Women What Lunch

Women of a certain age are very lucky indeed, especially if they have reached that point where they just don't give a shit about the mindless opinions of others.

7 such women, well alright only 6 such and one strange one, lunched together today at The Southport Yacht Club. Over a couple of bottles of wine and some lovely fish and chips with a side of walnut salad just so we could pretend to be healthy, we put the world to rights. Of course there were many different solutions, at least one for each of us and we didn't worry about the audience's reception cos it didn't really matter if the others thought we were loopy. We were all happy in our own skin.

I guess by a little I might have been the youngest at the table, which is a rare novelty these days. And an at bay migraine left me more than a little fuzzy and wearing my dark glasses. Lunch passed in something of a pleasant hazy blur. What a diverse happy group we seemed. All of a sudden though, one woman up and dashed off with half a glass of wine to spare. We did not see her again. She just bolted and then perhaps sadly we all reverted to the epitome of 'Women what lunch' and we gossiped like maniacs about her. Well in truth, they all did, I could hardly contribute as I didn't know her from Adam, but I listened and enjoyed the bitching along with them all.

Jenny sitting next to me said half in jest that she was pleased that it was not her who had left first because then everyone would be sitting there bitching about her. And this was true. We all acknowledged that. The beauty is though not one of us could give a toss if we were the topic of gossip. Bring it on anytime!

We discussed the usual stuff, men, children, grandies, hormones or the lack of 'em, migraines and botox. The table was divided about botox as a wrinkle remedy but there was good curiosity about it being useful as a treatment for migraine. This is something Dr Jane and I are looking into. I reckon a wrinkle free face might well be just the happiest little side effect of botox for migraines. Dr Jane is pretty sure it will help. She suffers too and she looked at me last week and smiled and said, 'Look here is a face full of Botox.'  I reckon she looks pretty wonderful and no migraines. I can hardly wait to have a go. The older women were worried about the long term effects for women who are lining up to be jabbed routinely from their early 30s on. I see their point, but hold that whatever the repercussions, science will find a way to overcome anything awful, so go for it.

We gathered today because something shitful or odd or mean is going on with the AWL lunch group and those lunches are not going ahead at least it didn't this month, and if it is still a No Go next month we 7 are gonna meet up again, somewhere new and scare the staff and chatter.

I reckon it is possible that women live longer than men because they enjoy these meet ups where they swap longevity hints and release buckets of bitterness and bitching in a safe controlled environment where no one gets hurt.

Bongs and vandals

The Park next door which in an honest moment I really do believe is just an extension to my backyard, except that no rates or rent are due on it, and if it needs mowing I simply ring the Council instead of getting out the Victa,  is at the moment being taken over by rather undesirables.

There are always the somewhat colourful characters who get about, like the odd fella who likes to poke through the dogshit filled bins in search of yesterday's newspapers. And today he was joined by the rough looking bloke who had a metal detector and a strange hammer digger thing which he used to dig sometimes quite big holes on the hunt I guess for buried treasure. We watched for ages and he found nothing but dirt.

But yesterday in the rain, cos I am such a good dog mummy, I was chucking the ball to Dog from the protection of one of the rotundas and there perched carefully beside the picnic stool was a well made, meant to be used often, bong. The dirty water spoke of some use and the discarded plastic bottles nearby told of smokers who are choosey. I wondered why these folk need to smoke their shit in the park, but mostly I just got pissed off cos Dog could have knocked it over and I am not sure what damage could be done to her by drinking the water, but I imagine it would not be the most healthy thing to do. While we were building the house, we found the hose shortened by some few inches on a fairly regular basis, so I have to imagine that the bongers are aging and have lacked the imagination or financial wherewithal to find a more salubrious place to pull their cones. That's just all a bit sad, but perhaps not as sad as they will be when they get there to discover that I binned the bong and all the reject plastic bottles too.

And today when Steve pointed out the swans and I went off with a half a loaf and a smile, I discovered that my chair was GONE!! Firstly I figured that some fucker had stolen it, but when I was at the end of the pontoon I saw it, thrown with force into the water. If pegging an aluminium chair ever becomes an Olympic event, the shitting thrower could become famous! Until then he / she is just a bloody nuisance. What sort of an arsehole does that? I can see how someone might want to nick a chair and use it to take a load off. It wasn't tied down and is pretty comfortable, but why would someone walk onto someone else's property and just chuck a chair away. Beggars belief!! Steve has spent an hour trying to scrape the barnacles off it and now I will have to leave it locked up inside the yard and carry it out as needed.

It's a shame that the smokers don't keep an eye out. If I thought they would help me, I would have left the bong, gift wrapped with a side of munchies.

Elastic Time and Zones

How does time get to be sooo elastic. It is of course not the least bit changeable except that we all know that a week at work is longer than a week on hols and the night before Christmas is the longest few hours of children's lives.

Steve is on his way home and he's been gone for a month. That's a pretty long time! Except that in many ways it has just runaway. I have been busy and he's been busy and time has just leaked. But now that he's on a plane it seems to be just dribbling by drop by drop.

I was OK working out where he was when I was working on UK time but once that was lost and he landed on UAE time I didn't have a clue. Truth be told I don't get time zones at all. I can understand that when it's daytime here, it's nighttime in the UK cos of where the sun is in relation to where we are, and I can see that there must be middle bits too, but the maths of it all - well really who came up with it all. And it can't be set in stone anyway, if mere politician mortals can choose to change the time for summer or winter or indeed not change it for summer.

