The magpies are gathering in our street, and swooping season approaches. Help!

I used to look forward to spring. Who wouldn't? It's a beautiful time of year. But for the last 10 years or so, I have somehow ended up on the magpie hit list. Now every year I dread the coming of spring and the accompanying magpie nesting season.

Just in case I have some international readers, I should note that I am talking about the Australian Magpie. This is a particularly fearsome bird, quite large and with ...

Tim and I are now planning to move to Darwin early next year (probably February) rather than late this year. The reason is a mixture of finances, renovations required to rent out our house, and an aversion to moving to the tropics in the middle of the build up.

At the end of July I'll finish work at the beautiful library where I'm currently employed. Rather than do temp work until the move, I decided that this seems like a pretty great opportunity to re-enrol in my Masters in Library and Info...

Sunday was museum day, and we started out at the Maritime Museum. I have a thing for swashbuckling tales of adventure, so was interested to find out more about Hobart's rich maritime history. More models of ships than I personally needed to see, but great stories made it a worthwhile visit.

Mum and I then went on to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, which provided an interesting combination of fact and fantasy. I loved the Antarctic exhibition, which included a 3D theatrette for viewing so...

A couple of weeks ago, my mum and I took a trip together to Hobart, Tasmania. I figured I'd better write a blog entry about it now, while I have access to a working computer :). I've also uploaded some pics to my Flickr account.

We had a slow start, with fog in Melbourne delaying take-off for almost 3 hours. But happily that did not foreshadow any further problems! We stayed at Hadleys Hotel in Hobart's CBD. This historic hotel was built in 1834 by convict labor, and we found it to be well lo...

Well, the computer is almost back to its old self. The programs are reinstalled, passwords and preferences have been entered, virus checks are in order.

There's only one thing missing.

The Sims is not installed yet. No, not the brand new Sims 3 that will be released here on Thursday. No, not its precursor Sims 2. I'm talking about The Sims, originally released in 2000. Old school.

It's a bit clunky and prone to crashing, but it's my fave computer game. I can play with the characters that I...