So, it would seem that things have gone a little crazy here in the ol’ southern hemisphere. By now, no doubt, you have seen the news stories about how New Zealand’s Christchurch has been hit by an earthquake. Quite rightly, probably, you didn’t hear about what was happening here in SA.  To us ‘poms’ to be honest, it was just a sever October storm (think that one what happened when I was a kid in the 80s).  The only difference is, we’re not really supposed to get such weather types down here in SA – or at least that’s the impression I’ve been given.  At the very least, it was very obvious that the infrastructure wasn’t up to dealing with it!

42,000 of us were left without power last night as the winds raged outside.  What’s really strange is that Friday, in my opinion, seemed to be a much more dramatic weather day. The storm started at about 9am – thunder, lightning – the works and didn’t end until tea time.  When I got off the train after work I was watching the lightning strike over the sea.  It was awesome – if a little scary.  It also worked very well during a lesson I was teaching about murder mysteries (tee hee)

Yesterday’s weather was grey and windy. We lost power at about 4pm – Half way though “The Prince of Persia -Sands of Time” (worth watchin’ that!) – and it didn’t come back on until way after dark.  Matt and I busied ourselves with our won little candle-lit jamborie.  I called Mum and Dad to let them know that I wouldn’t be on line and that I was safe.  I was convinced that Mum would see the news about New Zealand and think “oh my god are they alright!!”. Amusingly she did warn me not to go to the beach – for fear of tsunamis…. LMAO!!

Anyhoo.  Last night was fun!   BLACK OUT! ooooh

Today it’s quite sunny – a few rain clouds about.  Nothing too interesting to report… Oh unless you count Matt’s discovery of  Thebarton  FOODLAND’s Butcher:

Champion of the Beefy World!

Last weekend we were invited to a BBQ at a friends house.  Very cool Whilst we were there Matt was introduced to the idea of the fabled Thebarton Foodland.  Now, those of you who know my lovely husband, will know that large portions of cheap meat (that tastes good) is a very important part of his spiritual being.  I believe his religious denomination on face book actually reads “The Church of Beer and Steak”.

We were actually in Coles (think Sainsbury’s) when we began to hunt for some bacon. At this point I remembered the meat from the BBQ last weekend and suggested a change of store. Everything in the trolley was promptly returned to the shelves as Matt’s eye’s lit up.

Proud to be Beefy

And… boy… look what he found.  That’s nearly 5 Kg  (just over 11 pounds)

/ 176 ounces) of porter house steak for $24.00 (£14.25).  I’ve never seen him happier. It’s taken him nearly 30 mins to cut it up into 21 steaks. He also found a large bag of Chicken breasts and chicken drumsticks (about $7s each)

I just hope he likes Beef that much!

On the way home we were joking about how the scenario might be  a little different in the UK. How, if we owned one, we could chuck the whole slab of meat on the BBQ and invite Adi, Jack, John, Adam and all the other greedy meat eating beastly men around to just sit with steak knives and gobble the whole thing up.  Alas, he’ll just have to do it all by himself.  Poor thing!

I hope there’s not another black out… Otherwise that’s a whole lot of meat to eat in one go if it were to defrost!

This is the first time in a long time where I’ve watched a Neighbours preview and been excited!
Not sure about the modern version of “Suddenly” for Ringo and Donna’s Wedding but thank the lord for Paul Robinson!

This should air here next Friday October for your guys in the UK

I kid you not!

Tee hee…

There’s a message here to media advertising

This week Matt’s been off work – well he actually quit work and so didn’t really have any work to go to, as such! He starts his new job on Monday though and hopefully he’ll be much. much happier in his newer surroundings ( Cue funky annoying music).  He is, as we speak, organising and copying across his research materials onto his mobile phone – remembering how he used to like his job

As a result of this impromptu holiday and the fact that it’s the beginning of term we’ve ended up spending all week together – which is lovely He’s also spent some time in the garden making new friends (as you can see in the post below) and I got to go out for a curry (first one since we got here) and meet the friends he had made at his old job as they toasted him farewell. He has some pretty cool pals from RB who will miss him (and his matrix puppets) This can be found on Matt’s face book wall.

A eulogy for the departed employee.

We haven’t done much this week really. A lot of making decisions about NAS drives and Ethernet over power adaptors (not something I think I should be encouraged to blog about) but it has been nice to chill out (and spend a fortune on Nas drives and Power line adaptors).

We did start our College course on Monday.  We decided that in order to make new pals we should go and learn something new.  We’ve signed up for “Therapeutic Massage for couples”.  Every single person we’ve told about this (without question) and both raised an eyebrow and giggled whilst making some kind of leud comment.  Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!  Free massage every Monday – awesome!  And… it isn’t even remotley kinky.  There are 10 couples studying together.  (We only work on our own partners by the way) over half of them are over 50 and the other remaining couples are about our age.

Last Monday we worked on facial massage during which Matt almost started snoring (lol) and decided that the best way to end a relaxing facial massage was to tweak my nose and make a honking noise. It’s actually ok and not strange at all!  We’re all crammed into the room and have tables we have to dress with pillows, sheets, towels etc before we start but it was good fun and very tasteful. lol

Next Monday we’re doing back massage and how to “drape” in order to preserve dignity.  We’ve had to purchase massage oils and everything – oooh exciting!  I’m glad we’re doing it though!  We need to get out more… On that note.. I’m off to dinner with some new pals in a mo at a lovely pub called the Oxford in North Adelaide.  We seem to be actually getting a life these days   It’s all very promising!

LOVE IT!!! Makes me giggle everytime!