THE SUMMER THAW

Another MODIS image taken from NASA's Terra Satellite on January 24, 2008 (top) and January 30, 2008.

The top image of the Antarctic Peninsula showed the fast ice (ice anchored to the land) looking solidly frozen but over the next few days the ice's blue hue changed.

Blue ice is pure ice composed of relatively large crystals. Ice absorbs a tiny amount of red light which makes blue and green light reflect off the surface. The red-absorption is obvious in pure ice because of those large crystals than it is in tiny snow crystals which appear white.

The blue indicates that temperatures have warmed enough to melt the upper snow layer and a thin film of water might also be resting on the surface.

While the change in these images looks dramatic, the summer thaw, which usually begins in early to mid-December, was delayed by the 2007 La Nina causing unusually cold temperatures so this area remained solidly frozen into January 2008

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST GARBAGE DUMP

A garbage dump of all things plastic floating in two huge patches either side of the Hawaiian Islands, held in place by underwater currents. This sea of rubbish is translucent and not detectable in staellite photographs as it lies just beneath the surface of the water.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer is an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam who has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for 15 years. He says this 'trash vortex' is like a living entity.

"It moves around like a big animal without a leash. When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. The garbage patch barfs and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic".

I've seen one of these beaches covered with bright plastic pebbles but haven't managed to google an image. Probably the tourist board wouldn't like it publicised.

The soup contains everything from footballs, kayaks, lego blocks and carry bags. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushed have been found inside the stomachs of dead sea birds. They get their heads tangled in plastic six pack holders and turtles swallow plastic bags thinking they're jellyfish. It's not just rubbish thrown from ships and oil rigs (that accounts for about one-fifth) but land based plastic industries contribute hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets which attract and bind to other pollutants such as hydrocarbons and DDT. Modern plastics are so durable that objects 50 years old have been found in the north Pacific dump.

The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.

Professor David Karl is co-ordinating an expedition with the Algalita Marine Research foundation to find and research this floating garbage patch which he believes could be a new habitat. He wants data on the distribution and impact of plastic in the marine ecosystem.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDDAUGHTER

To Laura, 15 years old today.

Her birthstone is the Amethyst which Moses described as a symbol of the Spirit of God. Popular belief has it offering protection against drunkenness - the Greek word 'amethystos' means 'not intoxicated'. The Greek Goddess, Artemis, turned a nymph whom Bacchus loved into an amethyst hence the old name of Bacchus stone. Pliny of Rome said to wear it round the neck on a cord made from dog's hair to protect against snakebite. It is said to be the stone of friendship. The Amethyst has a very prominent position in the ornaments of the Catholic clergy because it was thought to put the wearer in a chaste form of mind and symbolised trust and piety.

So in honour of her birthday and her French ancestors, I'm giving her this cyber gift. It's a beautiful 1850s French Belle Epoch brooch crafted by Jules Wiese for Maison Froment-Meurice, Paris.

THE DRIFTERS

This is a planktonic collage from an algae bloom in the North Pacific Ocean put together by biological oceanographer, Mary Wilcox Silver.

It's a long way from the Southern Ocean where the icebreaker Polarstern sailed on an expedition from the Alfred Wegener Institute. The scientists mission was to obtain data on how much surface-drifting plankton algae can reduce the the carbon dioxide of the surface waters.

The expedition started in Cape Town on November 28, 2007. Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Bathmann of the Institute, 53 scientists from 9 countries studied the biological carbon pump in the Southern Ocean. They discovered, amongst other things, that melting sea ice has created a pool of fresh water on the sea surface.

They also discovered and investigated an algal carpet drifting in the water near the edge of the sea ice. This bloom measured 700,000 square kilometres, i.e. approximately twice the size of Germany. There was a significant decrease in the carbon dioxide of the surface water. The scientists collected data from the surface bloom down the water column to the species living on the seafloor, the first time this has been done.

The Polarstern has already left for the next Antarctice expedition to record current physical and biogeochemical conditions in the Southern Ocean. It will be deploying buoys and drift units designed to sink to deep water to measure ocean currents and interactions between sea and ice, ocean and atmosphere.

This is scientific research. Killing whales is profit.

PUCK PLUSH POYS

Valentine's Day and Plush Toys. What a horrible combination of memories this dredges up. I mean I quite like old 'Eeyore' up there and always preferred him to Pooh the bear with very little brain. But the very little brain I married gave me a plush toy for our first Valentine's Day.

I should have changed my name and moved overseas the minute I received this fabulous token of his affection (or derangement).

I have not forgotten trying to get home in a train carrying a two and a half foot high plush elephant. You know the saying, "ignore the elephant in the room", well try ignoring a fluorescent pink elephant accented with fluorescent green ears and feet on a crowded train.

Donations of Krug Champagne for a Valentine's Day tipple will be gratefully accepted. I will supply the pink elephants.

JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I COULDN'T RAISE A LAUGH TODAY

Serious approach to the problem of female arousal disorder (FSAD) and (FSD), formulated scientifically to provide satisfaction and lasting pleasure.

Benefits:boosted desire in hundreds of women;extreme sensitivity to stimulation;effective in women with a hysterectomy and menopause before the age of 50.

The very next email was from the ex.

Bwahahahahhahahhahha!

THERE ARE DAYS...........

When I hate being a vegetarian. When I'm out at the line bringing in the washing and some fool is frying onions on a barbecue and I can smell sausages as well.

You just can't get that onion frying smell indoors, it's a barbecue thing.

I had potato and bean salad for tea.

I wanted sausage and fried onions in a slab of fresh bread smothered with tomato sauce.

I think I'm beginning to crack.

Repeat this mantra "tofu is your friend".

It's not working, time for the chocolate ice-cream emergency bowl.

SHINY WITH SPARKLES

Fantasy Glitter Graphics -

ANOTHER WEEK OF THE SAME STUFF AS LAST WEEK

So before I start whining have a look at this MODIS mosaic image of Antarctic ice loss between 1996 and 2006. The colours indicate the speed of the ice loss. Purple/red is fast. Green is slow.
The ice in the form of glaciers flows towards the surrounding sea like icing on a cake. Around the coast where the ice forms a floating shelf, the warmer waters are causing the ice to thin and collapse and the glaciers are able to flow faster. So it's not so much the ice melting, it's the reason that it's melting, ocean currents are changing and becoming warmer.
WE'RE ALL DOOMED!

I read somewhere today that man has changed the earth so quickly that this time should be named as a new epoch. I don't care, I'll just build an ark and load up the dinosaurs like Noah did. It's true, honest, the Fundies told me.

Chicken Pox has left the building. Mumzilla is still with us. My granddaughter turns 15 next week and is off to France in September with the school group. She's always wanted to see France but she doesn't know that my side of the family originally came from Paris. I haven't seen her or her sister for two years but I did get an email photo about 8 months ago. They're both beautiful.

