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So here I am, stuck in Sydney, working pretty much by myself. There are other people up here too, but they’re all off doing their own thing.

So out I go to lunch, all by my lonesome self. But that’s fine, because there was no-one around to see me drooling when I saw the object of my desire.

An Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

The closest I’ve ever come to one of these is watching Clarkson & co flog them around the Top Gear test track. And here I am, standing next to one.

Light blue. Stunning.

While I was dribbling all over the curb the driver got in, idled around the corner, and nailed it going up the small hill that the Nokia building is on. Ooh boy, what a sound. Fantastic. Wet your pants fantastic. F1 cars sound flat and boring in comparison kind of fantastic.

I’m about to list both the kids on eBay because I really, really want one.

I’ve been really lazy in posting anything to the blog lately. I’ve been really busy at work including a couple of interstate trips that have taken lots of time away from family, so any downtime at home I haven’t really been doing that much stuff at a keyboard. A bit of photography, but even that’s slowed down over the last few weeks.

My hope is that life’s balance is restored next week and work starts to relax and wind down a little as we head into the Christmas silly season.

I’m not really a big fan of traveling interstate for work; it’s a necessary evil as much as anything, but I do have to admit that this morning’s 45 minute dawn run around Darling Harbour and Pyrmont was wonderful. I got into the zone really easily and had one of those fabulous runs where you can just cruise along with such a beautiful rhythm you feel like you could run forever.

Yes, it’s that weekend again. As I write this the 24 hour hybrid race is still going; we’ll be heading down the street in a few minutes to get some pictures.

I took some shots of the primary school kid’s cart races yesterday.

There’s a photoset on flickr; I’ll build this up over the next day or two.

Long time no blog. But who cares — I found Line Rider, so all is good.

Mum and Dad get back from the USA tomorrow morning. We’ll be heading out to the airport to meet them.

I’ve used this info and had a little fun with the printer in the finance department at work. For a while it said OUT OF CHEESE, then I changed it to INSERT COIN. One of the finance people wondered if it was a virus.

I finally settled on OUT OF PAPER.

Lisa’s parents came over for lunch on Sunday and during the course of the afternoon discussion turned to an old cottage that used to be in the family in nearby Taradale. After a brief discussion we decided that we’d spend yesterday over there.

After a pub lunch in Castlemaine we kicked off at the cemetery. Lisa and her parents spent some time cleaning up one of the family graves, and The Kid and I wandered around with our cameras.

We then moved on to the Taradale railway bridge. It’s a very impressive 1800′s structure; lots of wrought iron and bluestone.

Next stop was the cottage we initially went to see, and we finally wandered up to Talbot Cottage, another house that used to be in the family. We spoke to the current owner (it’s for sale right now) about what he knew of the history, and found a bunch of interesting stuff.

It turns out that the current owner had a copy of the original title to Talbot Cottage, complete with flourished handwriting detailing all the Talbot owners going back to 1825. He sent it into the titles office when they computerised everything, expecting they’d scan it and send it back, but it never came back to him. I think I’ll go in there next time I’m in the CBD and see whether I can get a copy of it.

As expected there’s some shots up on flickr. I’ve also got a few more shots of the kids up on SmugMug.

I can’t see any way we can go today. The rain is heading north-west, so the whole Ballarat/Beaufort area is going to get absolutely drenched over the next few hours. You can see the wind vectors around that whole area; it’s circling around to cover that whole area.

It’s a shame; we’ll have to wait another 6 months for the next event.

We’ve had a big band of rain come through town this afternoon. It’s been threatening for 24 hours now, and finally broke early afternoon. It’s still drizzling a bit at the moment and there’s some brief flashes of lightening and rolling thunder every few minutes. If the bureau is right we’ve got a night of this ahead of us.

Lake Goldsmith might not be an option tomorrow, unfortunately. Even if the rain does hold off it’s going to be so muddy it won’t be funny.

There’s a few rain inspired shots up on flickr, including this reminder that I should have fixed the gutter.

It’s during wet and thundery weather like this that country living is at its best. One thing I really appreciate about living where we do is that you can see a decent horizon, and thunderstorms are so much better when you can do that. Lisa put it well: You really know your place in the world when you live in the country.