Haha, I thought I would get back to the blog last Friday... it's now Tuesday... where does the time go?? (James' favourite saying is floating around in my head: "If it was up your a** you'd know where it was!" Hehe...)
James is at work and I'm sitting here listening to Beck feeling pretty inspired to write my lengthy update!! I'm just not so sure where to start! Sometimes I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, so I'm now thinking back over the past weeks basically not having a clue what to tell you.
One thing of note was our recent weekend trip up to Clarendon- the parents of our friend Lynn have a small property down there so we headed up with Lynn, Ryan and Emily for a night (Matt was AWOL back in the USA). Clarendon is a really pretty spot, and it's always nice to get away for a weekend. So we had many drinks and many laughs... and as Emily piked out early in the night to go to bed, Lynn and I teamed up and beat Ryan and James fair and square at Trivial Pursuit. Usually, Lynn and I get drunk and cheat at whatever game we happen to be playing- so even though we happened to win legitimately this time, we still got no props for it!! I'm trying to post some drunken pics of the night but they don't seem to be uploading properly so I'll have to work on it later on.
Matt and Emily hosted a very cool Halloween party on October 29th; Emily and Matt assisted both James and I with our costumes as we were particularly strapped for time that week- so I was a hula girl and James wore a bright orange jumpsuit and went as a prisoner. There were also some witches, an angel, Shrek, Lynn and Ryan went as each other and Matt wore a cape and was "Super Matt" for the afternoon! Matt and Emily had prepared an excellent mexican feast, then we gorged ourselves on Halloween lollies and made ourselves quite ill, haha. But a great time was had by all, even though James and I left a little early.
Last Saturday night we caught up with Michelle, a very good friend of ours, to celebrate her 29th birthday. We met up in Glenelg and had dinner at Indochine- we had a brilliant banquet and followed it up with a trip to Bracegirdles Chocolate Shop for dessert. Wow, that place is just the BEST EVER. I have walked past it hundreds of times but I have never actually been in there before- probably best for my waistline- but let me assure you it is the house of chocolate decadence! Michelle and I have a mutual friend in Victoria who we plan to share this place with eventually, she would eat herself into a chocolate-induced diabetic coma if given the chance :-)
Last weekend was also our big Adelaide Christmas Pageant, and I was totally psyched for it- I LOOOVE Christmas and love going to the Pageant- James and I went last year, and even he had a good time! So Matt, Emily, James and I were going to go on Sunday... which was a great plan except for fact that it actually happened on Saturday. Whoopsy. It was totally my fault, I just had it in my mind it was on Sunday so I felt really bad that Emily and Matt missed out on their first Adelaide Pageant experience, but there are other smaller pageants in the suburbs which don't quite measure up, but at least it'll be something. There has been some questions as to why we have our Christmas Pageant so early, a full 6 weeks before Christmas- I explained it to Matt like this: "Well, it has to happen that early since Father Christmas needs to get settled into the Magic Cave with Nipper and Nimble so he can see all the kids in time for Christmas". Matt looked at me like I'd grown a head, and I attempted to explain it thus: the Magic Cave is located in a department store in Rundle Mall in the city, it's a magical cave (hence its name...) designed for kids with lots of things to see and do (and buy! those lucky parents!) where they can line up and get their picture taken with Father Christmas. Nipper and Nimble are horses (not real ones!) that kids can (pay to) ride in the Magic Cave. Google didn't seem to come up with much, but there is a brief explanation of The Magic Cave here. I was saying to Matt that the Christmas Pageant and Magic Cave has always been something very magical for me growing up, and although it's probably now driven by consumerism, I still prefer to think of it as beautiful and magical! Wikipedia tells me that our Christmas Pageant is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world! Wow, I actually had no idea about that. It apparently draws crowds in excess of 400,000 (almost half of the population of Adelaide!).
Today was "The Race That Stops A Nation"... The Melbourne Cup. Now, I actually don't like horseracing per se and don't often go out of my way to watch "the big race"- but since I was off today, along with Emily we headed to Carla and Steve's for a lunch complete with lovely white wine to soak up the party atmosphere. Everything literally stops around the country to watch the Melbourne Cup, every workplace has a sweep and a TV all set to go, and if you're lucky, a nice luncheon to go along with it. Emily and I stopped into Coles (a supermarket) on the way to Carla's and chatted to a male checkout operator who was laughing about the fact that we get a public holiday for the Adelaide Cup (not even in the same league as the Melbourne race; no one knows when it's run and basically no one cares about it in any way except for the public holiday we get for it) but everyone's obsessed with the Melbourne Cup and people have to work through it. Pearls of wisdom from the Coles guy. By the way, in the sweep we had at Carla's her partner Steve came first and one of my horses came last (the wooden spooner) which meant that I now have to take Carla, Emily and Steve out for coffee! James says I inherited his luck when we got married! But I don't mind, it's another excuse to socialise!
