Having commented in my last post about how much appreciation I would get for posting no close-up shots of Shona, I feel dutybound to undo all that good.
Of course, I think they are cute shots, so what does it matter.

While there are many smiles, this is one of the rare ones fired near the direction of the camera.

I like polka dots!

Milbrodale Road at Sunset (Click on the pic to see the Large version on Black, much better)
Have I written about this before?
I suspect more than one of my posts is a repeat, so you’ll forgive me.
Every family has a way of expressing love. For my family, a lot of that love is expressed through food. Let’s just say that over the last week, I’ve been feeling that love!
Tuesday night I was over at P&K’s house, where Amy, Andrew & their three kids are staying. Of course getting to see my nieces and nephews is easily enough to make me happy, but I got the bonus plan. Herb encrusted “Porcetta” for dinner, chocolate-ginger cake, and brownie (and baklava) for desert! The night would have been 100% spot-on had Heapy and I not blown a seemingly insurmountable lead to go down at Trivial Pursuit.
Wednesday to Saturday was spent in the Hunter.
Really, I needn’t say any more….. but I will.
Wednesday night was lamb at Adrian & Susie’s house. They are an awesome Uncle & Aunt. It was an awesome meal & I look forward to sampling an awesome little collection of Whisky that Adrian amassed before his retirement from QANTAS. There had to be 8-10 litres of that stuff!
Otherwise, when I wasn’t trying my hand at bacon and eggs, mum was in the kitchen making us food! You have no idea what it is like. Shona, (who, may I say, fitted right in with the family, having mastered the art of the chewy chocolate bikkie) and I ate pretty solid for a couple of days. It all culminated last night with a steak that was about 4cm thick (an inch and a half for you Yanks out there).
Anyone can eat well and it doesn’t have to be about love. What makes it love is when I mention, off-hand, about how I was reading a recipe for chocolate fudge sauce. Mum then stands up & says, “I can make rich chocolate sauce off the top of my head” and proceeded to proove herself right!
Fortunately, I had room for the ice cream to go with it.
So there you go. It was a week of love. It was spending quality time with Shona, it was spending quality time with family, it was spending quality time killing myself with my fat intake!
So, I’ll leave you with two of my expressions of love.
Firstly, Shona will love me because I posted a picture of her that is not a close up. (How does a girl manage to be that beautiful & still dislike having pictures taken of her?)
The second is a picture of mum’s Labna . This stuff is freakin’ tasty! I love it & I love my mum cause she makes things I love whenever she knows that I am coming to stay. I’m so spoiled!

It really is a hard life!
I have been back at college for a couple of days, and now I am off back up to the Hunte Valley again.
Shona has a week off work & since I have no Youth Group on Friday (School holidays still) that frees me up over the weekend, so up we go to hang out, chill our & have some fun.
Here’s a little of what we have to look forward to…

Have I really been posting photos if I don’t post one of Beer?

Birds eye view, or Fish eye view?

It’s a hard luck life!

(click on the pic to be taken to the original)
OK, so every man and his dog has a picture that has a thousand hits, but this is the first of mine to make it there!
Three cheers for the person who decided to leave a broken bike chained in a back street of Geneva. I may not have made it into the nearby “Patek Phillipe Museum” (closed on both occasions I walked to it) but I did find you!

OK, so I should have blogged more times so far over the holidays, but I am supposed to be relaxing right?
So Adam & I went up to the Hunter Valley for a couple of days. We did some nice breakfast cooking (I may or maynot have had a strongbow at 9:30am to wash down bacon & eggs) and mum did some AWESOME dinners for us, so food was totally looked after.
We visited Susie & Ada’s house & managed to climb the mountain behind it. It’s good to be reminded that you need to get out and exercise more & it is great to be reminded of how extravagant God is, creating so many species of things & such a diverse terrain. Making it up some steep rocks & down some slippery slopes without breaking a bone was also a bonus.
My lovely friends at Peterson’s were as lovely as usual. We scored some lovely plonk from there, some of which we knocked off that evening over dinner. It really makes your day a little chirpier when you get to see genuine, friendly, lovely people who remember you & look after you, even though they have every right to see you as nothing but a customer!
Adam & I had a great time taking pictures all over the place. Lots of beer shots at the Blue Tongue, plenty of jumping shots on different roads (I am a fan at the moment) and a bunch of other bits & pieces from our travels.
To start things off, here’s a little proof that we made it up the mountain.

Ads shows off his tat while we catch a breather at the top of a cliff.

Adam trys to catch the “moody, reflective, ‘I have unplumbed depths if only they were explored'” side of Tim. Or maybe he just wanted me to look tired after hiking straight up the mountain?

