The grass is greener

Check it: grassisgreenerblogspot (as opposed to mine, which is 'wherethegrassisgreener')

Husband thought person was masquerading as me and got worried.

Funny how similar names crop up with websites and blogs - inevitably I always end up at the worng one (usually one with porn).

Time for some anniversaries...

I realised over the weekend that the 23rd of June was the anniversary of me leaving Questy after nine years.

Followed this week by the anniversary of my aunt Liz dying from mesothelioma last year.

The 30th of June is the anniversary of me leaving Canberra and moving to Melbourne.

To think about where I was this time last year, what was going on, who was sick, who was alive, is all very alien. Thankfully I've still got my dear old papa around, although this time last year I didn't know for how much longer that would be. Be given a very enthusiastic thumbs up by his doctors earlier this year was fabulous, and he and mum are currently in France working on fattening him up again (much to their displeasure, I'm sure!).

The fact that I've been living in Melbourne for a year now (well, 360 days anyway) is just bizarre. Although I was excited to be moving last year, it was so daunting. I had no idea how I was going to cope in a big city away from family and friends. I love it here, and it was a nice feeling when husband and I agreed to sign our lease for another twelve months.

As to who is still alive, this has been less than nice. Of course watching Grey's Anatomy last night may not have been very timely - I seem to bawl almost weekly watching this of late, and it didn't help that the episode included lots of dying. It was strange getting large pieces of furniture from Liz's house just two weeks ago after her house was sold and things found new homes. I missed not getting my birthday card from her in December - the first time in living memory.

The one that still chokes me up, and perhaps has left a bigger hole in my little world, is my uncle Peeter's death in October last year. I still find it hard to understand how much strength his beautiful family have managed to maintain.

Hmmm. A little melancholy for a Monday. Apologies!

Looking forward to visits from brother and his gal this weekend, and the triumphant return of the hopefully plumper parents from France (and my Duty Free perfume - ooh la la!).

Tarantula Web Cam

Tarantula web cam from Melbourne Museum that is living in quarantine. mmm, spider-licious!

Red Shopping

Did lots of shopping with the girls on the weekend, and I was very good about not spending too much money.

I bought some little red canvas shoes with white dots and a big bow on top, a pair of red cons, a pair of red sunglasses and a new spangly red wallet.

Is it wrong that most things I own are red or black? It makes it easier getting dressed in the mornings (once I've gotten changed about three times).

Tepanyaki

I lurve China town, and I especially like to take visitors there. Saturday night we had tepanyaki (which none of us had done before). We shared our table with four drunken women, who were a little on the inexperienced side when it came to chopsticks (which is always cruelly entertaining). One managed to eat her whole meal without actually separating the wooden sticks - I was impressed.

We were draped in paper bibs, and one of the courses was cooked prawn legs (which Lan is eating here).

Natnou couldn't bring herself to eat her prawn legs. They were very crispy and kind of made me think of eating crunchy spiders. They were also uber prawn tasting.

Also on the menu were mushrooms, beef, chicken, bean shoots and baby spinach. We had miso soup and sushi for entree and a yummy lemony icecream for dessert.

How old is my house?

I've been curious to find out how old my house is. In Canberra a house was old if it was built in the 1970s (no really!) and my mother had suggested our house was probably built in the 1920s. This seems terribly old - almost 90! - so I thought I'd do a bit of research.

Turns out the history of my suburb is actually on Wiki. Wiki tells me (and you have to believe it if its on Wiki) that Preston was first founded on about 1850, but really boomed in the 1920s when the train and tram lines we connected through. Who knew my mother would be right (considering she grew up in Preston I suppose I should have believed...)!

It is so odd/nice to be living in a city with history (that doesn't involve political scandal).

Turns out my local football team (VFL) are the Northern Bullants. Go team!

Everybody needs good Neighbours

The first time I saw the Neighbours - Official Tours bus I had a little giggle. Who would go on that? I mean, I do like Neighbours but there's something about going on a bus tour to see various Neighbours sites that just seems a little bit lame.

Then I saw the bus again - full of people! Hmm, so obviously someone thinks its a good idea.

Again and again I've seen the bus and begun to wonder where is 'Ramsay St'? Maybe such a tour isn't the silliest thing in the world...

Each time I see it is wears down on my resistance. If I were to get a Melbourne visit from Fitzy (who I know loves Neighbours more than me) I think I would actually consider going on this tour.

Is that wrong?

Harry Potter in the Stars

Prepare yourself for Harry Potter Fever!

With the fifth movie and the last book due to arrive in July, I'm starting to get the feeling that Harry Potter Fever is going to be taking hold of us all once again (much to my pleasure!). In an effort to make my Planetarium shows a little more 'cool' with the kids I've been looking into Harry Potter in the stars.

Many of the names in Harry Potter have their origins in ancient Greek or Latin. Several names are taken from ancient stories – Hagrid was the name of the keeper of Mount Olympus and the Watcher of the animals. However, some of the names of Harry characters are also in our skies – as stars, constellations and galaxies.

Sirius Black is Harry’s god-father. He can also turn into a dog.
Sirius is the brightest star in our skies, also nicknamed ‘the Dog Star’ and is part of the constellation ‘Canis Major’ (which means ‘big dog’). During winter Sirius can be very low on the western horizon. We won’t see it again until late Spring.

Draco Malfoy is Harry’s arch-enemy at Hogwarts.
Draco is the constellation of the dragon. It is very close to the Northern Celestial Pole so we don’t see it in the Southern Hemisphere. (There is also a story of a battle between Draco and Minerva – Professor McGonagall’s first name.)

