Zoom. Well, there goes the year. To me it seems to have gone incredibly fast, but a lot’s gone on in my life and around the world over the past twelve months. In the grand scheme of things, particularly in the Personal Relationships Department, the start of the year didn’t seem great to me, but as the months have gone by, things have improved immeasurably, and 2004 is looking very bright.

In the Climb Every Mountain Department there was camping and hiking up mountains to keep me busy and exercised… none of that’s really happened much recently, which makes me wonder if I’m in danger of becoming a fat bastard. The 15 Minutes Of Fame Department has been working overtime the last few months, and it gets a bit exhausting at times, but it’s all for a good cause. In the Oooh, Shiny Toy! Department the digital camera (which continues to be fun, and I still haven’t got around to reading the manual) and numerous DVDs came into the house.

Over in the Getting Old And Introspective Department, the fifteen year school reunion and reading a book in which one of the characters was based on my father gave me cause to stop and reflect on things, like how fast the time has flown by that my kids are now 5 and 8. The I’m Not Nearly Such A Dag As I Used To Be Department also made progress, with particular success in the wardrobe arena. And finally in theHome Sweet Home Department, my home sweet home relocated to the next suburb, as my plans to own a house and be more in debt than ever before didn’t quite come off. And the garden’s pretty much under control, for the first time in ages.

Whatever you’ve been up to and wherever you’ve been during 2003, hope 2004 is even better.

I was hoping to have a quiet day at home in the shade sitting between the fan and the cooler, with a cold drink in one hand, perhaps an ice-cream in the other… but no, called into the city. Thank [deity] I didn’t have to wear a tie.

The clock on the silo said 40 degrees as I went past on the way home. Just my luck to get two old non-aircon trains today.

There are small mercies: Safeway have 4 litre Bulla ice-cream on sale this week. So I bought two.

"Love, Actually"… why would we go to see this rather than "Return of the King"? Well, because I had Gold Class tickets that had to be used up before the end of the year and ROTK was booked out for the next fortnight. Anyway, it was not very deep, not heavy (apart from the scene in the mental hospital) and good fun, plenty of laughs and familiar actor-faces.

• See also: Doug’s rather more sarcastic review
• The spoof single in the movie has actually got to number 26 in the real British singles charts (now at number 37)

By the way, whoever designed the Gold Class seats so that when you reach down for the footrest handle you may get the (hot) light instead… well, not ideal, is it. Or maybe it’s just me.

This morning I dreamt I was sitting on a tram, with my kids and a platonic friend who turned out to be Deborah from
Men Behaving Badly, when an ex-girlfriend (one I had taken some time getting over) got on the tram and sat nearby. Her hair was different - much longer, and dyed purple. She was dressed in work gear, but looked the worse for wear… older, or something. We exchanged glances, and smiles. She asked how I was, and if I was happy with Deborah. I said oh no, I wasn’t with Deborah.

That’s all. Odd.

As I write this, the noise from a mower in the front garden pervades the normal Sunday morning tranquillity. The good people from D&K mowing are here, finally dealing with my grass and weed excess problem. D&K Mowing turns out to be a couple of teenagers called David and Keith. With a bunch of equipment including a noisy mower and rakes galore. Cool. Better them than me.

12:34pm. They’re still here (two and a half hours and counting). And they’ve just called in a parent with a whipper snipper.

12:55pm. Finished, except a jungle-type bit at the very back of the back garden which the mower choked on - they say they’ll do it next time. $75, money well spent to sit around relaxing while they did all the hard work!

Ah, Boxing Day. So-called because with the amount of activity you do, you might as well be in a box.

Me? Woke around 9:30, stumbled out of bed, bummed around the house reading the paper, my e-mails, tidied up a bit, made tea in the funky new kettle I got for Christmas, listened to the CDs I got for Christmas, had some lunch, fiddled with my web site, did some things off my to-do list, had a shower and got dressed around 3, went for a walk to get some things photocopied at the newsagent only to find they’d closed 4 hours earlier, joined the local video shop, found a DVD to borrow and returned to the video shop desk to find a different video shop lady:

"Now, do you remember your password from when you joined?"

"Yeah I’d hope so - it was only ten minutes ago!"

… strolled home, got an ice-cream on the way, mailed some letters, heated up leftovers, watched DVD, more e-mails, more reading of the paper.

All in all, a thoroughly relaxed day. Should be more of ‘em.

