Lane Cove National Park

Hi there!

So we're getting more settled in our new place in Macquarie Park. We have a dining table now so we don't have to use computers on the floor. We also have wireless so we can both connect to internet at the same time (wow progress!) A couch is going to be delivered some time in March. Our belongings from Canada still haven't arrived which is starting to worry us, but hopefully it's just Australian customs being slow/thorough.

My job is good. Really hard actually, in the technical sense. I don't recall being as mentally taxed for quite some time - the HWDSB job required quite a lot of political manoeuvring to get stuff done, but the maths was dead simple. I'm kinda glad to not have to worry so much about the politics any more - when you're surrounded by others officers of the same profession (in my case statistics), you don't have to work so hard just to keep people convinced that your point of view is relevant. You can actually spend time getting stuff done instead.

Anyway, this post was actually meant to be more about our backyard. Our "friends" have visited a few more times...

...as well as other neighbours who visited this morning. They are making a killing with all the litle lizards and skinks around...

(they were about 3 metres away in these shots, and the one at the top was eyeing me suspiciously and trying to decide if I was a serious threat). A bit after this, three of them roosted on another branch nearby and did their maniacal laugh all together. Very nice!

Other wildlife is a little more scary:

These are orb spiders. They're supposedly not dangerous (as opposed to say a funnelweb spider whose bite can kill you), but orb spiders build these great big webs between two trees that it's really easy to walk into accidentally. The main web lines are this weird yellow colour and they're really strong - like guy ropes. I got as close as I dared to this guy - their body is maybe as big as your little finger up to the first knuckle.

Mike and Jan visited with another car-load of our junk (which they kindly stored for us while we were in Canada) and we had a walk around down toward the river. It's a nice spot, but pretty hard to get around. You have to do some bush bashing (no, nothing to do with the American presidency).

The weather has cooled off a lot. Summer seems to have passed us by mostly, thanks to La Nina. Still, I'm told that Sydney does really great winters, in terms of mildness.

We're going to see the Chemical Brothers at the Sydney Exhibition Centre on Friday coming up, and we've heard that Air are coming to the Sydney Opera House in April. So we're making the most of living in Australia's biggest city. Yay!

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This post was brought to you by Mr Random with cheese.