Kids at Adventure Park (Photo credit: MarkOMeara)
One of the things we said to ourselves when we moved to Geelong was that we are going to be a more sociable family and have people over to the house more often. Yesterday, we lived up to that. After a morning of swimming lessons, Basia arrived to visit with four kids in tow, ranging from little Grayce who is still a baby to Jess, who is eleven. Shortly afterwards Fig arrived with Danny and Neve.
Our place is never all that quiet, but it really was full of life and noise with all those people here. And it didn’t do us any harm. In fact, it was lovely to see people, and we should have visitors more often.
I am assured that people in lots of jobs have to pay for their work computers, but I am particularly resenting the laptop that I have to lease for work at the moment. The lease is meant to be for three years, which is fair enough. But my lease ran out in February and the new computer might still be months away.
In the meantime, I am paying for a computer than is just getting slower and slower. It takes about eight minutes to start the machine to the point where I can load another application. And then it takes another six or seven minutes to open a document in Word or PowerPoint.
I guess I would still be annoyed by such a slow machine, but it does feel like adding insult to injury to be paying for this some months after the lease was meant to finish.
Lego is the Word (Photo credit: MarkOMeara)
The Walls of Marostica. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have only had my new bike for less than a week, but I can tell you that it is terrific to ride. For those who care, it is a Wiler Marostica. For those of you less into bikes, it is a light bike with skinny tires and a flat handle bar.
It is surprisingly comfortable to ride and – importantly – it just glides along, downhill and up. I didn’t ride it to work today, because it is too wet today, but I can see myself riding it as often as possible.
Although Leila is a perfectly nice kids in lots of ways, she does have this bad habit of saying things to Finn just to upset him. This morning’s effort was to tell him that one day he will be took big for Blanky, his beloved and battered bear, and would have to get rid of Blanky. Finn should, of course, ignore her, but he was briefly upset.
So I sent him off to find Big Ears, a toy dog that I have had since I was very small. I am not sure exactly when I got Big Ears, but he was one of my two favourite toys. The other was a small yellow bear called Egghead. I am not sure what happened to Egghead, but then I was never very careful with them one I grew out of bears, and it is a miracle that Big Ears survived, especially given how many times I have moved. Still, it is nice to still have him, even if we don’t spend much quality time together.
As for Finn and Blanky, I am certainly that they have a few more good years left, and that Finn will hold on to him, even if he might require a little encouragement from us now and then to keep his favourite bear from childhood.
During the holidays, I was reading a book by Nick Hornby about all the books that he reads. Lots of these columns, and they started life as magazine columns, had a few pages of one of the books mentioned. One in particular, Citizen Vince, leapt out, so I got a copy from my local library.
It’s a terrific book. It is tightly plotted, sometimes philosophical, and funny and profane, all in good measures. I am really enjoying it, and I should read enjoyable words more often.
Before we went out yesterday, I patched the tyre that I had a slow leak on my Zen bike. The puncture was actually through an old patch, and it looked huge to the naked eye. Still, I patched it again, and it seemed to hold over night. So this morning, I set off on my bike to work. I got about three kilometres towards to school when the tyre went very flat very quickly. It made a big sound and everything.
Needless to say, by the time I pushed my bike home, I was looking forward to picking up my new bike. I didn’t need a new bike, but since I will be riding to school every day for years to come, I wanted something new, shiny, and speedy.
Nicky – bless her cotton socks – drove me to school after this morning’s disaster, and gave me a lift to the bike shop after school, too. There I collected my new flat-bar road bike. It is very light and an absolute please to ride, although I have only gone about four kilometres on it. I thought that it might be a bumpy ride or uncomfortable in some way, being more about performance than comfort. But it was a real treat, and I can’t wait to ride it to work tomorrow.
Yes, I’ve decided that it’s that time again. I’m going to bore you with an update of my To Do list for the year. I know it’s far from riveting reading, but posting it here helps me order my thoughts and makes me feel accountable, so you’ll just have to put up with it.
A penny for your thoughts...Dollars for your thoughts - NARA - 513735 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First, here are the things that have been cleared from the list so far:
- Sell my car.
- Sell the house at Point Cook.
- Find a house in Geelong.
- Get a mortgage with a redraw facility.
- Set aside kids’ school fees and emergency fund.
The school fees and emergency fund have been put onto our mortgage as an overpayment. We could have put them in an interest-bearing bank account, but we would have to pay tax on any interest we earned. By paying the amount off the mortgage instead, we reduce the amount of interest we have to pay, which is of greater value to us at the moment, and (assuming we don’t need to draw on it) reduce the term of our mortgage by a fair bit.
Now for the things that remain on, or have been added to, the list:
Live frugally and rebuild our reserves. This one is probably never going to be checked off, it’s kind of an ongoing thing. Our reserves have been boosted quite nicely by the sale of Point Cook but, being a single income family, we need to keep on it. We are paying more than the minimum amount off our new mortgage, as well as budgeting for an additional monthly payment off it, which will go towards the redraw amount to be called on in need.
