New Chooks Arrive

Hong Kong 30th Birthday

Winter Wonderland

Hello folks. Its been a while since my last blogging attempt and a lot has changed since then. First of all we are in the middle of a bitter winter, the coldest since records began. There are stalagtites growing in my kitchen, no seriously I mean it. The kitchen is the coldest room in our house, it faces away from the sun and feels like a cave. The windows are full of condensation, being single glazed and so its always wet in there. Great if your into fungi and mutated human eating plants. If there was a big earthquake and we had no water supplies, I'm pretty sure you could survive by licking the windows in the kitchen. There you go, theres always an upside to things!

Apart from surviving the bitter winter - did I say it was cold?? Well a couple of trampers (hikers) died not so far way from here, trekking in the hills. No one is sure yet why they died, there were experienced hikers but the snow drew close and they found their bodies about 5km from the hut they were trying to reach. A bit sad, made me think that hiking in the spring/summer is probably safer.

Also the weather means that my scooter wooter refuses to start within an acceptable time frame. It sort of make half hearted noises but never quite gets there....a bit like me trying to get out of bed in the morning. And now the main lights are not working making driving all that little bit more James Bondesque...mmm although I will probably get pulled over by the cops at some point and told to fix them.

My bunnies are under the table I am sat at, they have been pretty naughty recently, with various escapades into the neightbours garden, lolloping and leaping, eating the various vegetation and then disappearing at night only to be discovered the next morning looking rather bored, disillusioned and wanting to be picked up and taken home. Stupid bunnies.

Well we are soon to head up North for a long weekend. Looking forward to it. Hope to visit some active volcanoes. I need to see how the Scientology people are born as that where they come from. Volcano people. From the lava. Smelly. Oh yeah.

Sunny Days, Sandy Bays, Funny Ways

Well its been a lovely summer again, and although not as spectacular or never ending as last year, its been nice enough to enjoy snorkelling in the ocean, dining al fresco and BBQs at friends.

Its also been quite eventful, with the loss of my bunny Wiggles, that was taken from us by an evil cat. I hate cats. I've never seen the point of them as pets. But then I guess my experience with them has never been good. They always seem to catch animals and tease them, like my poor Wiggles, who was just being a bunny.

Now Lolly, her sister is socially hopping with the two new bunnies that we introduced to her a few days ago. They all seem to be getting on really well and I am pleased that Lolly is no longer alone. But I will not forget the loss on her face when she was lying next to her dead sister. If the cat owner could have seen the loss and grief on my face and the pain that it caused I am sure they would have thought again about 'letting the cat out for the night'. And I don't see why I should double the security of the bunny enclosure to prevent such loss. Cats should wear bell collars by law. A number of times I have found cat shit in our garden, it stinks and is unsightly. If it were a dog you would get mad at the owner and demand they clean it up but for some unknown reason its OK for a cat to shit wherever it likes.



So the cat downstairs where our lodger lives shits in a litter tray, which you might think is more logical. Except the stink in the house is unbearable. In fact there are now more reasons for us to part with our beloved lodger than for her to stay. I feel a little guilty to be kicking her out on the street, but she has a good deal here and I feel like she is taking the piss now. 45 minute showers, using the washing machine 10 times a week, putting all her stuff in the kitchen that she nevers uses, and complete lack of any social interaction. I don't even know what her daughter is called, so it tells you how much I really know about her. Not much.

Last night we asked her if she was able to move out earlier, and her reaction was interesting. She told us she'd already been looking but 'didn't want to share with 5 other people'. Shows you how good she has it. And then suddenly her bed mysteriously broke. Simon told me that one of the screws had been literally yanked out. Mmmm.

So now we are looking forward to not having a lodger until we can decide on someone a little more interesting, clean and pet free. My big hope is to find a vegetarian lodger that has a great social life, is a clean freak and goes out a lot. Mmm probably asking too much then.

Its a sunny morning today, I decided to stay in late and do some work from home. Its a lovely day almost a shame that we have to go to work :-(

Snorkelling South Coast

Just been snorkelling along the South Coast. We thought we would test the water (and my new wet suit). It was pretty marvellous.

007

Nettles alone thinking in the Lab

Here is an interesting thing. I am a scientist. Most of my uni life I spend in the lab or preparing for things in the lab. I never really wanted to work in a lab, I wanted to be out and about doing sciency stuff but unfortunately the cutting edge of science inevitably involves some fair amount of lab work. It even sounds boring writing about it, but that I am in the chemistry lab taking pictures of my little bugs I thought that I would stick one on my blog. Its pretty impressive. Its about 250µm, that 0.025cm! These things are tiny creatures and yet within their fossil bodies lies an amazing array of infomation about the climatic pasts. These bugs which can be millions of years hold are like time keepers to another world that hosted a completely different planet earth as we know it. Unlocking the secrets of these past environments allow us to have a glimpse, albeit given our limited scientific knowledge and interpretation, at what the earth was like and how is has changed. More importantly we can try and understand what was driving these changes and for how long. Apart from being able to go back into a phone box and travel in time a la Dr. Who, there is no real way of knowing how reliable this information is, but we do have a vast suite of other proxy data and it seems to correlate pretty damn good. Whats gonna happen to Planet Earth in the future? Who knows, but we are undergoing the changes right now and it may or may not be too late to do anything about it. What I always wonder is that the projections that have been determined all somehow assume that the human race will somehow realise and adapt its behaviour in order to avoid a major catastrophe - CLIMATE CHANGE. The problem I have, whether we like it or not, the human race, if it continues to survive, will at somepoint have to face the fact that the planet will dramatically change. This is going to be in a long time I'll admit but its gonna happen, like the seasons will change and the moon will wax and wane, the future of the human race will depend on its ability to survicve the planet after it has managed to survive disentaglement between its own kind. Humans need to be at peace with one another before we can moe forward and truly relish this planet for what it is. A bugs life is far more simple. For mankind I fear the problems will remain as complex and deep rooted as it always has.
When you look for peace
then the peace lies within you
When you search for peace
then it is not hard to find
When you want to keep peace alive
then you allow white doves to fly over you
When you make peace with others
then the whole world live in your heart
When you let peace be in the world
then you live in wonderful world
When you allow peace flow around the world
then your hateness will go and love will flow
When you open the door for peace
then peace welcome to your lives.
Let the peace prevail in our wonderful world

Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka