Before ...

Photo by The Louse ... ASUS camera on wrong setting!!!!!

And here's a hand my trusty friend

Slipping, almost silently, out the back door
another year vanishes
to be talked about (if at all) only in the past
tense: the things we did, those other things
we never quite got round to (which we'll need
to see to soon); places that we'd been,
people seen and some we'd missed
or lost and then again
those others who'd lost us
or left us far behind as sometimes happens.
And so, for auld lang syne may be
(for more than just the habit, surely?)
we'll take a cup, we'll maybe sing
and try to make our peace with this New Year.

Sunday in the park with my mum

... and Spike too

I sat by the lotus pond in Sydney's Botanic Gardens, typing a long e.mail to my friend Pat in Edinburgh.  Spike returned from the souvenir shop with my mother who had selected four ... not one or two but four necklaces to take home as gifts.

We lingered by the lotuses, most of which were not in bloom.  Some had seed pods held aloft, perhaps ready to pop (if that's what they do).  Those pods remind me of alien species from 1950's B-movies.  Don't ask me why.  Here and there around the pond, mostly hidden among the vast leathery leaves, there was a splash of bright cerise where some flowers broke through the variegated green.  The brilliant pink of a world that my mother has come to share with us for a while: slightly exotic, often surprising and not at all like anything you would find back home.

The photo (not a little out of focus) was taken with my wonderful ASUS.  Clearly, one has much to learn.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101

Happiness is ASUS-shaped

I picked up my new toy / tool yesterday and started using it properly today. I am a very happy bunny. I love it.

I now have no excuses left.

Just do it Dougie.