I saw my Nana last Thursday which was really good. She lives an hour's drive away from me and I really don't get to see her as often as I'd like or as often as I should. But she enjoyed my visit, and I'm hoping to go back again next week. She is 94 and doing pretty well on all accounts, her dementia means she is pretty repetitive at times and can get quite anxious and uptight but all things considered, she is amazing. She lives in Playford Village in Davoren Park- not a great area (very low socio-economic and quite a large incident of crime) but the nursing home is brand new and very safe and we're thrilled she received such great care. Nana has always been a particularly staunch Catholic and used to get quite upset if I even went inside a church of another faith when I was growing up... perhaps it's for the best that she's not quite conscious of the fact that Playford Village is part of the SA Baptist Homes! Sometimes you just have to have a sense of humour about these things :-)
James and I have been working really hard in the past weeks- when I talk about all the things we've done it seems like all we do is socialise!! I wish! We really haven't seen too much of one another lately. Last week I thought we might end up being able to spend some decent time together as I had an extra day off since I worked an extra day the week before, but no such luck- James ended up being on night shift last week and slept and worked the entire week. Bugger. A few people have asked me whether I ended up getting that work transfer I blogged about recently... I rang about it the other day and was told that I probably wouldn't find out before January!! Which I questioned, since the new accommodation facility opens in January and that's when staff are supposed to start, but no, I apparently still won't find out til then! But the Accommodation Services Manager of that region is lovely, so for me that makes up for a possible lack of planning by this organisation!
James is at work and I'm sitting here listening to Beck feeling pretty inspired to write my lengthy update!! I'm just not so sure where to start! Sometimes I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, so I'm now thinking back over the past weeks basically not having a clue what to tell you.
One thing of note was our recent weekend trip up to Clarendon- the parents of our friend Lynn have a small property down there so we headed up with Lynn, Ryan and Emily for a night (Matt was AWOL back in the USA). Clarendon is a really pretty spot, and it's always nice to get away for a weekend. So we had many drinks and many laughs... and as Emily piked out early in the night to go to bed, Lynn and I teamed up and beat Ryan and James fair and square at Trivial Pursuit. Usually, Lynn and I get drunk and cheat at whatever game we happen to be playing- so even though we happened to win legitimately this time, we still got no props for it!! I'm trying to post some drunken pics of the night but they don't seem to be uploading properly so I'll have to work on it later on.
Matt and Emily hosted a very cool Halloween party on October 29th; Emily and Matt assisted both James and I with our costumes as we were particularly strapped for time that week- so I was a hula girl and James wore a bright orange jumpsuit and went as a prisoner. There were also some witches, an angel, Shrek, Lynn and Ryan went as each other and Matt wore a cape and was "Super Matt" for the afternoon! Matt and Emily had prepared an excellent mexican feast, then we gorged ourselves on Halloween lollies and made ourselves quite ill, haha. But a great time was had by all, even though James and I left a little early.
