moving in

It's been five days since I picked up the keys to my new apartment... it's been a chaotic five days, involving a lot of heavy objects, a lot of stairs and a number of new items of furniture. But five days later I only have four moving boxes to unpack out of a total of 30.

So I'm definitely ahead of the game.

This apartment block could not be more different from my old one. While I have seen a number of my neighbours (more so on moving day), I really haven't heard them very much at all. There's the occasional bit of noise as you would expect from an apartment block, but other than that it's been serene. So I'm loving the hell out of that.

I am having to get used to the fact that the living room is much darker than the old house... and for a period of time in the afternoons the sun directly hits the living room window, which will be awesome in winter for warming the apartment, but doesn't work quite as well in summer.

But overall I'm really happy.

This is a really long post... I wrote it in two parts, firstly on Tuesday night and then again on Thursday (plus the parts at the beginning and end that I added tonight), so you may need to settle in for a long haul...

Monday

Things started pretty early... I'd unplugged the PS3, DVD player and TV last thing on Sunday night, so all that there really was to do when I got up was disassemble the bed, fill the boot of my car with some of the boxes from under the bed and then pile all the other things up accordingly. I was all done by the time Ma got to my place just after 8am, and the movers weren't scheduled until between 10am and noon... so we had two hours to essentially stare at each other and figuratively poke each other in the eye.

That didn't last too long before Ma got bored and started cleaning the bathroom. I know I've said before that Ma is an absolute superstar, but she went above and beyond on Monday to such a degree that I know I would have been completely screwed without her. While I was making runs back and forth between the old apartment and the new apartment, she cleaned the old place from top to bottom. We'd originally marked down Tuesday to clean, but she worked like a trooper and was all done by the time everything else had been moved.

I had an appointment with the land agent to sign all the paperwork and pick up the keys at 10:30, so I was heading out at around 10:15, and of course that was the time that the movers showed up. I cannot recommend Mini Movers highly enough... they were absolutely brilliant, especially Ben who was friendly and very accommodating (and also quite cute, in that "carry your furniture in a manly fashion/tickets to the Gun Show" kind of way). I left Ma with them to load up the van while I went off to see the land agent.

Lots and lots of signatures and a bottle of wine (to say thanks to the agent for essentially making the whole apartment thing happen during his Christmas holidays) later, I was the proud owner of a set of keys to a new apartment.

Ma called me just as I was leaving to say that the van was all packed, so I told the movers to meet me at the new place and headed off (not counting the fact I had to get in the passenger side of my car due to a stupid P plater, and the fact that everybody else on the road seemed to be driving at about 10km slower than the speed limit).

I got to the apartment just before the van, so I came upstairs and opened the place up to get some fresh air in. I'll say this much for the new house, it gets a serious cross breeze once the kitchen window and bathroom window are open... which is great after the old house.

While the movers schlepped boxes and furniture in ways that defied belief (more on that in a second) I kind of just stood around not quite knowing what the hell to do. I did empty the robe box once that turned up, but mostly I stood around and marvelled at their prowess. And it was impressive... there were boxes that were essentially full to the brim with books, and some that were so heavy that I'd marked them as heavy just to be clear... but the movers (Ben especially) was carrying them up the stairs two boxes at a time. It was a hell of a sight to see, as was the point where they carried the smaller bookcases up by themselves. The fridge and the bigger bookcases were two men jobs, but Ben even carried my mattress by himself, and that's a serious bit of mattressry. And given all the stairs they had to climb and the effort they put it, I wasn't really surprised to see that Ben was covered in sweat when they were finished.

It didn't take them all that long to finish, but the bill at the end, between the cost of the boxes and materials I used and their time was fairly hefty (well, honestly it wasn't too bad, just more than I was expecting). Granted I couldn't have done without them, so I'm grateful, just a little poorer.

Once they were done and I'd signed all their paperwork and sent them on their way it was around 11:45. I then unpacked the boot of the car before heading back to the old apartment. Ma had been cleaning like a demon while I was gone, but when I got back we loaded up her car with all my artwork and the fragile things that I didn't feel comfortable with getting the movers to move (I may rethink that strategy next time, although there were still be things I want to move myself) and we headed back here to the new place so Ma could finally see it.

Once we'd unloaded the car and Ma had had a chance to take her first look at the place, we headed back to the old place with a quick detour to Perryman's Bakery to pick up some lunch. And since I wasn't taking the sofa and had dumped it outside the old apartment we had a pleasant alfresco lunch before getting back to it.

Now Ma isn't overly great with stairs and there are a whole lot of them at the new place, so it made more sense for me to keep doing runs back and forth and for Ma to keep cleaning the old place. And that's pretty much how the rest of the afternoon went. I possibly could have done it in less runs, but the undercover carpark that comes with the apartment is a little bit tight, so I couldn't really get to the passenger door, so I mostly just loaded up the boot and stuck a couple of things that were easy to left out from the driver's side.

I'll say this much... my chiro is going to earn her fee when I see her on Friday!

There are currently about two or three stairs too many in the walk up to my apartment, especially when carrying heavy stuff... that will improve with time, which is good, but at the moment those last couple of steps are a bit of a struggle, at least while schlepping stuff.

Every time I got back to the old apartment is was a little bit more empty, a little more clean and seemed a little bit smaller.

It was so weird, I never felt like the old place was small... but seeing it empty it looked tiny. Or else that could have just been in comparison with this place, which is so much bigger. Ma keeps referring to the new place as my "grown up apartment", which is kind of what it feels like.

Eventually we loaded both cars up with the last of my stuff, left some of Ma's cleaning supplies at the old place to be picked up later and at that point I was officially moved in (or out, depending on your frame of reference).

By that point it was around 4:30 or so I think. And if the day hadn't been long and eventful enough, we then headed off to IKEA to pick up a new chair and some other bits and pieces. Yeah, I know, insanity. It wasn't too bad actually... we stopped off at the restaurant first up for some fruit salad and something to drink before hitting the maze.

I'd made part of a list of things to at least look at from the IKEA website on the weekend (well, if taking photos of IKEA webpages using your iPhone can be counted as making a list), so we roamed around checking things out. The chair I originally had on the list turned out to be completely the wrong shape for me, so I ended up getting another one of the ones I bought last time, along with a little side table, a cheap standing lamp, a small Billy bookcase to replace the really small one I got rid of that used to hold my TV DVDs and a couple of other odds and end including a bowl to go on the bookcase and hold my keys and wallet and whatnot when I walk in the door (and there's nothing quite like the sound my keys make hitting the bottom of the bowl).

And we couldn't get everything I needed in Ma's car, so we'll be headed back to IKEA on Wednesday.

