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The sound of summerPosted on Friday 18 January 2008 at 04:05 - Post CommentIt is now 100% official - it's summer. Yesterday must have been a day of all the right factors coming together or something, as for the first time this year the cicadas were singing in the trees again. Last year we were astonished to arrive at this time and be near deafened by the sheer volume of noise these elusive insects make in Hagley Park. Well, now it seems that they are not restricted just to Hagley Park, as there looks to be a decent population in the walnut tree to the rear of our house.
A strange beast, the cicada spends most of its life living underground as a nymph. When the moon is right, the stars are in place, the weather is bob on, and at some mysterious sign, the nymphs dig their way out from the earth, making little round holes as they do so, and then climb the nearest vertical object. Once at the top of it they cling on, and the back of the nymph splits - out of which crawls the cicada. Once it's wings are dry, off it flies to sing its cicada song, hopefully pull a likely looking filly, do the beast with 2 backs and then depart this life - all in just a few days.
As summer goes on, more and more cicada bodies build up under the trees, and all the birds and wildlife have a great time gorging themselves. They are pretty big too - up to 10 cms across, and a good 6 cms long some of them. I am fascinated by them - but T thinks that they're minging and I'm a nutter. She's probably right on one of those counts.
Just finishing off a good week at work - our first 'proper' week back. The figures are good so far, with plenty of business coming our way and so I am pretty happy with all that. Just chilling now before the weekend comes along.
This weekend is THE weekend. The weekend I do my mini triathlon. I registered for it on Wednesday, and got my email confirmation yesterday. I am pretty excited about it all, and have no idea what to expect as it is my very first effort at anything like this. From my training, I reckon I should be able to get the whole thing knocked out in under 1.5 hours. Anything over that and I will be pretty disappointed with myself. It kicks off at 08:00 Sunday morning at Sumner beach - so spare a thought for me then. I just hope it's not going to be pissing it down with rain! T has just bought me a pair of speedo's or 'budgie smugglers' as they call them here. I am going to look absolutely hideous in them, but my board shorts are so big and flappy I could never cycle or run in them. The plan is to swim in the speedo's, then sling on some shorts and a t-shirt for the cycle, and just continue on in them for the run. The speedo's should dry on the cycle so won't... erm... chafe too much on the run bit. Ah well, should be a giggle. Oh, and would you believe that the girl who put me up to all this silliness to keep her company has now dropped out so I'm all on my Jack Jones! Ah well, what will be will be. T is dead keen to see me do it and has arranged for Hayden and Raewyn to come and cheer me on - bless 'em. I'm dead chuffed to have some support though, so cheers in advance guys.
With all my non-drinking and Triathlon training I've lost 3kgs in the last few weeks so I'm pretty pleased with that. I hope to lose a couple more before I fall of the wagon in Feb, but am trying not to go overboard about it all. Excercise seems to be the key, and though motivation is sometimes a little hard to find I am slowly getting there.
Well, I'm about done for today, so have a great weekend folks, and we'll be back here with some pics of how it all went later. Prefferably with zero budgies in - smuggled or not!
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