Where has the time gone

Well it’s been ages since my last post so I haven’t mindlessly babbled for quite a while. But it’s not from a lack of things going on to blog about. It’s because I’ve been busy, yes, busy. I’m currently now looking for work and that does take up quite a bit of time.  I think I have something that may work out, but I’ll just have to see.

I also just recently killed off my Windows system when I was trying to try out Mandriva 2008.  It’s not the installer’s fault, it was mine really.  I’m not all that worried though. I’ve been thinking of switching back to Linux again and the current Linux system seem very slick now so I think I’ll stick with it for a while and see how things go.  I’m also trying to teach myself C++ (a programming language) at the moment so using Linux seems to match that well in my mind.

Just now I’m off on a long trek up to Magil to buy mik and cream so it’s a long bus ride with nothing to do but to read Accelerated C++.

A farewell and a re-acquaintance

Today we got up early and to head off to Adelaide airport. No, no, we weren’t getting onto a plane ourselves, though it was tempting. We were there to see my Mum off on her three month world tour. Yes indeed, she is going round the world in probably just a bit more than eighty days.

So we were down at the airport. The weather was grey, chilly and slightly wet, so of course, being in an airport in that weather, I thought of Scotland. And England. Having been to airports in both countries and almost always in that kind of weather, the parallel practically drew itself.

An interesting thing about the Adelaide airport is just how much many people we know don’t like it. When it was built there seems to have been quite a lot of complaints about the style and facilities. I would have to say though, speaking as a seasoned international traveller, the airport is really quite nice. It’s definitely on par to most of the modern airports I’ve been through recently. Stansted, Hong Kong, Charles-de-Gaul, Glasgow International. They all have the same cool but not cold, high and airy feel that is never claustrophobic.

The only criticism I would put forward is that it’s perhaps a bit small. For a city of around 1.5 million people, and one that wants to attract more direct international flights, it was, I believe, built to only handle the capacity it was already managing. But that is a small point really. Well, that and the fact that the facilities only accept Australian dollars. I wouldn’t mind being able to spend my spare euros/pounds/yen that I have left over from my travels there and I’m sure others would too. But still, a minor point as well.

So anyway, we sat at the airport with my Mum and my brother Joseph and had a chat for a while, had coffee and cake and things from Cocolat, a very nice chocolate, cake and other things shop with branches around Adelaide. We chatted about the upcoming trip and where she would be staying. She’s heading off to a stopover in Singapore first, then to London for a week or so, then to Paris, then Lourdes, then somewhere north of Paris, back to London, to Scotland (in and around Glasgow) then to Seattle to visit my brother Peter, another stopover somewhere or other in the Pacific, then back home to Adelaide. Whew! All up, just under three months.

When she finally set off to get ready to board and we did the traditional looking at planes with the kids bit, we headed off out. Since we were all the way out at the Airport, a not too small deal for people without cars, we thought we’d notch up another bird by heading out to see … IKEA!

Well it was not quite the massive excitement it must have been for the others, because I had come down to see it in the first few weeks we were back. I went down with Joe to look at shelves or something. Well to tell you the truth, the others didn’t really have quite the enormous thrill I may have indicated either. It is just Ikea after all.

Don’t get me wrong though, Ikea is rather great. It is probably somewhere I imagine we will be buying all sorts of stuff from in the future. What is rather impressive about it though, is that all the stores, within some small margin, are rather identical. Plus I really like their meatballs and their coffee is good. Not to mention the fact that they stock all kinds of cool northern European snacks and Diam Chocolate!

So we wandered and wondered at the sameness of it all. We bought a small present for a friends two year old whose birthday we were going to on the weekend. We bought a small, ceramic, kids crockery set (very cute, we have one for our own guys). Then we had some food at their restaurant, got some snacks to go (and I got a one dollar hotdog!!) and then we headed home.

Rain, chill and grey. Airports and Ikea. Hmm, I really do miss Scotland!

Saturday, and a pizza that could only be made in Australia

Well, maybe not only, but it’s not surprising that it’s here. But first Saturday.

Saturday started with an early morning, breakfast and study. Lots of study. Well mostly lots of study. I also wasted some time by making food for myself and the kids, and eating. I may also have tidied up and possibly washed dishes. I’m quite sure I didn’t fix anything. I think I did also fix up some gaps in my cross posting between my WordPress and Blogger blogs. I’m keeping them parallel for the moment as I did, and still do, quite like Blogger overall and the new updated Blogger is also quite nice, but the ability to make stand alone pages on WordPress is a bit too appealing I think and I might have to make the transfer permanent and complete. There are a couple of things I want to add to the WordPress blog, but it might require a template change so it could take a while.

So the morning was full of activity and by the time midday rolled around, I was quite ready for a change of pace. So we had some lunch and then headed off into the city to go to the Central Markets and get our big burst of groceries for most of the next week. We’ve been doing this most weeks since we got to Unley. We’ve also been going to the farmers market at the Wayville Showgrounds but we often need the big shop a bit before. Also, we’ve been hitting the trestles at the end of some of the days at the Central Markets when the traders clear out stuff they don’t want to store while the market is closed, so you can get some good bargains on the basics, very handy for the budgetly inhibited. It’s also right next to, and slightly overlaps, Chinatown in Adelaide, so there is that great bustly Asian feel about it.

