Crackers or gunfire, you decide.

 

It is no secret that I just love love love crackers. It might be the colours or the smell or the noise or the anticipation or the excitement or all of the above, but I do love ‘em.

So on Thursday night, quite late, while we veged in front of the tellie in our little bit of the suburbs, like a good old pair of sit-ins, we heard a round of blasts, which I immediately assumed were crackers. There weren’t many, maybe only half a dozen, but I figured some kids had got a hold of some illegal bungers and these bungs was left over from schoolies. The park next door has become quite the little meeting place for young folk after dark. I reckon it takes the kids a while to realise that school is over and now they are expected to act like adults and I am happy to give ‘em a few weeks to get their shit together.

Steve was less convinced about the crackers.

Friday morning I was up early and off to Brisvegas.

Sometime later when Steve tumbled out of bed and did the usual and then took Dog for a play, he was confronted by a large possie of police, some in scuba gear down on the beach. They had put out marker buoys and were using some sort of underwater metal detector as 2 of them dived. They were there for a long time. It was quite a spectacle.

Bloody typical I say, just when something interesting happens in the burbs, I am away and miss it. Bloody typical!

I wonder if they found any crackers.

 

 

‘Good fences make good neighbours’

 

 

When Robert Frost wrote ‘Mending Walls’,  he was being facetious saying that good fences make good neighbours. He was trying to point out how unnecessary they are, and all they do is keep people apart.

Well about now I wouldn’t mind being kept apart from the bloody neighbour building a car port. This has been going on for a long time. Their tradies are neither quick, nor reliable and certainly do not give a shit about pissing off the neighbours at 6.30am, by running all manner of power tools and shouting loudly up the street as they make a plan for the next five minutes before they head off to their proper jobs.

As soon as they roll up in their zooped up fucking utes, the dog gets ready for a full frontal attack, so that means I am and waiting too. Then the noise starts. I am pretty sure they are not permitted by law to start til 7am, but what’s 30 little minutes early between friends huh.

6 days a week and they are gone well before lunchtime. How long can it possibly take to build a bloody carport.

I would like someone to shove a drill or a mallet or a hammer or any one of the myriad of tools they are crashing about with, up their builders’ cracks. I’d do it myself but that would be a very pongy job indeed, ooooh YUK.

Bastards!!

Oh and Belly got herself a job, team leader at a nursery...propagating plants all day, she’s in heaven. What a clever persistent woman she is.

 

What goes around comes around.

 

Dibley dog is quite the demanding dog. Every morning she squeaks and slinks around and generally gets in my way until I relent and take her and her ball into the park. Today while we were playing an old bloke, a pom I think, not so much because of his accent as the fact that he was proudly sporting socks and sandals, and yeah the socks were pulled up high – yum!, told me to be wary of the area near the beach cos there was a lot of broken glass down there.

It always surprises me that people leave their shit all around when there are plenty of regularly emptied bins, but it gives me the irrits when they go out of their way to leave broken glass. Kids and dogs are in danger of cutting themselves up good and proper as they run madly around. They don’t pick their way across the grass, bit at a time, making sure to miss all the hazards and the ants’ nests and the dog shit. They don’t make their way with eyes cast downwards, so unlike me this morning they would have missed out on finding a tenner and then shortly after that a fiver. Yippee!!

I took my broom down to the paved area near the beach and swept up the glass and pocketed the 15 bucks thinking that it was reasonable recompense for the cleaning we do. Tough shit to the pocket from which it flew. I reckon that it could have flown out as the owner sprayed glass all over or played cricket with their sushi rubbish.  

 

Surely it's all in the delivery.

 

Political correctness is just a business in its own right these days. It seems that if someone finds a word objectionable or offensive and they jump up and down about it enough, these words can be outlawed and anyone not ‘on trend’ can be castigated for falling behind.

This week’s story about the small demo outside a clothing shop brought this to mind.

Adelaide designers come under fire by disability advocates after launching their 'Retarde' clothing line

Saying someone is retarded is now and possibly has been for sometime pejorative. So I had a little look at the history of the word.

