I was doing so well with Gareth's parents. I think they're legends so I've tried hard to win them over with my Novelty Accent™ and a framed photo of the firstborn for their Xmas present. But then this morning Gareth and I were lazing in bed...

(and just lazing, mind - no funny business. Holidays were made for lounging in your scratcher, drinking endless cups of tea, listening to the radio and declaring, "I give you the gift of fragrance" before dropping farts with a strong note of festive Brussels sprouts.)

... when the doorbell rang.

"You get it, it's your flat."

"You get it! I don't know where my pants are."

"I don't know where mine are!"

"But you'll be able to find yours quicker."

"Fine!"

I stomped to door and picked up the intercom phone thingy. "Hello?"

"Hello, Shauna?"

My stomach dropped. It was the voice of Gareth's mother.

I flew into the usual unthinking panicky spinning-in-circles routine, pressed the door entry button and bellowed, "GARETH! It's your MOTHER!", with no regard for the intercom handset thingy nestled under my jaw in the perfect position to beam my voice outside into the crispy air where the potential mother-in-law stood.

"Shit! Shit!"

I couldn't hear approaching footsteps. Had I scared her off? I peered through the frosted glass of the front door but couldn't see a thing. I pressed the door entry button again just in case.

"GARETH! It's your MOTHER I tell you!" I fumbled with the lock, hauling the door open, "GARETH! GET YOUR PANTS ON!"

And there she was on the doorstep. She's barely five feet tall so she'd slipped in under my eye level. I couldn't figure out what kind of smile she was wearing. Bemused? Bewildered? Disturbed?

"I'm not staying, can you just pass this on to Gareth, it's a case for his new camera. How about I come back tomorrow and catch up with you both, say, 4.30?"

"Sounds great!" I bleated as she scurried off. "4.30 it is!"

Cannae wait.

Merry Christmas from Geriatric Rescue HQ! So far there's been one drunk geezer, three burning turkeys and one Ah've Fallen And Cannae Get Up Hen. No one's toppled into their tree yet.

I'd been feeling a little blue today with all my family on the other side of the globe, but it's sobering to be working here and realising there's a lot of elderly people who are genuinely alone. Surround yourself with people, this is my advice to you! Be nice to folk and make as many friends as possible. That way, when you're old and needing help you can phone them instead of some hapless Australian in a call centre.

For the past five years, Rory has compiled an annual list of his favourite books, albums, movies, foodstuffs and visited cities. It's dead charming to have this record of evolving tastes, interests and adventures. I almost wish I'd done the same thing, except laziness always prevailed in the past. But here's me giving it a red hot go for 2004.

I'm ashamed to admit I did not finished one single book this year, but started nine. My favourite albums were Margarine Eclipse by Stereolab and Blue by Joni Mitchell. I guzzled down olives, oatcakes and port (The Drink of Mothballed Aunties). My top fillums were Eternal Sunshine and The Motorcycle Diaries, the latter I saw twice because it gave me the horn for South America and that smouldering siren Gael Garcia Bernal. I'd start a revolution in his pants any day.

The Scottish supermarket is a veritable chamber of horrors. There are all kinds of mechanically-seperated meats in tins and innocent vegetables drowning in vats of mayonnaise. But the most terrifying and strangely fascinating of all is Breakfast Pack. It is truly all things good and bad about Scotland shrink-wrapped and presented on a sky blue polystyrene tray. If you want to recreate the goodness of a full Scottish B&B brekkie in your home without even a cursory nod to style or nutrition, then this is for you. For just £1.98, you will receive:

—  black pudding (aka blood sausage, featuring dried ox blood)
—  fruit pudding (sultanas and beef fat)
—  sliced sausage (rusk and flavour enhancers ahoy)
—  pork sausage (with the tantalising promise of 55% minimum meat).

Way back on Easter Sunday, I decided I could no longer ignore the cry of the blue tray and made the purchase in the name of cross-cultural research. I fired up the frypan and waited for the religious experience to begin.

It's taken eight months to recover, but now you can finally relive the magic with me, step by lardy step, over at Flickr. To navigate, use the 'Next in set' links on the right hand side of the page. Huzzah!

People look less anxious in the tearoom this time of year when finding themselves beside some colleague who they don't really care for during the agonising wait for the kettle to boil. There's no need for fiddling with spoons or pretending to be really interested in the expiry date of the milk or the ancient notices of the noticeboard. All they have to do is say, Are you all organised for Christmas? and the other person will go, Oh hardly! Leaving it til the last minute as usual! And they both faux-chortle just as the water rumbles. Pour, stir, hasty exit.