Last Saturday night we caught up with Michelle, a very good friend of ours, to celebrate her 29th birthday. We met up in Glenelg and had dinner at Indochine- we had a brilliant banquet and followed it up with a trip to Bracegirdles Chocolate Shop for dessert. Wow, that place is just the BEST EVER. I have walked past it hundreds of times but I have never actually been in there before- probably best for my waistline- but let me assure you it is the house of chocolate decadence! Michelle and I have a mutual friend in Victoria who we plan to share this place with eventually, she would eat herself into a chocolate-induced diabetic coma if given the chance :-)
Last weekend was also our big Adelaide Christmas Pageant, and I was totally psyched for it- I LOOOVE Christmas and love going to the Pageant- James and I went last year, and even he had a good time! So Matt, Emily, James and I were going to go on Sunday... which was a great plan except for fact that it actually happened on Saturday. Whoopsy. It was totally my fault, I just had it in my mind it was on Sunday so I felt really bad that Emily and Matt missed out on their first Adelaide Pageant experience, but there are other smaller pageants in the suburbs which don't quite measure up, but at least it'll be something. There has been some questions as to why we have our Christmas Pageant so early, a full 6 weeks before Christmas- I explained it to Matt like this: "Well, it has to happen that early since Father Christmas needs to get settled into the Magic Cave with Nipper and Nimble so he can see all the kids in time for Christmas". Matt looked at me like I'd grown a head, and I attempted to explain it thus: the Magic Cave is located in a department store in Rundle Mall in the city, it's a magical cave (hence its name...) designed for kids with lots of things to see and do (and buy! those lucky parents!) where they can line up and get their picture taken with Father Christmas. Nipper and Nimble are horses (not real ones!) that kids can (pay to) ride in the Magic Cave. Google didn't seem to come up with much, but there is a brief explanation of The Magic Cave here. I was saying to Matt that the Christmas Pageant and Magic Cave has always been something very magical for me growing up, and although it's probably now driven by consumerism, I still prefer to think of it as beautiful and magical! Wikipedia tells me that our Christmas Pageant is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world! Wow, I actually had no idea about that. It apparently draws crowds in excess of 400,000 (almost half of the population of Adelaide!).
Today was "The Race That Stops A Nation"... The Melbourne Cup. Now, I actually don't like horseracing per se and don't often go out of my way to watch "the big race"- but since I was off today, along with Emily we headed to Carla and Steve's for a lunch complete with lovely white wine to soak up the party atmosphere. Everything literally stops around the country to watch the Melbourne Cup, every workplace has a sweep and a TV all set to go, and if you're lucky, a nice luncheon to go along with it. Emily and I stopped into Coles (a supermarket) on the way to Carla's and chatted to a male checkout operator who was laughing about the fact that we get a public holiday for the Adelaide Cup (not even in the same league as the Melbourne race; no one knows when it's run and basically no one cares about it in any way except for the public holiday we get for it) but everyone's obsessed with the Melbourne Cup and people have to work through it. Pearls of wisdom from the Coles guy. By the way, in the sweep we had at Carla's her partner Steve came first and one of my horses came last (the wooden spooner) which meant that I now have to take Carla, Emily and Steve out for coffee! James says I inherited his luck when we got married! But I don't mind, it's another excuse to socialise!
I saw my Nana last Thursday which was really good. She lives an hour's drive away from me and I really don't get to see her as often as I'd like or as often as I should. But she enjoyed my visit, and I'm hoping to go back again next week. She is 94 and doing pretty well on all accounts, her dementia means she is pretty repetitive at times and can get quite anxious and uptight but all things considered, she is amazing. She lives in Playford Village in Davoren Park- not a great area (very low socio-economic and quite a large incident of crime) but the nursing home is brand new and very safe and we're thrilled she received such great care. Nana has always been a particularly staunch Catholic and used to get quite upset if I even went inside a church of another faith when I was growing up... perhaps it's for the best that she's not quite conscious of the fact that Playford Village is part of the SA Baptist Homes! Sometimes you just have to have a sense of humour about these things :-)
James and I have been working really hard in the past weeks- when I talk about all the things we've done it seems like all we do is socialise!! I wish! We really haven't seen too much of one another lately. Last week I thought we might end up being able to spend some decent time together as I had an extra day off since I worked an extra day the week before, but no such luck- James ended up being on night shift last week and slept and worked the entire week. Bugger. A few people have asked me whether I ended up getting that work transfer I blogged about recently... I rang about it the other day and was told that I probably wouldn't find out before January!! Which I questioned, since the new accommodation facility opens in January and that's when staff are supposed to start, but no, I apparently still won't find out til then! But the Accommodation Services Manager of that region is lovely, so for me that makes up for a possible lack of planning by this organisation!
Well, I think that's enough of an update at this stage- will keep you posted regarding all the happenings around here as they occur (when I have time!) but for now I am going to sign off!
2 comments:
It may have taken you a little while to write your next blogg but once again very enjoyable,keep them coming Love Dad & Patxxxxxx
Wow, your blogging is garnering the attention of comment spammers! I'm jealous.
Don't know how I missed this entry, because I generally make an effort to keep up with your blogs.
I guess I would've understood the Magic Cave thing a bit better if I had. Let this be a lesson to me...I miss the Hofmann Chonicles at my own peril.
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