In response to Q and Catty. If that makes no sense you may have typed the wrong url into Chrome.
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In response to Q and Catty. If that makes no sense you may have typed the wrong url into Chrome.
Fun in a box 
I have this fond idea that the word ‘Nasty’ was in there, but the editor took it out.
Hehehe. And all references to plastic sheeting and Castrol GTX.
Gladys! It’s Saturday. Fetch me the blue pills!
(Meanwhile Gladys searches frantically for the red pills)
“One pill makes you larger
and one pill makes you shrink”
Oooh, did Jefferson Airplane predict Viagra AND The Matrix?
I’d argue with you, but you’re German and I’m tired.
German? Am I ? Well, that explains my fondness for the wurst.
I keep telling the Boss that liver is the wurst, but he keeps buying it.
We just had a huge feed of Thai food with the Boss’s sweep winnings … did I mention I love my job?
But for some reason I’d like some strudel.
What are we talking about? And pass the strudel, please. Nom!
I don’t remember. Pass the gingko!
Mmmmmm….. strudel….. with custard. MOAR custard!
My tummy has recovered and we had four fancy pizzas and three Imperial stouts for dinner. I’m sure PB appreciated the drama and passion I put into Winnie the Pooh at bed time.
I’m sure she did, GB. If she hadn’t approved, you’d be a frog right now.
As long as you didn’t put any actual poo in to it, GB. Hey, GB … apparently the boys don’t want to come to Melbourne with me next year. Isn’t that a pity?
Dang! I could offer TGP the run of the dungeon, the use of my grimoires and lots of dead things to poke? Nothing to interest Gigantor in the poking line though. (Snort)
Um…. as the prude mother of a 15 year old girl, I’m afraid I can’t offer Gigantor anything to poke, either. But TGP is missing out big time. He could have hung out at Knockers with LK in their monkey onesies.
Hehehe. To be fair, it’s Gigantor who prefers to stay on the Coast. TGP would probably come with. But then he’d turn my lovely alone time into a tour of all the anime shops the metropolis has to offer.
If he hears about a monkey onesie convention he’ll be straight down!
Does he have an evil clown costume & if so what’s his hourly rate for roaming the street at nights with a sharpened blade?
If you bribe him with noms, he’ll probably do it for free.
We usually barter. I’m sure he’d do it for one of these:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=walter+white+camper+toy&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU691AU691&espv=2&biw=1344&bih=734&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9tIKqgqTQAhWDopQKHRO_DJMQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=oB-0ELks8oleqM%3A
Most people would.
I’m not sure there’ll be room for that in your back yard if you decide to go with the pool.
Which reminds me, I told the Bloke you were considering summer splash-down & he shuddered & said ‘Doesn’t MM have Tea-Trees?’ His point being that the pool plastic will end up with some rust-coloured stains that could make it look a bit Yorkshire Ripper does Clark Rubber.
After how abominably hot it was here yesterday, my vote goes once again for the AC.
Pool maintenance, ick.
We’ve got a couple of days coming up with 30 forecast but I’ll believe it when I feel it. 14 now, feels like 12 with the cold breeze and all. Looking at some destruction here. Thinking of chopping up the old and unsafe in-ground trampoline before Hamish gets at it. No instincts for self-preservation that boy.
The trampoline would leave a large deep hole, lined with rock. Not sure whether to make a bomb shelter or slightly sunken garden.
Secret sunken garden!
bomb shelter! with bombs!
Yes, Gigantor also put the kibosh on the pool for the same reason. i don;t like air-con, I get a bit claustrophobic if everything is shut up. I’ll have to continue with my current regimen of moaning and sarong wearing.
Speaking of moaning,. after the huge storm yesterday we were blacked out for 7 hours! No fan! Could not open the freezer to remove Zooper Doopers! Had to argue with Gigantor instead of watching a DVD! It was inhuman.
That is just barbaric, MM.
