Brake-fast

This morning we decided, further to our attempts to keep fit, that we'd all go for a walk in the forest to justify eating the croissants that we had got for breakfast. To whit, we set off, carrying a rucksack of provisions including jam, choc spread, marg, flask of filter coffee (strong) and milk. (See how we sacrifice!) We took our petrol stove and most importantly our portable fold-away oven.
The girls took their bikes, which was fine until we had to go down a hill, then Phoebe wimped out... and kept doing really girly falling off type things! Matilda was fine... till we started going up some, then she had a hissy fit about not being enough that go down! I mentioned that too many going down means too many going up when we go home... but to no avail. She hissed more!

So we decided we'd gone far enough and sat on a log to watch the insects... and got out the stuff.
After copious croissants... (good alliteration?) and chatting, we set off back. We were all in much better form... until that is, we got to our first hill....! Remind me again why I like kids!



Daile went off later on with the kids to a rendezvous with Cindy and hers at the ice rink. I made some brakes for the kart.... and a seat/storage box.





They had a lot of fun on that, and I decided that I knew why I liked kids... until that is they started to argue about who's turn it was!

Whiskers? - not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!

Jack Cat
Would eat no fat
He’d also eat no lean
He only eats that Whiskers ‘meat’
That smells so damn obscene!

He always leaves some in the bowl
Some times he leaves a lot
Before too long,
My GOD the pong
And pass me the fly swat!

You have to clean the bowl each time
The smell is far too icky
We sling it in the bin outside
And maggots make you sicky.

What do they put in cat food,
That makes you want to chunder?
Is it really meat at all,
Or offal (off) I wonder.

This week in Shailer Park...

Last week was a bit of a blur really. A lot of technical problems at work to do with our Canberra client, and several days of buggering about with all that both here in Brisbane and in Canberra.

Phoebe was sick as a dog (a sick one) on Wednesday night, just after I’d got back from Canberra and a long day that had started at 3am. (This was the view of the sunrise on the way out, the way back was almost identical).



I hadn’t really considered that the carpet between the girl’s rooms is a deep pile one until I had to get onto my hands and knees to scrub/soak vomit out of it, whilst Daile had the equally risky job of consoling the Feeb and keeping Matilda from constantly expressing how disgusting it all was!

She had another couple of chucks after that, and I ended up working from home on Thursday morning until I was relieved of duty by Daile at lunchtime. We thought for a little while that the rest of us would go down with the bug but apparently it’s gone past – a great relief really – especially when we’re so busy at the moment all round.

Today is ANZAC day… which is (as some of you will remember from earlier blogs) a day of remembrance for the troops who died in the defence of the political ideals of others…which is largely how several Australians I know see it. Not everyone is so cynical. For the most part however, we all use it as an excuse to drink a lot of rum and coke, beer, (or bear if you’re a redneck) and very little tea. In fact Daile may be the only person in Australia who’s drinking habits are totally unaffected by occasions such as this… it’s tea, tea, and er, tea with her – gawd bless ‘er.

Next weekend is Labor [sic] day, which is basically a repeat of the behaviour if not the motivation for it. I’m liking the interruption to the work pressure to be honest though. It’s always nice to do a 4 day week and get paid for 5 isn’t it!

Interesting thing in Canberra is that they have a weird road sign...have a look.









It doesn't matter how many I see, I still read this as 'Lane One Form'...! Bloody planners. Perhaps they don't read ahead. It SORT of works when you look at it in a photograph, but on the road, it reads the wrong way up every time!

What else? Remember Phoebe lost a tooth last week? ...



She lost another the next day!



This time the fairy came without a problem and all was well...

Another thing I've been doing is attempting to make a sculpt of Matilda. It's much harder than you think! I spent ages on this the other morning, and at the end of it I'd actually made it look LESS like her! I've improved things a bit from this pic... but there's a long way to go. I'll put something else up when I've made a bit more progress.



Yesterday we decided to make a trolley kart... Matilda and Luis helped cut out the timber....



















OK, that's it f'now...

Orwight wots 'appening?

Well, the Molly didn't get into the college we were hoping she'd get into. Actually this is a REAL surprise! I mean she's a pretty good artist... and I KNOW that there's going to be a whole lot of people there who are not a patch on her! We're a bit shocked... but you know what, it's 'fine art'. Nuff said! Fine 'FART' more like it!!! Fanar fanar. Rectal passarge, and shovin' it come to mind... what's that number again Moll? But as the saying goes... 'if it doesn't kill yer, it makes you stronger'! Poor lass, and if that's not enough for one week, her boyfreind DID get in! (Same place... Falmouth!) BUMMER! How frustrating is THAT! Molly is rolling with this, and I'm pretty impressed with her.

