I am going to Cairns tomorrow.
Cairns Cairns Cairns Cairns Cairns.

Have a great new year y'all - I'll see you next year (and next week). :)

It's working.
Thanks a bunch.
I will work hard and try to say something similarly positive. Hopefully by the time you get back.

;_;

Wendy Lou said "y'all". Now that's a Christmas Miracle that brings a tear to my eye! :)

She may have been using the phrase as a twist of the knife - unless she is unaware of the loaded history of the word, in which case it's just bitter irony, which is nearly as depressing, but not quite.

Well I'm back - and sunburnt all over. Curse ye, beautiful blue skies and clear snorkelling water, teeming with splendid fish of all colours of the visible spectrum!

To reduce the jalousy quotient somewhat, I will report that I've discovered a previously unknown fascination with birdwatching. I even bought a field guide to Australian birds. Just when I thought I couldn't get daggier! :D

@Andy: Best reaction evar! :)

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.
Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra.
Gay is life for he.

(I probably massacred those lyrics)

Close enough. :)

Have you heard the naughty version? (in a primary school sense)

Kookaburra sits on the electric wire
Tears in his eyes and his pants on fire
Ouch, kookaburra ouch, kookaburra
Hot your life must be!

no,no.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Fucking all the sparrows he can see
Stop! Kookaburra! Stop! Kookaburra!
That one's got VD.

This is the version we used to sing in secondary school- in our best choir manner, enunciating clearly, modulating between piano and forte.

The jalousy quotient is not reduced. Please try harder.

Hmm.. how about the fact that my back now has approximately the texture of cardboard in the burnt places? Lovely!

And would you believe that I only heard the version of the kookaburra song last month? I was going to write it, but couldn't remember how it went exactly. And now you look like the corrupt one... bonus! :)

I'm also very glad that you're back after your mini-disappearance. Regullus and I (at least) both noticed and were worried.

You're proud of your sunburn, I can tell.

I thought I was going away for 2 days and hence didn't think I needed to signal an upcoming absence. I was away at Dromana for 5. It's a ploy on Mr.FPS's part to stop me packing the house. He informed me as we were leaving, and I had to choose between notifying you all of my holiday, or packing a lot more stuff. He still hasn't figured out it would make for a far more pleasant drive if he would just let me take the house.

Kookaburra song ;D

Hmm... well I'm the only one allowed to go on hiatus around here in future, k? Everybody else must stay and post slavishly.

Hmm. We're going down to Phillip Island next week. Possibly. And it may be for some days . If the weather is nice. I'm not sure how to break it to Mr. FPS that my commitments here at Namc will prevent that unless we get a laptop.

PHILLIP ISLAND, HOME OF AMAZE'N"THINGS?!

Now I am jalous!!

Obviously as a sciency-person Amazen Things holds charm for you. It's real purpose is as a place for desperate parents to take their children when the weather is crap and they can't go to the beach. As the weather is often crap at Phillipi (That's what my mother-in-law calls it, good, isn't it) it was a really smart move by the people of Amazen Things.

We leave today. We return on Thursday. Don't do anything interesting until I get back.

I would prefer to be going to Cairns, but I am the kind of person who can be happy with what I actually get.

And quite possibly a place for desperate science students to go because they are actually quite cool in that context. :)

I'm back. I didn't go to Amaze'n Things yet again. One day I must. If only to see all the happy sciency people there.
My niece calls it the Big Tap. I think it's a much better name.