You’re making me doubly grateful for the underground power that we have up here. I’ve been told by the long-term residents that the power hasn’t gone out the entire time they’ve been up here…I tell you what, as much as I’d love to move further south into a heavily tree-ed area, I don’t like to think of going 7 hours on a day like yesterday without power. You must feel like a rung out tea-towel, today.
I dropped off baked goods at the Tally school fete yesterday around 9am and it was already building up to be a hideously hot day. I’m so glad I wasn’t one of the volunteers under those tents, yikes.
And that reminds me – I baked ginger biscuits on Saturday afternoon & for the first time ever, I discovered what it was to have humidity get into the biscuits.
I suppose we are 94+m above sea level so essentially we are in the clouds, when it rains.
I had to put the biscuits aside until the next day & then shove them onto a tray in a 150C oven for 7 minutes to crispy them up again.
Lesson learned. Stoopid hoomidity making my biscuits soggy.
As much as I’ve bitched about Brisbane, that never happened to me in all my years of baking back there.
Yes, humidity is death to bikkies. Ask the jam drops Mum made on the weekend. You have divined the traditional cure, however so kudos.
Speaking of which, when’s the CWA meeting?
stooopid hoomidity how very dare it assault your mother’s sacred biscuit rituals.
First Tuesday of the month, but the December one is essentially a Xmas party.
It was nice to be able to trot into the school with my enormous bundle of baked goods & say ‘Oh hello, no I’m not a mum, I’m with the local CWA & as I have way too much time on my hands I thought I’d bake for you.’
It was funny, they’d all been far too busy to pay any attention to me but the minute I said ‘CWA lady’ they reacted like I’d said ‘Santa has brought you cocaine & Tim Tams’ & they gathered round to see what was in the bundle.
It was good fun but far to hot to hang around the fete for too long.
We drove down to Kingscliff for lunch & to see the boystown Xmas raffle.
Very nicely done, we do love to sticky-beak at the arky-tectya.
I do love a good school fete. As long as I can browse it at my leisure and leave when I want to, rather than slave away at it.
I forced the Boss to take me and the kidlets to the Food Truck Festival. Mmm…. very impressive. Until, of course, the Teenie and the Boss started arguing. Then things got unpleasant. This happens every time we have a family outing, lately. We have one more outing lined up (the Boss has volunteered to direct traffic in the parking lot so we can’t cancel), and then we’re not going to anything as a family ever again. It’s not worth the drama.
Sandy etc went to the Food Truck thingy but we just went to the Farmer’s Market & home. Thought it would be packed but she said it was great. Lots of yummy foods. PB is here and Lyn is Winnie and I’m Eeyore. Typical. All right for some I suppose but nobody cares about a poor old donkey…
Just as long as PB didn’t try to pin your tail back on….
Eek! Luckily I got my voice back so we could curl up and have some stories.
Of course we do GB. Here, have a thistle.
Mmm…food trucks…
My favourite truck had a menu with items like ‘MMM…Pork Belly Donuts’, and ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner’. There was also a churro van. And an actual bus that was serving beer. Booze Bus!
Yeah. Sandy was gloating about the caramel churros. Wait until she sees the giant choc-caramel cream cookies I got. Oh wait, they’ve disappeared.
I thought I might come down pre-Easter again but now I’m thinking I should synch with the food trucks.
Mmm … caramel pork belly.
I’ve got a synching feeling about this….
Sorry. I couldn’t help it.
Don’t be an iceberg, Catty. Don’t worry, my hearth will go on.
Stop reminding me how disappointed I was to miss this, for the second time around. The show coincided with my exam study & I just could not justify slinking off to see it.
Hopefully they’ll run it again sometime.
https://theweekendedition.com.au/events/titanic-the-movie-the-play/
Or do some other movie, next year? The Powerhouse is a tops venue, I should get down to it more often.
I refuse to go to any Titanic related show without a written guarantee that no Celine Dion is involved.
Funny you should say that. I ripped a CD for car music and deleted Celine Dion’s Titanic horror and the Bodyguard theme thing by someone or other.
