Last week of the year

There were live animals at church on Christmas Eve.



Also present: Camels and donkey, but nobody wants a flash-induced camel stampede through a church, so no pictures of Humpy.

But in the spirit of camelhood, I have to add some humphs to the party.

Like humph, I can't upload any more pictures. Something to do with my very bad Internet service (ask me which ISP and I will gladly tell you so that you don't make the same mistake I did. I only won't post it here because they seem to have taken all that money they would have spent on upgrading their infrastructure to improve service, and poured it all into forming a very strong legal department. It isn't so much that I'm afraid of retribution -- me, afraid? -- as that I prefer spending my days off reading or at the beach to preparing for a lawsuit).

Maybe someday you'll get to see pictures of the other things, such as:

Braised lamb shanks in curry at dinner with my cousins the next night. Wonderfully delicious, and as they melted in my mouth I tried not to think about the woolly little waggly-tailed darlings at the Christmas Eve service.

Plum crumble, my solution to having a bucketful of fruit that's too sour to eat straight up.

A batch of strange little yoghurt-almond-meal-olive-oil-blueberry cupcake/muffin hybrids.

And an even stranger tiny pancake, my way around having one last tiny dollop of cake batter and nothing in which to bake it.

Dinner with my cousins from Perth, in honour of Christmas, New Year's Eve, Chinese New Year, his birthday, her birthday, my birthday (for two years), their marriage, their first anniversary, Moon Festival, Winter Solstice, Labour Day, I-don't-have-to-read-any-more-thick-books-with-big-words day and any other celebration we missed celebrating in the two years since we last saw each other.

There was a lot to celebrate. We celebrate by eating. Thus, the only logical resolution was: we ate a lot.

And there was ice-cream after.

On New Year's Eve, there was another batch of cupcakes, hazelnut this time.

And, since it was a special occasion, they got frosted.

I still maintain that only people who don't know what goes into frosting eat frosting.

There was a ten-hour picnic at Cremorne to get the best view for fireworks. My cupcakes are going places now! This time, they had a prime spot with the Harbour Bridge in the background.

The cupcakes stayed longer than I did, though. I wasn't built for ten-hour picnics, especially during the Great Headache Week of 2009.

Fortunately, I am blessed to live but a five-minute relaxed stroll from an opportune spot for viewing New Year's Eve fireworks.

Not the best place for a picnic involving garlic prawn pasta and more lamb shanks (all of which I missed because I left before dinnertime), but if fireworks is what you want, you won't be disappointed.

And, because this is not the sort of place people camp overnight to secure, it was un-crowded enough for me to score a spot on the brick wall for my camera. Who needs a tripod? I don't know if the brick wall folds up easily into a compact foot-long package for car boot storage, though.

So I got some decent shots of the fireworks going off.

Also of what my camera would have seen as it fell backwards while trying to capture the fireworks.

And five minutes after it was over, I was nice and snug in my cosy little home overlooking the street packed to bursting with double-parked cars, while hapless drivers began to inch their way back home for hours to come.

Happy new year.