Macaroni woke up Christmas morning to find a much-much-MUCH-wished for, salt water aquarium in the living room

I have no idea how Santa got this mammoth thing into our house

But I do know Diamond has put his back out and owes his Dad more than a few beers

This thing is like a happening little ecosystem, with new things popping up and growing from the live rock every day

 

Macaroni’s first order of business was to name all the inhabitants of the tank

According to the accompanying letter from Santa, she had 2 clown fish from Australia, a fire fish, cleaner shrimp, 2 really fast yellow ones and a very cool little purple long one that I can’t remember what they were called comes out very rarely – a dozen little crabs and some snails

She settled on Sara & Lara, for the yellow ones. Angel for the angel fish. Dancer for the shy one, Herbert for the shrimp.

And the 2 from Australia? Boomerang and Cherry Ripe

I’m not big on fish and the bucketload of work that goes into maintaining a saltwater tank – but Diamond is the man. Having wanted a saltwater tank since we first moved into our house, he’s a very happy boy

He and Macaroni have spent the last few days reading their ‘how to’ books on saltwater fish and visiting the local aquarium shops to get all the bits and bobs they need

Meanwhile I have been playing and hanging out with Magoo and her new Hamster

Like fuck I have

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am off on an adventure

On my lonesome

A Thelma without her Louise

With no GPS

No mobile phone

No sleep

I would be nervous

Except I AM traveling with a case of wine

So don’t you be worrying about me

Imma gonna be just fine thankyouverymuch

I’ll tell you more about it a little bit later

In the meantime, here’s a couple of clues

And no, I’m not going out for steak

And you KNOW I won’t be going horse riding again!

Hmmmm….

 

*awesome pics from the fab photog Bush Babe <<– big ol’ clue right thar

 

This just made my day

Although I can’t work out if it’s kinda cruel to the dog or not

He seems OK

Fuck it

I’m signing Fluffy and I up for salsa lessons anyway

Our week in Japan for MateRock went so fast, and was full-on times a bazillion. I didn’t get time to blog on the trip, because I was lazy and drunk a lot so I’m going to break it down over a few blogs, before I forget everything…

read day one (part 1) here

read day one (part 2) here

read day two (part 1) here

We dried off after our paddling gorilla workout

Headed back to our accommodation

Then played follow the leader

By now there were more than 40 of us gathered in Hakuba

Adrian’s family & friends

And all the other bands and crew

We walked through the forest, headed toward a restaurant where we’d be stopping for lunch

First though, we stopped at an old temple hidden in the trees

Adrian’s daughter Natasha, who is half Japanese, half Australian

Led us in a short prayer, asking for clear skies and a successful show the next day

It then proceeded to rain

I took that as a sign that the clouds were emptying out before the big gig

Then we walked through a little village

None of which was open

As it’s basically a ski resort and only open 3 months every year

On the other side of the village I saw gondolas

As in, big round balls, with people in them

Flying up the mountain

Sweet Jesus

Actually, halfway up the mountain

Then we got on ski lifts to take us the rest of the way up

I’m glad SOME people found it fun

Don’t get me wrong, the view was stunning

But I’ve got to tell you, I was terrified

Like, covering my eyes, chanting, “will not cry, will not vomit, will not cry vomit – terrified

And trying to remember if I’d remembered to get travel insurance for the trip

Nope

As always, feeding my face lunch made it better

Medicinal purposes only

Double helpings of desert is always an effective treatment for being a pussy anxiety

This is the ski jump from the 1998 Nagano Olympics

Yep, we were THAT high up

Now for the trip down

MUMMY!

Once we were back at the bottom and I stopped crying

I looked back up the mountain and couldn’t even SEE the tip

Where we’d been half an hour before

It was covered in clouds

I was happy that the peer group pressure of 40+ other people got me to do something that I would NEVER have normally put my hand up for sober

But wait, there’s more... but not right now because I have some SERIOUS packing to do