I wouldn’t usually repeat something I saw on telly but I thought this was ROFL funny:

The fabulous Donna Simpson from the Waifs was on Spicks and Specks, and at one point Adam Hill starts talking about the song London Still. He was living in London, went home for a break, discovered the Up All Night album and fell in love with it. He took it back to London and as soon as he got home he played the London Still track for his two Aussie housemates, and they all sat there with a bit of a sniffle, so homesick…. Donna laughed and said that she had written the song on her second day in London.

This is gonna be the quickest entry ever:

Sean and I went to Kangaroo Island for the weekend, to stay with his mate Fraser and to buy a motor bike.

There were these amazing shell clouds in the sky as we went over on the ferry. There was also a whale, and that was about as close as I had ever been to a whale. We were all running around all over the ferry trying to see it and get pics, and the ferry was bouncing around in the chop chasing it. Great fun!

We were supposed to be on the Friday night ferry, but there were a few car dramas which delayed us until Saturday morning. Eventually we met up with Fraser and Mia and started having delicious, relaxing fun.

Sean did in fact get the bike and then the next morning he rode it home. I stayed until Monday evening, hanging out by the fire and reading GIRLY FICTION! I only felt the vaguest amount of guilt about not having brought any study stuff with me.

Fraser and Mia’s place is pretty cool, they built lots of it themselves and it’s off the grid, heated by the sun, a big old fire and good design. It is filled with sunlight and shadows, wooden boxes and handicrafts, old bones and books, and surrounded by farmland. It was hard to get off the couch and out into the starlight or down onto the beach.

But sooner or later the world intrudes, and here I am back home, one day of work finished already, another to go and then second semester starts. Im actually looking forward to it. This semester I will be working on a bunch of practical stuff - Cultural heritage management and the law, a semester long practical project with an industry partner and a step-by-step walk through a cultural heritage management plan. With a break in the middle. Bring it on!

Its funny how the use of the word “penetrating” makes it seem rather rude… but its not. For the next 3 days I will be attending a workshop at uni on this very subject, and its likely that Sean will be studying with me. The work he had scheduled for this week was cancelled at the last moment due to illness, so he’s hoping he can get a last moment spot on the course. Ground penetrating radar is used on Time Team, they all ways use it to get an idea of where might be a good spot to dig, and Tony usually refers to it as the “geophys”. It should be interesting, tho im not expecting to be an expert after just 3 days.

Hoop skirt prototype

I have never used either an overlocker or stretchy fabrics before but I thought I would give it a go. I have seen in shops some pretty simple little skirts made of, for example, this velveteen stretch stuff, and I suspected I would be able to zip one up without a pattern, using just a few rough measurements. Sure enough, this is the result. Too easy! Leggies have not been so easy tho… and the overlocker doesn’t have a differential feed adjustment, so I haven’t been able to try out precisely the kind of stuff I was interested in making.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my table is now strewn with sewing things (a nice change from being covered with stacks of textbooks and journal papers), I have just acquired the makings for hoops. Im going to use these instructions as my guide, but that’s probably an evening project now, cos my last unplanned holiday is Friday. Im still officially on holidays next week, but I have a 3-day class on using and interpreting ground penetrating radar, so the days are going to be pretty full.

I’m on holidays and it is such a pleasure! As of 4pm Monday just gone, I have a whole month off Uni, a whole month of unstructured time that i cant wait to start playing with!

The last few months have been kind of interesting - people usually divide a week up into work week followed by weekend. I’ve been having 3 day work weeks followed by 4 day study weeks, and not really thinking about weekends too much. It helps that Sean doesn’t really have a normal work week either, and that for both of us working for part or all of a Saturday or Sunday has become standard without the sort of resentment you get from thinking “this is supposed to be my weekend!”. My work week has been a pleasant holiday from having to think about study, and the study week is an immersion in subjects I’m really interested in interspersed with housework that just cant wait any longer (there is only so much room on the benchtop near the sink, only so many pairs of socks and jeans available). So I’m really in the habit now of thinking in terms of work-week and study-week, and that feels good.

Work continues to be good, the admin stuff I’m doing is varied, fast-paced and interesting. And the office environment is really good, I’m working with a great bunch of people. But the economic recession is starting to bite - we lost a bit of funding and so some programs are not being refunded or are being cut back. And as an admin person there is no funding for my job, the money comes from the program funding. It only makes sense that if a number of program staff are losing their jobs (in a couple of cases) or losing a day here or there (in the majority of cases), then I should lose a day too. So as of last week, the work week is now 2 days and the study week is 5 days.

So next semester looks a lot less hectic than the last one - 5 days to study, two to work and only three subjects as opposed to the 4 I had last semester. Who knows, I might even pick up a day a week helping out a very busy archaeologist friend whose admin needs a bit of straightening out and end up back where i started… we will see.

I have very little planned for the holidays - I haven’t had time to think about them! The plumber is already here fixing the numerous plumbing issues, and later this afternoon Sean and I may head off to Bunnings hardware store to buy some some irrigation tubing which I will turn into hoops. Tomorrow I’m going to Gawler to hang out with the grandparents for the day - I have hardly spent any time with them this year! I will go garage sailing with Dad and Naomi on Saturday for the first time in AGES and try hard not to buy anything! I may take the camera tho. I intend to take the overlocker home with me when I leave their house and buy some t-shirt jersey stretch and fleece fabrics to experiment with. And its tax time, so I guess I could do that too…

Ah unstructured time! What a luxury!