Bat shit is driving me bat shit crazy.

Pretty little berries that the bats just can't resist.

The park next door is home to some lovely trees, the biggest and most shadeful are the Moreton Bay Fig trees, which Zig loves to climb and I have spent many many hours sitting beneath, enjoying the sway of the branches and the cool breeze which nearly always finds its way there.

Twice a year however, the trees find it necessary to grow little berries which sadly the fucking local bat colony just can't resist.

These bats are a source of great tension. Some people reckon they are lovely and should be allowed to carry on anywhere any time and others of us want the damn things GONE.

There are not too many natural predators to keep the bat numbers down.

Pretty much any carnivore will eat bats if they can catch them, that is why bats spend all day hiding in caves, hollow logs and so forth. Any bat that ventures out in daytime will be eaten within minutes.

The list of predtaors includes all the usual suspects such as cats, dogs, snakes, racoons, hawks, shrikes and so forth but also includes almost any carnivore you can imagine. I've seen bats being eaten by crocodiles, spiders, other bats and, as kawaii holwingwolves aid, by frogs. Bats ae incredibly small animals and are weak even for their size making them prey for almost anything at all that can catch them.

I couldn't think of any, so that is what I found. Hmmm:

• Cats - yep there are a few of them, but not too many in the tree and I am yet to see one fly.
• Dogs - yep plenty in the Dog park, but not at night and really most of 'em are just too stupid to put together a hunting plan.
• Snakes - not seen one thank god.
• Racoons - not here.
• Hawks - possibly
• Shrikes - ??
• Crocodiles - Farkkkk. I know we are careful of the bull sharks but now this is ridiculous.

Anyway you get the idea. I just don't see how the bat numbers are effectively moderated in the suburbs.

And if all they did was squark away at night, well I probably wouldn't care all that much. But they feast on the Fig Fruit and then shit everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. In bat shit season, it is not safe to wander across the park at dusk cos you might get squirted with barely digested figs. They have some sort of sonar which allows them to fly at speed and never crash into anything and they use the side of the house and the fence as their guide. And yep you guessed it, they shit all of the fence and the house.

It's hard to believe but this is all bat shit and most of today's load has already been blown off the seat.

The little picnic table right under one of the trees is very well used, ordinarily. But at the moment you have to arm yourself with a shovel to scrape of the big gunk and 4 litres of water and a scrubbing brush to clean up the rest.

It's only worth doing if you want to spend the afternoon there, and as darkness descends, you just know that their arseholes will be flappy again and the table will be a mess again in the morning.

I am very very pleased that it is not a mulberry tree, cos I reckon getting that purple colour gone might be impossible. At least this shit is yellow and doesn't stain too badly.

It is no secret that I am not a good greenie. I argue that I did my duty in breeding an excellent one. I don't always recycle, but my recycle bin is nearly always correctly loaded. I have no problem killing a bug, especially cockroaches or spiders and have been seen cheering wildly as Steve corrals grasshoppers or birds. So no I am not a greenie.

Therefore I would like it if the council would stop hiding behind the conservationist ticket and get rid of the bloody pests. I reckon they do nothing, not cos they want to protect the filthy things, but because it is just bloody cheaper. Doing nothing is always the councils preferred method. It costs nothing, but they can still employ all those paper shufflers, cos someone needs to answer the phones and tell you NO.

We are so lucky - I don't think. There have been 2 berry seasons this summer and whilst I am enjoying watching my lillypillies burst again in the garden, I would have been happy with one go for the bats in the park.

Ugly little fuckers aren't they. Anyone want to come and Pied Pipper them outta here?

Flat Pack Jig-Saw, are you any good?

Zig's pressie arrived today. The delivery bloke, not the Oz Post fool who has long refused to deliver anything here, took it off the truck and popped it onto his trolley thing and carried it right into the house. What a bloody great service!

