Oiksta Boiksta

It looks like it's all over.

The phenomenon that is my birth month has fallen short.

Although it did start early on the 30th of September there has been no birthday action since Leaving the Prom on Sunday.

What a way to finish it all off though.








The most brilliantly sunny weekend of food and fun and Bollywood.








Even not bringing a real tent (turned out when I got it out of the bag it was a beach shelter) or my lilo having a giant tear in it (first attempt at patching with flouro gaffer tape didn't go so well) or the migraine I had for more than half the time couldn't put a dampener on it all.





And the sun!

A definite highlight of my actual birthday was Mark's special dove blowing demonstration, the unearthing of a hidden super power.

Also the crepes. MMMMMMMMM Yummy!

inspired by the Colombian Pizza en el Parque the pear, bacon and blue cheese combo blew my mind it was so tasty. So tasty I've got a date tonight with the same thing again.

Thank you to everyone for all my events and happy birthday to everyone else who is sharing in the celebratory times.

Unbelieveable!

On Monday I did the unthinkable.

Something I have never done in my 26 years and 11 months of life.

I went to the gym!

Not only did I go, I joined, and I'm loving it!

I haven't had an assesment yet, nor do I know how to use the machines they have in there, but I've already been twice in three days and plan to continue the pattern.

This could actually be the year that I get fit for summer.


(Status subject to change, I'll get back to you in a month and see if I'm still as enthusiastic.)

Girls' weekend

What a lovely weekend!

I haven't had so much indulgence in a while..... well a few months at least.

A girls weekend away in Daylesford was just the ticket.

A day of spa and massage, surrounded by three nights of cocktails, punch, wine, singstar, love my way , Entourage and piles of fantastic food.

After months of planning and lists, a massive trip to Dan's, allocation of menu options and pretty much booking out Peppers we finally made it Thursday night, and hardly moved until Sunday.

I love my cheepies!

Thanks to B and her lovely, learning work environment we now have chickens.


Little puffy balls of fluff that cheep and poo and fight and steal food from one another.

They're so cute.

One is called Chirpy, Trent has named one Foghorn Leghorn and that leaves one up for grabs.

Any ideas?

Last weekend we had an unconventional Saturday night out- Roller Derby Style!

It was the last bout of the first season of the Victorian Roller Derby League out in the middle of nowhere behind Northland and so much fun! Sitting on the roller rink, just outside of the crash zone, drinking beer and eating dimsims. Watching chicks roll around crashing and smashing into one another.


We met Hippy out the front. (After the first random meeting at the Zombie Shuffle we decided it wasn't chance, but purely good taste.) She informed us that her friend Felicity Scragwell was vice captain for the Toxic Avengers, so that was our team and we rooted loud for them.


After finally getting a grip on the basics of the comp it looked like we were getting well ahead, but by the end of it the champions Dead Ringer Rosies rolled away with a convincing win.

The other freaky occurence of the evening happened when I was waiting for beer/dimsims for ages and ages.

2 random guys (to the guy in front of me): Hey Matcham, how's it going?


Me (before he could answer): Sorry, is your name Matcham? That's a very
unusual name. It's actually my grandfathers
name.


Matcham: Not Matcham Skipper?


Me (baffled): Well, actually, yes.


Matcham: Oh yeah. I was named after him.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Days are Getting Longer

We've made it!

We passed the half way point and now things can only get better!

Winter Solstice has come and gone for another year, and although it's not going to get warmer any time soon, at least it's a step away from dark on the way to work and dark on the way home.


After building up to a massive pile of wood to burn (David decided it was all about the height) we lit the fire around 6. Just long enough for the sun to have gone down and for it to be getting too cold to be standing around wearing shorts.


It started slow in the patch covered in bamboo, with only the aid of newspaper as an artificial booster.


Soon it was roaring away with the flames licking 10 metres high and bamboo and privet branches happily popping away.



