A Fright A Day hits 100!

CONGRATULATIONS!

My mum, Judith, has just sold the 100th copy of her book A Fright A Day. It's a wonderful true story of the adventure my parents had sailing around Australia from Sydney to Fremantle.

If you haven't downloaded a copy yet, you can get your hands on one from http://bookhabit.com/book/359/A-Fright-A-Day. There's also an option to preview the first chapter, but don't bother with that - just go straight for the full book - trust me, once you've started reading you won't want to stop!

I'm halfway there!

I'm aiming to complete my 18000+ piece jigsaw puzzle by the end of the year. That means I need to get a 4500 section each quarter. I'm a little behind for this past quarter due to holidays and, you know... life, but now it's done! On to the next section...

Oh and if you are wondering - the last quarter is underneath this one. Our living room isn't big enough to do the whole thing flat.

British 10km Running Stars

What do you do on a sunny July Sunday in London? How about joining thousands of supporters to cheer on the 26,000 runners participating in the British 10km run?



Phil's friend Duncan was so inspired by Phil's super marathon effort that he signed up for the British 10k on the spot. Phil agreed to be his training buddy and for the past two months they have been running regularly at lunchtime. Yesterday it was finally time to put all their work to the test.

Duncan and his lovely girlfriend Leanne stayed the night with us so we could get an early start. Our living room was full of nervous energy over breakfast as the guys discussed recovery drinks, energy bars and race wear.

After a quick train trip into central London, we had time for a few warm up photos before we had to leave the lads to find our first cheering station. Leanne's parents joined us in Trafalgar Square and we took up a key roadside position at the 2km mark. The elite runners passed us not long after the 9:35am start, and then came a long steady stream of runners, walkers, gorillas, chickens, cowgirls (yes - some people braved the heat in costume), but no Phil and no Duncan.


An hour passed... tick, tick, tick... still no Phil and no Duncan. Just as we were wondering if they'd decided to stop at a cafe for some more breakfast there they were! They'd been caught up in the huge crowd of runners and hadn't made it to the start until an hour after the official start time.


Duncan did a fantastic job waving at the camera and making it all look easy. Unfortunately I always panic snap - taking the photo before Phil has found me in the crowd, which means he's never smiling at the camera. More practice required!

The course was really well laid out so we were able to wave, cheer and yell encouragement at four points along the route. Best of all, being in central London we were able to enjoy all the popular sights while we waited. Duncan's friend Gavin joined us while we were admiring the London Eye, making us quite the cheer squad.


We all met up in Trafalgar Square after the finish for the post race celebrations with the conquering heroes before heading off for some Hard Rock Cafe recovery food.


Phil and Duncan recorded a great time of 58:56 - beating their 1 hour goal, which is a superb effort for Duncan's first race. Even more amazingly he raised over £1500 for a special walker for his disabled neice.


So what's next? Leanne and I had so much fun that we're encouraging the lads to move up to a half marathon in March. We'll see!

Nanta Queue de Tour

Here's a couple of snippets of news from the last couple of weeks...

Phil and I had a great night out at Nanta Cookin'. It's a live show that is a mix of Iron Chef, Stomp and the Marx brothers that has been a huge hit in Asia. The basic story is of 3 chefs preparing a wedding feast and they are joined by the restaurant owner's nephew who is completely inept in the kitchen. I'm seriously hoping Phil doesn't get any inspiration from their cooking style because there was food going EVERYWHERE and he is already renowned for his spaghetti sauce mess!

I took a Friday afternoon off and joined 'The Queue' - that's the official title for the epic queue for on-the-day tickets at Wimbledon (tennis). It was really well organised and I spent a lovely 3.5 hours enjoying the sunshine and friendly banter in Wimbledon Park waiting for my number to come up. At 7:20pm I was finally admitted and after watching parts of various doubles games I stumped up the £5 for resale tickets to Court 2. I only follow tennis during Wimbledon and the Australian Open, so I didn't know the two players Andreev and Seppi, but watching their match was a fun, relaxing way to spend the evening. Now, after 5 years of living around the corner, I can finally say I've been to Wimbledon!

