If you'd like to see photos from our Australia trip without any pesky explanations about where we are and what you're looking at, there's a gallery up here http://www.vertigogirl.com/australia_gallery/. I'm still hoping to do a more detailed gallery with explanations but it takes a long time. So, don't lose hope, but don't hold your breath either.

I spent Saturday up in the attic replacing more insulation. Now we just have to get some of those pull-down attic stairs to make access a lot easier. Insulation is gross stuff. Even with a respirator, I was coughing up some scary stuff later. Plus, my butt bones got all bruised from sitting on plywood all day - it's too low to stand up there. I would have thought I had plenty of my own padding, but I guess not.

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I crawled around in the attic today trying to redistribute the insulation more effectively, as well as putting some slats of wood across some beams so that we can start using it as a storage area. It is really nasty and dusty up there, though less stifling since we installed the roof vent last summer. Despite wearing a respirator mask, I feel like I inhaled several pounds of cellulose dust. Yick!

I bought a passion fruit plant today. I really hope that it will eventually bear fruit because I got addicted to passion fruit in Australia. It is wonderful with yogurt and especially wonderful made into gelati. Mmmmm.

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Annelise and I went for a walk last night around the Sea Wall in Stanley Park. I always forget how fabulous Stanley Park is. In the 15 years I've lived in the lower mainland, I've probably been there less than 10 times. It's kind of shocking. I've decided to embrace it as part of my Vancouver and go there on a regular basis. And last night definitely made the effort worthwhile because...

We saw an otter! An actual wild otter sitting on a rock eating a fish. Then swimming around for a while. Then sitting on a different rock eating a different fish. We're pretty sure it was a river otter rather than a sea otter (despite its whole ocean location) because it was brown and sleek rather than white/grey and fuzzy. Plus, it was sitting on a rock to eat rather than the classic lying on back and eating that the sea otters tend to do.

Man, I was excited. I never actually see mammals in the wild, probably because they're afraid of my squealing, "soooo cuuuute!" I was quite restrained, despite my better judgements and we got to have a good long look at him/her swimming, diving and eating. It was awesome.

Other stuff we saw:
- many blue herons
- a mama duck and ducklings
- an elaborate engagement on a bridge involving rose petals, Andrea Bocceli music, champagne, a video camera and a smooching couple
- a peacock (obviously escaped from somewhere) sitting on a post

I am definitely going to Stanley Park more often. And I'm taking the camera.

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Australia was amazing. We had such a great trip. We took a ton of photos and I'm busy processing them and getting them ready to post into an update. I will get it online as soon as I can. It's nice to be back to spring weather, though (it should be summer weather but it's Vancouver). The short Fall days in Oz were a real shock to the system after getting used to it being light for so long in the evenings here. I like that it's only beginning to get dark at 9pm.

Since I've been back things have been pretty quiet. Just getting back into the swing of work and home life etc. I rearranged the bedroom today but I'm not sure it's any better than it was. The small rooms in this house are incredibly frustrating when it comes to furniture arranging. If we didn't have the enormous Ikea wardrobes we'd have more room but then there'd be no place to keep our clothes. Alas...

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