Photo Post

A visit from Laura

Catching up with my former AWS colleague Laura as she visits Sydney from Jakarta! ❤️

As I was finishing my morning coffee, my eye caught movement on the fence outside the house. I thought at first it was the neighbour’s cat, who is engaged in a prolonged war with the Snook. (The cat wants to crap in our garden; Rodd would prefer it didn’t.) But it wasn’t a cat – it’s a brush-tailed possum! I know they’re around, but I’d never seen one this close to the house before. We kept an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t hurt, and eventually he climbed the Davidson’s plum up to the balcony above. Stay cool today, friend.

A Christmas Picnic

We decided to have an Outing for Christmas. This morning we packed up and caught the light rail to Circular Quay before boarding a packed ferry to Manly.

When we got there, we opted not to follow the crowds to the ocean beach but rather to follow the boardwalk around to the left. We had a nice view out to the headlands

Watch out for penguins! (We didn’t see any.)

We opted to find a nice shady spot to the secluded Delwood Beach and set up our picnic.

We had pasta salad and chips and cherries.

Later I read my book while the Snook waded in the rockpools.

Then we walked back to the beach at Manly Cove, where I had a swim in the protected section. (They have shark nets.) And then we had a beer. 😜

Time to head home! The return ferry was much less crowded, so we managed to get an outside seat on the Opera House side.

I took a cool selfie with the Opera House reflected in my sunnies.

There’s a running joke on the aus.social Mastodon server about the “gloriousness levels” in Sydney, with people reporting on the level each day. And folks, this was a pretty glorious Christmas Day. ❤️🎄

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from beautiful Sydney. ❤️🎄

Covid-19 Scarf

I’m finally finishing off the scarf I started during the first lockdown. It encodes a small part of the genetic sequence of one of the Covid-19 strains! 🦠

Happy Festivus!

Knitting and beer with friends… ❤️

Git push from highway

He’s already completed one Advent of Code challenge this month from the beach. Today he did one going 110kmph down the motorway. (I did miss our exit, but at least he got a pretty good score!)

Alpaca Beanie

I finished the alpaca beanie for the Snook! This was purely to use up the extra bits I had left over from making his scarf. I casted on 132 stitches and then just made the pattern up as I went. His scalp is pretty sensitive and he doesn’t like hats that grip too tightly, so I only did a minimum amount of ribbing at the bottom. (The alpaca is nice and soft too.) I put in a band of the same slipstitch pattern I used on the scarf, and I did radial decreases at the crown. I just need to weave in the ends and give it a block!