Those silly Americans

You'll have to click on this to see what it says...and I know you'll all agree... even if they ARE letting me blog for free!

Sparklers

Uncle Frans sent some sparklers for Matilda's birthday. They were really long, and gave a 'good go....'

They both loved them.... especially Tild. Here she's writing her name....





Surprised that they got through customs really!

Wassup n'art?

Here I am! Been a little while, but you know how it is....

The week passed quickly, and saw 3 people get the sack, and 2 get hired. The political undertones are becoming more audible to me now, and I'm beginning to see behind those who on the face of it are performing well. I am of course plagued by my own failings, and have to concentrate pretty hard to make sure that I don't drift off into a world of psychological theory that I love too much. However, I am finding that my sense of justice and fairness is holding me in good stead as I resist the pressures to impose warnings of one magnitude or another on the hapless pawns of internal politicking.

On Friday night, stuck in traffic, I saw this:



This was an exodus of bats. If you can imagine this going on for a good 10 minutes, you'll have some idea of how many past overhead.

This weekend we went to 'White Water World' on the way to the Gold Coast, and met up with Andrew and Leigh and the kids. We'd ostensibly just gone for a couple of hours, as we all had other things to be doing. In the end, we stayed for nearly 5. Its a fantastic venue, and everyone except me has a two year membership. Its not normally something that I'd bother with, and that was the first time that I've been, but not the last. Because you're just in your trunks and sunnies and cap, there's not a lot of room for a camera. However, I grabbed a couple before we left, just to put on here. They give you an idea of it...but some of the rides are WILD!









Later, we went 10 pin bowling. One lane for the adults and one for the kids. Matilda was really sweet, really getting into it, and trying to work out the trajectory carefully, whilst the other 4 of them playing were much more slapdash about it. The kids game is different from the adult one, because there are rails running along the sides of the lane to prevent the balls from going into the gutter. They also have a shute to run the ball down that they can pre-set. The lane has a subtle but significant convexity to it, so that a slow moving ball can easily roll off the centre line and scutter along the rail until it takes out a skittle or two at the end. Matilda was really careful to send them down the middle, or more creatively, bounce them off the rails back to the middle. It was quite intelligent play. However, there's a lot of fluke in it, and she didn't win. I was impressed by her thought process.



At Easter, we're going camping at Tweed Heads on the other side of the river from Coolangatta. Its actually in New South Wales, and the camp site is right on the river bank. Once I realised this, I decided that we have to have a boat. I looked at the hire ones, but I've not found one yet that is cheap enough. Needless to say they're going to be fully booked in any event...being Easter, so I'm looking in the equivalent of 'Car Mart' here. It's called Trading Post. (Internet based of course). There's quite a bit for around $1500 that would do. A 'tinny' [tin - ee] and something like a 15hp motor or so would be about right. Typically a tinny is about 3.5m long, has a couple of welded benches as strenghening, and is polished aluminium. (At least they're polished when they're new). Some, come painted. This is one that I'm interested in.





They come with trailers too, and in Australia, you have to have both the boat and the trailer registered with the powers that be...which of course you have to pay for. They're really efficient at this kind of thing here. The UK Ministry of Transport has missed a trick with trailer registrations, allowing us to just attach them to a car and use the same plate. My trailer had to have its own plate and I had to fit manufacturers plate too, with all the specs on. While we were at the Water World place, walking from one ride to another in bare feet was almost undo-able because the pavement was so hot that it felt like it was burning your feet. It got to 40 degrees this weekend. I mention this because one of the things that seems like a prerequisite for a tinny is an awning that is put up over the boat. Its called a 'bimini'.

We've not heard any more from Josh, but Ali has, and he's doing OK apparently. Got him a job lined up, and one for Emma too, so they should be able to augment the coffers whilst they're here.

Matilda has really clicked up a gear this week, has been reading at full tilt, (two books this week alone... like James and the Giant Peach), and I've noticed that she's loading programs onto her computer now too. She won an award for story writing at school this week. Fascinating kid. Shame I had to smack her bum again today. Been feeling rotten about it since.

Phoebe has really started to look like she knows what she'd doing with her dancing too. The highlight of her week is her ballet lesson. I don't have any pics of her practising sadly, as I decided when she was doing it this arvo that it was a video moment. (One day I might figure out how to get video on to this site). Never-the-less, I got these pics, whilst she was doing her 'floor exercises'.







