"Wherever you were this morning I hope you managed to hear and see the government's apology to the stolen generations. The message was loud and clear. Australia is sorry. There will be no more lies and evasions; the government of Australia apologises for what it did. The first business of the new Parliament was the making of a long overdue forceful and formal acknowledgement of dreadful wrongs and a sincere expression of sorrow for the pain and grief these wrongs caused. It is not incongruous or wrong to feel joyfulness and optimism because the joy is for what might come of what was done so well today."

- Lucy Tartan on an incredible day.

• What Sorry Looks, Sounds, Feels Like - Beth at Sarsaparilla
• He Didn't Fuck It Up - Ampersand Duck
• Some BBC background if you don't know what I'm banging on about!

Gareth thinks it's a hoot how in Australia we call the shop at which you purchase alcohol, "the bottle-o".

I don't this is any less ridiculous than the way Brits call their equivalent Off-Licence, "the offie", but then again the fella is generally a big fan of Australian lingo. He picked up the word sook (crybaby) from MotoGP rider Casey Stoner and he recently learned bogan (think Aussie Chav) from Momo's blog, although he quaintly mispronounced it boogan.

Most of all he enjoys how we abbreviate words and stick an O at the end of them. Like rego for car registration, metho for methylated spirits, milko for milkman, and the perennial favourite, ambo for an ambulance driver.

It's getting to the point where he thinks we do this for every single word in existence. I was chatting to The Mothership on the phone recently and debriefed Gareth afterwards, telling him that she'd just been in Thredbo.

"In Thredbo? What's a thredbo?"

"Thredbo! The town. In the Snowy Mountains."

"Thredbo," he snorted. "That's not a real place."

"It is. It's Australia's premier alpine resort!"

"Sure!"

"I'm telling you, it's true!"

"Ohhh. I thought that's what you'd say if your clothes were all old and threadbare. CRIKEY mate, me pants've gone thredbo!"

Ten years ago this week Crowded House had their Farewell To The World concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. Last night I watched the new 10th Anniversary DVD and it's still bloody magnificent.

I was so devastated the day after that concert, back in Bathurst and getting ready for my shift at the fish and chip shop. I couldn't bear to listen to the Crowdies for about six months; I was just so overcome by the loss. Woe!

But somehow I managed to struggle on. A decade later I peered at our spot on the stairs, surprised I couldn't pick us out in the massive crowd. I thought I'd be visible even in the moonlight, either from the violently sunburned face or the enormous angst-ridden frown because I'd just finished my first year of university and was worried I wouldn't pass all my subjects. Don't fret petal, I'd say to 1996 Shauna, You end up becoming a secretary so you won't even need that degree!

I wonder if a concert of that scale could happen today? Can you imagine allowing over 100,000 random bodies to just wander on down to the Opera House for free entertainment? A massive public gathering at a major landmark? Holy security alert, Batman. I remember marvelling at how generally well-behaved and civilised the punters were back then, but I don't know if we'd be trusted these days. There'd have to be metal detectors and cavity searches and riot police. I remember a guy climbed up one of the sails of the Opera House and the cops asked him sternly but nicely to please come down. Today they'd have a vicious Alsatian posted on the point of each sail. An Alsatian, brandishing a semi-automatic weapon.

Photo nicked from The Age (Rick Stevens)

Australia 1 and Australia 2 are working now, and there's no internet access there, so this getting online thing affordably has become a little more dicey. So this is to let you know I'm alive and well with heaps written that I hope to post very soonly. Hopefully tomorrow. Watch this space. Unless of course I become incapacitated from almost falling down the stairs again due to lack of coordination when it comes to disembarking from double decker buses.

It has been suggested my infrequent posts are because I am sitting here waiting until I get 50+ comments on an entry before I write a new one. Good on ya, smart arse. But I haven't felt like updating because what's been on my mind isn't the stuff I like to write about here...

It was wonderful to see so many people sardined into Garema Place, getting all passionate and shouty. Afterwards they piled into the cafes like any other Saturday afternoon, except for the homemade peace signs cluttered at their feet.

Canberra is burning. The sky is black, orange in places, choked with smoke. I live in the CBD but my friends are further out amongst it. It's scary. Getting really worried. 200 homes feared gone.

