood charcoal. Nothing fake or chemically flavoured. At first it was a bit smokey...

But really no problem as the chimney works a treat.

It doesn't take anywhere near as long as brickettes either, but still enough time for a drink.

Getting some flames now.

Lots of flame and time to turn it out. Not as bad as it looks as it was a long photo, but still a good result from the chimney.

Now let them die down a bit.

We were joined by Peanuts who really just wanted to rub on everything. He is such a scaredy cat that every time a car went past he ran inside. Sheesh.

Now time for the chicken...

and mushrooms before they were put in the same marinade.

On the BBQ with it all. On with the lid and a few minutes later...

On the plate! With a quickly whipped up salad with mustard dressing.

Aaawww, Mum, Dad and son.

We really enjoyed the weekend. A lot of jobs got done, a lot of fun, a lot of food, showed them the area and really filled up the time. A good time had by all.

Ok, ok, we are still alive!

2008-06-04T21:31:00.006-05:00

Yes, we are still alive. We have been both busy, and not doing anything much. Well, not much that can be blogged about, just work for Llew and humming around for me.

First thing to talk about are a few things Llew has been cooking. A fabulous, thick pumpkin soup with bacon and croutons. The other night, Llew used the leftover as about half of the bechemel sauce in a lasagne. It made the bechemel really creamy without being rich or fatty from cheese. Just a good idea for a vegan lasagne, just use the pumkin soup. Of course then you would need water pasta, not egg pasta and a vegetable stew instead of meat sauce, but it would have the right texture contrasts and different flavours (it's all about the flavour).

Dessert was a chocolate, malted, flake shake like Wendy's.

Another meal was beef cheek. This is the piece of beef cheek marinated for ages in various flavours and then slow cooked for a few hours then chilled in its sauce. Then it is taken out (this photo) and sliced thickly and laid in an oven dish, covered with the sauce and warmed up again. Llew said it was great.

A few roast veges that went interesting. The onion leaked and popped its middle out of its end, the garlic turned to melted, foamy marshmallow type goo, and the tomato obviously expanded too big for its skin!

OK, off the topic of food. The other member of the family at the moment is very lazy, and when he is awake, likes to play. PLAY!

Get the camera...! Get it!

He just sits and takes it, though!

Next topic - pool table. This table was given to us from Llew's Dad from Grandad. It needed new felt, bumpers and pockets and here it is with new balls. It is only a small, so the balls are 3/4 size. Still very hard to get in the small pockets.

Ready for the first hit...

Yay!

So, I lie when I say I just hum around all day. Some of the time I spend down in the workshop. This is only one of my assortment of toys. I plan on making a few furniture items.

The first is this desk which is screwed together now, and just needs to be stained and varnished and the hinges put on.

Old school desk style with flip up lid.

I'll put more pics once it is complete. I'll also take some of the next few bits that will be made.

So, now you are up to date. I don't want to hear anything about infrequent blogging. It will come when there is something to talk about :)

Lately

2008-05-24T05:05:00.002-05:00

So, what have we been up to lately?

Grocery shopping, vacuuming, mopping, cooking, washing up, feeding the cat, cleaning up after the cat, being kept awake at night by the cat...

All very domestic!

Llew has been working, working, working. I have been doing odd jobs around the place. I really don't know where the time goes in the day. It's not like I've been sleeping in either. I get up when Llew does. Just have breakfast, check email, clean something or do the washing up and suddenly it is lunch time. Then I get into something serious before Llew comes home. Then he cooks dinner and I sit there. It is great to have a table in the kitchen and it is great to be able to see the TV from said table.

I posted off the CD with my revised thesis on it last Wednesday and it has gone to the printery which is the official submission. Therefore I don't have that to dwell over anymore. I won't say that I don't have it to worry about, I am still worrying. Iwill until I get that piece of paper. Speaking of pieces of paper, Llew got his over a year ago, but will finally be able to walk in a ceremony in July. Yay! He gets the floppy hat and all. Special. Wouldn't it be nice to walk together?! That is wishful thinking. How slow is that university? Extremely. Need I say more?

So, on that note, I shall say goodnight and hope you are all watching the Eurovision final.

More Rocky updates

2008-05-18T21:14:00.004-05:00

We are settling in quite well now. Everything seems to have its place. Here are some snippits from our lives over the last week and a bit.

The desktop computer decided to give up the ghost, so Llew is now on the old laptop.

Homemade chili sauce! Yes, thank you very much Marianne for the hot hot habeneros.

Llew needed somewhere to store all his spices. The magnetic pots were simple to find a solution for. This bracing is extremely cheap from the hardware store, works a treat, and is easily changed and moved. It also as room for more (don't tell Llew).

The local wildlife is great and on our front veranda. Peanuts hasn't seemed to have found them yet.

Last weekend was mother's day and since Mum and I drove up on the Saturday, we had a mother's day dinner that night. Llew cooked of course.

Grilled vegetable terrine.

Chicken wings (not hot, sorry), loaded fries, and mini fried quesadillas.

Homemade cajeta and shortbread biscuits.

Peanuts was not nearly as impressed as we were, but stayed next to us anyway.

Peanuts would rather just sleep or play (or try both at the same time).

This weekend was lovely and fine (again) but Sunday was very cool, so we decided to spend some time in the sun. The orange and lemon trees weren't looking too healthy, so we picked most of the fruit (some a little green but they are only destined to drop otherwise) and gave each a good pruning. Hopefully the fruit that is left will now ripen instead of the things wasting all their energy on all of the long gangly branches.

An arty orange.

Our haul. The oranges are actually quite sweet and apart from a few juiced for food, they are pretty much all destined for marmelade. Sorry folks, can't send you any. You'll all just have to come and visit and try some.

Today I went with Llew into work and finished off the draft of my thesis. Carlos is having one last read and will let me know if I can submit tomorrow. Sigh.

New House!!!

2008-05-08T18:25:00.000-05:00

Finally, I can say that we have moved into our new rented house in Rockhampton. Llew started work there on April 7. He was in a motel for three weeks while Rockhampton time real estate agents got around to processing the application and contacting the owner......

So for those overseas, here is a mud map of where Rocky is.

And for everyone, here is our place, and CQU where Llew works and I will hopefully work soon.

Here is our house. Mum and Dad drove myself and Peanuts up last weekend and we unpacked all of the boxes and sorted out all of the furniture. Yes, the three bedroom house is now full! We have a nice corner block across the street from a nice park and the Fitzroy river.

It has a huge open kitchen/dining room/lounge room.

Llew is happy with the size of the kitchen, and the ability to have a full table in the middle (and he can see the TV from the kitchen). The only strange thing is the sink is all the way over on the left, so a long way from the stove.

Looking from the side of the kitchen into the hall where the back door is on the left and then into our bedroom. It is a good size and windows on two sides so is nice.

From the edge of the kitchen you can just see the front door on the right and then the huge lounge with which we have combined the study.

This is the left side of the lounge. The large bookcase's bottom 3 shelves are all Llew's cookbooks. Now he can sit there and read them all!

The bathroom is really large too, and looks out ove the backyard.

The third bedroom is where our new exchange student (girl from Germany) will stay. Sorry, no pics of the second bedroom with the double bed. Yes, plenty of room for all of you who want to come and visit. We want ALL our friends to come and visit!!!!! Come on!!!!!

Peanuts sure feels at home after hiding for a couple of days. Now he is king of the castly again.

As I said, we are across from the river. Lovely! Gorgeous! So many birds too.

This is a zoomed in view out from our front veranda. Fabulous to sit out there of the afternoon once the morning sun has moved off to behind the house. Have a beer, run or wine (whatever your favour) and watch the world go by.

Zoomed back view. The city centre is off to the left about 6 blocks, so there is a bit of traffic. Not too noisy and makes for good entertainment.

So, we are extremely happy there. Doesn't quite feel like home yet - feels too much like we are on holiday. I guess we should enjoy that while it lasts! We are, however, going to be on the lookout for a place to buy. Hopefully in the next 6 months. We'll see.