Yuck. Next you’ll be talking about that Beaver boy.
It could be worse. It could have been Kanye West.
Yeah, I’m kidding. Not even music producers think of him as a singer.
Isn’t he planning on running for president next time round? I mean, Trump has demonstrated how easy it is. You just have to look and sound like paedophiliac trailer trash & the people will follow.
I write a letter to the editor of the Courier Mail as a child, pointing out how curious it was that Ronald Reagan got in, when people had the option of voting for Mickey Mouse. It was published.
True then, true now.
Hehehehe. Nice one, MM.
The best comment on it I’ve seen thus far on twitter is to the effect that Strange women lying about in ponds distributing swords is starting to look a whole lot better as a system for organising government.
If I went ’round sayin’ I was Emperor, just because some
moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away.
Help, help! I’m being repressed!
Bloody peasants!
i literally would join an anarcho-syndicalist commune right now if anyone asked me.
Me too, if there’s reliable WiFi. Stupid bloody internet. One day someone will provide a quality, high speed service at a reasonable price…. stop laughing. A girl can dream, can’t she?
at the rate general expenses are expanding I’ll be lucky to be able to afford some sort of guinea pig-powered steam browser by the next financial year … how expensive is every damn thing getting??
If you need more guinea pigs, just say the word.
And yes to expense – I went to the dentist today, $230 to have my fangs scoured and ajaxed & then I had to buy new bras, because the old ones had all gone bad, seemingly overnight.
Sometimes they go bad…no-one knows why.
Now I want a Monty Python type sketch about bras gone bad.
Hehehe. Transcript of last night, as I was attempting to avert another knife fight.
Me: Stop it. I’ve had enough knife fights.
Gigantor: Mum, how many knives do I have?
Me; i dunno. For fishing and camping … 3, 4?
G: Yes. And how many times have I stabbed TGP?
Me: None.
G: Yes. And how many knives does TGP have?
Me: One.
G; And how many times has he stabbed me?
Me: Once. Are you saying I need to get TGP more knives?
LK just bought a replica sword from the Hobbit. I wasn’t worried…. until I read that transcript.
Oh man. That’s gonna Sting.
Don’t worry, he’ll take it in his Strider.
Ouch. That’s more painful than the Rotunda.
Mm, could be orcward all right.
Having one bright and sunny day at 30 deg for our Brisbane visitors, then back to 21 tomorrow for me.
30 degrees? It’s not going to make that here?!
Already revising it downwards and it’s only 21 now. False alarm.
Put down that tank top.
It is lovely today. I’m not even wearing my fleece-lined robe. Yay for sunshine!
Yay for fleece, I say. It was never cold enough here this winter to warrant a robe.
I found a huge, fleece-lined, silver satin robe at the op shop, about halfway through winter. I wear it over my day clothes as well as over jammies. It’s freaking magnificent!
It surely sounds magnificent. Now you need a scepter!
And a tiara. So you can be wearing the whole ensemble when the kids come home from school, smile insanely and shout “off with their heads”.
That should take care of the “what’s for dinner” questions.
When they ask what’s for dinner, I declare “Roast breast of pheasant under glass, Paté de foie gras, and Broiled peacocks tongues”. Not surprisingly, they rarely ask any more. As for the tiara, for years that has been my stock standard response whenever he asks what I want for my birthday. He has twice presented me with cheap plastic toy ones. Both of them were so flimsy, they would have shattered to pieces if he had shoved them where I told him to. He still hasn’t taken the hint. One day I shall be a princess. One day.
Oooh, if we buy a few hundred acres of desert somewhere we can have one of those crazy free-states and you can be Emporer! Empress?
Mmm … dessert
When I win lotto, Morgana. When I win lotto. It might take a while, seeing as I don’t actually buy lotto tickets.
Wise move. I read somewhere that statistically you’ve got a better chance of being murdered in your sleep than winning lotto.
