Like everyone else, I like to have as much leg room as possible, even though my legs are shorter. I also prefer it if I don't have a seat in front of me as it almost always pisses me off when the person in front claims some of my tiny space allowance by reclining. I know I'm a grumpy old Fart... Simon told me.
Just before I left the UK I met up with Simon Tayler from Artem (and his daughter Ella) and we went out for an Indian. Later we were nattering and laughing about the reality that we are both what society calls 'grumpy old men'. However Simon reckons that the term is inaccurate. I agree. Neither of us are actually 'grumpy' in the accepted sense of the word. It has become a fashionable put down to those of us who for one reason or another are less than accepting of the status quo. Maybe its something to do with the perspective that one achieves with age that sort of distorts the input into something coloured by years of experience, positive and negative. The information that we are fed is hyped and coloured by the marketing machine that is our industrial society so that it needs to be decoded back to something more akin to our own experience. You can call that grumpy, but Simon and I prefer to call that reality.... and if you don't agree.... well you can stick it where the sun don't shine :-) as long as you're positive about it eh!
Just before I went to Simon's house, I went to see Phil and Frances, our old neighbours. We had about 45 Min's only, but it was really nice to see them and see how much the kids had grown. Phil didn't look like he'd had a hair cut since we last saw him.... but otherwise they were both unworn by the passing of a year. And just before I went there, I'd been to see Connor and Katrina and the kids.
I'd made an arrangement to meet them the week before and dutifully turned up with the ingredients to have tea... pastries, scones, jam and cream. (Actually i may have forgotten the jam but you get the picture). The kids were bigger, but otherwise more like themselves than ever, and it was lovely to see them. Their methods for bringing up their kids are very similar to those that Daile and I seem to use, not that there is a method AS SUCH but more of a tendency to a laid back and tolerant disposition (work with me here!!). So I was surprised that I was surprised, when in response to a request to eat the cream directly from the aerosol (i know i know, but we're not all purists even if we ARE grumpy), Katrina said yes! Fantastic! Here's the evidence. It almost became a cream fest, they all lined up of course. Sadly, the camera I took to the UK is not very quick, so I missed the others.
Here's a couple of pics of Gill (my sister) and my Mum and I at Gill's studio. I'd have put them up when I did that blog, but they were still in the camera.
When I arrived back in Brisbane, it was just after there had been a storm that was so violent that the hail had dented all our cars. The five vehicles outside our house are all covered in little tiny dents that you don't see immediately, but catch with your eye in certain lights. There has been very heavy rainfall and inclement weather this week....
... with widespread flooding, and many homes have been wrecked by flooding that is so bad that cars have been bumping around inside garages and swept down gardens etc... so we consider ourselves very lucky. (Not in the least bit grumpy in fact). The following pictures show the boat ramp that we use in Goodna, and if you compare the pictures of now, with the level of an earlier picture I took, you can see that the level is about 6 to 8 ft higher! (It's a bit difficult to see it in the darker picture, but if you click on them you can see better).
This week I worked on Monday and finished off the filing of mail etc from home on Tuesday, which was my last day. I have retained my original work mobile number so no need to write down a new one chaps... Since then I've been to see a guy about my CV who's going to try to find me some work and I've been in touch with a company that I'm going to see next week on the off chance... I'm not really sure what I'm doing yet.
We've also been and put our names down on a list of people interested in renting a house in Shailer Park. The way it works here is that you register interest and the landlords get to choose who sounds the best on paper... but they don't get to meet you. Bizarre. I'll post pics when I know if we've got it. We had looked at a couple of others which didn't look too bad on the outside but were really grubby or smelly on the inside. We're trying to be economical...
Whilst we were waiting to view the house the Feeb fell over... and now looks like this:
So I've been hanging out a bit with the kiddies. This week we've been swimming twice. Once for their conventional swimming lesson on the Thursday, and again the following night because its so damn hot here right now!!! Outside the swimming pool and right by the river there is a whole load of trees that are absolutely blathered with bats hanging there. About 6pm each day they all suddenly wake up, fly up and down for a few minutes and then swarm off. Its amazing to watch. They don't swarm over to the pool, but the opposite way. Never-the-less, we sat on the bonnet of the car (with the dents) and ate blueberry chew sticks...
At first there's nothing moving... then you see one or two...
... until finally the place is swarming. I didn't have my camera again... so this was the best I could get with the longer shot. You can see that they go nuts though. Its a pretty awesome sight. The kids loved it.
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