Sand Safari - Surfers Paradise

 

 

For just about 2 weeks there are these wonderful lumps of whimsy along the beach at Surfers Paradise. They are bloody marvellous even if they just set your brains to working out how the sand stays together - I think it has to do with the special sand they use, as unlikely as it sounds the grains are square so wedge together for better stickability. I could have made that up..

 

They are all Artists' takes on Disney films and some you will know and some you  might wonder about unless you have had the joy of taking littlies to the pictures recently. They were all beautifully created.

 

The first one and the last one here from 'Aladdin' looks to me, so much like a melancholy Robin Williams who did the voice work for the Genie, that it reminded me he is gone and that he is missed.   

 

 

 

 

 

Shit shop shopping.

It's no secret that I do love a bargain. 30% off the RRP of something lovely is good for a look - see and an excellent excuse to trawl around some pretty shops in the air-con. It is mostly not too crowded and there is plenty of room for me to walk around with taking out the eye of a small child or knocking the walking stick from an oldie as I swing my shopping basket with gay abandon.

But Shit Shop shopping ain't like that.

For starters, today I went to Aldi. And almost immediately I was corralled by some crazy old woman with 'just fucked me' hair and some other store's trolley which was struggling to fit in in the aisles of a new environment. I was looking at clothes airers - don't ask me why - I have no explanation apart from an admission of a loco moment. I could not escape the trolley or the woman or the airers. She actually ran me over with the shitting thing and as she finally shovelled her way passed, I said, 'Excuse me, I'm sorry, thank you so much.' My sarcasm was lost on her but that might have been because her ears were wedged with frizzed up green hair.

Now Aldi is the sort of place that if you have really lost the will to live and you fancied going there every week, you can get some really good bargains. But I don't go every week so I need to stand there looking like my own bit of crazy, wearing my dark glasses so I can read the signs. ( Blind without 'em ho hum) Today I got detergent and a soaker hose and a spatula and some on sale cotton buds. I didn't buy a bag cos they all fitted into my basket. It was pretty heavy so instead of carrying it around I popped it into a trolley at Target for my next bit of shit shopping.

It could have been because they are having a stock take, or it could have been because it was Monday or it could have been because aliens were due at any moment, but there was staff EVERYWHERE, definitely not a good day to try to nick any stuff. And even though there were plenty of people in uniform about, there was very little help on offer. Socks and jocks were on sale, but only if you bought 40 bucks worth. I found Steve's preferred socks, but hey only had 'em in Yeti size, so I asked for some in regular human size and the girlie went away and came back and said that she could not have taken any from out the back cos that would have upset the counting. I didn't counter with an argument that a few packages fewer would have been less to count, and instead just buggered off.

I had a look at the bed linen cos I have some vague memory that Target used to sell 100% cotton stuff, but that seemed to have gone by the board along with regular socks and cushions that don't require a second mortgage. The sweeties were well received when I got home though.

I had the Target trolley as I ventured into the truly shittiest of shit shops, The Reject Shop. ( How would that name have come about in the marketing meeting?) There is just nowhere to hide in this place. There are half emptied boxes everywhere and shit overflowing the shelves. There are nutsos and wankers and people singing and staff whinging. I pushed on with my trolley which was not designed for this shop and developed more tolerance for the cow in Aldi.

The pet and gardening sections are at the back so push on I did and Dog was very happy that I bothered. A few other bits and pieces and I was outta there. Yippee.

So now I have my basket filled with Aldi shit and bags from Target and The Shittiest Shit shop so of course it was then that I remembered that I needed to get a tub of Tzatziki and some Turkish bread from Woolies. That Target trolley was really doing the rounds today.

Shit shopping finished and out to the car and a lovely woman with 'normal' hair asked if  I wanted her to take my trolley back along with hers. What a woman! 'Yes Please,' I smiled but bugger me, the bloody thing wouldn't fit into hers and hers wouldn't fit into mine so I was shit out of luck., but not out of shit, cos that was already sitting in the back of my car.

Change - climate and otherwise.

My lovely Dad was a great gambler. Well that is to say he gambled A LOT, on just about anything and sometimes he won and I suppose sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, he lost. But we only heard about the wins. I remember him coming home, not quite pissed as a maggot, but weaving his way into the house and one night he held 2 big fistfuls of large denomination bills and threw it all up in the air. It was like something out of a movie. The old woman went spastic and not in a good way and ranted and raved and grabbed as much as she could and started ripping it up into little bits. Clearly this was back in the day on One and Two Dollar bills and they were all paper. She was not amused. Perhaps he had lost the week before and had promised never to go to the track again. I don't know, but if that was the case that would have been the only QUIET argument they ever had, except for the year that they didn't say a word to each other and Dad took me to his Ladies' Night at his flash club and everyone thought I was a hooker, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, there she was the next morning sitting at the dining table in her nightie sticky-taping it all back together like a giant expensive jigsaw.

And they used that cash to buy a little apartment at Broadbeach. Today people would call it Surfers Paradise, and that is not the only change in the last 40 years.

