Yomping into 2018

We've been IN for 8 days, and it's Sunday so that's washing the sheets day. I have no idea why I still wash sheets on a Sunday when I have 6 other perfectly good days to wash 'em but I suppose the habits of a lifetime are difficult to break. Just because I have found this washing routine I guess I can say we are getting settled. Yippee.

And it seems at the same time a blink of the eye and a very long long 8 days indeed.

Moved house, unpacked, had Christmas, found a bit of the Brisbane River for Dog to swim in, though I admit that it makes me sufficiently nervous that I leave that adventure to Stevie, cos of the City Cats whipping by and the currents and rocks and once this week there was a huge Cruise ship doing a Uee. Yep there is plenty of traffic here and it the old canal at the Big House look pretty tame in comparison.

Stevie heard from the newbies there about a plumbing issue, but apart from that we reckon they must be settling in well - I do hope that the fishie girls are doing OK.

We have trotted out to Oxford Street a couple of times. It is THE eating place in these parts. It's doggie friendly so once we left Dog at home and once we took her with us. I think she is struggling to come to terms with her new home, so we are spoiling her badly, and yesterday we found a Turkish place for lunch down the road in Hawthorne which was just yummo fab.

The local Woolworths has easy parking and we've had to pop in there a few time for groceries, and we are so spoiled for choice when it comes to morning coffee that we are yet to settle on our favourite. Laurence you are still our favourite.

Stevie has checked out 2 golf clubs and has almost settled on the prettiest even though it's a few kilometres further away.

I found a lovely doctor called Jane and that really about made my week. Yippee.

We still have no internet or pay TV because Telstra is rubbish. Now they are talking about the 8 or 9th of January, but as they have been lying to me since the 6th of December, not the same lie you understand, a different one for each of the literally dozens of people I have spoken to, I rather doubt that too. Ho Hum.

We are trying to grow some grass here at the wee house, cos the agents made a big deal of the new turf in the inventory, but I think we are flogging a dead horse. The soil is builder shit contaminated and very boggie, and I rather doubt anything is gonna grow, but watering is a pleasant way to spend time in the afternoon so fingers crossed.

It's been hotter than at the Goldie so the air con has been getting a work out, and I think the Pom is Stevie is a bit shocked, cos after all it took him a decade to get used to the heat at the beach.

We have no plans for NY eve. I reckon I will be lucky if I get to drive to the nearby hill to watch the crackers for the kids at 8.30pm, but that's the plan.

Happy New Year to all who stop by here, and I hope that 2018 is exciting and fulfilling and unexpected and entertaining for us all.

GP shopping

It's no secret that I see loads of doctors, some of 'em I like enormously and some I just rub along with cos they deliver news that is needed and their bed side manner is of little consequence, but my favourite by far is my GP Dr Jane, and sadly we have left her behind at the Goldie and I just can't see her making a house call even though she is perhaps one of the kindest smartest people you could ever hope to meet. But I had reconciled that I would continue to pop down to see her for scheduled shit and as I am almost never 'normal' sick, I reckoned I could go a long time without finding a GP up in the big smoke.

But today I woke with a bloody great blister on my arm, which only became apparent to me when I scratched the shit out of it and ooze happened. Yeh that was a bit shitty.

You see, after 10 years I had become used to the sand flies and bugs at the Big House and so we lived without screens and would just give a bit of an Aerogard spritzer before we took dog out in the twilight cos that's when the buggers were looking for blood.

But I haven't yet managed to get a working relationship with the Brisvegas buggers and they have bitten me from arsehole to breakfast, and being of little self control, I have been itching up a storm. There is something very satisfying about scratching an itch isn't there? Surely it can't just be me? So I scratch til I am raw - ah - and then it really fucking hurts. Bugger.

I had a bite on my foot that I have managed to scratch at during my sleep that has produced a big ugly sore which needs a bandaid if I choose to wear any shoes or thongs at all, so it's taking a long time to sort out, and now I have this walloper my arm. Bugger indeed.