We are talking about folk who are less able mentally. Nowadays someone with an IQ between 50 and 75 is called Educable, i.e. able to learn something. Someone with an IQ less than 50 is called Trainable if it is felt they might be able to learn personal hygiene. There was no descriptor of someone less able than Trainable.

In times past Cretin was used, surpassed by Retard, Idiot, Imbecile, and Moron, each of these taking their place in common parlance and then discarded presumably because some do-gooder thought them to insulting.

Now with political correctness we are meant to say developmentally disabled, or developmentally delayed. Or maybe I am already behind the times and there is something new.

How can a T-shirt with Retarde be offensive. The folk who were protesting put Retarde in the same category as Nigger and as the derivation of Nigger started out innocently enough as a noun describing a black person, I can see the argument. But Nigger has certainly since been bandied as an inflamatory insult. If shouted out, it is meant as a disgusting slur. If whispered, it is meant as some sort of insulting warning. There is a long history of abuse and neglect and mistreatment that is associated with the word and so I can readily see how putting it on a T-shirt would not be the done thing.

But Retarde is different. Words describing mentally less able people have changed probably as a result of able people feeling a little guilty of being able and not really knowing how to deal with less able others.

What I am saying is that I am certain that a black person would prefer to be called Black than the N word. I can see how a black person could and would become more than a little agitated if refered to as the N word. There is no misunderstanding the meaning and the venom attached to that word. But I am not at all certain that a less able person would care if they were called Retarded or Developmentally Disabled.

I if shout and sneer ‘Retard or developmentally disabled or fat or ugly or yellow or girl or boy’ and follow that with a rude finger gesture, then people would be right to take offense, but otherwise I don’t see the problem.

Surely it’s all in the delivery.

Out Damn Spot!

 

Just a little over a year ago, on our flight back to London, as a result of the nonstop screaming kicking child and the parents who did NOTHING, I had what I decided was my last ever migraine. I discovered that yes I hate travelling up the front of the plane with children and that yes it is possible to position yourself in those tiny plane loos in such a way as to throw up into those silly little bags without getting puke all over yourself and that said bags do indeed flush.

I reckon a headache is a headache until I see the spots and I start to throw-up. Then I call it a migraine.

The research says that there is a strong belief that migraines are hormonal and that they are hereditary and that women are 2-3 times more likely to suffer than men. So I was very pleased that as my post menopausal year passed so it seemed had the bloody pains in the head. Belly had begun to rejoice in the belief that hers will have an expiry date too. However Thursday saw the return of the ache and the spots and yesterday the splitting pain and the vomits.

Now I am a ‘my glass is half full kinda gal’ so I was pleased that it had been a year since the last one, but with that year went my auto pilot routine. I had forgotten that I used to jump straight into a hot bath and swathe my head in freezing towels. I had forgotten about sitting up rather than lying flat out like the corpse I wished I was. The anti nausea wafers which cost about a tenner each must have been out of date cos even after 3 of the suckers, they did nothing to stem the bile flow and so for about 15 hours I puked and puked, completely unable to take any pain meds cos that too would have come on up.

It just beggars belief that if so many people suffer from these insidious things, that there is not research being done around the clock. I don’t want to sound all hairy arm pitted feministo about it but I do wonder if it is because so many more women suffer than men. I wish that I had not thought year 10 science a sufficient education. I wish that I was science savvy and able to research a cure. At the moment the only thing that I reckon can bring relief is to be totally knocked out for the duration, but that could be anything up to 3 days.

As I am still a little fuzzy today, I am hoping that the damn thing is over and done with for at least another year. The absence of migraines was the crowning glory of no more hormones! Osteoporosis- who cares! No Headaches! Wrinkles- who cares! No more torn muscles from driving the big white bus. Dry eye balls – who cares! No more losing 2 or 3 days wishing you could be anywhere else in the galaxy.

I should write out my little survival script and tape it to the back of a door just in case another miserable fucker creeps up on me and lays me flat again.

 

Your thigh bone’s connected to your hip bone.

Now that I have seen the physio 4 times and my back pain is finally coming good, I have been given a set of exercises that are designed to re-train 50 years of ‘duck walk’ out of my spine.

