Building something new.

Across the canal a transformation has been taking place. A while back I wondered what was going on. I thought maybe they were just doing a roof repair. They stripped off the old tiles and then popped on a bit of a tin roof but only on one end. Not much else happened for a while and we were left wondering.

Then all hell broke loose and roof trusses were whipped off anld scaffold went up and a whole new house started to take shape. It is bloody enormous. I reckon it makes the Big House seem pretty small.

I am so enjoying watching this emerge from what was a very ordinary looking 70s place. We have driven passed it but there was not much to see from the road and unlike what I might have done, well have in fact done many times and that is yomped all over the site when the tradies have gone home, I am nursing my leg and just imagining what the new place is gonna be like.

It is so exciting watching someone's ideas become a reality. I am definitely hoping that I can gain sufficient control over my newly built knee that before the building process is finished, I can have the fun of sneaking in and having a good look around.

It's too often a matter of semantics. When we built this place, it was approved as a 'Renovation', cos we re-used the original footprint / slab, even though we added to that too. The new place across the canal, almost certainly is also a reno as they too have lumped on top of the original first floor shell, after removing the internal walls.

So I will continue to enjoy watching the house take shape and at the same time I'm gonna work hard to make sure that my new knee is gonna be an equal design success.

Lacking a Filter

Me, yeh I am lacking a filter, not my car, though it could be too, cos I have no idea about what's under the bonnet.

A mate of mine sent me this cartoon this morning and I wondered if it was gonna become a forewarned explanation or apology of something he was gonna do, or maybe he was just reminding me that I should flick the filter button from time to time to see if it still works and maybe keep myself out of trouble.

There is no doubt that all too often my mouth is in fast forward and my brain is running a very poor second.

Poor old Dr Angus last week was the latest to be swamped by the gutter pourings, when he teased me about having to see him sometime soon for a new hip or 2. 'Fuck Off! ' flew out and I admit that I was embarrassed enough to pretend that someone else must have said it. He was a little taken aback but I suppose he has heard worse, perhaps just not from a 50 something woman having a bad hair day and wielding a crutch.

I reckon there would be far less room for ambiguity if we all just said what we thought when we thought it.

"Does my arse look big in this?"
"Yes, you know it does otherwise you wouldn't have asked. Stop asking me these shitful questions."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Ab-sofucking-lutely not. I am happy to juggle 3 kids and a trolley load of groceries  and manoeuvre around your little party of texting maniacs." Yeh you might have noticed this is the filter in action. No filter would be, " Get the fuck out my way you cock with a text problem."

"Would you  mind if I just jumped the cue?"
"Mind? I'd be fucking furious! Wait your turn like everyone else."

It is obvious that things could get very hairy indeed if filters were phased out, but no one would die wondering where they stood, and that couldn't be all bad.

Little things we take for granted.

 On Monday, Steve is gonna return the old lady geriatric loo and shower seat. Fucking yippee!!

There is something just so bloody depressing having that shitful - excuse the pun, thing in the house, being shifted from one loo to another, and god knows having a shower while sitting on a fucking plastic chair with your bum falling into the hole does not bring any joy.

Yesterday I stood up for a shower for the first time in more than 2 weeks. Sure you can keep yourself relatively clean with a flannel and a bit of soap, but that hardly takes the place of letting the steamy water sprinkle all of you. AHH!

And I know that serious improvement is still some months away, but getting rid of the paraphernalia is an excellent start.

I am down to no plasters and no stitches and 1 crutch and can make it to the loo in good time without any puddles, and the number of grimacey groans is down to a bearable minimum, although Steve might argue that that's not quite true.

And tomorrow I am moving back upstairs. Yippee!!! Things are getting back to normal. Dr Angus was pleased with my progress and I reckon I do so like a glowing report card.

I reckon that if I can get into the pool tomorrow, or more importantly get myself out of the pool, then dancing by Christmas is a real possibility. Fingers crossed anyway.

