davidcook

We went on a holiday! I figure that's a big enough event in our lives that it's worth posting about, and I posted some running updates to Facebook on the way which gave me a starting point to write about it here.
I've backdated a bunch of entries from the trip:
The arrival (Sep 19)
Sep 20 update (London)
Sep 22 update (more London)
Sep 25 update (London/Paris)
Sep 28 update (Paris/Scotland)
Oct 1 update (more Scotland)
The rest

There was one final FB update on the trip:
Oct 11
Hooooome! It's a bit of a slog getting to Australia, and we Had A Moment at Singapore airport where it seemed we'd lost Ms9's favourite Luna Park hoodie, but fortunately it was somehow found and appeared just as we were boarding for Melbourne. Now to stay awake so we don't get completely our of sync with the world ...


Notes: ... so that was fun. Imagine four quite tired, over-travelled and jetlagged people, and us realising (a few hours after getting off the plane) that Ms9's favourite hoodie was nowhere to be found. I reported it at the Singapore airlines desk, and initially it seemed that the plane had been parked and they could only check it when it was being readied for its next flight, which would be after our departure. I took the contact details for their help desk, and we did our best to keep Ms9 from complete meltdown and wandered towards our gate. Just as we were about to go through for boarding, one of the airport staff appeared there with the hoodie and handed it over! I have no idea what stars had to align for this, but we were all very relieved.

And now we are well and truly back to life as normal - school and fencing and cricket and all the normal routine. Anyway, that was our trip, and overall it went pretty well.

From the 1st, I stopped posting FB updates on the trip, so here's what else we got up to:


Tue Oct 1
Drove North, up the A9 at first, with a quick stop at Carn Liath (a roadside broch), then left at Helmsdale on the A897 - a single-track (with passing places) road that takes the scenic route up to Melvich/Bettyhill. It was a nice drive, although I'd say busier than last time we went up that way, and now with added logging trucks. Also didn't see any deer this time.
Went down to Sandside beach, then a bit of a walk to St Mary's Chapel (a ruin on the coast), and finally to Thurso, for a quick stop, refuel & look around. The day was getting on, so off we drove again, this time all down the A9, with a dinner stop in Dunkeld.

Wed Oct 2 - first leg of the drive South. Stopped at the Hermitage, which is still a lovely spot, and ended up in Crossford, where we were staying with more of my cousins, Alison & Doug.

Thu Oct 3 - just driving. Crossford to Chester, with a stop at Tebay services (of course). For some reason, Chester has two Travelodges within a short distance of each other, and of course we stopped at the wrong one first, but we were soon in the right place, and then finding ourselves some dinner.

Fri Oct 4 - wandering around Chester, starting with the "Sick to Death" exhibit, which was just across the road from our hotel. Then walked around the walls, with a lunch stop on the way. Probably collapsed back at the hotel for a while, then went looking for dinner.

Sat Oct 5 - left Chester and headed to Leeds (although apparently Leeds didn't want us, we had no end of trouble navigating the roundabouts on the way in to town). Eventually got to the Royal Armouries, and spent time there looking at shiny things and pointy things (and shiny pointy things!). Also bought a few things (no swords, alas). Left there (more trouble with roundabouts, this time it was like Leeds didn't want us to go!) to meet kriste and family for dinner, then onwards to their house for a couple of nights.

Sun Oct 6 - a day out! Starting with Sherwood Forest, including the Mighty Oak, and another dangerous gift shop. Next stop was Rufford Abbey - ironically the Abbey itself was closed for repairs, but the gardens were good and the playground kept the four kids (two of ours and two of kriste's occupied for a while). Back to Bingham & kriste's place for dinner.

Mon Oct 7 - left Bingham after a stroll around town, heading for Windsor, and Legoland. Found the hotel, had a quick dinner, and then went on a night tour around the place (with a bit of a quest thing, that was mostly done by Ms9, with us following behind).