I’ll leave you all with that comforting thought for the night, shall I?
I live with Lyn and I’m, well, me. There’s always a chance I’ll be murdered in my sleep.
Well that was a given. I live in Melbourne.
Since I’ve been working full-time this week … staff member away .. I would quite like to be murdered in my sleep.
Oooh, you should be able to buy tickets in nocturnal homicide!
Heh, sounds like the San Saludos lottery from Get Smart:
Maxwell Smart: [having just heard a gunshot] What was that?
Guard: That was Lucky Francisco. He won the drawing today in the national lottery.
Maxwell Smart: And they shot him?
Guard: Si. That is the first prize.
Hehehe. I always wanted Max’s sunken lounge room. Bring back the sunken lounge room!
Quick update from Chez Beard. We went to see Bill Bailey and he was amazing. Such a great musician and so funny. Thought of Q as we scoffed our gelatos by the river at 7:30 in the afternoon sun. It’s an easy place to find – right next door to the Lindt chocolate shop.
Jealous! I totally wanted to go and see Bill Bailey! Just as well we didn’t though. The bloody tree we couldn’t convince the council to cut down has blocked the main sewer pipe and we had to pay stupid amounts of money for a plumber to unblock it. I’m going to the council offices later to ask them to reimburse us for the costs and cut down the bloody tree, but there’s little likelihood they’ll do either. We reckon they’ll say that they can’t remove the tree because it’s still healthy and cutting it down will diminish the integrity of the nature reserve (that’s what they said last time when a branch fell off and smashed the Boss’s shed roof – which they refused to repair), and they’ll probably also say that the main sewer pipe is in an easement on our side of the fence so it’s our responsibility. (No prizes for guessing what profanities the Boss will use in response.) *sigh* Bloody tree!
I don’t know about this twilight business. I’m a big fan of sunset. you know, Creature of the Night etc.
Toucha toucha toucha touch me!
I wanna feel diiirty! (Cough) No I don’t! Not that sort of chap at all. (hides fishnets in the leather cupboard)
Hehehe. i love you all!
On the subject of fishnets, what idiot decided to remake Rocky Horror? I know so many people churning out stories every week, why the obsession with remakes?
I do not approve of a Rocky Horror remake. How can they improve on any movie that not only has Tim Curry in it, but also has Meatloaf being eaten?
Where is my ROFL button?
Well, taking us into the kitchen Masterchef style to watch them plate Meatloaf up?
Yes, i will not support this travesty of a rework. Although I might pick up some mince on the way home.
Nobody minces like Tim Curry in fishnets.
Indeed. Right, I’ve found these and know we know what’s for breakfast:
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/eat/behold-the-baileys-choc-chip-cookie-cup/news-story/abdf7c7362b54f73e3083c3d2be91896
Odd. The article mentions serving the cups to friends, but the recipe only makes enough for one person.
hehehe
Very inventive. I wonder if you can do that with cheese biscuits and fill them with soup. Surely there’s a cooking show that could do it and save all of us the bother?
I had dumplings full of soup once. They were very dribbly.
I reckon you could – but it would have to be gazpacho. Or vichyssoise. A hot soup would just devour the biscuit.
You were thinking of coating it in melted cheese, not chocolate I suppose. Although mole has chocolate, doesn’t it? Q, as our official Spanish expert, are there any cold chocolate-based soups … no, don’t worry. I think my queasiness as I typed that sentence gave me the answer.
Well, there’s fudge sauce. If you pour that into a soup bowl & accessorise with fairy bread, you can beat the celebrity chefs to their accolades for best summer pudding.
I got nothin’. But if you come up with something, I’m happy to taste test.
I’ve got bad attitude & that’s about it.
The Bloke’s niece is scheduled to visit next weekend with a couple of her girlfriends on a road trip to Queensland. Which would be fine if he was going to help me with the housework this weekend in anticipation of their visit.
Instead he’s gone & hurt his back, and he’s trying to persuade me he did it lifting the laundry basket.