There is no doubt that doing the exercises have helped reduce the pain this week, but what I was not aware of is that I have been walking like a duck since I was old enough to say gymnastics and that as a result of all this waddling and perhaps because I have always been stupidly flexible, the poor old bones have endured half a century of torture.

I was pleased to hear that there is no degenerative problem evident in the xrays, just some normal wear and tear. Ho Hum, but the best news I think that Nadia flew in under the radar was that there is no evidence of bone growths or cancer... Yippee!!

So now I have a longer set of exercises that I will no doubt have a go at for the next little while, at least until Monday, after which I expect that I will be given a clean bill of health and I can quietly slide back into my slothful slopping around, until the next time it happens.

I would like to think that I might change the habits of a lifetime but I can honestly not see it happening. I would like to think that I might get all motivated to spend 30 minutes a day trying to encourage my back to be less duck-like, but really after 30 minutes every morning trying to get the fluid shit out of my tit, I reckon that is enough time spent trying to encourage my body to do other than what seems to be coming naturally. I know I am not in the least bit  busy, but I would just prefer to be very busy doing bugger all and take on the posture of an ostrich with my head in the sand.

Maybe the head in the stand pose in itself will help with the duck’s bum stance.

 

A little bit of Old Fashioned

 

 

Years ago when Belly was just a girl, we sucked up some courage and took off to the doctors to get some nasties burnt off her elbow. I sat and described relaxing scenes and I think I might have stroked her hair while the guy went at the elbow and I can seem to recall some tears, whether Bell’s or mine I am not at all sure.

Today we went off again to her doctor to have some plantar warts burnt off her foot. These have spread a bit like topsy during the shitful scrubbing of the bins era – now blessedly over. She sucked it up and I was pleased to think I would be far away from the action end and in we went.

Belly’s doctor is of the old school. Not much in the way of how are you s or pleased to meet you s. He sat down told Belly to put her foot on his leg and he was at it. I thought she might lie on the bed and I would stroke her hair and he would work smellily at the other end. I thought he might discuss what he was gonna do before he did it, and explain the whole procedure and what would happen next. In short I guess I was expecting a bit of modern parenting.

Instead we got a bit of old fashioned, no nonsense, and I liked it. Belly was understandably nervous and he just didn’t allow her anytime to get worked up. It was all over bar the shouting – mine not Belly’s cos she had grabbed hold of my hand pretty tightly, in less than 5 minutes!! As he worked he told us that it will take a few goes at it to get rid of ‘em altogether. Belly wasn’t keen to hear this news but afterwards when she thought about how unremarkable the whole thing was, in terms of pain and time, she is happy to front up again next Wednesday.

Sometimes it is just better to crack on with things and forego all the banter and explanations and negotiations. Sometimes best results are achieved by simply telling people what to do.

That’s so long as I get to do the telling of course.

 

 

Finding a Balance

 

I reckon ‘the girls’ and I might have finally found a balance. A combo of eco and chemical approaches seems to have produced a balance between stinking algae that the fish don’t mind but I detest and the perfectly clear water that I like but they are not all that fond of.

There are more plants, some of them have taken off like topsy, and debris from the park decomposing on the pond floor. The big old lump of drift wood is a good toy and might also be helping the natural PH levels. I add a good dose of chemicals every week to save the waterfall pump from burning out and also so I don’t fall head first into the bloody pool as I pass out from the sludgy smell.

It seems that there is meant to be a precarious balance between the number of fish and the amount they poo and the number of oxygen producing and shit eating plants. If the balance was right I wouldn’t have to add any other stuff but I am tempted to think that I would need so many plants that I wouldn’t be able to see the fish.

So it’s not just an environmental equilibrium that is needed. I see little point in growing the girls if I can’t see ‘em. Yeah I know, that’s a selfish attitude, but then I don’t reckon selfish is always a dirty word.

The Poinciana is out so it must be shopping time.

 

The only thing we left when we demolished the old place was this fabulous tree. We left it there to climb and admire and to drop its red flowers and leaves and pods and shit all over the new paving. It is a pretty majestic thing and we can take absolutely no credit for its existence except that we allowed it to survive.

