jayneandmarty.com

I haven’t really been following the stories about the flooding in the UK but had 20 minutes at lunchtime today so I thought I’d get onto the BBC web site and read about them.

The most interesting content on the site was their interactive flood map using Google Maps. Incredibly useful to see all the photos and video submitted by the public organised in this way. Much more engaging than a vague thirty second spiel by some reporter or other on the News at 6. News has come a long way.

Here’s the link.

1. Buy two pairs of toe socks.
2. Send to Jayne and Marty.

It was a chilly 2 deg when I was de-icing the car windscreen at 7.15 this morning. Not much warmer in the water either … 13 deg to be precise. I must be crazy.

Ocean Grove with Stuey and James. 1-2ft with the occasional 3 footer. Not a great surf but good fun.

On the way home I stopped off at 13th Beach to watch the guns carving up the four footers. Had the camera on full digital zoom so some of the shots are a bit grainy but you get the idea. Plenty of time in the green room for these blokes.

P.S. If you look at the Flickr slideshow it looks like all the shots are of our session, not two separate ones!

Jayne and I deliberately avoid “must see box office smashes”, “once in a lifetime opportunities” and the like, mostly because the crowds annoy us, but we decided last night to harden up and for once actually participate in something hype-y … i.e. trying to buy the new Harry Potter book on release day.

So this morning we drove into town to Griffith’s Bookstore. We prepared ourselves for hysteria, queueing up for hours alongside fanatics dressed as Dumbledore and Hermione, getting our picture taken with a Harry Potter lookalike, having scars tattooed onto our foreheads, ducking to avoid the broomsticks, and hustling to the front of the queue to snatch the last copy of the book out of the hands of a screaming 9 year old.

Well, that might have been the scene at Hamley’s in London but it wasn’t the scene in Ryrie Street Geelong. We got a Costanza park out the front, strolled into the bookstore at about 9.20 and queued patiently with around 30 other people eyeing off the 200 copies of the book stacked up on the counter. Actually Jayne waited in the queue and I mooched around the store. Before long I spotted a fancy-looking display of hard copy editions of all the other books, and I’m proud to say that I succumbed to the impulse and plucked them all from the display for Jayne to buy.

Unfortunately the person three in front of us in the queue got the last available copy of the new one (the 200 copies on the counter were pre-orders), but we weren’t going to be beaten that easily. When paying for the other ones we overheard one of the staff saying that some extra copies might be brought in from Queenscliff later in the day, so we set off on a leisurely drive to Queenscliff to jump the queue.

When we got there we couldn’t find the bookstore but Jayne spotted some happy families walking back from the station, which reminded me of a story that I’d read in the paper this morning about the Queenscliff/Drysdale railway running a special Hogwarts Express train today. We put two and two together and wandered down to find around 100 families milling around on the platform. Some were entering the best-dressed competition, others were waiting for the train to leave, but only one or two were queuing to buy the book from the lady dressed as Professor McGonagall (I had to look that up), so we waited for about a minute, bought our copy, then wandered off for a walk around Queenscliff.

So. Altogether quite a pleasant morning, despite (or more accurately because of) the lack of hysteria. And thanks to our impulse buying we should be right for our commuting reading for a few weeks.

P.S. On the way back from Queenscliff we dropped into the Mill Markets in Newcomb for a look around. Lots of great stuff in there, including these sunnies that I bought especially for the upcoming retro day we’re having at Falls Creek with our friends. (Yep, everyone skis or boards in retro gear all day long).

Nice.

Kate wrote about some of the government’s requirements for being Australian tonight.

Jayne and I try to be as Oz as we can, whenever we can. You may recall how Oz we were on Australia Day this year (if you can’t recall, read about it here).

Anyway, is this Oz?

Before you jump to “no, that’s German”, remember it’s bloody cold down here in Geelong at the moment and we have a tiled kitchen floor with plenty of space under the house. In short, the floor gets cold and we need something on our feet. Maybe we should buy some slippers.

If you don’t reckon it’s Oz enough for you then how about this?

Jayne went shopping this morning and found plenty of HP on the shelves (so she bought two more bottles). Are you pulling our legs Kate?

If you can hear something creaking, it’s me.

At 3pm on Friday I was organised to get up very early on Saturday morning to drive to Buller with friends for another day trip to the snow. But at 3.05 we noticed on the BOM radar that the cold fronts looked as if they’d miss Buller and we were heading for Hotham and Falls Creek. The call went out … Hotham instead? … and by 3.30 we were going to Hotham.

