Philip Island, motoGP

Over the last weekend Dad, Robbie, Jono and I were at the MotoGP on Philip Island. We saw Casy Stoner win the big race by 6 seconds. he had a lead of 8 seconds at one point but was told to slow down by his pit crew just incase he broke some thing on the bike. It was pretty amazing as the day before he came off over the handle bars around the corner we happend to be sitting at.
this photo is Casy Stoner coming round the corner we were sitting at, the same corner he came off the day before. Stoners team mate Loris Capirossi came second while seven time world champ Valentino Rossi came third. Nicky Haden, last years wold champion was coming second right behind Stoner but he droped out with technical problems. The winner pf the 250cc race was Jorge Lorenzo who will be Rossi's team mate next year. he thrashed the other 250cc riders by 19.6 seconds it was fantastic and to selebrate he planted his "Lorenzo Land" flag in the sand trap near us.
All in all it was a great copple of days
Jamie

A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini : ISBN 9780747582977

Mariam is 15 and lives with her mother in a village outside Herat, Afghanistan. Her father visits weekly and she idolises him and yearns to be accepted by his legitimate family. When her mother dies, rather than be looked after by her father, she is quickly married off to the much older Rasheed and goes to live hundreds of miles away in Kabul.
Many childless years later she is joined by a second 15 year old wife, Laila. Initially hostile to Laila, the two women find comfort and support in each other.
All this time trouble and strife is raging in Afghanistan with mujahadeen, Russians and the Taliban all wreaking their own kinds of havoc. Life is a struggle, Rasheed is brutal and the women suffer much before reaching breaking point.
A wonderful story. I highly recommend it, as well as the first book Hosseini wrote, The kite runner.

Jono's visit

The boys are away at the Motorbike Grand Prix. Jamie, Ishbel and I collected Jono from the airport on Wednesday morning. We spent the afternoon at Roey and Pete's having a long lunch before heading home and dinner with Karen and Dan.

Robbie didn't come with us to the airport because he was starting his first job. He's got casual work for Eagle Boys Pizza (great job for him - pizza is Robbie's favourite!). He only did a couple of hours (we worried he'd been fired already when he called to get a lift home) but was quite happy. His uniform is a treat - bright pink! Will post photo as soon as I can get someone to help me nail him down to have it taken!

The fellas left for Victoria at 4 on Thursday morning. Ishbel and I didn't get up to see them off!!

She's not a Derek

We've got a wussy dog. Curled up on my lap in the evenings, Ian has to take her for a drag round the block. Not a Derek as I said the other night. Him we couldn't even mention the word 'walk' but he'd be at the door, bouncing around, itching to be out.

Here she is, snuggling up with Robbie.

RFS

With regard to the previous blog i would like to point out that the green tree snake is NON-VENOMOUS and wasn't actually reared up so there was no actual threat. also while we were sitting at the bottom of martins lookout Rob pointed and said "Holy c@#$ look another one" and scared the begebus out of Mum to the amusment of the rest of the guys at the exercise.

The first in 20 years!

Jamie, Robbie and I went to RFS training on Sunday. We out to Martin's Lookout and did some trail cutting along the tracks there. Lots of hard yakka going down the hill clearing leaves and stones off the paths. Robbie was in my team, Jamie went in the opposite direction with his team. Robbie had fun wielding the brush hook, hacking away at the undergrowth. We were acting out a scenario in which a fire was making its way up the hill and we were clearing a break round the edge in preparation for lighting a backburn. Then they told us the wind had picked up and the fire was racing up the hill and we had to head for safety down in the creek at the foot of the gully. Down, down, down we went. Tramping along the bottom, me in front, I suddenly spied a snake, green, facing my way, in strike pose. I've rarely run so fast. I let out an expletive and raced back up a rock!

It was identified by one of the team as a green tree snake, one of only two tree snakes found in Australia. Agile and slender, this non-venomous snake can grow up to 2m but is usually a little over 1m. Its colour ranges from green to yellowish-green, brownish-green, black - even blue in a rare form. Under threat, the snake raises itself, revealing splashes of blue between its scales.

At a clearing at the bottom we met up with Jamie's team and had a bit of a rest before heading out - up, up, up, up, up , up, up , up, up , up, up , up, up and more , up, up - it was quite arduous. What with that and the snake I am considering joining one of the plains RFS teams way out in Dubbo or somewhere!!

Homeward bound

At last it was time to pack up and come home. After our experience with the hotel restaurant last night we decided to get breakfast in Manuka before heading back for a quick look at Parliament House. It didn't take us long to take ourselves round and we could head out of town - the only time we were on the right road the whole way!