Almost on arrival into the old house, we got the tree ripper-outers in and they demolished the front garden which was full of ugly palm trees and other stuff, and while they were there I got a bit carried away and enticed them into the backyard, which we have since been told was professionally landscaped at huge expense, and they did a bit of a number out there too.

Concrete and hard landscaping are my favourite garden features. Oh yes we have planted more than a hundred bushes etc, but they are sort of sculptural. Who am I kidding, we have no clue about landscaping so we just popped in things that we thought might look good, but we always had an idea that the ‘garden’ should look tidy and organised. There is no madness of mixed planting, of different colours and heights and all that which many find so attractive. We have stuck to a few species and are happy with a contained, focused look.

Except for the big old Poinciana. She has grown in the front corner for a long time. She is untethered and wild. The branches spew out in all directions over the fence and over the paths and the shade created is a welcome relief. She has managed to kill off 2 or 3 trees planted on the footpath as part of a Council beautification plan, so she stands firmly in charge.

My old house in Durimbil Street had a big old wiley Poinciana on the footpath near my driveway, and when it flowered it was time to get sorted for Christmas. A troupe of mismatched folks with bugger all else to do would gather on christmas morning under the tree and drink champers and eat cold fruit  and croissants and other strange rather unchristmassy fare. The tree provided shade and shelter as well as beautiful floral table decorations.

Poincianas in full bloom always remind me that it’s time to dust off the Amex card and get to the shops, except that this year I might not move too far from the computer, set up so I can watch the breeze blow those bloody flowers onto the path.

 

Flat Out but not in a Good Way

 

 

I have been flat out for the last few days, not because I have had soo much to do but because I haven’t been able to do any of it.

Every couple of years since I was a young woman – yeh I know, a  fucking long time! I have trouble walking. I reckon it is my body’s way of making me practice being a truly old person, so that, at least is comforting. I start with a niggly pain across my back which I always ignore for a day or so then  I notice it more cos I start walking with a stoop, so I take a couple of anti-inflamatories. I know this isn’t going to work, but I take ‘em anyway, and then about 3 days later I just can’t get out of bed and admit defeat and head off to the Physio.

For all these years I have done the same thing. 2 visits to the physio is all it usually takes to put things right, so I do not understand why I am just bloody stubborn about going. Yeh it hurts a little, but some of the treatment is actually pleasant and I know it will mean I can move like a not yet really old person, very soon. I can’t remember a time when the pain just mysteriously up and left of its own accord.

So this is my rest day from the physio and tomorrow should see me just about normal – whatever that is.

The thing that does change is the physio. For a good long time they were all older than me, mostly men and I spent time wondering how much their shoes might cost as I put my heads into the hole on the table. Then they were about my age and we’d discuss careers and family. Yesterday I discovered that my bloke Geoff had retired and so I saw the delightful Nadia. She is a lovely slip of a girl, about 11 I reckon, but she knows her stuff and has strong hands and I enjoyed her banter about moving from the country to the big smoke here on the Goldie.

Tomorrow I should be walking tall – well as tall as a now shorter than average woman. I used to be average height but that too has changed. Ho hum

 

 

 

 

MP Ho HUM update.

 

 

I heard from Bell’s MP only to say that she lives on the border between 2 electorates and I got it wrong... she is in Griffith... yeh that’s right, Krudd’s electorate. His office has been sent the complaint. His office has rung and asked for some more details.

The Connections for Quality DEERW ( education and employment and something else) sent back an unsigned form letter saying that Bell should try chatting to her JSA provider (Job Service Australia) Well that was a revelation!! A mulititude of government policy documents were attached saying what is supposed to happen.

Part of my response follows.

It is very clear that there is some utopian procedure in writing somewhere which is summarily and routinely dismissed by clerks at the coal face, and just because some 'no name' in your particular government agency can point to procedural documents, does not mean for a minute that said procedures are adhered to.

I asked for some assistance.

This response is not assistance, it is an arse covering exercise.

12 days after the first email to your office and still nothing has been done. Belinda graduated last week to also being allowed to scrub out the men's toilets. She was understandably thrilled with this promotion.
She has not been sent for any other vacancies and she still does not have necessary safety gear.