Notice the fringe? She did it again!!! Daile is NOT amused! It was about 10 minutes after they'd been talking about how her hair was getting lovely and long '..like Mummy's and Matilda's..'

Another week slips past me....

Last week, Josh finally set off for NZ, and I'm pleased to report that he's there, and still in one piece. I gather that he's a bit knackered though due to chatting to a girl in LA airport for 6 hours instead of getting some shut eye, and then when he got to Hamilton, he went to a reggae festival for two days and slept on a wooden floor. Bring it on...!

Matilda's birthday went off well, despite the early start and the chocolate fountain. She came into our room at about 1am, and was shaking with anticipation. Not really relishing trying to get her back into her bed quietly, or being kicked and prodded if she slept between us, I volunteered to go and sleep on the sofa. Daile insisted that she would go and sleep in Matilda's bed, and off she went. I was woken at 3, 4, 5.10 and finally, at 5.30 I let her get us all up. This picture was taken at about 5.40. You can see that she's calm and cool....er NOT.













Over the last few weeks we've been in contact with a series of architects about the house. The main spur for this was the realisation that we've been here for approaching 5 months, and we're still no further on with the house. Granted, we couldn't really start it before I had a job to pay for it with....but I could have been further on if I'd been pushing it. I reckoned that an architect might be a worthwhile investment if they were able to keep the builders and the suppliers under control, and do the donkey drawing up that is required for detailed planning permission. However, they're all needing about $50,000 to do this for us! I think that's a lot lot...! So it's back to square one, and overseeing the build myself.

Our desktop computer is in the room formally know as 'garage'. (I say this because none of us has managed to come up with a name that sticks yet!). I noticed that the image on the screen was oscillating from side to side, and this prompted me to order a new screen. I've been wanting a hi-resolution screen from Dell for some time now, so this problem was enough to justify getting one. I've ordered a 22" screen with 'ultrasharp' technology. Today, Wayne decided to clear out the office a little and since there's a spare computer in there that is rarely used, that screen came up for grabs. I swapped this (CRT monitor) for the one that was wobbling. Guess what? It was STILL wobbling! So now I may have to go and buy a new computer to go with the new screen....
Smooth!

'Good intentions' for who?

There has been some discussion tonight about the ongoing tension between lifestyles brought into focus by today’s apology by Kevin Rudd to the Aboriginal people of Australia for the ‘Stolen Generation’. Many are unhappy that an apology has happened, and see the Aboriginal as a lazy, alcohol soaked, drifter.

It puts me in mind of the story of the sleeping fisherman that was in the Guardian Newspaper that my colleague used to get occasionally at Artem. The story begins with a successful businessman walking down a beautiful beach, and as he’s passing a small fishing boat, he catches the eye of the owner of the boat who has been taking a nap. He strikes up a conversation. The businessman asks the fisherman why he’s sleeping instead of fishing. The fisherman replies that he went fishing this morning. The businessman explains the theory of capitalism and how if the fisherman went out again in the afternoons, he’d soon be able to afford to buy another boat. The fisherman listens and asks why? The businessman continues that if he had another boat, he could employ others and gain from their labour as well as his own. He paints a picture of building a successful company. The fisherman asks the businessman why he’d want to do that? The businessman replies with a flourish, ‘because then you could have leisure time, like me’.

The average Australian has subscribed to the businessman’s ideal of working every day and building a career, so that you can eat, feed your family and relax a bit. The work ethic is thoroughly embedded. They simply can’t see that the Aboriginal is ‘like’ the fisherman in the story in as far as, he doesn’t want for more than he already has. OK, the white settlers have brought drink, but was it the white settlers that drove them to it?

We have systematically undermined their rights to do nothing since we came here with an arrogance that is based in the base assumption that our way of life is somehow superior to theirs. Undoubtedly we live a more ‘comfortable’ life, but at a price that they are seemingly not prepared to pay. I get up, shower (occasionally) eat a hurried breakfast, then get into a gas guzzling truck and drive for an hour to work. At the end of the day, I do the trip in reverse along with everyone else, get home, eat dinner and hang out or watch the telly until I fall asleep. I don’t call that living, and I don’t see it as better than the aboriginal traditional lifestyle. Many of the aboriginal peoples of Australia live in ‘reservations’ like lepers almost. They are essentially a dispossessed people and the issues relating to their state of orientation to the system that has put them there are complex and entangled. Yet Australians make very simple attribution errors about aboriginal failure to sign up to the work ethic and the natural feelings of injustice from the whites that Aboriginals are ‘spongers’.

