Not Quite Routine

I'm holding Amélie in my arms right now as she's been a little unsettled getting off to sleep tonight. Up to now she's been pretty much perfect, in fact even with this I think she still is.

It's been a busy few weeks as you've probably noted from my paucity of posts here. My routine has been irrevocably changed. At times I've felt a little less than superchilled. And of course when it rains it pours and with the arrival of the youngster everything else has been falling apart, our cars have been beeping about their faults, making weird noises and being sent off for repairs repeatedly, my iMac has crashed and is completely useless to me now (hopefully a genius at the apple store in the morning will fix that for me). But despite the spot fires that abound the youngster thrives and makes it all worthwhile.

These first weeks are brace and persist weeks, while a pattern can be established... hopefully we'll all emerge from the cloud refreshed and revitalised and you'll see more frequent posting here. Time will tell.

I'm a dad!!!

I've been a little busy of late and obviously preoccupied. Little Amélie was born on Sunday making The Frenchman & myself both dads. It's very exciting and very sleep depriving. We are co-parenting and mum & baby are both very well. Here is a quick peek at her not long after birth.

facebook me?

I'm no facebook fan. But I do love to hate it. I was invited into it years back before I knew what it was by a friend who was also the first to de-friend me on it. I'm really popular aren't I? I've not actively sought facebook friends, but gradually have accepted and declined invitations from friends, work colleagues, family and even patients. I've had friends from lives past catch up through it and reconnected with those who constantly switch email addresses. I've also had people write personal messages on my wall and had subsequent responses from people who really needn't have seen them. (Mum, a simple phone call really is fine.)

I've been poked by people I don't know, and I've poked them back at times despite standard  etiquette which would suggest it's not appropriate. I have 56 requests that I have not responded to including a 'sexy man slave request' which perhaps I should have reconsidered, 'Blood Lust' which I'm not going to touch, and a 'gift of a Fireman' which sounds quite hot but then again might be quite not. Then there are all the requests that just got deleted when The Frenchman decided it needed cleaning up. I've played so many games of scrabble with a South African friend that we know most of the 2 letter words by heart and would be hated in any normal scrabble game now. 

More recently I'm seeing updates about what people had for breakfast, how tired or energised they are feeling today, or other obscure cries for attention that I'm not sure I feel like responding to. I've decided not to take up the "What Random Object Are You?" quiz as I don't really care if I am a table (like the initiator of the quiz) or a dog food bowl or whatever the hell a random program throws at me while it steals my personal information. Perhaps I'm a brick... impersonal and unmoved? Am I going to become a fan of "Being Lazy"? I couldn't be bothered. 

I've had requests to be friends with some very cute guys who I've never seen before. When I check their sites they have 1077 very cute guys as friends. Perhaps I should be like one facebook friend who has schizophrenicised his facebook into 2 sites, one for work the other for pleasure, and find 1078 of my own trophy friends. Hmmm...

Technology is constantly evolving & changing the way we operate in this world. The challenge is to pick the advances that enrich our lives, and discard the ones that don't. Better still, take it where we want it to go and evolve it or revolutionise it. Lead on people, we have places to go, oh, and it's your turn in scrabble. 

Strange Sightings

This evening as I'm heading out from gym and about to get into my car a guy yells out to me that he loves, LOVES my car. He's with a (?) girlfriend and he's looking quite cute. He approaches and asks me more details about the car and then asks me if he can kiss it it is so beautiful (he seems quite excited), and I'm like - "sure" - wondering if he's for real, and he does, he walks up and kisses the car. HE ACTUALLY KISSES MY CAR. I think I'd actually prefer he'd kiss me, but he's just kissed a car... His girlfriend says he's so gay, and he says he would be to drive it... and they walk off, though he appears to want to stay. I'm left standing smiling widely. And not quite sure where the gay reference came from, but not minding at all. 

Stacked up in Byron Bay

When in Byron Bay we choose not to stay in Bunk Beds, however where forced to (as above for example) bunks may be entirely appropriate, even preferred.

Where we did stay this weekend had loads of space for a group of us, but not a whole lot of us, spending considerable time in the great outdoors rather than in the beach house. The weather guys got it quite wrong this weekend, and while there was rain, and good amounts of it, there was ample sunshine and beach time to be had. Though at times the two did collide, once with an additional tornado of sorts off the beach. It hung around for about 15  minutes.

low res. phone image... apologies

Initial exploration of the main beach found us with countless men not unlike those above and below (thanks to Andrew Christian's Spring Range - awesome photo-shoot guys!). Experiencing the jaw droppingly attractive is a nice way to spend the day. But the focus of the weekend was the Byron Bay Ocean Swim Classic, and the conditions were perfect. There were lifesavers, and quite a lot of them, though I'm not sure they were actually needed. We don't mind them littered about though. I even managed to meet an imported one or two from the south. I think I'm going to have to get caught in more rips in future. 

Ah and I did do well in the swim, so well in fact I went back the next day to do it all again - though in a more informal way. I got to chat with friends along the way, chase the fish, catch a wave or two and spot a stingray or three.

Oh and did I mention the food? We tested out some old and some new - the new including a place called Satiate in Bangalow, a degustation worth a taste; Pacific Dining Room which was really a step above & a whole lot of fun; and then there's the old faithful Utopia Cafe which is pretty much as the name says, though I'd like a truly utopian milkshake please next time to match the food. 

There was more, a whole lot more, but the week has begun and I've lots to do. Thanks to everyone who made the weekend as awesome as it was, even those who will never know, like the backpacker filling a water container at Wategos beach loosely wearing a sexy pair of underwear and nothing else, I swear it needs to be the new beach trend.