Some assistance from your office would be appreciated

Still I suppose one should not complain too much, at least the no name sent something.

On Nov 1^st I sent an email to MP Hartsuyker,  Assistant to the Minister for Employment, and I am yet to hear a dickie bird from him.

An odd bit of a coincidence is that on our little trip to Grafton last week we came across an election sign for said Mr Hartsuyker. Maybe he is too busy taking down his propaganda to get to his emails.

Girlie Days Rule.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s something that every woman should make time for: a girlie date.

So today Nik and I went off to the Gold lounge for an early viewing of ‘The Butler’.

At Australia Fair Cinema the Gold tickets are cheaper than the ordinary seats at Robina so why would you go anywhere else. We ordered coffees which were duly delivered to our seats at the appointed time, as we reclined in the supersized loungers. How very civilised!

Contrary to the reviews, we thoroughly enjoyed it. I am always interested in that period of American history when civil rights were legislated and people died standing up for their beliefs. It was well acted and the mingling of original footage with new film appealed to me. I am not sure what the reviews found to whinge about, I don’t routinely read them cos I prefer to make up my own mind, but maybe the author was in a standard cinema in a squashy chair and the length of the movie meant cramping of the legs and bum. Who knows and who cares.

There was enough time to order some salt and pepper calamari before it was time for our manicure- girlie for sure but so much fun. Lots of gossip and laughs and our nails look pretty good too.

I know there are plenty of more ‘civic’ things we could have done today, I could have even spent a very useful day catching up on all the ironing, but instead I feel like the inner girl has been nourished and let’s face the bloody ironing will still be there tomorrow.

Lest We Forget

 

 

Fishing or just Fishie

Yesterday 5 blokes pulled up into the ‘Council Vehicle Only' parking next to the park. They debunked and as I was throwing the ball or dog, I watched them phaff around with fishing rods and the like. And then one by one they walked down to the canal.

Now there can be no doubt that the beach at the end of the canal next to the park is public land and anyone who wishes to fish from here, well I say, ‘Go your hardest!’ even though I have never seen a fish caught from there. There can be no accounting for taste when it comes to leisure pursuits, some people like motor racing, some like macramé, some like playing video games and some like planning heists, so if someone wants to try to drown an already dead prawn or worm whilst trying to tempt an all too savey fish onto a lethal bit of metal, then who the hell am I to stop ‘em.

But yesterday’s bods were not happy to stay on the unequivocal public beach, instead they opted to wander along the canal onto private pontoons, all the while taking enormous interest in the boats and houses on the way.

One guy went one side of the canal and 4 on the other. The group of 4 became 2 groups of 2, one group tossing unbaited hooks into the water and the other pair moving further along, not even pretending to fish, instead they surveiled the boats and houses. The lone guy on the other side kept up with them and was clearly acting as look out.

They were not the most convincing bunch of fisher people you might ever have seen. I mean I am not a fisherperson, oooh YUK, but I reckon if I was gonna try for a ‘fish meal I made myself’, I would take a bucket and some bait and maybe a net and possibly even a bag with fishing stuff in it. These guys were empty handed except for the rods.

Steve and I were very conspicuous as we watched their progress. They spent a long time at the pontoons where there are big boats and less time on empty ones like ours.

I rang the police, but as I could not in all honesty describe these fellas as possible Bikies, there was very little interest. Prevention is clearly not as good as cure when talking about crime on the Goldie.

The lone lookout guy finally came back and was quite confrontational asking us if we had a problem. I said that I thought the behaviour was a little odd. He said he would get the other guys to come back and they would leave. He said they had been fishing like this for years and I said that he had not been doing it here for years, as we had never seen him.

They were not in a great hurry to go. We had been standing in the park for more than an hour watching them. They were brazenly walking onto private property and checking out the boats, and looking into houses.

I do wonder what the coppers were doing at 10am yesterday which prevented them popping over for a quiet chat with these blokes. Surely if they had been up to no good, a police presence would have proved to be a deterrent. Surely if the police want public assistance in solving crimes they need to be seen to be interested in such reports. Surely they could have had their coffee in a takeaway cup.

