I always thought a yard was three feet, then I started mowing the lawn. ~C.E. Cowman

Last weekend was the first mowing weekend of summer, this weekend will be the second mow.... My grass grows far too quickly.
We also used the grill for the first time this year - twice in fact. I love summer in Iceland, the problem is that summer (or rather spring) doesn´t love me - now it is itchy eyes and clogged up nasal passages ah the joy of hay fever. Once I laughed at people with hay fever - now i commiserate.
As you are probably all aware - if not I will tell you - Iceland came in second place at the Eurovision thingy. Yep - so the song from the last post was no 2, whilst in no 1 was the Norwegian entry, "Fairytale" which was written and sung by a lovely young lad with Belarusian origins. He really did deserve to win and he won big time - I think that the points score for Norway was double if not trebble our second place score. It was neck and neck for a while between the 2 to 4 place getters - Azerbajan, Turkey and the UK. twas a good Euro year this year I think.
Mum planted some lillies for me last year and they survived the winter and are blooming

Just so pretty.
Now I know that you are dieing to see the finished product down at the harbour - its great you can walk a fair way to the end of the quay - a bit wobbly - not probably the best place for me to walk at night after a few reds, but so far no falling has occurred.

Isn´t it great... now for some night shots - taken at around eleven pm

So pretty... need I say how much I love this place... well time to put the dog out of her misery and take her for a walk.

“99 percent of the people you ask about it will profess to hate it, but they all love it really.”

Photo courtesy of the official website... www.eurovision.tv (and it is the Iceland entry... so cool, so blue.. so yeh...)

Ah yes, it´s Eurovision first semi final night or whatever they call it - hence the blogging... am watching this, cringing and feeling that my mind needs to be occupied in some way while my ears listen to the various entries... Ah, like the 99% that profess to hate it - I love it... Our entry this year is Jóhanna or Yohanna as she is spelling it (to ensure that it is pronounced correctly), she´s already done her bit and did pretty well. (well I think so).





"I'm probably going to be calm when I walk to the stage, I always am. I'm not using any particular routines before the performance. Usually, my body becomes very tired, I don't know if it's a way to relax. It was great to get spontaneous applauses from the audience during the rehearsal, I felt it on stage." A quote from the official website from Yohanna



http://www.citebase.org/abstract?id=oai:arXiv.org:physics/0505071
just shows that some people take this extremely seriously - they even do research...
ah what fun... especially listening to our Russian hosts ... but who to vote for...

A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem. ~Jean Burden

Don´t you just love how the cat is trying to be stealthfull... (spelling??)

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. ~Proverb

Yes well.... some of these photos will say something else... beginning of May and it snows!

Then the sun came out again and one could resume gardening chores. Freyja and I received a visit in the garden from a neighbourhood cat... Neither was very impressed with the other. I will put a separate post with the cat chase.

To keep folks updated this is the house that will be housing the majority of guests for the wedding...

It´s the red house - we will have the middle and the top floors - have still got to go and check it out - it´s probably not the Hilton, but I figure it will be ok for a short stay... and hey - it´s not that far to the church, so no excuse for stragglers. My place for folks that don´t know is about 2 minutes walk to the left from where this photo is taken....

It´s gonna be sooo good.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~Henry Brooks Adams

