Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge weekend

Extremely massively huge weekend. Started on Saturday morning with a trip to the St Brutus's pool with Kate, Greg & Chloe. Freya was quite cautious to start with, but once she saw we were all having fun, she was happy to climb in and splash about, hanging onto us and the various floaty things. Then we went down to Bentleigh for coffee and cake, and off to the costume shop to get some outfits for Tracy & Ray's Deadwood party in the evening. I had thought we could go as Mr Wu's pigs, but they were out of pig noses & Reb wasn't keen for us to go in home made noses, so we bought a cowboy hat and a toy gun and and indian headdress for Reb.

After Freya's nap (well actually before it had finished, we woke her up - not pretty!) we went to a birthday party for a couple of the creche kids. A fun time was had by all, Freya was mad for the trampoline there. Then we headed home for the usual supper, baths & bed before Vicki arrived to babysit.

I decided that my cowboy hat was way to wussy to wear as-is, so I got my old possum skull and wired it onto the front of the hat. Instant improvement!

We finally made it out the door and to the party. The turn out was impressive - many people had put a lot of time into their costumes! Someone I used to work with a bit at the Borg was there... small world etc. Tracy had bought a pigs head to add a bit of authenticity to the barbecue... I asked it if I could have it for my decomposition project & Tracy kindly agreed!

On Sunday, after burying the head in my pet sematary, we were getting ready to go to see a Thomas the Tank Engine show in Emerald, which is in the hills outside Melbourne. All was going well until we realized that daylight savings had kicked in and we were late! So we bundled everything into the car and headed off. It was windy as a windy thing today, and when we arrived the wind was howling in the trees. We had a very windy picnic lunch before we met up with most of the old Mogro crowd, and then checked out the attractions. There was a Thomas cut-out for the kids to have their photos taken in, a slightly manky petting zoo with the most hideous chicken I have ever seen, and an assortment of old rail paraphernalia. Freya sat very patiently to have her face painted like a tiger, and proceeded to roar all the time. We went for a train ride with their Thomas steam engine on one end and an old diesel on the other - it was an authentic adventure, a fallen tree blocked the track! Freya loved it all the same. We reversed back to the station and then watched a short panto featuring Thomas and some troublesome trucks.

Home again... Freya fell asleep in the car, poor chick. The wind finally died down in the night.

Soon to be renamed: "The Decaying Roadkill Blog".

Off to the zoo today with my science class... the kids were well prepared, with ample supplies of healthy, nutritious lollies, soft drink and enough mobile technology to launch several moon landings. All the electromagnetic radiation I soaked up from the mobile phones & bluetooth games has probably increased my cancer risk about five billion percent. When the batteries started running out the poor wee kiddies were a a total loss. I can't actually recall any conversations that weren't about mobile phones, computer games, mobile computer games, computer games on mobile phones, or something of that nature. Nothing that was actually about... anything. I didn't take a camera, and of course the aminals were in fine form. There are lots of new beasties at the zoo & most were out & about. A good day was had by all.

On the way from skool I saw a dead magpie on the side of the road on the corner of the highway, so on the home tonight I stopped & went to pick it up. As I did this one of my students was walking by. He looked at the dead bird, and looked at me with the plastic bag in my hand, and said "Hello Mr Beast". And I said "Yup. I'm going to get the bird." So tales of my roadkill collecting (and probably consuming) will be widespread throughout the Mt Doom community and Myspace in no time. The poor young magpie is now residing in compost next to my almost skeletonized rat.

Bought a nice set of plastic insects from the zoo for Freya, she was quite chuffed. She seems to be lurgi-free at the mo & is a fairly happy camper. Lately she's been wanting to go to sleep with her door open, and seems to get to sleep just fine. She is also mad on jumping everywhere, and usually wants us to jump, or hop, along. Going to bed is a ritual of jumping down the hall, with me hopping in pursuit, putting the plastic toy frogs in the bath, putting her milk cup cup back in the kitchen, and finally making it to bed after some good cuddles.

Mega-huge-uber busy weekend this weekend... kiddies party on Saturday, and going to see a Thomas show on Sunday with Mogro. Should be good.

Ugh.

Gratuitously late night last night doing some marking... not a bad day today, saw one of my feral classes for the last time this year. Was kinda tired but buy the time I got home I was feeling all achy & weird all over... seem to be coming down with something. Boog has been a bit sick lately... some high temperatures but no other real symptoms. So tonight i was a total wuss & veged out on the couch while Rebecca waited on me hand & foot.

Off to the zoo tomorrow with the year 7 classes... hopefully will be a nice enough day.

What a difference a day makes...

My decaying rat has undergone a huge transformation since yesterday... all the skin & fur has come away, and there is a huge mass of maggots in the bottom of the container. There are also quite a few beetles chowing down on it.

I'm going to make a Photostory from my pics, just need to get "Don't Worry, Be Happy" for my soundtrack.

Rat update

My rat is decaying quite nicely, thanks to a hot day and plentiful blowflies... yummo.

Even more disgusting & vile photos to come.

S(c)ummer days are hear again...

Summer is definitely imminent, and with it are the seasonal flocks of flies and blowflies and double-triple-hyper blowflies that make living in Melbourne so pleasant. Of course this may have something to do with the dead possum I picked up off the side of the road & left overnight on the bonnet of the corolla. This morning I buried it in the garden, so I can dig it up in a few months' time. I'd quite like to have a complete skeleton, it would be an interesting thing to show to my classes.

It's about 31 degrees here today... we just had a pleasant lunch at a cafe near the Yarra with Charlotte & Ben. Ben told me it used to be a toilet block... noice.

Spider antics

The Daddy (or should I say Mummy) Long-Legs in the bathroom has a nice bundle of eggs...





The funky pale spider by the front door scoffed on a big caterpillar...



One of the new blackies has many cute babies... they are "toyny" as Freya says.



And here's the new Evil Fiendish Malevolent Blackie - she's moulted a couple of times recently & is now really long... if she bulks up like the other black house spiders she will be huge!

Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill

Arrived home today to find a poor young rat curled up on the path with half it's face ripped off... nasty. I think Frieda must have got it during the day, I can't imagine Bomb catching a rat unless it tried to climb in her mouth while she was asleep.

I think I have successfully put it out of its misery by asphyxiating the poor wee beastie with a CO₂ cylinder for filling bike tyres...

Gruesome photos to come.

Momentous occasion...

Freya actually had a wee in the toilet yesterday.

Someone still needs her afternoon nap...

Today Freya decided to stay awake chatting and playing with her toys rather than having a snooze. All was well until bedtime, when she underwent the sort of nuclear meltdown usually seen in poorly maintained Soviet Bloc reactors. Notable moments included "I want to jump!" "Go on then." "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!", and "Daddy's in the kitchen! Go away! Go to the living room!".

Fortunately she calmed down a bit and had a nice long cuddle with Reb. She even wanted to give me a kiss goodnight, and once in bed she was out like a light. Poor chick!

Epic rambling blog catch - up due shortly.