Time certainly is elastic and at the moment it is being stretched to about the limit. At least I get to sleep for a good bit of Steve's 14 hours. He got on the plane at 10.25am UAE time - about 4.30pm here and he lands at 6am ish. No wonder jet lag is such a bitch!! He's flying nearly all night during the day time or maybe I made that bit up.

I feel a little nauseous just trying to work it all out, let alone living through it.

Pictorial Couple of Days.

 

Floors - Shit

 

 

 

Washing - Shit

 

 

Mowing - Fun

 

 

Grass is better, but not Ponsford Perfect.

 

 

Anzac Day Collection who'd believe that!

 

 

Thanks Nik

 

 

Op shop Hat has had a good work out.

 

 

The Girls are getting BIG

 

 

Ancient design still useful.

 

 

Bloody thing!!

 

 

Green Jumper Outing

 

 

Boxes finished.

 

 

Too sad for words - I know, but I love it and NO ADS.

 

 

Rod Stewart and dancing with the broom.

 

 

Keeping Dog trim

 



There's no prizes for guessing most of these, but the old green jumper will stump just about everyone I reckon.

More than 20 years ago, my lovely Dad died and my mother's largesse ran to this jumper and a hand made silk shirt that I also still have. Dad did what men of his era thought was their job and that is left the wife plenty and she thought a couple of bits of old clothes was a reasonable keep sake for me. The prodigal son fared far better. Ho hum.

Anyway, I set out last evening to watch 'The Cracker Competition' on the beach at Surfers Paradise. It had just started to rain as I got into the car. This was the first rain for weeks. Typical!! I thought.

I grabbed a scarf and thought it might be nice to take Dad's jumper for an outing.

I parked up illegally for the second time in the day and hoped for the best.

There was plenty of room on the beach and enough spilt light to see people coming and going. The mood was festive and relaxed. There was a final Anzac Remembrance and the flags I saw lowered at dawn, were raised up and the crackers started!

It is no secret that I do love a cracker!! I love the feeling that I am up there flying through the air, all graceful and colourful. I love the smell and the vibration in my chest when they bang off. I love sitting in the dark and wondering what colour the next one will be. There is no part of a cracker night that I don't like.

Dad's green jumper liked the outing too.

The last display was the best.

If autumn ever arrives and the pool season closes, the green jumper might be trotted out again.

Apology

I was WRONG!!
I was WRONG!!
I was WRONG!!

At the risk of my apology sounding trite and insincere I will not do a Bart Simpson black board.

Yesterday I went on a bit or maybe more than a bit about Will calling our PM a president. I heard it twice and had convinced myself that I had heard this.

Today I finally found a full copy of his speech and bugger me if he was completely correct in his address. So sure I was about what I had heard, I had to play it 3 times before I was convinced of my error, I even looked to see if it had been dubbed over, yes his lips and sound were in sync so no subterfuge there.

I wholeheartedly apologise to Will and Kate and to any reader who thought I was infallible and has consequently repeated the story at the pub and got into a big betting situation and have subsequently lost their house, or their car or their favourite daughter. I am a FOOL and have made a mistake!! I certainly hope this is not a sign of things to come.

Him: Did you see that the blogger has posted an apology. Yippee!

Her: Yeh I did see that. Doesn't happen often does it that a mistake is owned and apologised for,

Him: She must be  a decent sort I suppose.

Her: Hey Mr Windsor don't go getting all sappy dog about some random blogger.

Him: No way Mrs Windsor, not when I have you by my side, and besides I did a quick Google search and she spends too much on shoes and clothes.

Her: Come here and snog me Mr Windsor. It's been lovely, but I am looking forward to getting back to Kensington and our own bed. mmm

Kate and Will part 2.

The online news today is full of PM Mr Abbott's slip. He needed some help with the protocol of titles and pronunciation.

In the 2010 film starring Australian Geoffrey Rush as King George VI's speech therapist, then Queen Elizabeth instructs Rush's character: "It's 'Your Majesty' the first time. After that, it's 'ma'am', as in 'ham'. Not 'ma'am', as in 'palm'".

Yeh he called Kate ma'am as in palm, but who really cares.

I am tempted to think that the bigger blunder might have been when Will referred to Mr Abbott as Mr President. I mean if he was Mr President that would put paid to all the royal pomp and ceremony and it wouldn't matter a damn how ma'am was said.

I watched Will's speech twice and heard the same thing twice, but a fella in the park argued that he was referring to the president of the senate. So now I am not as sure,  but it makes for a bit of a giggle anyway.

Less significant but a still little vexing was when Will confused a Bilby with a Wombat.

I am left wondering who does the prep work for these formal affairs. Everyone seems so much more at ease out in the yard, even if that means digging a hole with a big shovel while wearing skinny high heeled sandals...I am surprised that the 'Elf and Safety dick allowed that to go ahead!!

No-one seemed to be enjoying the formality at today's reception, and I reckon everyone would have been more comfy in an old 'School of Arts' building sitting around on mixed matched wonky chairs chomping up an egg and lettuce sanga. They could all be a bit more real and with less pressure to get it right, maybe they could all be a bit more smiley or actually laugh out loud.

So as they hit the bed tonight I reckon it might go a bit like this.

Him: Bugger!! I can't believe I said Mr President. Aussies don't sound the least bit like Yanks. I hope Grand mama isn't too pissed with me for fuelling the republican debate out here. And even if Oz does became a republic, I hope that means they will still swat our bums in cricket.

Her: Don't worry Mr Windsor, the ham / palm debate will rage on longer I am sure. Only the rabid lefties will carry on and they are not all our target audience.

Him: And I am sure I will be forgiven for making the Bilby / Wombat gaff. There are just so many weird arse animals here, I don't know how anyone keeps up.