When we got back here and I'd schlepped a chair and a box of bookcase up the stairs, I went to unpack the chair while Ma was finding a carpark. And what should have been a relatively simple concept turned into an emotional meltdown.

Before the move I'd collected all the important paperwork I might have needed during the move into a white folder. I also added all of the shelf supports from the bookcases, and the screws from the bed and once I'd been to the land agent, all the lease paperwork. I also put a cutter in there to help with opening boxes. So of course when I wanted to get the chair out of the box, I went looking for the folder.

No folder on the counter where I thought I'd put it. No folder anywhere in the kitchen, no folder in the bedroom, no folder on the bookshelves, no folder anywhere that I could see.

The Very Important Moving Day Folder... gone without a trace. Ma and I looked everywhere... I looked in the freezer, you know, just in case. I even went down and looked in the car, and Ma went and looked in her car. Nothing.

At which point I started to lose my mind. I knew I'd had it when I left the land agent. I knew I'd had it in Ma's car when we took the first load to the new place after the movers had been, but I also had a memory of putting it on the counter by the door. But it wasn't there. And I'll admit, I was quite tired and emotional by that stage of the day, so I may have sat on the kitchen floor and had a little bit of a cry.

Given that we'd looked everywhere at this end, the only place left to look was the old house, plus we had Ma's stuff to pick up, so we headed back that way. No folder. We loaded up the car and I said the last goodbye to my old house and once again... slightly tired and emotional and may have got a little glassy eyed.

After a couple of other thoughts about where it might be, I decided it was either a) somewhere in the house and I just hadn't found it or b) gone for good. Either way, while I kept mulling it over in my brain, I was more leaning towards the fact that it was just gone.

We came back to the new place and Ma headed off to get us some dinner while I moved some boxes around, set up the TV and went for a shower. Clearly the gods were not smiling on me at that point, as I put a facecloth over the shower rail, turned my back and the rail fell down. Turned out it was one of those "screw tension" rails (which have to be the stupidest invention ever), but I couldn't get it back up, so I just gave up and took a shower anyway.

I'd been craving Chinese food as my post-move dinner... but that also wasn't to be, as both of the Chinese places Ma tried were closed. So we had pasta instead, which turned out to be quite tasty... but I think anything would have been good after all the hard work we did. I also put together the Lack coffee table, which looks really good.

But with all the disasters and delays it was about 9pm by that stage, so I walked Ma down to her car and sent her on her merry way with many thanks for all her hard work.

I pottered around a little bit and put together the standing lamp (which unfortunately didn't come with a bulb), but since the screws that hold my bed together were in the Very Important Folder, I was going to have to just make up the mattress on the floor and sleep there. Not ideal, but you play the hands you're dealt.

I'd just thrown my pillows and quilt into a couple of garbage bags, but as I went to pull the last pillow out of one of the bags, what did I find... yep, you guessed it, the Very Important Folder.

Now neither Ma nor I claim responsibility or remember putting the folder in the bag (honestly, I think it must have been Ma since she carried the pillows and quilt up the stairs, but it probably could have been me just as easily), but at least it turned up. That also meant that I was able to actually put the bed together.

I thought that I would pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but I think I'd gotten a little overtired, or I had too much stuff rolling around in my brain because it took a while before I fell asleep.

Tuesday

I won't lie... when I woke up this morning I had an incredibly brief moment of not remembering I was in the new place (but it was only a moment). I did my usual trick of laying in bed and playing with my phone for a while before getting up and going for my walk.

That's one of the many good things about not having moved very far... my walk is a little shorter, but still essentially the same.

When I got back I realised that I wasn't completely sure where all my breakfast supplies were, box wise, so I ended up having to unpack three small boxes and half of two different big boxes before I could find a bowl, my cereal, and the dried berries and LSA mix. And it wasn't even my normal breakfast bowl, it was just the first bowl I came to.

After breakfast I decided to hook the DVD player up so I could watch something while unpacking some more stuff, but Ma called to say she was headed down, so I finished hooking up the surround sound speakers and then stopped and had a shower.

When Ma arrived (and I'd carried the microwave that was part of my Christmas present to myself, up the stairs) I finished unpacking the two boxes that I'd started before breakfast while Ma and her Vanilla Fridge Cleaner went to work on my fridge (I swear the apartment still vaguely reeks of vanilla). I still hadn't quite decided where I was putting anything in the kitchen, so I just unpacked all the boxes and piled everything up on the kitchen counter. And there turned out to be quite a bit of kitchen stuff... so the bench was pretty packed once I was finished.

And I'd also managed to completely fill the IKEA box that the chair came in... and it wasn't a small box.

I was a little bit paralysed by indecision, so we left everything and headed out to Bunnings. On the weekend I saw a really cool free-standing flat-pack kitchen bench thing that was reasonably cheap (all things considered) that would slot nicely between the fridge and the oven... plus I wanted some protector feet for my bed and chair and some of those stick on hooks for some of my artwork.

After a quick visit to the sausage sizzle and a detour to the supermarket for some supplies for my very empty fridge we came back here, I once again schlepped a very heavy object up all of the stairs.

I then bit the bullet and started putting things in cupboards... I'm not completely sure everything is in it's final place, but at least it's all away for now. Ma had to head off for an appointment, so she left me to it and trundled off down the road.

Once she was gone I made some lunch then called the land agent to report the issue with the shower rail and the bedroom curtains (which don't close all the way)... to which he promised to get the handyman out that day... which is just about unheard of in my previous experience, but very pleasant. Then I called my old land agent to tell her I'd moved out (which was somewhat more problematic than it really needed to be... but that's nothing new). Now all I have to do is drop the old keys in the old letterbox and I'm (in theory anyway) done with the old place.

I put together the kitchen bench (which looks awesome, even if it doesn't match anything else in the kitchen) including rigging up a solution to hold the magnetic knife block from the old house with the aid of cable ties, tidied up the rest of the kitchen, sorted out the bathroom and was working on my wardobe and underwear drawer when the handyman called saying he could drop by in about fifteen minutes... now that's service. He fixed the shower rail but we worked out that the bedroom curtains are actually too short for the length of curtain rod, so no matter what, they weren't going to close. Which is fine, I can live with that for the time being, but hopefully there's some kind of solution forthcoming.

After he left I finished organising my underwear by colour (a system that I don't really expect to last... but I said that when I organised my t-shirts by colour... and that's still going) and decided that I deserved a little rest. At that point it was getting a little warm, so I closed up the windows and put the air-con on for a while. Ahhh... air-con... fucking glorious.

And other than using the oven for the first time (hello electric ignition system) and sitting down to type up my adventures, I haven't done a whole lot of stuff this evening.