SUNDAY MORNING:  380 homes gone. Last I heard the kids were safe, I will probably pester them again soon. Worry worry.

SUNDAY NIGHT:  Still burning. It's hard to comprehend the extent of the devastation. But the Canberra bloggers you know and love and want to shag are doing okay.

I took The Americans to Parliament House today, it looked so eerie shrouded in smoke. My bloody bra set off the metal detectors again. The security dude had to do the whole wand-waving woo woo thing. Why doesn't it go off for anyone else? I'm not the only one who's underwired. Clearly these twin towers are a threat to national security.

This line in the CNN story cracked me up: Smoke blanketed the capital, home to 300,000 people, including hundreds of diplomats.

MONDAY MORNING:  Here at work, people have some pretty grim stories. They're talking about watching fireballs race up their street, how it moved so quickly they didn't have time to get in the car and get the hell out of there. Crikey! Many people are too scared to come in. Can you blame them? They've forecasted high temperatures and unpredictable winds.

Meanwhile, talk has already started that the ACT Government were inadequately prepared for the event.

WEDNESDAY:  11 freckled ducks, 99 red and grey kangaroos, 20 koalas -- more fire victims.

99% of New South Wales has been declared drought affected. I would like to know where the unaffected 1% is. Is there a snobby little cloud that chooses to rain exclusively upon this 1%? And beneath that cloud, is there a bunch of people in a big swimming pool, surrounded by lush green gardens and fountains, laughing it up while the rest of the state dries up?

Out in the sticks last weekend, the sheep looked like shrivelled prunes on legs. Just bones and rumpled wool wandering around the bare paddocks. The heat was unbearably dry, the kind that fires up your skin like a hotplate; you keep waiting for it to just crack and fall off.

Meanwhile, I see Mr and Mrs Joe Fuckwit wasting water out in the suburbs. Drowning the geraniums in the middle of the afternoon, plonking soaker hoses down on the turf. I drive past and wind down my window to boo and hiss. I want to string them up in the trees and smack them with a spiky sprinkler head until they see sense.

We had a huge dust storm here in Canberra a couple of weeks ago. All the precious public servant 4WD's were speckled red, the queues at the car wash stretched out onto the street. A friend of mine saw his neighbour standing on her roof in the middle of the day, hosing the dust off the Colourbond! Why the hell do you think we had a dust storm in the first place?

In the drought of 1983, our water tank ran dry. I discovered it was possible to bathe, water a flock of sheep and do three loads of laundry on just one thimble full of water. Ever since then, I go bezerk at the sight of a dripping tap or a midday sprinkler.

I know it's easy to forget in urban areas that cows are roasting alive and the earth is cracking up out in the country. But come on people, as the Mothership would say, "Use your brain!"

I get a few emails each week saying, "You don't update enough" or "Stop editing and deleting posts" or "I want to hear about your underpants", so it's your own fault you're getting a post full of tedious What I Did On My Weekend crud. Thankfully it's only Saturday night so you won't have to hear too much. If you don't like that kind of post get thee to the archives.

Friday night Rhi and I had Thai somewhere in Kingston. Whoever came up with putting spicy peanutty sauce over a pile of meat is a fucking genius. I wanted to pick up the plate and lick up the last dregs of the sauce but if I'd made a move for it I'm sure Rhi would have jumped in ahead of me.

This morning I woke at 8.30 and thought Hurrah I Shall Sleep Til Noon but then I rolled over and thought, what is that lumpy thing beneath me? Oh it's my fat arse. So I went to the gym instead. First an hour of glorious kicking and punching, made particularly glorious by one of the tracks being Destiny's Child. Hehe. Then we stayed another hour for Pump in which I nearly killed myself as I started sneezing in the middle of the squat track. If you start twitching in anticipation of a sneeze with a big loaded bar across your shoulders, the rear end starts to sway dangerously. It's quite disconcerting. Especially if your sister is laughing at you.

After the class we were knackered. Limped home and crawled up the stairs. Ate the food, fell asleep.

Later on this arvo I went to meet Amy, Goulburn blogger extraordinaire, who was in town for the day. As I was walking down to Civic I got a message from young Monkey who believed I was ignoring her and thought her a Stupid Jerk™. But I called her back and said, "No you are not a Stupid Jerk. How bout you and Mattay come meet some strangers from the internet with me?"