Tue Oct 8 - A day at Legoland. We split up to start with - rwrylsin with Ms9, myself with Mr12. We went on a ride! And I declared no more rides for me, because that was enough to throw out my sense of balance and leave me feeling off-kilter for a good chunk of the day. Fortunately there were other things to see around the place, and the time passed pretty easily. There was, of course, some shopping, and somehow Mr12 & Ms9 got picked for a random product test, which left them with a whole bag of Lego. This left us with a challenge to try to fit everything in our suitcases - fortunately, rwrylsin, being wise to the ways of us travelling, had packed a foldable duffel bag, and with a certain about of squeezing and shoving, we actually managed to fit almost everything in (with a little left over in a bag that could be taken as carry-on). Whew!
We had planned to have dinner at the other hotel restaurant at Legoland, but it was closed, so we went for a little drive, and found a nice Italian place, which I think was technically in Eton rather than Windsor.

Wed Oct 9 - said our farewells to Legoland, and headed out. The original plan had been to park our luggage somewhere and spend a bit more time at Legoland, but Mr12 had asked if we could see Stonehenge. It turned out that it was possible, and was a pretty good outing for the day. After that, we drove to Heathrow, dropped off the hire car (around 1700 miles more on it!), took the shuttle to the airport, waited a bit until our check-in opened, found some dinner, and finally were on a plane.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Oct 1
Saturday 28: drove out Glasgow way ... and kept on driving 😉

But for a good reason, our first stop of the day was Newark Castle, out Port Glasgow way. Then we headed back and parked in Partick, and wandered up to The Yarn Cake, where we ate yarn and bought cake ... or something like that 😁
Then a quick ride on the Subway & a wander along Buchanan & Sauciehall streets, with a little book "accident" along the way. Finished the lap of the Subway and returned to the cottage for dinner.
Sunday 29: started late. Stopped by the Kelpies, then on to Perth for lunch with Isobel & Gordon, and a little walk along the Tay. After that it was time to hit the road again, up to our hotel in Strathpeffer (with a quick stop for food in Inverness on the way).
Monday 30: down to Castle Urquhart - which was surprisingly busy for this time of the year. Lunched there, then to Corrimony Chambered Cairn. Took the scenic way back up, with stops at Cannich Falls and Rogie Falls along the way. Now contemplating dinner ...


Notes: (Isobel & Gordon are cousins, and their daughter has just had a baby, making me some kind of grand-cousin-uncle thing ... )
Was neat to see our old home area (Partick) again - some things have changed a bit, but not a lot. Was also good to finally see the station in its finished form - the redevelopment was still going on when we left.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 28
Wednesday: Louvre time! ... actually not sure where the rest of the day went. Also, getting the Louvre tickets wasn't as easy as you'd think for a place that gets so many visitors. Anyway, there was probably lunch at a café, lots of walking around, and we finished the day with a very nice dinner at a place not far from the hotel.
Thursday: transit day. Walked to Gare du Nord, train to CDG, flight to Edinburgh, picked up hire car & headed to our cottage. Also picked up a small fortune in groceries which should hopefully bring down our dining spend just a little (lunch+dinner for the four of us really starts to add up!).
Today: decided to do Edinburgh today, Glasgow tomorrow. Craigmillar Castle first (Sonya is jealous of the local school-kids who get to have excursions to castles), then in to the centre for lunch, a wander up the Royal Mile, through the Castle, and back via many souvenir shops.

Notes: Amusing note: we were staying at a little cottage attached to a farm in the Central Belt (somewhere vaguely near Shotts). There was a note in the guest book noting that they had Wifi, but the speed might not be as high as people might expect. I ran a speed test, and it turned out to be faster than our home internet 🤣

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 25
Next trip update:
Sunday: left hotel, parked luggage at St Pancras, and did an express trip to the British Museum. Back to St. Pancras & on to Eurostar - with a bit of a delay. Arrived in Paris 45 minutes late, so just staggered our way to the hotel to drop off luggage, and grabbed some golden arches dinner for maximum convenience.
Monday: headed out to the Louvre, but the kids vetoed going in. Instead wandered along the Seine, over to Notre Dame - not open yet, so we stopped for a snack instead. Back to the hotel, and then Lisa and I conked out hard for naps, guess the busy time in London caught up with us. Found a bit of energy and walked up to the Sacré-Couer Basilica (with bonus rain showers), then back down via dinner at another random café.
Today: Lazed around a bit, then headed out to the Catacombs - Lisa & I finally made it there, on our previous trips they were closed (due to being Monday, or not Monday but a public holiday, or union action). After a lunch stop, went over to the Eiffel Tower, and after some confusion over how, where & which tickets to buy, we all ended up doing the 600+ step climb to the second floor, and then the lift to the top. Back down eventually, and made our way back to dinner and collapse.