That 30 minutes was clinical. Hotham is a five hour drive from Melbourne and almost impossible to do in a day so we knew we’d have to book something overnight in Bright or on the mountain. Justin had organised cheap accommodation on the mountain at Tanderra by 3.32. At 3.33 our wives and partners thought we were leaving on Saturday morning but by 3.35 they had given us the go ahead for an overnighter. Who says blokes are unorganised?

In the end we didn’t leave John’s house in Alphington until about 8.30, we almost ran out of petrol in Bright at midnight and heavy snow slowed us down on the drive up the hill from Harrietville but we finally got there, managed to unload, park the cars and get to bed. It was 2.30am but we were there and ready for the next morning.

Ever heard the phrase “keen as mustard”? Four hours after we arrived we were up and in Tanderra’s kitchen eating bacon and eggs. Got to get those first tracks! We were first in line at the lift ticket office and on our first run before most of the lifts were open (which was no good, actually, as we had to wait to get back up the hill for our next run). We had a great morning but I was stuffed soon after lunch – partly because of the lack of sleep but mostly because the snow on the ground was a bit wet and heavy and we’d had a couple of out of bounds hikes in knee deep snow. That takes it out of you. John and I even had to cross a stream at one point.

One of the best parts of a trip to the snow is relaxing in the lodge when the day’s done. Usually you’re tired and pumped at the same time, reliving the best runs, stretching out tired limbs and knocking back a couple of beers before dinner. Bummer that we had to leave to come home. We were packed and gone by 5.30. Knowing that we were only there for the day didn’t make leaving (or driving past the pub) any easier.

I wasn’t driving so I slept most of the way home, but woke up sufficiently to drive home to Geelong from John’s and I arrived home at 12.30am. Between leaving John’s on Friday at 8.30pm and arriving home (28 hours) I was travelling for 13 hours, snowboarding for 7, and sleeping for 4.

Next time I think I’ll stay for a few days.

I’m lucky enough to work from home on Fridays. After I drop Jayne at the station (7am) I head for the beach, either with Max for a walk or with my surfboard for a surf. Over the last 12 months it’s been about 70/30 Max/surf.

Today I had company so I surfed – John had some time so he made the trip down from Alphington. The waves weren’t up to much but at least they were clean and it’s always great being out there, especially when nobody else is like today. The water’s getting cold though. Must be down to about 12 by now.

I took the camera out for the first time. Tucked it into the sleeve of my wetsuit when I wasn’t snapping. It’s great to finally have some surfing photos. We have 3,100 photos stored on the computer going back to 1999 and only four of them are surf-related. Hard to believe when you consider that I’m out there at least once a week but I guess that’s about to change now that we have a waterproof camera.

I didn’t take too many but there are a few more on our Flickr page. It was tricky being in position to catch John actually on a wave but the ones I got give you a sense of what it’s like being out there. I’m pleased with a couple of the wave ones.

Kate blogged about the HP sauce scandal today. I must admit I knew nothing about it until I read the post, but I share her outrage. I love my HP, and although I won’t go as far as Kate did and say that I won’t eat certain meals without brown sauce, fish and chips won’t be the same without it. Nor will cheese on toast, sausages off the BBQ or scrambled eggs.

I have this much left in the bottle in the pantry but will be visiting Safeway Highton tomorrow night to stockpile. Here’s hoping that news of the debacle hasn’t reached Geelong yet.

******* Update *******

9.18pm Just back from Safeway. I decided that I couldn’t risk waiting until tomorrow night. Lucky I didn’t. I bought 10 bottles and left only two on the shelf. The checkout chick even said that her Dad bought heaps the other day too and she gave me two shopping bags because “it would be terrible if one broke and you dropped them all”.

Fish and chips tomorrow night.

We took advantage of the stocktake sales yesterday and today and loaded up with photo frames, prints in frames, two floor lamps, two ottomans and some cookware. The prints in frames, the ottomans and the lamps went into our bedroom and it finally looks like it’s almost finished. You may recall that in July last year we repainted it. Well it’s taken us almost 12 months to add the finishing touches but it’s looking pretty good now.

The photo doesn’t really do it justice but the two lamps, the picture above the bed, another picture on the other wall and the two ottomans as side tables are all new. Cosy.

We also bought some new cookware. Here’s Jayne knocking something together last night. We managed to get a super duper special as they had forgotten to take the sale price off so we got it at 50% of RRP. Thank you very much.

Tonight we’ve fired up the Weber again for a vegemite lamb roast with jacket potatoes (Paul’s secret recipe). This photo’s from last week but you get the idea…………

P.S. Jayne has the same t-shirt and trousers on but she assures me she washed them between now and last Sunday.