Tomorrow, however will be getting the bookcases in order, shelves in, ready to fill... and another IKEA trip for more bits and pieces.

Wednesday

After I came back from my walk (where I took a detour to drop the keys to the old place in the letterbox) I straightened up the apartment a little bit and then I put the bookcases in the correct order. When Ma came down we swung past the land agent's office so that I could drop off the inspection sheet and have a little chat with the agent about the things that I'd noticed that need fixing. I have to say that I'm really not used to having a competent land agent... after I raised the issues with the agent he said that he'd get the handyman to come and fix a number of them.

After I was finished with the agent Ma and I headed back down to IKEA. We got there while they were still serving breakfast in the restaurant, so even though we'd both already eaten we both ended up having Second Breakfast. And for a $3 breakfast it actually wasn't too bad... I've had breakfasts that costed five or six times as much that weren't necessarily as pleasant.

I kept going back and forth about what I wanted from IKEA... the only definite was a second chair, but I also had a "spend $300, save $50" voucher, and we just missed out on being able to use that on Monday. Originally I'd been looking at a normal dining room setting, but I also knew that they had what they call "bar furniture", which just involves much taller tables and stools. And given that the counter in the new place is a lot lower than the old place it made sense (especially given my back and the fact that I've been eating standing since I hurt it) to have a table I could stand up at if I wanted to. However given that Ma's car isn't massive (neither is mine if it comes to that), we were restricted in how much stuff we could actually cram in there, especially given that there was already going to be a giant box full of chair in the back of the car.

It turned out that the boxes for both the chair and two of the tall stools weren't actually that huge, so we managed to cram all of it into the car... although Ma really couldn't see out of the back of the car.

We also stopped off at an auto supply place to pick up a drip tray for under my car to stop oil drips onto the concrete in the carport.

Then came the return of my favourite part of the previous three days... carrying very large and heavy boxes up several flights of stairs. I really, really won't miss doing that... although carrying the shopping up on Saturday will be an experience.

Anyway, once we got back it was still fairly early so I dicked about a little bit trying to decide if I should centre the bookcases on the far wall or shove them in the corner or what... in the end I decided shoving them in the corner was the best idea, although there was a fair amount of standing around and being undecided.

Once I made the decision I put all the shelves in place (and realised that the notes I made on my phone weren't as helpful as they could have been)... then Lego R2D2 (because, you know, he was the first item in place when I put the bookcases together the first time) and then started opening up boxes of DVDs. While I was alphabetising DVDs Ma volunteered to start going through the gigantic box of packing paper and folding it neatly so that it could more easily be recycled... not a fun job, but it was one I was going to have to do at some stage, so it was very helpful.

After the DVDs and a brief lunchbreak I started unboxing books... I think I pretty much got all the books back in the same position they were in previously, or at the very least an acceptable alternative. As is always the way with these things I was missing a single big book once I was finished, but otherwise it was all good.

Towards the end of the book organising Ma called it a day so I pottered around and finished up, moved some of the other boxes around so that the living room was more or less clear, unboxed all my Lego minifigures (although the first idea of having them in a giant pyramid that took up all of the free area under the living room window is under review) and then decided to put together the new, small Billy bookcase.

Given that I'd already put five of the full sized ones together this one wasn't too much of a chore to build. I then had some indecision about whether to put it by the door like I'd originally planned or to fit it on the wall with all the other bookcases, since it turned out there was exactly the right amount of space. After a somewhat lengthy chat with Ma I decided to put it by the door but keep the other position as an option for a later date.

Once I'd got it in position I filled it up with TV show DVDs and then stopped for an impropmtu dinner of salad made up of whatever I could find in the fridge and cupboard (which, honestly, wasn't all that much).

After dinner I relaxed for a little and then attacked the box of packing paper that Ma had been working on and finished it off while watching Kevin McCloud take a ship apart. One set of very grubby hands later (thanks to all the newsprint) I had an empty chair box and two small moving boxes full of folded paper. And then I had a big pile of cardboard pieces after I took to the box with a cutter.

I was still feeling inspired so I grabbed one of the stools and put that together. I kind of wanted to keep going and put together the table, but I only got as far as taking it out of the box since it was getting a little late. So instead I deconstructed the gigantic pile of moving boxes in my bedroom, piled up the rest of the unwanted cardboard in the kitchen and called it a night.

Thursday

Well, I'm kind of about 75% of the way there... there's still a gigantic pile of cardboard in the kitchen/dining area and there's artwork piled in various spots in the lounge room and the bedroom is still in transition, but I'm getting there.

Just proving that it is indeed a small world after all, as I was crossing the street this morning on my walk, who should I see on the other side of the street walking his dog along with his friend/partner/some other dude, but my land agent. He waved, I waved and then we both went on our merry ways.

After breakfast I threw a DVD on and started in on the table. Unfortunately my Phillips-head screwdriver has perhaps seen better days given the fact it's probably the screwdriver that I have used most often, so screwing in the twelve gigantic screws that attach the frame to the top of the table did a bit of a number on my hand, which is still sore some 14 hours later (but my forearms are kind of covered in bruises and scrapes, so what's one more thing). In fact I managed to give myself a bit of a blister, and pop said blister. Not pleasant.

However the table came out really nicely, and once I was done I set to work on the second stool. So now, for the first time in seventeen years I actually have a dining set, albeit an incredibly tall one. Sadly due to all the detritus in that area of the kitchen I haven't been able to use the set yet... but it'll happen.

Once I was done with screwing blonde Swedish wood (that's what she said), I finished putting CDs in the small bookcase, then put the Lego Star Wars mini ships back together and had a call from the handyman saying that he was passing and could he come and look at the bedroom curtains again. Sadly it was a bit of a wasted journey as what he had in mind for fixing them wasn't a possibility, however I did show him the other bits and pieces that were broken that need fixing.

After he left it was time to start unboxing all my tchotchkes.

A little bit like the kitchen gear, I unpacked everything I could find before I started putting anything away, so that took me pretty much the rest of the morning. A quick lunch and a kitchen counter full of bits and pieces later and I was ready to start putting things in position.

Given that I also had the small bookcase and the fact that I'm planning to hang a bunch of artwork on the walls with the help of those 3M sticky hooks I didn't put everything back in the same places it had been previously... and to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about it all, position wise, as yet.

I think there will be some reshuffling at some stage (I did the same thing around about a week after I built the bookcases in the first place), and there are a couple of spots I'm not happy with, plus I need to build the Lego Ninjago Samurai Mecha I got for Christmas, but most of it's all in place for now. I did discover that there were at least three items that are still in a box somewhere (I think I know which box though, it's just under a ton of cardboard at present).