Singapore - finally

2008-04-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

As you know, we arrived in Singapore Friday evening on March 28 and there was no luggage. We had a few bits in our carry on so went straight to the hotel. The subway system is really great and it was actualy good not having huge bags to lug around. Singapore, however, was incredibly hot and humid. I don't think the heat would have been nearly as bad if it wasn't 95% humidity! We decided that night just to eat at the hotel which meant no walking in the heat, but the food there was not good at all. Oh well.

Next day we hit the shops first thing. Lucky for us, the hotel was two blocks from a huge shopping centre. Also, we are not in a very touristy part and there were really only locals in the shops. Clothes shopping, however, was depressing as there is rather a size difference between us and Singaporeans! Found a few things to make life more comfortable including sandals, shorts and t-shirts. We changed and then went out for a real look around. Just behind the hotel was Arab St so we hit there first and saw the mosque. All the shops were Malaysian influenced.
We found the heritage museum and learnt all about the settlement of Singapore by the 4 main groups - Malaysia, China, India and Britain, along with the Dutch and Portugese interests. Well worth a visit there as it is very interesting (and it is cheap and air-conditioned). It was interesting after seeing the Dutch point of view of their sea explorations in Amsterdam.

We walked from there across to Little India, which was incredible with its markets and food. We found one of the local food courts and I had duck and noodles (huge portion) for $3 and Llew had chicken and rice (even bigger portion) for $2.50. We also had the cheapest beers in Singapore for $6.50 each but for 700mL bottles. Beer was expensive there with a usual small bottle of beer being $7-8. Oh well, the food was so cheap and the weather so hot, we didn't worry about it! We found a more western place for dinner that was also quite good and cheap.

Sunday we went for a walk towards the colonial centre of Singapore and lo and behold passed Raffles Hotel - with a Lamborghini just pulling up in front. Hmmmm.

Continuing on, we passed the Singapore Cricket Club - very good ol' chap, marvelous! Right in the middle of very built up Singapore! Actually, Singapore was not as built up as we thought it would be and every street had trees and grass and plenty of plants and flowers. The buildings were not that big, with plenty of space and parks between.
Down to the river and the landing point of Raffles himself.

The financial district is the only really built up part - like in any city, but the river is nice and the area we were in was a lot like Southbank in Brisbane with its parks and museums and bike-ways.

Just beside the financial district was Chinatown and of course Chinese food.

There was not a lot to buy, because we can get nearly everything exactly the same in Australia, but it was still fun to see. We then headed over to Orchard Road, the most exclusive shopping district in Singapore, but, of course we could not buy any Gucci or Prada etc. First we found wonderful Thai food in another food court (bit more upmarket though). Secondly we found a nice outdoor cafe next to some music demo thing from HMV and had many beers and buffalo wings! It was pleasant outside under the trees with music and breeze. Almost forgot how hot it was! A few hour later we found our way back to the hotel.

The last day we decided to take the train out to the Japanese and Chinese gardens. The Chinese garden was first and was great. Nothing, however, was open in the way of food or drinks and it was bloody hot. Would have been fabulous if the cafe was open to sit by the water.

The Chinese garden did contain a massive collection of extremely old bonsai trees. Really amazing.

By the time we got across to the Japanese garden, we were exhausted and hot, thirsty and hungry so headed back to the shopping centre near the hotel - mostly because it was fully covered and air-conditioned. It was called Bugis Junction and used to be a seedy area of town. So they did up all the building, put a glass roof over and turned it into a shopping mall! Really good, but interesting because it is like being on indoor streets and going in and out of buildings. We found more Thai food there. One other breakfast we were there and had pancake things, I had banana, Llew had spicy meat.

So that was Singapore in history, food and walking in the heat. I'd recommend it, but not for shopping. Most things are cheaper in suburban stores in Brisbane. Go for the culture and the history and if you are game, the food.

Chicken Pox

2008-04-15T04:39:00.002-05:00

That's right. Llew got spots yesterday afternoon and I got spots last night. Yes, we are 600km apart, but it takes at least 14 days from infection to spots appearing, 14-16 is usual. Yes, that puts us in Singapore. That would be the Monday. We did, however, arrive on Friday in a plane from London with many children. That is likely. Hmmmm. So, we were feeling horrid over the weekend, both with fevers, light headedness, fatigue and pain behind the eyes. Then he said he had a few spots. Then he said he had lots of spots. Then I looked and I had a few spots. He went to the doc and yes, chicken pox. Next day and I now have lots of spots. At least I can work from home and CQU has mid-term break this week, so we are not totally at a loss. It's just annoying!!!!!! And funny that we both had not had them as a child, and now both get them. Funny - yes, you can laugh.

Hope you are all doing much better!!!!

Home

2008-04-07T14:45:00.001-05:00

Hi all. Sorry about no post about Singapore yet. That will come in time.

We arrived home on Wednesday and promptly went and bought some more clothes. Yep, that's right, no luggage. We caught up with some people the end of last week, and got Peanuts back and generally tried to sort things out (without luggage). Llew was just in the process of packing at 6pm Saturday for leaving on Sunday when I got a phone call. "We have two pieces of luggage here for you and the driver is just about to leave. You will get them tonight." Well, that was great. Just in the nick of time. Llew could pack the rest of his things. We had clothes!

So the other important piece of information is that we bought a car! We were most interested in a Prius, but they are exceptionally over-priced here and there was no way we could either get a good deal, or get finance. So we asked around and decided on the 2009 Subaru Forester, white. Wow, great car. Drove is around a bit and on the highway and it is fabulous. Really smooth and quiet. It has just got the safety award again, so we are pleased with that. We phoned the dealer Thursday morning, signed the contract Thursday afternoon, and paid for it on Friday when we picked it up. All ready to go! That was just what we needed because Llew left for Rockhampton yesterday.

That's right, no rest for the wicked, umm... I mean wise... :) He started today and I'll let him tell you about that. As for me, I'm back at UQ to respond to my examiners' comments for the next few weeks. This place has changed a bit and I am in an office that never used to be here, but it only has 2 other people in it and 5 other vacant desks, so will work. Carlos is well, and is all ready to get onto this thing too. I'll keep you up to date on that.

Stay tuned for photos of Singapore and the car.

How not to get where you want to go (Especially with your luggage)

2008-03-31T21:49:00.000-05:00

If you haven't worked it out yet and haven't been following the news, we managed to be some of the first passengers to fly though BA's new terminal 5 at Heathrow, London. We were travelling from Norway to Singapore via London and, after landing in Oslo at 7:10am from the West Coast, we were to originally wait until 11:45am to fly out. However for those of you who weren't following at home, the opening of T5 didn't do quite as they had planned (especially in the six months testing they 'carried out' before it's grand opening). With issues from staff not being able to find parking spots to them then not being able to login to the computer system to the brand new baggage system shutting down in the early afternoon (more on that later).

Anyhow, the issues early in the morning caused our flight to be delayed by 2 hours. When it finally came, we all boarded and flew into London. After landing and driving to the terminal, we were informed that the automatic guiding system that guides the planes the last 15 metres or so to the gate hadn't been switched on yet and to hold on. We were informed a short time later that we were still waiting, and that the plane on the right was here 40 mins before us. Eventually they had to get someone to manually guide the plane in, but once that was done we still had to wait, as the person that would have switched on the guidance system was also the person that extended the gate to the plane...

After finally disembarking and making our way to the terminal we were greeted with the scenes that many of you may have seen on TV. As many flights had been either delayed or canceled, hundreds (and read here hundreds) were in line waiting to be rebooked. Thankfully though we weren't one of them, as our flight to Singapore was departing from the old Terminal 4. This however required taking a bus from one terminal to another which, like everything that day, was not to be underestimated. As it turned out, they had hired new bus drivers to run these routes from the new terminal to the old ones, ones that a) had no idea where they were supposed to go (ours getting lost on the way to pick us up) and b) ones that couldn't reverse, which lead to us driving around for a further 5 mins rather than reverse the 30 m we needed.

Starting to bring a long story short, we arrived at Terminal 4, waited for our flight and proceeded to Singapore. The flight was amazingly empty, perhaps due to many people not able to make connecting flights, as all BA flights from the UK and EU were rerouted through T5 that day. We landed at Singapore and were informed that our baggage wasn't on that flight. Further it was nowhere to be found. It appears that they were 2 of the over 5000 bags lost in the bowels of T5.