I was inspired by Jomamma to talk about my teachers... also a recent post from Olga reminded me of how much a teacher can affect your view of certain subjects.
So here goes the teachers that I remember
Grade 1 Gosnells primary school - Ms Stibby (mum and I called her Mrs Skippy for the first 6 months - forgive us - we didn’t speak English and Skip was on the TV every day.) She was great
Grade 2 Gosnells... have no idea... just remember that 3 eights are 24... we all had to get up in front of the class and recite tables and we each had a multiple to recite... not sure I learnt what came after me - was more worried that the kids before me remembered their lines...
Grade 3 Maddington Primary School... Mrs Clews for half the year then Mrs Telfor (I think that was her name)
Grade 4 Maddington Mrs Clews - she was brilliant - such a nice understanding and caring person
Grade 5 Mr Biggs... from Sri Lanka - or was it Malay - can’t remember - just know that he told us the best stories after afternoon recess. All about jungle adventures and ghost stories... Half the time we were shitting ourselves, once literally one boy pissed his pants... he was too excited by the story to put his hand up to ask to go to the loo.
Grade 6 Mr Bailey - he read the hobbit to us and taught us to sing some Carpenters song - snowbird?... anyway he was brilliant, I loved reading and he encouraged me so much. He was also working part time for the ABC and used us as a test group for things that they were thinking of doing for primary students. In his class I had to sit next to the "special" needs boys - i.e. in special need for a kick in the balls... anyway...(I think these thoughts on why I was seated next to certain people in primary school needs a different post).
Grade 7 First Mrs Ellis, she went on maternity leave... she was sooooo lovely - a carer, totally nice... then came Mrs Damen... the name says it all. She was kicked out of the Catholic school down the road as she had become born again... (I think it was for another reason). With her came my arch nemesis Tony Pisano. Under her we took tests every week to see our class standing. At the end of every week we then had to move desks according to where we were in the "smarts" hierarchy. Needless to say I never reached the top row... was always at the end of the second one - just but not quite there - no tell a lie was there for one week. Any who, in her class I learnt to cheat - i.e. get the cards for this weeks math and the answer card at the same time - whoopee got them right but did I learn - nah.. God I hated her so much. In her class Leon Blurton was sat next to me on one side (the only exception to the smarts rule) Leon was a really nice kid - an Aboriginal whom I had known since grade 3 - we got on ok and so it didn’t worry me too much... Tony on the other hand was on the other side of me most weeks, only because he always cheated off me in tests!!!! (sidebar - he got put in the big house a few years back for fraud - cheated his clients when he was pretending to financially advise them - he also married the only person who I have ever been deliberately mean to - think mean girls times a few).
As you can see I was traumatised by this half year in year 7.

Years 8 - 12 Thornlie Senior High School. Now we get teachers for math, English, social sciences, science, sport, home ec, art - or in my case French.... (Why???? I still don’t understand).I will just highlight the ones that stood out in each year
Year 8maths - Mr Rissman... short American with great blackboard writing skills... pity he actually couldn’t reach the top of the board. From memory a fair maths teacherSocial Studies - Mr Reid - redhead. Nice guy - I love geography, history and all that crap so this was a favourite subject and I was a teachers pet
English....
Science...
Year 9Maths
Mr Maths White, moustache... smoked and was a good teacher...
Science - Mr White - came to us from somewhere in Africa, told us about the elephant foot coffee table he had (totally not right these days)... smoked a pipe - was fairly short and a brilliant teacher
Social Sciences... either Mr Reid again or Mr Ponambolum... (This is written in phonetic spelling - I honestly can not remember how to spell it - he was from Sri Lanka) again - I loved the subject they could do no wrong.English...... (Obviously not my favourite subject)
Year 10
Maths... Mrs Hatch - with the highest pitched voice I have ever had to endure
English... Mrs Edwards... no comment
Science...
Social Studies... Mr P????
I coasted in year 10...
Year 11 and 12
Mrs Maynard - maths teacher extraordinaire - she was so nice... followed by Mr ... can’t remember - but had a dodgy leg and was most amusing.
Chemistry Mr Graham... loved year 11 hated year 12 organic chemistry
Physics, Mr B... Biggins, Bean... oh he was so weak looking and so totally uninspiring (I also did not understand....)
I think a Mr Decker may also have been involved in these two years... I was just soo out of my depth... Calculate the time taken for a block of ice at -3°c to melt in a bowl of water 10°c .... volume blah blah blah...
Geography - Mr Hanrahan - looked like a freaky musketeer (of the French variety - all the hair and the mo) a very very good teacher

Have to mention my French teachers Ms Teo and Ms McPherson, such sweeties - I can not understand how they had the patience with moi...

I look back and think they were all in their own way quite wonderful... apart from Damen, Hatch... and Mrs Whitan... English teacher from hell in year 12... she was from India... had a classic Indian accent - loved the good/good looking people in the class, had little time for me - I got sweet revenge though in the TAE final exam (that meant 100% of your final grade) was written totally for me.. I had such a blast in that exam - I can even say that I had a wonderful 3 hours of exam time... and aced it... (she had never given me more than 5 out of 10 for every assignment she marked - I stopped handing them in after a while).... just as well that in those days what you actually did all year had no effect on your grade average for uni entrance...oh dear.. What a long post - but what a trip down memory lane.

Flickr had new photos from here... in case you care to see more photos of the same stuff

Oh yeh in other news.

Skagafjorður now has a sailing club - I went to their inaugural meeting last night - it is called Siglingaklúburin Drangey. Maybe one day I will learn to sail..... and perhaps spell.