So I reckon I need to find a doctor who will prescribe something stronger that Sting Goes or those other useless tubes of shit that the chemist sells just as sort of stocking stuffers.

So I had a look see at doctors around here, and the first one was staffed by 3 geriatric men. Now this couldn't be further from what I was looking for. Sure these fellas might be bloody marvellous, but what I wanted was a woman - younger than me, so if I do get to like her, she probably won't be dead while I am still kicking around, and that's important cos I don't want to spend precious time breaking in an another one if I can help it.

Then I happened on to a centre with a female doctor called, wait for it - JANE. I am hoping this is a good sign. And I am hoping she will send me off with more than advice and a smile. Yeh I will have to go into all the CML shit and she more than likely will never have heard of it and I will have to outline all the side effects of the meds which may or may not limit what she would like to do, but all this should be a good interview for the job. If she can get through this shit without me getting up and doing a runner then she might be a keeper.

Fingers crossed.

It's been quite the December.

Well what a really lovely christmas it has been. We've been in the new house for 8 or 9 days now. All the boxes that are gonna be opened have been opened and stuff stacked away in too few cupboards and hidieholes, and the garage looks like something that would make an entrepreneur proud, a week out from starting her online junk yard shop. The rest of the place looks like we live here cos of course some our stuff is being used to sit on and cook with - bad grammar - give me a break I am still looking for my mind and December - where the fuck did it go?

Our first night away from the Big House was blessedly QUIET. Accounts from neighbours tell us that TMR really out did themselves with noise and mess for chrissie. How very fucking kind of the fuckers. In any case I admit that I am very very very pleased to be away from it all. NO they haven't finished yet despite the holiday push - yeh we all know that was just a push of cash deep into pockets, and the schedule for work in the New Year is not a picnic either.

But we are here and the noise is NOT. Yippee.

It's a bijou stop gap between selling the Big House and buying a Brisvegas place. And the search for a new permanent home is gonna become a full time occupation cos we need to be quick and the area we want to be in is pretty small. Phill and Kirstie from Location Location Location would not be best pleased with our growing list of MUST HAVES. Ho Hum - Compromise is neither Stevie's or my middle name.

So on our way to groceries or coffee or just a general mooch about, we are looking looking looking.

And it's a bit like jury selection in all those American legal eagle movies. We both can say NO without explanation and then there are the maybes and then there are the ones we sit outside of and just dial the agent on the sign.

Choosing a house is like that. Love it, hate it, or maybe just maybe, and we are lucky cos mostly we are on the same page, and it's a job we enjoy, at moment anyway when it is all still new and exciting and there is no hint of desperation, perhaps if we are still looking in a month or so it will be less wonderful and more find it fucking NOW.

Dog has been all a bit discombobulated. Even though we have taken her on lots of holidays, she seems to know that this is different. The packing of all those boxes worried her and shoving all our stuff into a truck and unloading it here has left her in an almost constant state of anxiety. Her belly has been upset, and not just because of all the chrissie treaties and she's been sleeping like she's dosed up on Valium. She is acclimatising and is very fond of swimming in the Brisbane river, just a block away.

Stevie is busy looking for a new Golf Club and I am tending the grass which to be honest was in pretty shit condition, even though the agents found it necessary to tell me it was my responsibility to return the house all lush and green gardened. I am happy hosing and watching and hoping it will come good.

And we are all being CAREFUL not  leave a mark. This renting malarky is not easy. I wonder if I will ever get the oven clean and I wonder about the man made stone tops in the kitchen - is it ok to pop a hot something on 'em? The house is still on the market. The builders have been unable to sell it, perhaps because they are being more than a tiny bit greedy, so it suited them to rent it out for 6 months, but that's our lot. 6 months to be in and out. Yeh when I think about moving again, the foetal position is calling.