Safety in numbers, that's what they taught me in kindergarten.

So I met Amy and her sidekick Andy by the merry-go-round. Don't you love alliterative couples? Andy and Amy, meet Monkey and Mattay. And Shauny. Shauny and... Single. Mwahaha.

Amy and Andy were both bloody great people, nice and funny and easy to talk to. Luckily Amy was nervous too so she could ramble instead of me. Hehe. I didn't spill my drink or destroy anything. When I met the other guys for the first time I nervously shredded two beer coasters. I was really enjoying it. But all the while I am having a concurrent conversation with my brain:

– Hey brain, why is it that you only have like four topics of conversation? Dodgy Real Estate Agents, the gym, Crazy Shit Your Mother's Done...
– That's only three topics. And don't look at me. You're the body. You need to transport yourself towards something resembling an interesting life.

But it turns out the others were having similiar conversations with their brain. It's always a little weird at first, you get all paranoid about what kind of impression you're making and wonder if they think you're a Stupid Jerk. But then you just realise, these are nice people, not axe murderers, and if they think you're a Stupid Jerk they'll talk about you on the drive home and wouldn't tell you directly. So let's just drink our lattes or chocolate milkshakes and enjoy it, woohoo!

Does anyone else feel weird talking about online things offline? I always want to start giggling. We were briefly talking about Movable Type vs Greymatter and it felt so weird, it's like this whole thing exists entirely in my head and I forget that there's real people connected to it. Then Amy said the word "Bloggie" and I cracked up because it's just such a funny word out loud.

Anyway, I had a really good time! Thanks kiddies. Then I walked home. BECAUSE I CAN. Ahh, I love living so close to everything. I feel so urban and hip, until I remember it's Canberra. Mwahaha.

It's hottttttt it's hot it's soooo fucking hot today.
Mmmmmmmmmphhbh.

There are ways of dodging the How-To-Vote card mob. Just rock up to your local polling place fresh from your Body Combat class as my sister and I did today. Resplendent in sporty leggings that make the arse look as wide as this great brown country of ours, tomato red faces, dripping with sweat, practicing our hooks and jabs and elbows and roundhouse kicks as we approached them. We entered the church hall at Reid without a single piece of paper being thrust upon us and were able to cast our vote in peace. Kick ass.

The Phoney Spring continues here in Canberra. Mid-September you get this brief tease of sunshine, some blossoms, a bit of pollen up your nose, just enough to tantalise and make you rip off flanny sheets and put away winter woolies and realise how horribly pale you are. Then it all disappears in a burst of storm and chilly days. Mother Nature is such a nasty bitch, she waits and watches then makes it go cold precisely on the day you' decided to wear summery shoes and short sleeves for the first time, everyone else at work is all rugged up and random strangers announce that they can see your nipples.

And it rains a lot in the Phoney Spring. Not nice warm spring rain but mean, icy rain that turns our yard into a mud bath. I take Harry out for a walk and his fur is filthy and clumped together like an old fluffy dressing gown. It sounds like rain outside but it's hard to tell if it's an actual shower or if it's stopped and the trees are wringing themselves dry. They always seem to wait until you're right under them to squeeze out a big, messy glob on top of your head. It's that Mother Nature again, you see, she really has it in for me.

My sister sports the same withering look every time she arrives home from her new job. She takes off her coat and kicks off her shoes, throws her bag down dramatically, tosses her hair around like a Pantene commerical, tut-tutting like our mother at a misbehaving student, before announcing she has a new Silly Twit At Work story for me.

Sis is employed at a government department, and was previously unfamiliar with the utter stupidity found in some public servants. Not that there's not stupid people in the private sector, but she used to work in a hotel, and the pace was so hectic that there was no time for socialising, daftness in hospitality can go undetected for years. But in the government there's the long discussions over morning coffee, the endless lunches, the gossipy afternoon teas and the general fart-arsing around - much getting to know you goes on.

One of her colleagues is sweet and kind but a little light in the brain department. Mid-thirties but still at home (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That) with her Mum actually packing her lunchbox every day. On discussing the events of last week this woman was shocked to find out that George W Bush is the son of the other George Bush. "You're kidding? What an amazing coincidence!"

The topic du jour was once again The America Thing, and someone remarked that most foreigners believe that Sydney is the capital of Australia, not Canberra.