Anyway the drawers-to-be arrived and Steve strong armed it all into the garage and set to immediately. Some long time later I ventured in and was not the least bit surprised to see all the screws and funny bits and stuff were all lined up and counted and all the parts were stacked in order of use and Steve was head down arse up winding his way through the INSTRUCTIONS. I admit to being impressed.

 

 

I have watched him put flat pack stuff together before and have always sit in awe to watch someone approach the whole thing so differently to me.

I'd get the stuff out and maybe leave it in piles, maybe not, and try shoving bits together until failure strikes and then I'd throw some bit through a wall. Instructions are for other people. How hard can it be? Well as it turns out bloody difficult.

Steve reckons that this thing was not as finely configured as an Ikea piece. It certainly looked like there were lots more bit and pieces and whilst I am pleased with the final product, I think that an Ikea bit might have been better, except that they didn't have one the right size.
 
It might not be the  most exciting pressie Zig gets but at least he wont have to start every day fighting with broken drawers to find his socks and jocks.

Real Estate Cons and Misconceptions

The big House is on the market. I have mentioned this before. We have scrubbed and fluffed and Steve has worked his arse off doing odd jobs that were a pain in the bum hole but important in making the place look bloody terrific.

The agent Paul organised a 'journo' from the Bulletin ( Bullie) to come and take some notes and write up a feature which she did and it was published in spite of the politics, last weekend. It was a pretty good write up even if I felt a little exposed cos she had included long direct word for word quotes from me. I had asked Steve to chat to her but he just ran away and left me to it, so I admit to waxing a bit lyrical at times.

Anyway from the off, I told Paul that there had been an error in the listing in that the address was wrong. I mean while we were building and were getting quotes we told people we lived in Bundall cos it is not too flash so perhaps tradies didn't gouge to quite the extent they did if we said we lived at Sorrento. But as we are trying to sell for a good price, we want the reverse to be true now and we want to use the posh address.

I told Paul this some weeks ago.

Today Steve got involved as there has not been one jot of interest. There are 30 houses for sale in Bundall and most of them are, well more modest, so our place looks like the best house in the worst street, and we all know that is not clever buying. There are about 30 houses for sale in Sorrento and the Big House is in good company here.

But here's the rub. Paul finally told Steve today that the web site www.realestate.com.au charges more for ads for houses in posh suburbs! I thought this sounded truly bogus, but after a bit of research, it turns out that this company brought in this change in June 2014. I suppose all's fair in love and war and if you can get the cash by foul or fair means well goodo. But what beggars belief is that we not happily, paid a premium price for ad placement and all we got was an ad for Ray White in the cheapo suburb. This doesn't seem like a winning play to me.

So there we were with what some people say is the best house article they have ever read in the Bullie! no hyperbole! and it has done us no good at all as when folk go to have a look online it comes up as being in the 'wrong suburb'

It's been a couple of weeks and we are now just waiting for the shoe to drop and for some push to be on to do something we don't want to do, like run naked down the street wearing an A Board, or have open houses or go to an auction, or open up the place to overseas backpackers so we can get a good rating on Trip Advisor. Who knows what the next strategy is gonna be? I only know that I am pretty sure that we are not gonna like it.

What to do during the rainy hols.

Steve and I swapped some silliness parcels one of which I roared about and that was an old-fashioned boxed board game of LUDO and on the reverse side, just to be practical and maybe even a little greenie, SNAKES AND LADDERS.

The rain has seen Steve starved of golf but big on the games.

We are both more than a little competitive. The Snakes and Ladders proved a tantrum throwing exercise for me as I pulled splinters, not from climbing all those fabulous ladders but from the dirt and scales of the bloody snakes which saw me slide again and again into the mire. Bloody stupid game!! Yeh OK  Steve won.

Then there was Ludo. We needed to re-learn the rules cos it had been more than a generation since either of us had played. Steve was red and I took green.

The first game we played with only 2 players each. He won. It was boring. Then we played again with 4 players each. I won and won and won. I am the Ludo champion of Bundall. Bloody terrific game!!