Gold Coast V8 Cars and all that noise

Vroom Vroom Vroom. Titty titty bum bum.

Yeh it's that time again, when the traffic crawls and the locals get all fed up and titchy.  It really is a love it or hate it time of year.

One year I lived right on the track, well maybe it was 2 years. Anyway getting in and out of my building was a logistical nightmare and I wrote letter after letter asking for consultation with locals about how to make the whole fiasco more pleasant. These of course were routinely ignored and I am sure became the laughing point for all the rev heads in the planning departments.

Through our Body Corporate fees, we stumped up stupid fees to cover round the clock security guards as ferals tried to use the grounds as a thorough fare into the hallowed grounds and then we paid again when it was all over to cover the repair bills to the fencing and the gardens and the lift etc. The noise was a blight and the madness was just an excellent place to be away from.

Now I live on the outter edge of the noise zone. We can hear the low rumble and the hum but cannot smell the exhaust and we don't have to step over little puddles of ooopsie-too-much-beer. Now it's much better. It is hard to believe that all the madness still happens just a couple of kilometres away and we can just crack on with our little bit of everyday.

I hope that everyone who wants to, enjoys absolutely every minute of it and as for the hapless locals who are driven mad, well I hope they have some effective industrial strength ear plugs, or better still have managed to escape the place altogether.

Healthy useful trudge up the stairs.

5 years ago when my first knee became bionic and a constant pain in the bum getting through airport security, the lovely Laurie told me that the best exercise for knee rehab was going up and down the stairs. This happened at a visit where Steve told him that he had to be restrained during Physio sessions cos the guy was hurting me so much I was a weeping crying mess.

5 years ago we had still to decide on balustrades and the stairs were more than a little dicey. I recall clearly a good dose of terror as I tried to manage 2 steps up and down and only if Steve was there to catch me - not a job he has ever signed up for and one which understandably he was not thrilled with.

At the hospital this time the physios had a little set of stairs in the rudimentary 'training room', which also catered for visitors if not in use by whingers and cry babies. The stairs were shorter than average and only 3 up and down. Still it was a challenge.

So home now for a week and the fully operational stairs have been calling. 1 flight to the half landing and back is 20 stairs. I started with fewer than that.

Today I am up to 200 stairs!! That's 5 lots of up and down the whole lot! No I am not doing them all at once, I like to prolong the agony, but I am getting stronger and quicker. I am not sure that the bendability is improving but it sure is not getting any worse.

There is still not to be done in a normal day, except stairs and sitting down and reading and sleeping off the drugs and today I watched 'Sex and the City' movie 1.

It's been a good slow quiet day.

Mathias Cormann - Here's a Girlie Swipe, guess there is no need to duck.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann defends calling Bill Shorten an 'economic girlie-man'

Updated Sun at 1:36pmSun 19 Oct 2014, 1:36pm

Photo: Mathias Cormann has defended himself for calling Bill Shorten an "economic girlie-man". (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)

 

Well BUGGER ME!! 'economic girlie-men' is not a reflection on girls and I suppose if I made some banal sounding comment about foreigners with German accents being Nazis then that would have nothing to do with Germans, or indeed Belgians.

I thought I was reasonably widely read and yet I have never heard the phrase coined before. Perhaps Mr Cormann inspires to all things Arnie, possibly including having a son hidden under the stairs.

So now I am in a truly uncomfortable position, and not only cos I am trying to train up my new metal knee. Penny Wong objected too, and I do very much not want to be sided with her, cos I find it impossible to believe most of what she says and I truly doubt her motivations in just about everything she does.

So Mr Cormann, this is my problem with what you said.,

• It wasn't original and now you want to hide behind the rather sad shadow of a has been.
• Any derogatory phrase that has girlie in it is bound to offend more than a small handful of women and girls, and when given the chance to address this you just didn't bother.

I don't want to live in a world where political correctness becomes a muzzle and we are afraid to speak our minds in case some one, some where takes offence, but clearly Mr Cormann could do with a bit of muzzling about now.