I don’t want to own a gun, but I can see how people might arm themselves if this is the response they get from the police.

Country Charm.

 

The summer came early this and so did the wonderful blue purple display of the jacarandas. Grafton has an annual Festival celebrating their 2000 wonderful trees. That was about 3 weeks ago and so I knew it was all a bit hopeful that they’d still be in full bloom now, but off we went all the same.

It’s a leisurely 3 hour drive, through cane country and the bush. Some of the farmers have switched to macadamia nuts or bananas or avocados so there is some respite from the cane, but really the view is pretty ordinary.

We stopped in at Ballina for coffee and a little tart. People in the bush really are very pleasant and they sure can make a fine coffee and the tarts – ooooh YUM. There are the large shopping malls on the outskirts of town but we went into the High street or the Town Centre cos we like to look at the old buildings. It was pretty quiet on the street, though parking was difficult to find. ‘Where the bloody hell are the locals,’ old Lara B could chirp. Seems they were all in the coffee shop and we were very pleased that we stopped to join them.

It’s an odd little place, right on the coast and on the Richmond River. There is a great deal of holiday accomm, and I am using the term very loosely. The beach that we found was ok by Uk standards and alright if you had travelled over many hundreds of miles through desert and bush and had never seen the surf before, but not a patch on the Goldie beaches. A bloke from Grafton told us that Ballina is full or pensioners and welfare people. Reckon we saw nothing tho contradict this.

There was road works for miles and miles between Ballina and Grafton. The road mostly follows the river and I wondered how the farmers along the way survived the floods, cos even though the road acts as a levee bank, it didn’t seem to me that the waters would have to rise far to be through their front doors.

So into Grafton and what a pretty place it is. The Jacarandas were mostly done. There was the odd trees still covered – must have been somewhat retarded, or just a defiant teenager,  but generally they were naked. I can imagine how lovely it would be in full bloom although the guy in the ice cream shop said that even the Festival was a little late this year to celebrate their full splendour.

Steve bought a hat for golf and we had a wander up the town and thought we could easily come back for another visit - maybe next year about festival time.

We went the long way home to avoid all the road works even though we reckoned they would have packed up for the night by then and made a flying stop in Casino for petrol. I think that might be all that Casino has to offer except for its colourful history of murder and drugs and intrigue.

More than 6 hours behind the wheel and Stevie’s eyes were done in. The charm of the little country villages was worth it, well for me at least cos I just got to sit on my arse up high in the monster truck.

 

Members of Parliament - Ho bloody HUM

 

Yeh, I guess idiots vote for idiots and people who want to go surfing vote for people who want to go surfing and people who want to work vote for well, actually they are probably out of luck.

Writing routinely to a Local MP has always seemed to be something of a wasted effort, but I have been so concerned about the new Government’s gagging orders about the arrival of people seeking refuge, that write I did.

Nothing moves quite as slowly as the cogs of bureaucracy. I got a call from his ‘girlie’ and an email too and finally one from the man himself – yeah I know probably still from the ‘girlie’ but the MP put his name to it. It was full of placatory crap and not much substance. That is obviously why people just don’t bother.

However before I received this nonsense, I sent off a letter to Bell’s MP and the Minister for Employment and a whole lot of other stuff. I wanted something REAL from them. I wanted some action on Bell’s behalf. I wanted them to fire a rocket up the arses of the people being paid tax dollars to help her find a real job. So far – NOTHING!

I don’t know what these people do all day, but representing their constituents doesn’t seem to be it.

Yesterday I spent a girlie few hours over lunch for the horse race day. There was a fully able woman there who has been on an invalid pension for as long as I have known her. She gives welfare recipients such a shit name. Maybe the MPs are just as jaded and disenchanted with Joe Public as I am so don’t bother trying to help out. But how they sleep at night as they grab big bucks with both hands I don’t know.

If anyone knows of a decent job for a bright hard worker please let me know.

To Polish or not to Polish that is the Question

 

It might be that I have lived my life in a quiet little bubble away from the haughty fray of metro sexual men. It might be that I am far more familiar with the scratch the scrotum, singlet wearing, spitters who love their sport and beer and BBQs, but I don’t believe I know any man who admits to enjoying a PEDICURE. I am happy to be proved wrong!