And the kids are close by. My Girl reckons it's 19 minutes on the Tom Tom, but I reckon it's closer than that, so pop ins are happening, and I love that. Yippee!

Our feet are almost up and our arses will be in chairs unless we want to be out and about, cos there is no full time job of cleaning the house and no noise to escape. Bloody blissful.

It might not be how I would ever want to spend December again, but I am pleased.

Yippee to 2018

Moving House. - I wish I was magic.

Moving fucking house at Christmas in the heat when you quite simply have way way too much shit is just not much fun.I thought after packing way way too much shit into way way too many fucking boxes for 2 weeks might have been the worst of it, but I could not have been more wrong.

Nah the very fucking worst by far and away is trying to establish a house with some sense of the aesthetic, and with stuff stacked into places that should make life a bit easy. You know what I have discovered is that even though in very many ways Stevie and I  see eye to eye, when it comes to furniture placement and establishing places we are chalk and cheese. He wants the garage sorted and organised and I want to be able to sit in the rather bijou lounge room and not be offended by boxes and shit.

The whole house is predictably smaller. That was what we were after, but there does seem to be a bit of a chasm between what we thought we wanted and this place, but once we have sweated shit into place, I reckon it might be OK. And whilst I can't bear the chaos of shit everywhere, I am aware that this place is just a stop gap - temporary, so there must be a fine line drawn between perfect and what you can cope with. Stevie and my lines are misaligned and so it's been a little more than a little fraught.

The neighbours must be wondering who the fuck has moved in.

Monday afternoon saw the arrival of the Telstra bloke - read laziest fucker I have ever met.

Him: I can't do anything here today so I am going.
Me: I don't think so.
Him: The house is not ready and the Council needs to dig a trench.
Me: That's not what I have been told. Please do what you can.
Him: I can't do anything ( so he set up a bit of safety barrier, had a furtle, left, came back and left for good. - No phone, internet, pay TV. )
Me: Ok I get it. You want an paid early mark. On your way lazybones.

The removalists and my lovely girl were using all manner of potty language as he packed up his little bit of shit and as he laughed at us all. Welcome to the neighbourhood! Me? I was ready to have a little cry cos the ordinary tireds had slapped me about the head and every part of my body was an ache, one ache connected to next one, and unusually I was not quick to blame the meds cos I figured there was a pretty good chance I had been going hard at muscles that hadn't seen the light of day for maybe a decade. I just simply didn't have it in me to argue any more.

So still no lines installed. 3 hours on the phone in many conversations prior to Monday and an hour in the actual shop on Wednesday and still nothing. I am left wondering what fucking century it is.

Anyway a wee Vodaphone dongal thing might see us out of trouble or into it, who really knows.

And here we are 4 days from chrissie and I have not yet trawled the shops and have no food in the house and even if there was food I am not certain I would know where the shit is required to cook it or dish it up. I reckon it could well be a strange strange old day, and if was just us I don't reckon I would care too much but even though my Darling Boy must be cracking 6 foot tall, he's only 12 and so can reasonably expect a bit of fuss and a rousing HO HO HO.

I did thankfully find some knickers in a poorly labelled box at 6 am this morning and so now I can stop washing out one of the 2 pairs I could find, in the shower. Really that was too close to camping.

I am wondering if I have it in me to pop to the shops tonight at 10 ish in the hope that normal people have gone home and I can have a look see about. Time will tell.

How much shit is in the back of your cupboards?

WE just quite simply have too much shit. It has taken me 2 weeks to pack everything we own into boxes. Well almost everything. Not the paintings and not the Everest pile of shit I have thrown out, but a huge pile of stuff. And it has been a lookie lookie look see into the depths of drawers and cupboards at stuff that never sees the light of day, and naturally there is a very good reason for that - I am not much fond of that plate or bowl or picture or whatever other bit of tat it might be, but you know, 'It's too good to throw out, someone might use it, I'll take it to Life Line' - yeh right, who ever gets to that in their normal every day living?