I long for a time when 'throwing like a girl' and 'running like a girl' and yes 'balancing a budget like a girl' are perceived as compliments not as derogatory swipes.

Cars and Bicycles playing nicely please

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There's the serene music and the calm friendly faces and 2 bikers riding side by side chatting away joyfully, until they become aware of a motorist behind them so they graciously move into single file so the car can more easily get passed them. The voice over waxes lyrical about how kind the bikers are and how this bit of generosity is all that it takes for peace and goodwill to spread on our roads like butter on hot toast.

The high angle shot which follows show the car going passed the 2 bikers, crossing the solid white line, and running the risk of smashing into anyone using the other side of the road - motorist, biker / or pedestrians.

I am pretty drug fazed at present but isn't crossing a solid white line against the law?

Should we be pleased that the good natured bikers have allowed sufficient room for a motorist to put themselves and others at risk?

What in deed were the AD MEN (women) thinking?

There can just be no doubt that there are many many roads that just cannot accommodate parked cars 2 way car traffic and bicycles, let alone dogs and neighbourhood kids playing a game of French Cricket. The roads are just too bloody narrow, and intricately worded legislation about when you can and can't pass and all the rest of it is just not gonna be helpful.

I don't ride a bike anymore, haven't done for many years. It used to be a way of getting from A to B when my car was wonky or if I wanted some exercise. I might have stopped about the same time as it became law to wear a bloody helmet - oh how I loved it when the government decided to interfere in my delight in wind blown hair down by the Brisbane Corso on a sunday afternoon.

Bikers today seem to believe they are vehicle almight, that they are playing a great role in  curing global warming and are keen to push their greenie credentials and lyrca down the throats of the heathen fossil fuel slurping comfort seekers driving around in metal versions of their lounge rooms.

I can't see a time of easy co-existence between cars and bikes. I would like to say that there might come a time when common sense prevailed and people were as aware as they could be but I reckon that's doubtful.

The more legislation that is drawn up and can be waved around on high by biker bullies, then the worse off I fear they will be.

It's hard to hide behind the law that says you can ride 2 abreast and that cars need to give you 1and a half meter leeway, when you don't feel the need to stop at red lights or leave footpaths for pedestrians, or pay any registration or fee to pay for the upkeep of the roads on which you feel completely entitled to ride.

But back to the ad.... well I can't find a link to it, so maybe it has been pulled and if as I suspect it was funded by some government  quango, that will just be more of our tax dollars we will never hear of again. Oh Dear!!

Assissted living - psychological testing

Moving into assisted accommodation is probably something we will all need to think about at some point in our lives. The gorgeous Angus made a slip and said that he was booking me into one such place. My face fell apart like a cheap pair of plastic shoes and he only took a millisecond to realise his error and correct himself, but it was at that point I understood that I am a very lucky girl cos I have Nurse Stevie at home to prepare food and cook and move hospital wee chairs and hand me the soap in the sitting down shower. He does all this not cos it's his calling but cos I suppose he reckons I am worth it and he began with the utter certainty that it will not be for long.

If I was all Home Alone,  I am not sure how I would cope, cos there are certain things that are I definitely need help with.

I am not good at asking for help!

I do not like needing help.

I don't like waiting for help.

I would be pretty shithouse in an old folks' home, except that I'd far more happily boss strangers around than be always on at Steve to do my bidding.

So I am wondering what mental makeup would be a 'best fit' for an oldies home and their oldies.

The Block Final - was it just poor marketing?

Steve ate dinner early so he could join me at the hospital on Sunday to watch the final or the 5 auction highlights of this reality show.

He had watched it NOT AT ALL and I had recorded it and watched maybe every other episode in very very fast forward.

So this is what I knew.