And now as I sit here typing this blog, three days after we landed, we still don't know where our bags are. They are not in the system, and London have stopped responding to Singapore's requests for information. We are leaving for Australia tomorrow and the likelyhood of our bags being here are less than none. Stay tuned :)

Norway: Part 3 - Walk in the snow

2008-03-31T19:20:00.000-05:00

Monday turned out really fine after all that snow, so what else do Norwegians do? Go for a walk! This time was near the sea. We drove a little bit, then left the car and walked.

UP!!!

Ingfrid had 2 of her dogs with her.

As we went up, the views got better.

I never knew before, but there was a German fort from about 1940 when Norway was occupied by Germany in WWII.

Inside the watch bunker.

On top of the bunker looking at 2 of the 6 cannon sites.

The watch bunker from the front.

We walked back along the access road.

Anyway, that was the last hurrah in Norway. The time was over much too quick, but we do want to get home!

Norway: Part 2 - Around

2008-03-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

Around the Haga farm, we found life much as usual. We got to relax at least. That was the first priority.

Second was to eat nugatti on bread. A lovely, more sugary version of nutella.

Liv and Leiv agreed. A few after dinner drinks and lots of talking - Norwegian on my part, poor Llew, but they talked English to him.

Saturday was not a public holiday, so after a shop, we drove around a bit. This was the high school that I went to in 96/97.

This is a nearby beach. It wasn't too cold, so we got a snack and sat and ate. 10 mintues of the breeze was enough!

Leiv usually makes dinner. This time was angler fish - fabulous.

Sunday was then rediculously snowy, so again, we stayed inside. It was Easter anyway, so we had a family dinner with the fish above.

Llew had to go play in the Norwegian snow. It was a little different from Indiana snow.

Monday was Liv's birthday so I practiced Happy Birthday with their current exchange student.

Llew wanted to make a cake - but not just one, three cakes in one. The bottom was brownie, the second hazel nut and nugatti (hazel nuts and nugatti between those two) and the top was raspberry (raspberry jam under that one). Then a fondant on top and all covered with icing. then white chocolate writing and ta-da!

Llew also made dinner - elk meatballs, deer braised in red wine, vegetables and tomato paste, vegetable gratin; dessert - coconut milk and pear and pear cider layered jelly.

The other thing Llew had to do was go and feed the calves in the barn. The milkers are at another place, the sheep are somewhere else too, so that just leaves the calves that were born in August.

Norway: Part 1

2008-03-29T21:00:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Norway from Amsterdam on Wednesday night - Yeh, a long time ago, sorry. Thursday was really bad weather, blowing a gale, rain that was icy and half turning to snow at times, cold. Friday was a little better so we decided to go for a walk. Leiv and Leonardo (woof) came with us up into the forest.

We walked up the next road. In the middle of the photo, the red house was the Haga's house.

It was still cold - about 0C :) and that night was the coldest in Norway this winter so far.

Using technology in the middle of nowhere!

It was extremely muddy, but I had borrowed high boots. Llew's boots were lower so he had to be careful.

Finally we reached the hut in the woods and had drinks and hot pancakes. Yum.

Then we kept walking.

Amsterdam

2008-03-20T17:27:00.000-05:00

We drove into Amsterdam on Sunday and it was raining. We managed to find the hotel which we later realised could have been a lot more difficult given this canal city. The hotel was just over the outer canal from the old city so the roads were at least 2 way! We had to take the car back to the airport after dropping off all our stuff so we managed that, and managed to find the train back really easily. Then we just had a few beers in the non-smoking bar at the hotel as everywhere else is still smoking (until July - unfortunate timing on our part). Then we went to the Indonesian restaurant right next door which was half non-smoking and we had the best food. It was fabulous and we got so full! So ended the first day.
On the second day it was at least not raining, so we went for a walk. Here are some general shots around Amsterdam with the important bits noted.

Bikes - EVERYONE rides bikes. They have actual lanes for the bikes. Really cool. And they ride in the rain too!

The flower market. Since it was only just coming into spring, there were a lot of bulbs and not so many fresh flowers. You can also buy cans of marijuana seeds all ready for planting for about 3 euro. We thought better of it.

Back of the flower market.

So to the centre and the original dam in the Amstel river. Hmmmm, how did this city get its name I wonder.

Madam Tussaud's house of wax. We didn't go inside. More interesting things to see.

The local brew - unfortunately the brewery was closed for renovations until summer! AAAHHHH!!!

City hall in the central square.

We decided to take a canal cruise since it was an hour for 7 euro and had english commentary.

The central train station.

7 bridges over one canal. Pity about the construction.

This was the mayor's house.

Engineerin marvel of a bridge.

This is over the entrance to the tunnel under the harbour.

Since the houses date from the 1600s and the doors and stariways are so small, this is the only way to get furniture in and out. Most of the houses actually have their own furniture hooks at the top.

Very old part of town near the historical museum.

Yes, we went into said historical museum and that was great.

Don't leave your bike unlocked!

Ah, now this is interesting for those from UQ physics. Here they have dug up a barrel of pitch that has been underground for centuries. It was only put here in 2006. I wonder how long before it leaks? Their own pitch drop experiment!!!!!!!!!

The Dutch of course were great sea explorers and this was one of their very ealy maps. You can actually see the top of Australia at the bottom right!

To see how things would look, they often built models. These are of the town hall and other buildings before they were built.

Cog wheel as in the model in the next picture.

No, not a navigation instrument, actually a high pressure window washer.

This used to be attached to a building. The next photo describes what happened.

The house of Rembrandt.

They used to be able to close off all the canals, and had the wall around the city with fortifications and guard houses.

The second day in Amsterdam we hit the art galleries. We went to the Rijksmuseum where they have a fantastic collection of Rembrandt's paitings. They have many other paintings of the same era. We spent a few hours in there and closely inspected each painting. Absolutely AMAZING. I have never seen art like it. We also went to the van Gogh museum which doesn't have so many of his paintings and it was a little disappointing that they didn't have more. Oh well, what we did see was good.

That night we went to a Spanish restaurant that didn't have anyone smoking in it, probably because we were the only ones there!
As we left Amsterdam early Wednesday, we did not see any more. Off to Norway!

Cologne

2008-03-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

We set off from Göttingen where we stayed just southwest of the Harz Mountains. We left quite early - yes, we did work out what that meant. We were so early that there was still fog in the first valley we came to. We even had to slow down from the usual autobahn 'go whatever you want' speed to a measly 100km/h. Up to now, when the 'go whatever you want' sign came up, we would usually sit around 140km/h. It was still amazing how fast the cars would pass us. In our little opal, however, we think the engine would burst at much faster. At times we did push to 150 or so when passing, but it seemed quite happy at 140. It was actually more happy there than at 100 where the engine sounded to be struggling. The sad thing is that the trucks can only go 80, so it was constant passing and being passed the whole way.
As we get more north and west in Germany, we see more and more wind turbines. Really cool!
We arrived in Cologne at about 11:30 and checked in to the hotel. We were right next to central station and the cathedral - great location. So we set off to check out the town. We decided not to go into the town museum as it was just a collection of armour. It did, however, have an interesting statue on top. Not quite sure what it was all about.

Of more interest was the El De house which was used by the Gestapo from 1934 but kept the initials of the original owner. It had a prison in the basement with about 10 cells where up to 33 men were kept in each. It was rather spooky with the 1000 odd writings on the walls, many in Russian. After the war (somehow the building was not bombed) it was used as municiple offices until emptied and turned into a museum in about 1981. Really wonderful displays in this little known about museum. I would recommend to anyone to go there and get the audio tour for a little extra as it is worth it for the extra information as everything there is only in German. We could take photos, but we had to sign a book saying we would not publish them anywhere, so you'll have to go there yourself to see inside.

Next, and most famous of all, the Cologne cathedral. On the outside, an absolute marval. Wonderously huge, not done justice in these photos, and amazingly ornate. Betters the ones in France (I think that was the point). We did not stand in a line for ages only to climb the 509 steps to the top of the tower - wonder why?

We did pay 1 euro for the tour booklet and that was well worth it. With 23 stops around the cathedral, it told us pretty much everything. Here are only a few highlights. If you want to know the rest, go yourself!