I have issues with Windows because it won't let me install Ad-aware. It wouldn't even let me install Microsoft ant-malware. I downloaded a program called CCleaner which certainly cleaned up everything including Ad-aware. So that's un-installed. There is a small being that lives inside this machine and if I listen carefully I can hear the bastard sniggering. I had one small victory, my sitemeter button is back, well it's really big news for me. I sweated blood over the html because I had to type it all out because I copied it to clipboard and can't find the clipboard. Little being is sniggering again.

And to top off the week I had two invitations for outing tomorrow, drought/pouring, but one was cancelled until later this month and I was all okay for the other but you know where I'm heading instead. Sound familiar, well today is Groundhog Day in America and I swear I'm living that film.

I'M NO COUNTRY GAL

Since our nomadic Bwca, horse whisperer, chicken wrangler and den mother to every other be-furred and feathered creature hasn't updated, I will do it for her. This house sit has been pleasant apart from bushfires, stray dogs, thunderstorms, stolen car dumped at the gate and the local hoons practising for the Melbourne GrandPrix.

And then there's these two.

This is a yellow-faced whip snake. Only a baby who could have up to 200 brothers and sisters since the adults are into communal egg laying. Our fearless boggart was going to pick him up with salad tongs and put him somewhere out of her way.

This one appeared today. Her description, dark grey on top, lovely peppermint green on the bottom. Her has an eye for the detail as she ran for the gumboots and shovel. A bit of a bad show to whop him with a shovel when I've told her they're protected. Anyway he slithered off before she got within range. A shovel weapon isn't what I'd go for, I'm more a '12 bore shotgun and stand a mile away' killer.

Probably they're only looking for a kind human and a place to rest after being driven out of the bush after the fires. It'll look good on her CV, "Oh yes, quite familiar with snakes, how many do I have to look after at this place?"

Jeebus, Woman, can't you get a house sit where all you have to do is the watch the paint dry?

A SEA MYSTERY

This is a painting, by marine artist Jack Woods, of the "Patanela" sailing past Heard Island.

The Patanela was a 19 metre steel schooner, famous for her Antarctic voyages and circumnavigations of the globe. She was constructed of steel with four watertight bulkheads and carried the latest safety and navigational equipment, sailing for 30 years on the roughest of seas.

She disappeared on a calm November night in 1988 within sight of Botany Bay with no mayday call, no distress flares, no debris and no bodies. The only trace of her was a barnacle-encrusted lifebuoy found floating off Terrigal seven months later. That is until now. A bottle was found on a beach near Eucla on the southern coast of Western Australia on New Year's Eve.

Inside was a note written by John Blissett, 23, ofTaree, NSW. He was one of the three men and one woman sailing the Patanela from Fremantle across the great Australian Bight on October 26, 1988.
The note, in faded blue handwriting inside a Bacardi bottle, offered the finder a free holiday in the WhitSunday Islands, giving phone numbers to call to claim the prize. It also gave the schooner's position as 34 degrees, 26minutes, 20 seconds south, 129 degrees, 18 minutes, 54 seconds east in the Great Australian Bight.

An inquest in 1992 concluded that Patanela foundered in the early hours of November 8, 1988 some time after a final radio contact with Sydney Harbour. The coroner concluded the most likely explanation for such a sudden disappearance was that Patanela was run over by a large commercial vessel but there was a complete absence of any floating wreckage.

There were numerous conspiracy theories from piracy to drug running. Paul Whittaker and Robert Reid spent three years investigating Patanela's disappearance and wrote a book "The Patanela is Missing". I haven't read the book so I can't comment on their conclusions. If anyone has read it, please leave a comment.

I'M MUCH OLDER THAN I WAS YESTERDAY

This moving furniture is not for crocked up, dodgy-kneed old broads. I am hurting in so many different places I couldn't go two rounds with a wet sponge without a TKO.

I have a second bedroom again, make that bedroom/sewing room because it's sharing with two huge boxes of beads and other boxes I haven't dared look in yet. I washed the windows and the curtain and vacuumed half the floor. I thought I might have gotten away with not washing the curtains but bunched together they weren't exactly white more into a silvery grey truckload of dust colour. It meant I had to go up the ladder to re-hang them, miracle, no bruises.

All I had to do then was move the photo albums, heavy so I turfed some of the ex's hideous features which didn't lighten the load but made me very happy. Then drag the cupboard out, move the chair, move the TV, move the other couch, move the dolls in the hall, shove the sewing machine out of the way and slide the sofa bed into its new home.

I can't remember how I originally got it out of the study and into the lounge since it practically has to go around an S-bend corner. I was four years younger then. It didn't slide straight through the door but I'm sure I'll get the feeling back in the hand in a couple of weeks. I had to tip it on its side and slide. It's in place but nothing else is.

The nothing else includes several vertebrae, my knees, hand and left foot which I whacked with the vacuum cleaner. I feel quite proud of myself if I don't look at the albums still on the floor or the detritus tucked around the corner out of sight. It'll right itself, all in good time.

I'll just go and get an ice pack and a handful of painkillers.

NEVER MIND THE WEEK, WHERE DID JANUARY GO?

Last post was Tuesday, fifteenth crisis for the month was on Wednesday, Mummy's shopping was Thursday and Friday was 'collapsing in a heap' day.

The phone lines went out on Wednesday. Ma did everything bar standing in the yard and yelling for me. There was a waiting time for Telstra faults, half an hour of life I won't get back. They wanted to know if she had a life threatening illness and by the time I finished, including the Chicken Poxing nephew, there was an almost audible shuddering on the other end and a promise to get a technician there asap. Then I had to ring Mepac to tell them the panic button was out before they rang me to say she hadn't been in touch. So I dropped the furniture I was moving and walked round in case Telstra wanted to check the lines inside the house. It's not that she wouldn't let a stranger in, it was to let the poor man out if he did get in.

Thursday and I was out again. I've been cramming so many frozen meals in the small freezer because of the packaging that I thought of getting some zip lock freezer bags. So much better and what a waste of cardboard by the time I'd finished unpacking the boxes. After about 20 minutes, a voice from the bedroom enquired, "Can I come out now?". It's only taken 9 months of threats to keep her from underfoot when I drag the groceries in. I don't know why I thought I could walk the 3kms home after the shopping and the houseworking but it was coolish and I thought it might relax me. I don't think relaxed was quite the word to describe me sprawling over a seat in the park half way home.

Today was far more relaxed. I moved furniture. My work table from the sewing room which is going to be a bedroom again, almost a bedroom since only the sofa bed is going in there. The table is just a bit longer than the computer table but not enough for me to get too much junk on it. It means that when I use the printer I move the chair closer or I'll fall off. Thank you, no harm done, no bones broken but another whacking bruise. It matches the ones I got the other day when I couldn't find the fretsaw blades so I used the pruning saw to cut through chipboard which I rested on my knees. Bruises everywhere but the picture I framed looks great.

Tomorrow, I have to unload the photo album cupboard to move that out. Then after much measuring and finessing I should have the sofa bed in place. The computer table will go in front of that in case I ever take up craft work again. When I cleared the table I found a beaded Christmas ornament, half done and left in December 2003 which was the last time I sat in that room to work. Sewing machine stays up though, I have dresses to finish but it will be a bedroom again. That is after I hoover up the dessicated blowflies in the window sill. I thought they might have been there since 2003 but I did move bookcases in there about two years ago and I washed the curtains so I'm sure I would have moved the bodies out of the way. The dead spider swinging from the light fitting is a nice touch.

