Last updated: September 19, 2006

Karen & Jenny Gallagher's September 2000 news

Hi,

Judging by the number of 'hits' our web site has generated, for a site where the intended audience is so small, it's been a successful experiment, so we will continue! I've taken the web counter off too, as the counter server was very slow and hence the page was loading at a poor pace - but it did give me lots of useful information, such as the resolution that most people were viewing it at (4% - 800x600, 29% 1280x1024, 13% -1024x768), the browsers (MSIE 5.x - 51%, Netscape 4.x 29%, MSIE 4x 19%). It's amazing how much info you can get with cookies! But at least we can check how the page looks for everyone.

By request, lots more pictures, and some input from the rest of the family (this is like getting blood from a stone)

Here to begin with, we have Jenny's azalea bed (with compulsory picture of Laura in the foreground) - this used to be a grass and rock strewn bank when first we moved in to the house, after many attempts to mow it safely and without damage to the mower blades, we turned it into a flower bed instead (by 'we' I mean Jenny, of course). It also serves to disguise one of the septic tanks so that it is not in quite such public view. The view of the house from this angle is rather boring, just the two bathrooms are in sight here.

And here we have our newest bougainvillea, only planted some six months or so ago, and it is already 5 meters high - we have decided to force it to climb, by simply tying up the long strands, winding them round the tree so that the string will soon be superfluous, and cutting back the growth that accumulates around the bottom - it has vicious thorns, but it does flower for almost the whole year round. We do have another, old and huge one on the other side of the garden, but our neighbours are the only ones who get to see the beautiful flowers growing high up the trees, so we figured (rightly so, it appears) that they flower facing west, so this one is on the east side of our garden so that our view is from the west of it.

Here we have a view from the garden wall, looking up into our fields; our block is roughly 50m by 200m (2.5 acres), so this is looking up the long part, our boundary is 'almost' visible beyond the line of trees at the back. Jenny has planted almost all of the trees you can see, other than the very large ones - Australian native trees grow at an incredibly fast rate, several metres per year or so - if they survive at all. We've found that many trees just don't do anything when planted, and after a few years just die - but if you move it to another location, it will immediately take off and thrive. It is a bit of a gamble to work out what trees like to be where, seems to depend on how much sun, how much water, what trees are close by, what kind of soil they are in, and a good deal of luck thrown in as well. It also helps if the hares don't eat off the tender young tips of the trees - during this long winter we have just had, there must have been a severe shortage of their usual tucker this year & they are making do with our saplings instead. The bushfires that raged around Brisbane in the last week got rather close, the nearest one was less than a mile away, we had thick choking smoke around for days - but we keep our patch fairly fire-resistant, with short grass and little in the way of fuel for the bush fires to feed on.

The dreaded Olympics are now on, we've had hype about it for the last seven years, with many scandals about corruption within the local organisation, the international organisation, accusations of incompetence - they are really confusing us. Confusing us with someone who is really interested, that is. It will be great when it's all over. Anyone know of a television station that doesn't talk sport, please?

With the start of spring, the pool is now at a more useable temperature, last month it was about 15°C, now all of a sudden it's 28°C. I've had to retouch all the digital photos a little because of the excess glare & high contrast, now that the hot Queensland sun is back with us again. We will put up a sun sail over the pool soon, as otherwise the sun is just too harsh to stay in the pool during the day in summer - between the heat of the sun, and the high UV that we get, it's not surprising that this state has the highest skin cancer rate in the world. As Jenny points out, we don't want to join the wrinklies too soon.

And now in response to the overwhelming statements of how cute our dogs are, here are some more dog pictures! It really is very hard to get them to pose for the camera, they are very easily distracted by the slightest thing that may be happening in their territory. Luci in particular is like a youngster, can't keep still for more than one second, there's always something to sniff or snort at, critters to kill, Laura to chase, food to be begged for, the list of her demands is endless. Laura just likes to stay in one place & look beautiful, although the same age as Luci she is not very mobile any more, her hip dysplasia has led to pretty severe arthritis already.

The truth is that they are both drama queens, they have to be in the pictures, but only on their own terms. And in me, they know a soft touch when they see one.

And now, some words from the rest of our mob:

Some words from Jenny:
I have been busy watering the garden. It has been very dry for a couple of months now so I am watering to keep the plants alive and the grass which we do not usually worry about. If this dry spell keeps up I am going to have to put in a more extensive watering system and a lot more mulch. Apart from the general lack of water the garden is looking good. All the trees we have planted up the back are growing well. I am looking forward to having a small forest up there by the end of summer.

Apart from gardening I have not been doing anything very exciting. Mainly getting up, going to work, coming home and going to bed. Now the weather is moving into the hot season I will have to cut back on the outdoor work which means I might have some time to read some of the books I have been accumulating. I bought a couple of the Harry Potter books to read to see what the fuss is about. I also have the first two books from Kathy Reichs and Captain Corelli's Mandolin. (I gave Capt Corelli to my mum to read but she thought it was a bit weird. I hope it is not as depressing as The God of Small Things. That would have to be one of the most depressing books I have read in a long while.)

We might also start work on our ensuite bathroom. We have bought tiles, taps and other accessories and just need some inspiration to start work. I also have a few small pieces of furniture to refinish. I also have some curtains to make but I keep putting this off. There is so much material in curtains it is a real effort to get started. One very hot day I will probably start as the sewing machine is in the office which is air-conditioned. Is is a good excuse to stay in the cool. Just listing all these jobs makes me feel tired. I think I will have to go and lie down. See you next time.

Some words from Richard:

Hi. Apparently its now time to do my bit and say something about what I've been doing. Well, Uni, I had to do some speeches recently and although they are my least liked pieces of assessment I don't tend to do too badly in them. I had mixed results last semester (2 fails, a pass and a distinction) however this semester is going much better, mainly because these subjects are vaguely interesting (Psychology, Microbiology, Environmental Health Management and Communication). So it should be better when the results come out this time. Apart from Uni I've been doing generic fun stuff ranging from seeing movies to a few parties here and there and occasionally when there is a good DJ playing a few nightclubs. A few months ago I went to Katie's (my girlfriend) formal, which was a good night. Well that's my quick rundown on the past while and a bit.

Well, Richard brought up the subject of Katie's formal, here's a picture from the night: it's also the first time we actually saw what Katie looked like, we didn't get to meet her for a few months after that!

Some words from Chris:

Hmmm well another term finished and more test done. School is almost over one more term (yeah) and the tests we do next term are smaller then the ones we have done. I'm still doing the same subjects as in year 11 (Maths B, Maths C, English, Physics, Chemistry, Information Processing and Tech.). Finish school and on to Uni, hmmm more studying, there is just too much of that. I had to get my learners renewed the other week.

Well I haven't really got anything more interesting to say than I did last year. I am going up to Noosa next week with my friends to have a LAN party (where we beat each other in various computer games) but that's about all. I am doing some work on web page making and using flash. I haven't done much in either but I'm working on it, I have made an intro movie for a friends site but that about all (and I don't think its that good). Hopefully I'll get better with more practice. And that's about it from me.

This is the nearest thing we have of a picture of Chris' school formal, we never got to meet his date for the night. He went as a gangster with his mates, all dressed in black. A man of few words is our Chris.

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