We have been in the pool even with the rain, cos it might be raining but in true Queensland fashion it is still stinky hot.

We made up a pool game which requires a 'noodle', a tennis ball, at least 2 players and a dog who is happy to field all day. So the game is a cross between cricket and softball. The pitches are over-arm and the noodle is the bat. You have to tuck the long end under your arm and swing the other end about like a maniac. What a great feeling when you make contact. Dog has become such an excellent fielder that I expect a call up any day from the Australian Cricket selectors. Yesterday she became such a star that she caught 2 balls as wickety and was then on a hat trick . I am not sure whether she missed or I missed but in any case a hat trick went begging. There is no winning and losing in this game, just hoots of laughter and the occasional smack in the head or arm as the tennis ball makes an oopsy.

I reckon we are now set for a Zig visit, even in the rain. He will want to have a go at the full length Monopoly but I hope he might be convinced to have a go at these quicker games where lots of people can become winners. Well I might let the fellas be winners from time to time.

Lucky basket's xmas week

The life of a handy basket, even a lucky one is hectic and varied and extremely exciting. Sue has toted me around for a wonderful xmas preparation. I have not let her down.

 

Breakfast at The Coffee Club at Robina Town Centre, preparing for the parcel onslaught. They even allowed Sue to charge her phone. Jolly nice folk.

 

Parcels galore. Saved a trip or two back to the car, and I never looked like I was gonna wilt under the load.

 

 

 

Christmas drinkies in the park. All the goodies carried safely, much lighter on my way home.

Only the chairs were too much to carry.

 

Christmas morning off to the beach for swimming and chatting and playing and fun.

 

Boxing Day caffeine hit. I was the only one not at all scuffy, because I didn't match the dinner outfit last night so I had to stay in.

 

I was a little surprised not to have been shuffled off to the Boxing Day sales, but tomorrow is another day.

The sales were attempted but the crowds and the rudeness of people proved too much for Sue. Tomorrow is still another day. But I have spied her shopping online so maybe I will have to wait til the sun comes out and be happy that I am at the beach.

Xmas done and dusted 😋

What a lovely day.

Parcels with cryptic clues and an hour and half in the unwrapping and laughing.

Too many calories for breakfast.

To the beach for a swim and a natter with friends. Ta very much Nik, lovely morning, Dog was exhausted from her big swim.

Home for a swim and a game of softball in the pool. Dog is an excellent fielder.

Dressed and out for dinner. Many champers and beers, good food, a visit from Santa and a sing-along.

We even had a little dance.

Bell and Zig will be down early in NY to do it all again. Lucky Santa is patient.

Xmas Eve not in the European Style

I was up early to put my hand to a Christmas cake, which I know I had left to the very last minute and as it was a first I was a little nervous. I have made Plum puddings from scratch before and have had them tied up in calico to dry for all of November, but I have not made a cake.

The puddings were less fabulous and more festering by the time I boiled it up after lunch in 1982. I remember the year cos I was pregnant and I was trying to do my old Nanna proud. I had made a family sized monster and a few smaller ones that I had given away as special homemade pressies. Oh shit the shame!

After the usual gorge of food provided by my lovely Dad, I set about dishing up the pudding after it had been boiling for hours. I then sliced it up and gave the woman what bore me a big slice. As she was about to dive into it and I was slicing the next walloper slab, I noticed it was full of big fat dead maggots. I guess they hadn't taken too kindly to being boiled. I stoped the breeder just in time. Sometimes I wish I could have made my discovery just a few seconds later. Naughty I know.

Anyway, this has tarred my whole intentions re xmas baking. I am not keen to repeat that little wriggling disaster.

So cake has been made and I think it looks pretty good, if not like a bought one and then Steve and I flopped about doing some last minute bits and pieces. I picked up some of that roll out icing and thought I might give it a go later on. In for a penny and all that. There is enough brandy in the cake to require a health warning and to disallow serving to children and the smell is pretty fab!