One of the oldest wooden, opening altars in the world.

We could not get in to the 7 chapels in the front that were built and used before the rest of the building was finished. In the middle is the shrine to the 3 Magi, or 3 kings and is said to hold the remains of the 3 wise men who visited Jesus in the manger (small gold chest in the middle).

This statue of Mary is said to be miraculous.

Afterwards, it was a nice, sunny, warm day so we walked down to the Rhine River (with all the other tourists) to have a beer. The breeze was a bit chilly, so we went back to the hotel to get more clothing and then ventured out again to find food.

Thus was Cologne. In summary - great cathedral, OK art galleries (not good compared to the big ones in the world), VERY touristy, extremely smokey (you can smoke in all of the cafes and there are no non-smoking areas what-so-ever, expensive fashion shopping (if that's what you are into), and worth spending a day in unless you smoke - then I'd stay a week!

Harz Mountains

2008-03-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

We left Berlin quite early on Friday for the drive half way across the country. We were heading for the region of the Harz Mountains which used to be half in West Germany and half in East Germany. They were always a popular destination for holiday makes on both sides, and also before and after the separation. First we went to Wernigerode on the east side. Guess what! It had a market place witht the town hall! The thing this town is famous for, however, are its more than 1000 wood framed houses. It really is like something out of a fairy tale.

Next place was Goslar, actually, just outside. So after a little sojourn through the town we went to the Rammelsberger Bergbau Museum, a mining museum. The mine is 1000 years old, but was mostly mined in the 18th and 19th centuries. Now it is just a museum. This is the dressing room with an interesting way of storing the work gear. Find your chain!

There is the shower room - very communal.

We got to go into the mine and they took us 2 miles in by this train. Really great. It was dark and damp and small and SO COOL!!!!!

This is the main shaft.

The lift for the rock carts to go up and down.

So to get at the silver, first they drilled holes,

then blew them up with explosives,

then the machine scooped all the rocks into small carts,

and the small carts run up a rail and dump into the larger carts to go to the surface.

All really cool, but in German, so we didn't under stand much of the hour long talking, but we could see what was going on.

Berlin

2008-03-16T21:45:00.000-05:00

Before I get on to Berlin, one thing I forgot to mention in Dresden. At Homage to Oma we had dessert - Swarzwalderkirschtort!!!!!!

Now we can get to Berlin. We stayed in a shopping district on the west side of the Tiergarten. The first night, Wedensday night, we went to the restaurant at the hotel. It was called 44 and had a michelin star. Well it was fantastic. I had 5 courses, Llew had 7. Each came with an accompanying wine. Got rather sloshed! It was so good. Llew reckons he could make nearly all of it - it would just take a very long time!
On Thursday, we had booked a walking tour that left from the zoo station right near the hotel, so we had to get up about 8:30. Wasn't too bad ~_~
We had a German guide who had grown up in London and parts of Australia. First we took the train to the other side of town. We crossed the canal and saw the Jewish part in the distance.

This museum had the unique feature that the centrepiece for the foyer was built especially but then when moved to the site, was found it could not get through the columns! It was left in the middle of the square and moved back to the front of the museum by the GDR government.

The Berlin cathedral. Note that there are no high crosses - more on that later.

Here was a GDR theatre built to show that East Berlin people could have a good time, and for the government to mix with the people to show that they were all the same. It was decided sometime recently, that a private invester could demolish it to put back the building from the imperial time. Apparently it was a nice building and could have been done up nicely - but oh well.

This front was the last remaining bit from the old palace, but the GDR built around it. The only reason it was kept was because the head of the communist party declared East Germany a communist state.

This is a memorial to all victims of all wars. Called The Neue Wache (New Guard House), it was in a building dating from 1861, and it is a memorial to all German victims of war. Recently the wars on terror were included. This statue was put here in 1993 - Käthe Kollwitz's sculpture Mother with her Dead Son.

One thing left over from the GDR and incorporated into West Berlin ever, are the walk lights. These men are famous!

Humbolt University, most notible for Albert Einstein.

This is the square where the book burning took place.

This closed memorial would hold the more than 20,000 books burnt on may 10, 1933.

A long walk up Unter den Linden - under the Linden trees.

Stopped briefly at a metro station that was on the line from one part of northern West Berlin to southern West Berlin, but it was in East Berlin. It dated from before the separation and was the only real way for West Berliners to move from north to south and back. So a deal was struck, and the train could keep running - just the station was closed and patroled by guards (very loyal to GDR). The trains used to run through these "ghost stations".

To the Brandenburg Gate.

This is the Adlon hotel - Michael Jackson, baby, balcony...

The double cobble stone line marks the western wall of the Berlin wall. It is all gone now.

This is the Holocaust memorial and is designed such that each person is supposed to take their own meaning from it. It was huge and with deceptive scale.

Now back to those crosses. Apparently during the GDR, churches could not display crosses higher than the building. This TV tower, however, the pride and joy of 'technologically advanced' East Germany, at certain times of the day gets a lovely cross from the sun. It is called 'the Pope's revenge'.

Hitler's bunker was here, but is now filled with gravel. It was here that he committed suicide with his new wife Eva Brown. Before he married her in his last days, he was 'married to the state'. Behind are the fancy, upmarket, East Berlin apartments, the best in East Germany - they were made nicer and had fancy roofs and even had running water - that were built such that those in West Germany could see that the East Germans lived well too. But it was a very different story away from the wall.

The Czech Republic embassy - style!

This is what the GDR wanted the people to think life was like under their regime. Of course it was very different.

And here it is - the wall. This bit has been left as it was and is falling apart. Our guide said that some people was to restore the wall, others just wanted to knock it down. Some - and she liked this idea - just want to leave it to degrade naturally as a symbol of the diminishing boundaries between east and west that are still in the minds of people who went through it all. As it goes, it is like more and more people reconciling the differences.

Parts have been taken and painted as more of an artistic memorial.

Checkpoint Charlie - as opposed to alpha and bravo further along the wall. The photo is the last allied guard posted there. This is all a replica now and building have sprung up on each side. Before that it was a huge border control, not unlike many borders today such as between the US and Mexico.

The French Argonauts build a lovely church in town next to the philharmonic orchestra.

It was, incidentally, renovated by the GDR right after West Berlin renovated theirs. Hmmm.

The Germans, however, got jealous of the French church, so build their own - mirror image - on the other side of the orchestra building.

That was the end of our walking tour and because it was freezing cold and gale force winds blowing, we went back to the hotel and had room service pizza for dinner.

It was a lovely tour, and great to see everything. Just the weather was bad.

Dresden

2008-03-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday we drove to Dresden. We had 2 nights there, so went for a long walk around the city on Wednesday. From the Hotel, we walked through the "Big Garden" into the city.

It took about an hour to get into the city but it was a pleasant walk. First thing were these surprising pipes. We later found out they were to pump water out of construction sites.

Then to city hall with Hercules on top.

The old market place (hmm you might have realised every town has one of these) had the obligitory church. This one is special though. During WWII it was completely flattened. The GDR left it there as a reminder of war, but after that, they built it back up by popular demand. We reckon the black bricks were the original ones. It has the nickname "stone bell" from the shape of the dome.

While reconstrucing the church, they did an archeological dig and found many very old buildings.

Past that was the Elbe River through the middle of town. It divides the old town from the new town which is actually only a few decades younger.

Along the front were some old buildings. This was the academy of art.

What do you know? A church!

But this one was privately connected to the palace via a raised walkway you can just see here.

The back of the palace stable.

The front of the palace stable. Note the heads!

Rest of the palace.

Opposite that was the opera house.

And the Zwinger - a collection of 6 museums...

with a large garden in the middle,

and 40 Meisen bells to chime each hour.

A nearby fountain will fascinate my mother!

Remembering that this was part of East Germany, there were still some reminders of that time. Most of the town, however, has been changed in the last 18 years.

East German cheap and easy apartments.

With a touch of modern influence.

The next stop was the VW "transparent factory" where they make the Phaeton. Couldn't take photos in most of it, but it was the full assembly line for the cars. Very cool with some engineering marvels. This we could take a photo of!

As I said, it is transparent. Right down to being able to see the workers having lunch from outside. Good natural lighting for one thing!