Her: Set the alarm a bit earlier will you, cos I have to try and scrub all that dirt and shit off my heels. So I've planted one Old English Oak today, have you got anymore....wood for me to bury.

Him: Climb aboard Ma'am as in Ham, and help Your St George slay a dragon.

Her: That was yesterday you silly (peaks under the sheets)
Happy St George's Day to all the POOMMMMMMs AHHH.

Gotta love Will and Kate

William and Kate and George seem to be having quite a good time in Oz and I am pleased about that. I cannot even begin to comprehend just how awful it must be making banal conversations with stinky people old and young and shaking hands and yes actually touching the 'great unwashed'. It sure as shit is not a job I would apply for even though no one would ever refuse your MasterCard and a new pair of shoes would never be out of the question in terms of the weekly budget.

There have been some wonderful candid shots taken which show Kate in particular to be enjoying herself, completely 'in the moment' but if I am honest, I can't quite see all the bother about the baby, who has been rightly sheltered from a great deal of attention and who seamed more than a little underwhelmed by the smelly bilby. 

There has been the expected hostility about costs to tax payers and all that palaver but the crowds of flag wavers have drowned out the whingers. Yeh the visit has been expensive but I imagine that the coverage worldwide can only be a good thing for Aussie tourism so long as we don't end up with a shitful reputation as cheap skates or rude hosts.

They seem pretty 'real' to me. She gets about in high street dresses which were bought for bugger all and gets great satisfaction from beating her hubby in little boat races, and he looks a little uncomfortable in jeans and sneakers probably bought by someone on a dare.

I reckon as they cuddle up in bed their conversation might go something like.

Her: Can you believe grubby state of the once white bra that Aboriginal dancer was wearing. I wonder why she bothered.

Him: I would have loved to have a toot on the didg. I am sorry I left mine at home.

Her: Just lucky we didn't try to bring a painting made from animal shit INTO Oz cos it would not have gotten through customs. That stuff they spray down the aisles in the plane wouldn't have been nearly enough to kill off all the bacteria. I hope it hasn't done George any harm.

Him: George 'll be fine love. That Bloody rock is pretty big huh..... Reckon we can all be pleased that the safari suit has not ever made a comeback. Daddy has a lot to answer for...How many more dinners do we meed to sit through before we can get on the plane and order up a burger... I saw that some women had set up a cake table at Katoomba and they had some snags. Wish we could have stopped by.

Her: If you eat up any more junk food those safari style jeans won't fit.

Him: Don't you like 'em honey.

Her: They don't leave much to the imagination. Reckon you should consider getting some custom made next time.

Him: OK Mrs. Night Night. George'll be awake any hour now so we'd best sleep.

Her: I love you Mr Windsor.

Him: I love you too Mrs Windsor.

'The Other Woman'

Migraine delay for 2 days... ho hum.

Off to the movies today to have a giggle with Cameron Diaz. I didn't notice who wrote the screen play but they did put in some very funny lines. Unfortunately however,  the whole premise seemed more than a little sad to me.

So some bloke cheats and lies and women flock together to get back at him and they do and he gets caught out and goes broke and and then Don Johnson - Cameron Diaz's FATHER ends up marrying for the 5 or 6th time, a 21 yr old dip stick with big tits. Oh he helped out with a scheme to get even, but you know he knows all these schemes because he has used similar strategies to sucker his ex wives.

I am not all that sure that this sort of message is one we want to be sending to young women.

Firstly if a bloke is gonna cheat and lie, usually they are the ones who eventually end up winning and the women - all of 'em get suckered, so this fairytale ending is more feel good than feel real. I can't decide if I am just getting old or if the idea that a man can't keep it in his pants is just too much of a cliche.

The wife who was the brains in the marriage ends up as a big wig business type, but single, and Cameron who starts out as a high powered lawyer ends up preggie and foot loose and fancy free. Clearly the message is that women can't do it all. Babies and a career - not possible. And whilst I am not at all sure that in general women can do and have it all, I reckon that there is more possible than was told in this story.

There were far fewer laughs as time passed and I reckon at the end there were no laughs at all. Predictably the audience was nearly all women so I can only imagine that there were many others  with a similar take on it. Or maybe there was a gurgling pissed-offedness that the cheating bastards we have known have mostly landed on their feet.

Anyway I don't reckon we should put this movie on the essential watching list in pre-marriage training sessions.

Wrapping paper waste

For days now I have been meaning to buy a roll of brown paper for the bunny parcels, but I have systematically been stupid so today, NO paper. I scavenged around in the store room and found a couple of wrinkled tubes of shit christmas wrap from what looked like a long time ago. I have used xmas wrap before under similar circumstances so I figured it would be OK.

But the thing about cheap xmas paper is that it is really really thin and doesn't take too kindly to square edges or any sort of tension. In the past I have just kept rolling the parcels in the paper until it sort felt a bit solid. Today, however there was just enough to go around so care was the catch phrase or word.

I wrapped stuff so that xmas was on the inside and white was on the outside and then I found a soft felt pen and wrote names and drew bunnies on the parcels. I must admit that the bunnies became well less fabulous as the parcels were wrapped.

I am so pleased that Belly and Zig will be down. I get to feed 'em up and watch open their stuff and send 'em home with all the chocolate cos that is definitely off my menu choice at the moment. No more choccie migraines for me if I can avoid it. Easter then is a bit of a strange time, like an alcoholic in a bar or an ex-smoker in the smoking area at an airport - do they still have those I wonder.

Anyway with Belly and Zig and a girlfriend and her 2 dogs dinner should be lively just like the bunny ordered.