Now that I'm mostly done with all the important unpacking, I'd really like some internet back now... I was expecting to hear from Adam Internet before now, with a date that I'd have ADSL back if nothing else, but now I really would like some internetz. I may give them a call tomorrow just to check in...

Because I was busy unpacking and arranging things I didn't actually check my mailbox until around 5:30, and when I did I found a letter from Origin to the "Householder" saying that they were going to disconnect my hot water service. Which made no sense to me, since I transferred the gas over to my name last week. So I called them just to make sure I wasn't going to be lacking in hot water and it turns out that, somewhat ridiculously, my stove and my hot water both have their own gas meters, so that means I'll be getting two separate bills. Annoying, but at least my bills are emailed out so it's not as bad as getting two envelopes in the mail from them. Still ridiculous though.

Tomorrow will be entertaining, if only because it will be the first day since the move where I haven't had a specific agenda. I possibly need to have a look at the bedroom, and I have a chiro appointment in the afternoon, but that's it.

I'm sure I'll find something to keep myself occupied.

Friday

I honestly hadn't planned to unpack any more boxes today, but after I got back from my walk (and I'd eaten my breakfast at my very tall dining table) I decided to have a crack at getting my bedroom in some sort of order. And that led to unpacking a couple of boxes (one of which held the couple of bits of vinyl that I was missing from the bookcases) and filling the wardrobe with stuff.

By the time I was done there were only four boxes left, all of which are from the various drawers in my bedroom at the old place and which I really need to spend some time going through each item as I imagine there is a whole lot of stuff that I no longer need. But I also need something to store the stuff that I do want to keep, and that's either a bedside cabinet or a chest of drawers, or possibly both.

After I'd finished with the bedroom and reorganised all of the cardboard and empty boxes in the kitchen/dining area, I sat down to give Adam Internet a call to find out what was going on with my internetz... I finally got an answer that it would probably be ready by 7pm this evening, or at worst 5:30pm Monday. As it turned out, I got a message saying that it was good to go when I was on my way to the chiro at 3:30.

Then the courier showed up with the Instagram photo-a-day calendar I ordered from Social Print Studio... And once again it looks pretty spiffy... although I really did forget how incredibly brick-like it is when it arrives.

I decided I'd really like to sit down and relax for a while, and the Lego Ninjago Samurai Mecha was sitting in it's box on the bookshelf and calling my name, so I busted out the card table and got down to building me some Lego.

It really is a good looking set, and once again I took photos all the way through, so I'll post them once I get a chance to edit all the images. I am going to need to work out the right time of day to take photos in the living room though... or relegate all my photo taking to the bedroom... or something... because the light in the living room isn't as great as I would have possibly liked. But it really is just a matter of getting to know the apartment and it's cycles.

I could have stopped halfway through the Lego build for lunch, but I was on a roll and didn't want to stop, so I ended up having quite a late lunch and a little while after I'd eaten the handyman called to say that he was in the neighbourhood and could he swing past to fix the latches on the living room windows and the busted flyscreen in the bathroom.

It really is nice to have an efficient land agent/handyman...

After he was gone I closed up the house and turned on the air-con, which I think is something I'll be doing quite a bit over the next few days given that we're going to have a heatwave of about five days over 40 degrees. But I have air-con now, so it's no drama (and I cannot tell you how long I have wanted to be able to say that).

As I mentioned before I had a chiro appointment this afternoon, so I had my first experience of catching the bus at a new bus stop... one which is closer to the city, which is good.

Even though I'd been doing far too much bending and carrying and climbing stairs and whatnot, the chiro session wasn't too bad... and once it was over I walked home and stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some bits and pieces for dinner.

Of course, when I got home the very first thing I did was to fire up the internetz... I know that I've had my phone, so I haven't been completely devoid of a connection, but it was really nice to see all the required lights light up on my router.

So that's pretty much how my first week in my new apartment shaped up...

Current Mood:

leaving number sixty one

By the end of tomorrow, I won't live at number sixty one any more.

I still remember the very first time I set foot in this apartment block... I'd tagged along with Lownee when she came to inspect the place. Interestingly though, it wasn't this apartment, it was the apartment right in the corner of the block and it was so very dark and dingy I'm really not surprised that she didn't want it.

The agent later offered her this place and she took it. But coming from a big old share house she never quite settled into the apartment, I think it was just too small for her and made her a little bit stir crazy (she did end up visiting us a lot). So when Ludo decided that he and I really shouldn't live together any more (without consulting me on the matter first I might add), the plan was hatched that we'd swap... I would move in here and Lownee would move in with him.

That was 1996, give or take. Lownee and Ludo disappeared off into the ether circa 2002, but I'm still living here... until tomorrow at any rate.

Even though Lownee only lived here for about six months, I still have a couple of fond memories of hanging out with her here... although, to be honest, they're pretty much all from the same night. That was the night she spilled pasta sauce on the carpet (the stain is still there under my bookcases)... and then later that night we invented the modern Pantheon of deities (and blessed be to Rental Agreement, God of Housing for the boon he granted me with this new apartment... and I also offer up a little prayer to Schlepp, God of Moving for tomorrow's festivities).

I remember the day we swapped apartments too... not the date or even what time of year it was (although my brain says that it was summer, or possibly early autumn... I have a feeling it was between Christmas and my birthday) but I know that it was the first time I'd met Lownee's parents and her dad gave me a hand-crushing handshake... I remember we had to move her furniture outside the apartment first so we could get my stuff inside. I remember that once everything was all done, Ma went and got Chinese food while I took a shower (and the first shower in a new place after a day of moving is a little like having really good sex) and we watched something on my little tiny TV with it perched on the kitchen bench because the rest of the room was too full of boxes, bookcases and parts of my old modular lounge.

And there were only four pieces of furniture left that came with me on that move... and I'm not taking any of them with me, they'd all been relegated to the communal dumping area outside (and have since all been snapped up by people wandering by). In the seventeen years I've lived here, I've replaced everything else at least once.

As I look around the place, I can see the apartment both as it is right now (ie somehow both full of cardboard boxes yet also feeling quite empty) and how it was that first night, and almost every point in between (there's even photographic reference for 2006, 2008, 2010 and earlier this year).

I remember sitting on the old green rocking chair when Mouja the cat wandered into the apartment... I remember spending a lot of time talking to Raury and Sheba and J on that big ugly modular couch... or in the case of Sheba, deconstructing the couch somewhat so we could enjoy a floor picnic every Wednesday evening. I remember the first time I ever had Indian food was also with Sheba during said floor picnic.