Then back throught the garden and this time found a mansion in the middle! The strange things you find.

We are so pleased we went to Dresden - thank you Julia and Sebastian for telling us to go there over other places. We also had a HUGE but cheap German meal near the hotel from "Homage to Oma". Highly recommended. Dresden just seems to be one of those cities that doesn't get the attention it really deserves. Also, apparently the new town has really good night life.

Coburg

2008-03-15T21:25:00.000-05:00

On Monday we drove through Coburg on the way north and came across a Schloss. Of course being Monday it was closed as most museums in Germany, but we could still wander around the grounds.

The picture below is just for Heidi. :)

After leaving the Schloss, we saw a few monasteries off in the distance. This one we could photograph. The others were too far away.

Bamberg

2008-03-13T22:09:00.001-05:00

We left Nuremberg faily early the next morning and drove the less than an hour to Bamberg. A small, but old town. It was not destroyed by bombing. As we entered we passed the US military barracks. Strange. We had booked a small, family run hotel close to the centre. We got one of the 2 rooms with a sitting room.

Since we were there so early, we took off to see the town. A few blocks to the main street, again a pedestrian street. It was Sunday so not much was open except cafes, but it was fine and warm and all the sites were outside.

As it was the warmest it had been this season, EVERYONE was at the cafes. (It was still only about 12 C, so everyone still had jackets on, even in the sun.

Bamberg was also one of the main seats of the Catholic Church during the changes to Protestant elsewhere in the country, particularly in Nurember, just south. So there are a few Catholic Churches around.

Random statue of Neptune.

The city is on a river and has a unique city hall. It was built IN the river.

Has some wonderful decoration. See the interesting bit at the top and bottom?

Up the hill to the cathedral (1237). There was a concert so we couldn't go in. Oh well. An emperor and a pope are buried there.

Right across the square was the new residences of the bishops (17th C). The whole scene was rather reminiscent of Prague.

This used to be the courthouse.

Walking back, we saw good examples of old German architecture.

With the city hall in the back right in this photo, this is the river through town.

The buildings here led to the nickname "little Venice".

We found a nice pub that brewed its own beer. A verson of the local "Rauchbier" or smoked beer. Doesn't taste smokey, just GOOOOOD! We had it with very traditional food of prezel, white sausages and mustard. Classic combination.

As it is coming up to Easter, everywhere is decorated. There are real eggs on this one.

Just a photo for our friend Am,

And a photo of Llew :)

We had gelato on the way back to the hotel, stayed the night, and thus ended Bamberg. Stay tuned!

Nuremberg

2008-03-12T17:29:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Nuremberg at about 7:30pm and it was dark. Again, we had to navigate our way into the city. We got lost and asked at a service station and found we were only 3 blocks from the hotel and were actually on the right road! Fortuitous again. We had had such a late lunch that we decided only to have a few beers in the bar, then went to bed.

The next morning, all refreshed and facing a fabulous day we packed up then went for a walk through the old town. The hotel was just at the south side, so it was easy.

For those who don't know, here is a bit about Nuremberg from Wiki.
Just outside the walls.

The gate and the wall.

Lorenzer Platz and Lorenzkirche (15th century).

The city's oldest house, Nassauer Haus.

There were some different kinds of statues in this Protestant city.

Next church - Frauenkirche.

The Hauptmarkt - main market place - still with interesting stalls.

Schoner Brunnen - beautiful fountain - 19m high.

Lots of old houses.

The Altes Rathaus - old city hall - 1616-1622

On the left here is the Stadtmuseum - municpal museum which we went into. It is a 16th century merchant's house.

This is a model created in 1939 by woodcarvers - just before the devastation.

Other rooms showed the history of the use of the building and the town.

This green thing is actually a fireplace with the chimney through the wall.

Another old house in Nuremberg.

Look closely at the model in these two photos. It shows what was destroyed during WWII.

The wall on the northern side of the city.

A bronze sculpture called The Hare - A Tribute to Durer shows the dire result of tampering with nature.

Great example of the old style house.

Nuremberg is divided by the Pegnitz River and contains a few islands so there are many old bridges.

This is an old wine depot.

A German treat - gingerbread - saying "I love you". Thanks Llew!

Lastly was the sombering place of the Nuremberg rallies. Now just a park, it was still spooky.

Then we drove out of Nuremberg. Fantastic history!

Stuttgart in 4 parts

2008-03-11T21:02:00.000-05:00

We drove from the Black Forest up to Stuttgart. We were meeting Julia who stayed with us in Brisbane. Her and Sebastian actually live outside Stuttgart in Ludwigsberg so we headed there. After a quick meal out, washing and sleep, we looked around the small town.

Part 1: Ludwigsberg

It has its own Schloss (castle) which is remarkably large for a small town. It has wonderful gardens, but they were just starting to be planted as it is just starting spring.

We went inside and there were 4 museums: porcelain, fashions of the era, portrait and a few rooms from the time.

View from the new Schloss to the old Schloss.

And the garden.

Then we walked up into the centre of town and saw the market place with church and town hall.

Part 2: Cooking

After the day out, Julia and Sebastian took us to the shops to get the ingredients for a fine 3 course meal. What's new? First worked out all about the kitchen.

Then got the minions to work.

Some demonstrations going on.

Rolled stuffed chicken almost ready to be braised.

The chicken on white asparagus with beurre blanc.

Next extravaganza was actually breakfast the next morning. It was Saturday so we slept in and Julia and Sebastian put on a feast (just the usual fridge contents really). Can you count how many cheeses there are? You can't see the meats in the box, but there were about 8 of those too. Salmon, nutella and fine breads to complete the picture.

Part 3: Benz museum

That day we went to the Benz museum with the history of Daimler and Mercedez Benz from the first car onwards. It was only opened in 2006 so is a wonderful display. Highly recommend it.

Part 4: Stuttgart

Last thing was to go into Stuttgart for a late lunch (4pm) and a quick look around. The palace first.

The Schloss second.

The square in the middle.

And the main street. This is actually King's Street and is just like Queen St in Brisbane.

And thus was Stuttgart and surrounds in 4 parts.

Black Forest

2008-03-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

Picture this... a small windy road, going up! Cliff on the left, drop on the right; a thick layer of snow covering everything... Picturesque scenery everywhere we look. We encounter a bend... and... a bus coming full throttle coming the other way... thus was our experience of the Schwarzwald.

We made our way from Hiedelberg down the number 3 road to Baden Baden and found a not very helpful tourist centre. Oh well. Got a small guidebook and made our wad to Freiberg. On the way was a taste of the small towns to come.

We stayed in Freiberg overnight and since we were staying there the next night, we had a day to drive around the black forest (schwarzwald). The snow made it AMAZING.

We took lots of back roads, and got lost a couple of times, but that turned out fortuitous as we avoided a traffic jam and saw some of the best scenery and smallest roads. SO COOL!!!

The snow on the car we thought would melt as we drove as it was not really cold, but it didn't so we scraped the rest off. :)

Some wonerful views. We had to stop to take photos.

And play in the snow... Didn't we have enough in Indiana? This was much more beautiful. Hills, believe it or not.

All along were farms and tiny villages.

Little streams here and there...

The towns were something else. Plus all along the way were dozens of shrines including this one on the side of a building. Different.

We went down from the mountain and along the border between Germany and Switzerland and that was different too... but warmer.

Then what else? Back up the mountain!!

More small roads, some clouds... We could really see why it was the "black" forest.

But spotted with lovely small towns as I said, all with their own church - of course.

This was our hotel which was even nestled in the mountain side - but in a more main suburb.

Then we left Freiberg the second day (Thursday) and drove through the northern black forest (again getting fortuitously lost) and seeing wonderful things. We were heading for Stuttgart.

Some exquisite one lane roads...

And some great views.

Ending up in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart and this small, very old village for dinner with Julia and Sebastian - thanks very muchly.