But of course, there's ALWAYS a silver lining, and this means that she'll be able to come and live with us for a while....(hopefully) and we can hang out and fart and do stuff like weld up sculpture and bake things. See!

Diet-tribe?

What you see below is yours truly, sporting chainsaw chaps... trying to cajole a snake into a Castlemaine 4x box. The cajoling into a beer box is an Aussie thing. The wearing of chaps, is decidedly Pommy.



...Especially when you see how small the poor thing is!

However, we read somewhere recently that juvenile Eastern Brown snakes are every bit as venomous straight out of the egg, as their adult counterparts. Since this snake was almost brown, I wasn't about to take any chances. They come in so many shades that you really need to have seen a whole lot of them to be sure. I've not seen all that many. In fact, this is the first one we've had in this house - despite our bush location. It was Matilda that spotted it disappearing into our shoe cupboard... a scary thing to contemplate! She - needless to say - identified it as a harmless green tree snake and wanted to pick it up! Aaargh!!!



We cleared the girls into the boat, which is outside the front door with a view into the shoe cupboard, and just at that point, the local girls all pitched up to play with ours, so we had a whole gaggle of them in the boat whilst i gingerly picked the contents of the shoe cupboard out using a gutter cleaning tool I made. These things can strike quickly... I wasn't about to put my hand in there! It skittered into the downstairs bathroom where I managed to cajole it into the box, and took it outside.

Now EVERYONE is a bloody snake expert in Oz. A passing walker saw the commotion and identified (wrongly it turns out) the snake as an 'Olive Python'. We sent the pics we took to a local snake handling company and they told us it was a tree snake (like Matilda had said)... but that we were right to be cautious. (I knew that of course!)



In the meantime, Jack the cat was trying to eat the turtle... and Matilda had caught a couple of lizards!



Another thing that happened last week was that Phoebe lost another tooth. This time one at the top right. She declared that she'd lost the lost tooth and I told her that the fairy still comes, all you have to do is a little drawing of a tooth. I can't remember if I did one when I was a kid, whether it was Gannie, or if I did one for Josh or Molly. Anyway, Josh was on the Skype around the time that this was being discussed and he kindly substantiated this story for me, claiming that he'd been in the same boat and that she had nothing to worry about. Sorted...



... until that is, the next morning... she comes in in tears saying that the fairy didn't come! Some of you will be able to imagine how I felt about that! I've seen a few teeth go by now, and this is the second time this has happened... it happened to Matilda a couple of years ago. You feel REALLY bad about it!
Happily, Daile found the tooth, so we were able to have another go with the real thing the following night, and this time she came. Apparently she'd been chased off by some naughty birds she said on a little note... and the Feeb was appeased. Phew!

What else?

On the whole, and in all honesty, I consider myself to be overweight, physically under motivated, and largely contemptible in relation to the logical and reasonable argument to do something about it. In other words I'm a fat lazy git. Daile, on the other hand somehow manages to eat just the one slice of cheese on toast, gets up to go out walking on weekdays with Tracy, and is wearing well all things considered. I guess it could be an age thing with me. I've become less worried about the way I look, and ambivalent about watching the things I eat. It's interesting that one can on the one hand fully comprehend the implications of poor diet and lack of exercise from an intellectual standpoint, feel strong feelings of guilt, aspire to a washboard belly and walnut cracking biceps, triceps, and many other 'ceps', and yet still weaken ones 'resolve' (ha!) every time one walks past a packet of cheesy crackers or 'snake sours' at the shop. Why have only one bar of chocolate when you can have 3? What's going on? Why do I do that?

The facts about health, moral behaviour, and the pursuit of the pure - whilst logically compelling, have long been irrelevant to the vast majority of people in my view. We spend inordinate amounts of money nationally in cajoling people to behave in rational ways, that for their part, most people would aspire towards, but in a 'choice situation' will consistently make the 'wrong' choice. When we DO make the right choice, we feel good about it in dis-proportion to the act. So it is about our trip to the forest weekend before last, when we took the girls out to the local (ish) forest walk at Mount Tamborine.











After we'd clambered over the webs of spiders and slipped on rocks and been shat on by giant bats for a refreshingly lengthy morning walk, we went to the local cafe, where the owner wipes his nose on the back of his arm, and had a 'well deserved' plateful of chips et al.
Whoever said exercise is good for you was obviously looking at the logic...