And I remember when I got my first computer here, well Raury made it for me to be honest... and those first adventures on a quite young internet... then the upgrade to the computer I used to start this blog. And then bringing the laptop out of the bedroom with the arrival of Beast.

I also remember sitting at that second computer when BlueDragon was visiting and him coming to stand next to me wearing nothing but the cute little Bonds (I think) undies I'd bought him. Actually the two stronger memories from his week long visit are the image of him sitting on the floor packing on his last night while we had a conversation about a whole lot of shells we'd collected and the fact they wouldn't survive the trip in his luggage and then there's the memory of sitting up in bed with him resting against my chest and drawing me a floor plan of his house. Okay, there's also a couple of memories about the sex in there too.

Speaking of which, one thing that this apartment has seen probably more than it's fair share of is sexual encounters... there's been a lot of random strange through that door. There was The Best Sex of My Life, there was Marc, and Phoenix, and that incident with the spanking... and way back at the dawn of time there was the threesome with Ant and Whatshisname (seriously, why the hell can't I remember his name... I probably have it written in a notebook somewhere, but my whole life is in boxes at this point... update: found it, Dax)... the very physical session with Hot Sweaty Monkey Boy in which no words were spoken, but I just threw him bodily around the bed and everybody got to their happy place... right up to Alex who has become something of an irregular playmate of late and as of this afternoon also has the dubious honour of being the last person I'll have sex with in this house.

There have been guys that were memorable, guys that were forgettable, guys I wish I'd never invited over, guys I was happily surprised with when they arrived and guys I wish had come to visit more than they did. I'm not even going to attempt to do the maths... partly because I know that I wouldn't actually be able to come up with an accurate number but also because it'd be a reasonable sized number... but perhaps not as large because I'd only be counting guys who came here.

Anyway, I've had a lot of sex in these four walls over the past seventeen years, let's just leave it at that.

And of course I photographed a whole range of young gentlemen in various states of undress within these walls... on a strictly (amateur) professional basis of course.

I've lived here through at least three different landlords, and a vast panoply of neighbours. The original folks who were here when I moved in... the slightly goth gay gentleman with the great furniture... the old guy who went off his medication one weekend, spent far too long on my doorstep talking to Lownee when she was visiting, then broke someone else's window the following day and was hauled off later that week by the police and an ambulance... the girl from upstairs who occasionally had really, really noisy sex with her boyfriend in their bathroom and who I spent a couple of hours with once when a bird crashed into her window and she didn't know what to do with it... the short, dark haired girl from next door with the really gorgeous boyfriend who I nearly invited in after they'd had a massive row and she'd thrown him out of the apartment. Through to the Asian student with the guitar who lived upstairs... the annoying guy with the skateboard who used to ride up and down the courtyard... the hot wog boy with the motorcycle who gave me a beer while we chatted on our respective doorsteps... all the way through to the tide of inconsiderate and frustrating neighbours I've been putting up with for the past seven(ish) years.

I'm hopeful that Rental Agreement has seen fit to gift me with a building full of neighbours who are much easier to live with. I'm pretty sure there's at least one other gay in the building (if the rainbow flags on one of the cars in the carpark is to be believed) and there was a very cute boy filling a car with a bunch of stuff the day I was there for the inspection... so I'm hopeful that I'll have better or, at the very least, more attractive neighbours.

This place has also seen the birth of a whole bunch of routines in my life... from the fortnightly movie night and the Saturday shopping adventures with Ma, to my morning walk.

But you know what, even though both the current landlord and most importantly my neighbours have driven me crazy and the apartment is falling to pieces in a hundred little ways (and has been for a while since it was always an uphill battle to get the landlord to do anything), I'm going to miss this place. It was the first place I ever lived alone, it's seen me through most of my twenties and essentially all of my thirties (bar three months), it's seen the rise and fall of relationships with a number of very important people in my life and even to this day I still find myself walking in and saying "Hello Little House".

I'll miss the bright yellow countertops and the view of the sunsets and sunrises and the big wall of windows and the feeling of snugness and the ability to stickybeak on everyone as they come and go and the sense of contentment I get walking through the door... and even though I'm taking them with me, I'll miss the memories that every square inch of this place brings flooding back, even now as I sit here surrounded by cardboard and the detritus of my life.

So there's really only one thing left to say... Goodbye Little House and thanks for the memories.

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post christmas roundup 2013

All things considered, yesterday was a remarkably relaxing and seemingly easy example of the Christmas oeuvre.

I woke up fairly early (although not as easy as Christmas Eve, but that's a story for another day), somewhere in the post 4am, pre 5am bracket, but lay around for a while before giving in a playing with my phone a bit until I figured it was time to get up.

This is the first Christmas since 2009 where I actually went for a walk first thing in the morning. There were later Christmases where I was still doing my walk, but they fell on weekends. So it was nice to get out of the house and into the fresh air for a walk to clear my head while listening to the Hollywood Babble-On Christmas episode (granted it was the 2011 one, but I'm still catching up).

When I got back I still had some time up my sleeve, so I didn't really rush around getting ready, but in due course I got dressed in my new green polo shirt, the most interesting/comfortable Aussiebum underwear I've bought yet (as a side note, I've always wondered how that particular kind of underwear would work, turns out the answer is incredibly well, and it's also very convenient) and my new leather thongs (flip-flops) which may not be as comfortable as I previously thought but they do look pretty good.

Once I was ready, I loaded up the car, shot Ma a message to let you know I was on my way and trundled up the road.

As usual on Christmas morning the roads were fairly quiet and when I got to Ma's she was deep in the zone of making a seemingly metric ton of Ham Hearts and Mince Tarts to take to La Cousina's place. I threw the last couple of batches into the oven for her while she went and had a shower and put on her pretty party dress she bought for her work Christmas do but which also worked nicely as her Christmas Day outfit. The Ham Hearts were followed into the oven by our standard Christmas breakfast, croissants. And as usually happens, we left them in a tiny bit too long... they weren't burned, they were just really, really brown. They still tasted good though.

After we tidied up and Ma had boxed up the appropriate Christmas goodies and presents for La Cousina and Co we packed up Ma's car (I'm still not completely sure why she wanted to go in her car... normally we take mine because it's easier) and headed up the road.

I've mentioned in the past that I don't normally sit down when we're at La Cousina's... but for some reason this time I did... maybe just because she put a dining chair right behind me and it would have felt like a bit of a dick move not to sit in it. But my theory that not sitting reduces the amount of time we spend there kind of holds up... it wasn't an excessively additional amount of time, but we did end up staying for just under two hours.

Of course part of that was reciting my recent apartment dramas but the more enjoyable part was suggesting possible Fringe shows to La Cousina and Princess T since they both got Fringe vouchers for Christmas (from other people).

