More appointments and beading

This morning I drove to the doctor in peak hour traffic which wasn't fun but so easy compared to KL! After seeing the doctor, I headed back home for a while. Dad and I drove up to Tea Tree Plaza so that he could get a few things for his next scout camp. We had a coffee and a wander around before heading back to the car. We drove to Harvey Norman so I could pick up the photo book that I had made for our trip to Cambodia. It turned out really well!

By this time, I had to head over to Magill for my acupuncture appointment. I had made an appointment with Robert Oon who was recommended by Michelle my naturopath. Robert practiced traditional Chinese medicine and so it was a bit of a change again back to Chinese acupuncture after having many session of Japanese acupuncture.

We chatted for a while and he read my pulse before asking me to lay on the bed so he could put a few needles in the usual spots. He left me there and I promptly went into a deep sleep. It was fantastic! I was there for about 30 minutes before he came back and removed the needles. If nothing else I felt incredibly relaxed. I made another appointment to see him in two weeks.

From there I drove over to Kate's place and we got busy making some jewellery out under her patio while Stan cooked us dinner - a good deal! Stan had cooked a chicken curry with bananas. It was delicious! After dinner we watched some TV before I headed home around 11 again.

A day up the river

This morning Dad and I had breakfast at home before driving up to Mannum for the day. We drove up via the chain of ponds in the hills and stopped in at Birdwood for a coffee and a snack before continuing on. We arrived at Mannum about 11 and parked on the main street so we could have a walk around.

Mannum hadn't changed much since I was there a few years ago. It was still a sleepy little place but it was a beautiful day and Dad and I enjoyed walking along the main street and just sitting in the reserve by the river soaking up the sun, watching the river and the birds.

We went to the tourist information center and picked up a pile of information on various areas around SA. After dropping the info in the car, we walked along the river up to the pub, passing the bowls club on the way. They obviously had a big social tournament going on as the music was cranked and most of the teams were dressed in costume - looked like my kind of bowls!

We wandered into the pub at about 12 and there was hardly a soul inside but within 15 minutes, the place was packed. Dad and I shared the special of the day - a dozen king prawns and I also had a side of salt and pepper squid. We ate lunch looking out at the river - it was beautiful.

After lunch we wandered back to the car and drove across to the ferry. The river was actually really low - the lowest that Dad can remember seeing it. We crossed the river on the ferry and continued the back way to Murray Bridge. Didn't look like much had changed there also. We continued onto the freeway and headed home by about 3.

We both had a bit of a rest back at the house and then I got ready to meet Donna to go and see a movie. I drove over to Norwood just in time for the show to start and to meet up with Donna. We went to see The Blind Side. It was a pretty good movie and not as "cheezy" as I thought it might have been. Sandra Bullock was excellent.

After the movie was had dinner at Primo's and chatted for quite a while over food and coffees. I left Donna about 11 and headed home.

More appointments

This morning I went to see Michelle the naturopath. Last time I had seen her was in October when she had put me on the detox program for 6 weeks. I was really happy with the results from last time so I was interested to see how things were going now.

After running a couple of tests, she told me I had lost some more weight but it had been fat and not muscle. I was happy with that because I had been working pretty hard at the gym to build up my muscle. I had a higher level of toxins than last time she saw me and was dehydrated but this didn't surprise me after the chaotic travel schedule of the past couple of weeks and I think I caught a sinus bug while I was in Japan and was still trying to recover from. She prescribed some more magnesium and also a supplement to help me absorb more from my food as well as a zinc supplement. I walked out of there a bit fed up with it all and constantly being told that I need to do more.

I had lunch at home and then headed over to Kensington Road to go to my appointment with Kate's chiropractor. Malcolm was a breathe of fresh air and his jovial, talkative manner but me completely at ease. He explained every thing he was doing and did a lot of muscle tests to check where things were out of alignment. He made some small manual adjustments and recommended I go for a walk rather than getting straight back into a car.