Everything is relative isn't it!

Daile is a real stickler for the kids being properly strapped into our vehicles... and always has been. Imagine how she felt when she saw this:

http://www.maniacworld.com/this-ride-holds-five.html

The implications for the little fella are so nasty it's hard to watch - even for me... a bloke!

After i'd posted that... I found this one. It sounds like it might be in Hull!

http://www.maniacworld.com/trailer-removal-fail.html

Hilarious. Only men can be this... er Male!

....

...

Ok no but really...really... this one is like REALLY cooooooL! Like this one's really about MEN isn't it! I can see right through them... !

http://www.maniacworld.com/hanging-out-with-the-guys.html

When are women going to realise that THAT (kinda stuff) is just a front that we put on to make them THINK that we're stupid! DEr!!!

Ruddy Alabama

This week, the American comedian Robin Williams, having recently returned to the US from the AUS was interviewed on the Letterman show and made a remark that Australians were 'basically English Rednecks'.

Unfortunately Kevin Rudd, our erudite Chinese speaking Prime Minister responded on a gutter radio show (that he was being interviewed on) that Mr Williams 'should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck' .

Now the reason this is unfortunate is that;
a. Alabama were obviously going to respond robustly to that kind of comment,
b. Robin Williams has got a point and
c. Most Australians don't give a stuff about being called Redneck, other than when they've been out in the sun too long.

And that's what makes the label both right for them, and wrong for them. Australians (or at least Queenslanders) are not, on the whole, massively sophisticated. But that's not to say that they're stupid so much as not interested in sophistication. It's one of the things I like about Australian life, but it's one of the things that both Daile and I find a little frustrating sometimes. Australians just don't go in for all that (crap). Not that I'd say Daile and I are interested in being 'sophisticated' either, just perhaps a little more open to subtle nuance with some things. Some Aussies, to be sure, are narrow minded, and most of them are to my mind, too interested in hard work for material gain, and not interested enough in alternative definitions of living well.

Alabamans I'm told, are famous for their hickey farmer bible bashing brimstone and treacle, pick up driving heehaw attitude to life. They too don't sound like they're massively interested in being sophisticated, which isn't the same as stupid, unless you're stupid enough to think that sophistication is clever instead of overly complex cultural signalling. I can imagine that, like a few English people I know, a few allegedly sophisticated Californians and in all probability - most of us, they're not beyond entrenched thinking. Perhaps those of us who feel superior enough to proclaim others to be redneck should consider the basis on which we discern 'better than' over 'worse than'. Australians are not likely to exclude on the basis of flag or base ideology - or for that matter take any consideration of it at all. That said Australia is, like the US, a meritocracy. On the face of it, a fair and logical system of administering a nation, the danger is that those who don't subscribe to the general aspirations of the majority are likely to be marginalised and socially dis empowered. Many Australians will discern social worth on the basis of schooling, the car you drive and the clothes you wear. I don't think that's sophisticated, but it's a pretty standard classifier in Western urban cultures isn't it.

It is SO important that we keep a lid on ourselves when we cast aspersions about other cultures. One 'outraged' Alabamian responder apparently said that he was so outraged that he was 'going to go to the Zoo and punch a Kangaroo in protest' Hmmm that's not adding weight to Rudd's argument is it?

There are rednecks in all countries. Williams is reported as having tried to make it up, saying "Mr Rudd, I apologise. I would like to modify my terminology and use the term 'English good old boys' instead". On the face of it, that might seem like a bit of retraction, but Williams is no push over, and I suspect a bit of 'sophistication' is afoot! A good ol' boy raises livestock, a redneck gets emotionally involved!

As a Pommy, I feel this is not really my quarrel, as an honorary Aussie however, I feel compelled to just throw in a couple of racist and badly considered jokes about Alabama:

An Alabama redneck passed away and left his entire estate in trust for his beloved widow. She can't touch it 'till she's fourteen!

Q. Why did O.J. Simpson want to move to Alabama?
A. Everyone has the same DNA.

On the other hand, rumour has it that the reason 'XXXX' is a popular lager in Queensland is that Queenslanders can't spell 'Beer'.

The following could be here just as easily as there... Redneck Yoga:

On the skids

I thought you might like to share a little ditty by the Feeb. This is to be read as a poem, there is some rythmn to it...you just don't see it at first. 'did' rymes with 'askid' but you have to leave the last word...for a new line. When she reads it, it works better...and I did consider getting her to read it to you all... but she says she's busy!



Sniker sniker...

Sorry Mum. It's not my fault!