By 7 the fire brigade had already made a visit- even though we had made all efforts to previously alert them- and told us they had been getting calls form all over Eltham. But by 8 it had settled itself down to a nice raging size and allowed us to sit around a bit closer to it.


Entertainment for the evening was provided by one of the sleepers used as a seat being slightly wobbly and this ended up in a game to see who could wobble the other person off. Although possibly not the ultimate champion in the end, Eri's style defininitely was the most memorable effort of the evening.

Hoorah to everyone who made the effort with shorts.

Short shorts

Unfortunately it's not looking good for the gold hot pants. I did look for some lycra while out at lunch from work today, but they had nothing nearly spangly enough for my tastes.

I've gotten rid of a big skip load worth of building site rubbish this week, out there at 7am in the rain, so you can actually get out the back to the fire.

It's pretty massive so we've alerted the appropriate authorities so if our snitchy neighbours decide to get at us we're covered. We've set the fire out in the back paddock so we can really get it roaring (at the moment the pile stands about 9 feet tall with a diameter of 6 metres), but it is a little more exposed than the regular venue of the drum in front of the house on stilts.

We'll put up the marquee for a bit of shelter with a tarp on top so it's water proof, but hopefully all this talk of rain is just hot air.

Bring along an umbrella if you're worried about precipitation, and a delicious platter* if you are so inclined.

See you there in your shortest shorts.











*Only platters of a delicious nature will be considered.

Winter in Melbourne

I'm slowly beginning to remember what I love about being in Melbourne, especially live music. The traditional Winter Solstice party is coming up in a few weeks and at least that means we'll start seeing a bit more light in the days after that. We've been busy building a bonfire, not a little drum fire, to keep us warm through the chilly evening. Now all I have to do is mug the girl I saw at Cut Copy, steal her gold leggings and make them into hotpants!

A post script to the chickens

On what was meant to be our last night in Otovalo, after much searching and conflicting time reports, we managed to make it to the special fiesta edition of the cokfights.

These events happen most Saturdays around 7pm, but because it was the fiesta of Eugenio or some other saint there were two on this day- we caught the late show.

I must admit I was ashamed of my bloodlust. For no other reason than I liked the shape of his tail or somesuch, I chose a rooster and barracked hard. Ai! Ai!

Then we made a friend and figured out how to put money on it. Pretty much just turning to the person next to you and saying "I bet you five bucks the white one will win." We didn´t do too well though. Despite every indication pointing towards our negro having kicked the whiteys arse, apparently ´cos whitey was still trying to fight when the bell rang it was a draw. Then our second bet we lost fair and square. This whole time we were drinking straight whiskey and making Ecuadorian friends. Trent even went so far as to swap a bracelet for his watch with one of his ´brothers´.

We couldn´t get on the bus next morning and had to stay another night.

Chickens

The chickens in Ecuador tend to run free, until they end up roasted in a shop window that is.

We saw boobies!

No not that kind! Get your head out of the gutter! The special bird-like kind.

After finally leaving Montañita we made it to Puerto Lopez and the amazing Machililla National Park. Pretty much the whole of the Pacific Coast up into Central America used to be covered by this dry forest. As it stands 95% of it has been destroyed and this park is all that remains.

Part of the park is also the Isla de la Plata or ´The Poor Man´s Galapogos´. We went on a tour out there and saw sooo many birds.

To tell you the truth I was sick of them by the end.

Before we even got on the boat though we saw sharks, squid, crabs, giant fish, eels and random guts all laying out at the tide line from the fishing boats.

Also on the Island grows an amazing plant called loofah. And yes it grows sponges. While they are green and ripe the fruit holds water which the indigenous people used to drink. When it dries out it leaves a sponge inside a skin which is easy to pick off. I never really thought about where those things came from before.

We decided to get the night bus the supposed 10 hours to Quito from here, even though the Lonely Planet says DO NOT catch night buses in this province. Turns out it was the same company on the same route as which 5 English girls were killed a couple of weeks before, but that was a crash not a highjacking. It was a sort of creepy ride. No lights or movie the whole time, we nearly weren´t allowed on ´cos we had food, it ended up taking just under 12 hours and I had a dream that ET tried to kiss me. All in all I don´t think I´ll be doing the night bus thing again any time soon.