• There were 5 apartments and 5 teams competing. - well actually 6 apartments but I guess the last one was just for Chanel 9 profits.
• The teams created some spaces that I liked and some I didn't.
• The 5 team apartments were being sold by auction, and they had all supposedly run some sort of Auction campaign.
• 5 Auctions on site, for similar if differently decorated spaces, was gonna require at least 6 very interested buyers otherwise some homes were just gonna go begging.
• 3 out of 5 went begging.
• There were only 2 really really keen buyers and 3 others who were happy to grab a bargain if a bargain was on offer.

I am not a gambler, so I reckon unless I was completely sure that there was at least 2 parties signed up to buy my place, I would want to go early so if all else fails maybe somebody else's buyers might go nuts for my place.

I know for a fact that this happens cos when we sold the little flat here on the Goldie, that's exactly what happened. Our guy schmoozed someone else's buyer and they left with our flat and the other agent just left.

Why some of the players wanted to go last is a mystery to me.

The price differential can only be explained by supply and demand. Too many flash places and not enough people who want 'em.

So here's my suggestion to Channel 9. Next time why not try building from scratch a set of Housing Commission type places that regular people might get excited about and then hope for a bidding war. Of course the budgets would need to be limited and profit expectation smaller and consequentially the number of applicants might suffer, but the real beauty would be that those 3 sanctimonious pains in the bum judges could be replaced by Mr and Ms Average who know a thing or 2 about housing a family.

What do you miss when you are not at home?

 

This is Steve packing up all my shit to come home! Most of it is DRUGS!! Oh and some hospital 'souvenirs' I just had to have. 

6 Days in hospital is no picnic. It sure as shit is not in the same league as a girlie shopping weekend in Melbourne or a few days R and R somewhere posh with room service and Movies on demand. But where ever you go, it's always lovely to pull up in your own driveway.

Dog has been more than a little confused and her behaviour almost unacceptable. She knew something was up cos I packed a bag, but what was most unsettling was Steve's comings and goings. Night one smelt her dropping little piles of very embarrassed poo poos all the way to the front  door. At 2.30 am, when it became clear that she was really really unsettled which was about the same time as shit smells wafted more strongly than just doggie fart, Steve hopped up and let her out, but she didn't quite make it outside. Her bum did little explosions on the way and then Steve spent time cleaning it up. Bless him, I would have been very bad at that.

So as the comings and goings became more predictable, Dog settled into a new routine, new but not necessarily in a good way.

We had worked out that she would go ape shit when she saw me. There's not the least little bit of malice in her. She isn't a cat that insists on making their owner feel guilty for leaving them behind.  She is just a bundle of joy. She ran around and jumped in each of the front doors in a bid to give me a good old licking. I was wisely sitting in the back seat so had some protection. She has barely left my side all day.

The fountain girl is still humming her watery song and to climb onto familiar linens and see colourful soft towels and my own shower stuff is a welcome respite from all that clinical hospital shitola.



It sure is lovely to be home.

Operational Accounting

If you call a plumber and agree to their terms of employment, they pop out to your place and unblock your dunny or fix your leaky tap or whatever other plumber type problem you might have and then they will sometimes want to be paid as a cashie, under the table, straight in their bin or they will send you an invoice that they'd like to be sorted within 14 days or so. You stand around and watch them poke their snakey metal thing up your pipes and feel that relief as the shit coloured water in your loo turns clear and the sewerage stench begins to recede from your loo and yard. You SEE their success, you make 'em a cuppa and enjoy some small talk about the worst blockage they have ever sorted and then they go, leaving behind their business card, in case you ever need more snakey snakey.

If you take your beloved pet to the vets, you make an appointment and get there in time for the vet to play nice with your pooch and then they fix 'em up. When all is sorted you go out and the folk on the desk who were so pleasant when  you got there as they coaxed your girl onto the scales, explain the account to you in detail and then you pay the bill and get a receipt and you take off until the next time.