Good friday - What's open...hmmm

Steve reckons Australia must be very Catholic cos just about everything is closed on Good Friday. He tells the story of going to Ireland over Easter and not being able to buy a beer...my god what a sad old tour that must have been.

So today, I think there is some sort of logical ruling that if a shop sells perishables and they WANT to open they can, but all the interesting shops are just not allowed. I could very possibly have made all that up.

The Sorrento IGA was open so I could get some mushrooms to make a big flash French dinner for Belly and Zig for tomorrow. Yeh, really it is just meat and mushrooms and lashings of red wine, but it's pretty nice to eat. No morning coffee though cos Avril was closed.

So I pottered around all day with this and that and measured the height of my grass crop. Madness set in and I cleaned out the fridge cos even though it's good friday, friday is my rubbish day and I figured there was an off chance they might be by. Then I forgot about it. Bin duty is not usually on my list. I was watering the grass and saw Elizabeth from across the street and she was bringing her bins IN. It quickly transpired that they were indeed empty and I might have missed the truck.

Dib and I ran down the road and looked in neighbours bins to find that they were get to be hoisted onto the truck, so in a flurry, I dragged both bins out just in time to see the trucks dancing towards us.
How lucky can a gal be.

But how does it happen on a day, in a country where no newspapers are printed, and pubs are closed, that the rubbish trucks are out and about. Sure they are collecting stuff that is or at least was perishable - now well passed its use - by date, but it could wait.

I guess they are on triple or fiffple or sixle time and the work is probably pretty quick cos people are away and idiots like me forget, but still it strikes me as very odd.

Predictable but I ignored it.

I wonder what happens in your brain when you know something is gonna happen but you ignore what you know so then have to suffer the consequences. What is that old expression...'Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome'

This morning Dog and I were up at silly o'clock, really it was barely light!! The footpath makers did not disturb my cup of tea or my cleaning of the kitchen or the feeding of the fish or the playing with Dog. The sky was blue and the sun barely warm. So we headed for the beach. There was no traffic and we got there in minutes. I opened the boot and she jumped out all very well behaved and she ran down to the beach coming back in wide circles just to make sure that her slow old mother was still coming too. We played chase the sand. There was quite a number of people who stopped to watch her, wondering about the lunacy of a dog who chases handsful of sand disappearing into the waves. We both got wet and had a lovely time. The water is still 24 Degrees. It hasn't heard that it is autumn.

Dog and I sat and dried out and I waited for her to go through her usual routine of throwing up and shitting out all the salt water she had consumed in her quest for the illusive sand. She was sitting quite near me so I didn't have her on the lead even though there are signs everywhere insisting that I do so.

She seemed very settled to me so I slipped on the lead and headed towards the car. Yippee! She stopped to shit and I had a blue bag so all was well. We / she had a little drink and we watched the surf for a while longer. Lucky I had her on the lead by now cos along came the dog catchers!! Someone must have rung the council... really people have so little to do!!

Anyway she didn't seem to be in distress so I popped her in the car and took off home. There was a little more traffic, so we were a little slower. Then I heard that telltale sound. It doesn't matter who or what is throwing up, it always sounds the same. I was sanguine about it. She threw up all the way home. I opened a window and was just very pleased that it was vomit not shit.

She always does this after going to the beach. I have never known her NOT to do this, but this morning I just thought she wasn't going to. What a dick I am!

The boot has been sloughed out with vinegar and I have hosed off the carpet thing and doused it with vinegar too.

She is a lovely predictable girl, and I am a fucking idiot.

Waterford Assurance. How fabulous is that!!

This post is NOT sponsored by Waterford crystal, but maybe it should be.

A few weeks back, Belly and I were poking around in some shit shop and she found some colourful glasses that she thought would fit the bill for 'Mothers' cocktails. Well I thought they looked like what they were, Rubbish and we left without them. Today while I was in Myer I saw some wonderful coloured Waterford crystal glasses. They came in sets of 4. Blue, red, purple and green. The colours are not for the faint of heart. They are bold and beautiful. There were champers jobies and cocktail cups and wine buckets. I decided that the buckets might be the most useful all rounders so Yippee, I had Easter covered.

Linda Hodgson, manager for WWRD (Waterford Wedgwood Royal Dolton) was just about the most knowledgeable helpful pleasant unpushie shop person I have ever met. She told me that the glasses come with an assurance as does all the stuff from her brands. Well the cynic in me bubbled up and she had to explain in detail what this was and how it worked. It seems that for ANY reason, under ANY circumstance, if a glass breaks in the first 2 years, then you just take the bits back to the closest dealer and they will replace it, not just once but as many times as clumsiness, or drunkenness or children prevail. Well I am still finding it bloody hard to believe, but I am certain that the fine print will be tested in the next 2 years. She reckons they do it so that people can get a taste up for quality goods and so sales ultimately improve. I guess we will see. She even filled in the paper work, so Belly doesn`t have to send it off herself.

The whole experience was in such stark contrast to most outside shops.

Them: Can I help you
Me:      No thanks I am just looking.
Them: Have you got our store card
Me:     No thanks I am just looking.
Them: These are great I have some myself.
Me:     No thanks I am just looking.
Them: ( I am not sure what they were saying cos they tried to corral me in the back of the shop and I needed to push my way outta there - more than once!)
I wanted to say bugger off but actually recognise that it would have made no difference and I suppose it's possible this is how they have been told to approach possible customers.

I reckon that if Linda wanted to branch out she could easily set up as a sales consultant trainer.

We could sure do with more of her ilk.