We have some baked ham and salad for dinner and then I guess we will do a bit of a wrap up, and then be off to be early so that Santa can do his best.

It has been a lovely Eve.

I hope yours has been the calm before the chaos of Christmas day.

Christmas preparations are coming along nicely.

So apart from food, and really who needs that? I reckon I am done. Well I haven't got any wrapping paper and I am yet to get Dog her gift, but I am pretty close to done. Except that I will get bonbons in the post xmas madness sales cos Belly and Zig are coming for Christmas in the New Year and Zig's parcel is not due to arrive until the 31st. So yes I have made a very good start. I have a bunch of silliness sorted for Stevie and so long as he has a fine time in the guessing and unwrapping then that's Christmas to me. I am not really ready at all but  am hoping that the power of positive thinking is strong and magical.

Tomorrow I am gonna go at a sparrow's fart to do the groceries and hope that this is an original idea and I am on my own. Ho hum.

Today we have had Walter and Danny here washing all the windows. Now that's a daunting task here in the Big House, but they have just calmly cracked on with it, climbing up ladders and hanging off 'em to clean louvers so high up, even the human fly would think twice. They might be the most even natured blokes I have ever met. Walter was in an horrific work accident which saw him fall off the side of a high rise building and he broke about every bone of his own and a couple of his brothers just for good measure. He took a year in re-hab to learn everything again and he told me he had finished with all that palaver. When he set his ladder up on the deck roof and scaled it to clean the glass, I was surprised but marvelled at his bravery and had everything crossed that all would be well.

The glass is soo clean Steve has started counting how many times he runs into a door thinking it's open. We are only at 1 but the afternoon is early and he has been sitting at the computer for a long time. My hope is that he doesn't dirty to many of 'em up with hand and nose prints, before he either breaks his nose or believes that they are clean not open.

And tomorrow there are a bunch of us meeting in the park for some festive cheer. I rang the council today to see if it was possible for them to mow in the morning cos the grass is green and longish after the rain. I was soo pleased to be reminded that it was illegal to drink anything alcoholic. Of course I told the person I was only talking about a couple of people and a few dogs, but her threat was repeated. I suppose tomorrow will see. Toddlers can rub their snotty filthy faces on expensive clothes at the shops, and teenagers can sit and bong on in all sorts of public places but a bunch of oldies sharing a bottle of who knows what will be faced with police tipping out their beverages. Not very festive if you are asking me.

I do believe that I can hear the carting of ladders from upstairs. Had best go and be truly thankful and pay the boys.

Cheers.

Are you feeling lucky Punk, well are ya?

I vacillate between thinking I am the luckiest person alive and thinking that the only luck I have is bad. I live a pretty charmed life, but in terms of winning stuff, well I just don't rate.

I almost never enter competitions or buy lotto tickets etc, cos I never win, so when there was a competition at an online blog that I read and laugh along with,  www.woogsworld.com  I jotted down my answer as to why I wanted this basket and didn't give any more thought than correcting the spelling.

Sometime later I got an email asking for my details, cos bugger me, I was a winner. Winner winner chicken dinner! Even now, after a week of having my lovely basket with me, I can still hardly believe that I won it.

I let www.themarketbasketco.com.au know that the postie had in deed delivered my goodie and that I would let them know how it spent the summer.

It has had a very busy week. Firstly she loaded up some towels and hats and factor 50 and took  Zig off to the beach. What a fine old time was had. I reckon that my knee was the best it has been without exaggeration, for years. We all look forward to Zig's return when it will be into the flagged surf for all of us. Yippee!