Aftermath of present opening part 1

And so this is Christmas: Father Christmas delivering stuff overnight; the kids up at 7am, gleefully ripping into presents; much watching of DVDs and building of Lego; cruising over to my mum’s place for more presents, food, drink, more food, more drink, and sitting about in the garden sipping tea, more food, a little more drink, watching the Queen’s
Christmas Speech (recorded pre-Corgi incident apparently) before heading home to the calm and quiet of Christmas night.

Of course, the whole question of presents for the kids brings some quandaries. Governments the world over have pondered the question of public-private partnerships. Similar issues face parents, as they grapple with sharing the present load with Santa. The kids were expecting at least one major toy each from Santa, but of course while Santa may have final say in the exact present choice and do the delivery, a fair portion of the funding will come from the parent(s).

As in most homes, the balance had to be worked out so that Santa provided toys to protect his reputation as a top-quality provider (Lego sets
4094 and
4479 in this house’s case) but that the remaining meagre presents didn’t make me as the parent look like a complete cheapskate. There is also the question of capital expenditure (the toy) versus operational expenditure (batteries).

As it is, the fine balance was found, and with Jeremy deciding he wasn’t up to the task of building the bigger of his sets, I even got to have a go at the Lego myself. My own presents weren’t too shabby either, so all in all, it’s a been a good day.

Lunchtime, Christmas Eve

My Christmas break from work officially starts today. I’m not going away, but have a bunch of stuff I should get done over the next few weeks.

• Last minute hurried and harried Christmas shopping, naturally
• Fill in that Copyright Agency form so they will hand over the moula
• Fill in and send off those late tax forms so I can cough up some moula
• In fact go right through the supposed "inbox" on my desk and file, throw out or action all the correspondence therein
• Ditto for my e-mail inbox, which at last glance had close to 700 items in it
• Get the spare VCR fixed (or at least get the tape jammed in it out)
• Watch the DVDs I’ve bought but not yet watched
• Join the local video shop
• Go right through the house and finally get those boxes of stuff that are still hanging about after moving either unpacked, stored away in a cupboard or the bungalow, or thrown out
• Figure out if my vacuum cleaner can be fixed or if I should venture to a purveyor of fine vacuum cleaners to procure a replacement
• Then tidy up the entire house so it doesn’t look such a pigsty
• Re-engineer my blog for the new year (for its tenth birthday, in fact) onto a proper blogging application instead of me (almost) manually doing it all
• Use those Gold Class cinema tickets that run out on the 31st of December
• Clear out my old clothes, replacing where applicable. You know the kind of thing… t-shirts I don’t wear anymore (at least not in public); shorts that are hideously unfashionable; ties that never come off the rack; socks with holes; underwear that is not necessarily unwearable but is certainly uncomfortable and not pretty and only to be used in dire emergencies*
• Polish my shoes (boy are they overdue for it) and get my other work stuff cleaned
• Probably almost due for a haircut too
• Get the garden mowed (the guys are coming on Saturday - from talking on the phone I suspect they may be school kids doing this over the holidays, but I’ll give ‘em a go) and get a regular mowing schedule sorted out
• Since my health insurance helpfully told me they won’t accept claims for recreation/sporting/etc expenses beyond 1st January, I should see if I can get in a claim for that bicycle I bought last January before then
• Should try and get out for a ride or two, too…
• Sort out my finances and work out how close I am to trying again to buy a house
• Get lots and lots of sleep and fully recharge the batteries

And somewhere amongst all that lot is Christmas. Hope you all have a good one!

*Credit where credit’s due - this bit inspired by a conversation with Marita.

Happy Gravy Day.

At a rather good barbecue today (obviously before the rain came pouring down) I had a couple of blasts from the past, back from almost 20 years ago, those heady days of year 7 and 8 at the now defunct Ardoch High, before I bailed out and shifted schools to Snob Castle. Sam, a fellow student from back then said hello, and I also chatted to Rod and Christine, parents of the hostess Justine, who was also at the same school, and whose brother Josh I sat next to through most of year 8. It’s a small world.

What I found amusing was that Sam and Rod unknowingly followed the pre-1985 name rule. I’ve talked about this many years ago, but it’s worth mentioning again. Between about 1977 and 1984, I was known as Danny, basically because when I started primary school I was asked if I preferred Danny or Daniel, and decided that Danny was easier to spell. When I switched schools in 1985, I reverted to Daniel, because - for whatever reason - I thought it sounded better.

Most people who knew me from the Danny phase still call me Danny. Others call me Daniel. Call me what you will - just keep the personal abuse down to a dull roar.