The impression that I get is that they are referred to as “Simone and Dave” a fair bit. I think I’ll call them “Dave & Sim” just to be different. Saturday was spent in the pleasure of their company. Shona & Sim have been friends for ages & have become really good friends in the last couple.
Of course, I liked them before the weekend…
Why?
They had me over to their place to “check me out” (very cute)
Sim makes a mean cocktail.
They both play “Settlers of Catan”, the greatest board game known to man!
Dave is a genuine & funny bloke.
And they came all the way out to Dural to hear me preach. (Being the diagonally oposite side of Sydney, The shire has to be close to an hour and a half from Dural! Sydney’s a big city!)
So heading out for an afternoon on Dave’s dad’s boat was just a clincher…
I was transported back to being 10. In those days it was two or three families on the “HMAS Bundabah”. Big waves, good laughs, and a couple of BBQ chickens & bread rolls when we hit the destination. 20 years later, it’s only two couples, it’s in different (thankfully stiller) waters, but the laughs came as freely and the chook sandwiches still went down as smoothly (Mum will be happy to hear that I still got the “Slimy bits” of the chook!).
Chilling, chatting, and checking out each other’s moon-tans after a long winter. A slow lunch and a quick dip in the still-crisp water. Threatening to push the girls in & delivering a couple of “bombs” next to where they were sitting. I could get used to this kind of life!
I hope Dave & Sim got the impression that I enjoyed myself, because the impression that I get is that this is definately the way to spend a Saturday or two in the soon-to-arrive summer!
In other news, here’s a couple of pictures from Thursday night. It’s the ANZAC Bridge…
Shona has proven to be a very patient photographic apprentice. I give her six months before she is making my shots look like junk!

So my sister says I have been gone for too long, so you get a long post by way of apology. (and a picture at the end for you people who don’t really care about all the junk I occasionally write here.)
Do you ever think about how useless the average man or woman is compared to say someone a couple of hundred years ago, or even maybe our grandparents? We buy our meat in vacuum sealed packaged (apparently having to see any kind of beast slaughtered has become enough to turn one vegetarian), our clothes are manufactured, our cars are maintained by our mechanics, even our environment is controlled by little boxes on the wall blowing in cold or hot air as required.
Seriously, (OK, I’m not really that serious about things here) what would happen to me, or to you if we were just dumped in the middle of nowhere, the proverbial desert island maybe, and we had to feed, clothe, and entertain ourselves? No sushi-train, no jeans stores, no you-tube (or timgoldsmith.com!!!) would possibly mean no life!
Who knows? Maybe we would adapt? Could I still learn how to do enough carpentry to build myself a house? Could I dry meat? Could a weave? How much could I entertain myself or others without my gagets?
Don’t worry, this post isn’t all about bleakness. Into this disturbing little thought pattern comes two rays of sunshine. Two men to whom I can look up & aspire to. Don’t let it be said that the “real” life isn’t being led while there is still Matt Lemsing’s & Glendon Mckay’s in this world.
Glendon first.
OK, I’m at Bible College. Most of you good readers know that.
You may not know, though, that my college is in a fairly “inner” part of Sydney. We are talking tightly packed houses. A house has only to stumble before it is tripped over together & buried under a block of appartments. This is the concrete jungle!
I state this purely to deliver a contrast to the view on the piece of concrete outside my dorm. Glendon sits with a bucket of salt, some scraping equipment, a couple of wooden boards and a bunch of hides!
This dude shot a bunch of kangaroos recently and decided to work outside the dorm at tanning all the hides so his kids could make fur hats on ag camp in the holidays!
Is it kind of gross being confronted with skins being scraped of flesh & then dried? Well, yes, a little, but Glendoes still gets award No.1 for “Keeping it real”.
Matt certainly deserves a mention too.
I went to his Oktoberfest party the other night. One might suspect that this would be an excuse for a guy to get rid of home-brewed beer. After all, that is less of a “wild-man” exploit & more of a trendy modern thing to do these days.
Matt didn’t make his own beer.
He did, however, make his own home made sausages & saurkraut!
Who makes their own sausages? I think he’s even working on salamis! All this while maintaining full-time theological study, a wife, three kids & a catechist (student minister) role at Church! Matt certainly keeps it real!
OK, this post is way to long. There is no point to it. I never really seem to believe in conclusions on this blog. Um… maybe take up some kind of “Oldy-worldy” hobby maybe?
Here is the Pic as promised.

Just a small part of what made Tuesday night great.

I went to see Gheever play baseball on Sunday afternoon. He did awesome for his first game! You can see the killer look in the eyes!

Saturday was Adam & Ed’s engagement party. For a rare change, I actually appeared in a photo! It was a good afternoon!

A nice beer & a couple of games of pool.
That’s one idea of a good night.

I like being a battler of theology, just like Jimmy V (Pictured).
I’m also looking forward to having my own one of these shirts if Luke ever pulls his finger out & prints them!

OK, the story about the picture is that it is the MLC building in the city, looking through a staircase.
The reason why I have picked it to go on the blog is because I think it looks a little like a toilet seat.
And the reason why I would want to have a toilet kind of theme is because I heard that JT’s laptop got stolen from his car last Sunday night, while we were in church. Having had mine stolen last year, I know it feels like your whole life has been flushed down the toilet when you are a full-time student and some absolute punk steals your laptop!!
I’m not going to claim that stealing from a church is in any way more wrong than stealing from anyone else, but it does suck when we got broken into 4 times last year, so we got all this security stuff, then all of a sudden it is cool to break into our cars during a service!
I’m more than a little annoyed by it!