Maggie is not happy that summer holidays have started in Melbourne. She relies on the kids from the nearby primary school to provide her with dropped snacks on her daily walk!
2022 NBN update: 3% faster
Every time we move house my first blog post is always an update on what the NBN internet speeds are at our new place. This time is no exception.
What is different this time is that, instead of renting, we’ve now bought a house in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. (Yay!)
Compared to our last place, the upload and download speeds at our new house are around 3% faster – which is cool.
Our NBN connection type is still FTTC though. But that’s okay, the speeds we’re currently getting are sufficient for our needs.
There’s just two of us here, so Nadia and I can stream multiple 4K videos simultaneously without a hitch. And both of us can seamlessly participate in 1080p video conferences at the same time as well.
Of course, the second NBN Co give us the opportunity to upgrade our connection to FTTP, we’ll jump on that straight away :)
For now, though, I’m super happy with what we’ve got.
Medibank data breach
Finally got the email [1] from Medibank saying that my old membership data with them was stolen by cyber criminals.
I left Medibank in 2009 so, with the exception of my name, gender, and date of birth [2], all the other data they have one me is now outdated and irrelevant.
And while it’s not great that various cybercriminals now have this data, in the broader scheme of things ‘tis but a flesh wound. After all, there’s not much that cybercriminals can do with a single old residential address, an old pre-paid phone number, and an expired Pakistani passport number :)
(Why Medibank kept all my customer data thirteen years after I closed my account with them is a whole other issue, of course. *sigh*)
[1] I got the email from them on 15 November 2022.
[2] You can find all this about me using open-source intelligence gathering anyway — like by looking through my social media feeds and seeing when my friends have wished me ‘happy birthday’, for example.
Gaps in the rain radar
I’m very pleased with my ability to find the gaps in the rain in which to walk the dog.
The arrow on the rain radar map below shows the direction the clouds are moving in. The gap marked out is when I walked Maggie.
And this is what happened exactly two minutes after we got home!
Walking in the rain
I’ve gotten very good at interpreting the Bureau of Meteorology rain radar to find 15–30-minute gaps in the downpour during which I can walk Maggie.
This photo is from our successful zip around the block yesterday.
You can’t 100% rely on the rain radar, of course, so Maggie and I are always dressed for the worst.
This Ruff n Rugged oilskin coat from PETstock works remarkably well, and Maggie is comfortable wearing it.
Today, however, we’ve had short showers followed by periods of bright, warm sunshine — the latter of which Maggie is making the most of.
Fortunately, we don’t live near a river so we’ve avoided all the flooding on the Maribyrnong. The flood retarding basins in Melbourne are certainly earning their keep this week!
South Asian Round Table at AMWF 2022
I attended the South Asian Round Table at the Australian Muslim Writers Festival 2022 which featured Nadia Niaz, Adalya Nash Hussein, Tasnim Hossain, and Tasneem Chopra (as the moderator).
The Coburg Library, where this event was held, is the very first library from which Nadia I got library cards when we moved to Australia in 2006 :)
The discussion was great!
The upshot was that we’re all excited about more (probably second and third generation) South Asians getting into the arts – both in front and behind the scenes. And though there’s been some representation in recent years, there’s still a long way to go and a lot more to do.
Here Adalya is talking as a journal editor about making space at the table for South Asian writers.
Here is Nadia talking about how she built her own platform to showcase multilingual writers in Australia because nobody else was doing it.
And here’s Tasnim talking about creating safe spaces for minoritised groups in her role as theatre director.
Finally, a big shout-out to Özge Sevindik Alkan from The Right Pen Collective for running the whole festival. (This particular panel discussion was organised in conjunction with the SAARI Collective, fyi.)
Özge is the festival director. And, as you know, a festival director’s job is never done!
It would’ve been nice to attend more events from this festival this year, but hopefully I’ll get to do that next year.
Tu chal, mein aaya
Shout out to Nadia for getting me this happy mug for my recent birthday and to Sophie Hurst for the lovely design!