SCRATCH ROSS RIVER VIRUS

Another long night in Casualty and in isolation. A nurse recognised the rash as Chicken Pox so I get an urgent message from sister to find out if he'd had it. Of course he had it, the two boys shared everything, from Lego to Lice and Chicken Pox.

They hooked him up to an IV drip full of anti-histamine and pain killers. The spotty bits were so far down his throat they were worried about them going into the lungs. Blood tests confirmed no Ross River Fever but he had anti-bodies to Glandular Fever. Damned if I know when he had that.

The internal pains will subside in their own good time and so will the rash. He mustn't scratch the itching spots in case of bacterial infection. It's good news in a way as he won't take as long to get well but he doesn't appreciate that yet. And we have no idea where he picked it up.

So I moved the furniture again. It was a case of stress eat or stress move the furniture. I moved the desk back to the other side of the room and the computer is back on what seems like a teeny tiny table and the monitor is an inch too low. Maybe the chair is too high. The table is better, give me a vast space and I'll fill it with rubbish in a week. Hopefully now I haven't got room to lean on a hard surface, the pain in my neck will ease up.

I've de-activated Facebook again and this time for good so I'm not blocking your emails or ignoring you.

FEVER

One of the symptoms of the Ross River Virus is a rash. Not the usual spotty rash but purple-red raised lumps. They are covering our sick one from head to toe, underneath his eyelashes and extending into his mouth and down his throat as ulcers. He cannot stand up straight because of the pain in his liver. He had a shower this morning to cool the skin down but crawled to the phone to ring his mother because he had no strength to dry himself. He has an appointment with the doctor in the morning but because it's a virus, only the symptoms can be treated.

He wouldn't like having so much information put here but I'm doing it so I can rant about the nurses who saw him in emergency yesterday. Thank you to the one who sat on the bed and left him in agony in a wheelchair. And who, when he saw the rash, didn't want to touch him. A big thank you to the other nurse who insisted he sit up in the bed they finally let him have. A heartfelt thank you to the next nurse on duty who made him comfortable and let him lie down. I'm beginning to think that before a nurse can be registered they should be tested for compassion and commonsense.

I HAVE LINKS

I might have new Blogger and links but for some reason I can't use the search bar at the top of the page. Still two out of three isn't bad.

It has distracted me from the one thought in my mind for last four days. How to commit Matricide and get away with it. Apparently I can't and couldn't.

So I did the next best thing I yelled, a lot. Threatened her with "meals on wheels" too.

The BrickOutHouse is extremely ill but there's only room in the house for one illness, her's but even she's twigged now how bad his situation is.

Ross River Fever. Note the name. The first thing our doctor asked him was "Have you been near the Murray River?" He was sitting in it playing mosquito bait, as one does when it's hot and near a river. According to the doctor we could be seeing an epidemic of this.

Chills, fever, pains in the joints, body rash, splitting headache, muscle cramps, enough sweating to break the drought and this morning, something new, abdominal pain which was diagnosed as an inflamed liver along with a few other inflamed internal organs. We are waiting on a long list of blood tests, hopefully tomorrow.

At the moment we have one sick puppy on our hands and it isn't mother.

SPEAKING OF TOXIC BLOOM, ER, GROUP

I really hate myself for giving blog room to this batch of mouldy crumpets but I think it's time the girls realised the truth of that old saying "You can't go back".
You might botox the face, diet the body until it cries 'uncle' or bolster up the boobs with a shot of silicone but you can't de-age boney knees or scraggy feet.
Posh has the right idea, cover it all up except for a discreetly peeping tit but once again she didn't go far enough and left the paper bag off her head.
Apparently this Hagfest is coming to Australia to sing. Bwahahaahaha!

MODIS BLOOMS FRESH

Phytoplankton surround the Falkland Islands.

Millions of tiny ocean plants ring the Falkland Islands in this photo-like image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on January 13, 2008. The surface-dwelling plants (called phytoplankton) reflect light, coloring the ocean with whimsical swirls of blue and green.

The bloom traces the course of the Malvinas (Falkland) Current, which sweeps north around the Falkland Islands and along the east coast of South America. A branch of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the strong current is cold and laden with nutrients. Because the current brings nutrients into the sunlit surface waters where plants can grow, the Malvinas Current often feeds large blooms such as this one.

The phytoplankton blooms around this area of ocean are usually the coccolithophores.

I am getting to the bad blooms eventually and 'creeping dead zones' which could double for a quite a few religions not to mention political parties across the world but is all about anoxic water along coastal areas.

MRS NEVERWRONG

We have been having a not so good time with Mumzilla. We think that she tried so hard to appear normal and in control on Saturday during a sisterly visit that it threw her way off balance for every day since.

This woman will blame everyone up to God and the Devil for everything that she does wrong, anybody but her. I don't think God or the Devil had anything to do with taking apart the vacuum cleaner and not being able to put it back together again. I thought after the sewing machine incident before Christmas, which was, taking it apart and not being able to put it together again, that I had hidden all the screwdrivers in the house. You might remember that this is someone who can't get her pills out of a blister pack without using a pair of scissors.

And why was the vacuum cleaner needed? Because it's been chilly the last few mornings and she wanted the fire on. She couldn't put the fire on because the filter needed cleaning and she couldn't clean that without the vacuum but the vacuum needed cleaning first. This, in spite of the fact that I checked it on Monday and there was nothing wrong with it but Mrs. Neverwrong decided there was.

The BrickOutHouse came home to a gutted machine and demands that he do something about it immediately. After he fixed that (he didn't) he was to go and replace all the bathroom towells he's been stealing (he hasn't) and then go and buy her fresh milk and bread (I'd done that) as it's the only thing she asks of him (bullshit). Mrs Neverwrong refused to look in the fridge to see there wasn't any need to buy milk and bread. BrickOutHouse leaves for his girlfriend's place but not before he asks me to put Mrs. Neverwrong somewhere, anywhere so she can't hurt herself or burn the house down by leaving the fire going on a hot day. Back to why we wouldn't clean the space heater.

I have been stressed, my sister is stressed, more about her son than Mrs Neverwrong and he is stressed because of Mrs Neverwrong. I was so stressed I didn't want chocolate, ice-cream or cake. Seven years a vegetarian and what did I want, a pork roast with crackling and gravy, meat party pies, ham off the bone sandwich with apricot relish and, droolingly, sausages cooked over an open fire, put on a slab of fresh white bread and smothered in tomato sauce.
Since all or any of these would have me riding the porcelain bus for a week, I deduce they're subliminal suicidal thoughts and have Tofu instead. Sounds healthy but it wasn't. I layered it with Nicola potatoes, sundried tomato and basil pasta sauce and smothered the top with aged Parmesan cheese.