Frankfurt to Heidelberg

2008-03-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

We flew from London to Frankfurt on Monday, no problems. It is so much easier to fly into the EU than either the US or UK where they need addresses and ask you why you are visiting. Here they stamp your passport and that's it. Because we were coming from the UK (presumably) there was not even any customs people there. Everyone could just go straight through. So we go out, and get out Europe car and got a free upgrade which was good because the guy said that our luggage would not have fitted in the smaller car. We then bought a detailed map of Frankfurt and a map of all of Germany. Off we headed to find the hotel. It was really easy as the map was good and all the roads are signed really well. We found the hotel - really nice and this was the view of Frankfurt. We found the bar and had a few beers with a Greek/German bartender who was really funny and cool and had hardly any English. We had a few beers, had dinner in the restaurant with wine, then back to the bar for 3 snapps each. We were rather happy! It is good to be relaxing and not having to think about work. That will have to change in a week or so.

The next day we took off at about 9:30 and headed south on the autobahn - at 150km/h or so. Any slower we would be run over by all the other cars. There were 3 or 4 lanes so we could still go in the second slow lane and watch some cars whizz by at unbelievable speeds.

The only place we decided to stop was Heidelberg. We drove in and through the town and up the hill then found the carpark. From there we walked up to the castle.

The view over the town and river was wonderful.

This is a wine barrel that can hold 228,000 litres of wine. It was built in the castle but started to leak after a while so does not have wine in it now. To get a sense of the scale, look for the people in the next few photos.

The apothecary museum was in there too.

We walked down the back stairs - 315 of them.

It was fabulous and we highly recommend it - but apparently not in summer with 3 million tourists.

So we got back in the car and drove around the town for a while then headed back to the autobahn and south again. Found some pretzels in a gas station along the way. So German!

London England

2008-03-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

We arrived safe and sound in London last Friday (yeh, sorry it has taken so long, but travel and internet are somewhat uncompatible). First stop Saturday morning was Borough Market on the south bank near London Bridge. Huge market, got some nice cheese, vegetables and some meat for Matthew.

Next stop on Sunday was the Tower of London. We spent 3 hours wandering around and it was great. Saw the crown jewels, but couldn't take photos of them of course.

White tower is in the middle.

Look closely and you will see the ravens. It was a myth that if the ravens ever left, the monarch would fall. Of course, proved wrong, but now ravens are kept there with their wings clipped.

The armoury was pretty cool.

This is the description for the next two photos. A 6 foot 9 inch suit of armour, and one for a child.

Chop.

For a gun, really.

Chapel.

Henry VIII. Huge.

Gin and beer were the names of these statues.

Steam-powered automatic rifle.

So ended the trip to London. Next stop Germany on Monday.

Leaving West Lafayette

2008-03-02T12:54:00.002-05:00

My last few days in the office. Working hard of course.

As we are packing up the apartment.

Ended up with 13 boxes that we have shipped. It all ended up fitting in 1m3, so was only $499 plus $100 insurance. Half the price of posting!

Very empty kitchen.

This is all our stuff that we are taking. One suitcase, one large backpack and two small backpacks. Sad really.

So with that we say goodbye to West Lafayette, to Purdue and to all our wonderful friends. We really felt at home there because of you all. We will miss you dreadfully, so please stay in touch!

Now we are off to have a European adventure. Stay tuned!

Truffles

2008-02-27T18:48:00.012-05:00

The last Hurrah, this is it, the best food I have ever cooked, paired with the best wine available. Truffles.... What more to say?

As a big final cook-off for Llew... he did truffles! We got 21 people total together from ENE (and a few outsiders) for 5 courses (plus two amuse bouche and a palette cleanser) with 6 accompanying wines.

First was Llew ordering the $620 worth, 1 pound, of snap frozen French black winter truffles.

Plus the slicer.

Preparation and pre-cooking (notice the shorts...).

First amouse bouche was a cranberry and raspberry 'caviar'. While the rest of the meal was traditional french, we needed to start with molecular cuisine, and let Llew play with his chemistry set (Calcium carbonate and sodium alginate to be exact).

Matt makes it go 'pop' on the tongue. Huh.

David says, "Interesting".

Heidi and David watch with intrigue as Noemi makes the fake caviar.

I say, "Cheers!"

Heidi says, "Hmmm".

We cleared the living room of couches and furniture and hired 2 8-foot tables. We borrowed the necessary chairs and did fit the 21 people in! Plenty of room actually.

With Llew at the head of the table to describe everything (and smiles from Teri and Kamyar).

After the amuse bouche of caviar and a cream of asparagus soup, served with proscecco, the first actual course was onions... well actually sweet onions, baked in salt (yes of the road kind that is used to de-ice in the winter here), scooped out, and filled with a cheese bechamel sauce, fried onion carvings, a raw egg yolk, thyme, truffle, more cheese sauce and a final scattering of cheese to finish. The inspiration came from Bender, a great Aussie chef :)

with more truffle sliced over the top of course.

Plating, plating, plating. Alex! Sauce NOW!

The second course was de-boned chicken stuffed with turnip greens and mushrooms, served with asparagus, roast Brussels sprouts, and a white wine beurre blanc sauce.

Between every course was the clean-up crew. We actually had enough plates, cutlery and glasses - nearly all borrowed - to do it all, but it was very necessary to clean up as we went, otherwise the end would have been baaaaaaaaad!

The third course was pasta. But not just any pasta, fresh pasta hand made that day by Atossa (her first time!) with powdered dried porcini mushrooms throughout the fresh pasta. It was tossed in butter, olive oil, garlic, red chili flakes, and topped with grated Parmesan cheese, chives and of course, truffle...

Nadia going hard with the parmesan.

After this was a pallet cleanser; cucumber and meyer lemon sherbert. Simply take a whole cucumber, peeled and deseeded, blitz in a food processor, add an equal volume of sugar syrup, the zest and juice of two meyer lemons and blitz for a minute or so. Then add a tablespoon of yogurt (to get the sherbert buzz on the tongue). Allow to freeze in a glass dish in the freezer then scrape with a fork.

More plating... The fourth course was beef. But (of course) not just any beef, but a french classic, Tournedos Rossini. Basically a fillet steak, wrapped in bacon, placed on a fried bread round, topped with a slice of fois gras, truffles and perigueux sauce. We served this with roast veg... delicious :)

The fifth and final course was a simple custard tart flavored with a truffle infused honey. This was made in a cake tin for extra depth, and served with a stewed rhubarb and blackberries sauce...

All having fun - and lots of wine.

The final treat was that everyone went home with truffle-infused oil.

Llew had a ball describing everything. He got a huge round of applause for it all. Yay.

In the end we went though 8 truffles, 17 bottles of wine, 17 sticks of butter, 2.5 litres of cream, 4.5 dozen eggs, 3 chickens, 21 onions, 21 steaks, 21 slices of fois gras, 105 plates, 84 wine glasses, umpteen dozen pieces of cutlery. All for 21 very full, happy people.

10 reasons why good mentoring of students is like stuffing sausages

2008-02-18T13:49:00.002-05:00

I was going to post this on the food blog, but I figured that it was more to do with education than food, although some funny metaphores here...

Reading through my food blogs, I came across this post on The Daily Gullet and just had to repost. Make sure you head over to see the original!

I attended a training last fall at which we were asked to share an object representing something important about mentoring, our focus for the week. I suspect that few in the workshop had difficulty coming up with their tape measures, baby photos, and flower pots, but I usually find this sort of assignment challenging, preferring simple denotations to forced connotations.

On the drive home, I rolled down the windows, sensing that the air was turning slightly crisp and cool. I savored that harbinger of autumn in New England, when my thoughts turn to braises, stews and charcuterie. After a summer of keeping the oven off in my non-air-conditioned kitchen, I dreamed of daubes, considered new curries, and generally jonesed for the promise of meat to come.

And then I realized that I had a perfect metaphor for mentoring: my 5 lb. vertical sausage stuffer from Grizzly Industrial, Inc. The next day, I lugged the apparatus to the training, hiding it behind a door for fear of ridicule. When my turn arrived, I hauled it out and clunked it down dramatically on the center table. "Good mentoring is like a sausage stuffer," I said, "for at least ten reasons:

One. When you make sausages, everything -- utensils, machine, meat, fat -- has to be properly cool. If you've got warm meat, you can't make sausage, so don't try. Heat will prevent for a good bind.