I walked down the street and across the road to have a coffee at one of the cafes before walking back and driving home. I had about 45 minutes before I headed out again and this time into town to attend a workshop called Websites for Artists. I parked on Hindley Street and walked to the Jam Factory and found my way to the presentation room.

The start of the presentation was the most valuable as the lady talked about various free methods of setting up an online present. A lot of them I had heard of before but there were a few new ones. After this, representatives from ArtSphere a website company for artists pitched their products which although was ideal for serious artists, it didn't really apply to me at the moment.

The presentation ended and I drove home about 7.30 and picked a cooked chicked up on my way for dinner. I watched some of the Tudors with Dad before going to bed.

Dinner with good friends

This morning I woke up late and Dad and I walked down to the cafe for a leisurely breakfast. We walked around the lakes and then back to the house where we picked up a couple of shopping bags before walking to Woolworths to buy a couple of things.

Back at home I spent most of the afternoon giving the bathroom a thorough clean - exciting stuff! I was quite amazed when I realised this is the first time I had had to clean a bathroom in about 6 years - oh what a tough life.

The council were doing some work on the water mains up the road and so they turned off the water at some point so I had to stop cleaning for a while. I left the basin tap on just to let me know when the water was back on. Later, Dad walked up the hall and heard the tap on. I had left the cleaning cloth in the basin which had blocked the plug and therefore the bathroom had flooded - whoops! Luckily I hadn't mopped the floors yet so I got busy doing that.

When Dad went up to his bedroom, he wondered why his shoes were squelching on the carpet. Apparently the water from my bathroom had run under the cabinet into his bathroom and out into his bedroom. The carpet was saturated! We grabbed all the towels we could and started mopping up as opened all the windows. What a drama.

So after all that, we got ready and drove over to David and Donna's place for dinner. I couldn't believe how big Patrick was now and Annabelle had grown 5cm over summer! It was nice to spend some time with them. We drove home about 11 and again fell into bed.

Into the Fringe

This morning I had breakfast at home before heading down to Greenacres in time for my passport interview. I had almost run out of pages in my current passport so I needed a new one. The girl at the post office was pretty crap and the first thing she did was cut up my current passport. She obviously didn't bother to read my application because I had requested a frequent traveller passport and she tried to charge me for a normal one. Once she had done the application online, she was about to send me on my way. I asked her where the passport would be sent to and she said the address I had on my application. Of course this was my Malaysian address. I tried to explain to her that I needed to pick up my passport here because otherwise how would I get into Malaysia to pick up my new passport now she had cancelled my old one. This sent her into mass confusion. Luckily she had enough initiative to ring the help line and they explained to her that I could simply pick it up from the passport office in the city when it was ready. I thanked her insincerely for all her help before walking out. What is the point of having to go to an "interview" if the person doesn't even read or check your application!

Anyway, back at home, Dad and I decided to go into town and check out some of the free visual arts exhibitions around the city. We drove into King William Road to the Hyde hotel. We had some lunch and then checked out the Uniquely SA photo exhibit that was displayed around the pub. There were some beautiful photos and all of them definitely portrayed SA.

From there we walked down to Victoria Square where we stopped to take photos of the two giant blow-up astronauts wearing tutus which were the Fringe mascots. We continued down to North Terrace and walked to the Torrens Parade Grounds where we visited the Helpman Academy Graduate exhibition. Basically a selection of the graduates from art schools around SA had their final graduation pieces on display.

Some of the work was amazing. I particularly liked a number of charcoal potrait drawings which were incredibly detailed and looked more like black and white photos than charcoal drawings. It was the finest charcoal work I had ever seen. I also like some of the sculptures including a hanging tear drop basket made out of steel. It looked like pipe segments had been squashed and then welded together into a shape similar to a 1970's bamboo swinging chair. One ceramic piece also stood out. The work consisted of three busts of carnevale women wearing elaborate headresses. Fine porcelain ceramic was the media and it was incredibly detailed work.

From the parade grounds we walked along the Torren's river past some of the other Fringe venues until we got to the Botanic Gardens. We went in search of another exhibit which we couldn't find so we wandered through the gardens and saw two weddings taking place. It was a beautiful day and would have been lovely for their big days.