Professor Remus Lupin taught Defence Against the Dark Arts in the book Prisoner of Askaban. In the book it is revealed that he has a special link to wolves…
‘Lupin’ comes from the word ‘Lupus’. Lupus is the constellation of the wolf. ‘Canis Lupus’ is also the scientific name for ‘wolf’.

Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius’ cousin and is also Draco’s aunt.
Bellatrix is the third brightest star in the constellation Orion (one of his shoulders).

Andromeda Tonks is Bellatrix’s sister (also Sirius’ cousin and Draco’s aunt).
Andromeda is a constellation named for an Ancient Greek story about a princess. It is near Pisces in our night sky. This constellation is also home to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a spiral galaxy about 2.5million light years away from Earth (you can see it with a pair of binoculars).

Regulus Black is Sirius’ brother.
Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo. Leo looks like an updside down question mark and is in the north west at the moment.

Orion Black is father to Sirius and Regulus.
Orion the hunter is a constellation we don’t see much of during winter, but in spring and summer he will be high in our skies.

Merope Gaunt is the name of Voldemort’s mother.
Merope is one of the seven stars in Pleiades, which is a cluster of stars (sometimes called ‘the Seven Sisters’) which are on the shoulder of Taurus the bull. Pleiades is best seen in Spring and Summer.

There are also constellations of a centaur, a unicorn, a giant snake and a phoenix. Many ancient astronomers are also named as wizards on the Witch and Wizard collector cards.

Two heads are better than one?

I saw a little man walking to work today, heading into one of the large factories on my way to work. There's nothing unusual or special about this except that he was carrying two hard hats.

Firstly, why do you need to take your hard hats home with you from work? Is it a domestic violence matter? Is your house dodgy and falling apart? Do you live on a construction site?

Secondly, why do you need two? They both looked the same, and I can't imagine you would try to wear them both at once. Is it in case one of them gets dirty and you need to change? Does it matter if your hard hat gets dirty? Surely it still functions?

Perhaps he lends one to his mate - but why doesn't his mate own one? You would be issued one when you started, wouldn't you? Are hard hats a commodity - the more you have the better off you are? Does he have an imaginary friend? A second head a la Zaphod Beeblebrox from Hitchhikers?

Perhaps this is too many questions for a Sunday morning, but this is my seventh day straight at work, so some allowances need to be made.

New addiction

Oh bother. I've become addicted to Facebook.

I'm not quite sure I know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying myself!

Misunderstandings & Spoonerisms

We were having a conversation over lunch about words we used to mispronounce or misunderstand and accidental spoonerisms. Hilarity ensued.

Miss SS's mum used to always say 'par cark' which although she always laughed at, has started to pick it up because her mum says it so often.

Miss SA thought that when people said the word 'psychic' that they were actually saying 'side kick' so always had nice Batman and Robin images crop up when people claimed they we psychic. It wasn't until she was about 14 that she worked it out.

Try to imagine you are six years old, on an aeroplane flying from Canada to Australia and you want a soft drink - Schweppes. Now imagine you had never seen this word before, but were proud of your reading skills so asked the air hostess for a 'Schweepees'. (Also imagine the man across the aisle snorting soft drink out of his nose in a fit of laughter and then him explaining to the air hostess what you meant.)


A dear friend from high school could never remember if bad dreams were called 'night-mares' or 'mare-nights'.

A friend of my mother's didn't know their was a difference between 'pheasants' and 'peasants' and was quite disgusted when she heard that people went out pheasant shooting ("Just because they are poor is no reason to go shooting them...").

I was convening a recruitment panel once where there was a question about fire and emergency procedures. One applicant got very flustered and admitted he had no idea what we were talking about, and that he had never heard the phrase before. He had been a security guard in a previous job so I couldn't understand why he didn't know about fire and emergency procedures. Lucky for him his application was fine and his other interview answers were good enough to get him a job. A year or so later I invited him to sit on a panel with me, and I wrote in a question similar to the one he had been stumped by - when we were going over the questions I reminded him of his interview. "oh, fire and emergency! I thought you were saying foreign emergency!"

My big misunderstanding as a child was thinking that the word 'war' was 'wall'. All these thousands of men who died in walls! It was a tragedy! I couldn't quite work out how they died - did they build walls and get caught in the gap? Did they run into walls and die? And where is the World Wall? And why are there two of them? Damn the wallls! Damn them!!!!

Poo Farm

Last week my team at work went on a PD day to the Poo Farm - aka Werribee Treatment Plant. Because we are on the site of the old sewage pumping station and present education shows about where waste water goes, we thought it would be a good place to visit. Which it was! It was surprisingly very interesting. I didn't understand all of the microbiology stuff, but enough of it to appreciate the process.

This is on open sewer. It smelt bad. And there were floaties. Floaties! There were signs warning you not to swim because the water is a drowning hazard. Anyone who would get close enough to it to find this out deserves to die a stinky stinky death. The bird had a great time eating the floaties.

Introducing lots of oxygen into the water (I use the word 'water' very loosely) to allow the aerobic bacteria to get in there and breed and help eat up the sludge (this is totally the official term for it). At this point the water is a nice, tasty brown colour.

By the time the water reaches the last pond it is a nice clear colour and is grade C recycled water. You could put this onto your garden if you were super keen. They treat the water more if it is being on-sold (say to a sporting oval) to class A.

The class C water is then pumped out into the bay. Lots of bird life around the poo farm, and it is apparently 'the' place to go if you are into bird watching. There were lots of swans, pelicans and ducks. Didn't really tickle my pickle, but each to their own I suppose!

For morning tea we had poo cakes. They were yummy and had peanut butter and chocolate in them.