Two. It takes two people to make a sausage stuffer work. [Note: That's not entirely true, or at least it's idiosyncratic to my situation. My sausage stuffer is mounted to a free-floating piece of particle board and not to a countertop, and thus someone has to hold the thing still while the other person cranks away. But, hey, cut me some slack. It was overnight homework and I was trying to get to a round number.]

Three. Contrary to popular belief, you do want to know what ingredients are in a sausage. What goes in determines what goes out. Reflecting on the stuff makes the product much better.

Four. To fix a sausage that isn't working, you tweak it slightly; small changes can have big results. Trying to fix everything at once with bold gestures is doomed to fail.

Five. You don't find out whether your sausages are good while you're stuffing them. The proof is in the blood pudding. When you apply heat, good sausages bind unlike elements; bad sausages break and separate.

Six. The sausage stuffer takes something messy and encapsulates it, bringing order where there was chaos.

Seven. You never know everything that there is to know about sausage making. Hubris is your enemy, humility your friend. Ask around and make friends with experts.

Eight. You will never perfect your sausages. The greatest charcutiers in the world stress the impossibility of perfection. Forget about it. There are too many factors beyond your control. Strive for making them as good as you can make 'em.

Nine. The only sane approach to sausage-making is to take the developmental long view. After all, this isn't Plato's cave in which you're hanging the links; it's your unfinished basement. Since you can't get perfection, you want improvement each time.

Ten. Despite all efforts to the contrary, sometimes your sausage turns out really lousy. Flavor dissipates; binds break; good mold flees and bad mold flowers. When sausages go awry, don't wring your hands. Just do the best you can to figure out what happened, toss 'em, and take another crack. I mean, it's just sausage.

It makes me think about what other food inspired analogies can be applied to educational systems...

More Georgia and conference

2008-02-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

Nadia and Robin put the bird feeder up on purpose but didn't expect the squirrels.

Jasmine and Penske love it though.

Then a little trip to this very special tree.

Sunday brunch (yes we got up late) was at the Last Resort which was great and we actually went back for dinner on Monday with some people from the conference.

Speaking of the conference, this was during our "play" session.

One last funny was this snowman made from an ice shaver (not cold enough for snow to settle in Athens) that we had to remove from the freezer to make room for the pie crust.

Georgia - pre conference fun

2008-02-06T18:11:00.000-05:00

We left for Georgia amidst a snow storm. We walked 20 minutes in the pouring snow with 6 inches on the ground.

It took 2.5 hours to get to Indy airport but we were still in plenty of time. Flew into Atlanta at 4pm and Nadia picked us up. We went to an amazing farmers' market in Atlanta and spent over an hour finding fresh meat, fish and vegetables. Then an hour drive back to Athens to meet Robin and start cooking (and drinking).

Of course we met the 'children', Penske the cat and Jasmine the dog.

Llew cooked fish the first night with a wonderful fish stock sauce.

Jasmine only gets carrots. (Bit chubby!)

Saturday we had the whole day of fun. Nadia and Robin took us out for some authentic southern experiences. First stop - boiled peanuts just down the road.

Then downtown.

The "pride" of Athens military is the double barrelled cannon. It was supposed to shoot 2 balls conntected by a chain to mow down the opposition. The problem was getting the 2 balls firing at the same time!

This is the monument to the Olympic flame that came through on its way to Atlanta.

This is not a real man-hole, it is where they put the Christmas tree right where I was standing in the last photo.

General street view. Very warm ~70F (20C).

The University of Georgia has the bulldawg as its mascot and the town has really embraced it. Athens with UGA is a lot like greater Lafayette and Purdue. Athens is about 1.5 hours from Atlanta like Lafayette is 1 hour 10 from Indy.

Lunch time! We had to have BBQ. Weaver D's is famous for being the starting place for REM and Weaver D himself always said, "Automatic for the People". The place is bright but small and had great food.

Then we walked around UGA's northern campus starting at the famous gate.

There is a bell that anyone can ring. Must be crazy for the neighbours!

Another thing we had to sample was sweet iced tea. It is great! Although we did realise we were doing the very typical American thing of walking around with huge cups. Seems everyone does it.

We walked down to the stadium. Football is big here too.

Then home to relax. It was even warm enough to "hang out" on the back deck.

That night Llew (helped by Robin and Nadia) made an amuse bouche of asparagus soup and duck 2 ways - breast on asparagus with blackberry sauce and leg confit on roast potatoes and zuchini with a duck stock reduction.

Dessert was blood orange pie with whipped cream of course with home made pastry. We took down a few vanilla pods and they were put to good use.

Then came the drinking and fun and games. Dominos. We played until 3am! Had way too much to drink. Hey, don't have to do anything tomorrow morning. Just got to get to the conference by 5pm.

Yep, it got colder

2008-01-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

When we got out of bed this morning at 8:30, the temperature was -1F (-18.3C) which was bad enough, but the wind chill was -20F (-28.8C). The last coldest was wind chill -12F and I told you that I would let you all know if it got colder. Luckily, Noemi was very kind and gave us a lift so we wouldn't have to stand out it in. Otherwise it was a very nice day. A nice 1 inch coving of snow left on most things from the other night, fine and sunny and bright. The days are also getting longer with sun down at almost 6pm and sun up at about 8am. Still, it is way too cold! Big green Norwegian feather jacket time (and that was actually warm). Oh well, Monday is supposed to be 45F (7.2C) so that is bearable except it is supposed to rain! Can't win!

Been a while

2008-01-18T12:54:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since posting, so I thought I'd give an update.
Llew is in Georgia at the moment on an EPICS trip, just from yesterday until tomorrow. That means I am all alone. Oh well. It was probably a good night for him to be away last night because I now have a cold and last night was spent tossing and turning, sniffing, sneezing and coughing. Blaaa. There are a few colds going around so of course I had to get one too! Have to fit in you know!

Other than that, I have been furiously working on journal articles. The first one has come back from my boss with really good comments. It just needs some fine tuning and data analysis. I think I'll wait till next week to start when my head is hopefully a bit more clear. The second paper is due today for a conference and I sent it to a colleague who is the co-writer and he is yet to get it back to me. It still has the discussion to write, but I hope he is doing that as I type. 4 hours till it is due! The third paper is nearly all done and is sitting with the boss. The fourth paper I should be working on right now, but sniff, sniff, cough, cough, blaaaaaaaaa! Need to save my energy for the one due today :) The fifth paper was actually the first one I started way back in Feb 2007, but still have to write the lit reveiw and discussion. That might not be started for a couple of weeks.

Speaking of weeks, we only have 6 weeks left here! AAAHHH! Where did the time go? Time flies when you are having fun. There you go, to everyone here, you have helped us have fun, so you can all feel good :) We fly out of Chicago late on Thursday Feb 28 to London. Then we do two weeks in Germany and The Netherlands, one week in Norway, a few days in Singapore, then get home on April 2. Of course the blog will be kept up to date with all of that, but for now, it's work, work, work.

Vanilla Fest - The wrap up

2008-01-13T23:35:00.000-05:00

Well we hosted vanilla fest last night, an explosion of vanilla flavoured food. It was inspired by the bounty of vanilla that Rocio brought back from Mexico. For a complete wrap up of the dishes that were created, hop on over to Alice & Steve's blog. I have started to blog about the five dishes that I created over at my food blog. More posts to come at a later stage!

Mocking me

2008-01-03T19:54:00.000-05:00

I think the weather is just mocking me. I keep blogging about how cold it is, and it keeps getting colder! When it first dipped below freezing I thought it was bad. Then in the 20s I thought it was bad. Then it got down to 7 with a wind chill of 0 and I thought that was bad. Yesterday it decided to get even more rediculous. It snowed a lot on Tuesday and then was windy and clear Tuesday night which resulted in standing at the bus stop (mind you at 10:30am; would have been worse earlier!) with a temperature of 3F (-16.1C) and a wind chill of -12F (-24.4C). It wasn't too bad except for the freezing of tears and the lovely little icicles on Llew's beard. Luckily there was only about 3 inches of snow to tromp through and stand in, and the bus came on time (no students around this week slowing things down). So I'll let you know if it gets any colder. Sunday, however, is supposed to get back into the 50s. :)

Year in Review

2008-01-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

Following a Normal tradition I will do the year in review. The tradition is to capture the first sentence from each month of the blog for the past year. Well, we don't have a January entry, but we can start in the middle of February.