Then she carried some Christmas shopping and went for a ride on the new Goldie trams. She found the trams with all the advertising on them more than a little claustrophobic, but the clear skins were much better, with wonderful unhindered views. Both she and I are hoping that ALL the trams are not pimped out to the highest bidder. When we were catching the tram back to the car, there was some old fool at the ticket machine. Well really, we all figured he must have escaped from the loonie-tunes, cos he had no idea what he was doing and the tram was coming NOW. I had swiped my Go card, but I needed to get Zig a ticket. The old bloke just wouldn't move and short of crash tackling him out of the way, or waiting for the next tram which might possibly have been covered in plastic wrap, we had to jump onto the tram.....WITHOUT A TICKET.

To say Zig was shitting himself is only a slight exaggeration. Once we had plopped ourselves down we did a reconnoitre and spied, oh dear....THE TICKET INSPECTORS. Zig nearly passed out. He didn't care about the unGlad wrapped tram or the pretty view or the strange people on the tram. He just watched the Inspectors coming closer and closer. I kept thinking that I hardly looked like some fare dodger and had in fact paid for mine anyway and didn't figure that anyone carrying a sweet looking basket would get booked for fare evasion. Zig was not convinced. I  can't imagine that he will follow his Ma's example if he's ever in Amsterdam. I bet he will never ride the trams there all day every day for a week, all the while preparing to show any inspector who asked, my tour ferry ticket, which I knew was not valid on the trams but thought I'd (and did) get away with it by playing up the language differences.

'Can we get off here please Ma?'

We were 2 stops from home and Zig kept saying, 'We should get out here Ma.' But it was hot and I was feeling lucky, I had my lucky basket with me after all. The inspectors were chatting to some bloke a bit further down and on the stop before ours, they frog marched the bloke off the tram onto the platform, cos, oh shit, he hadn't bought a ticket! This meant that we were ok to stay on for one more stop. I 'touched out' as you do when we got off and saw that my trip was a freebie too. Maybe all that panic was for nothing. Maybe a fare is good for a certain period of time, or maybe the good luck basket fairy was just being benevolent and rewarding me for taking her on an outing with a very good looking little bloke.

Yeh this ensemble was selected specially by Zig himself.

She has also spent a lively couple of hours sitting on the floor at the Holland Park Pub.  She really is a well mannered, well behaved, perfectly respectable basket and I am so pleased to be able to stop wondering if my bag matches my thongs, cos this girl goes with everything.

I am so glad to be nothing like the woman who bore me.

I had all sorts of lovely to write about today but that was usurped by a hostile steely rude - just ask Ziggy! encounter today at lunch.

Bell and Zig and I had a date for lunch and in this heat we decided to forego the scrummy offerings at the local cafe, which would have meant sitting in the scorch of the sun and the reflection of more heat off the bitumen, and instead we trooped into the local air-conditioned pub, where we knew the food would be, well just less but the comfort much much more. .

We were not the only ones with this brain wave. The car park was full and the restaurant was heaving. Zig and I tumbled in and started looking for a table.

I can be pretty single minded when looking for somewhere to park it and I spied a vacant table through the sea of Christmas cheerers wearing silly hats and made a bee line for it. All the while Zig's shouts of, 'That's Granny' went unheeded.

We plopped ourselves down and then he explained again that he had seen Grandma.

Now as is all too common these days that could be one of very many people, but I was pretty sure that even in this day and age of craziness it was probably a woman.

Zig has 3 sets of grandparents and I am not at all sure how many great grandies, but the roughly blended families make the possibilities of who he saw pretty vast. He called to Bell as she came in and was pointing wildly and I was looking at completely the wrong people, and Bell stopped on her way to us to say hello to some old woman.

Well bugger me! IT WAS THE WOMAN WHO BORE ME! Yep there was mother, sitting in all her glory amid a bunch of old crones.

Bell told her that she was here with Zig and me for lunch.

It has been more than 20 years since I have heard from the woman. I realise that in this time I could have sucked up any pride and foregone any integrity and I could have contacted her but I haven't. She has gone her merry way, disowning 2 daughters and foregoing a relationship with her grand daughter and great grandie boy, so that she could continue the habits of a lifetime and protect her waste of space son, forge a relationship with my ex-husband and his now wife, who Mother used to drive miles to avoid, and adopt another family altogether. She's been quite busy.