I can't even begin to tell you the rest of what she's done this week. I've been barred from going there until Monday so my sister can assess just how much the old girl can do without backup. Sis will cook her evening meal and that's it but because she couldn't get home to do that last night Mrs Neverwrong had a jam sandwich for tea but that was nourishing because it was strawberry jam and that's fruit and she's never wrong.

AT THE MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY

This is me, looking for a cup at the tea party with my mother playing all the other looney creatures in the books.

Which Alice in Wonderland character are YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Alice You scored Alice! You are kind-hearted and curious and give yourself very good advice, but seldom follow it, which leads you into trouble. You always try to be courteous and polite, but you become cross when people speak in nonsense to you and scold them sharply. Alice 100% Carpenter 92% A Playing Card 83% Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum 83% March Hare 75% The Dormouse 67% Queen of Hearts 67% Oyster 58% Cheshire Cat 50% Caterpillar 50% Walrus 50% Mad Hatter 50% Flamingo 33% The White Rabbit 33%

PHOBIA ALERT FOR SNAKES OR CATS

As well as catching up with my science reading, I've also been catching up with favourite internet sites. This is one of the best on Tasmania and where I found Jelly the cat.

It was reported in The Mercury, Hobart last December. (I did say I was catching up)

Jelly the cat wandered back home with a deadly lowland Copperhead snake wrapped around her neck. Her smart owner snapped this shot through a glass door while waiting for wild life rescuers. Jelly ended up at the vet being pumped full of anti venom.

My mouth dropped when I saw this. I can't believe the cat walked around and didn't try to shake the snake off and I can't imagine what Jelly did to get the thing so tied up around her neck. The closest I've been to this is having the cat come in with a huntsman spider on top of his head and both got shot out the door with a large broom.

THOUGHTS

Yesterday I received a virtual slap across the face. I'm still hurting, pissed off and finding it hard to let it go.

So this is relevant - "Detachment is a form of objectivity that includes caring".

Marion Jones got a six months jail sentence for telling lies to Federal investigators. The Judge said he had to send a message that cheating isn't acceptable in sport.

George Bush told lies about weapons of mass destruction to the whole world and he's still President. What kind of message does that send?

I found an extremely large red-back spider under my bedroom window. I'm talking ten cent size spider. I've warned it to stay outside or it gets Morteined. I hope it knows enough Australian to get the message. I'm upset enough to kill it out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

I'M NOT GIVEN TO PRAYING BUT.....

I did offer a few to the heavens when I could smell burning rubber. "Please, please don't let the fan belt break before I vac up the two dead cockroaches in the corner".

Mark this date on the calendar, vacuumed the lounge room, hovered up sundry dead things and enough crumbs to feed a small country but *sob* no cat hair. After a decent interval of mourning, I have moved the old sod's tennis balls.

My number one tip for vacuuming is not to try and put all the junk on the floor away before you start. Put it on every chair in the place so you can't sit down until you've finished.

And if you do see something flippy and grey coming towards you just make sure it isn't alive before you scream and run into the curtains. I panicked, it kept coming towards me. Who knew it was caught on a piece of cotton half way up the crevice tool which made it jump and jiggle and since I was still holding on to said tool, of course it followed me.

My final act was to put all the junk on the chairs back on the floor where I could find it.

My encore was to take off the dust bag and empty it by pulling all the rubbish out of the small attaching hole. Yes, it's a filthy job but someone's got to do it in the interests of economy. Those bags cost a fortune and I can get at least 5 vacs out of one, probably more now *sob* there's no cat shedding fur.

DEATH AT THE FISH FARM

Pretty in the water but nasty up close. This is Pelagia noctiluca or the mauve stinger jellyfish which grows up to 10 centimetres wide. It's also sometimes called the nightlight jellyfish because it produces a blue-green luminescent mucus.

Last year, a swarm of baby stingers, 26 square kilometres in area and 10 metres deep drifted into a salmon farm in the Irish sea and killed all 100,000 fish. The babies were small enough to be swept into the cages by the currents. This jellyfish is a Mediterranean species but has been seen along the British coast as far north as Shetland.

Scientists are putting this down to the warming of the winter sea water. Overfishing is killing off the natural enemies such as sunfish, trigger fish and loggerhead turtles that eat the jellyfish. And the jellyfish don't make shells so no carbon dioxide is absorbed from the ocean.

I've blogged about fish farms before and these jellyfish are part of a vicious circle. To feed people, fish farms are needed, fish farms are needed because of overfishing to feed people, overfishing means more jellyfish. To make things worse, small plankton-eating fish which compete with jellyfish and keep the numbers down are also being over-fished.......to make fishmeal to feed the fish in fish farms.

NO RESOLUTIONS THIS YEAR

No, not one resolution to be made and broken. I did have an intention which doesn't really count and that got ripped to shreds yesterday.

I was going to try and be very patient with Mother. I wasn't going to yell or be drawn into having words with her. I was going to be so relaxed and cool.

Yesterday was very hot so I was out early to do her shopping, no problems there until I got home. "Just leave the wire door open will you. I want to bring in the card tables and put them in the laundry".

These are card tables, fold up the legs tables, old type tables which weigh a tonne. This is a little old lady who can barely stagger around holding herself up. She intends to put both tables on top of the walker and take them to the laundry, negotiating four, that is FOUR doors through which they won't fit.

I'm not sure if asking if your mother is fecking batshit insane qualifies as yelling or being impatient. I'd hate to think I'd broken an intention so soon into the new year.

ROGUE WAVE

I've been going through a mountain of paper trying to gather up all the information on algal blooms and put them in one folder but I keep getting distracted by other sea subjects. I don't know why I gathered so much on rogue waves in the first place but it's certainly interesting.

"Taken aboard the SS Spray (ex-Gulf Spray) in about February of 1986 (best recollection), in the Gulf Stream, off of Charleston.
Circumstances: A substantial gale was moving across Long Island, sending a very long swell down our way, metting the Gulf Stream. We saw several rogue waves during the late morning on the horizon, but thought they were whales jumping. It was actually a nice day with light breezes and no significant sea. Only the very long swell, of about 15 feet high and probably 600 to 1000 feet long. This one hit us at the change of the watch at about noon. The photographer was an engineer (name forgotten), and this was the last photo on his roll of film.
We were on the wing of the bridge, with a height of eye of 56 feet, and this wave broke over our heads. This shot was taken as we were diving down off the face of the second of a set of three waves, so the ship just kept falling into the trough, which just kept opening up under us. It bent the foremast (shown) back about 20 degrees, tore the foreword firefighting station (also shown) off the deck (rails, monitor, platform and all) and threw it against the face of the house. It also bent all the catwalks back severely. Later that night, about 1930, another wave hit the after house, hitting the stack and sending solid water down into the engine room through the forced draft blower intakes."

"It was actually a nice day with light breezes and no significant sea". Right, a cruise is off the holiday menu as of now.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY FATTENING

Over at the slice blog they have a new review and it's fattening but delicious.

Maria has also been on the hunt for a perfect vanilla slice. She has photos which are even fattening to look at.

Now this pre-occupation with the perfect vanilla slice is all well and good but what about that other slice which has been corrupted from something fine and delicious, downgraded to a blob of fatty pastry and glueified (if it's not a word, it should be) spongieform apples from a tin.