February

Well, at least it is getting closer. We went to uni on Wednesday and said goodbye to the campus and office and a few people. (Yep, we were preparing to leave for our year in the US. Also saying goodbye to Peanuts and preparing for a certain pig!)

March
Robin took us on a road trip up to northern Indiana, right up to Michigan City on Lake Michigan. (The trip was to see snow on the beach at the lake. Cool. The rest of the month involved moving into our new apartment and Llew starting work. Fun and work mixed together.)

April

It was a fine, warm day, so we decided to go for a walk. (April brought some change in the weather - eventually, which signalled flowers and walks and outdoor beer drinking. It also saw Jo arrive and Easter and a step up a notch in cooking. Also kittens!)

May

We have tried some local and not so local brews this last week. (Spring brought beer, lots of beer! I went to steel mills in Indy and aluminium plant in WL, was very busy with work, and ended with a Mexican fiesta.)

June

As part of the INSPIRE acadamies that we are doing next week and in July, we have a Boston Museum of Science module about "catching the wind" as I have explained previously. (Ah yes, June started with the first acadamy. Most of the rest was taken up by Hawaii!)

July

Shawn had a get-together for the 4th of July. (Loads of fireworks. Then the second academy in the second week, a drive into rural Illinois and Indiana, brewing beer, my birthday, and the last week spent in Bloomington IN.)

August

Before I went to Bloomington, we went for a trip down to Turkey Run state park to go canoeing. (So I was a bit out of date in posting, but canoeing was great! The weather turned hot, we got produce to harvest, we went camping at the dunes, and to the state fair (demo derby).)

September

We went down to Mammoth caves in Kentucky over the weekend which I will get to in subsequent posts, but first I want to point out some of the interesting towns in Indiana. (The caves were great, so was the kareoke. The towns in this post were strange, though. The second weekend was, who could forget, the Aussie party! Woo hoo!!!! Later I went to New Mexico - a trip to remember, and Llew went to London - another trip to remember, especially his birthday.

October

Ok, from now for a bit you are going to get some really bad jokes. (Yep, we went to Normal! Alice and Steve hosted us in Normal and Alice in Madison before the FIE conference in Milwaukee. Then we took off for our huge east coast trip to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.)

November

Friday morning was wetter than Thursday. (A left over from Washington which was really October. So was Halloween which was posted in November. Llew started his food blog. It started to get really cold. Thanksgiving was a great day with great food.)

December

Well for the first time ever, I went to sleep last night and woke up to SNOW! (That was great. Real snow, quite a lot, and beautiful. More snow, ice, a trip to Indy, and of course, Christmas.)

So that was a quick year in review. Hope yours was as good and that 2008 is as good too.

New Year's Eve

2008-01-01T13:51:00.000-05:00

It is now 2008! As one of the last time zones to go through the change, we still celebrated hard. We woke up yesterday to read about Sydney's fireworks, and realised how behind we are here. Anyway, a cold, wet, icky day soon cheered up in the evening with fondue and loads of champagne. There were 7 of us: us 2, the Normals, Robin and her neighbours. Of course the dog was there too. It was a great evening and we all enjoyed the 5 bottles of champagne, 2 bottles of red, 1 white, 1 mead wine, and 1 sticky. Well, it was 5 hours! There was also way too much eating. So with crackers, wishes and snow, we welcomed in 2008. You can see all the fun and photos on The Normals' blog (thanks Alice).

Christmas day

2007-12-27T20:35:00.000-05:00

Christmas day dawned bright, sunny and early... at 9:30am! We were excited to get into opening our presents.

I went first and got a cute, cat ring stand from Welly.

Welly then tried to guess...

Just what he always wanted!

Welly also got my bracelet fixed that had been broken for months and I had forgotten about. So special, but he hid it in a bottle of shells.

Welly's next one.

An ipod remote! Yay.

Welly got a shirt and business card holder from his parents. I got pants, a shirt and jumper, but opened it a little while ago to use. He he he.

The rubbish - all gone!

The presents.

We went to David and Vicki's for lunch. Roast pork, potato bake, sweet potatoes, green beans with bacon bits, apple and cranberry sauce and gravy. Yummy. So yummy in fact that we ate way too much and decided to go for a walk. After all, it was a great day outside.

We went down to the lake by their place and guess what, it was frozen. Made skimming stones interesting... and very easy.

More interesting was that it was only 1cm thick and easy to break. Skimming ice was much more fun and with absolute quiet around, it made really great noises when it broke and when the bits musically skimmed over the bumpy ice. Llew did go a bit overboard though!

There were quite a few tennis balls around too and Llew tried to throw them right across.

We finally walked enough to be able to fit in some of Llew's plum pudding. If you look closely at the top left of the pudding you can just see the blue flame.

Along with home made custard, even I had a little bit!

A few days earlier, Llew had also made a fruitcake and various bits and pieces.

As usual for Christmas, we ate too much, drank a fair bit and had a great time. It is still too cold though! MERRY MERRY JUL!

A Few Funny Things for a Christmas Laugh

2007-12-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well we thought that we would post a few funny things to get you in a festive mood for christmas. Firstly is a take on the Twelve Days of Christmas by Robin and Lugh.

http://robinandlugh.blogspot.com/2007/12/happy-holidaze.html

Secondly is a great picture of my brother Matthew in Egypt for a holiday. Dad needed to send the picks through to me (and I therefore needed to post it) so we could feel sorry for the donkey!

Gemma and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

2007-12-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

It started to snow yesterday afternoon and it was predicted to be a fair bit.
This was early in the evening after just a little bit, but it was coming down pretty hard.

This was late at night (~11pm) and it was still coming down nicely.

Then this morning (~10am) it had stopped snowing, but the winds are high. We are having what is known as a "winter storm" and it is quite amazing.

Ice

2007-12-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

After all the absolutely freezing weather and snow, it actually spent a few days between about -5C and 2C and it was very, very rainy. This resulted in an absolutely fantastic icing of absolutely everything. It rained, the snow melted a bit, but it was never above freezing for long, so it all froze. Even when it was not raining, it was really foggy, so ice still accumulated on everything. These are the photos of the result and there are some other photos on Alice's blog (The Normals).

(The ghost is plastic but the snow is real and the stalectite from its head is ice!)

This photo was actually from Saturday night before the ice but is of 2 snow angels made by Llew and Holli.

Christmas Tree

2007-12-10T21:52:00.000-05:00

We didn't make it to December to get the tree. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving we thought about getting some presents so went to Walmart. There we had to look in the Christmas area and we found pine trees, real and alive in pots for only $15. Then we got lights, tinsel and a star. Yay!

Plug it in and on it goes!

Wrap it up.

Yippee!!!!

Freezing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-12-06T20:30:00.000-05:00

I wake up today and go out to the loungeroom and pull back the drapes and look out on our lovely leftover snow from yesterday and see the sun shining and it all looks wonderful and sparkly... then I turn on the Weather Channel.

It gives up to date forecasts every 10 minutes and it delighted in telling me, "The current temperature in your area is 7 degrees (F which
= -13.8C) with a windchill of 0 degrees (F which = -17.8C)".

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

When I went outside an hour later, it was supposed to be 8 and 8. There was actually hardly any breeze and I could actally feel the warmth of the sun. So as long as I stood still and did not breathe, it was fine. Of course breathing makes your nose freeze even under a few layers of scarf, and moving you legs such that your pants change position is chilly even with long underwear on, but it was quite bearable and luckily the bus at that time always has the same driver and he is good and always on time.

Waking up to SNOW!!!

2007-12-05T18:41:00.000-05:00

Well for the first time ever, I went to sleep last night and woke up to SNOW! It was soooo cool (both literally and figuratively). The snow plow had come past at this stage, but there was still lots of untouched snow. We ended up getting just over two inches outside our unit.

The view from out our window.

Our grill, with a nice dusting of powder.

Gemma's flip-flops (thongs for your Aussies)

My first snowball of the season... Aren't I happy!

Finally, after we came home this afternoon, our first attempt at a snowman. We tried however using our bare hands, and didn't get very far...