Post-Perth Holiday Blues

That photo above shows what’s left of my chilli tapioca chips that I brought back from Perth.  Ugh.

GM and I are supposed to be on diet because we both put on so much weight from the loads and loads of wonderful food we had in Perth but I can’t help eating a tiny (okay, quite a substantial) bit of these chilli tapioca chips every day.  Especially after a work day.  They’re kind of almost my last source of comfort that I managed to take with me and are helping me with my post-holiday blues at the moment.

As you can see, my supply is quickly depleting.  I guess once the packet is finished I will really be back to London mode.  Sigh.  I don’t mind being in “back in London” mode because I will have to get on with my life eventually and seriously need to lose the snacks and stop looking like a beer barrel but my sisters bought the chips for me knowing how much I like them.  It’s like the chips represent my sisters in a small way, and I don’t want them to finish.

I want to write about Perth but the trip was amazing in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start.  And also, out of my readership of four, two of you were there with me so does anyone even still want to read about the trip?

The worst thing about a holiday is having to go back to work and a normal humdrum life afterwards.

Pandas Like Bamboo!

It came!

My other surprise pressie from GM arrived today.  He got me a drawing tablet!  I’m thrilled because I’ve wanted one for ages.

Look how amazing it is.  It’s white to match my laptop and I love it.  I can write and draw things on my photos from now on.  No more faffing about with the mouse!  YAY.

Hehehe!

It’s Arrived!

My presents have arrived!

GM even wrapped them.  Actually this is only one of my two surprise presents, but it consists of two items.  How exciting.  The other surprise is still on its way.

Ta-dahhh!  GM bought me a tripod and a remote switch for my camera.  I’m so happy because I’ve been having trouble with holding the camera steady, particularly in night shots where I have to keep the shutter open for longer.  So many of my Oman shots were blurry and I was getting really frustrated, not to mention dead tired from having to hold my body stiff and steady for every single shot.

Look, my Kiss X2 on the tripod.  It looks like a dog!  Doesn’t it look like it’s looking at you with its head tilted going, “Arrwl?”  Hahaha.

This is one of the first shots we took with my new remote switch.  I love it, it’s really handy.  Actually the first shot I took was one of my foot but my hand is less disgusting hehe.

I did a test night shot using the tripod to hold the camera steady and also using the remote switch so that I wouldn’t inadvertently shake the camera whilst pressing the shutter release button.  It came out really clear.  I’m really pleased.

Hmm I love presents =)

Surprise Pressies

I’m going to have to hold on putting up my Oman pics until the weekend.  I’m really busy!!

For starters, I’m on an intensive week long course.  The lecturer gave us reading and homework.  I kid you not.  I’ve not had homework for many years now!

I’m too lazy to do it now though so I might do it on the train in tomorrow.  Hehe.  Always last minute.  Anyway I need a rest, I only got home an hour ago.  After my class today I actually went to work.  At 5.30pm.  Can you imagine?!  They really don’t pay me enough for the level of diligence and commitment I display.  Almost everybody had gone home, even my manager, so it was nice and quiet and I managed to clear my inbox, fired off 10 or so emails and set my “out of office” on.  So now I can rest easy and not worry that people are wondering where the hell I am.  Also now that I’ve delegated my urgent stuff to other people I know that it’s all being dealt with so I’m happy haha.  Actually working late isn’t as bad as I thought after all.  I got home at 8pm but it kind of feels like a normal evening rather than a truncated sorry scrap of an evening.

Anyway!  GM made me my dinner and tea and it was ready as I came in through the door =)  What a treat!  And he came to me just now and told me he bought me two surprise things.   I wonder what they are.  I will post once I get them! =)

Scary

This picture looks like a drawing right?  It’s not, it’s a photo I took of the snow falling from the comfort of my toasty warm car this evening.

You all know my boiler wasn’t working right?  It’s still not working.  Apparently the circuit board needs replacing and they had to order it from somewhere or other and it will only arrive tomorrow.  Which means we’ve had to go over to GM’s aunt’s for showers every single evening.

Every.  Single. Evening.

Luckily her family is really nice and we enjoy their company, otherwise it’d be majorly painful.

Tonight we made our way to her house at around 7pm as usual.  It was snowing as we set off , but not that heavily.  Everything was covered with a light dusting of snow, just enough to make it picturebook pretty.  It’s nice to see snow swirling towards us when we’re in a warm car looking out so I was in a lovely mood, snapping pics and singing along to Yoga, Show and Lu Guang Zhong.  Haha.

Unfortunately, the snowfall started getting heavier, as you can see from the contrast between this pic and the previous one.  When we reached the slopey road going up to GM’s aunt’s house, the car couldn’t go up it and the wheels just spun in place as they couldn’t get any traction on the snow.  At that point I finally realised that road conditions were getting treacherous……. and we were out in it.

There are places all over the world that get much more snow that what we’ve got today and the residents of those places might laugh if they read this and think, “That’s not very much snow, why is she making a big deal out of this?”  The thing is, we don’t often get a lot of snow.  It might snow maybe once or twice a year, and most of the time the snow doesn’t really settle.  This means that we’re ill-equipped to deal with any sort of snowy conditions.  We have no snow tyres.  I don’t even know what other types of equipment might be available to deal with the snow.

Even though we were really close to GM’s aunt’s house we decided to turn back because we simply couldn’t make it up her road.  GM was also worried that if we stopped we might get snowed in.  So we drove back very very slowly together with some other foolhardy motorists.  I was so scared that we might skid and crash, or break down, or have to stop by the side of the road and wait for the conditions to get better but get snowed in instead.  I honestly kind of thought we wouldn’t make it back because the snow got heavier and heavier.  When we turned into our road I was never so relieved ever in my life; I had the strongest feeling of “coming home” ever.  HOME.  WE ARE HOME.  Phew.

There wasn’t even that much snow yet at that point and we were already struggling on the roads, can you imagine?

It’s been snowing steadily ever since we got home so the snow on the ground is getting thicker and thicker.  I’ve been hearing sounds of kids outside playing with the snow.  How nice it is to be young and carefree.

I took this pic half an hour ago.  If you compare the bushes from the earlier pics to this pic, you can tell that a lot more snow has fallen in the two hours since we’ve arrived home.  It was definitely a good call to come home.

All that galivanting about in artic conditions and freezing my face off snapping pics out of the open window for your viewing pleasure made me hungry so GM and I had thai green curry for a late dinner.  Yum.  We even managed to shower!  We had to boil kettles of water and wash out of a little plastic basin  like little primitive village children but it was strangely refreshing!  Haha.

What an experience.  Snow is pretty, but only if you’re not trying to go somewhere in it.