I’m also including my choice here for my own reference and searchability (comment on Ione’s blog though please)

u2 - still haven’t found what i’m looking for - A favourite and also by Brussel Spaceship who miswrote it into “I still haven’t found the M&S store”

simple minds - dont you forget about me - an early tape with one of my favourite tracks - it just went on and on and on.

marillion - warm wet circles - On a mix tape a friend made for me at school.

meatloaf - bat out of hell/Dead ringer - fond memories of listening to this on my walkman at the top of a very steep hill having ridden UP on my mountain bike, drinking an ice cold coke and then TANKING down the hill again with this roaring in my ears.

abba - super trooper (I preferred the serious aardvarks version - Another greenbelt fav - The Serious Aardvarks played a punk version - at their last ever concert. I’ve not managed to find a copy and Google has one mention (now two) of the Serious Aardvarks.

The call - Let the day begin- introduced to this at greenbelt - awesome song when played loud and with lots of bass.

steve taylor - i want to be a clone- the whole concept is amusing to me. One I can just about get all the words out too.

petra - somebody’s gonna praise his name- Great tune, lyrics and a drum solo.

Jerusalem - Dancing on the Head of the Serpent - nice air guitar possible on this - woudl be fun on rockband.

Paul Young - toast - - a strange song.

queen - Gimme the prize- Highlander was one of my favourite films - probably because it was the first 15 certificate I saw.

b52’s - loveshack - A greenbelt fav - I had many good times in the youth tent enjoying the fun and messy games - this song and The Call’s was often played.

coldplay - clocks - (reminds me of our cruise as this was one of the name that tune questions)

otis redding - sitting on the dock of the bay - for my more mellow moments.

israel kamakawiwo’ole - over the rainbow- Another mellow song.

Nescafe’s I can see clearly now (Johnny Cash) - spanish version at - Not sure why but I liked the advert - I couldn’t find the english version so this is a terrible alternative.

sixpence none the richer - kiss me “our song” -

Happy Monday’s - Step On (Twistin’ My Melon) - played at the first party I went to paired with
KLF Justified and Ancient

Quireboys - Hey You - no idea how I came to like their stuff - friend at school I think.

Thanks for the memory jogger Ione - I also like a lot of the other songs mentioned by others but I’m running out of time and already spent about 90 minutes doing this! The funny thing is the music can’t be that bad as Winston has sat in front of the speakers throughout the whole period of reminiscing

This morning I finished chopping up the rest of the fallen limbs and carting them out to the front of the garden to be picked up by Dublin. The guys did a great job earlier in the week picking up the wood from the front garden and so I had space to fill it all back up with the back garden. I had another big branch suspended from the tree out the back, but this one was not nearly as painful (in all manners of speaking) to remove – it came out pretty quickly and with no injuries unlike the first branch which left me feeling like ^{I should be blogging in superscript for a few days}

I now have all the small twigs and leaves to rake up which will be a job for the rest of this week in the evening – hopefully it won’t take too much time – still on the bright side with the amount of branches that fell, thats a lot fewer leaves to rake up this year.

I actually went and got an electric chain saw from Lowes yesterday to try and tidy up some of the damage. Amazingly they still had some saws left, but only a choice of 2 electric or 2 gas powered ones. As the electric was $60 and the gas ones $250 I got the electric (as we have power).  I was surprised at how well it works and was very pleased that I got it rather than a hand saw. It was a slight risk as the next time we have a storm we may not have power, but I figured that if we don’t have power it’s unlikely that I’m going to want to start chopping branches up anyway.

Sometimes you just wish you could click your heels together three times - it would certainly make the journey quicker.

We’ve seen a fair amount of wildlife, several lizards, one deer in the backyard, dolphins at sea and everyone else has seen the local fox - I’ve not seen it yet

So the next stop, two weeks later (today) was to take the old flapper off and get a replacement….Took me a while, but I eventually snapped the flapper attachment off the base unit, wrapped it in a bag and went to Lowes. I’m glad I took the old unit with me as I didn’t realise there were so many different types of flappers. It didn’t help that there were two versions of the American Standard (which is a bit of an oxymoron if there are two standards) flapper - it turned out I had type number 5 - but only by comparing the units shape and size.  However I then found that I could buy just the flapper seal itself. So risking this not solving the issue I purchased it, took it home and pulled the old seal off - note to anyone else looking at doing this - when the seal pops off it will spray water and rubber everywhere….I think I cleaned it all up…

Couple of seconds later the new seal was on and the toilet hasn’t flushed itself since. Saved me a plumbers bill, water and a new toilet - thanks to Kristen for putting up with the tank lid off for so long!

I’ve uploaded them to Flickr to my Marysville early morning balloon launch.  I hope to get to their night launch/glow this evening so more photos will be uploaded later too.  In the meantime I’ve created a collection of Balloon photos on flickr.