Minky-whale washes up in our backyard

Well not quite ... but there is a connection between the two. For those greenpeace lovers, please don't read on!

Ok - we haven't written much lately. Since Friday afternoon last week we have basically been out working in the garden every small second. Things we have done:

• Hired a 5m skip
• Filled it up with soil and roots from the garden as well as a 6x4m section of grass
• Ripped out 2 large hedges, 3 ugly plants, about 10 large tree/shrub roots
  
• Built some steps out of timber, Norsk granite cobblestones, Sola beach sand, driveway pebbles
  
• Built timber borders for the garden beds
• Landscaped the garden beds
• Put weed matting down
• Spent a ridiculous amount of money on new plants
• Planted them
• Borrowed Mari's car with a tow ball
• Got 2 cubic metres of tanbark and trailer
• Filled up trailer with said hedges, ugly plants, roots, and massive stump i pulled out a while ago
• Took it all to the tip
• Landscaped area with tanbark
• Had a few beers to celebrate a job well done

Here are some pics showing what we have managed to do:


Here is just below our current deck. Already removed is 3 ugly bushes, a hedge all the way along where Emma is standing, and various other trees/shrubs from the previously overgrown garden.


Ryan and Coobs managed to help out with this also.


Here is where we ripped up the grass getting ready for the deck extension. It is planned to go about 400mm off the ground and have a step down to it the full length of the original deck from the original deck. We will obviously get rid of the railing from the original deck. I think that post hole digging is scheduled to commence on Saturday, although by the looks of the weather (http://www.swellfinder.com/forecast/stavanger_sola) it might be postponed!


With rubbish now removed!


SPOT THE DIFFERENCE. And no, it is the SAME dog.


Here was the framing for the steps. We had all of those old cobblestones lining the old garden. It's a lot neater with the timber border and the steps are a nice feature with the stones in them.


Close up of Emma's cobblestone work. We have to fix it up a little, and get some more sand. All in good time.


Coobs in his yard. The tanbark is down and plants are laid. We have weed matting under the bark also. Hoping for a maintenance free garden - Emma is more of a gardener than me.


Ok - "And what does this blog have to do with Minky Whale?" I hear you ask. Well there is a festival in town at the moment called gladmat. Literally translates to Happy Food. Well all sorts of stalls are set up and it is just jam packed. We went down last night to celebrate finishing our garden. Anyway many of you will be familiar with Australia's condemnation of Japanese whaling practices. The Japanese apparently claim that it is scientific reasons they kill the whales but end up eating them. Well the Norwegians are an honest bunch. They kill whales too (I believe it is the non-endangered Minkys they kill) but they don't feign some scientific excuse - they just go "No we kill them to eat them!". I have never tried whale meat before (let alone see it) and I saw a sign for Grillet Hval down at Gladmat. Grilled Whale - YUM! So I tried some.


Here is me - 10 seconds prior to losing my innocence. 15 seconds prior to claiming "Thats not actually bad at all ... I like it!"


"Anyone got any krill?"

I feel a bit guilty (Emma says its probably the catholicism coming out in me) and I hope that the claims that "the Minky's aren't in danger", and they "harvest them in a humane manner these days" are true - although I still feel a bit guilty. Sorry if this offends some people. I know it can be a touchy subject. It was Yum though!

Its raining and blowing like crazy at the moment (Typical North Sea weather). Kind of regretting my decision to ride to work today!

Have a good weekend.

Houdini – the great escape artist strikes again!

Well what a wet couple of weeks it has been. Since the beach volleyball (nice pics Joel!) we haven’t really seen the sunshine for more than a peek here and there. As a result, we’ve been pretty quiet and boring! Joel has finished putting in two gates in the garden, and now we need to hire a skip to get rid of a heap of soil and some bushes that we have to remove in order to extend the deck. So hopefully we’ll have some sunshine soon so we can get that done.

Cooba has been great, although recently he has taken to escaping from our backyard through or over our carefully constructed fence! We’ve nicknamed him Houdini. He has got out about 5 or 6 times. Fortunately we live in a great neighbourhood full of lovely folks who find him and call us to pick him up. He has recently been travelling quite a long way away so it’s a bit of a concern. We’re assessing our options at the moment with the fence, but part of the problem is we’re not 100% sure how he’s escaping. Joel and I feigned leaving the house the other day and snuck back to spy in him. You can imagine how stupid we felt creeping through the neighbours yard to spy on our own backyard! But of course just to make us feel extra stupid, Cooba didn’t go anywhere and we spent half an hour in the rain peering around the hedge for nothing!

We’ve booked a weekend in London during September when Mum and Dad come over to visit, and then a week in Croatia also with them so we can’t wait for that. There have been/will be a few big events in Melbourne that unfortunately we are missing – my Grandma and Grandpop just celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary (60 years – wow!). Lauren and Mark Rimmington celebrated their 10 year anniversary, and Lauren turned 30! Also Mum will celebrate her 60th birthday in a few weeks. A very busy time! We’ve been in touch with Zac, Fraze and Eliza fairly frequently (we heard her little baby noises over the phone!), and would love to see some more photos, so if there are any Irelands reading this perhaps you could oblige? Hope everyone is well, we’ve heard all about the freezing Melbourne weather. So stay warm and make sure you get to the snow if you can.