By the time we got back it was just before 11, so Ma fired up the Weber BBQ, and once it was in we got down to the serious business of unwrapping presents.

I always find it interesting to look back at the presents I give Ma and the presents I get at Christmas as it's often a pretty good indicator of whereabouts I was both financially and just as a general milestone at the end of any given year.

This year saw the return of a stack of DVDs, which hasn't really been a feature since about 2010. To be honest, most of my presents are a mixture of stuff I bought myself, stuff I bought and then Ma gave me money for and stuff Ma bought. But that's pretty much the same every year.

Not shown in the photo is the new microwave I bought the same day Ma bought her party dress, as well as the cash I got from La Cousina to pay for Fringe tickets we've already bought.

So my presents this year break down like this...

• Lego Ninjago Temple of Light (70505)
• Bel Ami Rebels 2014 Calendar by Joan Crisol
• Artwork from Skimming Stones
• Doctor Who Titans Blind Boxed Vinyl Figure - Clockwork Robot
• Heartwood Creek toy soldier ornament
• Blue polo shirt (green polo shirt that I was wearing for Christmas not shown)
• Thongs (the ones that I was looking for last Saturday but couldn't find in the Big W near me)
• Kiehl's Facial Fuel moisturiser (plus free samples)

Then there were the DVDs...

• Adam Hills Happyism Live (which Ma and I saw live in July)
• The Amazing Spiderman
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Doctor Who - The Day of the Doctor
• Futurama Season 8
• The Newsroom Season 1
• Paranorman
• Pink's The Truth About Love Tour Live from Melbourne
• Resident Evil: Retribution
• Rise of the Guardians
• Skyfall

There weren't really any surprises in amongst my presents, although there were a couple of things that I'd completely forgotten about until I opened them... but that's okay, to be honest I don't really mind the lack of surprise.

Ma liked her calendar a lot, which is always good... I'm never worried that she's going to turn around and say that she hates it, but I do enjoy watching her reactions to it as she flicks through it for the first time.

Once we'd finished with the presents, Ma checked the turkey in the Weber while I did my usual presents photoshoot and then set the table, which was a little different given the fact that a) Ma now has a completely new table and b) we were having something different for Christmas lunch, which meant that inclusion of the bowls in the photo below.

Given the fact that neither of us is really all that big on roast dinners (or for that matter, seafood), we've been saying for a few years now that we should investigate a new option for Christmas, so this year I decided to adapt the warm salad I have quite often in the summer months and turn it into Christmas Salad.

This involved a bunch of basil leaves, a lot of Kipfler potatoes roasted in the Weber, some green beans, several slices of prosciutto, a block of haloumi, some tomatoes and the usual turkey and sausage meat we do every year.

What was really great about it was that overall, there was less prep work beforehand, it was more about last minute prep and construction.

And an additional bonus was that I made so much of it (which I always do... but I was trying to make a lot and made a LOT) that there was not only enough for us to have a bowl each for dinner (granted neither of us really wanted all that much), but there was enough for me to bring some home and Ma to keep some.

The turkey was amazingly moist, so whatever turkey roll thing was that we bought this time we definitely have to buy again next time. I did chop the tomatoes a little too small, but that was because they were full sized rather than being cherry tomatoes. So it's still a little bit of a work in progress, but it's definitely an improvement over what we used to end up with (or perhaps just that I always felt vaguely disappointed once regular Christmas lunch was over and done with).

Of course it was also about 2pm by the time we sat down to eat and it was very filling, so neither of us were rushing to have dessert.

Instead after doing the dishes really quickly (another bonus of the warm salad idea, less washing up) we popped in the Adam Hills DVD, because god knows I need a laugh just at present, and we spend an enjoyable couple of hours laughing our asses off to Mr Hills. The DVD was recorded in London back in February, so it was interesting to try and pick up the differences between the Australian and UK versions of the show (I only spotted one obvious one). And given Adam's predilection for talking to the audience for the first fifteen minutes of any show it was interesting to see who he interacted with.

About half way through the DVD we stopped for a little dessert... and kind of like lunch, it was a big old mash up of things. The mince pie ice cream (which I want to make every single Christmas now, because it tastes AMAZING), some crumbled up meringues, berries and some of the chocolate shards I made last Sunday with leftover chocolate. Tasty as hell!

The remainder of the afternoon consisted of whatever random crap was on TV until it was time for the repeat of last year's Doctor Who Christmas special, followed by an episode of QI and then I called it quits around 8:30 or so, we divvied up the leftovers and I left all of my presents except the DVDs at Ma's place (I'm only going to have to pack and move them all in the next couple of weeks, so I figured there really isn't any point) and headed home.

Other than the ongoing sense of general dread that has been the background to every I've done for the last couple of week, the day itself was pretty good.

So that's pretty much that for another year!

I hope everyone else had a Christmas that was as stress free as these things are able to be, and got at least one really nice present.

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straylia day shopping with brighton sculptures

Well, I did something I never expected that I would ever do on Australia Day... went to the beach. More specifically two different beaches, Brighton and Glenelg.

And honestly, the difference between the two couldn't have been more marked. Also, being at Glenelg on Australia Day reminded me of exactly why I don't go anywhere near Glenelg on Australia Day.

Part of the problem is that in my head it's not really Australia Day until Monday (actually, to be honest, it's never actually Australia Day in my head) which is when the public holiday is.

The day started out pretty normally... except for the fact that I thought that I'd just drop in to see my nice Mechanic Boys and get them to re-stick my rear vision mirror on. So Ma and I drove down to the supermarket separately, only to find that the place was shut as tight as a drum.

Which was my own fault for not actually booking the car in. But it's not like I have to do a ton of driving... so it will keep until next weekend.

I was also a little disappointed that the Bakers Delight we go to on Saturday didn't have any of the free mini Cheesymite Scrolls. Although I can't really complain too much, since we made out like bandits with free stuff today... we dropped into two other Bakers Delight stores and picked up two lots of Cheesymites, and two sets of random wandering product girlies gave us a pack of apple slices at Brighton and Roadies crackers at Glenelg, plus we got free aoli at lunch and the usual sample chocolate at Haighs.

So I'm not complaining too much.

We made a quick stop at the bank to drop off my $1100 in coins...

You would think that bank staff would be used to seeing people rock up with a large amount of coins... but clearly not, because they always look surprised when I rock up with a bag whose weight is clearly disproportionate to it's contents.

And even more so once I start unloading the forty or more baggies full of coins.

After they'd counted out the money (actually, they just weigh it, then count the bags) and Ma asked for a yellow plastic pig money box (cute, although I don't know why they have a pig) and we headed down to Brighton to check out the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures.

And we arrived right at the tail end of the some sort of surf carnival thing...

Which perhaps wasn't as exciting as it sounds since the ages of the competitors fell into one of two camps... "too old to be interesting" (also known as "please stop tanning and wearing Speedos in public") and "kids".

Although there was some eye candy around.

But, er... yeah... sculptures... the reason we were there...

I think I've said previously that it feels a little bit "Sculpture By The Sea Lite"... although this year the weather was better (sunnier) than when we went back in 2011.

Which is both good and bad... good because it made the sculptures more attractive to photograph, but bad because due to it being kinda cloudy when we left my place, I didn't bother taking a hat and didn't bother changing into my shorts.

Both of these things would have made my day better. Especially the hat thing... since I think the top of my head is already sunburned from walking home, so my scalp is currently saturated with aloe vera After Sun Spray.

After realising that people were just going to get right up close to the sculptures and not necessarily allow me to get in their easily to take photos, I decided to switch over to my wonderful, stalkerific telephoto lens.

It sounds completely counter-intuitive, but with the telephoto lens I can stand way, way, way back from the sculptures and photograph around the people standing in the way much more easily than I can with a regular lens. And it has an awesomely shallow depth of field when I extend it out, so that always works well with sculptures.

Plus it helps with stalking the beachside hotnesses...

I don't know whether I wasn't directly comparing it to Sculpture By The Sea like I did last time (probably more so since that was the first time I'd been to both SBTS and BJCS), or if there were more entries, or better entries, or even if it was just because it was sunnier and there was eye candy around the place, but I really did enjoy myself this time.

I still think that some of the placement of sculptures isn't quite right, and from a photography standpoint I wish they wouldn't even bother putting them around the surf club, since they're generally much harder to photograph.

We also managed to pick exactly the wrong time to check out the sculptures inside the surf club itself, since not only were there a bunch of other people doing the same thing at the time, but they were also presenting the prizes from the surf carnival.

After we'd seen everything there was to see, some of it more than once due to the changing light conditions, we headed back to the car in search of an appropriate Australia Day lunch.

I've been wanting to try the burgers from Relish'd (seriously guys, you need to make that URL on your window actually point to a website) since late last year... and since we were just down the road, it seemed like a good idea.

It turned out to be a pretty good plan before we even got our food because even though it was 12:30 or so when we got there, there was only one other person in the place.

When we did get our burgers and a serve of chips to share, it was doubly, triply worth it!

Although it was as messy as hell too eat, and the burger did fall apart a little bit (I'm actually taking that as a good thing because it means that the patty isn't compacted to all hell or bound together with any extra ingredients), the whole thing was incredibly tasty. The bun is incredibly light and you don't feel like you're biting through a mattress to get to the burger.

And the chips... big fat, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, chips... mmmmm!

Even Ma said that they were the best chips she's had in a good long while, and she grew up in a fish and chip shop. So she knows good chips.

We will definitely be going back!

After lunch we decided to take a wander down to the beach, then back along Jetty Road to "aid the digestion" and generally do that time honoured Saturday activity... "Looking At Things".

I don't know whether it says more about me or about Australia or about Australia Day specifically or about our relationship with the flag, but pretty much any time I see anybody wearing the flag, mostly as a cape, but any item of clothing really, I automatically assume that they're pretty much a bogan or else a little bit racist.

The same kind of goes for people who fly Australia flags on their car on Australia Day... the record today I think was four flags (one on each window).

I'm not sure that there is another country that so easily converts it's flag into a fashion accessory, and then uses that flag as a means of saying "I'm Australian and you are not", whether they say it aloud or not.

Like I said though, that could just be me and the fact that I generally don't go anywhere that there is going to be a large number of people celebrating on Australia Day... and certainly not to somewhere as full on as Glenelg.

In fact, the last time I even mentioned what I did on Australia Day was in 2010, so I'm pretty sure I've just holed up in my apartment watching videos for the last couple of years.

I can't say that I've ever seen that many people on Glenelg beach (I'm totally not a Summer beach person... I don't tan, I don't enjoy laying around doing nothing and I don't like the heat).

And it seemed like every other person was carrying/laying on/in possession of a giant inflatable thong, which was complete weird and random until we worked out that it was for the Havaianas Thong Challenge.

Although as it turns out Glenelg only had 448 of them (whereas Cottesloe in Perth had 2093, which would have been a hell of a thing to see).

Walking up Jetty Road occasionally felt like being a salmon swimming against the current of flag wearing, beach bound people... so it was something of a relief to make it back to the car and head home.

On the way we went past the McDonalds on Anzac Highway which had it's big sign changed to "Macca's", and I actually kinda like it... I know they're not permanently going to change the name on everything, but I love to see those big signs stay as "Macca's" all year round.

So that was my Australia Day... completely atypical, but enjoyable all the same.

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post christmas roundup 2012

Ahhh... Christmas... 24 hours that it takes (at least) a month to prepare for... not even 24 hours in fact... in essence it boils down to maybe the hours between about 9am and possibly about 3pm...

Not that that's necessarily bad, it's just something that I tend to notice more and more the older I get. And possibly the longer the Christmases that Ma and I have are pretty much the same with little variation, the more I notice it.

And again, not that I don't like our very simple Christmas routine... I'm just, you know, thinking out loud... call it post-gluttony reflection.

Anyway, as I was saying, some of the minor details to our Christmases vary from year to year, but for the most part it's all the same.

I woke up super early for some reason (around 5am) but didn't really jump out of bed in a hurry or anything... I did kind of what I would normally do in the mornings, lay in bed fiddling with my phone, easing into the day gradually.

As I'd done pretty much all of the organising I needed to do last night before I went to bed, I only really needed to shower and get dressed. Which I did eventually...

I always try and make sure that I have an entirely new set of clothes for Christmas... I like being able to put on something that I've never worn before on a special day. I think it's probably a holdover from when I was a kid when we always had new clothes for Christmas. Sometimes they were presents, sometimes they were just the new clothes for the day.

And in line with the day, my new top was a very Christmas red. Hohoho, etc.

Once I was finished with making myself pretty I sent a suitably esoteric Christmas morning message to Ma and after loading up the car (although I forgot to bring my tripod... there's always something... so if the photos are a tiny bit blurry that's why) it was just before 7am when I was in the car and away.

It was also nice to have the boys from The Talking Poofy Poofcast keeping me company on the drive up the road... as I tweeted when I got to Ma's I do love a laboured fingering/Narnia metaphor on Christmas morning. It's all about subverting the seasonal genre or something.