A recent report (corresponding with the election) found that ‘widespread’ paedophilia is occurring in Aboriginal reserves in Northern Territory. Now this is a very emotive subject in our society, though less so in others (Like Afghanistan for example – which is one of the reasons that the US are citing for wanting to invade it – (and a good job they made of the last place they invaded eh?) People are, as a result, calling for governmental intervention in Aboriginal communities. Some are clearly wishing that there could be some way that they could ‘remove’ the kids! Aaargh! Meanwhile, statistics that are equally vague from various other sources suggest that up to 25% of Australians have been sexually abused. These figures, which include the predominantly white Australian population don’t seem to be anywhere near as newsworthy.

Funny that!

Sheepish?

One of the images that we Brits grow up with when we learn about Australia is that of the sheep sheering, hard toting Aussie.



Invariably they would be wearing a vest. (Not like the one above...) Invariably they would be a bit wrinkled, probably a little worse for wear even. I mean, the sun is pretty hot out there in the bush after all, (even at the moment) and the beer is well, lets just say there are things that are less important! The process is what they call 'hard yakka', as in 'hard yakka and no tucker left me flat out like a lizard drinkin'...

Interestingly, (according to the www.animalliberation.org) the sheep is NOT suited to the Australian environment and of all the animals introduced to the country, the sheep is the only one that has never become feral because it can't survive without human 'husbandry'. But its big business here, exports of live animals is worth $1.8b annually. No surprise then when a conviction of a live export company for cruelty was overturned on a technicality last week. (But I wont dwell on that here)

There does seem to be something very Australian about the sheering thing, and one imagines the scene being smelly and soaked in male pheromones.

So it is with British pride that I show you this picture of the process as undertaken by a Pom. Here you see a sensitive and caring sheerer carefully and lovingly removing the unnecessary coat from his compliant sheep. All other classic pre-requisites in place, the worn and haggard appearance, the vest, the alcoholic residue... but STILL the GOOD OL' British sense of fair play prevails. God bless 'em.



Here's a picture that I HAD to put in that Daile took of the girls. They asked her to take it, which is why it looks a bit set up. But check out Phoebe. What IS she doing with her hands?



Well, she's nicked some nail varnish....and is showing off her nails. There are several pics in this series, and in every one, she'd doing this. Ha ha.

And on Saturday morning, Matilda made her own breakfast...



...and not to be outdone, so did Phoebe. I think hers is a creature with measles?

Maori technology

After having dug to a depth of 10 metres last year, British scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the poms, in the weeks that followed, Australian scientists dug to a depth of 20 metres, and shortly after, headlines in the Aussie newspapers read: "Australian archaeologists have found traces of 150 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years before the Brits."

One week later, Maori TV reported the following: "After digging as deep as 30 metres in his backyard in Te Kuiti, Hone Waiata, a King Country Kaumatua reported that he found absolutely nothing. Hone has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Maori had already gone wireless."

The rain that came, stayed mainly in the drain

For most of the time that we've been here, the weather has been really quite rainy. I mean there was the drought before we came, and when we arrived, most places really did look pretty dried out. It was the worst drought for years, in fact it had lasted for years. Everywhere was dry. Dams were almost completely empty etc. There is an enormous groundwater basin under Queensland and New South Wales, built up over the millennia, since the movements of the continents. They discovered this about 30 years ago. It was HUGE! In fact this basin (called the Great Artesian Basin...(remember from Geography?)) was so big that it covered (or more precisely was under) 22% of Australia. Well guess what? Now its nearly empty. Ooops!

So this drought was starting to worry the powers that be, and an increasing level of water restrictions were applied. I've mentioned these I know, so I'll not go into them again. The authorities were SO worried, that they started REALLY REALLY thinking! (I know its hard to believe). So there I am, parched, watching TV about the drought. It was a panel, what the TV people call an 'in depth discussion'. Like most TV in depth discussions, it lasted perhaps 17 or 18 minutes when you take out the adverts, the introduction, the bullshit.

The 'professor' from some Uni in Adelaide, the water professional from Queensland water, the politicians from both sides, the 'hard question asking' presenter all put their points of view across and you know what they suggested? They suggested that it would be a 'sensible' idea to pipe the water out of the Murray river, to Queensland and the Northern Territory!!!!! Have they learned NOTHING? I was staggered at this suggestion. I thought they must be kidding! But no...they meant it.