Notes: Mr12 thought Paris was not French enough. Missed in the FB update (from the Sunday, I think) - Mr12 and I went out again in the evening to see the light show on the Eiffel Tower. Not 100% sure it was worth the extra walking/Metro trips, it only last 5 minutes or so, but at least we can say we did it (and took a video to save Ms9/rwrylsin from having to trek out there for it). It mostly rained or was grey and cloudy while we were there.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 22
Catching up with the past couple of days:
Friday - quick grocery shop, London Eye, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, dinner, and collapse back at hotel.
Yesterday - Globe Tour, back to Science Museum for the "Powered Up" gaming exhibit, over to the V&A for a while, detour in search of squirrels in Hyde Park, then a shopping run to Foyles, Forbidden Planet, and Hotel Chocolat. Dinner & then back to hotel to collapse.

Notes: The Globe Tour was also Mr12's idea, and was a nice change from all the museums. Bookstores in the UK are dangerous, even when we were trying to restrict ourselves to only things that might not make it to Australia, or at least not anytime soon. From this point on in the trip, our smaller (of 3) suitcases contained pretty much only books. The squirrels were Ms9's desire, and we did see some along the way. First dinner was at a small Chinese restaurant near the museums, second dinner was Zizzi.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 20
First full day of London-ing - wandered along Southbank from our hotel to Tower Bridge, spent almost 4 hours at the Tower of London, returned to the hotel for a quick recharge, then out for dinner and a play at the West End- "The Play That Goes Wrong". Nearly 30k steps for the day, now we're back at the hotel and about to conk out ...
Tomorrow: London Eye & probably the Natural History Museum.


Notes: As always, we started with probably too much walking around on the first day, should have eased into it a bit. The idea of watching a play at the West End was Mr12's, and rwrylsin helped him to choose one - and a good choice it was too, "The Play That Goes Wrong" is hilariously funny, especially for anyone who's been backstage on a production of some sort.

(this is one of a series of back-dated posts about our family trip to the UK/France. The first part of each post is copied from my Facebook status posts from the trip, possibly then with additional notes added)

Sep 19
Landed in London. Smooth flight. Just waiting for Everyone Else to disembark, or at least start moving.
(Kids conked in taxi)


Notes: As above, the flights were smooth - Melbourne to Singapore, and Singapore to London. As we were arriving in Singapore quite late, and had 8 hours until the next leg, we booked some time in the in-terminal hotel, and managed to sleep a bit and freshen up. The flights were mostly smooth, a little mild turbulence here and there (carefully timed to delay meal service, of course), but nothing too bad. We arrived in London around 4pm-ish, took Heathrow Express to ... Paddington, I think, and then decided a taxi from there was the better option rather than attempting the Underground. As noted above, the kids both fell asleep in the back of the taxi on the way to the hotel. We went for the dinner option of most convenience (i.e. Maccas), and got off to sleep in reasonable time.

(cross-post from Facebook, because it's long-ish and will get lost there very quickly)

Right, belated update ... we bought a car! A new car, even - it's an MG4 Electric (Excite 51 - the base model), and it's blue.

So, why that one in particular? Well, after test driving a few different cars, it was the one where we both came away saying "it's just like driving any other car" - handles well, doesn't feel like a dodgem car when you lift off the accelerator, nothing too clever in the gadgets and gizmos. It also has a very pleasing amount of "whoosh" if required, it's put a smile on my face more than a few times now.

