Spring is (nearly) here...

Why doesn't the breeze delight me? Spring is here, why doesn't the night invite me?

Starting spring cleaning is hard.

Moved some stuff around, but still haven't really made any progress. Also haven't gotten any further on a landscape of Melbourne I've been trying to force myself to complete. It's currently languishing on the dining room table, the most recent place for it to be moved to.

Sometimes art is hard, particularly when there's not much time to do it. Or inclination.

Plus there's all the dustbunnies to round up and exterminate.

Spring resolution: give more things away to charity. Then they get to deal with the things I'm not sure I want any more. Lucky them.

On another train of thoughts entirely, Midsommer Murders has a secret tunnel on it tonight. Back in the old house, I always wished we had something like that to match with our fantastic cellar.

Too many books?

I'm trying to clean up the house - a serious spring clean. But it's taking a while. For a start, there's too many books and I keep pausing to read bits of them. I need another bookshelf or something like that. I've got an idea for something like a bookshelf headboard for my bed - something that sort of surrounds the bed at the head. Maybe with a light included...

But not being a carpenter, I think it's more idea than reality.

I also want to do a whole lot of cooking, but I'm not totally sure what to cook yet. Maybe another lot of caramelised onion, leek and roast pumpkin pies. Or cakes. Or some other variety of delicious thing. Gourmet Traveller and delicious. magazines inspire me a crazy amount. The latest Gourmet Traveller has a recipe for persian nougat, which is making me think, "Ooh, that looks complicated. I could make that!"

Kind of like the puff pastry recipe they had a couple months ago that's got me wondering whether or not I could actually make it myself. Has anyone tried making puff pastry before? Is it really that complicated? Or just utterly time-consuming?

^ Some photos from where we were doing filming during the week.

^ A photo of the lake from on holidays.

I'm thinking of warmer weather and so on at the moment, as I'm still afflicted with this God-awful 'flu. It's worse than ever, dammit. Yesterday I was meant to meet friends in the city, but I took some Codral early in the morning to help me soldier on.

The only thing that did was make me soldier on with the puking. So I spent the day either sleeping or throwing up. Grossness. Fell asleep in the afternoon and only woke up at 8.45.

I HAAAAAAAATE being sick.

And I'm never touching Codral ever again.

But I shall think about a nice lake instead, warm weather and more pleasant times on holidays. I love holidays. Need more of them.

^ Mum's birthday flowers.

^ The painting where it lives now.

Reasons I Hate Borders

Mainly, it's because whenever I go in to one, I have the overwhelming urge to buy practically everything in the store. Also, you just want to spend hours there. Which isn't really the best way to spend the day.

When I was visiting Mum and Dad, we dropped into a Borders store near them. Within minutes, I'd found a huge tome of Pablo Neruda's poetry and a good Wilfred Owen collection. I'd thought that would be good enough, but then while I was poking around in the fiction section, I found seven other books I just had to buy.

See, that's the problem with Borders. They've got such a huge range of stuff, which means that they've got things other book stores have to order in for you. And I hate waiting for things to be ordered in. Being able to just pick it up off the shelf is such a satisfying feeling.

So there I am, wandering around Borders with a mountain of books in my arms and a look of sheer ecstacy on my face.

Also found The Mighty Boosh 3, which I bought.

I feel like I should type in a hushed whisper, but I really didn't enjoy it. Perhaps it's because of having the 'flu from hell, but there were hardly any parts that amused me deeply. It was a big difference from the first two series, which never fail to make me laugh outrageously.

The books are all most excellent, though.

The day I slept with Chopper

With an interesting title like that, you'd be expecting more than what you're about to get...

Last Friday, I flew up to NSW to stay with my parents for about a week. I arrived nice and early at the airport and discovered on entering a large group of cameramen waiting for the Hawthorn coach or something like that. After checking in and wandering up to the gate, I saw Stephanie Alexander. Then Dipper was around in a gate near the one I was leaving from.

Come time to board, I notice Mark "Chopper" Read is at the front of the line. I wasn't sure if it was him at first, but then the lack of ears was kind of a give away. Thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if I was next to him." Instead of giving it more thought, I msg'd a few friends about it and L messaged back to say not to ask about Keithy.

I get onto the plane and you know what? I am sitting next to Chopper.

Which was kind of awkward, because everyone stared at him and he's kind of intimidating. But there was some smalltalk and headphone wrangling and so on. But once we took off, he fell asleep.

