The BBQ

Today is Larissa's actual birthday. Ilse and Cassie came over which was a very nice surprise arranged by Simone. We had a BBQ and I practiced a new trick I picked up from the tellie the other day. On some BBQ show they said to move the coals to one side so that when it gets too hot, you can move whatever is on the grill to the other side for slow cooking or cooling down.

The citrine

The doves scouting the bucket with bird food.

Late morning we drove to Hahndorf. We were on a mission.

A chocolate mission that is.

This cutie came driving past.

And we saw grass sharks!

Nicole bought me a beautiful stone! It's citrine and I am very happy with it.

It was grey but excellent weather to walk around.

In the evening we went to Karin and Gavin. They invited us for a BBQ. Here I am sitting with a friend of theirs, Sue. It was nice meeting her.

Masterchef Gavin operating the barbie.

And yes, my little blog friends. Take note! In this picture, I am eating a king prawn. The 7th EVER IN MY WHOLE LIFE to be exact. I have made more food progress tonight. I am over my disliking of prawns! Well, as long as I don't have to peel them myself that is hehe.

The Beetle experience

In the morning we went car hunting again. It had been disappointing so far but that turned around today! The first dealer we went to was the Volkswagen dealer. We looked at the Golf and the new Beetle. I could drive the Golf but it was still not too big. And then I entered the Beetle. It was a sensational experience. I can actual stretch my legs almost completely in the passenger seat. In the driver seat I have no real problems either. The sales rep. told us we could take it for a test drive immediately since it wasn't booked for that time. So we took it for a spin and the drive was just really, REALLY good. It's a diesel and it took us up in to the hills in fifth gear (the Hyundai can't use 5th gear when going up in the hill, it would die) and still had enough power left to take over slower cars. It also stuck to the road like glue which made handling very enjoyable.

The inside only has the most common features, which results in a uncluttered design (see above photo). I do like it a lot. I can only say that this car was very enjoyable. And if a Mercedes A180 CDi would not exist I would have already made the choice.

Hence we also went to the Mercedes dealer. We forgot to take pictures there unfortunately. I did sit in the A180 and the driver's position felt even better than in the Beetle as I can totally stretch my legs in it. I was almost perplexed. Also the seat is higher up so getting in, even with its smaller four-door was super easy. Actually it's the only car I know so far that allows me to sit down first and then swing in my legs. In all other cars (including the Beetle) I have to actually step inside with one leg first, sit down and then pull in the other leg.

Today I will make a comparison chart and look up car insurance prices for the Beetle and the A180. One difference is that the Mercedes is $10,000 more expensive. But you can see where that goes.

When we drove home we passed parliament house where protesters were protesting against plans of the Australian Federal Government to install mandatory internet filters to be able to filter 'bad' content. It makes me feel I immigrated to China. I will write letters to members of parliament today and send them out soon. They have currently budgeted $44,000,000 for this and it's a total waste of money to spend it on something that people do not want and need.

When we came home I took Mason for a walk. For one third of the walk I also took Mason's shit for a walk until the first bin.

Some amazing plants are flowering at the moment. Stuff you don't see in Europe really.

Bottle brush flowers.

In the evening we went over to Deb and Richard for a BBQ. Here we see (left to right) Debbie, Greg, Debbie's mom, Gianna and Nicole.

The BBQ master: Richard.

Nicole and Gianna.

We played 8-ball and later on a 'small' version of snooker. Here we see Greg doing complicated things at which he is quite good ;-)

Richard also knows how to handle a que quite well. We had a most enjoyable time and had a lot of laughs.

Cocky-boy / The BBQ

Please meet Cocky-boy. He's a Galah. Galahs, like a lot of bigger birds, have interesting hobbies. One of them is wood working. Or should I say wood chopping. Maybe it's a cross between those. Either way, Cocky-boy loves working with wood.

He's been in his new home for about a month now. Beautiful new cage, much bigger and lots of room to exercise and also more sticks to sit on. The stick on the right is an original stick that came with the cage. The stick on the left is one month later.

So today I decided to put in a new one because we wouldn't want Cocky-boy to fall all the way down.

This is the new stick. Roughly 15 minutes after putting it in the cage. I hope the actual wood will be a lot tougher than the bark.

On a side note about him falling down. He actually did fall all the way down today while bending over too much to bite off bark from the bottom of the stick. No damage was done and he was back up in no time.

In the afternoon we put the BBQ together that Nicole and I got for our birthday.

This called for a test run of course so we fired it up.

With the barbie going only on half strength, Nicole cooked some bits and pieces that we scraped together.

Some bits and pieces were very nice indeed. It was an excellent first test-run!

After all this it was back to studying for me. At some point though I was rudely disturbed by a series of car smashes. Living to one of the main roads you get used to certain sounds but not to these. Running out to see what was going on I saw that 5 cars had smashed into each other. I wonder who was to blame for this...

The BBQ

We went to Richard and Debbie's place today for a BBQ and some trivial pursuit.

Since everybody brought something to be cooked we ended up with a large variety of meat. This is about a quarter of what we had...

Max the dog was keeping an eye out...

Max and Greg having a smoke.

From left to right: Mel, Debbie, Alex, Nicole and Gianna.

Richard taking his shot during a game of pool.

Alex, Richard and Debbie.

Gianna, Greg, Toni and Alex.

Mel and Jules.

We had a fun afternoon until we had to leave to feed the birds. When we left it was pissing down with rain but we made it home safe and sound, and also half frozen by the way...