We were in Glasgow for the Morrissey gig. Who else would get away with such a ridiculous request? Gareth was already a vegetarian, but when I got patted down by security I was forced to surrender a string of sausages, a schnitzel and lamb leg that I'd been saving for snacks. Bastard.

I do like the old Smiths stuff but admittedly I am no Morrissey afficinado. I was mainly there to see PJ Harvey in her supporting role. Despite the dodgy sound in the massive hangar that is the SECC, she was still the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. She has that effect on everyone. The men screamed, PJ have mah babies! and the women screamed, PJ have mah boyfriend's babies!

Between support acts there were two drunk chicks in front of us, one big blonde with blurred red lipstick and one petite with an Amelie haircut. They had only just met and were determined to sing/scream their way through The Smiths entire back catalogue. Between each rendition they'd hug and squeal.

"Oh mah gawd, I never met anyone before who loves Morrissey as much as me!"

"Totally! You are sooo going to come to my party and we are going to BOND! Take me ouuuut tonight..."

A girl in the front row span around and hissed, "We'd prefer to wait and let Morrissey to do the singing, if you don't mind."

"I DO mind!" bellowed Blondie. She turned to another friend who was dressed like he was late for a Franz Ferdinand audition. "That bitch told me to shut up. She's a fockin COW! I never never want to go HOOOME!"

So, Morrissey fans are interesting. There were dozens of men in the crowd who'd clearly gone to considerable effort to cultivate the famous towering quiff and sideburns combo. That's dedication. I mean, I really truly love Radiohead, but you don't see me sticking a pencil in my eye or anything.

Things went truly insane when the Big M finally appeared on stage beneath a galaxy of lightbulbs that spelled out his name. Dressed in priests garb, he kicked off with How Soon Is Now, aka The Theme from 'Charmed'. The ensuing mad push and frenzy of limbs made the T in the Park crush look like a piano recital. By the end of the song Gareth had been elbowed in the eyeball, Amelie's unconscious form had been hauled over the barrier, and my ribs were threatening to snap off my sternum, so violent was the concertina crush of bodies. COOL!

Morrissey was good fun, still suave and entertaining after all these years and not straying into Fat Vegas Elvis territory. His voice was great and there was enough classics to amuse amateurs like me. The dedicated fans maintained their frenzy levels all night, making it near impossible to take photos. The only remotely steady shot I got was when some stranger had their thigh wedged between my legs, forming a human tripod of sorts.

It was only when it was all over and the crowd disentangled that I realised my t-shirt and jeans were dripping wet. I know from my thrashing about at the gym that while I go red-faced, I am not a wet sweater. So on the bus back to Edinburgh all I could do was sit and stew in the sweat of a thousand strangers. In case you were curious, it smelled like wet dogs.

More PJ and Morrissey photos over here...

Rhiannon has left me!

The traitorous wench found a great job with a work permit so she's moving to London.

We keep telling people that it feels like a divorce. I've seen the rolling eyes, I know they think we're being melodramatic. But you have to understand I'll no longer be near someone who finishes my sentences, instinctively knows when to buy chocolate on the way home, and is my best friend.

Growing up we weren't as close, but there was always an unspoken solidarity. We would exchange bemused glances and raise eyebrows as our various parents threw tantrums and houseplants and did crazy things. We went our separate ways for university, but finally in 2000 we both ended up in Canberra.

The Mothership phoned the day after we moved in together. Rhi was downstairs and I was perched on my bed with the extension. It was the usual Mothership fodder -- local gossip, recaps of Oprah episodes, tales of wayward students that she had to Skin Alive or Put Bombs Under. Without realising, separated by stairs and salmon pink carpet, we were responding with the exact same mindless phrases. In the exact same tone. In perfect unison.

Right.
Yes.
Hmmm?
Oh I see.
Innnteresting.

"WHAT is going on?" demanded The Mothership, "Are you two being facetious? You're picking on me! Already!"

From that point on we were a unit. We compared twenty years of notes from our childhoods and discovered those shared experiences had given us the same warped humour and cynicism. We both loved to bitch and moan and laugh. We never had to explain anything to each other, because we always knew the backstory. We understood that the crappiest day could always be cured with a bar of chocolate and a trashy magazine. We also liked picking on The Mothership.

Just like retired old farts in a caravan, we had ROUTINES and we treasured them dearly. I chopped meat and vegies, she wielded the wok. I booked our gym classes, she ordered in restaurants. I picked up the Thai takeaway while she got the cutlery queued up the video. When I'd fart she'd say, Shall I reply? and let one rip too.

