Saturday, March 2, 2024

Little Athletics - done and dusted!

It was Ella's final day of competition at the Belconnen Little Athletics Club. She has been a regular at the Cook track since she began in Under 6's in 2012...




Interesting Ella turned her attention to the throwing events a few years ago! And this season Ella coached the Under 6's in the on track program for the first half of the season. When she wasn't competing in the events she didn't like (distance or walks) you would find her coaching the younger age groups at the discus or javelin sites.


The president made a fuss of the oldies -  Ella, Chloe and Laura - that it was their last athletics competition at BLAC and organised this tunnel run for them!!


Another Talk

Building on my in-house talk on ultrasound assessment of endometriosis, I was asked by one of our Dr's to give another talk to a more general audience (GPs, obstetricians, sonographers and midwives). I agreed before I realised it was in Orange!!

Anyway Indi helped me grab some more images at work one morning so I adapted the previous talk to be shorter and more generalised.

A few weeks later accompanied by a several work colleagues we went to Orange for the weekend! It turned out to be a welcomed mini break away! The conference day held at Orange Base Hospital was titled Obs and Gynae Update and my talk was towards the end of the day...a long nervous wait! There were some really interesting talks in the morning especially one given by a Professor of Genetics about NIPT and Genetic Carrier Screening. Post conference we enjoyed a lovely dinner with a small group.


We broke the trip up on our way home as we detoured in Cowra for a wander around the Japanese Gardens. A wonderful spot!



Sunday, February 25, 2024

Goodbye to the Summer Crops

Goodbye to the summer vegetables! The tomatoes slowed in their ripening and the possums started to take advantage. As a result, I picked them as they began to blush before finally giving up and stripped the bushes bare. The green tomatoes slowly ripened up on the kitchen bench.


Fennel, beans, basil, parsley, rocket and eggplant replaced the tomatoes. The zucchinis were still chugging along as was the basil, silverbeet and rainbow chard.



Being in the garden is hard work for some and an afternoon kip is needed!!



Wednesday, February 21, 2024

First Time Course Setter

Ella volunteered to set the courses for a Wednesday night Twilight event to be held at the arboretum with Andy as her controller and Grandpa as organiser. They spent several hot summer afternoons checking potential control sites before finalising the courses. Extra care was needed to ensure all the rules (mostly unnecessary) set by the arboretum were abided by. These rules included notbeign allowed to cross the main road in the arboretum (limiting route choice); not being able to use stands or anything like signage that stuck in the ground! Then as for hanging the controls, there were many guidelines about which structures or trees and which branches could be used!!


Then Andy realised he would be overseas at the time of the event so I was required to step in. An early finish at work was needed to ensure we could get the 30 controls out in time - Ella doing a loop on foot while I was on my bike carrying stands and blocks!! Interesting but we got the job done with plenty of time.


The rain thankfully kept away and the overcast conditions dampened the hot sun at bay. The event ran really smoothly. Ella greeted many new comers and walked them to the start while providing instructions on how to orienteer and map read! One particular newish group arrived included a Dad and ~ 6yr old daughter. Funnily while they were walking to the start with Ella, a brown snake crossed the track immediately in front of them! The girl was freaked out. Ella managed to calm her down by telling her that the snake was heading off to bed! This was a good enough explanation for her and a little more encouragement saw her beginning her course. Unfortunately she was a dnf at the end after loosing her SI stick (or OACT's)  out on the course!



Ella received many lovely compliments from various orienteers which was nice for her. I'm sure she learnt lots too. The controls were collected quickly ensuring we made it out before the 8pm gate closure!

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

First Day of School 2024

Katy began the next day in Year 9! Her electives for this term include Cafe and Catering; Creative Cuisines and Global Studies!




Tuesday, January 30, 2024

First Day of College 2024

 Ella started Year 11 at Lake Ginninderra College! 


She has chosen English, Maths (Specialist Methods), Chemistry, Sports Development and Outdoor Rec. Her timetable looks like this... late starts Tuesday and Wednesday and early finish Thursday and Fridays...what type of school is this????






Friday, January 26, 2024

Flight

A last minute decision, we found ourselves hurtling towards Commonwealth Place trying to make the 9.30pm drone show. For three nights in late January, in apparently an Australian first, 600 drones flew over Lake Burley Griffin. Flight had 3 shows - 8.30, 9.30 and 10.30pm

Parking was crazier than expected and as a result, Andy dropped Ella, Ryan and myself off and retreated to find a spot. We walked very quickly to make the show arriving on the deck of the National Library as a dove was flying through the moonlit night sky!





We moved spots and watched as the dove changed into each of the floral emblems of the states / territories. It was at this point that Andy arrived to see the emerging kangaroo and emu and then the national emblem. The drones then disappeared back to their charging stations.





It was a little underwhelming show really - the images were impressive but it was over very quickly. We joked around asking Andy if he wanted to hang around for another 45 mins to see the show again.

Funnily enough it was on our way home when chatting about the show, we discovered a few more details.  The show was actually a trilogy - Welcome Yumalundi; Rejoice and One and Many. So each show told a different story and they were so short because the drones could only fly for a short time before needing to be recharged.