the last one to leave the nest

well she actually left the 'nest' a long time ago, in fact she was the first to leave the nest, being the most independent of us 4 siblings. Anyway, congratulations to the Next-Sister-Down who has announced her engagement to partner Paddy - and no he isn't Irish.

3 weeks old or thereabouts

thanx to S, R and M for joining us this evening, we hoped you enjoyed B's Sticky Chicky for dinner. And a big thanx for the additional guests you sprung on us.......

kittens
Met unnamed, unnamed, smudge and willow.

afg57g

man driving white ford, registration AFG 57G, with a 'baby on board' sign, east bound on the M4 this afternoon. Does your wife/partner know you drive like an absolute lunatic? Travelling at least 20kms over the speedlimit is dangerous and it really ticks me off that you were almost in my boot before rudely overtaking. Maybe you should stick the 'baby on board' sign on the dash to remind yourself to drive more carefully. Why should the rest of us have any care and consideration for you, you arrogant, self-centred road hog, if you don't drive more responsibly.

Also, you probably did not notice, but I was travelling at the speedlimit (ok just over it in some places) and you didn't get that far ahead. Hardly worth putting yourself (and I'm only thinking of the 'baby') and the rest of us at risk.

molly dye dinner success

success, success, success. No burnt offering this evening. We had the most delicious dinner care of my erratic culinary skills, and an almost foolproof* recipe care of the Molly Dye section in The Sunday Telegraph from a couple of weeks back, submitted by Lesleigh McLeod, of Camp Hill.

Thank you Lesleigh, for your recipe for Honey Lamb, it was delicious, and since you were kind enough to share it with NSW, I'm sure you won't mind me sharing it on our website. It will also guarantee that I won't lose it, like all the other recipes torn out from the newspaper.


*foolproof if you read past the ingredients and through the instructions and note that the recipe requires 1.5 hours cooking time covered and an additional 20 minutes uncovered. Something I didn't do and resulted in us sitting down to dinner not before 9.30pm.

the day the greyhounds have their picnic

although a bit overcast and cold, we wouldn't miss the GAP annual picnic for anything.

Macc and co....
Macc just loves being with other greyhounds, having an Aussie Pooch Mobile bath, and taking second prize in the raffle, which will see him sporting a flash new collar with his name embroidered on it.

Dog Wash AGM 2005
B and I on the other hand just love catching up with other greyhound owners. One of the people there had a great t-shirt from an American online store Fast Jack Sportswear. You just gotta love those designs.

Best Buns Comp 2005
The sausage sizzle wasn't bad either. Our contribution of the Sare Lee chocolate slab cake was a bit of a disaster though - it helps to read the instructions - remove paper and plastic whilst cake is still frozen - as we didn't do this, the chocolate cake lost its icing.

update... although be warned!!

Just to bring you all up to whats been happening here in the world of burntofferings....

L has been for a barage of tests. These tests have been for everyknown form of Hepatitis; HIV and Hormone levels just to name a few. The results show she has no Hep, she is HIV negative and all in all, she has a problem with her insulin levels!!! Why I hear you ask? Wait and we will see if you can guess after I tell you of the test I went for!

My test, what a joke! I had to pay $90 bucks just to have a bit of pleasure! Thats right, $90 bucks to have a wank and supply some sperm for analysis. Do you get the picture yet? And whats more, I got $50 something bucks back!

Yes we have started down the path of IVF. I wont bore you with ALL of the details over the coming months, but it will involve daily blood tests, could involve daily ultrasounds to determine amount of eggs being released, and best of all (not according to L), the daily injections with an epipen!

So hopefully soon, we will have some sort of news for you... Stay tuned!

Flyby Melbourne

I have just returned from a flying visit to Melbourne for a workshop. Not very well thought out on my part, although my excuse is the last minute nature of the bookings. I went down the day before the workshop although arrived too late to do any shopping, and the workshop took up all of Tuesday, finishing as the shops shut, and I was booked to fly home that day. I should have stayed over, but I was there on business. Although, I did manage a look through the windows of Douglas and Hope, a quick look through Alice Euphemia, and discovered Hello Georgous where I purchased a really cheap pair of slip-ons. The highlight of the visit though was being able to catch up with the (not so) little brother, who was in Melbourne for Uni. We had dinner together at my favourite little Cafe Andiamo in Degraves St. It was really great to catch up and the Penne Marinara and sticky toffee pudding was heaven after almost a week of rice.

from the sick bed

I only managed one day at work last week. After a fairly productive long weekend around the house and garden, which saw two trips to the tip, and a trip to the riding school to pick up horse poo for the garden, tuesday night saw me come down with some sort of 'bug'. It has not been pretty around here at all, and even though I have done nothing but sleep and make trips to the bathroom, I am completely exhausted. I am going to have to get some energy fast though, as tomorrow I fly to Melbourne for a workshop on Tuesday, returning to Sydney that night. Oh woe is me!

But enough of the self pity - if I hadn't been sick I might not have had a visit from A, or got to see 'Three Dollars', which A kindly brought with her. Great movie even if the ending was a bit sudden. Also, I got to have lots of snuggles with our latest houseguest 'Winston' the Littlest Sister's Tonkinese kitty kat. He is very affectionate and although we were a little bit anxious as to how he would go with his four legged cousins and vice versa, we had no problems. Although Jasmine was a little outsparkled by the fancy collar little Winn sported (made by the littlest sister).

Winston

Winston's collar

DA has now been lodged...

As you (may) have noticed, the website is down...

This is not a permanent thing, and it will be back!!!

So stay tuned!

oh shyt... (you know what I mean...)

This morning, everything was going great. As I had thought it was supposed to rain today, I figured I would go out and water the garden a little in order to get the most out of the rain, a deeper watering.
'L' came out to assist, as she had wanted to move a small area of earth from the garden to create a little spot to park the bins in (all 3 of 'em), she noticed that there is actually a really bad odour coming from where the sewer vent is...

sewer vent

So on closer inspection, she actually noticed that it was not just a sewer vent with a small overflow of bad air, but it was like the river Mersey back in Liverpool trying to come through the little opening!

See what I mean...

overflow

So, after a couple of calls to some plumbers, the worst one was a plumber at $160 call out fee + $80/1/2 hr... We said 'thanx, we'll let you know' and needless to say, he is still waiting to know...

But, we found 'John' who came out for the lovely price of just $140.... 'WHAT A BARGAIN'!!!!!

Here he is...

john the plumber

So, after about 20-30 mins of digging and shoving an electric eel down the sewer, we were given the 'All's Clear Dear' and permission was granted to flush the dunny and all was well.... Or was it??

On a closer inspection of the pipes, he noted that the thermostat in the hot water system looks as though it is constantly on =(big electricity bill); it looks as though over the many years that this house is (around 80) that there may be a problem with one or two of the connections that needs some sort of attention, and that all up, he liked our house (leadlight windows in particular), and I thought we were paying him to fix the blockage, not to give us his 2 cents worth, (but it was FREE advice).

So, after all that, there has still been no rain, but we are no longer blocked up. I only hope that the next time I am the slightest bit constipated, a mere casting back of the mind to the electric eel should fix things....