A favourite ritual was the weekly shop at Tesco. We were a precision shopping machine. We synchronised our watches, caught buses from our respective workplaces so we arrived at the same time, paused at the magazine rack, glided up and down the aisles with a shopping list that was ordered in harmony with the supermarket layout, then wasted half an hour browsing the chocolate so we'd have to run across the car park to make the bus on time.

Last Monday was The Final Shop. It was a rather emotional experience. We were dawdling in the car park, talking about jeans and how the ones with the "pre faded" stripes down the front make your thighs look fat, when suddenly our bus came barelling round the corner.

"Shauna!" Rhi screamed, "STOP THE BUS!".

I panicked, spinning the shopping trolley round in small and helpless circles. I am useless when asked to make a sudden movement. "Stop the bus? YOU stop the bus!"

Rhi bravely leaped out onto the street with manic eyes and outstretched arms, "SSSTOOPPP!".

Do you know how hard it is to find someone who'd stop a bus for you?

Last week I did a dress rehearsal Solo Shop. It was very traumatic. The checkout chick was merciless, flinging bananas and soup tins and expecting me to keep up with the plastic bags and grope for a debit card AT THE SAME TIME while a lengthy queue of snotty bastards looked on with pursed lips. For the past four years, Rhi had packed the heavy stuff while I took the fruit and veg, then she'd do the bread and loo paper and magazines while I handed over the cash. WE HAD A SYSTEM. How can you have a system WITH JUST ONE PERSON?

Rhi arrived in Sydney just one hour ago. She's there for a few weeks to visit friends and family, so it's all I can think about right now. She'll return for a few days in January when we'll fight over the frying pan and wage a bitter custody battle over the hairdryer, then that's it.

Things have changed dramatically these past four years and I owe so much of it my little sister. I am too rubbish to say this person, so I have to tell the WORLD on the internet. How do you like that logic? Anyway, indulge me for one paragraph. When Rhi moved in I was very ill, depressed out of my skull, afraid of the world and generally an apathetic blob. If you've been kind enough to have read this blog since the very beginning, you may have noticed I've changed a lot since then. Rhi managed to see through my bullshit and encouraged me to take risks. She's always known when to kick my butt or when to bring home some icecream. Without her I doubt I would have found the guts to move to the Other Side of the planet.

It's taken awhile, but I'm not scared of silly shit anymore, I don't lay awake worrying about what people think of me, I've learned to make things happen for myself. Without Rhi's coaxing I may have ignored the nagging voice inside that said I could do something with my life. So sister dear, thank you for just being your brilliant, arse-kicking self and making every day so hilarious.

We both knew this would happen. It's time to move on and we'll be fine. We have telephones, email and Easyjet. We both have everything in the world to look forward to. When I asked Rhi how was I supposed to go on, she replied with the usual withering wit, "I have nothing left to teach you."

Sometimes you can just feel change in the air, people. It's as thick and heavy and inevitable as the yeasty dog-food fog that spews from the Fountainbridge Brewery. Change is a bit like a brewery, don't you think? It makes a lot of scary noise and it stinks like hell, but the end product is delicious and good for you.

On 19 June we were on the bus for a good seven hours, making our way from Novgorod to Moscow. When I wasn't scoffing Finnish chocolate I was pressed up against the window trying to take photos of fast-moving objects. It was an unforgettable journey after four days in the relative glamour and beauty of St Petersburg. There were miles of run-down houses, crumbling roadside stalls selling beachtowels and stuffed toys, endless silvery lakes, a truck stop zoo complete with drugged hyenas, and the ever-present old ladies in headscarves glaring at our obnoxious white tour bus.

Clicky here to check out the snaps on Flickr.

Still not firing on all cylinders here. Even The Mothership is asking on the phone why I've not updated. I am halfway though an entry about Spain but it is rabbish. I have so much to say but can't get the words to work. Everything is getting to me, the weather and the weather and the vagueness of the future.

Today I tackled the workplace Christmas decorations. Nothing makes me crankier than a big pile of tangled tinsel. I'd lazily shoved everything into a box in the New Year thinking some poor sucker could deal with it in December. I never expected that sucker to be me. How did a four week temp job turn into fifteen months? I could hear The Mothership's voice in my ear, "You should have done it properly in the first place!"

Top Five Mothership Phrases

1. Use your brain!
2. I'll put a bomb under you!
3. Are you wearing a bra?
4. If you had brains you'd be dynamite!
5. Did you LOOK?

If Kate Potter of South Australia is reading, please email or leave a comment! Kate sent Christmas cookie cutters off my Amazon wishlist. Kate, you rule the school! Does anyone have any good cookie recipes?