Anyway in an ordinary year, I think of her never, so my life is very much simpler without her demands and all of her 'look at me look at me' behaviour.

It was quite a shock to be in the same room as her after all these years.

Bell nearly had a melt down but I told her not to worry. I was more than happy to eat and let eat.

But NO, the woman had other plans. She lobbed over to the table and bugger me she sat down!! She said, 'Hi' to Zig and again to Bell and made small talk, ignoring me altogether. She stayed for too long and then left.

As she walked away Zig said,' How RUDE, she just ignored you Ma.'

She must be 80 and she looked very well, hard as nails as ever. Bell reckons she is losing it and that dementia might be biting away at her, but she looked perfectly in control to me, well turned out wearing her jewels. Perfectly in control as ever, playing everyone for fools.   

It has never been my intention to give the woman a line let alone paragraph in this little blog but it was quite the event.

The Aftermath

 

One hero and 2 Innocents dead.

 

Flowers.

 

Flowers

 

Flowers

 

Flowers

 

Flowers

 

 

I am without words. 

Seige in Martin Place Sydney

So do you want the good news or the truly shitful news?

It's been such an odd mixed day. Quite like trying to find reason in a crusty hamburger with a  brandy trifle and slow cooked onion mayonnaise.

Robbie the painter arrived half an hour early and got stuck in to an array of 'fix-it-up jobbies' and I made Steve's favourite biscuits while I waited for Belly and Zig to arrive. Dog ran with her mate Sam and amid all this some lunatic/s took over a cafe in Sydney's Martin Place. Amazing how an ordinary day can so quickly to upside down.

My Friend Carol is in Sydney and I know she often goes into town for breakfast so I texted to tell her to keep out of town. She was already there amongst it and was trying to get home amid the madness. She said, once safely home, that she had freaked out a bit. And I am not surprised. These things just don't happen here in Oz. It's still rumbling on now and I don't mean to belittle it at all. I am just blowing hot air in the hope that everyone is safe whilst taking time to mourn this loss of innocence.

A thousand kilometres away and this just crack on up here. I took off to the Peter the physio recommended for my new knee and he pushed and prodded til my eyes leaked and then he popped me onto a couple of weird machines and I limped home.

All the while the siege in Martin Place continued. Zig played in the pool and wore Dog out and we all had lunch and Steve fixed the leak in the bath tub, and still the siege continued.

What the fuck is going on?

I just cannot fathom the logic or appalling lack of it that drives someone to punish innocent people to make a political or religious or any sort of statement. Really, if you have something to say, then fucking spit it out. Do these people honestly think their message is louder or more positively received if delivered via terror. What about, ' You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.'

Anyway I am hoping for a quick resolution, though am not at all sure this hope will be answered by Santa or God or Allah or the AFP. 

The Hunger Games : MOCKINGJAY part 1 - movie review in 2 parts

Today I got back on the horse, that is I took myself off to the movies in the gold lounge during the day cos that's what I like to do.

I haven't been since my knee shit so it was quite the moment.

I love going to the pictures like this cos the place is usually empty, yeh, even on a Saturday, but I admit I usually go early in the morning.

The first session of The Mocking Jay wasn't until 2 but when I looked online there were no tickets sold so I thought it worth a gamble. When I bought my ticket at 12 it was still pretty empty and certainly there was no one next to me. I did a bit of a phaff and a furtile  at the shops and was more than a little disappointed when I got back to the cinema to see that the foyer was full. Shitty shitty shit shit. And not only full, but the crippled old lady I followed in was sitting next to me! Double shit!

