Travel – Page 2 – Disco Knitter

Hobbiton

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhubarbandcustard/14118021162/in/set-72157644128782870/player/

Mark, Squishy and I spent Star Wars Day (4th May) at Hobbiton. And today, I finally arranged to borrow Mark’s lappy so that I can upload my pics and caption them.

I was going to try to make a gallery here, but instead I think I’ll just stick in a link to flickr, and same myself some pain and a few hours of dealing with wordpress.

So, without further ado, for your viewing pleasure, here are my pictures from Hobbiton.

(Or – I’ve just realised you can click left and right from the main picture and see the whole set from the main picture above)

Party!

Pending getting something official from the company, we will be moving to New Zealand on the 24th of April or thereabouts. Which only gives us three more full weeks in Sydney.

Friday this week is our wedding anniversary. It is ten years since the silliest wedding ever, and I love him more than ever. Despite being a tiny bit resentful about the stress of the past few weeks.

So we are going to have a little party. A picnic at Observatory Hill, the place we got married at all those years ago. From 11ish on the 6th April, bring a plate and blanket. If the weather is awful we will find a pub nearby.

Come and say hello if you haven’t seen us for years, and farewell as we journey off to the land of the long white cloud.

Consulting the hive

So we are getting further on in this “move to New Zealand” malarkey.

Initially, I agreed to 6 months. Then 8 months, and now it is looking more like they want us there indefinitely. So I started out thinking “we’ll get in a house sitter to care for the creatures”, and now I am thinking that they will all need to be cared for longer term.

And we’ll have to rent out the house.

Which freaks me out.

There is definitely a hoarder gene in my inheritance, and the last four or so years of bedrest and sadness seem to have inhibited my ability to throw anything out. Leaving me with a three bedroom house full of stuff I need to sell, chuck, rehome, store, or move. Everything needs to be sorted. I feel like the “before” of one of those hoarder shows.

Of course it’s not that bad, and once I get started I will probably overcome the paralysing terror. But in the meantime…

Does anyone know of a company, or a service, or a person that does organisation? Or have any other ideas of how I can tackle this fear. I’m not asking for offers of help – I’ve known for year that this is my crap and I have to deal with it myself, I just need a professional to guide the process along. Or a therapist!

Any ideas welcome!

Tentative moving date is the 23rd April. Five weeks.

Adventures

Today I did my first session as a counsellor for a new project trialling using Google Glass for breastfeeding information and support. I didn’t get any calls, but I did have a lovely time fiddling with the technology (I don’t get the glasses, just the software!), and working out the kinks. And I got started on uni for this semester, Cognition I, another one of those units that puts fear into the hearts of second year students. I’m only doing one subject this semester, with the aim of getting great results and lifting my GPA – and eventually being offered a place in honours.

And… There is further talk of Mark going to New Zealand. Still nothing confirmed, but we have agreed to the idea of thinking about considering a short term move. No idea what we would do with the house, or the creatures, or any practicalities, and it all may fall over (if a single person without a family volunteers for the role!), but we’ll see.

Lord Howe Island

Sooty Tern on the wing

We just got back from an amazing holiday, thanks to my lovely mother in law. I don’t want to gloat too much, but in one day, I swam with (multiple) turtles, saw lion fish, a moray eel, bull rays, a small shark (only a little bit terrifying) and puffer fish, amongst others.

Here are some pics to make you jealous!

Attempted Murder

My blog friend Behan is living the life we all secretly want, sailing the world and homeschooling/unschooling/natural learning with her kids on the way. I read voraciously, because I am taking notes for my next holiday, and hope I can be as cool as her one day!

She recently confessed a love of anemone fish (which I share), so I promised her an anecdote about one of these guys on our first Vietnam trip. I may have already shared it here, so look away if you don’t want to read it again, but I suspect my storytelling is slightly better this time – cross posted from Behan’s blog.

We were staying at a little island of Nha Trang in Vietnam (Whale Island). I’m asthmatic, and though enthusiastic, not a confident snorkeler. I couldn’t go out unless the bay was as flat as plate glass, because getting water down my snorkel was terrifying (the asthma has made me quite claustrophobic).

So one day, the water is a little too choppy for my liking (but I’m becoming more confident), and Mark is intent on exploring some new areas we hadn’t visited before. My rented mask keeps letting in water, but only a bit at a time, so I put on my bog girl panties and decide to just deal with it.

Until…

Mark freedives down to look at an anemone, out of which darts the most aggressive anemone fish I have EVER seen. It fully charged him, stopping only about 6 inches from his mask, to stare him down in as bold a manner as a Kings Cross bouncer.

At which point I cracked up, my laugh lines created a channel by which the sea water was able to stream into my mask, and the resultant hysterical laughter coupled with inhalation of seawater was a sight to behold.

Well played small fish, well played.