No one was happier when it rained than me. Idiots!

But now everywhere looks lush and green. Some places are REALLY lush and green, almost tropical. The much warned of high temperatures and humidity have really not been all that prevalent. In fact its been pretty much like an extremely wet English summer so far. Most days are overcast, grey even. But its not been 'cold' at any point. That's the main difference weather wise.

So now, its been raining everyday for months. Now I'm getting really sick of the rain. People are getting flooded out everywhere, people went home early today because they were getting emergency calls from their wives....imminent disasters everywhere. We had 4 inches of rain in some places today.....in 1 hour! So where am I going with this?

Er, the rain has been happening in the 'wrong place'. There are no facilities for catching rainwater out of the drains. We are STILL on level 6 water restrictions! South East Queensland is serviced by three dams; Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine. Wivenhoe is at 19.33% capacity, Somerset is at 71.24% and North Pine is at 27.47%. Averaged out, they're only 31.53% full!

Now THAT's what I'M talking about!

'Mitty'

Phoebe got her long lost present from Gannie yesterday. I just had to put this on.... she's smitten and has called it 'Mitty'!
Bless!

Professional schmeshional....

Today we've been out to a party that was being thrown by Ice-works, the company that I did the landscape model for. We were late, largely because we went to find Daile some new glasses. She went to the optician a while back and they've recommended that she consider getting some. She's been struggling a bit with her eyes since she started this new psychology course (she needs another qualification to able to work as a psychologist here), so we went down to choose some. She looks very professional in them actually. They're just glasses, by which I mean that they're not apologising for that fact, unlike some of the so called 'designer' glasses that are in fact a way for D&G, or Armani or whoever to get you to pay for the privilege of having their name splattered all over your specs. I think that she looks pretty cool in them. It goes with her emerging grey streak. She's growing into her age nicely.

Just as we arrived at the party, the heavens opened. The rain was 'Queensland style' - sort of like someone pouring a bucket of water on you, rather than standing under a shower which is what even quite heavy rain in the UK is like. This is so thick that visibility drops to about 10 feet! There were waiters scooting around the gardens with food in one hand - or more precisely up one arm how they do, and large brolly in the other. We had some nice food, a few chats, and then the kids and I went swimming in the rain, along with quite a few who were fully clothed! (We'd brought togs). Matilda is SO funny sometimes. She was running up to the edge of the pool, hands tucked under their respective wrists like a preying mantis, and leaping like a feral child into the pool, expecting me to catch her, and then throw her across the pool further, so that she could swim the last few feet and call it a width. She pulls the most amusing contortions across her face as she runs up...its hilarious.

She lost another tooth yesterday. Lower right 2nd. Last night Phoebe had a nightmare, which is a very rare thing for her, and she ended up snuggling with Daile in our bed. So I went to sleep in her bed - opposite Matilda. Imagine how I felt when Tilda woke up...said good morning, discussed Phoebe's mare, which Matilda had tried to comfort her over, and then her face lit up as she remembered about the tooth fairy....only to find that she'd not come!!!! Its a parents worst nightmare this sort of failure. I told her that when I was a kid, the tooth fairy was too busy one time, but that she'd come the next night and left me twice as much! (Not true I know Mum...but I was being creative in a corner!) So (hopefully) she'll have been tonight!



After the party we went to the land to meet with a prospective architect. She's Indonesian and we liked her quite a bit. We're meeting another one tomorrow, but not at the land. I think that meeting at the land is a really good idea because it helps them to appreciate the place, and the sort of house that would work there. I've spoken to, and had an approximation of cost from another architect last week, who as it happens won an award for being the best architect in Brisbane for some category ....I think domestic building. Needless to say his prices were EXTORTION!!! He bullshitted me on the phone, rubbished the fact that i've done a lot of preparatory work myself, and then sent through a price breakdown, which when you add it all back up again, comes to circa $40k!! I'm not expecting anything like that from today's one. She's new (ish), she's keen, and she's much more friendly. Altogether less up herself.

I'm not a fan of the professions. They all seem to be trying to rip you off, whether they be doctors, solicitors or, it would seem, architects!

Do you remember that I made that wedding ring for Bill that was the wrong size cos he'd measured the diameter of his finger, rather than the circumference. Well after all these years I've found a finger for it! It's now Ian's wedding ring! He's well chuffed....as am I! Its been kicking around in my tool box for over 10 (?) years!