She had ordered some very crunchie food delivered early in the film and I am surprised that her falsies survived the chomping. I reckon she might well have been deaf as well as lame cos if she could have heard herself crunching that bloody food she might well have started gumming it just to be polite. So she chomped along and that gave  me the irrits and so I had time to notice all these bloody kids in there too. Triple irrits.

I don't mind the usual shit and carry on with kids at the pictures if I am in the cheap seats with Zig, but in the adult goldie, well I just don't reckon kids should be allowed. They are supposed to behave 'emselves and their 'adult minder' is supposed to be in charge of 'em, but that hardly ever happens. If you complain you miss bits of the movie and nothing happens anyway. So between the geriatric consumption of lunch which took her til tea time, and kids running in and out and swinging their legs high into the sky and chatting and eating god only knows what it was less than my usually fabulous encounter. The piece -de -resistance however was when the old crippled lady finally finished her food and deposited the tray in front of me so I could no doubt continue NOT to enjoy the odour of the condiments and sauces, she promptly went to sleep, clearly plum tuckered out from all that chewing. And I don't mean one of those calm quiet little nanna naps we can all enjoy, I am telling you, she put her chair right back, relaxed into a coma and started snoring so loudly I think the techie turned the sound up. I wanted to karate chop the old cow in the throat. It's hard to believe I know, but I did not stay behind to offer her assistance out of her chair or to discuss the special effects or Philip Seymour Hoffman's last performance.

And so to the movie. I enjoyed it. I might well be one of the few people on earth who have not read 'The Hunger Games' so I didn't know the storyline, but I have seen the first 2 parts. If you haven't seen them or read the books, don't bother with this cos it really will not make much sense. There are no tricky flash backs to remind you what has already happened, it just jumps straight in.The whole cast does an excellent job and the special effects are slick and believable. I am not sure apart from economics, why it was necessary to break the story where they did so there is not the usual satisfaction that comes from a finished product. I don't mind paying for another ticket, but the ending of this chapter was a little disappointing, like you've had a lovely meal but have a bit of shit caught in your teeth and no dental floss, to provide relief.

It's a pity that the final instalment is not being released until late next year, although Steve said he might like to go to the last one, so I wont run the risk of sitting next to the old lady again.

It was fine to see Mr Hoffman's final bow.

Jamie Oliver super saver - eat your heart out.

After the Knee Horror and all the drugs and the interrupted appetite and shitful lack of sleep and perhaps Steve commenting more than might strictly necessary how fat I am, I decided that if I ate more prudently then I might drop a size or 2 and feel better and put less strain on my lumps of metal. ( just mistyped lumps and LIMPS came up , maybe too Freudian huh?)

So I sent him off on his Sunday search for roast dinner ingredients with instructions to get some frozen fruit and yoghurt. I was gonna make fruit smoothies for breakfast. Now I am not sure about the calorific content of these smoothies, but I do know that they are the healthy option  in lieu of nothing at all, or some load of crap cereal.

Fruit to hand I set off and they were bloody marvellous, especially here in the heat, all frozen scrumminess, but expensive. When I was finally up for a trawl through the supermarket I had a look at real fresh fruit and grabbed a basket load of stuff and thought that I would cut it up and pop it in the freezer and save some cash. Now this would not have been the first time that I spent money to save money but really just threw cash away.

But not this time! I bought in season apples, grapes, oranges and not so in season strawberries, chopped 'em up and have been using 'em for me fruity yums. I still have a few frozen grapes but apart from them I have used the lot!! Frozen berries be buggered, well not really they do make damn fine smoothies and are excellent in muffins, but my seasonal shakes are just as lovely and while I sit back slurping I can be pleased with my unusually successful economy.

The recipe is sooo easy

a good handful of frozen fruit ( start with an apple and a few bits of orange and a couple of strawberries and see how you go, it isn't a precise science)
4 spoons full of plain Greek yoghurt
a squirt of honey
a slurp of skinny milk straight from the fridge.

Bung it all in your blender, if it gets a bit stuck up take off the lid and poke it with a spoon, blend it til it's smooth and freezing cold and serve immediately in a tall pint glass and suck through a straw.