If you put your car into the garage for a service, you'll get a quote before you start and if you're lucky they will call you before they replace the big old whatsit on the hoohar for the cost of a small island nation. When you collect your car, there might be a placcie bag of old bits, that let's face, could have come  from anywhere, a washing machine or a blender or indeed from your car and then after a bit of usually fraught chatter, the bill is paid and a receipt is issued and off you go until the next time. Oh shit yeh I must do all that again very soon.

When you get a dodgy email from someone you have never heard of before and who's details are impossible to find quickly in a google search and then when you speak to their 'office staff' on the phone, they don't have any details either, I suppose the very first thing anyone does is go for the grab of your closest credit card so you can give them a big chunk of wonga, because if you don't something bad will happen to you. Yeh I know it sounds like a Nigerian Scam right?

Well actually that's the business practice of the local Anaesthetist company. I had no choice of Doctor and am still yet to meet him, yeh I figure he's a bloke, Barry was a bit of a giveaway. I was told that I needed to pay him before the surgery. I was told that this pre payment was to my advantage cos it would be cheaper than paying later, even though paying later was not an option. Now you don't want to piss off the 'sleep bloke' cos after all they are the ones that keep you alive, so I was over a barrel. Pay up or no surgery.

I pointed out that this was a very strange business practice and was told that it was because too many patients in the past had failed to pay the bill. I hope that my suspicion of difficulties faced chasing dead patients' estates for the bill, is not in fact the reason for the money grab.

Anyway not only do you have to pay up way before any service is provided or any small talk is chattered, the office staff do not even want to provide a receipt after the cash has been binned. Now I can understand why the plumber or the electrician or the house painter or the mower man doesn't always want to give a receipt cos they want to fleece the tax man occasionally, but these folk are usually a bit short in the pockets. Not so the Doctors.

I do wonder if the Doctors themselves are aware of the very questionable accounting practises in place on their behalf. I imagine that they are at least in the abstract.

I hope that tomorrow when I finally meet Barry that I like him, or at least he is excellent at what he does and that there is no shitting repercussions resulting from my series of emails demanding a receipt for money paid for as yet nothing.

Yippee, 2 calls and 2 emails and finally a receipt!

Girlie Day - gotta be done

I reckon that Mania madness probably hits everyone who has time to prepare to go for any sort of big chop. The form of the madness alters but not the overall nuttiness of it.

With paper work done and dusted, attention needed to be turned to the TOES. For almost a year they have been black or a bit black and certainly naked and the heel skin had petrified to the point that I wondered if I could chip it off and sell it as a precious gemstone. So as time allowed this morning, the skin has been scraped courtesy of Julie from Maxwells and I opted for bright green toes cos that's what I had last time.

Nails - check
Hair  - check
Outfits - check
Money distributed - check

Finally it was Girlie Lunch time, and very fine it was too. There is something cathartic about putting your feet up and eating good food in the company of good girls all laughing through the gossip and chatter.

Tomorrow it's back to domestic shite so that Steve will have an easier time transmogifying into a Goldie bachelor for a week or so, ( really he is gonna look after himself, after all he is more than capable, but I like to imagine that I am indispensable).

The ironing and baking and packing and shit will be all better done with bright green toes.

Daylight Savings :( not for me.

I think I have a very vague memory of one summer in my childhood when we had to save up some daylight and put it in a bucket and use it up after school. I liked it! And then someone with a cow I think decided that the cow was confused about when to get their tits out for milking and so the whole of Queensland was dropped back into the darkness, in the evenings that is, the mornings are just bloody stupid bright.

If we lived in complete isolation then of course this would be no trouble at all, just invest in some block out curtains and hope that you don't live next door to any greenie chook owners. But we don't live in isolation, in fact we live bloody close to where the rest of the world - alright, Australia, turned the clocks to summer time last night. Wouldn't you think that in the land of SUMMER, we might lead the way with Summer Time?