Anyway... Ma wasn't really in any stage of readiness when I got to her place... other than having a couple of batches of ham hearts and mince tarts making their way out of the oven as I arrived.

That did mean that the first fifteen minutes or so were more about getting things organised than a general feeling of Christmas... weirdly both of the other times I've been down to Ma's place this month she's probably been more organised than she was on the actual day.

But whadyagunnado...

Eventually we sat down for breakfast, which was our usual repast of croissants (it's not fancy, but it's a treat) and iced coffee.

Then, because we had some time before we were due at La Cousina's place Ma went out and organised the BBQ while I gathered together everything to set the table for lunch.

Once we were done with that it was time to pack up the stuff for La Cousina and Co and head down the road.

Oddly enough, sometimes you put something out in the universe and it kind of ends up circling back to you... a week or so ago at work I was chatting with one of the girls from our extended team and happened to mention the fact that I never sit down when we're at La Cousina's at Christmas... and while I don't know that I had ever actually verbalised the reason before, I said to her that I think it's because I don't really want to hang around for that long, so I don't want to "make myself comfortable". And I happened to mention this to Ma in passing at breakfast.

Then once we got to La Cousina's and we'd move past the "hello" stage there was talk of getting chairs and whatnot and La Cousina herself actually said that I never sit down at Christmas. Fortunately I was able to invoke the "I have a bad back" card and divert the topic of conversation on to the fact that my back still isn't right... so that was useful.

I also got to meet Princess T's boyfriend for the first time... he's a little bit Generic Straight Gen-Y Boy, but he seems like, you know, a person. And he's a little bit cute in that aformationed generic fashion. He does happen to share my birthday too... which gives him a whole slew of extra bonus points. Because, clearly, March Babies rock... but March 14 Babies... awesome!

I don't think we actually stayed as long as we usually have in the past, partly because Princess T and GSGYB (yeah, pretty sure he's not going to feature enough to get a unique nickname) had to head off, so we made our own excuses and headed back to Ma's place.

Since I'd said to Ma that I'd kind of like to be eating lunch some time before 2pm (you know, I'm strange like that... to want to eat lunch at, well, lunchtime), once we got back we set the BBQ going (which always takes a while until the coals are ready), so then it was time for presents!

This will sound slightly materialistic, but didn't get a whole bunch of presents this year, and some of it was stuff that I'd bought for myself but put away for Christmas (the stuff with the asterisks after it just so that I remember later)... but I'm okay with that, as I've said a few times to people recently, there really isn't very much stuff that I want, or more importantly, need... anything that I do need I can buy myself, and my growing art collection not-withstanding, I really don't have a lot of room for other random stuff.

So this year's haul includes:

• Lego Star Wars R2D2 *
• Lego Minifigure Case *
• Lego Star Wars Twin-Pod Cloud Car & Bespin
• Hallmark Catwoman ornament
• For the Love of Bali 2013 Bel Ami/Howard Roffman calendar *
• Avengers box set (The Avengers and all five "prequel" movies)
• Futurama Season 7 box set *
• Kick Ass 2 graphic novel *
• Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
• Snuff by Terry Pratchett
• Kiehl's Facial Fuel moisturiser (plus free samples all in a pretty box)
• Lunartik vinyl toys (I bought four of these and ended up with Apple Bubble Tea and Wild Shroom... Ma got Emperor and Jasmin) *
• Cash (some from La Cousina, the rest from Ma)
• Christmas M&M pack and tube
• Melt Essentials iPhone case base (just like the one I got Ma) *

Weirdly, even though I'm sure I've bought her more stuff in the past, Ma seemed to think she was particularly spoiled this year... which is nice, if not necessarily accurate.

Towards the end of presents we stopped to put the turkey and sausage meat in the BBQ, and then when we were all done I let Ma tidy up the living room while I put the vegetables together to go in the BBQ.

Left alone with Ma's kitchen at my disposal and little foil parcels of veg to prepare I did experiment a little... I half made Smashed Broccoli but didn't put enough water in it to stop it being a little burned on the bottom, but I had more success with adding a hearty squirt of lemon juice to the green beans (they were very lemony, which was nice although I may have slightly overdone it) and some stuff with honey and Australian native herbs to the carrots. I was trying for a kind of sweet honey carrot thing, which I didn't quite get, but they didn't come out too badly overall.

And I blitzed the potatoes in the microwave before coating them in oil and adding them to the BBQ which meant they came out a little bit overdone on the outside, but wonderfully fluffy and soft on the inside.

You know, it's a little bit sad when you can't really remember what order you did things in only a few hours after the fact... so I'm not completely sure what we did while waiting for the veg to cook and whatnot. I know that at some point I made up the table properly and took the photos of my presents... and there might have been some fluffing around with iPhone covers (it seems that while the case that Ma bought herself a while back came in what seemed like legit packaging, it may not have been a really real version because the really real end pieces that I bought for both of us fits my cover perfectly, but not hers... dodgy!).

Anyway eventually... Lunch!

I said to Ma afterwards that we may have to rethink the whole concept of "sides" for Christmas dinner. I hardly ever have the kind of "roast veggies" we tend to make at Christmas... I mean I know it's easier because the BBQ is already going, but yeah... it's all a bit m'eh... even with all the tweaking I did this year.

Whether I get around to figuring out something more interesting or not will be the key... I like the meat portion, it's just the sides. Although maybe it's time to rethink the whole meal... I'm not really up for the seafood alternative, but there has to be some other version than just turkey and veg or prawns...

But it was all nice enough... the turkey was particularly moist and tasty this year. Ma's decision to go from the big buffet turkey we used to have to the small turkey rolls was a good one. Partly because it doesn't require anywhere near as much cooking, but it just seems like the turkey comes out nicer.

So, yeah... the meal that all this hullabaloo leads up to and it was over pretty much in the same length of time as any other meal.

And then I kinda crashed a little... I think it was just the post turkey digestion plus the fact I wasn't really doing anything (Ma was looking through the book I got her), but I got a little sleepy.

To counteract that I decided to fire up my laptop (which I brought with me from pretty much that purpose), and after showing Ma a couple of videos I pulled down from YouTube specifically to show her (since she's lacking in the internetz), I started fiddling with images and writing this post while Ma did her own thing on her laptop.

Eventually it was time for Doctor Who At The Proms (which is pretty much the same as the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular we went to see in February) which I half watched while typing.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful... we picked at a little bit of leftover food for dinner, I packed up my presents, Ma packed me up a hamper of food to bring home, we watched the end of Wallace and Gromit and I packed up the car and came home.

As the song goes... "so, this is Christmas"... it's not bad but it is what it is...

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