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skyringI believe in love, Alfie.
A sad, thought-provoking movie.
A pleasant surprise last night. My brother-in-law is turning 50 and in advance of the formal dinner at some winery out near Bungendore tonight we had a pre-dinner dinner last night at his place. We were to collect Kerri's parents for the weekend and I imagined it was just the usual dinner they put on whenever SIL gets a chance. But no. Out in the sunroom two long tables had been set up, and to celebrate the occasion There were, along with families, Kerri's two sisters, BIL's father (a widower), his brother, and of course the in-laws we'd come to collect.
We had a jolly meal, plenty of wine (though not too much for me and Kerri, as we both had to drive cars back), good food and company. I've married into a fine family, none of them a dud. Another of the tribe gets in tonight - I'll be leaving in a couple of hours.
A good selection of the junior generation running around. They excused themselves from table and went outside chasing each other with torches. One of them banged into a tankstand and appeared with blood running down his face, but no real harm done - Kerri was called on as the resident doctor to check the damage out and reckoned no stitches required.
The newest toy was shown off - a free-standing gas heater of the sort you find used by outside restaurants. It gave off a good heat, but the real fun was provided by the host perching it on the rather wobbly spa cover and adjusting it to the vertical by wedging a couple of remote controls under it. He's the senior engineer in the navy and he comes up with a solution like that!
Lifeline bookfair on this weekend. Started on Friday with the usual queue stretching for hundreds of metres. One day I'll not be a slave to children and be able to arrive in good time, but as it was I had an hour to wait and was only about 50m back. Took along a book to read, intending to release it at the door, but found myself enjoying it too much to let it go. Ran into my bookseller mate Judy and we chatted for a few minutes.
Feeding frenzy when the doors opened. Serious booksellers attend, and they bring along great heavy-duty plastic bags, into which they sweep dozens of books at a stroke and lug them away to a far corner to be jealously guarded until they have pulled out the dross to be returned for the common herd. They generally bring along a couple of teenagers to provide muscle.
I headed for the Travel section and snaffled their collection of Bill Bryson and similar authors. Military history books were going at a fast clip, and I grabbed one or two. But this fair wasn't for buying stock - I have crates from the last one still uncatalogued - it was for me, and maybe a few obvious bargains. Couldn't pass by a complete set of Fawlty Towers videos, and it wasn't until I got them home that I found that they were in Beta format. Oh well. Consider it a donation to a worthy cause. The rare book room opened at noon and I collected three more Anthony Trollope Folios for my collection, two more Folios on other subjects and a big ex-library book of Norman Lindsay's letters.
This morning I went back and found a few more books, a couple of boardgames, and a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the Arthur Boyd tapestry in Parliament House.
Tomorrow's the big deal. Books will be $10 a bag in the arvo and I try to get as many good books as possible. This time I want to get a couple of hundred for Bookcrossing to hand out on election day, as a climax for my book.
I've been using a new blogreader which is perhaps a little handier than going to various websites. It's still in beta but seems pretty solid. Haven't tried posting from it yet, but.
A sad, thought-provoking movie.
A pleasant surprise last night. My brother-in-law is turning 50 and in advance of the formal dinner at some winery out near Bungendore tonight we had a pre-dinner dinner last night at his place. We were to collect Kerri's parents for the weekend and I imagined it was just the usual dinner they put on whenever SIL gets a chance. But no. Out in the sunroom two long tables had been set up, and to celebrate the occasion There were, along with families, Kerri's two sisters, BIL's father (a widower), his brother, and of course the in-laws we'd come to collect.
We had a jolly meal, plenty of wine (though not too much for me and Kerri, as we both had to drive cars back), good food and company. I've married into a fine family, none of them a dud. Another of the tribe gets in tonight - I'll be leaving in a couple of hours.
A good selection of the junior generation running around. They excused themselves from table and went outside chasing each other with torches. One of them banged into a tankstand and appeared with blood running down his face, but no real harm done - Kerri was called on as the resident doctor to check the damage out and reckoned no stitches required.
The newest toy was shown off - a free-standing gas heater of the sort you find used by outside restaurants. It gave off a good heat, but the real fun was provided by the host perching it on the rather wobbly spa cover and adjusting it to the vertical by wedging a couple of remote controls under it. He's the senior engineer in the navy and he comes up with a solution like that!
Lifeline bookfair on this weekend. Started on Friday with the usual queue stretching for hundreds of metres. One day I'll not be a slave to children and be able to arrive in good time, but as it was I had an hour to wait and was only about 50m back. Took along a book to read, intending to release it at the door, but found myself enjoying it too much to let it go. Ran into my bookseller mate Judy and we chatted for a few minutes.
Feeding frenzy when the doors opened. Serious booksellers attend, and they bring along great heavy-duty plastic bags, into which they sweep dozens of books at a stroke and lug them away to a far corner to be jealously guarded until they have pulled out the dross to be returned for the common herd. They generally bring along a couple of teenagers to provide muscle.
I headed for the Travel section and snaffled their collection of Bill Bryson and similar authors. Military history books were going at a fast clip, and I grabbed one or two. But this fair wasn't for buying stock - I have crates from the last one still uncatalogued - it was for me, and maybe a few obvious bargains. Couldn't pass by a complete set of Fawlty Towers videos, and it wasn't until I got them home that I found that they were in Beta format. Oh well. Consider it a donation to a worthy cause. The rare book room opened at noon and I collected three more Anthony Trollope Folios for my collection, two more Folios on other subjects and a big ex-library book of Norman Lindsay's letters.
This morning I went back and found a few more books, a couple of boardgames, and a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the Arthur Boyd tapestry in Parliament House.
Tomorrow's the big deal. Books will be $10 a bag in the arvo and I try to get as many good books as possible. This time I want to get a couple of hundred for Bookcrossing to hand out on election day, as a climax for my book.
I've been using a new blogreader which is perhaps a little handier than going to various websites. It's still in beta but seems pretty solid. Haven't tried posting from it yet, but.