The whole house had become like the junk drawer in the kitchen that we all have, filled with stuff we thought might come in handy at some point, but it never did.

So as we are downsizing from the bloody enormous, Big House into a regular sized house, I am gonna try a New Year's resolution for Christmas. No more buying shit without throwing out some other shit first.

And that might be achievable now cos I am not the shopper I was in my 30s and 40s. Trawling the shops doesn't bring the joy of times gone. However I will admit that it has been replaced by the internet lottery and in some ways this is worse because I almost never send shit back so it is shoved in the back of somewhere until I get over the guilt and chuck it away.

We still have more shit than enough.

 

Fingers crossed that it all fits in the trucks on Monday, and that none of the shit I actually like, gets broken in transit. Maybe I should have labelled the shit boxes with, 'If you are gonna drop something, Drop this one' . 

That would have been clever. Next time!

PC Plod is branching out.

Who among us is a mechanical engineer, or a motor enthusiast, or maybe even just someone with a keen interest in things that make a noise? Well  not me that's for sure. I don't know my arse from my elbow when it comes to anything motor driven. And I admit to being part of the throw away generation. You know, if it doesn't work throw it out and get a new one. Oh sure I'll give a broken thing a bit of a slap about and maybe turn it off and on a couple of times and maybe then drop it from a small height, but if it is still not working then it hits the wheelie bin, cos well it's bloody broken.

And I am not a tinkerer. I have never pulled a motor apart and tried to shove it back together and have never saved a thing with a broken motor so I could use it for parts. I mean how would that work anyway? A broken down sewing machine is resurrected by fitting pieces from a blender? I guess it's possible I just don't know.

And my life is not the poorer for this info void. So long as the things I want to work, actually do work then I am happy, and if there is a new toy I fancy having a go at, I'll teach myself how it works, like techno theatre stuff and sometimes a bit of film editing or maybe how to operate a new sewing machine. But I put my hand up and admit that I do not curl up on the couch and dive into an encyclopedia about motors or watch You Tube videos about how to fix ANYTHING. Sure You Tube is a fun way to spend a while and I have watched 'how to' demos but only Nigella cooking easy meringues cos well she's NIGELLA after all.

Horses for courses though. I know not many people want to spend time splashing paint onto a canvas, and playing with children leaves a lot of people cold, and most people just don't get my tapping tapping away here, so I get it that people do weird shit in their spare time.

But my weird got truly weird last night.

There are not many among us who would figure driving their wee car into position as 'Stop Right There Thank You Very Much' - are you singing? would be a good way to spend the evening. Let me paint a picture for you. My car is a wee Mazda 2. I love it cos it's small and easy to park, front in, back in, it's easy peasey. It's short and low to the ground like me and not the least bit intimidating. Suffice to say that road rage wars would never be won by a Mazda 2 driver, unless they had left it at home and were out and about in their truck. So it's not the sort of thing generally first thought of as a weapon.

But last night me and my trusty Mazda put ourselves in harms way in a protest about the fucking noise.

As if the usual noise - I can't believe I am calling it USUAL, cos let's face it there's fuck all USUAL about 100 DB puncturing the evening calm, wasn't enough, last night they thought it a good idea to rev the shit out of 3 industrial machines right outside our house.

Now if this was those fools on Top Gear or whatever it's called now BBC have stopped funding it, were lining up for a race in these machines then some revving would be in order, maybe even a few minutes of it so that the film crews could get enough footage from enough angles, but then the race would begin and the chaos would ensue and probably  one or more of the machines would end up, up-side-down in a ditch, cos it's the doing not the idling that most impresses the TV punters. And people in general I find. People prefer to see some outcome rather than just hear the noise, unless you are sitting behind the enormous amps in the cheap seats at a heavy metal concert, then the noise is all you've got.