All the best from wet Stavanger.
Emma.

Local lasses and more!

Ok - I give in. After numerous and repeated requests, it is time to show the boys back home some of the local produce! Now perhaps not all of these pics fit the criteria of being exactly local (USA femail beach volleyball team for instance) but I'm sure no blokes are complaining!


Before I get in trouble from Em, I thought I best put a pic of her up - isn't she gorgeous! This was from the beach volleyball 2 weeks ago. We got given hats as we entered which saved us from serious sunburn. Unfortunately the sun has been hidden from view over ever since!


I was impressed by the skills of the US team! I was actually only taking this shot to test out my new Zoom lens. By the way - it works!


No one was really watching the game but I am told that the US team won!


The crowd was enjoying themselves!


The crowd was also enjoying the crowd!


There was some other Aussie contingents in the crowd (you don't have to go too far to hear an Aussie accent - but it is still nice all the same).


This is a good shot of the action.


Ryan and I in the crowd (the problem with a big zoom lens is you have to be quite far away to not show every crevice in the subject!)


Here is also a shot from a couple of months ago at one of the football games I have been playing in. The surface is not called grass but is called Groose and is no substitute in my opinion.


Even though I may look the part - Football (Soccer) is really not my strongest suit - but it is good fun and a good bonding experience.

Oh and by the way - whoever commented on DH's beautiful actress experience - it would be wrong of me to inform you of who it was he wrote the song about - just as it would be very wrong of me to inform you about the popular Australian singer who he is going out with! ;-)

Ha det!

Aunty Joel

I became an Uncle today!

Zac and Fraze (my middle brother (I'm the youngest and sim is the oldest) and Fraze his beautiful wife) proudly brought Eliza into the world! After an approximately 38 hour labour, she arrived into the world in Frankston hospital (already wearing moccasins and a flanny jumpsuit I presume - just kidding).

We got the phone call from Zac at about midnight our time on Friday night stating that labour pains had started. I was so excited to receive another call from Zac at 3:45am this morning that the birthing process was starting and from then on Em and I couldn't sleep from the excitement of it all. Then at approximately 8am Sunday morning our time Zac rang to tell me I am an Uncle. I was joking throughout the duration of the pregancy that if it is a girl I could be an Aunty instead!

Here is a pic of Zac and Fraze taken some time ago - but here it is for those who haven't met them.


We are both fantastically excited and can't wait to see and hold our little niece! We are sure she is just beautiful and can't wait to see some pics - if anyone can send some over by email it would be fantastic. It's time like these that the diameter of this planet really give you the irits! We are sending our love and wishes to Zac and Fraze as they both recover from this amazing experience.

Apart from Zacs phone call on Friday night, we also had ourselves a pretty surreal experience that night! Emma, Ryan and I went to see an Australian musician called Darren Hanlon play in Egersund at the Egersund Visefestival. It was about an hours drive away but was well worth it. For those of you who aren't familiar with his music here are a couple of youtube clips of some of his songs. Well worth a listen.


This one is of his latest single - Elbows. A true story about brushing elbows with a famous actress - he told us who it was about too! Currently getting a lot of airplay on triple J.


His more popular song from his recent album.


Probably his most famous song - Falling Aeroplanes.

Anyway we got chatting to Darren after the show and he was flying out from Stavanger at 6am and therefore had to get up before 4am to get there in time on the Saturday morning - so we offered him a lift and a place to stay. Not really expecting him to take us up on it, we went off to see another band after he played. Just as we were about to leave he grabbed us and said he would take us up on his offer! So we packed his gutar, banjko, ukelele and other odds and ends into our little Polo and made our way back to Stavanger.

He was a lovely bloke and we asked him to pose with a drink coaster Ryan and I got him to sign when we last saw him at the Royal Oak in Tassie. We just managed to finish the Tassie Trail cycling tour across Tassie in order to get back and see him and we got him to promise us (signed on the back of a drink coaster of course) that he would come and play in Stavanger this year and put us on the door list. Quite freaky and surreal experience actually. He was kind enough to ask me in the car on the way to the airport whether I had heard from Zac and Fraze yet about the baby. You never know - little Eliza may end up with a song written about her!


We have been a little slack lately with the blog but we do have some excuses! I have been quite busy in the last week as I was down in Langesund (a couple of hours south west of Oslo) for a few days last week when I had to organise the lifting and transport on a barge of the large Template (100 tonne extremely expensive lump of steel that sits 380 m below the sea and allows oil companies to get richer!) from Langesund to Stavanger. The project went extremely well and smooth with no hiccups at all. We finished it 2 days ahead of anticipated schedule which was an excellent result. Here are some pics of the operation.


Lifting it with a heavy lift vessel in Langesund.


Here she is sitting on the barge in Dusavik (Stavanger) after its 24 hour tug journey up the wild coast of Norway ready to be lifted off.


The big crane ramshorn block we used to lift her off with.


Here she is being lifted with the Conlift in Dusavik.


Me and Torbjørn ensuring the welders finish their job properly on the barge late at night after she has been landed on the quayside.


Also lots of people always ask how light it is at night during summer. Well this shot was NOT taken at quarter to 11 in the morning - it was quarter to 11 at night. It was from the other night about 2 weeks after the longest day of the year. As you can see it is still quite bright outside.