Yummo!

Do you sweat?

I reckon if Hitler had been Australian, he might have been less than impressed with the look of the ARYAN RACE. I doubt it is necessary to cop to not having much of an historical insight here, I am just saying.

It's all very well thinking that blonde blue eyed folk are pretty enough when they are indoors and it's chilly and they are wearing scarves and boots when they venture outside, but here in the land of the 'ain't it fucking hot today' I reckon they are less than attractive.

Now he might well have rejected me cos I have green eyes, and that might be why when I get hot, really hot, way before I start to sweat like a normal person, I go beetroot red in the face and look like I could collapse at any time with a heart attack or exhaustion.

Back in my Netball days, I would run like a maniac and the puce factor would rise and rise. At about half time I'd be so red in the face I could see the glow reflecting off my own cheeks and I felt like my eyes were gonna bug out at any moment. For the festive season I could have rented myself out as a fun decoration but at other times, it was just plain disturbing. It wasn't until almost 3/4 time that I finally started to sweat and then it was like someone turned on a tap. Not very lady like, although neither was taking an elbow to guts or falling spread-eagle on the floor after going for a rebound. It is not always an elegant sport. But I digress.

'Today it's hot, darn hot', how I wish I could finish that great Robin William's line form Good Morning Vietnam. I was up early to do my Christmas cards which I enjoyed, I ran Dog and then walked across to the village to post my cards. Just a little later I walked back again with anothery and to get some coffees and when I walked into Avril's place, Laurence looked concerned cos I was red in the face. Bloody hell it was only 10 in the morning, and my face was just gonna get redder and redder before I started to leak.

We had a visitor and he must have wondered what the fuck was wrong with me, but he plodded on with his business steadfastly ignoring the cartoon next to him.

Just because I didn't think I was quite red enough, I decided to weed my little garden and mow the grass. Yippee finally some sweat!! But don't be thinking that just cos the sweating started my face was any less ruddy.

If Hitler had been visiting this afternoon he's have had to have had a real good re-think.

Aussie V Pom christmas decorating.

I never have any trouble remembering that I am an all Aussie girl. Yeh I lived for a good while in Blighty and brought home my own Pommie bloke and sometimes I feel like I am more familiar with how to get about in London than here on the Goldie, but I don't hesitate saying Christmas is in summer and the my June birthday is in winter and there is not a remote chance of ever waving the old St George Flag if the poms are up against us Aussies in anything from cricket and rugby to cockroach races.

But I do have extremely fond memories of cold Christmases with roaring fires and subdued lighting and probably rain and very rarely snow, and NOT falling about with heat stroke as a result of merely decorating the bloody tree.

There is a lot to be said for cold, snowy, non sweaty stinky,  decorating times.

By the time I put the shitting thing together, any xmas glasnost had well and truly evaporated.

And then of course there was the inevitable battle with the lights tangle. Steve carefully put these away for me last year. I remember cos he came out in the middle of a fucking mad meltdown as I tried to untangle the mess straight from the tree. But somehow the cable gremlins had spent a year buggering up all his good work, and they were knotted in every sense.

We have collected all sorts of decos for the tree, from all over the place, and there was a little while, today a very little while, when I reminisced the origins. Today however, I just wanted to get this shit on the tree as quickly as I could hoping that it does not look like it has all been thrown up there by a blind Parkinson sufferer.

I got close to the end and decided that the silver bells which are a nod to my kids from Whitton School, were just a sweaty arm pit too far. I really stink!

The pool is calling.

In Blighty, it would be time to crack open a bottle of something and chew up some scrummy chrissie fare, while making sure there was plenty of wood on the fire.

Polar opposites- well no surprises there if you know your geography.

Ain't it true that you always pine for that which you haven't got. While in London we often took off for somewhere warm for Christmas and now I wouldn't mind at all rolling in some snow.