As I write this, we are watching the monumental final match between Federer and Roddick. I can't decide who I want to win - they both seem like genuinely nice guys and I'd love to see Federer take the title of Champion of Champions, but part of me also barracks for the underdog. Phil doesn't think the match is ever going to win - it's currently 13-14 in the final set with no end in sight.

To top off a fantastic sporting weekend, we're really excited that the 2009 Tour de France has begun! Lance Armstrong is back in it again, and although everyone is denying that he is the team leader for Team Astana, we're still secretly hoping it's all a ploy and at the final curtain Contador will give way and Armstrong will win his 8th Tour. We'll see...

Alaska - Part 7

Continuing from Part 6...

Note: This is the end of the story, so if this is the first Alaska post you are reading, you should scroll down to Part 1.

Jan and Rob only had two days back in Vancouver with us after the cruise before they jetted off to surf in Hawaii. We raced off to Vancouver Island on the Saturday to check out a quilt show as Jan is an avid quilter. The first quilt shows the Alaskan images that are used when carving totem poles, which is a big activity in a country with such a booming timber industry. The second made me laugh - the plaque says it is a double rainbow for the celebration of the creators 40th wedding anniversary - before I read that i thought it was a tornado! Does that say something about me or the truth about the relationship...hmm...!



We also spent some time perusing the Granville Island markets in Vancouver where I bought this gorgeous necklace. (Apologies for the blurry photo.) I could have bought 10 pieces from this shop - they were all exquisite.


I stayed on for an extra week in Vancouver while Phil worked at the EA studio over there. We have talked a lot about moving to Vancouver after we finish our time in London, so I was looking forward to envisaging what our life might be like there. Vancouver had a casual outdoor feel like Perth helped along by the heat wave which occurred while we were there. We hired bicycles and rode around Stanley Park, visited the Beluga Whales at the Aquarium and ate THE BEST SUSHI EVER! If you are ever there, try out the Maple Roll and the Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box from Yamato Sushi on Davie St near the corner of Seymour St. I think we'd really enjoy the Vancouver lifestyle, but with the opportunities we have in London it will be a while before we up sticks and move to Canada.

Alaska - Part 6

Continuing from Part 5...

In case you're curious about the earlier quarantining comment - mid-cruise the ship went to red alert due to an outbreak of norovirus. Phil thinks I was patient zero after I spent one night "enjoying our bathroom facilities" which resulted in an anti-nausea needle from the on-duty nurse with a stern request to remain in my room for 24 hours after my symptoms eased. Luckily we had chosen a balcony suite, so I was still able to see the amazing vistas of Glacier Bay.






Despite the ship carrying about 3000 people, it never felt really crowded to me except when lining up for lunch at the buffet. When we wanted to get away from it all but still enjoy the view, we lazed on our balcony. Although, as you can see, it was a bit chilly out there.


Phil did his best salmon impression in Ketchican, and then it was time for some Dunstan family portraits.




Continued in Part 7...

Alaska - Part 5

Continuing from Part 4...

To avoid the $800 fee for the tour in Skagway, we hired a car and travelled the same route across the mountains into Caribou Crossing in the Yukon region of Canada. The change in scenery this day was phenomenal. We left the thick elder and spruce forest and climbed up to a frozen tundra plateau before descending to the smallest desert in the world - complete with sand dunes and palm trees!



Of course the scenery was forgotten when we spotted the brown bears munching dandelions by the roadside and we caught a brief glimpse of a moose or caribou.




Yes - there is actually a moose/caribou down the road there!

Here's the biggest benefit of doing your own tour - while we parked and watched this fellow for 15 minutes, the tour buses just slowed to a crawl and passed on by with all the eager passengers pressed up against the windows desperate to spend a little more time with this wonder of the wild.


Continued in Part 6...

Alaska - Part 4

Continuing from Part 3...

The boat they used was perfect for whale watching. All the windows folded up into the roof area, so everyone had a clear view.


We now have a zillion photos of this overexcited baby humpback who put on a magnificent show for us.








We were then treated to an up close encounter with a pod of 15 Orcas (aka Killer Whales). The first shot is my favourite photo of the whole trip, because it shows exactly what it felt like to be out on a small boat with these giants swimming around us - awe mixed with a smattering of terror!