Where is the search for the perfect Apple Slice?

The one with the tart Granny Smith apple puree. The crisp biscuit short pastry on the bottom and on the top, a soft cake pastry shining with glaze, cinnamon and sugar. The slice that can only be enjoyed with a dollop of King Island double cream, on a plate with a cake fork. Make that two dollops of double cream, I'm dreaming of a large slice.

I went back through myGrandmother's cake book, the one that has enough DNA from baking to qualify as a dessert by itself. I was struck by the simplicity of the ingredients. From white flour, eggs, dried fruit, spices and vanilla essence (not even extract) delicious cakes emerged from tiny gas or wood fired ovens with a minimum of effort. Not on my part, cakes take precision and I'm a 'chuck it all in and hope for the best' baker. These cakes didn't need emulsifiers, artificial colours (marble cake excepted) hydrolised whatevers, preservatives or several different kinds of sugar under various names which are on every supermarket shelf. They were made and consumed on the day. It was a real trip down the kitchen memory lane. I think I gained 2kgs.

When was the last time you saw a cream puff that could only be held with two hands? My Grandmother made those, with whipped cream, dusted with icing sugar and strawberries (in season, only in season). Now we get pissy little profiteroles with custard and chocolate icing, a mouthful not a handful. And puff pastry matches. My memory is fuzzy here, I'm sure they weren't really 12 inches long it just seemed they were. Once again, whipped cream, raspberry jam and pink icing (had to be pink) on fresh made puff pastry. The recipe for puff pastry is in the book and believe me, this is one time when the bought pastry is better if you want to live long enough to eat it. Making it takes time, time and more time.

The only cake I can make with any success is Gingerbread cake with lemon icing and I make that because it freezes well so I can't eat it in one go. I have been known to snarf it while still frozen so that trick is only half successful. It also uses Golden Syrup which is really hard to get off spoons and measuring jugs so there's a lot of 'licking before washing' involved in making this cake.

So I throw out a challenge, let all go forth and find the elusive Apple Slice, the one true Apple Slice of olden days.

THE PRESSURE'S ON

Here is little Noctiluca Scintillans in all its bioluminescent glory and by being bioluminescent it's also know as the Sea Sparkle.

Here's a hunting party of Sea Sparkles and hunt they do. They're dinoflagellates, propelling themselves along by flagella and unlike other Df's they're carnivorous, capturing prey with their long tentacle.

RUN OVER BY REAL TIME

Don't you just hate it when the real world catches up and overtakes you.

Here I am in the middle of my series of brilliant and insightful posts about algal blooms and the Gippsland Lakes break out in one.

Anyway I'm going to soldier on and show you the next image of a spectacular algal bloom which is non-toxic.

Noctiluca Scintillans turns the beach red in New Zealand and the photo was taken by M. Godfrey.

Gippsland Lakes' bloom is a sickly pea soup green. Don't watch it, look at Noctiluca instead.

THE BLOOMS ARE STILL BLOOMING

Coccolithophores are among the smallest of the phytoplankton. This species is called Emiliania huxleyi and it's covered with calcite disks. It's common worldwide but does well in cool waters as long as the nutrients are plentiful. They live in the photic zone of the oceans using photosynthesis to multiply. They can explode into enormous blooms that can cover more than 100,000 square kilometres of ocean surface. The ocean takes on a milky turquoise colour which is reflected from the calcium carbonate of the shells scattering sunlight. Sailors used to call this colour "fairy glow" and it's easily seen in satellite photographs.

This MODIS image of a coccolithophore bloom of the coast of Brittany, France was taken on June 15, 2004.

This particular coccolithophore, when it blooms consumes, dissolved carbon dioxide, nitrate, and phosphate while producing oxygen, ammonia, dimethyl sulfide. They incorporate huge quantities of carbon which, as they die, falls to the bottom of the ocean floor and is buried.

A bloom like the one above can contain billions of cells per litre of water and generate tens of thousands of metric tons of calcium carbonate in the upper layer of the bloom.

Of course anything trapped under this bloom that requires photosynthesis is in trouble as the water becomes darker with the amount of reduced light penetrating through the layers of coccolithopores. As wind and tides change, the bloom is dispersed and it begins again in another part of the ocean.

WHEN PLANKTON BLOOMS TURN BAD

This is another image taken by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on September 29, 2000.
The marked upper right corner (my editing *clap*) is not the lovely green healthy colour but what is erroneously called a "red tide".
The algae blooms produce a toxin that paralyzes fish and crustaceans or turns the water anoxic (low oxygen).
Stay tuned, more to come.

I HATE NEW YEAR'S EVE/DAY/MONTH

I hate fireworks.

I hate drunks.

I hate making resolutions.

I hate January.


A special place in hell is reserved for people who friend me on flushbucket and make me re-sign to see what they're saying about me.

PHYTOPLANKTON BLOOM AGAIN

Phytoplankton off the Coast of Argentina.

Iridescent shades of peacock blue and emerald green decorated the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina on December 24, 2007.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image the same day.

In this image, the colors spread out toward the south, like an inverted feather fan. Though hundreds of kilometers in length, these bright bands of color were formed by miniscule objects—tiny surface-dwelling ocean plants known as phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton thrive in the ocean waters off the Argentine coast, thanks to the waters’ cool temperature and richness of nutrients. In this area, the Malvinas (Falkland) Current sweeps northward along the continental shelf, bringing with it cold water from the Southern Ocean. The action of the current sweeping along the edge of the shelf pulls nutrients up from the ocean floor. These nutrients serve as a natural fertilizer that promotes phytoplankton growth.

I love these satellite photos of phytoplankton blooms. They're the basis of the food chain in a healthy ocean.

THE MEME ME

The Recipe For Coppertop

3 parts Drive 2 parts Giddiness 1 part Energy Splash of Tease Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

SAYS IT ALL

Your Christmas is Most Like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

You can't really get into the Christmas spirit... But it usually gets to you by the end of the holiday.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

LEFTOVERS

The storm we had last week was huge. Instead of little white hail stones, I had clear jagged lumps of ice hitting the glass around the house. I had Niagra Falls over every spouting because the downpipes couldn't cope nor could the drain in the carport so that flooded. To give you some idea of how much rain fell, I had the big yellow recycle bin emptied in the morning and that ended up half full of water. A neighbour had to help me tip it up to empty because I couldn't move it. I'm going to be thinking of that storm when the temperature hits 40 degrees plus on New Year's Eve.

Then we got more the next day and I rescued a dove. So I looked around for Noah and the Ark but only the dove. Poor little thing, its feathers were so drenched and it was so battered that it was staggering across a busy road. Regardless of my own safety (read stupid) I shepherded the wee bird to the grass verge where it recovered and flew away. My Christmas good deed.

This is what I love about Melbourne, I get to whinge about the rain and two weeks later I get to whinge about the heat. The heat not only makes me lie and down and do nothing (colour me expert) but it brings out the wildlife. Huntszilla number three was caught and chucked out late last night. This one was a little agressive and I had to chase it across the ceiling before it dropped into the bag. Number three might only be one and two getting back into the house and it certainly knew a trick or six about avoiding the bag, like backtracking out of my line of sight. Nerve-wracking in the small hours.