Farmer Sue

It's no secret that a gardener I am certainly NOT. Show me a plant in a pot and I can kill it before it makes its way into the ground and if by chance it survives that transition I can be relied on to make its life completely miserable and if it survives at all it is only to spite me. Plants do not thrive under my watch.

About 3 years ago we laid grass in a handkerchief sized lawn. It was stupidly spoiled and cared for. It was lush and green and spirit level precision perfect. But in predictable form, it started to die off. Brown bits appeared in spots all over and these spots spread like blood in a crime scene. Steve did research and called the grass farmer for advice. Potions were sprinkled and data was collected and it was determined that there was some stinking seasonal grub eating up all the new shoots. It seems that these little fuckers come back every year chew up, bugger up, and then hibernate until the next year. Who would have thought growing a bit of grass could be so difficult. You couldn't kill grass with a stick when I was a kid. It's grow like topsy and it never needed watering or fertilising or any sort of nursing care.

The big brown dead patches were the source of sadness for Steve. He read up again and marked out areas and carefully spread quotas of sprinkle stuff and hoped for the best. This was all to no avail. When he hoped on the plane I vowed to myself that my present to him on his return was gonna be the green green grass of home.

So I emptied 2 big packets of fertiliser all onto the grass and dead bits and watered it every day. I became a weather watcher and tried to gauge if there had been a bit of rain whether of not the heat would have sucked it all out of the ground and so a hosing was in order. On one of my trips to the hardware shop I found some stuff called grass thickener. It was for the right sort of grass. I have used hair thickener before and I reckon that it works pretty well, so I figured that this could be worth a shot.

I followed the directions a little bit and mowed and then became farmer Sue. I sewed those grass seeds thickly all over the little bit of lawn. I covered the brown bits and the green bits and I stood and watered and I used the sprinkler for hours. I used the tank water when there was some and when there wasn't I used the expensive stuff.

Well bugger me, this morning when I was out collecting dog shit, as you do when you live in the suburbs, I saw it!! There it was my first successful crop of anything. The little grass shoots were everywhere. I walked carefully so I didn't squash 'em too much.

How bloody exciting!! Farmer Joe Look out!! Sue's on her way.

I only hope that it survives the next 2 weeks so Steve can see it when he gets home.

UN Crisis Meeting

If you were doing the ironing today, it is very possible that you watched the UN meeting about the crisis in the Ukraine.

Firstly let me just address the elephant in the room. I don't understand why male speakers cannot have male interpreters translating for them and visa versa for the women. It was very odd watching a man speak and hearing a woman's voice, unless you are at a Drag show in the Valley.

What I also do not understand is how anyone can believe that the Russians are not behind all the violence and the niggling and the teasing into a war zone. There was no doubt in the minds and the speeches of the Pom and the Yank and the Oz folk. They did not pull punches in their understanding of the clear and definite Russian involvement, and then the Russian bloke just sat there calmly and said, 'It aint us' He managed to do it with a straight face, but he was not believeable at all and  I don't reckon he gave a shit if everyone was thinking, ' Liar Liar pants on fire.'

It was like a silly school yard game, people chasing around with words for swords and no-one knowing whose turn it is or who is 'up'. If the Russian bloke said, 'It aint us' often enough then maybe the rest of the kids would get bored and start chasing someone else.

It seems this defence might be the popular choice for getting out of trouble. Last year when we sued those dick tenants who did damage and stole stuff from the house, the little dick thought all he needed to say was, 'I didn't do it.' And It was up to us to keep providing the proof. It was only through ridiculous attention to detail that such evidence was to hand and so finally the magistrate agreed that indeed these turds were sloths and thieves and wanton damage doers, and awarded us the cash.

But even though there is evidence by the bucket load in the form of 'protester' and weapon origins, it doesn't matter cos there is no magistrate, just a bunch of folk who know what is going on and one big LIAR.

I do not propose that we have a KING OF THE WORLD or indeed a QUEEN, but I wonder about the effectiveness of this sort of diplomatic PC affair.

I hope the Ukraines are safe and that the Russians stay at home - both rather forlorn hopes I fear, and that no Aussie soldier is forced to put their life on the line where the weapons will be real and the words won't matter.

Sundays

Bit of a rainy quiet old sunday as it has turned out.

It started lively enough with the dog running and returning the DVD before the time ran out and then to the markets to sip good coffee and have a giggle. I am not sure of the attraction of the fruit and veg, cos it looks a bit ordinary to me and too expensive but the coffee sure hits the spot and I am hoping that the seafood chowder I bought for dinner does too.

The clouds were looming but I reckoned I had time to rip out the lemon trees. It is fab having a horticulturist in the family. I described the alternating dead and madly growing stumps to Belly and she said to get it out pronto, before the host plant - buggered if I know what that is, takes over the house. So I set to and she sure was right. Even with all the deadness, the bloody root system went on forever, like a 24 hour a day bordello. 2 trees dug and disposed of and some pruning of some others and a whole lot of weeding, well be still my heart!

Sunday is a good day to keep an eye on the local employment market, and I was pleased to see that there were 3 jobs that I reckoned were worth a shot. I am probably kidding myself, cos it makes more sense that they would be wanting a 16 year old malleable type, not some old crotchety, but I flew off the applications all the same. I will only ever hear from them if they are vaguely interested. The ads say that now. It's like an excuse to have very bad manners.

And because the rain had started and that meant I did not have to spend 2 hours moving the sprinkler around on my try hard lawn, I settled in to watch, 'Mama Mia'. Corny and trite and some truly shitful singing, but such good fun. Meryl Streep is my hero! There can be nothing she can't do.