Our tour finished with a sealion showing us that if you can't face-off for a position on the bouy, go round the back and try and nip the boss on the tail!



Continued in Part 5...

Alaska - Part 3

Continuing from Part 2...

I went to Alaska for two reasons - to see glaciers and wildlife. The glaciers were incredible, but the absolute highlight of our trip was a Photo Safari tour in Juneau, Alaska's capital city. The tour was split into two parts - a stroll along a forest trail to the Mendenhall Glacier and then a boat trip out of Auke Bay to see the sea life. WOW!

We had our first bear encounter on the trail when a medium sized brown bear ambled across the path a couple of feet in front of the group. Only one lady was saavy enough to get a photo of him while the rest of us just stood rooted to the spot in amazement. I'm not sure how much good the small can of bear spray our guide carried would have been if the bear had decided he didn't like the look of us, but I guess he was too busy looking for honey pots to bother us!

I was really surprised to discover that beavers can fell a tree! At first I thought they'd just chewed on this stump, but apparently they fell the trees so they can reach the branches to dam up the river. Sneaky little critters!


I realise you aren't that interested in random flower photos, but I promise this one comes with a funny story. When Phil gets inspired to take photos there is no wrestling my camera away from him, so I'd asked him to take a quick snap of these pretty flowers. In full artist mode apparently there is no such thing as a "quick snap", so I joined the rest of our tour group and left Phil behind to catch up. Half an hour later, we're all back on the bus minus Phil and I'm getting the third degree and looks of contempt from the other passengers about how I could lose my husband! Obviously I need to pay more attention in "how to be a good wife" school!


(Don't worry Mum - we haven't been married - I just didn't want them to turn on me if I told them I was living in sin!)

This is the Mendenhall Glacier where we saw the only penguins on the trip. Okay, they aren't real penguins but you get the idea, right?!





Continued in Part 4...

Alaska - Part 2

Continuing from Part 1...

Who's that handsome fella watching the vistas of Tracy Arm? It's a bald eagle... oh and Phil was there too ;)




It was pretty early on in the trip that I decided I was going to wear out the word "WOW!". Wake up and open the curtains. WOW! Sit down to breakfast to the accompaniment of dolphins. WOW! Have a haircut while whales cruise past. WOW! Fancy some glacier viewing on the foredeck? WOW! Catch the glass elevators up the outside of the ship after the show. WOW! Just look at the sights we had to "tolerate" - you can see from my smile how tough that was!





Continued in Part 3...

Alaska - Part 1

I've been promising a post about our recent Alaskan adventure for a month now and here it finally is! It's a long one with lots of photos, so I've split is up into parts. Enjoy...

This is the magnificent floating apartment block, that was our home base for our Alaskan adventure - the Holland America Line ship MS Zuiderdam.


The pictures don't really do her size justice, but look how big the anchors were!


We stayed on deck enjoying the sunshine as downtown Vancouver faded into the distance. After hours of queuing to get on board and a compulsory lifeboat drill, we could finally feel the tension dissipating as everyone relaxed.


I took three thick books to fill in the time on the ship since Phil and I expected that there would be long periods with nothing to do. Boy were we wrong! I didn't read a single page and even more telling - Phil barely touched his laptop! I spent time watching for dolphins, pondering over the daily quiz in the Explorer cafe, acting out Titanic on the foredeck in front of the gym, pressing my nose to my knees in the early morning stretch class, learning about Alaskan history from the onboard expert, trying to be invisible while the comedian and the illusionist chose victims from the audience. My favourite activity was learning to carve vegetables into cool shapes...




I missed the towel folding seminar, but every night when we returned to our rooms a new towel animal like Fluffy welcomed us to bed.


Speaking of food - it was fabulous! We tried a mixture of the casual buffet, the formal dining room and room service. I think the buffet won us all over because you didn't have to dress up and there was so much choice. The breakfast omelettes and post-show chocolate cookies were particularly tasty. Unfortunately I was quarantined in my room for dessert night but Phil took some photos so I didn't miss out.


Continued in Part 2...