Christmas ...

Okay, I know that it's a bit early to have had Christmas, but I've been in a Christmassy mood for the last few days. This is mainly the fault of Ms. M. Mao who turned up again in Sydney bearing gifts and food colouring. She turned my milk pink. She also turned some of my mashed potatoes red and the rest green. We had some amazing meals, including one at an Eastwood restaurant that was called something like "super-hot chili hot-pot with lots of chili and more chilies". (By the way, I cannot determine from GOOGLE - the fount of all knowledge - whether chili should have one "l" or two.) Anyway, Ms. M Mao ordered something from the Chinese section of the menu and so I have no idea what it was, but it was very tasty and full of chillies.

We also had a Thai meal with Epping with various work colleagues and another pub meal in Epping for the pulsar group. That was fun!

Ms. M. Mao and I cooked up a Christmas dinner during which I opened my wonderful present from Alexander, Emma and Peter ... a music box where you punch holes in some card to make music. This was heavily used the day after during a BBQ where one of my musical friends managed to punch out a ridiculously complicated piece. THANKS! Ms. M. Mao put a Christmas cracker into the candle which instantly vaporised the cracker, most of the candle and splattered molten wax around my house.


At work we had a large Christmas party where Mike and I sat around being grumpy and watched Jonathan win an eating competition. I was so tired! In the evening most of the summer students, Jonathan, Joris, Nicole, Kate, Albert and Mike came around to my house for a BBQ. It was fun. After drinking much too much we went back to work to play lots of ping-pong until late in the evening. I then crashed in bed.

Yesterday was also eventful. I spent quite a bit of the morning tidying up the house from the previous night and then went to work where Joris and I think that we've made a breakthrough with our work on limiting the existence of gravitational waves. Unfortunately, if we are correct it will be much harder for us to detect the waves ... lots of checking needed. In the evening Maureen, Sarah and Kate came around for dinner and music. We played the Brahms clarinet trio (with Kate on the viola), plus a whole heap of other music (including the Vivaldi concerto for two cellos). Today I'm torn between working on my software or going hiking somewhere. I might try and do both.