Cause she knows that it's demanding, to defeat those evil machines.

We had a large work christmas party at the Convention Centre the other day. Couldn't help noticing the centre is looking a bit run-down, especially the outside where the trees and bushes haven't been pruned, and grass is brown, in spite of most of Canberra being bright green at present. Some voiced suspicions that there are plans to demolish and replace it; apparently ten years is about the lifespan of a convention facility these days. Seems disgusting to me to build a large public building with such a short lifespan.

In any event, I did much better food-wise than last time, mostly because it was a buffet and I could load up on the things I liked - baked potatoes, potato salad, and some ravioli featuring heavily. My only regret was that although we sat this close to the buffet - and there was no table order specified (whenever there is, my table is always called last) - we still waited way too long to fill our plates the first time - joining a huge queue seemed way too undignified - and they cleared it up before we got to seconds. This may have been a blessing in disguise because I then managed to put away two desserts (christmas pudding with custard, black forest cake), and that's not counting the fruit mince pies with coffee.

Now I have a week off work. I am prepared. I have lots of this:

And a nice person let me borrow this:


I'm getting to the end of my first delicious day of wool-wrangling and DVD watching, and now I'm off to play soccer. This is when I discover that even though I never thought I was fit back in the winter, I must have been, because it is always so hard to come back. Even for slack-off summer soccer. Wish me luck.