Sunday / Harissa Club

Most of yesterday I spent tidying our work desk (or my computer desk as I'd call it). I've been trying to get a HTPC working for ages, but have had a lot of problems getting to watch one channel whilst it records another. Anyway, it's been located on our dining room table for a loooong time, so Wendy gave me strict instructions to get it shifted - it's now another PC on our work desk.

Last night we went to the Fly by Night in Fremantle to see some hot Belly Dance action from the Harissa Club. We've been to a few BD nights, and every one has been very enjoyable.

Highlight of the night (as has been at many of the shows we've been to) was Rose (left)Mmmmm and Eva (right).

So a late night out, and an early morning to see to the dog - and now off to work (yipee - not).

Categories:

• bellydance
• htpc

Lattice Arch

Rosaline has aquired from a friend a lattice arch (it's actually plastic lattice and a tad tacky). Which is now being put in the middle path down to our lower garden. It actually doesn't look too bad, but I'm sure given a few months it will either have fell down, or be so covered with spiders at night that it will make the bottom garden out of bounds. However it has found one big fan - Cookie, he was straight to the top of it and loves the view!

Meanwhile Bingley has had his 2nd wash - and is looking lovely and clean once again. The chooks are getting huge - as you can see below.

Categories:

• nandos

Restaurant

It's Friday night, and as usually we went out to a restaurant - just across the road, in our estates shopping center.

The place is called 'Nosh' which probably isn't the best name for a good restaurant. The food is alway excellent, and we were so happy when it opened about 6 months ago after a long long wait.

Unfortunately, whilst the food is still great, the service has totally gone downhill, taking literally hours to get served and food on the table. So we've decided tonight that enough is enough, and we're going to find somewhere else to go. Goodbye Nosh - it was good whilst it lasted.

Oh, and bummer - it turns out we've got to wait another week until we can take Mr Bingley out on walks following his last injection.

Exams

Wendy has taken one of her Engineering exams this morning - I've just had a call to say it all went well (after all the panic she's had over the last week or so). She took yesterday off work to swat up on it, but by the sound of it she needn't have bothered.

Tonight Bingley goes for his second injection, which will make him street safe (safe from all the other dogs diseases). Straight after that he's having his last puppy-pre-school. That's where he gets to be socialised by meeting other puppies (and raped by a puppy bulldog!). I can't wait for tomorrow, I'll be able to take him for a walk before work!

Categories:

• bingley

Some photos

Davids birthday party @ Dave & Marys

Bingley


Shot in the garden


Cookie

Categories:

• photos
• bingley
• cookie
• cats

Zills

It may appear that I just spend all my time shopping - I've certainly been spending over the last few weeks.

Todays arrivals were the pump (amazing delivery speed, I ordered on Sunday - it arrived Monday morning), and a set of zills for Wendy.

It's good timing with the zills, as she's going to her belly dancing classes tonight, and will certainly want to take them.

My sisters have booked a weeks holiday at Sandpiper in Mevagissey (on the Cornwall South Coast) from 8th July 2006. The place looks really nice - we want to visit the solar dome whilst we're there, as we've heared good things about it - plus given the typical English weather, we may need it's temperature. Unlike our last trip, we don't intend travelling so much on this holiday (other than the Cornwall trip). It was great last time, but all the travel did get a bit much towards the end. Plus I get to see more of my family, which was a little disjointed last time.

Categories:

• bellydance
• holiday

Ebay pump

Isn't ebay a wonderful thing. One of our pool pumps died at the weekend, I had a hunt around the local pool shops, and they were asking for $750 plus for a replacement.

Ebay to the rescue! with this pump for only $325.

Spiderman / Tai Chi

I didn’t die from the spider bite – and disappointingly I didn’t get any super powers (unless super-sleeping powers count). It has however kicked me into action, and I’ll be calling out the bug-spray men at the weekend. We have them come and do the property every year, but to be honest I suspect they encourage the bu**ers.

Last night was tae-chi, we are now both level ‘5’. This means we’ve done the full form, and are now trying to improve our technique. We go once a week (Monday night), and should (but don’t) practice every day.

Categories:

• taichi

Spider bite

I got bit by a spider this afternoon, we just got back from a pub lunch and I was checking the garden reticulation, suddenly felt a painfull sting on my back shoulder blade - ripped of my shirt, and saw something black on there. I didn't get a close look as I swipped it off with my shirt.

It got me twice - two sets of fang marks a couple of cms apart. The spiders fangs were about 3mm apart. It's hurting like b*g***ry, like someones moving a needle around in their. It's been an hour or so now, and no side effects, so we don't think it's a redback (the only spider in WA thats likely to really harm me). It does however still hurt quite a bit. However we have got quite a few redbacks around at the moment.

Ouch!

New monitor

Bought the 19" monitor I've been wanting on Friday - it's been a good week this week, as the boss was away, so I didn't get a load more worked pilled on me.

Now the pool pump has packed up on me. The pools got two 1.5 horse power pumps and every six months one or the other packs in. I'm going to just replace it this time (not impressed with the Davey pumps reliability). So unfortunately it's time to spend money again.

Off to see Pride and Prejudice this afternoon (film just come out here). Wendy's happy as it'll give her a break from revising for her engineering exams.

We were both told off last night by Rosaline (aka 'the mother in-law' / the cleaning nazi ). Apparently were not cleaning up after bingley fast enough. - So I've told Bingley he's not to poo so often.