Ironically, we went to the MG dealer around 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon (with a nominal 5pm closing time), and the salesperson there dissuaded us from a test drive then "because there's a lot to learn about these cars". Good thing we decided to go back, because once we knew how to turn it on and choose D/R, we were off.
We still have the Mondeo (diesel wagon), because Lisa still needs to haul around half a fencing club every now and then, and family road trips (like the Discworld convention in Adelaide last weekend) still need room for four passengers plus a Whole Bunch of Stuff. But the intention is to use the MG for as many of the short trips in our lives as we can (and with kids at two different schools for the next 2.5 years, there could be a lot of those!). We don't have a fast charger at home yet, but seem to be doing ok with the slow one so far anyway ...

Haven't felt like posting for quite a while now, but figured it was worth it for a special-ish occasion - 20 years (plus one day) since I started on LJ.
Noteworthy things from the last 6 or 7 years which I didn't feel like writing about:
- 2018 we had Family Gastro (first and only time, wiped 4-5 weeks out of the year). I had a bonus bacterial chest infection, and later all but ripped my left thumbnail off ... the night before a fencing competition ... that our club was organising. I still went, helped organise, competed, & won. I came 2nd at the Commonwealth Veterans in Men's Epee ... and a couple of weeks later managed to come down with chicken pox (!).
- 2019 ... I have no idea what we did of note in 2019.
- 2020 ... well, stuff definitely happened in 2020. I remember seeing someone posting on Twitter in January or so, excitedly (or worriedly) about the R0 of this new virus that seemed to be coming out of China, and someone else telling them to calm down, it wouldn't be that bad. By March, my workplace had sent everyone home, whether the VPN was ready or not (it wasn't, but was upgraded remarkably quickly), and that's become the "new normal". I've been to the office only a handful of times since then, and even now as companies push people to go back, I'm in no rush (not helped by train works on my line, bus replacement services adding 30-45 minutes to the journey makes it much easier to skip). And Mum died (not COVID), so ... not a great year, all around.
- 2021 ... some first glimmers of regular life came along? But also more lockdowns and complications. Managed to sneak in some fencing and became National Veteran Men's Epee Champion.
- 2022 ... back to more-or-less normal for school. Still working from home. Went on an epic road trip through Mildura, Coober Pedy, Uluru, back through Coober Pedy, and home via Adelaide in April. Dad died in May (also not COVID). We have a new cat (a stray that my parents had been feeding - was named Kat, now Cleo (short for CleoKatra, thanks kids)). Defended my National Veteran title.
- 2023 ... is passing by in a blur. One of our kids just turned 11, the other turns 8 in a couple of weeks. Just finished my second season of cricket (Mr11 is also playing). Life is whooshing by, and we're heading to Adelaide in a week to (hopefully) finish preparing my parents house for sale.

Whee ... ok, it looks pretty intense in bullet points like that. Certainly been some ups and downs, but mostly we're muddling through ok.

Angel of Storms - Trudi Canavan
The Rhesus Chart - Charles Stross
Magic for Nothing - Seanan McGuire
The Annihilation Score - Charles Stross
An Accident of Stars By Foz Meadows
Challenges of the Deeps - Ryk E Spoor
Uprooted - Naomi Novik
The Nightmare Stacks - Charles Stross
A Tyranny of Queens - Foz Meadows
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho
Fix - Ferrett Steinmetz
The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemison
The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemison
The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemison
Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Kaleidoscope Century - John Barnes
The Many-Colored Land - Julian May
The Golden Torc - Julian May
The Nonborn King - Julian May
The Adversary - Julian May
Intervention - Julian May
Jack the Bodiless - Julian May


The last 7 books on the list are re-reads, which is something I hardly ever do. If I only have time to read 20-odd books in a year, I generally want them to be something new.
I chose those books for re-reads for different reasons - the Barnes, because I remembered that he wrote a few books dealing with "meme wars" (not the kind we get on the Internet these days :) ), and wanted to see if how his world compared to our one.

Unfortunately, I think I actually wanted to read "Orbital Resonance", the first book in the sequence, because the main thing I noticed about Kaleidoscope Century was how unlikeable the main character was, and how rapey (and sexist and racist) it was.