Steve would be no more inclined to spend a minute or a dollar having someone scrape and paint and coddle his feet than he would be to pulling on a pair of high heels and a skirt and fronting to his rugby club on a Saturday afternoon.

I reckon the land of the PEDICURE might well be the ultimate male female divide.

To spend an hour with someone at ground zero is bliss. I walk in with rough, crooked nailed, tired old slabs of meat and I pirouette out on dainty toes newly sparkling. The scent and the lighting and the comfy chairs – ahhh, and I get to admire the dancing coloured spots until such time as the nails grow and the skin thickens and cracks.

Perhaps it is because the gypsy in me means I spend most of my life barefoot and I consider the coloured nails, shoes. Perhaps it’s because I am a lazy cow who doesn’t enjoy the smell of my own feet. Perhaps it’s because to put your feet up in the capable hands of a nail technician, and enjoy the sensual pleasure of it all is something to be savoured. Whatever the reason, I love it and I reckon men just don’t get it.

C’est  la vie

 

Good Shopping Brings a Smile

 

I like shopping. Not  groceries, trawl the aisles and chuck shit in a trolley type of shopping. There is no joy in that. It just means that you use up 2 hours of your life that you are never gonna get back and after the aisle mooch you have to take all the shit home and shovel it into various cupboards and of course clear out room in the fridge. Groceries is NOT shopping.

No I like wandering and having a look and touching stuff and smelling stuff and trying to imagine if the stuff would ‘fit in’, or sometimes more accurately if I would fit into it. I like the artificial light and the ‘lie to me mirrors’ I like the aircon and space and that it is ok to stop for a good long while over a coffee.

It’s interesting to stop and watch the world go by. Sometimes it is funny and sometimes sad, but it is always entertaining, perhaps especially so here at the Goldie cos there is an odd mixture of locals and carefree holiday makers. People on hols just really do leave their inhibitions behind. People get out in the malls wearing far too little and are pleased to be sporting that truly ugly hat that they bought in desperation from the chemist, the one that they will leave in their unit cos they wouldn’t be seen dead in it at home. They go barefooted and bare arsed and proudly present their serious sunburn and salt hair to the world.

I guess what I really like about shopping here at the Goldie, is that even tho I am a local, I can get about looking less than fab and pretend I am on hols. I can flip flop along with my uncombed hair pulled back into an untidy pony bun, and know that I am virtually anonymous, not a tidy, up myself, trying to impress the white shoe brigade type of local and not a tourist either.

I do enjoy a good old shopping mooch around.

 

Halloween Hockus Pockus

I have never been too interested in the Tricks or the Treats, in fact while I lived in London where Halloween is a very big deal, I used to go out rather than pretend I wasn’t home cos being ignored just gave the tricksters the shits.

 

When I lived in Chiswick, where I guess the loot was more and better and worth the effort, kids were ‘bussed in’ from places where the pickings were less. This of course did not engender a renewed sense of community, instead there was jealousy and spite and the odd rotten egg. I do not have pleasant memories of families dressed in madness knocking and saying hello.

However, yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the Ghosts’ holiday with Belly and Zig. We decorated the garden with lights and skulls and other pseudo scary bits, dressed in silliness and arranged the ‘treaties’ in a big old pink cauldron. I was the doller-outer of the goodies and Belly the witch and Zig AKA Jason, went in search of other like minded folk.

The streets came alive with mums and dads and mas and pas and kids dressed up and enjoying the decorations in the darkness. Of course the sweeties were also a big hit. Kids arrived and were delighted when their voices activated the ghost lights and when they heard my voice from behind the star jasmine, they got a little tickle that was soon soothed by the offer of a treat.

The witch and Jason arrived home with a large contingent they had collected in their travels. Other families had joined with them and they had had quite the festive time walking and chatting and laughing and minding each other’s kids. These folk live just around the corner and were new to the neighbourhood. What a lovely way to meet the locals!

I am soo pleased that Belly wants to make this a family tradition. I am looking forward to next year when I might make a really silly costume and as the kids get older make more of a fright night game.