Mummsy is her usual sweet self. I told her I was dying, sorry, enhancing my natural colour and she said why didn't I go gray, "..... after all you are old now!" Okay, thanks, without that I might have forgotten. Just to make sure, I have Pavlov's Cat's middle age meme to do. The excitement of it all.

Bring on 2008, I have tickets in Tattslotto, I will be rich.

I'LL JUST GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE NEW YEAR

So cute, so shiny, so pretty and so young. Next year, oh so close, I'm looking at one of those 'O' birthdays which will take me into the dirty old lady category if I post any more of these photos.

So here he is before I delete him permanently from the archives and go look for something old and grey wearing knee shorts with socks and sandals.

(The label does say fantasy)

NEWS UNIMPORTANT TO ANYONE

This is for Lord Hughes of Fleetwood. It's a new word I've discovered and it's from Yorkshire where all the good words come from. (shut up Fleetwood, I know youse is Lancashire) They don't gather holly there, they scroggle it, scroggling the holly in Yorkshire. I love it. Scroggling a dollar, scroggling a vote, scroggling the New Year booze. I think I've just moved 'grackle' down to second place. Scroggle has just scroggled first.

This is for Phil the car freak (can't spell enthusiast, oh just did). I bought my nephew a glossy car book for Christmas and naturally read it first as one does. I tell you phil I could never understand a bloke drooling over a thing with four wheels that goes from here to there until now. Classic Convertibles in full colour and suddenly I was in luuurve. I loved the lines of the E-type Jag but I'd need one for each foot. I'm talking from experience here, I got stuck in a formula one racing car once. Do not ask how I got out because I'm not quite sure how I got in. Anyway after going through the pretty pictures a dozen times or more, I decided on the Aston Martin DB9 Volante if I ever get thin enough to fit and in the meantime, a Rolls Royce Corniche in a lovely burgundy, not the flashy gold in the book, will do nicely.

Bug is still colonizing my innards but tolerated avocado and lemonade last night so tonight I'm going to hit it with Tofu and potato salad. Shopping for mother was the fastest supermarket trip on record, visit to her was second fastest and I slept for 3 hours when I got home. Safeway has all their chocolates at half price including Lindt and I didn't fancy any. Me, didn't fancy chocolate, me, I mean ME. Bloody virus.

DEAR SANTA.......

Thank you very much for the presents. The computer meltdown was a great gift, may Rudolf's nose blow a gasket next year. The stomach virus was also great fun and is continuing to give me much joy as I watch the scales showing the weight loss.

The fridge has goodies but tea was half an avocado and two dry biscuits with a big treat, half a glass of lemonade. At least I'm catching up on sleep since I can hardly stand up for too long. This really bugs (ha!) me as all year I've kept reasonably good health discounting the mental disintegration caused by Mama and I have to get crook just before the feasting season.

Tomorrow I have to shop for the old bat but it will be a quick visit and home to bed. She moaned about what a miserable day it was for Christmas but she had more people through the house than I see in a week. My sister cooked a roast for her (after an eight hour shift) and she had pudding and brandy. Poor Aunt Selma had nothing apparently, Aunt Patty had too many. hahahha! Bad Luck.

BrickOutHouse has a new girlfriend, very nice so sis went out of her way to make it a lovely meal. She only had one upset and boiled the pudding in the plastic wrap but remembered it half way through. Nothing was burnt and I think that's pretty good after 6 cans of VB.

Did I mention I was home in bed? Ill, sick, dying, hungry, without a computer lifeline.

I had one present to open. Estee Lauder perfume, powder, lotion, bath oil. The box was beautiful and the right size for Christmas ornament storage (I made sis get hers out of the bin). The red ribbon made gorgeous roses for a table arrangement (for next year) and the paper was gold and just the right size to line a drawer. Now that's what I call a gift that keeps giving, apart from a stomach virus that is.

I'M BACK, I THINK

Okay 36 hours of continuous running microsoft restore and I'm back but the machine won't let me access any files because I don't have permission and I can't get permission because I can't get into the files.

I don't know if it will turn back on when I turn it off and of course, my anti-virus isn't on because I can't get into the security system. Zone Alarm is updated but won't turn the anti-virus on without permission which I can't get.

I had the machine on stand-by and could see the storm coming but had to drag the groceries inside and just didn't make it back in time when the first lightning strike hit. Serious systems error, thank you for Christmas.

Moorabbin had 38 mm of rain on Thursday and Cheltenham had 40 on Friday with thunder, lightning and falling trees and fritzed computers.

I don't know how people can go 'cold turkey' from blogging. I've lost years off my life and can't remember the best blog event I was ever in the middle of. I also got crook and spent two days in bed with no computer, no internet. I may have post traumatic stress disorder.

If I don't post for a few days, it's locked me out of everything, stupid machine.

COMPUTER FRIED

There's nothing like being in the middle of a bloggable event and the computer gets fried by lightning.

I've got a systems restore running, has been for 24 hours and still going but I might be lucky to have everything back by Friday.

So I haven't been hit by a sleigh and the old girl's still with us.

I'm thinking of you all, that's all I can do.

I have to confess I'm computer addicted. I'm lost without my keyboard.

Have a great time over the holidays, I'll be in a corner sobbing.

HER FIRST CHRISTMAS

The West Australian

17 December 2007Dawn Gibson

Page 3 (with pic of Sam, Kelly and nanny)

This Christmas promises to be the most memorable in the lives of Perth gay couple Sam and Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne – the first they will share with their baby daughter Charlotte Kathleen.

Charlotte’s arrival three months ago marked the end of an emotional three-year wait, during which both women had fertility treatment in a bid to realize their dream of having a family. To their joy, Sam eventually became pregnant through IVF using sperm donated by a friend from interstate.

While the couple acknowledged that many people did not agree with the idea of a child being raised by two mums, they said they had done a lot of soul-searching before their decision and were determined to be the best parents they could.

Charlotte’s biological father will also play a big role in her life. He visited Charlotte shortly after her birth, gets photographs of her emailed to him every day and will see her again early next year when the family visit him.

"The main thing that happy families have in common is love and we have got that in abundance," Kelly said."From a child’s point of view, I would much rather be raised in a family where I knew I was loved and had been wanted for many years, rather than as a result of an unwanted pregnancy.

"Kelly’s mother Karen Sumner said she was not bothered her first grandchild would be brought up without a father in the house. "I don’t even think of it as an issue," she said. "She will have a great upbringing.

"The couple, who have been together for almost 16 years and legally use the same surname, were surprised by the support they have received since a story about Sam’s pregnancy was published in The West Australian this year.

I couldn't have been more thrilled for two women to have a little girl than if they were my own daughters. They will make wonderful mothers and I support them in every way. By the time little Charlotte grows up, same-sex marriage will be such a part of everyday life in every day suburbs that no one will consider it not to be a normal arrangement.

