Fallen tree

HPIM1596 Fallen tree
Originally uploaded by Robubble

This Southern blue-gum came down at 1.30am on Saturday morning.

HPIM1596

Stump cross-section

HPIM1603 Stump
Originally uploaded by Robubble

HPIM1603

Tree death

I'm sitting here typing to the oh-so-restful sounds of chainsaws. It has been going on for the past three hours. At 1 am yesterday morning I was in bed trying to sleep despite the noise of the storm and the full force of a cold. The groaning and cracking noises coming from the large eucalyptus tree at the side of the house were alarming enough for me to go outside and shine a torch at it. It was then leaning hard against the very corner of the roof and cracking the eaves. I rang my parents (Mum had arrived from the UK in the evening so she was still awake with jetlag). A couple of minutes after I started talking, rather ineloquently as I was a bit scared, the tree came down. Mum could hear the bang over the phone and me saying "f***". It wasn't so scary once it had fallen. It took out half of our deck roof (the part that Dad had worked so hard to repair and cover!). The bulk of it landed in the council reserve. The insurance company sent a tree lopper to have a look and later yesterday he rang the neighbours to say he would come today (Sunday).

Bhutan national dress

HPIM0114
Originally uploaded by Robubble

Here I am modelling a half kira, wonju (blouse) and toego (open jacket-like garment) for only the second time. I bought them in the Bhutanese capital Thimphu near the end of our trekking trip to the country in April 2003. The other photo of me in it at our hotel in Paro has been viewed a number of times on Geocities so I thought I would revive it. The fabric is very comfortable being silk and cotton but I haven't tried to move extensively in it. A majority of Bhutanese women wear it daily since it was introduced as the national dress in the 17th century to give the Bhutanese a distinctive identity. It and the male equivalent, the gho, is required wear for Bhutanese at all formal occasions and visits to government and religious buildings. Smaller versions form the school uniforms.

HPIM0114

Booderee National Park

Check out the Flickr photos of us at Booderee NP in the ACT bit of the south coast. It was lovely warm weather so we even managed a short swim (good for May). Ryan had a ball at our campsite at Bristol Point (5 mins walk from Greenpatch). We felt relatively childless with the group of 6 dads from Sydney with their tribe of 15? kids nextdoor plus two other groups with children nearby. Their plan was to run them ragged, put them to bed early and then party. Unfortunately for me their partying on the second night and Ryan's very early wakeup added up to no sleep for me. The first morning we had an infant wake us up at 5.30am. On the second morning the kookaburras let rip at 6am whereupon Ryan stood up from his bed and said "Funny bird". Also rather unfortunate was the birds and animals habituated to feeding from kids. We lost a sausage that I was saving for Ryan and a kookaburra took a cheese sandwich right out of Bob's hand as he was eating it.

Toppy

I've been enjoying my Topfield TF5000PVRt (SD digital set top with twin tuners and 250GB hard drive) for 6 months now. It's great except for some glitches where it misses a recording (we lost several episodes of the West Wing). It means that Ryan can have his fix of Bananas in Pyjamas and Thomas the Tank Engine at any time. Usually he sleeps through the afternoon when they're on.
The best thing is watching while its still recording and cutting out the interference on analogue reception from the neighbours' plasma TV, which seems to be on 24/7.
I just updated the software applications you can add functionality to Toppy with:
ProgressBarKeys (a must according to topfield.com.au forum users)
mcgCYRResumeV1.0 (for resuming play after the machine dumps you out when the recording finishes)
Archive1.0
Automove1.8
We're still working through what they've changed.