Back up to East Terrace and we walked over to the Amacocco tent. There was an hour and a half wait to get in so dad and I skipped that and continued along Rundle Street looking in some of the boutiques. We stopped at CIBO for a coffee and also to look at their photo exhibit showing behind the scenes looks at last years Fringe.

We were pretty exhausted from all the walking by now so we walked through the mall and up to the tram to catch it back to where our car was parked. We drove home and I had a rest before having to get ready to go out again.

Again, I drove over to Stan and Kate's and we headed in with Luke to go and see a show called Circus, Trick Tease. We tried to find somewhere to eat and ended up at the Belgium Beer Cafe which was packed and the service was slow but eventually our food came and we wolfed it down before almost sprinting to the the Garden of UnEarthly Delights in time to catch the show. We pushed through to the front of the line much to the displeasure of the security but we did manage to find the venue and get a seat seconds before the show started.

Basically it was three performers who did mainly gymnastic type routines of balancing on each other and also using people from the audience. I was impressed when the "strong man" lifted four grown women who were sitting on swings suspended by one bar. That must have been over 250kg he lifted on his shoulders.

All three performers were amazingly strong. The other guy managed to balance on his head on an inverted wine bottle that was on top of blocks stacked about 2m high. And the girl, besides being very funny, managed to climb on top of both of the guys who were standing on each other's heads so she ended up being about 6m in the air standing on this guys head! It was quite amazing.

The show went for about an hour and although some parts were a bit raunchy (I felt a little uncomfortable for Luke) it was amazing. Afterwards we drove up the Parade and had a coffee at Manto's before I headed home. It had been a big day of Fringe activities.

Shopping and catching up with friends

This morning Dad dropped me at the doctors where I had to pick up some stuff and then I walked up to the Norwood Parade as Dad was doing his bus induction for the Kiwani's. It was a beautiful day so the walk was great although I was seriously sweating by the time I got there.

I walked around and stuck my nose in some shops but resisted the urge to buy anything. I had a coffee in the mall and continued to window shop before I met Dad at Manto's for lunch. We headed home and I chilled out before having to get ready to go out again.

I drove over to Stan and Kate's place as we were going out to Sinclair's Gully winery for the evening with some of their friends. We left about 6 and drove up to Norton Summit and beyond into the bush where we came across the tiny winery. They produced organic wine so we went through the tasting list and met up with Kate and Stan's friends. We moved to the big table down on a small landing where they brought us tasting platters to accompany our wine selection. As the sun set, black cockatoos flew through the trees and two friendly wallabies decided to come and visit the winery which was a big hit with the kids.

As we chatted, ate and drank, we listened to a lady singing. She was apparently one of the acts from Fringe and she was pretty good. After dark, a fire juggler came on and we all headed up to watch him. By this time, most of us had had enough wine to think that it looked pretty easy :-)

Back down at the table we finished our wine and wrapped up the evening before heading back to Stan and Kate's place for a tea. I drove home and fell into bed about midnight.

First day in Adelaide

We arrived on time and things were looking good until I got to the e-gates which weren't working. But I managed to get through immigration quick enough. Down at baggage claim it was another story. It was like a train wreck! The Singapore Airlines flight had landed 5 minutes after ours and so 600 people were crammed in a tiny space trying to get their bags and line up in the one line for customs. It was ridiculous.

I finally got out and met Dad over an hour after we landed. I was so exhausted from the travel over the past few days. We dropped my stuff off at home and walked down to the cafe for a coffee. I thought I had better try and stay up for a while before completely crashing. From the cafe we walked to Woolworths so that I could get some credit for my phone and a couple of other things.

Back at home I unpacked and then finally succombed to my exhaustion. I slept for a couple of hours and felt much better afterwards. Dad made us a chicken salad for dinner which we ate outside under the pergola as it was a nice night. I tried to watch Elizabeth the Golden Age with Dad but it was just all too much so I crawled into bed early.