Buy buy buy

Always big on my agenda is buying, I get a great pleasure in purchassing the latest gadgets. I'm even willing to get some older gadgets - like this watch:

which I recently bought here . I had a very similar watch for Xmas some time in the early 70's (LCD watches were only really around for a couple of years in the 70's, then LED arrived, and the LCD factories all closed).

Currently high on my wish list are

1. A decent sized TV, we just binned our 80" Teac (worlds worst make) - we got fed up of it breaking down. - I'm looking at a 105" Plasma at the moment. - This is to go with the HTPC I've made (more about that some other time I think).
2. A new car for Wendy - her old Excel is nearing retirement age.
3. New 19" Monitor for my PC
4. A replacement 60gb Ipod, I can't fit all our music on my current one, which is a real pain.
5. A new wall for our upstairs room - it needs splitting into more than one room, as it's just too big as it is. (We've bought the door and door-frame, so the wall should be next!).

Employer hunting

I'm currently trying to find a replacement for the only female on my team. She was the best worked I had - but motherhood has taken her away from us. So I've started by looking
here for a replacement.

Categories:

• work

Long weekend

For me this was a nice long (3 day) weekend, For Wendy this is the end of three weeks holiday - and she's just come down with a rotten cold to welcome in her return to work.

So we've had Bingley for three weeks now. He's started to settle into a routine - in the games room at night, and outside most of the day. The weather has started to resemble our summer at last, so it's actually quite nice for him out during the day. Plus we've been spending most of our time outside working on the garden.

Michael appears fine after his heart attach just 11 days ago. His medication is slowing him down a bit - plus he's under strict instructions to take it very easy. We're all off to David (Hendo's) and Marys house tonight for a bar-b-que, which confirms that Summer has arrived.

Mary and Graham gave us a suprise visit this morning - following one of their Sunday group walks. - Obvisouly interested in how Michaels doing.

Gotta go - parties to go to...

Bingley the poo (eugh!)

Since getting Mr Bingley almost 3 weeks ago, I've been hard at work (including weekends) whilst Wendy's using up all her accrued leave... However she's kept in touch with me (mainly) by email...

From Wendy - To Robert : Wed 12/10/2005 2:13 PM

Can I leave him in a box outside the RSPCA? He has just eaten a piece of poo. I saw it all - it was on the ground and he went up to sniff it and picked it up and ate it. Then he came over to me to be tickled. Harley saw it too and she was disgusted - she gave me a look that said "well what do you expect from a dog".

From Wendy - To Robert : Tue 11/10/2005 1:41 PM


I got a kong and a name tag for Bingley. Aswell as some food (biscuits) for him and the cats.
I have just fed Bingley with some puppy porridge and a frozen bone for lunch.
He has dragged it into his kennel and is chewing away.

Categories:

• bingley

Michael is home

I'm stuck at work - but the good news is that Michael is now back at home, and looking as healthy as ever

Web Sites - CSS

Some time ago I knocked up a web site for the Cat Haven here in Perth. This site has been around for a while now (no thanks to iinet who host it - they have recently caused me a lot of work to keep the site up, and not with an ideal solution). The site looks OK, but doesn't really work correctly in non-ie browsers, and a few other things I'm not happy about. Anyway the main work I did was to build a site which was (supposed) to be really easy to maintain. The content of the site being upto the Haven.

Anyway, I was approached by the "Cat Sterilisation Society" (CSS) to do a site for them (obviously, like me, they don't know a lot about web design). I've knocked this up for them (note that this link could well stop working - or become something else, as it's a link to my own personal web space). You'll see is VERY similar to the Cat Haven site, as it uses all the code from their site to present itself. I've a feeling this site may not get off the ground in the end, as it's much dependent on them getting a grant. Also it took me an age to get together (I was very slow, not that it was tonnes of work).

Categories:

• cathaven

Nandos

Finally in this sequence of animal pictures - here are our chucks! We've not names them other than the "Nando's Bunch".

I include this picture to show how small they were when we got them - which was only about 3 weeks ago. They are now about three times the size, it's really amazing to look at this picture now and how small they were. 

Categories:

• eggs
• nandos

Wendy with Bingley

 

Categories:

• bingley

Mr Bingley

For those of you who don't know - we've got ourselves a puppy - following the 'Pride and Prejudice' theme - Here's 'Mr Bingley'.

Bingley is now 9 weeks old, and is really well behaved. The cats are getting used to him, and just give him a wide berth.

Categories:

• bingley

Visited Michael

Made a quick visit to see Michael on the way home from work. With luck he's going to be home on Sunday. He looks fine, although he does have some nasty head wounds from when he collapsed.

They have been able to repair the damage to his hearts blood supply which actually caused the attacks, but they have found some other areas which need repairing - which means he'll be called back to hospital within the next few months (once his current problems have had time to settle down). He's under strict instructions to take it really easy for the next few months - although he seams more worried about getting back to work.

Michael has promised to give up smoking! This is a major step for him, and we're all so glad he's going to give it a go. His time in hospital should be helping him kick the habit. It's very sad to see how many people have to come out of the hospital and smoke in the street - they are all lined up in pajamas, many with bags of blood or what not held in their hands!

Its all new

Welcome to our blogg. Of course this has been initiated by Robert - but heck, who knows... we may be able to get Wendy to put some stuff up.

So here's the latest news. Michael is currently in hospital after getting us all worried on Wednesday morning when Rosaline found him on the floor in the bathroom. He's had a heart attack (or two to be precise) - and was a little battered from his initial fall. He still in hospital, rigged up with lots of wires, but otherwise seams fine.

I'm off to see him now (it's 6pm and I'm just leaving work) - so I can give a better update later.