Prom

I am back from the Prom, but instead returning with a droopy corsage and hickies, I have aching legs and some good photos. There were echidnas and kookaburras and rosellas and wildflowers and swamp wallabies and emus galore.

On Wednesday night, my lab-mate Mal unfortunately hit a wombat, and by the time he had pulled a U-ey to check its status, its pouch young was running around the road in a panic. He wrapped it in a towel and together we took it to the ranger on duty. As sad as the situation was, it was pretty awesome to hold a 20cm long wombat, even if she was hissing furiously at us.

On Thursday, Mal and I took a three-hour hike around (read: up, down, up, down, up, down) a couple of rocky promontories looking for intertidal sites for his research. To get to the headland required crossing a crotch-deep river that, on our return, had dropped to ankle deep (poor tidal timing on our part). On Friday morning, we did a shore dive and I remembered how much I love boats. Again, we were looking for a site for Mal to anchor some equipment, but the bay we were diving in was really shallow so it took us half our tanks to get below 10m. After looking at some fish (which I'm getting better at IDing), I was too close to empty to continue on and so popped up to the surface only to discover that the beach had become a far off distant suggestion of sand. It was a very long swim back in. And on Friday afternoon, we were back at the headland boulder scramble but this time with steep scrubby hillsides to clamber over too. I would feel fit and strong if only my legs didn't ache so much.

It's pretty great to be home, sleeping with a warm husband in a comfy bed. I even got to sleep in this morning, all the way to 7:30am, which is a lot if you consider that I've been waking up at 5.

On

It has begun. It started on Monday the 8^th of October, a date to be remembered. That was the week I got home every night after 7:00pm and spent every day too busy to eat or check e-mail or make a phone call. Last week was the same and it culminated in some seriously hard core field work and the chance to trial my BRUV frame for the first time. The frame itself worked brilliantly, though I had some technical difficulties with the camera. It looks a bit like a small tank complete with gun turret, earning itself the obvious name The Tank, though the nickname I like best is the Dalek. I’ve been home for a couple of days and head out again tomorrow to do more fieldwork down at Wilsons Promontory. I think I will be around the week after, hopefully doing day trips though there may be an overnight or two in there somewhere. The following week, I’m off down the coast in the other direction to Pt Campbell for a few days. And this is what it will be like until May 2008. I was feeling really warn out until about Friday afternoon when we loaded up to the boat, wriggled into still-damp wet suits and headed out to catch a slack tide. The conditions were some of the best I have ever seen – on the surface, that is. There were ripples instead of waves and it was sunny and warm. As we motored out I got a glimpse of how enviable this life I lead is – how wonderful it is to be on a boat instead of in front of a desk in a cube in an office in a tall building full of desks and cubes and offices. It has recharged me and has me almost looking forward to this field season. Sure, I’ll be tired. Sure, there will be all sorts of technical difficulties and mechanical troubles and tired arms and legs and backs. But I’ll be out in the sun, swimming with the fishes. It sure doesn’t suck.

Hazzah!

My BRUV* frame is done! Done! Done! Done! After weeks of planning and two full weeks in the workshop, I can report success. This week I've felt like a kid who failed shop class and was assigned to a summer intensive; I've been in with the tools from 9:30am to 7:00pm for four days and haven't turned on my computer in three. My back aches, my hands ache, my feet ache, my legs ache. But it's done! And now, it's the weekend and I can relax. Coz the frame is built!

As you can probably guess, I've been pretty wiped out this week, as the following anecdote will cleverly illustrate. On my way into Uni this morning, I started digging through my bag for my keys. They weren't in the usual pocket, or in any of the other places they could be. Damn, I thought, I've left them at home. So I dug out my phone to call Z to make sure that I hadn't dropped them on the tram. As I was dialling I looked down at my hands and discovered my keys sitting there. That's right: I'd been holding them the whole time. I almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard!

And then I went and wielded power tools. Probably not a brilliant move as my scratched and beaten hands will attest.

Did I mention it's done??? I'll take pictures at some point so you have a better idea of what the hell I'm talking about. Then you can Ooh and Aah appropriately in the comments.

But until then, I think I'll have another glass of wine, thank you very much.


(*BRUV: Baited Remote Underwater Video.)

Chicken Little with a Sting

I spent all weekend gardening. Out the back, we now have tomatoes and strawberries growing, and a herb garden that includes mint, rosemary, thyme, basil, coriander (cilantro), and parsley. Our front yard is no longer a dirt box that the neighbour's cat can use for her bidness; it's planted with all sorts of flowers: clumping flowers and creeping flowers and scented flowers and bushy flowers. It took me about three hours at the nursery to choose what to buy. I find it really difficult to imagine how things will grow and what they will look like in a month when faced with something small and green in a pot. It was exciting to work in the front garden because there's a flowering gum that arches over our yard. As I worked, drunk bees fell from the sky with alarming frequency. When I first saw a bee stumbling around on the ground I thought it was injured. Then I saw another one, which I thought was the first one in a different place. After the fifth one I figured out what was going on, and then had to forcefully resist the urge to look up.

Some of the less pleasant side effects of gardening (thankfully not including bee stings) are an aching back, arms and hamstrings. Last night I went to Pilates, which I've decided is just a fancy word for sit-ups, which is a polite way of saying abdominal torture. Usually I enjoy at least part of the class - or perhaps I just enjoy thinking about the day that I could maybe perhaps do one of those more advanced exercises. But yesterday, it was pure torture; y'know, one of those gym classes where you spend the entire time thinking, I paid for this???

Speaking of paying, we have copies of our new lease to sign, which list our rent at the old price - as in, without the 10% increase. We think it's a mistake, but aren't going to say anything just in case no-one else notices.