For short time lurkers who don't know my background, I am a straight grandmother who decided to do something about the gay teens who thought suicide was a better alternative to living in a world that considered them as sick, perverted and sinful. I joined the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby to work towards the same rights as heterosexual couples enjoy but are denied to same sex couples.

This was a lifestyle choice for me, being gay is not and prejudice because of who you fall in love with has no place in a civilised society.

Kelly and Sam, have a wonderful first Christmas morning with Charlotte. I still intend to dance at your wedding.

THE JOYS OF FAMILY

Now when I left the blog last night/early in the morning, I was happy but I couldn't sleep so I threw on a nightdress, lay on the bed to read a book. Spiders are really stupid, if he'd crawled out quietly through the armhole I probably wouldn't have noticed. But no, he had to come crawling up through the boobs until I was looking squarely at his fangs. (cockroaches, spiders and boobs seem to be a feature in my life) Naturally I panicked and rolled on him (that's happened to a few sailors as well) and you wouldn't believe how flat Daddylonglegs can get, a bit like pressed flowers in a phone book for a year. Not much sleep after that and when I did sleep I woke up to WW3.

Mother, sister, nephew and me, the peacemaker. It was mid afternoon before I sorted everyone out or so I thought, I've just taken the last phone call at 10.15. Nephew wanted to know where his brush and comb were and I didn't know but I found the can-opener, would he like that shoved through his hair. The ritzy expensive can-opener that I caught my finger in has been missing since then. I found it today in the bamix box at the back of the pantry and why was it in the bamix box. Oh, you sillies, it's white and so is the bamix so naturally they belonged together. "Isn't it one of it's attachments?" says mother. Nephew says, "I'd forgotten I had a bamix. I could be using that." And so it went on for another 30 minutes of name-calling and blaming until I sent the old girl to bed and the young nephew out to anywhere but there.

My sister just rang on the mobile, now he can't find his cuckoo clock. Her language was anything but motherly.

F* OFF IE 7

1.29 Monday morning, I've had a shower, I'm going to bed happy.

My blog is back as it should be not searing my eyeballs like a glow-in-the-dark jockstrap.

IE 7 is consigned to the scrapheap.

If someone could tell me how to run Firefox through Optusnet/Outlook express then I'd be really happy.

LITTLE CHILDREN ARE DELICIOUS

Some little children are like the two I met this morning. Very sweet and polite. The four year old told his sister to make way for the lady with the baby in her tummy. Cute thing thinking I was young enough to get pregnant and we all know I'm big but did he have to move his sister to the middle of the road to make room for me. Diet again, resist Christmas chocolates.

Speaking of Christmas. I have only one thing on my list but it's big.
I want a self cleaning bathroom.
They can do it with ovens why can't they do it with bathrooms.
I still have sore fingers from last week so now add a sore elbow from where I fell in the bath trying to clean the other side.

My observations on bathrooms are as follows:
You cannot clean in between sliding doors. You have to wait until the mould comes out.
Baths are totally unnecessary for people with dodgy knees who can't use them, the bath that is.
Powder is invisible on white tiles so it's not worthwhile sweeping it up until it's at least thick enough to slide on which is dangerous to those of us with dodgy knees.
Silverfish treat this room like a Club Med until they hit the powder. Powder clogs their antennae and they run in circles and die.
Showers should consist of an upright slab of glass and a flat floor.

The only reason I've cleaned everything up is that I'm expecting a visit from an expensive bottle of perfume for Christmas.

And why am I doing this at 12.26 in the morning, because I downloaded IE updates and got landed with IE7 which I officially hate. It's taken 5 hours and all I wanted were XP updates. I'm now going to take great pleasure in uninstalling the whole kit and caboodle. And for the technically competent, I know firefox is much better but I can't work out how to use that and optusnet and all the other rubbish that goes on inside this machine. I can hide links now, what more do you want.

I CAN HEAR SILENCE

Ma's gone quiet.

It's like waiting for the other boot to fall.

FISH FARMING

Back in September 2006 I blogged about salmon farming and how the fish were given chemicals to achieve the level of colour that they got naturally by eating krill and wondered how long before it was realized it was cheaper to feed them the krill.

It wasn't long. Antarctic krill is already being overharvested to feed farmed salmon. Krill are tiny shrimp like creatures and are the staple diet of polar marine animals including penguins and whales. The krill are already under threat with the loss of the sea ice and parts of the ice shelf which forms the krill nursery.

The US National Enviromental Trust says fishing-industry figures indicate that a catch of 746,000 tonnes will be made n the coming season, 25 per cent above the quota set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

The krill eat phytoplankton, everything else eats krill or the creatures that feed on krill. It's all about balancing the environmental ecosystems that exist in polar waters. I'm all for stopping whale hunts but we also have to take a good look at the smaller picture.

LOOK AT EARTH NOT FLY TO THE MOON

This a bathymetric map of the Brothers Submarine Volcano and the Ngatoro Rift Basins, north of New Zealand. The Brothers volcano is one of a string of 33 volcanoes in the Kermadec arc, part of the Ring of Fire that forms a necklace of volcanoes around the entire Pacific Ocean. It forms where the mammoth Pacific tectonic plate plummets beneath the Australian tectonic plate.

This is the view of the active Brothers Volcano looking from the south into the crater at the summit of the volcano. The site has recently erupted and has ongoing hydrothermal venting. The caldera has two volcanic cones, the smooth one in the left foreground rises about 350 metres above the caldera floor to a depth of about 1,100 metres below sea surface. The smaller cone to the right, which is probably older but still has an intense hydrothermal system at its summit.

The eruption that created Brothers volcano was intense and explosive, creating steep walls whose slopes average 45 degrees. That average doesn't mean straight down, there's a steep drop followed by a modest drop followed by a sheer drop. At the top, the steep walls caved in to form a caldera, or crater, as wide as Mount St. Helens'. The insides of the caldera walls are rugged, with ampitheatre-sized slumps of old rock sliding into the crater.

The images were gathered by the research vessel Sonne during the New Zealand American Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 expedition.

LOOK, SHINY, ANOTHER MEME AND IT'S REALLY ME

What Kind of Drink Are You?
	You are a Fine Glass of Wine. You are sophisticated and refined, but also complicated and hard to deal with. Not everyone loves you, but those who do swear that you're the coolest thing since sliced bread. One of these days the people that matter will understand you. Until then, you will be sitting on your throne as the distinguished product that not everyone has the taste to appreciate.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

CHRISTMAS IS GETTING CLOSER, THERE'S NOWHERE TO HIDE

Well it's been an interesting few days away from the blog. A run-in with old 'vinegar tits' from next door over the issue of my ivy breaking the fence down and rampaging through her garden. I keep the ivy off the fence and at a reasonable ground level but when idiots like 'her from next door' and old 'VTs' load up with fancy watering systems that rot the wood then the ivy will wander to greener pastures. I wasn't in the mood to haul timber and shore up the rotting fence since I have to scrounge a fence paling from somewhere.
She's the biggest whinger I've ever come across but she outdid herself last week. She complained about the gumtrees in the house opposite because the leaves were dropping in her courtyard, considering the north winds we've had lately she's lucky the trees didn't drop. Very interesting watching the tree loppers at work and hearing what looked like small branches making a booming noise as they hit the ground. I didn't realize how high the two gums had grown but now they're just memories and she's not pleased. The outlook from her house is so terrible now, she only expected to have them take a few branches down and now it's so bare, boo hoo bitch.
This from a woman who has a 20 foot Tulip tree in the front yard which covers the neighbourhood in leaves all autumn. She has help from the council, her son and a gardner and wants me to tidy up my yard by myself. She's going to sell the house and she wants over half a million for it but she has to get the garden slob next door to do something about the ivy and I think this is where I started the post.