Quiet sundays.....mmmm lovely.

Climate change might be stealing my Autumn

My favourite time of the year is slipping away without being the least bit my favourite. It is still stinking hot, local banter today says it's 30 degrees at the beach, and I had the fan blowing most of the night, whew!! when is the cool coming.

I was watching something last night about how the frequency of serious cyclones in Queensland has really stepped up since the 70s. And certainly the statistics are seemingly conclusive that there is something going on with climate change. Steve reckons the statistics don't go far enough back to show more than a blip. I don't know. I used to think that the whole Global Warming thing was a lot of bunkum. Ice has been growing and melting since the beginning of time and because its melting now could be all just part of that long term cycle. Or else the way we live could be seriously upsetting the balance and hurrying along a current melt down.

I still don't know what is going on, I don't reckon anyone KNOWS for sure, but I figure it might be prudent to be a bit careful just in case. If the polar caps are melting cyclically well there`s nothing we can do, but if we are causing it then maybe we can stop doing whatever it is that is causing the problem. Of course there is no consensus about the degree of lifestyle naughtiness so what we stop first is all a bit moot. Londoners have just been told that their use of diesel to run their buses and cars and machines is actually a bloody health hazard, not the environmental saviour it was seen to be a few decades ago. The views and science are fluid to say the least.

So yeh we can make some changes and by all means go your hardest in any way you THINK will help especially if those changes don`t make you miserable.

It is stinking here, so maybe if everyone picked up a made in China paper fan and got fanning, the breeze would sweep in and cool me down.

Old Movies and Innocence.

'Now and Forever' was played today on the tellie and in between some pond style gardening, I happened upon this first date scene, between actors I did not recognise. It was a time of innocence way back then that's for sure. The sexual tension was developed through a delay in touching and instead of the modern way of getting your gear off and rolling like monkeys on every bit of furniture in the place, smashing china and grunting loudly, the climax was when they both relaxed into each others arms while they waltzed amid a very crowded dance floor. It was pretty sexy.

I don't usually bother with old movies. I don't like the exaggerated acting or the less than subtle editing. As time has moved on we have become too sophisticated for continuity errors or poor scripts or shit visual effects and all the other stuff that can go wrong in production, but it does seem that with all the advances, we have lost a lot of that development of sexual tension. Yeh we can be lured in to squeal like a child in terror and we can be encouraged to laugh like a drain, but it is not often that we are lulled into wondering, 'if they will or won't they'.  And I'm talking about the first kiss, not the first roll in the hay or the sand or the back seat of the car.

There is a loss of innocence in today's modern fast pace. Girls dressed up like adults at the ripe old age of 10 and little boys go strutting around like they are in 'Saturday Night Fever'.

I remember once going up to a progressive dancing evening at the beautiful and iconic Cloudland Ballroom in Brisbane when I was quite a young girl. It was a lovely way to meet lots of young fellas and women too. It was safe and funny and sometimes sexy. Then developers knocked seven bells out of the ballroom and youngsters ended up in nightclubs, getting on the piss and falling about the place and ending up going home with their knickers in their bags or on their heads, with no clue who they had frolicked with the next morning as they nursed shitful hangovers.

It's inevitable of course, but I can still lament the loss, surely.

'Elf and f..n Safety

Years ago when I was teaching in London, I was written up by the dickhead Fat Controller, for 'Standing on a Chair'. It was reported and a black mark was recorded against my name and I was reprimanded and had to offer a very unheartfelt apology before it would just go away. The complaint did finally go away, but sadly the dickhead did not.

Had he seen me painting the ceiling of my Brisbane house, standing on tippy toes, on a chair on a table I reckon he might well have just keeled over and died and done us all a favour.

So now due to another safety issue involving almost nonexistent women with strollers, the Council is putting in drop kerb footpaths between our place and the big road. This involves re-doing the footpath passed 5 houses opposite us and then a drop kerb across to us and a drop kerb at our place and re-doing all the foot path, up to a car park... and down to the footpath that leads to Sorrento Island where maybe 300 people live, all of whom, can be seen on any day driving passed our place to go about their business.

It's possible that someone might have asked for a footpath to be built on the other side of the road, probably so kids could skate board or Rollerblade outside their house, and this solution might well have been the most cost effective. Who the fuck knows how council decisions are made. I know they sent me a letter saying that there would be some work going on outside no 8 and as we are at 11 I disregarded it.

But today there has been at least a dozen blokes in those delightful Hi-Viz clothes wandering around, leaning on shovels, chatting on phones, holding up those slow down signs and cautioning local traffic (Did I mention that this is a dead end street) There was one bloke driving a backhoe digging up concrete and pruning my Poinciana tree with not much finesse.

The foreman who is a nice enough fella reckons that the madness that I am wondering about is small potatoes compared to some of the shit he has seen in his 10 years on the job. I said he should write a book and he said no-one would believe it. It'd make 'Yes Minister' look like good politicking.

This noise and dirt and blocking off of the street and my driveway is set to last approximately 2 weeks, I wonder if that's Council Time of regular time.

Old blokes and youngster women.

Did you read about the 48 year old Pommie bloke with lots of cash who was shot dead by his 24 year old ex girlfriend while he was on holiday in Spain with his new 20 year old girlfriend. Poor bastard was shot dead twice in the head and the report went that he was found face down in a pool of his own blood.

As I read it I wondered a number of things.

• where was the new girlfriend while the shooting took place
• how did the old girlfriend AKA the shooter, know where he would be at any precise time.
• did the new girlfriend know the shooter.
• did he have a will.
• who gets the cash.
• why oh why would a 48 year old keep dating girls he could quite possibly have fathered.