Hearing about Julian May's death in 2017 prompted me to see if those books were still worth reading - and broadly speaking, the answer was yes indeed. Intervention was a bit slow-moving after the Saga of the Exiles, and now that I'm in the final book of the Mileau Trilogy I'm not 100% sure if I've read them all before - in the Saga, I had at least a vague idea of the main plot lines, but I'm not getting the same feeling in the later books. But they're all enjoyable reads and I've had a few late nights reading them lately.

In case anyone is looking for me on Dreamwidth, same username as on LJ (since, ummm ... 2009 !)

Well, I'm cheating a bit, because I only saw one at the cinema, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but I want to note down a few thoughts I had on it ...

First, the nitpicks (and these are pretty small things):
1. At some point I started noticing the sounds of peoples' footsteps, and they were just slightly jarring - first because they sounded just like some of the footstep sounds used in some Star Wars games (thinking of Jedi Knight mainly), and second because right at the end, when someone is climbing stone steps, the footstep sound used is far too loud for the situation (I could go up similar stone steps in my stompy boots almost silently, and the character involved wasn't wearing stompy boots ... ).[1]

( Ok, this might be mildly spoilery ...  )

Now for other thoughts:
As many people better with words than me have noted, this film had lots of different audiences to attempt to satisfy, and lots of functions to fulfill. Yes, it played safe and had many similarities to SW IV, but it provides a good launching point for the next film. (Of course, if the next one(s) repeat plots from V & VI too closely, then I'll be somewhat disappointed).

For me, the film achieved something else - it made me want to read, play or watch something Star Wars-related afterwards, which is not something I've felt great drive to do in recent years.
I'm also considering seeing it again, which (with two small children in the house) is definitely saying something good about it.

Anyway, overall opinion is "thumbs up", definitely worth watching.


[1] There might be a bit of circularity happening here, as I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Jedi Knight games had some work done by ILM (and/or people who'd worked on the original trilogy), so maybe the games got the footsteps sounds from the movies in the first place, and VII is just re-using the same "soundscape".

Fencing results from 2015 - no competitions outside Melbourne last year, for obvious reasons :)

State Open Epee 1: Quarter-finals (7th)
State Open Epee 2: Quarter-finals (8th)
State Open Epee 3: Quarter-finals (7th)
State Open Epee 4/Championships: Quarter-finals (8th)
State Veteran Epee 4/Championships: 2nd

National Open Epee #3: 33rd
National Veteran Epee #3: 1st

Consistent, I guess, but I was hoping to reach the medal zone in at least one of the Open comps (like the previous two years). On the other hand, I had been making it along to State Squad roughly once a month (with Mr3 in tow) in the past couple of years, and didn't manage that last year. Once Ms0 is old enough, I'll try to get back into the routine ...

So I managed to do a bit of cycling in 2015, but see if you can spot a number in the list below which stands out in some way from the others :

6279
6522
5002
6246
5029
3159

... yup, the last figure is the km cycled in 2015, way down from the previous five years. This was partly due to the baby arriving, but mostly due to having some kind of cold, cough, sniffle, or combination, for 11 weeks of the year (including the one that helpfully went around the whole family just before Christmas). The first of those left me coughing persistently for 5 weeks, and apparently that set the tone for the year.

... wait, it's 2016 now ? How did that happen ?!

Anyway, apparently I managed to read a few books in 2015, despite our little arrival :

Ink-Black Magic, by Tansy Rayner Roberts.
The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu.
Spheres of Influence, by Ryk E Spoor.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Flex, by Ferrett Steinmetz
Hammered, by Kevin Hearne
The Future Falls, by Tanya Huff
Pirate Cinema, by Cory Doctorow
The Witches of Echo Park, by Amber Benson
Thief's Magic, by Trudi Canavan
My Real Children, by Jo Walton.
The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin.
Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor
Guardians of Paradise, by Jaine Fenn
Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman
God's Demon, by Wayne Barlowe
A Red-Rose Chain, by Seanan McGuire
Blood of Tyrants, by Naomi Novik
The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende.
Mad Skills, by Walter Greatshell
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman.

