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Old fashioned lolly shops...

Who doesn't like walking into an old fashioned lolly shop and surveying the gleaming jars filled with acid drops, chocolate frogs, and multi-coloured candies of every sort? As far as I am concerned, the more old-fashioned the candy shop, the better.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to listen the audio book I had chosen for my latest trip back down the midlands after visiting my family and instead decided to listen to an old favourite by James Herriot. Those of you who do not know the joys of reading (or listen to someone else read) James Herriot have had very deprived upbringings and should rectify the situation immediately. Especially if you are interested in animals. Anyway, Dr Herriot, like myself, has a fondness for old-fashioned lolly shops, and as I was driving down the northern part of the midlands and into Campbell Town I was listening to him describe one such shop in Darrowby (and the cat that resided there). I couldnt resist taking a break from driving in Campbell Town to stop at the old-fashioned lolly shop and survey the gleaming lolly jars. Unfortunately they didnt have any Edinburgh rock (or a resident feline), so I got a small bag of 'fizzoes' and happily continued on my drive.

Pied Oystercatcher chick

Today, I once again headed up to Orford to sit on a beach and watch birds. This time, though, my friend, Rob, decided to come with me and help me sit on a beach and watch birds. We spent all day watching the birds, but the last pair of Hooded Plovers we observed were particularly boring and spent the entire 30 minutes sitting amongst the twigs and debris covering the upper beach. When we packed up our stuff and headed out we closely examined the area the pair were inhabiting incase it was a nest, but were greatly surprised when we found this (well, I should say, when Rob found this) -

No, this isnt a plover chick. It is about 4 times too big for a plover chick. It is a baby Pied Oystercatcher. We had noticed that there was a Pied Oystercatcher sitting very close to the Hooded plovers, but we hadnt paid very much attention to it. Now we know why it was sitting there. We quickly grabbed a couple of photos and then carefully retreated and hid until the adult came back from wherever it had disappeared to when we approached.

Isnt it cute :)

less than optimal

My mobile phone is dying a slow, painful death.

It all started a few weeks ago, when, for no apparent reason, the screen started 'blinking' when I was texting. I should tell those of you that don't already know that my phone looks like this:
except pink. Its a nokia 6085.

After a while the 'blinking' got so annoying that I googled something like "nokia flip phone screen blinking" fully expecting not to get any results, but just to make sure that someone hadn't written something somewhere to tell you how to fix it. They hadn't.

What I did find, however, was pages and pages of people whose phones had done exactly the same thing and then, shortly afterward, the screens had given up completely. The phone still functioned fine assuming you were blind and, therefore, didn't need a screen. For someone like me, though, whose phone is really just a device for texting (and occasionally calling my parents) a screenless phone would be, shall we say, less than optimal.

Field work...

Today, I started my field work for my honours project. Basically, I spent the afternoon sitting on a beach in Orford, soaking up the sunshine and watching birds. Not a bad way to spend a day. Especially considering that a good proportion of my friends are madly studying for exams at the moment.

Lets play a game of spot the bird...

Here's a nice easy one to get you started.

A tad harder, but still quite easy (this is a Red-capped plover, by the way).

This is what I spent my whole day doing - "I know its around here somewhere. Where'd the birdy go?"- Yes, there is a bird in this photo (its a Hooded plover). Every time I put down the binoculars to fill in my data sheet I'd look back up and then have to find the birdy all over again.

As you can see, I would benefit greatly from a photographer and a camera with a nice big zoom, because these little guys are a little camera shy (must be related to Jeff - he is still happily swimming around, by the way).

Anyway, just wanted to show off that I got to spend all day on a beach and you didnt.

"Not to be infantile, but I believe the correct phrase is 'Na, na'" I have no idea where that quote is from, but its locked away in my memory storage and seemed appropriate.

Seriously.

OK, so here is something that you are not going to believe. You are going to read it here and then go "No way!" and then google it and check it out on some sites that you actually trust to tell you the truth. Thats exactly what I did, too.

Pauley Perrette who plays the role of Abby on NCIS just turned 40!! Seriously. She was born in 1969!

The accused...

As you all know, whenever the opportunity presents itself I like to pretend that I am cultured and sophisticated and attend the theatre. Usually, Tiani and I go to see PLoT productions at uni, but occasionally we are even more cultured and sophisticated and attend grown-up theatre. On Tuesday evening, we did just that.


The Hobart Repertory Theatre Society were doing a production of the Jeffrey Archer play The Accused. The play is set in the Old Bailey courthouse in London and is presented as a murder trial with the audience acting as the jury. The only characters are the judge, a couple of court officials, the defendant, a policeman, and a few witnesses. The audience is greeted as the jury and briefed on how the case will run by one of the court officials and then as the judge enters the court room everybody stands (God save the Queen) and then sits when signaled. The case runs for three days (3 acts) so this process is repeated at the beginning of each act. It was so much fun to be interactively involved right from the beginning of the play. At the end of the case the jury, of course, gets to decide if the defendant was guilty of murdering his wife and the audience holds up guilty/not guilty cards to determine the verdict. There are two endings to the play depending on the verdict given by the audience. We, of course, only got to see one of the endings and I would love to know what the alternative ending was like.


Here is my review:
Acting - good (not perfect, but good).
Sets - very good
Costumes - very good
Casting - very good (except that I dont like the actor that played the defendant, but it didnt matter because he killed his wife so you're not really meant to like him).
Overall - loved it! Well worth going to see.

**** four stars