The 20 year old waxed lyrical about how wonderful the fella was, what a teacher! Oh groan!!

I am not saying that the bloke deserved 2 bullets in his head, that would just be a little harsh for systemic acts of stupidity. But he did deserve a good kick in the bollocks and a few sessions with a life coach so he could see the wisdom of seeking company of people born in the same decade, or so. Swapping the 24 year old for a 20 year old was a bit nuts! Maybe the shooter thought she was ultimately saving a 16 year old from a 52 year old or indeed a 12 year old from a crinkly old 56 year old.

I do wonder, apart from cash what he thought he bought to the party.

Ah this is what I wanted our holiday to be.

What a difference a day makes... yeh I could almost be singing but as the lark genes didn't make a stop here, I wouldn't want to damage Zig's ear drums.

A good night's sleep and I was up at silly o'clock and so was Zig and Dog. The play fight which ensued on Zig's bed lead rather quickly to a head on head collision that would have seen me off the field with a concussion check up if I was playing rugby, instead I got a bit of ice and hope that I might have avoided my first ever black eye.

We chomped quickly through breakfast and gave I must admit, not our best throw of the ball with Dog, so we could hit the beach. It was only just after 8 when we got there. Bloody beautiful !!!

The warning flags were up and I made Zig read the conditions report. This made him rightly wary. We paddled and swam and spent a long lovely time knocking up and then down some sandy castles. Children's imaginations always delight and we finally left with new names. I am now Great M and he is King Z.

He wondered why he had to use money to pay for morning tea if he was King and then was suitably impressed that Dog did his bidding back at the pool.

Yeh it has been a lovely day.

Time lost to Migraine AGAIN

A 3 day event!! If you have read previous blogs you might be aware of how little I like the term 'EVENT' It has turned into such a wanky all encompassing description. I reckon it should refer to something quite monumental and not often repeated, certainly not a little party or a bit of rain or some dross on the tellie. In my mind it most likely refers to something good.

So a 3 day migraine accompanied by masses of vomit and a bit of hallucination could be called an event except that it was anything but good and unfortunately it is repeated far more often than I'd like.

The last 2 big ones could possibly have been triggered by chomping away on chocolate and this last time, even as I am stuffing down hands full of after-dinner-mints, I was aware that it was not wise to do so. Maybe then the scoffing of choccies could be the indicator of shit approaching rather than the cause. Who the fuck knows. I only know it fucking hurts and by day 3 I wished I was anyone else anywhere else doing anything else.

Belly dropped Zig down and she too was a migraine zombie. We tried to find a common trigger but really we were 2 people making very little sense, except that we noticed that the ache was on the same side of our heads. Even for the lovely boy I just could not pull it together and so had to resort to tricking him about the time as I shovelled him into bed early and then dived into mine with the very vain hope of sleeping it off. I was up and down like a whore's drawers but without the joy, the expectation, or the profit. Finally I got up properly at about 5am so that I could right myself before the little fella got up. The throwing up continued through the cuppa and breakfast, but as we headed off to morning tea quite a bit later, I thought I was coming good. I couldn't eat my treatie but the coffee went down and sitting in the park in the breeze with Zig and Nik and dogs was curative.

We managed to do holiday groceries and chomp up a hot cross bun for lunch and then I snoozed through Shrek which Zig found almost as amusing as the movie.

Swims and now I am feeling almost human, tired and aching belly muscles but ok. We are having silly holiday food for dinner - toasted sangas and pudding. Maybe we should start with pudding, anything but chocolate!!

I was a walking chemist shop for 3 days, no wonder I had the horrors during the night. Nothing worked though. Nothing even took the edge off. Years ago Dr Jane gave me a script for Valium and said it might help me sleep it off, and I have never tried it, but as no painkillers worked this time I might just be reduced to really saying goodbye to time for the next 'event'.

How bloody wonderful not to have to blog about this shit again.

Artificial Intelligence

Steve took my new little girlie tablet with him to London and so I have been using the old clunker. Now it works OK but somehow it has decided that it will change the screen picture all on its own and it's using pictures of its own choosing. I don't know where they have come from and I certainly am not responsible for them, but they are creeping me out. The machine lulls me into a false sense of security with images of lakes and mountains and then I am assaulted by closeups of what I imagine are underwater fungus scum, or something. I look at these things that I can't identify and am reminded or the horror novel,'Day of the Triffids'. I was a teenager when I read this book, and my imagination was vivid enough to transfer the words on the page to a terror of plants. I think the possibility of these mutant plants taking over the world was and perhaps still is, real enough to cause worry.

So when machines start thinking for themselves, I worry about that too. First it was this old clunky machine - see I need to use a made up adjective in case it does have artificial intelligence and it gets offended and starts electrocuting me. And then when I went to flail my arms around in the pool in the somewhat vain hope that my boob might straighten up, I was forced to go 5 rounds with the pool vacuum. It was taking a little nap on the pool bench so I popped it down onto the floor so it could do some good. Flail flail flail, and bugger me if the bloody thing was not back having a siesta. I moved that thing 5 times before it gave up and started to clean up the leaves. So not only is it a smart arse stubborn machine, it's lazy and doesn't want to work on Saturdays.

I am intrigued by those automatic vacuums that run around the floors all day and suck up dog hair and I reckon that this place would be perfect - concrete and open space, but it would probably be too easy and the thing would get bored and then up to mischief. It would be cool to think that boredom might morph into preparing dinner, but in Stephen King style it would more likely mean some sort of chewing up of Dog or eating all my handbags. I would like to train it to do the ironing when it was done but that would just be being greedy.