Lisa and David are pleased to announce the arrival of a baby girl !
Time: 11:42am. Weight: 3.9kg. Length: 52.5cm.
Mum and Bub are well and resting.

At one point on Friday night, rwrylsin and I were totally convinced that Bub2's arrival was imminent (as in, bags-in-the-car, emergency-babysitter on red alert, prepare to announce 4/4 as Bub2's date of birth to the world, and to tell work that I wouldn't be in for a month).

... but it didn't happen. There have been contractions, back-aches, appetite and energy fading in and out, kicking and shifting of Bub2, but no arrival yet.

If nothing else happens before then, Bub2 will be induced next Monday anyway, although we're still thinking we're on for arrival sometime this week.
So it's back to waiting ...

... and coughing. I came down with some nasty virus early last week - so wiped out that I spent half of Tuesday in bed, didn't even stagger along to fencing training that evening. It's mostly involved coughing ... so much coughing. rwrylsin has had a similar cough for weeks now - our theory is that she can't fill her lungs up enough to really shift the "slime" that's built up (since there's Bub2 in the way), so it just persists and drives her to distraction.

I suspect it was a delayed reaction to the last 6 weeks or so, which have been flat-out busy, both at work and around the house. We've had bathroom renovation when half the tiles in a shower started falling off, room movements to get Bub1 out of the nursery and into his own room, which meant moving rwrylsin's office across a room, plus various painting, fixing, etc. On top of this, our club was involved in a couple of fencing demonstrations, there was a fencing tournament, a birthday party for Bub1, and so on - basically, I spent all of February and March thinking "no, I can't get sick now, I have to do X" every time I felt a tickle in my throat - and we finally reached the last commitment just over a week ago, and it all caught up with me.
I'm finally feeling mostly improved, but quickly running out of energy, and still coughing.

... and waiting. Whee. We should probably pick a name :-)

So, here's the situation.

Currently, my music gets synced from my old laptop, running Windows XP, and iTunes 7.1.

I have two other computers :
New desktop with Windows 8.1, no iTunes yet.
Old-ish Mac Mini, with OS X 10.6.8, iTunes 11.4.

I want to get the iTunes library off the XP machine, and onto one of the others.

Is it possible to migrate the library and retain the playlists, favourites, play count etc ?

If so, what's the best way ? Should I try to upgrade iTunes on the XP machine, or copy the files to one of the others and import somehow ?

13 books read in 2014 ... not much reading time around these days, apparently.

Ecko Rising, by Danie Ware
Ecko Burning, by Danie Ware
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, by Ambelin Kwaymullina
The Disappearance of Ember Crow, by Ambelin Kwaymullina
Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
Half-Off Ragnarok, by Seanan McGuire
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, by Catherynne M Valente
Sister Mine, by Nalo Hopkinson
The Fractal Prince, by Hannu Rajaniemi
The Oath of the Vayaputras, by Amish Tripathi
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
The Human Division, by John Scalzi
The Winter Long, by Seanan McGuire

Ok, it's summer, and summer is the season for cricket (well, for me it is).

So I'd like to get a bunch of people together and play Park Cricket.
Park Cricket, of course, is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea cricket, the basic idea being that we find a suitable park somewhere, play something involving a bat and a (tennis) ball (and probably stumps), everyone gets a turn, and hopefully everyone has fun.

("Fun" could also include finding a shady spot nearby and enjoying a picnic and entertaining toddlers and small children, of course.)

Anyone interested ? This is most likely to be on a Sunday morning sometime, probably in March (before Bub2 arrives, and while there's a reasonable chance of a nice day for it).

There are a few rule variations to think about - whether catching is one-hand-one-bounce, whether bowlers can bowl underarm, overarm or either, and if batting is "tip-and-run". I figure we can work that out on the day ...

The overnights meme:

List the places where you spent a night away from home this year, marking places where you spent two or more non-consecutive nights with an asterisk.

... needless to say, this list is rather less exciting than it was when we were living in Scotland :)

*Foster, Victoria
*Adelaide, South Australia
*Nhill, Victoria
Canberra, ACT


I suspect next year will be similar (perhaps without Canberra), as Bub2 is due to arrive late April ...