I get it that sometimes machines need to warmed up. I get it. But how warmed up do you reckon a machine would be after 90 minutes? If footballers warmed up at top speed for 90 minutes there'd be no game. If I warmed my Mazda up for 90 minutes before taking to the road, I'd very soon run out of petrol, and if I warmed myself up for 90 minutes before going hard at something like the packing of boxes, then every single thing we own would still be in the cupboards, cos I'd be fucked and no packing at all would be done.

A 90 minute warm up? No amount of suspension of disbelief is helping me here.

But do you know what's heartening? PC PLOD, the TMR paid body guard with a gun, well when he arrived with his possie of machine drivers, who were not as you might have thought overseeing the revving of their steers,  he did so with the full weight of all his years of extra- curricular attention to the mechanations of large rolling machines. Isn't it good to know that not only are the TMR Body guards in the QPS uniforms, willing and able to issue meaningless 'Move On Orders' and organise towing of cars and threaten the arrest of law abiding people, but they also know ALL ABOUT INDUSTRIAL MACHINES. Yep Plod knew that machines had to be warmed up, and that 90 minutes was the accepted norm. Yep he knew this because he was an expert, or else some other dick on the road further away told him to say that, and he, being the gormless fuck that he is, just parroted it off.

Now if an expert wants to let me know that in fact 90 minutes is the standard time it takes for these machines to reach peak performance then  I will apologise to Plod. But it all seems unlikely especially if you consider the ambient temperature last night must have been in the high 20s - no snow possible for, oh maybe a century.

These 3 machines were all idling away, spewing out fumes and noise for an hour and half - not in an industrial zone, but in a quiet residential street. And they are all lined up again for tonight!

And if just once in more than a fucking YEAR someone from the work zone actually admitted that it was pretty extreme and unnecessary and fucking apologise, it would go a long way to soothing the irrits.

'They have work to do'
'They will be finished soon'
'There is no other way'

One more night, and as TMR pays someone to keep track of my posts I can only imagine that they will really ramp up the noise tonight as a final farewell to 'That bitch from number 11'. I truly hope that Karma bites 'em all on the arse and that at the very least they suffer permanent deafness and that no-one will ever have sex with 'em again cos they stink of diesel and the sweat produced from counting all the ill gotten cash from the public purse.

And did I mention that they opened the road yesterday? Not fucking finished by a long way, but by all means do open it. An 8 month job overruns by 5 months, and it's still not finished. Only on a government job! They must all be so fucking proud!

Christmas with a difference.

This is the full chrissie deco plan for this year.

Yep all the lovely bits that I carefully pack up each January and shove in 3 big boxes are taped up and ready for moving so about a week ago my girl presented me with these two drunken Santa salt and pepper shakers so there'd be some christmas cheer, where ever we land, even if it is wee. And on our way to coffee one morning this week or maybe last week, seriously time has been passing in a blurr, like a many many double voddies blurr, we saw these other lovely fellas at the florist and Stevie just plopped 'em on the table as a cool surprise and everyone who walked by commented on the resemblances. I am hoping that I am meant to be the red headed one although the greying beardy one is possibly the way I am feeling.

Christmas is just percolating away in the back of my head cos the front part is filled with cartons and chucking shit out. Stevie said yesterday he was gonna start calling me his little Portia. Well I heard Portia but he meant Porche and he then explained the link - Porche Boxster cos I always seem to have my head wedged in a carton. Anyway, I am hoping that by some sort of osmosis that unfortunately I do not believe in, by the 25th, I will have somehow managed to pull together a grand feast and at least some silly bits and pieces to wrap and then go the big rip. The obscene pile of brightly wrapped stuff will not be under the nonexistent tree this year. I reckon some IOUs might find their way into the custody of the gnomes and the drunken jolly Santas.