Yeh I know this is a silly blog, but it's been a bit of an odd day, and maybe it's the aliens inside my head doing the talking.

Volunteer Work

I did my day's work at the gallery today. It's run on a co-op basis so if you have a painting exhibited, you need to work a day so that the place can stay open. It seems like a good idea and I don't mind going in.

Oh I know, you can hear it coming, BUT volunteer workers seem to be self important opinionated pains in the arse.

It's just one day a month and I will have to use it as an exercise in self control, and try very hard to avoid the woman from today. She started off giving instructions and bellowing on about how shitful the governement is and that big business was the devil. This was all before we had even turned on the lights! I allowed her to dig her political hole pretty deep and then I told her I had actually voted for these 'clowns' and that whilst there might be some problem with businesses, the biggest problem under the previous government was that there were just too many people wanting and getting something for nothing and that money was finite and that governments needed to balance the books any way possible. Anyway as you can imagine it all got a bit brittle and then I was given the job of dragging out the over sized wheelie bin for 'rubbish day'

There was another woman working there who was in the office, paying accounts, getting building works quotes, answering calls and organising new memberships and stuff. I asked her if 'we' were paying her and she said that there was some arbitrary sum paid for 3 hours a week and that was OK cos she usually worked only 2 days a week but this week it would be 3 days and so she was getting a bit pissed cos there was not enough time for her to do any painting. I stuffed and addressed some envelopes for her and really hope that it took something off her very crowded plate. She was a pleasant woman.

So I made nicey nicey with the visitors and had an OK time chatting to holiday makers from all over Australia, and was very pleased when quitting time came around and bossy boots said that she would close up and that I could go, cos she was waiting for a call about something no doubt very important.

I have to imagine that if anyone is going to buy a painting, then they will need to be schmoozed at least a little. Bossy would need to haul arse out the boss chair and actually engage people in conversation. Maybe that idea could be ratified at the next committee meeting and then cast in stone, but only if the meeting lasted longer than the rest of my life.

Anyway I imagine this place is like any other business that is run by volunteer committee, by the time egos are stroked there is fuck all time for 'proper' business decisions to be made. It definitely reminds me of school Parents and Citizens groups. If you have ever been to one of these meetings or indeed taken an executive role you know that it is not for the feint hearted. Too many and too much in one room.

It might well be yet another case of  YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Bloody ANTS

Where do ants come from.... This is posed as a rhetorical question, cos I know the answer. They are breeding in the walls of my kitchen and at anytime when I am not banging away in there, they are making a soldier like marching band all across the benches and into the sink and some are disappearing down the cruchie munchable. At any given time I can sneak up on about a gizzillion of the little fuckers and it doesn't matter how many I try to kill using boiling water, paper towel crushing, lethal sprays of baygon, they just seem to re-group and carry on regardless. That Pommie expression about 'Keep Calm and Carry On' could very likely have been coined by ants.

They seem to be harmless enough, but the fact that I cannot get rid of 'em makes me feel like I am living in some shitting B grade horror movie where if I stop still for too long I will be overtaken by the black swarm and taken to their leader.

I have scrubbed the granite to within an inch of its life and the is no food anywhere - well that is not unusual, even after spending an appalling fortune at woolies, there is still nothing to eat at my place. Why the hell are the little fuckers so intent on taking up residence in my kitchen.

I had hoped some months ago that this was just a seasonal thing but what season could it be. They are here in the wet and the dry and the heat and the breeze and the humidity and can survive the stink of mozzie coils which is about enough to see me off.

I have had enough. I want a Pied Piper for Ants to pop on over and whistle 'em all outta here and take 'em over to somewhere which is owned by someone who gives me the shits.

'A Pox on all their houses'

'Monument Men' and Etu Ndow

Last week a Gambian artist, Etu Ndow died. I discovered this because there were many many messages left on his Facie page from all over the world. He was just 48 and as best as I can discover, died from a heart attack. When Steve and I were in The Gambia, we were so taken with his paintings and Etu himself, that we bought his exhibition and exported it back to London. Etu was thrilled with the sale and we were happy with the price and the idea that he would continue his fine work. We thought we would sell some of the pieces but actually never got around to it and now most of them hang somewhere here in the big house. People from all over the world posted selfies in front of one of his paintings. I think he would be pleased.

So Etu's work has sort of collected an anonymous gaggle of folk who have only his work in common, and as fine as it is I rather doubt any of us would lay down ours lives to protect it.

'Monument Men', was well produced and acted and can boast an expensive cast of widely recognised actors. I suppose that is always gonna be the case when George Clooney writes and acts and directs a project. It was based on a true story of a small higgley-piggley group of blokes commissioned towards the end of WW2, to recover the artwork stolen by the Nazis. Some men died in this pursuit, and in the final wash up when asked if the works were worth the lives lost, the answer was 'yes'.



All the greats were mentioned and some pieces were specifically targeted. What I wonder is this, would the world be worse off without Leonardo's Madonna and Child sculpture, or would we be OK because we knew it had been made, and contempory pieces are still available to look at and admire. I guess the question is whether or not art pieces need to be immortal. I remember clearly, arguing the negative at Uni in an art class and being howled down.

I have not changed my mind. Etu's paintings are unlikely to survive for generations, but they bring pleasure now and an insight into Gambian life today. The fact the the materials have a definite shelf life does not detract from their value.

No I am not saying that Etu's artwork is in the same league as Picasso's or Renoir's but as I can own it and look at it and enjoy it, his paintings are of enormous value to me.