Continue decluttering. For all the stuff that we’ve divested ourselves of over the last few months, we still have more than we can comfortably fit in our new house. The garage is very full of things waiting to be unpacked and/or find a home. Our plan is to take things slowly and put away the things that are already in the house before bringing anything else in. I’ve left quite a few of the kid’s toys in the garage, too, as a way of finding out what they actually play with. If they ask after something, it can come out of the garage, but there will be no “shopping” out there. In a couple of months, anything not used or unpacked can go to the op shop or tip.
Work on my fitness. I’ve made a start. I joined the local women-only gym last week. I haven’t been back since last Thursday – I got a bit side-tracked this week – but will be going at least twice a week on the days that Leila is at kinder.
Educate myself about Steiner philosophy. This has stalled. Frankly, the books are not much fun to read, but I will persevere.
Enrol the kids in extracurricular activities again. We checked out the local pool last weekend. It’s small, but should be fine for the kids to learn at. The swim lesson co-ordinator wasn’t there at the time to book them in, so I’ll fill in an online enrolment form today and we can get things underway.
And a new addition to the list:
Get quotes. We really, really like our new house and, basically, wouldn’t change a thing. However there are several things that we need to think about. The stove is, we think, original, making it over 50 years old. I imagine it was a pretty swish model for it’s time, with separate grill/rotisserie and warmer beside the oven. Thus far, we’ve found that one hot plate (it’s all electric) and the timer/clock don’t work, so I’d like to get an electrician to have a look at it and give us a quote for making it fully operational. If it’s too expensive, it doesn’t matter – the stove is quite usable - but it would be nice to have it all working. Then there’s the windows. They’re large and catch breezes beautifully, but I suspect that they’ll also catch a lot of sun in summer, so I’d like to know what awnings for the north, west and east facing windows will cost. And finally, I’ve rabbited on for years about wanting solar power, so I’d like to get a quote for that too, before the government rebates run out.
There are other things I’d like to add to the To Do list, like a vegie garden, but we’ve only been here for two weeks and we’re not going anywhere in a hurry, so they can wait. I actually think it might be best to wait a few months before I consider doing anything in the garden – I need some time to see where the sun goes and what bits the dogs use.
Cover via Amazon
I don’t know when Nicky and I first saw Leon: The Professional, but I know it wasn’t in the cinema so it must have been on videotape. I would guess that it was in the mid-nineties. I know it already had a reputation for being a terrific film even then.
I am not why, but this film was not on DVD for a long time. You just couldn’t get it on Australia. Then, just the other week, we saw in on Blu-Ray in a shop, but I didn’t buy a copy. I knew that I had liked this film, but I didn’t trust my memory of how much. On a hunch, I looked it up on my local library’s site and – lo and behold – there it was on DVD, so I reserved it.
I turned out that the version on DVD is a longer edition than the one we first saw. It is not, according to Wikipedia, the director’s cut, but that’s a whole other story. It is, however, an even better film that the one we originally saw. It is more challenging and made us downright uncomfortable at time. And it is much more moving. On several levels this is a deeply amoral story, but it is also a story about a kind of nobility and love that I found quite touching.
So, I am sure you know what I am going to say. You should beat a path straight to this film. Don’t turn it off when your skin starts to crawl. Keep going. This is an amazing film, and you’ll thank me.
Bicycle with large woven basket panniers, Port Townsend, Washington, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Getting my school stuff to and from work on my bike has been a bit tricky this week. I do have baskets on the front and back, but even then I had a carry a courier bag some days. So on Thursday, I went into a terrific local shop called Digrandis and looked at a luggage rack and panniers.
They were absolutely fantastic, and I rode about fifteen minutes later with my bike transformed. I used the panniers on Friday, and it was a completely different experience. Unlike the baskets, which make the bike top heavy, the panniers carry to weight nice and low. The weight does slow the bike down a little, as you would expect, but it is a much better way to carry stuff around on two wheels.
Princes Bridge over the Barwon River, carrying Shannon Avenue - Geelong, Victoria, Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had a meeting at another school after work today, so I rode my bike there. Dean, another teacher from my school, rode too since he has been riding to school as well. It was already late by the time our meeting finished, and thought I’d follow Dean and ride the Barwon River trail. People have assure me that it wouldn’t be much longer, and I thought it might be nice.
First of all, it was much longer than going through the city and it took me almost forty-five minutes to get home. Of course, I was further from home than usual, but the river trail is not direct by any stretch of the imagination. However, and this is a big however, the ride is really, really nice. The path is in good nick, and an interesting ride. It twists and turns just enough to be interesting. And the whole area around the river is beautiful indeed.
It was a lovely ride, for sure, but I might save it for weekends and times when I have heaps of time. For regular commutes, I’ll stick to riding through town. It’s not pretty, but it’s quick and relatively painless.
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