And snored.

Kind of like how my grandma used to.

I took my cue from that and though, "I've been up since 6am, may as well have a snooze!" So I dozed lightly and in spite of it being Jetstar, the flight was actually rather enjoyable. Obviously the answer is to sleep through it so as to avert the thought that with it being Jetstar, things may not go quite so well as they might with other airlines. Qantas not included.

And thus, this is where the blog entry title comes from.

Apart from that, the week away was great. Still have this awful 'flu, though. That was one thing that amused me, actually. Thanks to the 'flu, my voice has gone all deep. It was deeper than Chopper's. So much wrongness.

If I hadn't seen Azrael on Tuesday (after an absence of about a month), I might have thought this is what could have happened to him... (Thanks to Lina for sending on the vid!)

As it was, he looked beat-up enough. Some scarring on his face, a rather nasty cut above his left eye and looking generally out of sorts. Maybe he'd just been busy beating up all the other neighbourhood cats. He looks the sort to enjoy that kind of thing.

Birthday snow part one

Snow for my birthday made things perfect, even though I've got the 'flu most unpleasantly and was feeling about 1/4 conscious. And I'm older now than I was before.

But then again, I'm even older now than when I typed that last sentence.

Anyway. The snow was fantastic! It had been cleared to the summit, and there were hardly any people there. We were in work clothes, but cruised around for quite a while, taking loads of photos, plunging through the snow, getting snow down my boots.

On the way back down, some lady in suitably sensible snow gear said to me, "I bet you're regretting wearing that skirt!" I said I wasn't, because it meant I didn't have trousers that were getting soaked instead. I mean, my knees were somewhat cold, but it wasn't too bad. And I'm that sort of impractical girl.

By gosh, I love snow.

"That was Chinquo. He was my friend. As children, we played together in forest. My father warn us, 'No go too far, for there are hunter at t' edge of forest.' But Chinquo curious, he always say, 'Bollo, please, please let us go to edge of forest,' over and over and over. And so finally, one day, I chopped his head off. Cup of tea anyone?" - Bollo, The Mighty Boosh.

Birthday snow part two

^ Somehow it kind of made me think of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The icicle had dropped off the rock that had a whole collection on there and just the top of it poked out of the snow. So I uncovered it and as I did so, remembered where my winter gloves were at home.

What timing.

However, I think my hands are actually colder tonight at home than they were up in the snow today. It's freezing tonight. And I have no Milo. But I do have The Mighty Boosh DVD amusing me at the moment. So I can laugh as I freeze.

Snow and 'flu

^ Snow!

Sooooooooooo cold today. And I have the 'flu rather badly. Which is just in time for my birthday (tomorrow). The excitement never ends really. My voice disappeared last night near the end of filming. At least it lasted for most of the time, but by the end, it had become something that sounded like I'd recently given up a 10-pack-a-day habit. So that should be interesting.

The only thing to do is embrace the Anticol.

In other thoughts, why couldn't it snow here in the town anyways? Surely it was cold enough if it managed it elsewhere. Plus ads for Double the Fist remind me of the mullet I saw on Friday. Rather horrifying.

Garlic bread's good for the 'flu, right?

^ New shoes.

I'm not totally sure what I think of them, but I kind of wanted them the second I saw them. When I got them home, I thought, "Hmm... They're more like gladiator stripper shoes. Oh well!"

Now for some more clement weather to wear them in.

Update: I actually found some shoes that were somewhat similar in a French Vogue from around the middle of last year. It's nice how long things take to get out here in Australia...

Went to see The Dark Knight last night.

Most excellent, particularly Heath Ledger.

But the amusing thing about the whole thing was:

A) The "Dark Whopper" ad. We were all in stitches about it. But it got better, because it was followed by...

B) An ad for condoms, including "king sized" ones. And then...

C) An ad about how Australians love big things. It was for some Big Eats canned food thing. By that time, we were all laughing until we nearly cried.

Very immature, but oh-so-funny.

Anyway. The Dark Knight was really very good. Christian Bale was great. But Heath Ledger was amazing. He completely embraced the character, and I think it sort of showed how poorly so many actors now days (attempt to) act. So many of them are simply themselves with a little bit of a change for a character, but Ledger really was The Joker. He was too fascinating to be scary.

If you've not seen it, do. But try not too laugh too hard about Dark Whopper burgers. Or big things.


*bwahahahahaha*