Marcus and Sophie Engagement Party

 Marcus and Sophie recently announced their engagement and had a engagement party.

Endoscope

 I bought an Endoscope camera of Ebay.

Problem is Google have blocked USB camera apps from the play store.  This will force me to go off market.  Google say this is because some 3rd party apps were collecting location data.  This is the pot calling the kettle black.  And of course creates a much larger security risk.

Anyway to verify if it works, I plugged it into my PC.  Win10.

It says "unrecognised USB device"

eBay item number:

384274529478

67 degrees

Got it to work.

Unfortunately for poking around in the back of the captiva fuse box, I need a much wider angle lens

Need more than 67 degree viewing angle

Boxing Day

 A wonderful surprise.  

I was making bacon and eggs + Pancakes for Marcus and Sophie when Chris and Dan arrive.  Shortly thereafter, Jemma and Mackenzie.

 

Luckily I had bought a new carton of eggs and a reasonable number of rashes of bacon.

After breakfast we all went in the Captiva to see Macbeth. Now that was a bit weird.  I need to get the notes of the story line.  I enjoyed it.  The dialogue was very hard to understand.  The sets were kind of early 70's start minimalist.  It's a square picture and B&W.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Day

Tough day Christmas. 

The front face of Christmas is family.

The Christian back story (not forgetting there were festivals pre )

Is to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Following the birth, we've the life of Christ, the creation and growth of the Christian church and all that goes with it. 

All that goes with it....

Started the day looking on Google maps for Christmas service times. Amazing how many churches don't put their service times on google and that don't add in the special occasions.  

 

Settled on Toowong UC.  

Church @ Toowong UC.

Nice light bright service. 
One highlight for me was a bible reading on video by a young girl who had memorised the entire contents of Luke Chap 1 & 2 and recited Chap 2 for us.

We sang "silent night".

At first cut my mind pictures a small clean crib complete with crocheted blanket and a mobile hanging from the ceiling and a baby monitor. But when one actually thinks....

A manger was a feeding trough.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manger

It would have have animal drool on it and the room would stink! animal poo nearby.

Mary had a baby in that room....

Did they even have scissors to cut the umbilical chord?

 

It's so easy to get modern lovey dovey mental images of the birth of Christ.  You know those nice clean idealised nativity scenes.

Mary's magnificat- first Christmas song?

CHRISTMAS FAMILY LUNCH
Was at Megan's place (Thallon St).  I was allocated to bring red wine and a Christmas Pudding

Lets digress a little here, On Wednesday, Megan asked and I accepted to bring a Christmas Pudding.  On Thursday, I set out in search of it.  I was at Woolies at Oxley and entered "Christmas Pudding" into the Woolies App.  It listed lots but had "Unavailable" shown for each.  OK me thinks and has a look at Coles Corinda and although no locations shown, there was no 'out of stock' message so I took myself to Coles and asked at the counter and they said they were out of stock.  I guess Coles can't be honest and clear enough to confess when out of stock.  I looked on Woolies Sherwood and they had a pudding marked down from $7 to $5.  Ahh what luck I thought.  When I arrived though and found the pudding it was 100g.  That's tiny.  Like half a cup size.  Gave up and went home.  Messaged Megan and she responded suggesting I ask facebook.  Friday - That paid dividends with a suggestion of the Yeronga RSL.  They had proper sized ones for $5.  Tick!

Back to Christmas lunch,  Scheduled to begin at 12:30 so I hold off until close to that time.  I feel quite awkward.  The burning pain of rejection still smoldering.  Having to smile and pretend everything is normal is energy sapping.  Even offering to help in menial ways like loading the dishwasher is risky as I will be called out for not doing it right.

 

So I smiled and nodded and tried hard to participate pleasantly.  The food was beautiful.  Ham, Roast lamb, lots of vegies and salad.  Marcus and Soph had helped out on Friday making a egg plant thingo.

 

 

 

 

After main course, we sat round and did "secret Santa" although as the presents were handed out it was pretty obvious who had bought for whom.  All the presents seemed appreciated.

After the secret santa, we reconvened for dessert.

After dessert was a game of ...?  You draw pictures and interpret other peoples pictures.

In the evening, Marcus and Soph came back to my place.  Marcus and I watched half a movie called "don't look up".  It was C.R.A.P.  It had lots of big name stars but the script writing was terrible.  About half way through, we gave up.  yesterday I watched the last 3 minutes and the ending was crap too.  I think they tried to make a sarcastic comedy taking the piss out of the American planet destroyed by comet movies but failed miserably.

And that was Christmas day over for another year.

I know in my mind it's not logical or mentally healthy but I get depressed thinking about the marriage.  24 years and 11 months.  Wasted.  the last 10 years of incredible loneliness.  Megan was busy busy fookin busy with all her good works.  I tried so hard to be good and of course would fail and she'd remind me of those continual failures.  I remember that various people would tell me that their ex would have nothing to do with them or the kids and I interpreted this as the distant ex being un supportive.  I now know there is another alternative story line and that is that the emotional devastation brought on by having contact.  The reminder of what could have been but now will never be.  Makes me, for my own mental preservation, just go. Go away. Far away.  I want the contact.  At the same time I cry over the loss of something I held so close to my heart.

Christmas eve dinner

Christmas Eve dinner

Marcus & Soph, Chris and Kenzie, Dan, Jemma.

Was nice to have everyone together.  

PLAN
Prawns

Baked fish, Potato Bake, Wombok Salad.
Mangoes, Cherries, blueberres, cream.

BAKED FISH
Thank you to Chris for help here.
Bought Sea Perch (I think).
laid the fillets of fish in the pyrex dish. 
They half overlapped in order to fit in.
Put slices of butter and garlic and
laid pieces of asparagus and broccolini.
Covered with alfoil.
Bottom shelf in Oven.   

Learnings:
Should have put the garlic and the butter in a cup, melted in microwave and mixed before pouring over the rest of the assembly.
Laying the fish partly on each other made it a bit hard to separate.  Not sure what to do about this.   I wonder if we could place something between the fish?

POTATO BAKE

Learning 1:  The pyrex dish did not fit the microwave.  Even though the microwave claims to be "wide"

Oreo did not think much of the garlic flavoured fish.

2021 Christmas Card

 This years Christmas card features a dawn light on the front and family shots on the back.

I received a very nice welcome card from some people in the street so I figured I would put cards in the neighbours letter boxes.

I do it on Word.

To fit in a DL envelope, the mid point is 10cm with the pictures 9.5cm.

 

Paper was an issue. I thought I had run out. Went to officeworks. I had forgotten what "weight". At officworks figured it was probably 250gsm but the choice was limited and expensive. I bought a pack of Kodak 240 and a pack of 250 sheets of Jburrows 200gsm. Beautiful and glossy but too thin. Then I found the 250g pack of JBurrows 250gsm. It had been put in a different cupboard at work. Definitely has to be 250. 200 is too thin and greater than 250 would be too hard to fold.

 

 

Chris Dan Jemma Came to Dinner

 Was nice.  Chris Jan & Jemma came to dinner.

Lamb chops, Corn on cob, Wombok salad.

Jem stayed overnight then off at the crack of dawn to go rowing.

Ths morning, I put Christmas cards in the neighbours mail boxes.