Stopped off at the Scottish Shop at Sutton Forrest where I got a Colquhoun mug for Ian. I told the lady I was bringing my sassanach friend for a look (Gillian) but she hadn't a clue what I was talking about. We also stopped in the historic town of Berrima for a wander and a bite of something light for lunch before going straight home.

Canberra CODA Conference Friday 5 October Part 2

Not finding a way round the lake, we headed back to the main road where all the traffic had been earlier. It was much lighter now and we got across the lake to Commonwealth Park - too late for Floriade.
We had only just missed it - we asked for the location of the nearest toilets from the man locking the gates. He sent us off over the hill. After asking a man in an anorak for directions to the toilet (to Gillian's great embarrassment), we found the toilets which I used. Gillian then decided she'd use them too. I said I was going to go back up the hill to take a photo of Floriade from the top of the children's play equipment. She persuaded me to stay and wait. Good job too - next minute she's calling me - she was stuck in the toilets!!
Had a little walk alongside the lake before deciding to go to the Telstra tower on Black Mountain for views of the city as the sun went down.
Gillian doesn't like heights so I went up the tower quickly on my own. At that height (over 800m above sea level) the wind was so strong it was hard to catch my breath. I took a few photos and came back to the hotel for dinner.
Had a buffet meal that was just the same as we'd had at lunch today and yesterday and were horrified to find we'd been charged $107 for two meals and two glasses of wine! Dunno what we're going to tell the boss!

Canberra CODA Conference Friday 5 October

There I was, lying in bed, thinking it was 5:45am and that I could watch a bit of TV before getting up. There was a company sponsored breakfast that started at 7am and I'd told Gillian I'd be there at 7 while she was aiming for 7:30.
Put the TV on just in time for the person to announce it was 7am. I leapt out of bed and was showered, dressed and downstairs before I'd woken up. Still, Gillian had beat me down.
Listened to more STUFF. Worked out that there were a couple of sessions after lunch where we'd either heard it before, or they were about products we don't and won't use so we decided to play hookey for a few hours and went to visit Old Parliament House (OPH).
It being school holidays, it was very busy at OPH and very noisy in the foyer where there was a bushman type doing a song and dance routine. We didn't have the time to wait for the guided tour so pottered about by ourselves using a brochure to work out where we were. Thoroughly enjoyed it and am keen to come back and do a tour properly.
Back to the conference for more boring bits then at the end we decided to head out and do something active. We'd been talking for weeks about hiring a bike and riding round the lake but when I rang to make enquiries we were too late and it was rather expensive anyway. I also wanted to go again to Parliament House but by the time we'd had a cuppa and changed our shoes it was getting late.
We headed out in the car to see if we could find Floriade - the spring flower festival. Couldn't believe the traffic. For the past three days we've been marvelling at how little traffic there is in Canberra and how few people we'd seen walking about. Now here they were - the ENTIRE population of Canberra it seemed on our road.
As we'd originally thought we'd ride round the lake, we thought we could drive round instead so abandoned the Floriade idea for the time being and took off left past the British High Commission and the Chinese Embassy.

We drove ourselves down a dead end where we could see hundreds of white posts in the park. We discovered it was a memorial to the hundreds of men, women and children who died when the Siev X, a refugee boat, sank (http://www.sievxmemorial.com/sievxmemor

ial.com/). Very sad, very shameful and I had to leave; the poles covered such a large area and each one had the name, age and gender of a person on it.

Canberra CODA Conference Thursday 4 October Part 2

Just back from the conference dinner which was held at the Australian War Memorial. Couldn't find it on the map but thought I knew where it was so headed off, amazed that it wasn't well-signposted only to discover we were on the wrong route and we had to stop, consult the map again and double back (see what I mean about a pattern emerging?)
The museum is a wonderful sight, day and night, but is beautifully lit at night and in a lovely line of sight all the way down from the new Parliament house. We had to go round the back, couldn't work out where to park and where to get in and had to ask the conference bus drivers who were quite taken by our undercover car!
Dinner in quite a dramatic setting in the middle of the exhibit of the Japanese mini sub that entered Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942 (see here for a 360 degree view of the venue: http://www.awm.gov.au/virtualtour/javap/vr.asp?area=2).
As we arrived an audio-visual presentation about WW2 pilots was just finishing and the Japanese sub on began.
We had a pleasant dinner with some of the Sydney HUGS users we knew and some others we'd never clapped eyes on. Offered Elisabeth and Iveta a lift back in the car but they declined which was good because we did the same scenic drive thing, going back to the hotel via Black Mountain!