We live so close to Summer Time Land that when we were building the Big House, our builder lived in Summer Time Land and so there was a constant battle with starting times and finishing times and of course the payment of all this, as he was on an hourly rate. Our closest airport by far is in the land of the Summer Bucket so just another complication if we want to go anywhere by plane and in a less than selfish context, all those tourists arriving for a beach holiday by plane run the time tightrope getting to and from their little beach shacks. Yes it is all very do-able, but a pain in the arse in the doing.

One of my very favourite things about living in London was the long languid twilights, out in the garden, with a glass of bubbles and plenty of time to share and giggle and chat. Work was done and instead of being stuck inside in front of the tellie, we'd spend time just being happy.

Yeh as I had not too much experience with the Daylight in a bucket idea, it took some getting used to, but once I was there it was bloody fabulous.

I so wish we would join the rest of the country and possibly the world in saving a bit of daylight for the fun end of the day, I am pretty sure the cows would adjust.

'Gone Girl' the movie

The pickings were slim when I looked at what was on at the pictures today at a time that suited me. "Gone Girl' was it really, so knowing absolutely nothing about it, I took myself off for a bit of a crap shoot and I am very glad that I did.

Just before I dived into the airconed darkness I spent a few minutes in a bookshop looking for some titles to buy for my new Kindle and bugger me if 'Gone Girl' the book wasn't up there on the best reading display thing. So I supposed either it was a good yarn or the movie people had paid for some extra promotional help.

It's a pretty long movie so make sure you pee beforehand and take a little snack or if you are going flash, you might get a little something delivered about an hour and half in.

I don't think that the story is all that original, but there are definitely 'what if' hooks throughout to keep you guessing. 'Will he, will she did he did she?'

Ben Afflick was pretty convincing as the screwy husband and Rosamund Pike did a good job of the wife. So all up if you fancy a bit of a 'Can you guess the next bit' this is a reasonable way to pass some time.

The promo blurbs wax a bit lyrical about the exploration of the institution of modern marriage but I reckon it had more to do with mental illness and the human capacity for delusion.

Pike reflected that it explored:“That aspect of marriage as a con game, or whatever. The idea that we perform a sort of ideal version of ourselves that the other person wants. We perhaps belie our true nature in order to perform to the ideal. David ( director) and I talked a lot about living in an age of rampant narcissism.”

The movie started a little later than I would normally like, cos on a Saturday at 10ish there is often no-one else in the theatre, but today it was packed. Seems that the picture had just recently opened, and this might explain why I was unable to use my accrued points for my ticket. I had a freebie on my card, but the girlie said that I couldn't  use it today cos the movie was too new. Trouble is that in the gold lounge, the movies are always new, so I am seriously hoping that doesn't make my cinebuzz points redundant. It's a waiting game now until after the chop.

Studio to Rehab Room in a day.

I have had my practical hat on this week what with WILLS and shit and finding other important paper work and posting off stuff signed by witnesses like a real grown up, and so we came to the logistics of where I can sleep after the BIG CHOP next Thursday.

The stairs will be an issue for a little while - yeh how long is a piece of string?  and so we settled on making my studio into a bedroom. We are lucky to have that option, I know!

So an upstairs bed was stripped and we danced and shoved and cried the base and mattress down the stairs and into the cleared, cleaned space, and then Stevie vaced and mopped the floors and surfaces so there wont be any germies to go jumping onto my leg. I didn't bother with a 'BLOCK' styling of the bed cos as all of us in the real world know all that crap just ends up on the floor and I am pretty sure I will be able to do without trying the chicken high step to traverse between bed and loo in the wee small hours.

The result is lovely. I am a very lucky girl to be coming home to such a pretty room and outlook. At the mo it doesn't even too much like a hospital ward, but then the cripple toilet seat thing with high handles hasn't gone in yet. That ugly piece of shit furniture will be motivation enough to get on with the exercises and so take the disgusting fucker back to the shop.

