Melbourne

Gypsy has come for a visit. The cats are unimpressed.

This is from Bing's front page.

Christmas day report.

Some of you may remember me writing about my BIL who is a hoarder and for whom we spent a lot of energy and time cleaning up his house and yard. Weeks of horrible disgusting dirty work.

He does not have much furniture, nearly all that he has he inherited from his dad, just like he inherited the house. And he does need to replace his kitchen and bathroom .

So I organised a nice big gift card from ikea to him as a present. Just to get him looking at the website or in the actual store as well as getting something that could make his life better.

He opened the present. He was furious.

It seems to me he was counting on cash so that in our usual cash gift exchange he would come out even. Take into account he doesn't make any meaningful contribution to xmas dinners or any fam celebration, he usually comes out ahead.

I had no idea he was that much of an unredeemed Scrooge.

Ted is enjoying this warm weather by snoozing on the terrace. I am happy he feels comfy and safe enough to snooze outside. 🙂

Everyone remember to layer up, put the heater on, and have plenty of hot drinks at hand. We'll get through this one

Happy Boxing Day everyone!!

A general reminder to you all: Do not set things on fire today.

Christmas day report 2.

That cousin who totes disrespected me last week. 🙄

Started talking about all of us going on holiday with him to Ireland.

This is after he said the bus tour operator on his last holiday was boring and would point out the most boring things, like ancient ruins of monasteries

and I said I'd be "Stop the bus!" and would be excited to see the ruins of the places where monks worked to save western civilisation after the fall of Rome.

To him the tour would be seeing places where some of his ancestors ( the men ) came from . I truly would not have enough eyes to roll.

Talking with him yesterday was a good exercise on how a very average sexist copes with talking to a woman who is not cowed by him and is way smarter and knows stuff better ( not perfect, just better ) The copium was spread thick.

"That's just your opinion."

changes subject

starts to get passive aggressive

appeals to other people

Not a good day to be fluffy :(

Tech support for p's on boxing day :(

The speed at which that generation will throw up their hands and say it's all too hard never ceases to amaze me.

Anyone interested in doing the Hobart to Hobart with me next year? We just float around on a boat in Hobart and sink some piss. If asked we claim we finished really early.

Work is over for the day & I finally have two days to myself, yay! Time to start catching up on all the cleaning and gardening I need to do...

Christmas is nice, but it is a bit hard to fit everything in when you don't have any time off and I have fallen a bit behind on a few of those not completely vital chores.

The wind is really picking up out there.

Ok now for a positive comment. Visited the grandma's house and she had a guitar amp in her garage that must've belonged to one of my cousins back in the day. It was very dusty! She insisted I take it, so now I have an amp with overdrive yay!

Sometimes good things happen when you're not looking for them :)

I’ve had 3 days of eating very too many desserts. No regrets.

I’m going to regret just finishing off a coffee.

I plan on watching the test cricket and doing the washing to take advantage of the weather.

Lazy day all round and I hope the cricket is good.

Best thing about today: hot cross buns go on sale

Konstas has not disappointed. This is hilarious 🏏

Last night I had a really nice dream. In it I was in a happy and loving relationship with someone who cared about me. It didn't even last that long, but in the dream I felt like it had been longer.

I've been thinking about it all day. She didn't even have a face, I just remember hugging her and thinking about how comfortable I was.

One of those not-nightmares that feels like one in retrospect

Gee I hope the fires don't actually reach Ararat and Stawell, that would be awful.

It's supposedly a warm night out here where I am but compared to last night in the hotbox I'm positively loving it. Lovely balmy breeze. Just nothing but the sound of insects chirping and the wind through the trees, no humans anywhere near, no lights, no electricity (though maybe annoyingly for trying to break bad habits, some phone reception...)

Ended up leaving Melbourne at 10am (after doubling back realising I'd left my wallet and hat at home). Made pretty decent time just pedal to the metal to Albury now another longer break just past Yass. Just 1.5 hrs more after this. Caught up with the fire news and it looks farked. So many people love Halls Gap though I have every confidence it will come back even if it gets hit really hard this time

Driving home yesterday evening the sun was so red. Would be cool if it wasn't because of smoke.

It's a sleepy day today. Made the trek in the heat to get cat food for the extended cat family and now I'm done.

I think today's gonna be a calm day for me. Groceries are due to be delivered between 3-5, and temps are expected to peak by 4 (which is good because I forgot to order ice cream). I can have a sleep in and then I reckon I'll get up and go for a dip in the pool. Oh, and then tomorrow (Friday) is robo vacuum day! Exciting! I must really be getting old if a vacuum cleaner is more exciting than a pool. Or maybe it's all about the anticipation

Today's gonna be a rough one for the firies, though, that's for sure. The Grampians fire is currently at 49k Ha according to VicEmergency. Probably more because there's 2 separate incidents showing and one doesn't have the Ha count. 40s throughout much of Vic today

There's also a damaging winds warning for most of the state. 90+km/h, 110km/h gusts in some areas from after sunrise. That'll fuck everything up if there's a few embers. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a few bushfires around the more grassy parts of melbs today too

I need to brag - the trip to the shops ended up being absolutely worth it: I scored a puffer jacket for a grand total of $6.40. Now I'm extra ready for Japan and can put the rest of the money I thought I'd need to spend on a jacket towards Mofusand goodies!

Braved the shops to get groceries for dinner. Apart from the heat, it's not that busy actually. Plenty of parking and roads weren't mad.

Very surprised.

Eugh that was a horrible sleep. Had to sleep with the fan pointed at my face, and now my nose is very blocked and I feel sick. Already 30° inside, 1 degree colder than out

Got my cooking and eating out of the way today .. now just need to stay cool

This year I’ve ended up with some chocolates that I really like, some of them a little different from usual like orange slices coated in dark chocolate and peanuts coated in dark chocolate and a lot of Lindor chocolate.

I think I’m almost relieved this year not to get a Cadbury favourites box.

I think it’s the least favourite of any chocolate boxes i like to get because I hate what’s in them.

Oh and also got a box of shortbread biscuits, oohh they’re so good.

Tech support complete. Basically accessing sensitive docs sent by a law firm.

Without giving too much away ol' boy is giving a medico legal opinion on a poor young lady who has been through the wars. Family suing a doc (not the ol' boy thankfully) completely unrelated to underlying issues.

Anyway this is discovery shit.. defendants' (the doc.) file is a GB or a 1400 pg pdf, extremely detailed entire history (which is a lot, down to everything done intra-daily). Plaintiffs' bringing 240KB lol (shouldn't laugh but the discrepancy is absurd).

When these guys retire or semi-retire, some of them are hit up by either the defendant or plaintiff's lawyers depending on their history of siding with whoever. Some sell themselves to the highest bidder, others do it because it's right, others to protect their colleagues, some pro-bono or a combination.

Sounds awful but it do be that way. And this shit drags on like you wouldn't believe (and naturally it's the lawyers that win).

In any case, moral of the story is record everything.

OzBargain is often a good website to compare previous sale pricing for a Boxing Day discount.

Going to take some drastic action today. Drastic carby action. Heading out to buy some beer 🍻

All the leftovers, and everybody wants Chinese lmao.

The winds! THE WINDS!!

winds howling

Hmm, do I need more pavlova?

Yes. Yes I do.

Given how bad the wind looked on the forecast, I can happily say I’ve ridden in worse.

Down at my mates for Chrissie leftovers and their salads are the bomb. Surprised I was able to have a full late lunch given how my gut felt this morning.

Now time for some online shopping, methinks.

Hope everyone is having a nice Boxing Day!