El Castillo

One of Trent's favourite past times since we've been here at the beach is building sandcastles and forts. He can spend hours in the blistering sun making these huge creations and then an intricate defence system against the incoming tides complete with drainage trenches and decorative shell designs.

This particular one was a beauty, we kept on thinking we were finished, but the water was nowhere near destroying it so we had to just keep on building.


Trent would have spent a solid five hours there, but I left once to get drinks and once to pick up our washing.


In the end it was still going to be hours until the tide came up high enough to reach it so, despite our fears of dogs and children as well as errant trucks and motor bikes destroying all the hard work, we abandoned the masterpiece to the mercy of the elements.


But when we came back in the morning it was still intact. The water had made it to the outer defences, but the main wall was still intact. A marvel of modern engineering.



The mistress unfortunately didn't make it-someone stepped on her head, the only human interference with the whole thing.


We stayed and watched the first wave breach the wall and when we came back from a stroll up the beach it had been washed away entirely, with only a pile of shells and stones to remind us of it's former splendour.

A few pics

I'm sitting upstairs from the cafe we eat in nearly every day, dance music pumping out cos it's Friday and a new crowd are blowing in to town for the weekend party. I've got my camera with me and the cable to plug it in, so it looks like it's time for you to see some more photos.


We stayed nearly a week in Cuenca, south of Quito, partly because it was a really nice city with a beautiful shady river, and partly because Trent was really sick and couldn't leave.


Our hostel was on the sixth floor of a buliding full of doctors and lawyers offices, but with a broken lift. The kitchen had the most amazing view.

One morning I went out to get water and found myself in a parade- stilt walkers, drummers, clowns. I think I figured out that it was for deaf kids and kids with cancer and they had a little fiesta in the park complete with the queen of Cuenca and whole roast pigs.

In Guayaquil we found some more pirates


and a restaurant where I smashed crabs wearing a bib.

Now we're in Montañita, the Byron of Ecuador, and just can't seem to leave. We've been beaching and making castles, chilling out in hammocks, and yesterday went surfing. The waves were pretty shit,but I managed to stand up, but also get a whole lot of fresh bruises and even a skinned knee.

The hostel we're staying at is owned by an ex pro surfer, who casually leaves magazines lying around attesting to the fact. This weekend there's a comp on at the point, so we'll probably be overrun by surfers staying in the hostel and taking over our tv room so we can't watch DVD's.

We may just be able to leave after the fuul moon party tomorrow night.

Blackout

When you´re in a town on the dge of an active volcano it´s a little concerting when there is a blackout of the whole town. We were walking back from the mineral baths on the outskirts of town when suddenly everything shut down. Only headlights from cars and candles in restaurants shed any light on the subject, but most people went about their business as usual, apart from the internet and phone shops. We went back to our hostel and checked if they had any info on the situation or if we should run as fast as our legs could carry us, but they said the power should return in 20 mins or so and gave us a candle. We went and hunkered down in our usual bar, with the delightful Milton, with music provided by guitars, and abience by candle light, until the power finally came back about an hour later.

Not quite as extreme as the conditions have been back home, but slightly unnerving none the less.

Las Cascadas

Yesterday we hired a quad bike a did a trip out of town to see all the amazing waterfalls in the area. It was so much fun, burning around the streets of town, on the righthand side, with my man riding saddle on the back.
There are tunnels on the way that you can ride through which are pitch black, or you can take the woosy way around. Of course I wanted to go through the tunnels, but one of them I couldnt work our headlight, so once we were half way through we were in total darkness until a car passed us so we could follow is lights.
We also did a couple of full on hikes across the gorge and over to the falls, it all seems ok on the way down, but then you have to go up again. We were pools of sweat.


(this stupid computer wont let me put in apostrophes, or @, I have to paste it in every time I want to use it)