Sunshine, swimming and sweltering heat

Hello there my lovelies :)

Just a rambling kind of post today.
First of all, I love this piece of music. I first heard it on 'The Walking Dead' and asked Christian to find out where it was from. Turns out it's the main piece from the Sunshine soundtrack. We hadn't seen the movie and so Christian downloaded it so we could watch it. The movie was ok, rather depressing to be quite honest but the soundtrack was awesome so it wasn't a complete loss.

It's been so awfully warm lately. Well, to be honest, hot. I know, I know, Perth isn't the hottest place on Earth and we actually have rather mild weather on the grand scheme of things but all the same, it's felt bloody horrible lately. It's more the humidity I suppose. I can handle dry heat well but throw in some humidity and I'm sweating up a storm. And yes I know, compared to somewhere tropical (Darwin or QLD) our humidity isn't that bad but it's all relative to what one is used to.
The trouble I have is I do a rather physical job in differing environments. The majority of my clients don't have air con and so I have to put up with sweltering conditions while doing my job and it's not pleasant. I never thought I'd miss my cushy office job but it's times like these that I do...

I've been trying to chop and change the types of exercise I do so I don't get bored with the one activity. When I stop exercising I just lose so much energy and get grumpy and it's just not worth it. So to make sure that I'm getting enough, I've expanded my horizons.
Besides the gym I have had a friend teach my kick boxing basics, I've been going for bike rides, hiking and I've now started swimming.
I've never been a great swimmer. I could never get the breathing down pat since putting my head under water at all made me panic and bring on asthma attacks (considering swimming is supposed to be good for asthma, this was rather counterproductive) so by the time I came up for air I would be hyperventilating and wheezing. So apart from the first couple of levels I never did swimming lessons and the only strokes I really can do are doggie paddle and side stroke.
But after seeing my niece at her swimming lessons I thought that perhaps I should just give it a go and so I did.
I went to the pool with Jo and Darcie this morning and spent a whole hour doing laps. I did a few laps in the walking lane but mostly I swam. Not very well and not very fast but I wasn't there to break world records so it worked rather well.
I ended up doing breast stroke (keeping my head above water the whole time), side stroke and survival back stroke.
I had fun and plan to go back every Sunday.

Finally, across the road from us there is a park and in the centre is a pond thing fed by drains. Living in the pond is a flock of Ibis, whom we regularly see wandering about the park. Tonight we were walking down to a friend's house for dinner and as we were passing the pond I noticed that none of the Ibis were there. I commented to Christian but we thought nothing more of it. We crossed the park and were heading down the road when Molly stopped to sniff at some bushes. Christian happened to look up at a white gum in the front yard of the house we'd stopped in front of and low and behold, the entire flock of Ibis were perched in the tree! I was surprised as it was because I thought they were water birds and didn't think they could fly to be quite honest (apparently they can since they didn't have any abseiling gear on them) but also because of the company they were keeping. In the same tree were magpies, galahs and pink and greys. We're not sure what it was about that tree but apparently it's the coolest place in town to hang out if you're of the winged variety.
It's not the most world stopping event I'd witnessed but it made my day.