... this is the short version. I did 7 fencing competitions over 4 weeks. Ummm ... it seemed like a good idea at the time :)
And I've had some kind of cold or cough or bug coming and going for most of the last 4 weeks ...

1. 14/11 - State Sabre Teams championships - I got roped in at the last minute to make a team so that the competition would actually run. We came 3rd of 3 teams, although it was closer than that makes it appear - each team won one and lost one, the ranking was made on indicators.

2. 22/11 - State Open Epee championships - 3rd (of 16). (note - with 3rd place play-off)

3. 29/11 - Club Open Epee championships - 1st (of 7).

4. 30/11 - State Veteran Epee championships - 2nd (of 7).

5. 6-7/12 - Oceania & National Open Epee championships - 20th (of 63).

6. 7/12 - Oceania & National Veteran Epee championships - equal 3rd (of 25).

7. 7/12 - Oceania & National Veteran Epee Teams championship - 2nd (of 7 teams).


My competition placings for the whole year go:
5, 1, 7, 1, 3, 3, 1, 2, 20, 3, 2

So, the background: As mentioned previously, Bub2 is on the way.

We regularly transport large amounts of fencing equipment around the place (5-6 full fencing bags, plus scoring boxes+spools, etc).

Our previous car (Renault Scenic) had an awkward placement of child-seat anchor which meant there were two straps extending from the back of the child seat to the back of the luggage space. With one child seat in place, this was just manageable for our equipment transport, with the other two seats folded down.
However, with two child seats in place, it would be impossible, there might be room for one or two bags and that'd be it.

That meant that we needed to start looking for a new car with just a bit more space, and a better design for the child-seat anchors.

rwrylsin started looking at reviews and specifications of various cars, and then searched around Melbourne car dealers looking for possibilities for us to test drive. The Skoda Octavia came up as a "possible", so we went along to the car place, tape-measure in hand, and poked around that and a bunch of other cars.

Many (including the Skoda) were ruled out, for being too small, too large, too fuel inefficient, too SUV/4WD/tank-like, or too people-mover/bus-like. A few were left, mostly a bunch of different Holden models with different badge names but all basically the same model.

Back to the research we went, and up came a Ford Mondeo wagon, with one available in Ringwood. rwrylsin took it for a test drive and measure one day while Bub was in childcare, and decided it was a possible candidate and worth me taking a look. A plan was hatched where we'd pop along during my lunch-break on the next Tuesday when I was working from home and check it out.

Tuesday dawned, and so did Bub, probably very early (6am is becoming a trend, lately). I think we started with breakfast as normal, and then we played for a bit. Bub threw a Duplo block at me, hitting me in the head, so I said "ow" and asked him to say he was sorry. And asked again. And again ... and waited. And asked ...
Yes, it turned into a battle of wills with a toddler. At that point, I decided it was important to wait for an apology, and apparently he decided it was important to skip it.

Time passed.

Almost 90 minutes later, he finally apologised, and I collapsed into a willpower-drained heap, before getting on with the day.

So we made it to lunch-time, went along to the car dealer, and I took the car for a drive.
Yup, it was definitely a car ... despite being quite a bit larger than the Scenic, it didn't feel *huge* as such, and seemed to run ok.

We went in to chat to the dealer, talked price and trade-in and all that. Time passed, and I needed to start heading home to join a work conference call.
Then he asked me if we wanted to buy the car ...

So there I was - on the spot to make a decision, time running short, sleep-deprived, and sapped of willpower.

So now we have a new car :)



Fortunately, it does seem to be a pretty good car, and a) isn't a 4WD/SUV/tank, b) isn't a people-mover, and c) isn't a complete fuel-guzzler. Whew.

... I tried to use the "Share" button on LJ, apparently a "Share window" is supposed to appear ? But it didn't, on Firefox or Safari, so:

We have some news ! And since rwrylsin posted about it first, I'll just link to her post. :)


(Edit: hopefully posted with the correct date now, with luck someone will actually see this ...)