I don't think I'll talk about mother who has raised her status from bitch queen of the galaxy to bitch empress of the universe. Too painful there.

I've added another useless thing to my list of useless things. Automatic windows in cars. Ban them. Automatic means they keep closing even with people's fingers in the window. I ended up with a hand in ice for an hour and so far I've keep the bruising down and I won't lose the fingernails. This is why there's been no blogging.

So in the last week I've had the lights go completely in the study, the pilot light on the space heater went out which has never happened in all the years I've had it, the steam iron blew just as I finished the last dress, the computer screen froze on one site but kept working everywhere else and I nearly lost my fingers, right hand. Can anything else happen, yep, I can get two groups of teenagers in the one day filling my ears with the biggest load of drivel I've ever heard including 'like' after every second word. School's out and they're everywhere. I thought they were all up north getting drunk and stoned not down here annoying me.

I need to get a liver and start serious drinking.

CHRISTIE'S MAGNIFICENT JEWELLERY AUCTION

This is the Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, aged 12. She was a wild child, the Linday/Paris/Britney of the Court. She played piano duets with another wild child, Mozart. She was indulged by her governesses and what she wanted, she had.
The Bishop of Orleans, the Abbe Vermond, took on the task of educating her when she became betrothed to the Dauphin of France, grandson of Louis XV. The Abbe was firm but in the end he came to realise she would only learn so long as she was amused by the subject. A trait which continued all her adult life until the death of Louis XVI and it was only during her imprisonment that she began to show how capable she could have been in looking after the affairs of state had she had the education of another Queen, Elizabeth of England.

This is Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, painted by Elizabeth Vigee LeBrun. This is one of the most famous portraits of the Queen and the pose was repeated many times. It's thought to be the best likeness of her and Madame LeBrun has captured the unmistakable Hapsburg features. It was painted in 1783, six years before the French Revolution and nine years before her death under the guillotine's blade in October, 1793.

This is the necklace to be auctioned on December 12 at Christie's. The collar is set with twelve button-shaped grey natural pearls which are mounted in gold. It has a fringe of twenty-one graduated drop-shaped grey natural pearls, each suspended from an old-cut diamond collet surmount to the diamond ribbon which intertwines the ruby collar. The pearls which date to circa 1780, belonged to Marie Antoinette. This necklace was fashioned in 1849 for the wedding of George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower and Anne Hay-McKenzie.

The pearls were never set for the Queen. She gave the pearls and diamonds to Lady Sutherland, Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, the wife of the British Ambassador for safe-keeping as she had diplomatic immunity and could be trusted to return the jewells to Marie Antoinette if she ever escaped France. The Countess of Sutherland had kindly sent clothes and linen to the imprisoned Queen after the failed escape attempt by the Royal family in 1791. The pearls have been owned by the family since then and it's rare that the provenance of such gems can be traced back over 200 years to the French Royal Court of Marie Antoinette.

As an end note to this, my great, great, great, great grandparents lived in Paris during the revolutionary reign of terror and I often wonder if they saw the execution of the Queen or were more prudent and kept their distance and their own heads.

WELL THAT 9 MONTHS WENT WHOOSH

To Mikhela and Lovergirl

here

Twins have arrived safely.

A girl, weighing 4lbs 11 ozs and a boy weighing 5lbs 5 ozs.

BECAUSE I LIKE FAIRIES

Spelldust.com - Wiccan pictures, magickal images, witchy layouts, and more

HALF-WAY TO HEAVEN

This slice of yum is from here and an Order of Australia to whoever thought of creating a blog devoted to finding the best vanilla slice.

Why am I half-way to heaven? Because this particular slice comes from San Sebastian's in Hampton, just a slurp and a drooool from my doctor's office. It's really going to make visiting Hampton a trial. This is just across from my other favourite, the Bohemian Cake Shop.

Decisions, decisions. I shop tomorrow but it's supposed to be hot so do I cab it to Southland or leave early, catch a bus and detour to Hampton first?

I could really do with a treat. Allison Dubois says you should treat yourself and not leave it up to others to make you happy. Checked the weight this morning, 132.7kgs, not good but I haven't put any on so treat it will be. I hope it lives up to the hype, it's a long way for a slice or three.

BUTTERFLIES

My sister gave me Allison Dubois' book, "Secrets of the Monarch" to read. This is from the chapter on relationships and being your own best friend.

"People who always make promises but never keep them aren't valued by others.
On the flip side are those who burn themselves out living for anybody but themselves, and they lose themselves in others. I'm asking you to find a balance. It's okay to say no to people when you're spread too thin and it's affecting you mentally and/or physically. Boundaries are important in life, and those who never learn to create boundaries for themselves can become doormats.
Equally destructive are those who refuse to respect other people's boundaries and see the lines as invisible. They cross these lines frequently as they disregard people and hurt them by sucking the very life out of them. Everyone has know an "energy sucker" as some point in his or her life. I mean a negative energy that literally depresses you and steals your energy."

Good stuff Allison, look after my mother while I go and have 'doormat' tattooed on my forehead.

IF ANYONE HAS A MOTHER THEY LIKE, STOP READING NOW

Yesterday I walked over, 3kms all the way still, just missed the storm.
Fixed up whatever she confused them about at the chemist. I really don't know which chemist she rang but they didn't have a record of her request.
Shower, check.
Wash clothes, check.
Move videos to make space for DVDs, check.
Make lunch, bombed. She didn't like the sugar I put on the ham and cheese. Mustard you stupid bloody woman, mustard.
Shop, custard, bananas, ice-cream, the basic food groups. Forgot the milk, bugger.
She has the basic food groups and that will do for tea.
Good fortune, I get a ride home and save taxi fare.
6.30 she rings.
When do I get my tea? I need a meal to take my pills.
Apparently the basic food groups were afternoon tea not evening tea.
Sis has done an early shift straight after a late shift so she's in bed and I wouldn't let mum ring her. She only needs toast to take the pills.
An hour later the BrickOutHouse comes in and no sooner has his foot in the door than she starts.
We have left her to starve.
His mother is too lazy to get off her back and make her a meal.
I have gone to the pub (I wish) and left her without food.
You'd think one of them would have thought of me and on it went.

This is not forgetfulness, this is blatant outright bloody lying to get attention.
I've been seething all day.
She's rung three times and I haven't said a word.
But I'm thinking of quite a few.
It's a sad thing to say but anything I do now is not out of love, it's just because I won't let her get the better of me.
And she's started on fckn Christmas already.