On a whim, I entered a couple of photos from my recent trip to Perth into Jetstar's photo competition. Please vote for them here and here. I suspect this is more of a popularity contest than any sort of merit-based exercise, sso I don't feel too weird flogging it here ;)

I'm finally getting around to publishing some of the posts I made during my trip last year, and actually writing up some of the other stuff. I doubt they'll be in order, and I'll cut them because they're long and have photos. I did ask last year about setting up a filter so you didn't have to read them if you didn't really care, but I'm sorry, I can't lay my hands on that post to set it up, so scroll on by if you don't care. I'll be posting them one a day so as not to drown everyone's f-lists.

Does this work?

Edit: Yep. Cross posted from my dreamwidth account.

Oh man, not again. Enough with the earth shaking now, kthnxbai.

When we were in Northern Ireland last year, we were quite shocked to see the chief constable on tele calmly explaining how the various paramilitary groups were currently vying to be the first to kill a policeman. Seems the Continuity IRA now hold that dubious honour, as they have claimed the murder of Stephen Carrol, a policeman shot dead from behind in an unmarked patrol car. This two days after the Real IRA shot and killed two soliers, leads to some pretty serious unease about the stability of the peace accords. I was, then, please dto see in today's paper that Belfast held a kind of silent vigil, both sides standing together, to denounce the actions of these paramilitary groups. I hope they mean it.

I will write more about this and my experiences in Northern Ireland when I get around to writing up my trip journal, as I definately have more to say. Such a beautiful country, so very, very badly broken.

Dear Earth,

You know, I feel like Victoria's been through enough in the last few weeks, without you throwing earth tremors at us too.

Also, I'm not really sure Queensland needs a cyclone just now either.

So stop. Just... stop. What is this - natural disaster month?

Love,

Me.

ETA - 4.7 magnitude 96km SE of Melbourne... eek.

Under the cut is a short video of Riley etting his tablet...
( He's so cute... )

Since the embed seems to be screwey, you can also see it here.

teflon2000 had an early start yesterday morning, and left before I got out of bed. Which meant that he wasn't on hand to help give Wonder Cat his antibiotics. I figured I could always ring mum is needs be, but thought I'd give it a go on my own.

There's a stool in the kitchen that I use when I'm cooking, as soon as I picked up the tablets off the shelf he ran into the kitchen, leapt up on the stool and purred at me. Interesting. So I thought I'd just try holding the tablet out to him on my hand, like we do with treats. He sniffed it, licked it, then et it. My cat really *is* self-medicating. He did it again for teflon2000 last night, and again this morning.

I really hope he doesn't grow out of all this lovely as he gets older. He's currently curled up on the couch sulking because I won't let him outside.

Here's a litle pic of him playing in his travel cage yesterday...

Let me tell you about my kitten. He's five months old now, and still a real sweetheart. Little bugger went missing yesterday, and rolled up at sundown with a paw he wouldn't let me touch. Sigh. Trip to the vet.

I got his travel cage out from where I hide it, put it in the living room, opened the lid, and he jumped straight into it. No fighting, biting, scratching, hissing or carrying on. Just walked over, sniffed it, and jumped in. A performance he repeated later for the vet.

Turns out he got in a scrap with another cat or possibly a possum and got bitten just above the paw. Antibiotics are required. Oh goody. Whoever first wrote this had clearly met The Stripes, so I was a bit apprehensive. I picked him up, teflon2000 put the tablet in his mouth, missed a bit and sort of balanced it behind his teeth instead of pushing it down the back of his throat, and Kitten Features makes a bit of a face, then swallows it down.

My kitten puts himself in his cage and medicates himself. We've achieved a nasty vet visit without a single scratch or bite or being hissed at even once. He's such a lovely boy.

ETA - he's now belting around the hallway thwacking something around, having cracked it because I won't let him outside. Doesn't seem to be worrying him too much.

The Upwey fire was controlled overnight, easing the immediate threat, at least for now. We did have a particularly tense moment around 10pm last night, when we heard sirens blare past, and checked to CFA website to discover four units at the Basin-Olinda Road, presumably Wick's reserve again, which is around 1.5km from here, and a much bigger problem to us if it goes up. Within 15 minutes it was marked as a false alarm, fortunately.

So, short version, we're staying alert, but there is no current cause for alarm. Let's hope it stays that way.

We're safe. Belgrave is looking pretty sketchy, which is one of my favourite places in Melbourne. The fire front is around 10km away from us, so we're blanketed in smoke, the sky is orange and full of helicopters, but we *should* be safe.

Still, closer than I like it.

They've caught the bastard responsible for the Churchill fires. I have never been more serious when I say that we could do with taking a leaf out of Tudor England's book, and hang him up somewhere so people can chuck shit at him.

Riley just brought me in a mouse, a really big dead one. These are usually teflon2000's problem since, despite being pretty much the antithesis of Great Big Girl, I can't deal with them at all. I heard him jingling away and went to see what trouble he was getting into, and there he was ON MY BED with this fuck-off great mouse.

Ring mum. Not home. Ring teflon2000's parents. No answer. Shit shit shit. Don welly boots, rubber gloves and dustpan. Feel like enormous spazzy.

After about 15 minutes of this, he puts it in the bedroom rubbish bin. Ah-ha thinks me. Crisis over. Then he starts to try to remove it through the side. After a little bit of throwing the whole rubbish bin around the room with the mouse still attached, he took it into the ensuite. Now I can't brush my teeth, but at least it's out of the way, and teflon2000's penalty for laughing hysterically at me when I called to ask his advice is to deal with it when he gets home.

Riley's slinking around the place alternating between trying to find his shiny thing, and making big kitten eyes at me. He's in trouble for at least another ten minutes yet, I reckon.

Fuck bushfire season in its stupid arse.

We're okay, and it looks like we'll stay that way, there are fires nearby but they're small and far enough away that as long as the cool change does turn up tonight we'll be fine. It's pretty smoky, but that's the worst of it at the moment. But fuck, this sucks.

ETA: View from my back porch:

I'm so excited. I can breathe. It's not supposed to get any hotter than about 29 today, which will be nice given the three days over 43C last week. My poor veg aren't quite sure what hit them. But mostly seem to have survived, thankfully.

In the latest installment of Bush Week, this was in my front yard this morning...
( I cut so I can feel... )

1. Texture By * Lynne, 2. sundried tomatoes, 3. Norwood Junction Station Subway, 4. PURPLE HAZE, 5. Whitlam in Newtown - Tim Freedman, 6. Summer Sangria, 7. Trans-Siberian Railway, China/USSR, 8. Banofee Pie, 9. Ballet Dancers, Adam’s Mark Hotel, Denver Colorado, 10. Heirloom Tomatoes, 11. CRAZY CAT LADY PLAYMOBIL FROM GROC!!, 12. Talamanca (I) Dedicada a mi amigo PEPE (Jovisur)



The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

I suspect everything is going to be fine, but there are people who I only really "know" here who I'd hate to lose touch with if anything went pear shaped. I've created http://thepurpleempire.insanejournal.com/ as a replacement for this journal. I am also on blogspot, albeit warbling about my garden, at http://www.eat-my-garden.blogspot.com .

As usual, the New Year's honours list contains some interesting decisions, but I was very excited to see that Terry Pratchett, OBE, is now Sir Terry Pratchett. Nice one.

I don't know if this will work, just testing...

My Garden Design