I am close to sorted, except for paying all the up front fees. I don't mind paying Angus his extra bit, cos at least I have met him and I like his face, but yesterday on text order from the girlie at the anaesthetists I called 'em up. Apparently the bloke whose name I have already forgotten, but which did not draw any google action, insists on being paid in advance - ' Will that be on your mastercard today?' Shit I used to use that line when I was working the phones. I asked her if I was the only person to ever question the ethics of paying someone you haven't met for something not yet received, and Girlie didn't seem to get it, although as she just kept rabbiting on - also an 'on the phones' strategy,  I am guessing she might have heard similar before. I have not paid them yet..

All else is going according to plan.  

I'd like a bit of GOOD NEWS please

I just trawled through the online news and you know what? it's all bad, and what's more it seems to be all out of our control.

Ban the burqa at Parliament house, Sri Lankan returned Boat people raped and tortured, Beale - the Rugby player has been in an 'altercation AGAIN, ASIO is given tough new powers, Aussie planes are in Iraq, Ebola marches on to the USA, Phelps the Olympic hero has been caught drunk driving at speed AGAIN, a school is bombed in Syria killing 40 kids, and there's now epidemic proportions of Indigenous dementia in OZ.

The Student leader of protests in Hong Kong was arrested and jailed for days for waving an umbrella, and the next year will see an unprecedented number of Aussies defaulting on their debts.

I reckon I can understand why some folk just turn off the news. I was hoping that something uplifting, or exciting or even just mildly curious might have happened, but NO, it's just all shitful.

Oh the lovely George did get married and there were little protests in Venice because people thought he should give his money away just cos he has plenty.

I don't buy those shit magazines where all the women are glamorous and airbrushed to shit, and that are filled with advertisements demanding that we all throw our cash away on perfectly useless dross which almost always never does what it says on the pack. You know the ones that tell us that some celebrity or other is banging some celebrity or other and that Kate is almost certainly expecting twins. I don't buy 'em cos they are crap, but the reading has got to be better than the online news.

Off to see AnnBrit to get my hair sorted and so I will have a few hours of comic relief reading her shit mags. It's OK though cos I didn't buy 'em.

Grown Up Jobs.

There are definitely some very fun 'jobs' that come with age.

At the ripe old age of 10 Zig will be allowed to sit in the front seat of the car, so long as he wears his seat belt of course, and I am not sure what age children are allowed to stay at home unsupervised, but let's imagine that it's 14, although why we would reckon the government would err on the side of caution in this but allows a 7 year old to hang on for grim death on the back of a motor bike is anyone's guess.

So then you can get a learners licence at 16  and have wild consensual sex, thought preferably not while learning to drive, and vote and drink and go to war at 18.

These are all the perks or 'rights' of passage, but what about the responsibilities?

There's the tax man to contend with as soon as you earn a penny, even if that is at the ripe old age of 14 and a few months, and then you have to enrol to vote, I am pretty sure that is the law, and then of course you are eligible to be called for Jury duty. I got called up once and got all excited about it but really it was just  a lot of sitting around. I am surprised that I have never been called again, I would go in a heart beat.

There's the paper work for insurance and bills and registration of all sorts of stuff that require a great deal if dicking around, presumably so the government can keep a close eye on everyone. Just about every move you make as an adult requires some paperwork of some description. SHEEEIT! I hate paper work.

As I am off into the ether next week for a new knee and hopefully a more graceful gait, I know it is necessary to get some more papers in order.

This will be the 4th Will I have written in my life, circumstances change and so paperwork becomes redundant. The Married Will, the Single Woman with child Will, the Property Owner Spousal will, and now, the I've got fuck all, but I could pop my clogs next week so as I like to have the last word, I had better write it down now, Will.

I am lucky enough to have a friend who gave me a Will format for my penultimate go, and so today I just went in and made some adjustments which reflect the changes to my fortune since the last time I had a go. It didn't take too long and I guess with all the gobbly-gook legal speak it should be easily probatable ( is that a word?)

So now I have a few copies which I have to get witnessed and then I am DONE, Yippee!!

I wonder how often other people update their Wills and what sort of mundane paper work we all avoid until the very last minute.