Boxing Day holiday ... some results

New Zealand maxi yacht Alfa Romeo took line honours in the 65th annual Rolex Sydney Hobart yacht race for her 146th consecutive ocean classic victory.

Never headed after leading the 100-strong fleet out of Sydney Heads on Boxing Day, Alfa Romeo arrived in Hobart at 10.02pm (EDT) today Monday, skippered by Kiwi salt Neville Crichton. She completed the slow 630 nautical mile voyage (1,170km) in two days, nine hours, two minutes and ten seconds.

Ironically the 100-footer was last defeated in 2005 by Wild Oats XI in this race, when the record was set of one day, 18 hours, 40 minutes and 10 seconds. Wild Oats XI looks like finishing second some time tonight

Boxing Day ... what to do

If you are in Sydney, you can sail to Hobart ...

http://www.themercury.com.au/in-depth/sydney-hobart.html



If you are in Melbourne, you can go to the famous Boxing Day Test ...

http://www.foxsports.com.au/



Or anywhere else just head to the Mall/Shopping Centre for the sales ...

The story about Santa’s travels … how it started

Click below to check how Santa is progressing around the world on his annual delivery run ...

http://www.noradsanta.org/




or click here to see how this web site started ...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10418101-52.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1



Merry Christmas to all!

Effective christmas giving

What can I say?

Rain, beautiful rain

We have previously had some short term intermittent relief from the very hot, very humid weather, but we have now had some quite heavy (by non tropical standards) rain in the last few days. I am talking around 300mm since Thursday, with most of it from late pm Friday until this morning.

There has also been a tropical low weather watch giving us a timely reminder of where we live. It was the carrier of the rain and it then moved on towards the WA coast and has beeen named a cyclone - Laurence - the first one for the season.

The temperature dropped, the breeze turned up the pace and with the rain, the weather has been reasonably pleasant.

One of my mates of the cartoon world can add some humour to the situation ... it is just as well we have the Bureau of Metereology website to warn us to pack our umbrellas!

Thank you Swamp.

Pain ... it can get to you

The Boxer

Now the years are rolling by me
They are rocking evenly
And I am older than I once was
And younger than I'll be, but that's not unusual.
No, it isn't strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains
Yes he still remains.

Paul Simon is reported as saying: “I think the song was about me: everybody's beating me up, and I'm telling you now I'm going to go away if you don't stop."

I can relate.

Some lovely rain

It is two months since we got our first teasing rain of the season. 12 mm of gentle rain at the beginning of September and only one other fall in October. Last night we had our first storm of the season; firstly, reasonably gentle wind, and then out of (apparently) nowhere, a steady 44 mm of rain followed by a bit of lightning and some thunder.

www.swamp.com.au

There was one bad result, the small amount of wind dislodged some birds eggs from a nest high in the African Mahogany tree in our front yard. All that hard work for nothing. I wonder will the mother try again or perhaps some survived. It is far too high to even guess.

The garden really appreciated the drink.