"Oh, we do that on purpose, you know." said Miss Sweet and Light sagely.

"Do what?"

"Let them think that Sydney's the capital, not Canberra."

"What?"

"I shall explain. It's because if someone bombs Sydney thinking it's the capital of Australia, the real capital of Australia, Canberra, will actually be safe. Parliament House and all that."

Ohhh.

Someone stole our garbage bin. Bastards. Languishing on the nature strip one moment, cruelly snatched from us the next. Last spotted in Canberra city, approximately three feet tall, cack green, really stinky with a big number 6 painted on it.

My sister thinks the little old ladies next door nicked it, to Teach Us A Lesson for not bringing our bin back in as soon as the garbo leaves. He swings by Tuesday morning, we usually don't drag it back in til the weekend. But I'm not quite sure the old ducks could have done it without putting their back out or breaking a hip. My theory is it's the same bastards that stole my bin in Bathurst. They've followed me here and they've got my Canberra bin and my Piper Street Bathurst bin sitting cosy in their living room and they're laughing it up at my expense!

I'm not sure what the process is here, but back in Bathurst, I actually had to report my bin missing to the police before the council would give me a new one. Then we had to go to the station to make a statement.

"Can you give me a description of the bin?"

"Are you kidding?"

"I am not kidding, Miss."

"Green, smelly, wheels on the bottom?"

"When did you last see the missing bin?"

"Ummmmmmm..." Six weeks had actually passed since the bin disappeared, we'd be putting our rubbish in the neighbours bin. "Umm. Yesterday. Went missing yesterday."

"Right then, sign here please Miss, and we'll see what we can do."

It's so reassuring that the police are focused on the big crimes out there.

Fire engines in Canberra are yellow. One just swooped down Northbourne, sirens squealing. That shade just doesn't scream "Emergency! Emergency!" to me. How disappointing. It's not even a nice, glowing sunshiney yellow. It's putrid fluro yellow. It's like the ACT government couldn't afford to buy the nice big sexy red trucks and said to the firemen, "Here's a generic craphouse white truck, and here's a jumbo pack of yellow highlighters. Now get colouring!"

If I was a fireman, I'd be a bit annoyed. I slaved for years at Fireman School so I could ride round on a nice big sexy red truck and wave my hose around everywhere, but all I got to ride was this silly yellow thing. And noone takes you seriously when you turn up to a fire aboard a yellow truck. "You gonna fight this inferno with a yellow truck? Get out!"

I spose I could move back to New South Wales. They have red trucks there.

No photoshopping going on, I assure you. Just lousy composition! Miss Dee wrote about how lovely the Canberra sky is at night, and I have to agree. I took these today on sunset at Glebe Park, camera freezing to my hands as Harry impatiently wound his leash round my legs.

Man throws sausage roll at policeman. Whoever thought that questionable meat wrapped in flaky pastry could be a dangerous weapon? The Canberra Times took a rather boring angle on this story, but the local news channels added the more exciting morsel that they actually did DNA testing on the offending snag roll to see if it matched with the alleged offender. I wonder if it was sauced?

O what a beautiful morning. Grey and cold and rainy. I took this pic of Telstra Tower from my window yesterday arvo, it looked like a swish of watercolour. Today you can't see it at all, the fog is so thick.

Perfect weather for the big grunty car race this weekend!

Miss Dee broods over the demise of Canberra's coffee culture, as Starbucks opens in Civic. They only just popped up in Manuka a month ago. Stay tuned for Starbucks Parliament House. And Starbucks Fyshwick, coz there's nothing better than a hot steaming cappuccino while after a hard day's porn shoppin'.

The Prime Minister of Australia has a guestbook on his site and it makes for hilarious reading:

• "It's a beauty" - Col Radford
• "It lacks flair and little visual stimulation" - Beverly Foye
• "I have just sent an urgent email to Mr Howard & think it is wonderful to be able to communicate with our Prime Minister." - Steven Cotterill
• "I could enjoy this web site very much and also learn a lot about Australia. I'd like you to show me the map of Canberra where the Parliament House is located." - Kyoko Noda
• "An excellent website, worthy of THE defining leader of the last quarter century" - Alexander Drake
• "A very user freindly web site, I only hope Mr Howard takes my suggestions in to consideration." - Kyle Schonewille