COVID-19 vaccine winter booster!
Turns out when you’ve already had three Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations without any reaction you don’t have to wait around inside the pharmacy for fifteen minutes after your fourth one :)
Happy potato
Nice, long walk
+ routine visit to the vet
+ drying off in front of the heater (it’s a cold, rainy day)
+ pig’s ear treat
= happy potato (who is snoring gently).
Neighbourhood buffet
Best. Walk. Ever. Well, at least for Maggie.
We found a pile of chips under a tree (which is what she’s being pulled away from here), a whole open packet of crackers, and two small orange and poppy seed muffins.
She managed to sample a bit of each.
Delightfully dessert-ey
I’ve had a delightfully dessert-ey few days.
First I made a (gluten and lactose free) three-tier carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Plus a basic fruit trifle. Both turned out really well :)
Then yesterday I made two pies: one apple and one sweet potato.
I made the gluten free sweet pastry for these from scratch too.
The apple pie even featured an unintentional alien face :)
And since I had some leftover pastry, I made a few mini apples pies for good measure!
Those turned out pretty well too.
So yay for some successful weekend baking!
Happy birthday Nadia!
Happy birthday Nadia!
#StarOnAStick #PotatoQualityPhoto
We celebrated Nadia’s birthday with an evening at The Wilds, an outdoor festival of art, light, and performance that had food trucks, bars, and an ice skating rink.
We got a little wet – which we expected, given the weather forecast – but we had an otherwise lovely time.
Of course we couldn’t bring a cake to an outdoor event, so instead we brought all the macaroon flavours for everyone to share :)
For the record, those flavours were: French vanilla, Nutella, salted caramel, double Belgium chochlat, crushed pistache, original bubble gum, lemon meringue, crème brulée, authentic tiramisu, strawberry & cream, raspberry & white chocolate, and blueberry cheesecake. I got these from Antipasti Deli & Cafe in Yarraville.
Newport, VIC votes
I live in the suburb of Newport, which is in the Federal electorate of Gellibrand, Victoria. This is a safe Labor seat that last year Tim Watts won with a 15.8% margin.
So it was interesting that, over the course of this election campaign, almost all the political signs I saw around my neighbourhood were for the Australian Greens.
I guess that explains why in yesterday’s polling the Greens got the biggest positive swing (+2.97%) towards them.
Labor held on to this seat, of course, despite that 5.84% drop in votes.
Which is something I’m guessing the folks living in this house expected would happen.
Aside from a single One Nation and single United Australia Party sign, the only other campaign materials I saw sound the neighbourhood were anti-Morrison signs and stickers. Quite a few of them, actually!
One of which was gleefully updated overnight :)
#AusVotes2020
The down side of voting just as the polls open on election day is that it’s too early for a democracy sausage. Oh well.
The up side is that we were done by 8:30am.
Friday night baking: apple pie
Turns out I’m pretty decent at making pies :)
#WinningAtLife
I made this pie using leftover gluten-free pastry from last week’s sweet potato pie – hence the sparse and rather amateurish lattice work with the remaining few bits of extra pastry!
And, for those who are interested, I followed this American apple recipe from SBS Food.
Quiet snoring
It’s nice to have a dog that responds well to antihistamines. Instead of congested snoring while you’re trying to work you get adorable, quiet snoring :)
Long weekend baking: sweet potato pie
Yay for homemade, gluten free, sweet potato pie!
This is the first time I’ve made this pie and also first time I’ve made gluten free shortcrust pastry from scratch. Both turned out really well :)
Walk in the drizzle
Might not be a lovely, sunny day in Melbourne today, but we still had a lovely walk in the drizzle.
Late nights
When the human has stayed up way past your bedtime…but you don’t want to abandon your awake human to go sleep in the bedroom with your asleep human.
Tall crane is tall
Turns out if you need to pour cement into a block at the back of a good sized residential property then this is the crane you need.
It might be loud, but it certainly does the job.
It is a little disconcerting to have a four story tall crane teaching into the sky just a couple of houses away from yours though!