And that's OK. Cos what I am most excited about is that the kids 'll be able to pop over in the afternoon, without the stress of a drive which my girl does not enjoy, AT ALL. We can hit the pool and eat stuff and be silly and then they can trundle off home again. And everyone can sleep in their own bed and then if the kids want to pop back the next day and the next day, it's only a few minute's drive and if I want to drop something off to them or take dog for a visit to play with my Darling Boy, then it's not a whole day out and 'have I got enough petrol?' and 'I hope there is no smash on the M1 today!' 

Yeh I am getting very excited about 'going home'.

It's been 17 years since I lived in Brisvegas  and that's quite a long time, and I have been very happy laying my hat in different places for all these years, cos at heart I reckon I am truly a gypsy.

I was gonna say I love moving, but that's just bullshit. NOONE loves moving, it's a royal pain in the arse, but I do love exploring new houses and places and seeking out the best coffee and the freshest veg and the friendliest restaurants with the tastiest food, and the galleries and the theatres and, well stuff.

And all this exploring will still be necessary, even though I am going home, cos the place has sure changed. It's daunting and maybe a little tiring thinking about it all, but mostly it's exciting.

Roll on next week when the packing is finished and the boxes are delivered and our backs are to the fucking road works and we are tripping down a new street looking for a place that makes good coffee and of course is happy for Dog to sit at our feet. Yep Roll on indeed.

Moving - where's Betwitched when you need her?

Well shit, it's been more than 2 weeks of silence on here but not in my head, and of course no ceasing of the government abuse out on the fucking road - nah that's really ramped up since the government has decreed an opening grand reveal date and of course the union turds want their chrissie bonus.

The house sale went unconditional and the last 2 weeks seem to have trundled along in slow motion. Travel along the M1 to Brisvegas to view houses has been patience testing, but not as galling as being vetted by children in charge of some very dodgy houses to rent. We did get desperate after the stinky dirty one and the houseos one and the one with literally 100 steps straight up to the front door, Whew, I nearly gave that one a miss half way up. Landlords lied and changed their little minds and agents big noted themselves but we found a place, not quite where we want to be but needs must and all that.  Of course it is not without it's problems because the owners really want to sell it, not rent it, so it turned out that there is no power and no gas and not water meter and no wiring for TV or internet, and they wanted little codicils cos of dog which we just sucked up and signed. It has been a fight, and we are not in there yet, so fingers are firmly crossed.

It's difficult to find a house to rent when you have no references and no job and no interest in providing bank statements, or signing your life away and agreeing to remodel the whole house just because we have a dog, even though the mess left by the family with 3 children just simply beggared my belief.

And then there are the hours - not an exaggeration, I will never get back trying to get quotes from removalists. 

The first guy, with a long pole firmly wedged up his arse, told me that it was the most expensive time to move and we'd be lucky to have him. He was here for 2 hours and twice he launched into insurance sales speak, even though I bluntly - yeh it was as blunt as you might imagine it, told him not to bother. His quote came back and was more than 14 thousand dollars not including insurance! FUCK!

Next bloke was much more friendly and pragmatic and when he sent his quote it was about 5 grand plus a goodly sum to pack shit up.

And finally a fella I have known for a very long time quoted over the phone and I agreed and then later he popped out and had a look and we are all happily on the same page.

So I have been packing and chucking shit out. I am a good and ruthless purger. And I am a quick packer, perhaps because it is not a job I enjoy and so just want to get it over and done with as fast as I can.

I have 4 more days to shove anything we want to keep into a box and even though by far and away most of it is done, it's my experience that it's the last bits that are the most troublesome, so wish me luck.

Of course so close to chrissie means that something has had to give and sadly that is parcels and christmas foodie cheer.

I am truly hoping that the big smoke comes with 24 hour a day shopping so I might pop out at 2 am and perhaps avoid the crowds, cos that's just not something I fancy.

My eyes are drooping down lower than my boobs and my mind is so utterly frazzled that now would be an excellent time to try and sell me a bridge or a comfy looking place to sleep for about a year.

Yep that's what I fancy for chrissie, a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Ahhhh Bliss. Come on Santa do your best huh?