I spent married time there and single mother hols there, well not in the little flat but in that area. I have driven the old road between Brisvegas and the Spit just for an hour of smelling the surf, more times than I can count. It has provided solace and joy and an excellent place to right the wrongs of the world, at least in my brain.

So 10 years ago I was a fully abled, youngish, gainfully employed, woman and I still loved the beach. I will always be a Goldie Girl, perhaps because of that little flat or more likely because that's where we always went for hols. I have walked the beach between Surfers and very much further south for what seems my whole life.   

Today, because I am older and unemployed and I am finally able to test out 2 good knees, I spent a couple of hours walking the old trail, and bloody beautiful it was, well mostly it was, except that there were some changes some good, some quite shitful. I took some pics as I walked. These are the things that even in an old age fog, I noticed were different. 

Boardwalk Benches with anti skater bits

Dunnies

Outside the dunnies

Electricity Boxes?

Parking Metres

 

Blueys bloody everywhere.

Jelly Fish absolutely every bloody where

Tidy bags of dog shit.

More fucking Jellies

Seagulls

Flags a plenty

Lighter rubbish - I used to use matches.

Surfers Skyline

Construction site where the old flat used to be.

It's been the battle point for years.

And Finally all the properties have been bought up and the development is HUGE

 

Pink Poodle Neon sign Heritage listed, but moved off the highway and hidden around the corner. 

Stainless steel and granite showers.

New Loos aplenty

Free BBQs



 

 

So I will leave it up to you what is good and what it evil, I bet politics play a part in those decisions, but the one thing I reckon we will all agree on is the arrival of the Jellies and the Blueys. This is definitely shitful.

I am off to do some research about why there are so many of the blighters, cos doing the chicken high step over 'em is sure as shit not a childhood memory. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that it ahs to do with a change in water temp, but I am keeping an open mind.

I used to think I was smart.

Do you ever feel like you are sliding uncontrollably into the mire? And it doesn't matter what you try, you just can't stop it? And all your knowledge about gradients and soil types and friction and stuff are fucking useless cos what you really need to know is how to play a video game and what tools you should have collected along the way, yeh that's right when you were given the option of grabbing that shovel you should have taken it, but you thought it was too cumbersome and couldn't imagine how you might kill the baddie with it so you left it behind. Does that sound like I belong in this century? Well if I have fooled you it is only cos I have listened to a 9 year old and absorbed some of the banal chatter.

I want to have my own proper website. Now don't think for a minute that I actually know what that is. But I want people to be easily able to leave comments and I want to put all these posts into some sort of order - some categories You know so when I am banging on about Zig's birthday, John Howard can skip over that to my opinion on the never ending vote counting for the Queensland election - don't go looking for that, I haven't bothered. And I would like it to look better, like it was put together by someone who has a brain and a sense of the aesthetic.

Anyway I started looking about for some help.

I quickly discovered that the going rate for building a website is between 4 and 5 THOUSAND dollars.  Well that's a fair chunk of wonga and when I don't quite know what I want, it'd be like walking into Tiffany's and trying to buy a chicken and wanting to pay for it in passionfruit. Before you spend the money it'd be good to know what you want.

Then today a friend sent me some webinar links. Yeh I know it sounds like I am speaking MOD MOD. (Seminars on line for those of you older than me.) Anyway I had a look and there are all sorts of cheaper possibilities where you build your own website, but it seems still to be rather formulaic, and then there's the problem of an ongoing weekly charge for using the format. Steve is not keen on renting that bit of cyber ether and I am not sure that it would ever be possible to shift my stuff outta there, so I am not sure who would own it.

So I am stuck where I started which is slipping down that slope into oblivion cos I just do not know enough, and if I am honest, I am not sure how keen I am about going back to school to learn something. If the teacher assumed I know the jargon I would very quickly get to be silly naughty, much like a slow year 9 boy, probably carving my name into the desk and eating bits of the computer, and if the teacher went too slowly I might have to throw stuff at them like a snarky year 9 girl. I was never the easiest of students. I only got by because mostly I knew the answers or could make a good argument and in this instance I would be good for neither.

Any advice about how to get what I don't know I want, would be cool.

Simple Sundays

Sundays are all to often just a slide closer to dead, but today has been lovely.

Well if you don't count the ridiculous rising at 4 am . Insomnia really is a bitch!

Up and out to the Local Markets for a ginormous 4 shot coffee which would get even the most sluggish of hearts started, and a bacon and egg burger thing which was ok. The push and shove of people and their lack of spatial awareness was comment worthy but not swear making irritating and the ripe fragrant strawberries will bring smiles all week as I add them to the frozen smoothies for breakfast.

Then off to the Spit for a dog morning. It was simply spectacular today. The surf was rough and the water as clear as I have ever seen it. The panorama was filled with exactly the colours I love to paint.
Dog played chase the sand and I ventured into the surf to test out my new knee. It worked fine. In the end though because I am a bit of a coward and Dog is surprisingly not all that keen on being in the surf when she can't touch the sand, I took to sitting close to the waters edge and just enjoyed getting bashed around by the baby waves and playing with Dog. Yes this meant a sand mine in my knicky-noos but I just didn't give a damn. Certainly not at the time, however I willingly admit that sand up the wazoo driving home was less than comfortable.

