This post covers events that occured between December 10 (the night of the 2011 lunar eclipse) and January 14 (when I installed Skype on my brand new desktop computer). There’s enough material here to appeal to a variety of interests, but mostly it’s about Christmas.

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It was overcast here on the night of the total lunar eclipse, but there were occasional gaps in the clouds, and it was a very pleasant night to be out. I walked over to Shepherd’s Hill Recreation Park to wait for a photo opportunity from the top of the hill.

Here is the blurry result. I don’t have proper equipment for night-time photography, so this is the best I could do.

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Near the beginning of 2011, I signed up as a volunteer for Austalk, a nation-wide study of how Australians speak. In December, I finally heard that recordings were about to take place.

At first I was told I couldn’t take part because the rules require one’s entire education to have taken place in Australia (I had six months in Scotland in 1983). But a day or two after telling me this, they contacted me again to inform me that a more thorough examination of their own rules permits me to participate after all.

We agreed that my first of three recording sessions would be on Tuesday 20th December. But the person making a record of this accidentally wrote me down for Monday instead, as I discovered from an answering message that evening after work. We re-scheduled for Thursday 22nd, which worked out fine, but here’s the kicker: I was originally planning to go home to my parents’ place on Wednesday 21, but this had been re-scheduled for Thursday because on Wednesday my parents had a funeral to attend. So it’s only because of the funeral that I was able to get the Austalk session done!

One is assigned a code name so that one can access data about one’s own recordings (not yet available). My code name is kind of cool, but I probably shouldn’t mention it in public.

As I write this, my 2nd session was only yesterday (Friday 20th January) and my 3rd is provisionally scheduled for February 2nd.

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The Adelaide Fringe Festival is coming up in March, I’ve already booked tickets for some events, and have others on a shortlist.

The ones I’ve already booked are those for which I’ve persuaded a friend to come with me: Faraday’s Candle by Re-Science and Eidolon by Nervous Doll Dancing.

I’d like to go to a couple of magic shows, including Time Travelling Magicians by Morgan and West (whom I’ve seen on TV), and Seven Stories (because magic performed to a narrative is a classic form, but all too rare these days). I’m also intrigued by some stage performances including The Origin of Species (comedy about Charles Darwin), A Donkey and a Parrot (based on one family’s historical escape from France to England), Fleeto (about knife gangs in Glasgow), and The Monkey King (Chinese puppet play).

The Art, Pattern and Complexity display has the advantage of being free, so I might go and have a look at that sometime, too.

I can’t go to all of the above. Negotiations are ongoing. Tell me in the comments, if you like, which ones you would go to and why.

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For the first time since 1983, Mum and Dad got themselves a Christmas tree without either me or my sister helping to choose it. I believe some local children helped.

I decorated it, though, and here is a photo from Christmas lunch, with my sister and her husband in the foreground.

As part of a Christmas present from Mum, I got tickets to some upcoming events. So I’ll be going to this (which should be great) and this (which should be great) and this (not as exciting, but still a free night out). I also got a novelty electric fly swat (which wasn’t very good) and quite a lot of chocolate.

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I had a red, inflamed eye for a few days around Christmas. Antibiotic eyedrops from the chemist did the trick, though.

Absolutely hated the TV adaptation of Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, which screened in Australia recently. The phrase “character assassination” summarises most of my complaints. I also thought the scene where Moist forces Adora to dance was socially irresponsible.

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I blogged separately the photos from our Christmas Day beach walk, as well as our Boxing Day adventures at St Kilda.

At St Kilda we gave out mini Christmas puddings we’d made, according to the following recipe (which we’ve used before). We didn’t eat any of them ourselves this year; we gave them all away to relatives.

I’ve published one of the photos from the St Kilda mangrove walk as a Zazzle jigsaw puzzle, which you’re welcome to buy.

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Going for a casual walk one day, I found this bird’s skull (probably magpie) lying on the ground. I’ve still got it.

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Near the end of December we went for another beach walk at Tippara Rocks. Photos:

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For a few days in the new year, my cousin Robert and his family (wife Katrina, three children) came over. It was great to see them, and especially to see how the kids are growing up.

It was the first time I’ve seen Joshua, the youngest at three years, since he’s started talking. I played hide-and-seek with him one day. January 2 was the middle child, Leah’s, eighth birthday. She’d already had a proper party another time, but she got a smaller one with us, in Dad’s office at morning tea time, organised by Katrina. As for the oldest, Kate, it was something of a shock to realise that in my earliest memories of my cousin’s sister, she was the same age as Kate is now (she’s eleven).

Here’s a photo of the three kids eating New Year’s Day lunch by the inflatable pool we set up for them. (The pool has an attached ramp not shown in the picture.)

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The very worst news from my Christmas break is that several cows died of dehydration on my parents’ farm.

A few years ago, my family struck a deal with the local council so that in return for letting them use some of our land for the new town dam, we got free access to the town’s water supply, which is pumped through underground pipes for the benefit of the animals. However, this January the system failed and the water stopped flowing. Such a problem has never occurred before, but once they realised what was going on my parents did everything they could. Altogether we lost about five, I believe.

(In the old days we got enough water in our own dams, but then the local roads were resurfaced and the runoff no longer flowed in the right direction.)

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I wrote separately about our plans to visit Canberra, and have updates to add to that post when I get around to it.

Here I will add that I bought the tickets online, which is the first time I’ve ever personally bought aeroplane tickets. Also, the reason Dad isn’t coming with us is that he’s signed up for an ambulance-driving course, as a new way of contributing to the community as he nears semi-retirement (where “semi-retirement” means cutting down to a mere fifty hours of work a week).

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We did a couple of jigsaw puzzles between Christmas and the time I went back to Adelaide on January 10.

The first was a 3D puzzle: an antique-style globe of the world. And when that was finished, we started on a puzzle that I’d bought my parents three years previously (when we visited my cousin Rosemary in Warrnambool), but which they’d shelved as being too hard and never attempted until now.

Here is a picture of the train jigsaw in progress, followed by one of both jigsaws completed.

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I had some lovely discussions with friends on Skype.

I’ve had a Skype account on my laptop since before we went to Europe last year, but can only make use of it when I have access to a wireless network. I don’t have wireless at home, but there’s one in Dad’s office which I made use of while I was there.

The last thing I did in my holidays was to upgrade my desktop computer, from a decade-old machine running XP, to a brand new Windows 7 computer. I’ve gone for a nice emerald green colour scheme. Here’s a screenshot showing my current desktop icons, start menu contents, and system information.

I’ve Skype installed on my desktop too, now (but no video capability, and no microphone other than the expensive one I keep in the cupboard, so, text chats only). My username is flesheatingdragon, should you be interested in keeping in touch that way.

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Mum’s mulberry-and-apricot fruit slab is very nice. I took some home but haven’t finished it yet.

That’s all for now; I’ll save more recent stuff for another post. Please comment on anything that strikes you.