Anniversary

Yesterday was our 19th wedding anniversary - we really don't celebrate these, as it's a bit like saying - hay look we've made it another year. However I did send Wendy this list of gifts last week...

Modern Wedding Anniversary Gift List

Anniv.	Gift
1st	Gold jewelry
2nd	Garnet
3rd	Pearls
4th	Blue topaz
5th	Sapphire
6th	Amethyst
7th	Onyx
8th	Tourmaline
9th	Lapis
10th	Diamond jewelry
11th	Turquoise
12th	Jade
13th	Citrine
14th	Opal
15th	Ruby
16th	Peridot
17th	Watch
18th	Cat's-eye
19th	Dog Biscuit
20th	Plastic
25th	Silver jubilee
30th	Pearl jubilee
35th	Emerald
40th	Ruby
45th	Sapphire
50th	Golden jubilee
60th	Diamond jubilee

You may notice that the 19th and 20th have been slightly altered. - Anyway W wasnt too please when I gave her two dog biscuits yesterday morning.

Misc Pics

Yes it's a pizza, and yes I think we fell foul of the 1st rule of pizza making - don't add too many toppings.


Here's W setting out on the Belly Dance performace last weekend
Here we all are having a bbq with A & J



Here's the tiles being put on.





Another meal with A & J

Pics

Our first real pizza cook...









We've loaded some wood...




Here are some of the final Pizza preparation shots






We have all got new chairs at work - here's the graveyard, making it rather difficult to get at our technical books.


My giant calculator - to deal with the really big numbers.

With A & J - a trip to Bells Rapids.


The Chooks are loose - notice Cookie stalking.




New series - things that annoy...
1. The number of dissabled bays which NEVER EVER get used, no matter how full the car park is.



2. People with tiny cars who can't park

Moved out

A & J moved out early in the week, to move into a backpackers hostel in the centre of town. We've made it clear that they were welcome to stay as long as they like, but a number of factors probably made our place not ideal for them...

1. Location - we're rather a distance from the happening areas (45 min by public transport - when it's running). So job hunting was a problem. (This was the main reason they said for moving out).
   
2. We're located in the wine growing region of WA - great for pleasant trips out, but not so good for night time drinking, meeting women, and the like.
3. They didn't have any transport here (we lent them W's car - but still not ideal). So they probably felt very isolated.
4. We suspect they were missing the social atmosphere that the back-packers gave. ie. lots of people in near identical situations to them.

Having seen them (or J anyway) yesterday, it sounds like they are having a great time (if lots of hangovers = great times). It probably doesn't help that the hostel is located right opposite to one of the big social pubs in Perth.

A's iPod was not working when he got here, but thanks to a new battery from eBay - it's as good as new (a scratched up new one anyway).

They have managed to get some work - in a factory. Also A has been trying out over the weekend serving in a cafe - lets hope that works out, as I suspect factory work would be rather boring.

A (and possibly J) plan to come and stay over for a few more days before they leave - taking in the last of a 'real' bed.

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We had our 1st Pizza on Friday night (W and I were both off work). We made 3, the 1st of which ended up on the floor, as we'd forgot to put flour on the Peel (the shovel). The next two were really wonderful, despite being burned a bit around the edges. We suspect we rather over stocked the fire, as it was still HUGE whilst we cooked the pizza, and the oven was still red hot about 4 hours later.

Saturday and Sunday has been spent tiling the oven (pictures to come). It's looking quite dapper now, although I fear the tiles may come off under the intense heat. - fingers crossed.

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W's heart is being monitored, and she's dew back at the Docs in a couple of weeks. She believes that it's not as bad as it was (she's not feeling it so often). When I listen, it's still a little irregular, although all indications are that this is quite common (or at least not unknown).

W's joined a gym, and has got herself a personal trainer. She's hoping the exercise will burn off some of the excess adrenaline that she's suffering from.

Backpackers

It's been a week now since Andy and Jonny arrived, we're not used to 'young' people being around, and despite what I thought, I suspect we're not as cool as we thought.

Something which particularly made me feel old, was when I mentioned 'The Goodies' only to be told they'd never heard of them - and we're surprised to see Bill Oddie doing comedy.

I suspect the last 7 days may be their longest stretch without a hangover for some time - although they were out last night, and appear to have broken the drought.

Still they are in the middle of the holiday of a life time, and it won't be something they'll ever forget. Unlike a lot of my years (terrible memory)


Tonight (Sat) we're having a bbq - which I'll probably get them to cook, giving me a night off - something which doesn't usually happen when we have BBQ's.

Some pics

Here's the pizza oven - with blue waterproofing.

Here we are at the lake on the estate - taking Bingley for a walk


Perhaps he should be called Satan...
An excellent job that M is making of the Granite crazy pave...

Busy weekend.

So I've got myself a laptop, thanks to a great offer from work, where they pay all the tax on it, and take the money from me pre-tax too. Which meens I get it for about 1/2 price. It's only a basic DELL (ignoring all the comments about Dell's catching fire link link2 link3) but certainly more than I need for internet browing, and hopefuly doing lots of on-line courses - thanks to another work initiative, which has given me access to a whole heap of computer courses - online - for the next year or so.

We've been getting upstars tidied up - in part ready for Andy's visit (more later), but also because I've got a lot of PC gear with no where to put it. Now thanks to good old Ikea, I've got quite a nice computer desk up there. So we now have two offices in the house!

More on Andy - we've heard today that he's arriving Today with friend Jonny... provided his van gets here (apparently it's on its last legs). Can't wait to find out how their journeys gone so far.

M is working hard on the pizza oven - doing lots of cutting to get the granite top in place. We're hoping to get at least one cook out of it before A & J leave (I believe the next stops Melbourne).

We took Bingley for a long walk to the bottom of a local quarry today. It's our 1st time there - at least from the bottom of it. It's a local climbing spot, so there are always lots of people around. I wouldn't trust Bing from the top - he's be likely to try to abseil it.

Gotta go - Andy's here!

W update

So the first results are in. She has too much adrenalin being produced, which is causing her heart problems. The heart itself is reasonably well (a bit of leak back from one of the valves).

They are monitoring it for the next month to see how bad it's effecting her. - Although she's pretty sure it's not good as it's happening all the time.

She's trying to avoid any stress - which isn't easy - W gets stessed very easily. Sh'es also been told to avoid any chemicals (caffeen etc) - that should be a piece of cake, since she already avoids coke,tea,coffee,alcohol...

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My training has finished - at least for a few weeks. It's been quite hard going, as we've done about a dozen courses all, one after another. By the end of them, I can hardly remember the names of the courses, let alone what was taught.