Into the pool and I dropped the sand, thinking that the vacuum thing would do it's job and that would be better than trying to sweep all the sand down the drain hole in the shower, but as Steve pointed out, no one knows where it goes to once the pool thing eats it up. That it one of life's little mysteries.

Dog is broken and asleep and I very much doubt we will see her til dinner time. She just has no 'off' switch. Me on the other hand, well I am ready for a nanny nap and another swim.

'The Theory of Everything'

This is a very 'nominated' movie and I can easily see why.

I knew that it was based on Hawking's life and that's about it. It became clear early on that whilst it was about the Professor, it was definitely from the Mrs' ie Jane's perspective. And NO this does not mean that it is a girlie pic, or a chick flick.

There was stuff about Motor Neuron disease that I rather doubt is common knowledge but again that is not the main thrust of the movie.

Mostly it deals with struggle and success and determination in a rather understated way. There are hints of an argument about God and the Bang theory, but it didn't bang on about either.

The Professor's physics theories were skimmed through in such a way as even this Arty - Farty sort of understood and as the movie was loosely based on Jane Hawking's memoirs and she too was an Arty - Farty so I supposed the portrayal should come as no surprise.

I liked it!

As an aside though, a debate started this week, from the disabled camp about why an able bodied actor was chosen to play the lead. I wanted to humph and punch the table. Have we gone this far down the track of political correctness that an able actor should have be given the shove in lieu of a disabled actor who would no doubt have been unable to carry the scenes of Hawking's early university days prior to the onset of this shitful disease, so necessitating the chunky editing of all the able years? Surely NOT. Eddie Redmayne was excellent and presented a most believable transition from well to very unwell. Oddly enough no one complained that a young woman, Felicity Jones, was cast as Jane, even though it meant that she needed to be artificially aged through-out the movie.

And even with this nonsense I say again, I liked it.

Michelin Star Masturbation

We are pretty brave about different tastes, even though I am happy to admit that I am not up to eating weird shit like kangaroo balls or koala penis. Anyway we have tasted some cool stuff at Degustation meals and as the night usually includes lots of wines the photography is sometimes a bit iffy.

I got Steve a Groupon Coupon for Christmas for Absynthe at Surfers Paradise and after we had fulfilled all the pre-requs for booking, and we tried hard to find a parking spot we stumbled into the place just a few minutes late and when the Maître de set eyes on the coupon  his shoulders drooped a little and he sent in the 'girlie from the Czech Republic' who wondered if we could understand her well enough.

We started with a beer. Steve tried a FAT YAK. He needed to pour it into a chilled glass cos it tasted a bit weird in the bottle. It was an OK brew.

And so to food.

6 courses and unusually only 3 wine tastes. Immediately we were told that there was no lamb rack and that we'd be given poached chicken instead.

1. Bite Me

Tomato soup made mostly from cucumbers in a shot glass. I should have stopped after my first little sip but I was hungry so downed the lot, or little bit as was lucky and it was the soup that kept on giving for the whole of the evening, into the small hours of this morning.

Yeh it bit me alright.

2.The Earth

That plastic stuff over the beetroot lump was I think vodka gel. A real squirt of voddie straight into my gob would have been better.

Beetroot stuff and the tiniest squirt of really nice blue cheese dip. Yeh there was other stuff on the plate but it didn't taste of anything so it was just empty calories and exercise for my jaw.

I didn't feel too grounded after this morsel fest.

3. Macquarie Harbour.

Scale needed: Salmon = pointy finger

A slither of very yummy salmon and 2 squirts of pumpkin mash and 2 squirts of cheesey dip. It was all pleasant enough even if so laden with salt that it drove even Steve to dive into the water glass instead of the wine. There was just soo much squirt that I wondered if the underpaid apprentice chef had gone a bit spastic with the piping bag.

4. The Farm.

Tasted just better than it looks.

Poached bit of rolled chicken which was salty but ok and green cabbage stuff which was ok but salty and some olive bubble goo which tasted of nothing at all.

Farmer Joe would not have had cause to be too proud of this lot.

5. The Sweet Start.

Those are squishy grapes and the orange stuff was nasty.

I ate the icey treat and Steve left the lot.

6. Heavenly Sweet

Yummy

A Chocolate fondant served still in the metal ramekin thing that we needed to burn our fingers trying to decant onto the plate. And even though the centre was not gooey like it should be, this was the hero dish of the night. It had some raspberry splodge on the side that was also pretty tastey.

All I can imagine is that this place does a bit of a poncey trade in unsuspecting posh type tourists who will never be in a position to come back and who want to be able to boast about some gastronomical greatness while on hols. It sure as hell cannot be relying on repeat local trade.

No we will not be back.