Canberra etc

This post is other random Canberra stuff. 

Key purpose was brother James 60th and Cousin Peter's 500th park run. 

BNE->CBR

FRIDAY DEPARTURE T minus

Jemma driven by Megan.

FRANK, PHOEBE & CHRIS

4:20 Depart Fairfield pick up Chris.

4:30 pick up Chris

5:00 am Arrive airport – Parking in P2 (Long ther multi story)

walk to terminal & check in

0610am Chris Virgin BNE - arrive CBR 0900

6:20am Frank & Phoebe Qantas QF1901 BNE->CBR arr 8:10am

After James Party,  Kay posted on the family messenger group a picture of James sleeping. This was my reply. 

CANBERRA DEPARTURE 

5:20 depart Hackett 

5:40 arrive airport

6:40 chris flys

6:45 frank and Phoebe fly 

Only we didn't. 

Delayed until 7:14 with arrival rescheduled to 8:05pm.

Chris was on virgin at almost the same time so we shared an over priced beer.

Delayed departure from Canberra. 

CAR PARK

I'd prefer paid $76 to park in the long term car park but on exit they'd demanded and I'd paid an extra $15.

Mt Majura

We drove up McKenzie st and parked. 

We saw the ponds where we would try for yabbies.  Henry told a story of his class fishing. The other kids had commercial fishing rods and he had one us older kids had made from bamboo and a reel found at the dump. 

The last part on the way up was quite steep. Getting old.  Had to stop often to rest and recover. 

What an absolutely beautiful walk. Blue sky. Dry air that was neither warm nor cold.  Tee shirt weather. Clear views to the horizon. [My] Big landscape photos don't do justice to the view.  I ponder the different colours of the mountains - is it different foliage or possibly the distance somehow causing the light colour change. 

war memorial

Jemma and James

James VS 60th

At Sutton Forest Inn

HOMEWARD DRIVE

Woden Town Parkrun

SAT 28 MARCH 2026

PARK RUN

Congregated at Woden Town Parkrun to celebrate cousin Peter's 500th Parkrun. 

Pre race was a mini reunion and introducing Phoebe to various cousins and their siblings. I think we need to draw a family tree. Managed to catch up with cousin Carolyn for the first time in forever. We also caught up with [Henry's friend] Simon who we'd skied with in Japan

With the grammarians rowing club leading me in a charge to lose weight I figured time to renew the aerobic focus on park run.  

Living with the disappointment that the airline's don't allow me to bring Magnus meant that park run was, for me, dog free and the focus could be on running. 

Phoebe and I agreed that we'd run separately and each put the race plan focus in the way that works best for us. 

A quite picturesque course with greenery and a superb

Storm drain.

I managed to run the first half to the turn around at 2.5km and continue on with my first walk bit at around the 3.5km mark. The last k and half was very much walk run walk run. 

Both Phoebe and I finished with times we were happy with. 

I came in at 36:52 and Phoebe at 44.58. 

As Peter neared, we formed a tunnel to welcome him as he arrived at the finish line. 

Glenrich st house warming

Fun flash back to my previous house as Phoebe Antonieff Mitchell and myself were invited to the new people's house warming.

Fun sunrise was seeing others I knew and also seeing lots of unknowns from their other parts of life. 

Saw : Rob D, Chris, Robyn, Tom.

Fri - First aid

Work paid for any staff who wanted to do first aid to do a course.  I went with Jesse and Jeremy on Friday.

Last time I'd done a St John's course was (I think) about 30 years ago with the church and possibly at West end and took two days.   My memories was it was really dragged out with lots of war stories and pictures of gore. So I'd avoided st John because others did one day courses.

This course was back to one day.  One thing I liked was all the getting up and putting on bandages or practising CPR.  Even though it was an effort to get up it did on the whole keep me awake. 

CPR

30 compressions 2 breaths. 

120bpm

To the beat of "Stayin alive"

YouTube Micro habits

https://youtu.be/DJBZRfibicE?si=FmLS70G_MQnXAFHR

 

1 - 10 seconds of sunlight upon waking up 
2 - Drink 2 glasses of water first thing in the morning 
3 - One line journaling - Brief daily writing - One sentence - Something observed or felt 
4- The visualisation, spend 60 seconds imagining your day going well
5 - Intention statement, write down or speak out loud what you want to achieve today 
6 - Two minutes start up, just do something for two minutes to avoid procrastinating 
7 - Single tasking window 
8 - Two slow deep breaths buffer before responding to emails or texts 
9 - The End and What chain
10 - Movement 
11 - Every day give one genuine compliment to one person 
12 - Use person’s name
13 - The assumption check 
14 - Gratitude anchor, attach it to something you do every day 
15 - Micro kindness 
16 - Cold water exposure 
17 - Read 5 pages of a book per day
18 - Week evaluation - reset
19 - Bed time routine 
20 - Never do nothing, do at least something 

 

Before we get into the positives of the above.  In the modern way of enshitification, the mobile YouTube  app does not allow you to copy text so I had to open the URL on my PC and copy this list and paste it into my blog.

Pumpkin Soup Recipe

PUMPKIN SOUP RECIPE 

No potatoe 

I'd always made pumpkin soup with essentially potato and pumpkin in almost equal proportions and a chopped up onion.  With the new desire to go carb free, potato's are off the menu.  Luckily Phoebe came to the rescue with a recipe below that has no potato and is dam good.  By a lucky coincidence, cream (but not milk) is on the approved list. 

1/2 pumpkin in chunks

2 onions diced

4 cloves garlic chopped up.

1 golf ball ginger chopped into small bits.

1 leak the pale bit. 

Chicken stock carton 1L

Some butter in saucepan

Put everything except pumpkin into a pot.

Fry a bit "sweating " but not cooking. 

Add some chicken stock if needed. 

Pour in all the chicken stock

Add pumpkin

Simmer until pumpkin cooked.

Mix it. 

New Italy