Happy New Year!

Well xmas & new year are done & dusted, and it's back to everyday life tomorrow. We had a quiet but a mainly good holiday period - on xmas eve we cooked a very large ham


on xmas day we had a great lunch with my partners family, then went home and watched it rain

The rain kept up for the next four days, although in the brief pauses between showers we used the local park to keep cool

There was a break in the rain whilst I went back to work and then on New Years Day it returned, putting paid to our idea of heading up the coast for a New Years Day playing in the waves. Although in truth that didn't really matter as we were both suffering from some kind of bug

With both of us heading back to work tomorrow we both now feel OK, and the weather looks better. Isn't that typical?
Incidentally we finished the ham. I've had too many weeks of good living (& ham) and my weight has reached over 80kg, so it's time to get fit again. Not a new years resolution, just the desire to not be a fat bugger any more......

Watching it rain...

A combination of slowly-dissipating lethargy and bad weather has been keeping me inside recently. Which has been bad for my ever-increasing waistline but good for my brewing - I get bored easily so need to keep doing things to keep myself busy, and beer is a gift that keeps on giving.

Last week I made a strong wheat beer, and after bottling off a few bottles this weekend to see what it would be like 'neat' I added a gallon of watermelon juice to the secondary.

How do you get a gallon of watermelon juice? With a blender, a sieve and lots of watermelon of course...fortunately sold over here at 69 cents per kg for seedless...


It does lead to a bit of a messy kitchen
but mopping it all up gives me something to do for the rest of the day. And of course is something that I feel is essential and not something I'm made to do because I made a mess. Honest.

What's the point? Well I'm hoping that the watermelon will add a fruity depth of flavour to the beer. Plus of course dumping a load more sugar gives the yeast something else to munch on, which will produce a stronger brew.

Unfortunately the temperatures up here are a bit high for good fermentation. Too high a temperature can lead to over-active yeast and the production of different types of alcohol molecule which can add strong flavours to the beer. So I have to use evaporative cooling (also known as 'a damp towel') to keep the beer as cool as possible. It's not ideal, but there's not much else I can do as installing aircon is a bit over the top for the garage. I'd want to put it in the flat first.

I also made an IPA a couple of weeks ago with so much hops in it that it wouldn't pass through the siphon tube. I've bottled about a quarter of this but you can see the three remaining demijohns awaiting bottling under the table. Not sure if I went over the top on this one - it tasted overly resiny during the bottling, so I think I'll need to let it sit for a few months to allow the hops to mellow out. That will also give me time to empty a few of my existing bottles...

Let's hope the rain keeps up.

Summer storms

Summer means storms in Queensland, and this summer looks to be a good one for bad weather. Today golf-ball sized hail stones fell across parts of SE Qld, and this is just the start of the season.
It also leads to some spectacular clouds
A zoom lens can lead to some great pictures
and a sunset setting on your camera accentuates the reds

I think this setting should be called 'sunset / post-apocalyptic', and marketed at people wanting to illustrate stories of the rapture.

Hug my fat sweaty body!!!

It's been incredibly wet over the last few weeks and I think that's dampened everyones spirits. The sun came out yesterday and Brisbane hit 30 degrees for the first time since April - it's been the coldest spring for a very long time. But now the clouds have come again, and in the tropics a cloudy sky just means more humidity. It may only be 28 degrees but that is everywhere - in the open, in the shade, in the flat, in bed. And the humidity is up at 70 - 80%, so it's like living in a sauna but without the Finnish chicks beating you with birch branches. With no air conditioning we have fans running constantly and shower three or four times a day to keep cool. It's not as bad as it will be though, because I'm still turning on the hot tap a little. In the middle of summer you only use the cold tap, and you let it run a little while first to let the warmed-up water in the pipes clear.

Sorry anyone in the UK reading this, I hope you're staying warm as best you can!

Lethargy

I've been very lethargic recently and it's been hard (read impossible) to drag myself out to do any exercise. Not sure if it's due to the very busy last few weeks, a bit of a bug, seasonal fluctuations, something completely random & unexplained like biorhythms or moon phase or a combination of the above.

Whatever the cause it's lead to a lot of sitting around reading books & watching TV. In some ways it's a release - it's nice to give up all pretences of a healthy lifestyle and revel in crappy television, fried foods & chocolate. I have a reasonable base fitness and I've never been that fit anyway so I know that however slovenly I get it won't take long to get back to my peak, such as it is, and so I can just sit back and enjoy the gradual decline. Most of my cycling friends would be shocked to hear an attitude like that - no matter how fit they are there's always another level to reach, another peak to aspire to, and that seems to be able to drive them to get up early, ride hard and suffer the consequent aches, breaks & pains. Sometimes I envy that driven approach to life, it would make things so much simpler.

I also have some friends who are recovering from illness & injury. They've been off bikes for a few months each and are both hanging out to ride, so sometimes I feel a little guilty admiring at the bikes in the garage and then wandering back upstairs. Maybe you need something to be taken away before you really want it, or maybe I'm just a lazy bugger.

Family

Been a bit quiet recently because my parents have been out to visit from the UK. It's always good when people copme to stay because you get to see the same old sites with fresh eyes.

We toured Brisbane on the the city cycles

Checked out some of the wildlife in the local fishponds

Visited the rainforest at Mt Tamborine

including its slightly unnerving 'Skywalk'

Took a trip out to Tangalooma, a resort on Moreton Island where you can feed wild dolphins,

go on boat tours,

snorkel the wrecks (not the remains of previous boat tours, but deliberately sunk to provide calmer water for boats to moor)

or just hang out, enjoy the sunsets & meet the locals
(this is a highly poisonous lionfish - pic taken in an open-topped aqaurium with a long zoom)

We also took a trip up to the heritage centre in Caboolture, which has over 70 traditional old Queenlsand building preserved for you to wander around

As well as some slightly bizarre collections such as vintage radios

antique chainsaws

and generators

Add visits to the Sunshine Coast, navigationally challenged bushwalks arond Mt Gravatt, various pubs & restaraunts, river cruises, walks and the odd cleansing ale at home and it turned out to be a busy week!

Thanks for coming over guys, and I'll see you again soon.

The race that stops a nation

Today is the first Tuesday in November and as such is Melbourne Cup day - the day of the most prestigious & best loved horse race in Australia. It's particularly loved by Victorians, who get a day off on Cup day! But it's a national institution and the rest of the nation also gets to take part. All over Australia there are Melbourne Cup parties, race courses nationwide will be filled to brimming with people watching the race on big screens and most offices will organise some kind of event along with several sweepstakes.

Our office has a 'luncheon' where we all bring in something to eat, project the race up on the wall and of course we all need to wear hats.

The race itself is on a flat course 2 miles long so after all the hype it's over in just a few minutes. And then it's just a case of handing out the winnings. Liz scored big this year, drawing the winning horse on the $5 sweep and the second place horse on the $2. I just about made my money back with a 3rd on the $2 sweep. Never mind, there's always next year...