Before hitting the afore mentioned trestles, we went to one of the best little shops in the whole market, Nana’s Bakery. This is a great little spot on the border between the markets and Chinatown. They sell these fantastic little brioche styled sweet breads with lots of different fillings. There are sweet ones, savoury ones, vegetarian and meat ones. The steady favourite for us seems to be the hot dog ones which have a little frankfurter inside them. The coconut custard ones with the crunchy tops are good too (well actually all the flavours are great). There is a shop that’s opened recently that might just be a bit of competition though. They were originally just a stand but have now rented an eatery shop. They make these odd little coconuty waffle kinda things that are smooth disks that can be filled with custard or red bean paste or now cheese. They’re a bit cheaper than the nanas buns are are almost always hot and fresh. They seem to make them in a giant engine block. Anyway, today we had a nice mix of nanas buns and these, yummy disk things.

So, buns in tums, we ran the trestle gamut and stocked up heavily, then carried our rather weighty bags to the T-Bar a rather funky shop that sells lots of types of herbal teas (so hopefully you’ve worked out what their name means). So we ordered some tea, Annmarie had a special blend with cinnamon in it and I had an earl grey, and the kids had an iced tea (they do really good iced tea). We talked about stuff for a while and finally went home, catching the tram part way there.

The rest of the evening was trying to do more study then getting dinner. Since we had recently been temporarily brainwashed by a Domino’s flyer I had been very curious to try their strange new pizza creation. Since we hadn’t had their pizza for ages, and after getting pizza fever from the weekend, I decided to give it try. I phoned, they answered, I ordered, they delivered. But what did they deliver?

They delivered a strange concoction like no other I know of in the pizza world. The meat pie pizza. That’s right, you heard me correctly, the meat pie pizza. Only in Australia could they produce such a strange object such as this. Well maybe in Japan actually, home of the squid ink pizza.  Or perhaps Scotland, home of the deep fried pizza, and yes, I’ve seen that one come out of the oil at a chippie by the Glasgow Central railway station called The Blue Lagoon, didn’t eat it, but saw it.  They also do deep fried pies, on buttered rolls.

As for the Aussie meat pie pizza, the principle alone is off-putting, but the fact that they made it makes me wonder if it tastes nice. We normally only buy organic meat if at all and only eat meat very occasionally, but sometimes things must be done and sacrifices made.  It actually didn’t taste all that bad, as you’d hope or they wouldn’t really sell that many.  It definitely felt rather artery hardening as it went down, but overall not too unappealing.  It helped a lot to have eaten a large salad before hand though.

Anyway, it’s late, I should study and then get to bed.  Cya.

Pleasant wanderings

Yesterday was a nice day. Since it was pay day, a glorious day when you’re on a lower income, we went into town and bought a fresh juice from Boost Juice (we’re VIP members) then we went to an appointment for Annmarie and then off to Glenelg. Glenelg is a nice beach spot in Adelaide that I think I’ve mentioned before.

We then went and had lunch at my Mum’s house. I made some home made a couple of pizzas using pre-made organic dough from a company called Riviera which we bought from a local supermarket. I must humbly say that the pizzas were rather fantastic, especially now that we’ve learned that ideally the dough should be left to rise before use, something they should probably put on the label (and which hopefully they haven’t and I just didn’t notice it, which would make this statement rather embarrassing for me).

We had a nice lunch out under mum’s back pergola and chatted about her upcoming trip to Paris and Parisian markets. She has bought a rather good book on it called Paris in a Basket. This lists by arrondissement many of the better street and covered markets both food and flea. We had a look through it and found the markets we had visited while we were there.

After lunch we went for a walk down to the beach and on the way we stopped at our favourite organic shop in Adelaide, The Organik Store on Broadway. The people there are always really nice and friendly and they have good range of organic products. A lot of it is imported so it can be a bit pricy, but the products they stock are very good so usually if we can afford it, it’s worth it. We picked up some of the essentials we had run out of and continued down the beach and back to Glenelg.

At Glenelg we stopped off at a cafe (Cibo of course, where else would one go) and had a coffee while the sun set over Mosley Square. You can see a photo of it over on the right. The photo is from the Cibo tables looking back over the square back towards the beach.  Very nice day. Now back to study…

Start of the holidays

Well it’s the end of the week and the start of school holidays for the kids. I on the other hand, although technically in the middle of my mid semester break, am still in the midst of reading and writing. Also I am currently looking for some kind of part time work so I’m going to be rather busy.

The Monday after Easter (commonly known as Easter Monday) was quite a bit of fun. Annmarie’s brother Mark and his family came up to our place. They were up in Adelaide from Mt Gambier for the Easter weekend and had spent Sunday with other relatives. They were all down here for the day and made quite a bit of noise and motion. We all had chocolate and other food, there was a small ‘jam’ session with some guitars and everyone generally had a very nice time.

The rest of the week we have been fairly inactive. Trying to get some organising and tidying done. On the Wednesday though the cousins turned up again with more noise and activity (though their eldest did try and hide out on our balcony to read in peace). That same day we had another almost visitor to our house.

The people who live in the flats in front of our place both own dog. The ones on the left (facing from our front) have a tiny little yapping dog who would probably be much nicer if it’s owner didn’t keep yapping at it. The ones on the right have a couple of big dogs. One of them looks a bit like a cross between a Labrador and a Malamute, the other, I don’t really know, but something of a similar size. The cross one is quite amusing. It looks quite huge and if angry would probably be quite dangerous. But it’s demeanour is quite lovely. It’s the kind of dog that gets so excited about being patted that it can’t sit down.

Anyway, on the day in question the side fence of these people fell down. Not completely, but enough. It looks like one of the cross beams on the frame of the fence fell down ages ago and someone had put it back together by tying the sheet metal panels together with string. So the string had broken and the dog kept running in and out and round and round. Probably not the safest thing for a large dog, so we chased it back in a few times. The other dog is not quite so friendly, but luckily it seemed on the most part to just prefer sitting put.

The kids quite loved having the dogs run round a bit too, they were very entertained by it all.