I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with him going out into the surf yesterday on his SUP for the first time, in horribly sloppy conditions, and doing a series of face plants into the dumpers as he tried & failed to catch the waves.
So it looks like the chores are all mine this week.
Boo, and hiss.
Did you see that online tutorial for relieving back pain? It involves gentle exercise, such as you might find pushing a vacuum or a mop around the house, or light stretching such as lifting individual items of clothing from a basket to a clothesline. Or the slow, small, circular arm movements involved in rubbing a cloth over a mirror or window. I’d post the link, but I think the Boss deleted it out of my bookmarks.
Women is evil. That is all ye know and all ye need to know.
Oh he gets many injuries from doing housework, Catty. It’s never from the gym, from olympic-competitive yoga, or from falling headfirst into a dumping wave in the surf.
The laundry basket is a repeat offender, I’m afraid. God knows what would befall him if I made him scrub the showers.
Bloody laundry. He’ll strain himself patting a cat next.
I forgot that one! Squats are good for back injuries. Get him to clean the litter boxes.
You should be a Husbiotherapist, Catty.
It’s a thought, but I’m worried Greg Norman would give Melania my number. I’d be getting calls in the middle of the night…. “Catty, help me, Don’s sprained his brain again.”
But you might get to sit on a gold throne! you might get the scepter of your dreams!
My niece’s husband got to, er, sit on a gold throne in one of Saddam’s palaces. He said it wasn’t very comfy and was only plated anyway.
And none of you lot appreciate just how delicate and fragile we can be beneath our rough, manly exteriors. Oh yes, we can lift heavy things. But nature has cruelly made us pay for that by inclining us to injure ourselves when performing light repetitive tasks. Like folding stuff.
Or opening tight jar lids. Or removing spiders…. speaking of, I asked the Boss to check the sheets for spiders the other day, after one tried to roll over and go back to sleep when I was making the bed. He merely flapped the sheets a bit and then complained that all my Salada crumbs were now on his side of the bed. I got a bit annoyed at that, seeing as I don’t eat Saladas in bed – he does – but it was his birthday so I didn’t swear at him. Much.
Oh, does he like his new birthday TV – and does it actually get reception?
GB, cry me a river.
That could be the Chornaya, the Alma or the Salhir?
Eau De Nile
I’m all for swearing at them when they do stupid things despite your warnings that they’re about to do a very stupid thing.
I chewed my lip as I looked out at that dumping slop on Saturday & said ‘I don’t know about leaving you out in this (while I go shopping) – what if you fall badly & get injured?’
He looked at me with utter disdain & said ‘You’ve got to stop acting like my mother.’
I waited 48 hours for his ill humour over the injury to subside & said ‘So, about your statement about sounding like your mother – do you suppose this time you’ve learned not to sound like you’re my 12yro child?’
Revenge is a dish best served with soft tissue injuries, I find.
So … hypothetically … those seeking vengeance – do you have to wait until they injure themselves, or can you precipitate (*cough* tripwire) the STIs?
In future I plan to say ‘Sure, great idea. Hey, what’s your life insurance worth, these days?’
I have spent the day washing bed linen & sofa covers with Mr. Mopey watching on, looking mournful. I still have to work my way through a shirtload of things that we didn’t get done yesterday, because he was crippled with pain.
He’s off to the osteo in Brisbane tomorrow & good luck to them.
I’m still sticking to my guns & flatly refusing to do anything to alleviate his pain, as if he’d listened to me in the first place he wouldn’t be bloody well injured.
For what did I do a degree in preventative medicine if people won’t listen to me when I’m trying to prevent their impending health crisis?
Testify. I’ve given up throwing my pearls before swine ever since the time I told my father his nocturia was likely BPH.
“I don’t have prostate cancer!” was his only response and it was more than 18 months before he got it properly seen to.
I thought your father looked smart enough to know that ‘Benign’ generally means ‘non-cancerous’.
Silly me.
I hear you, Q. As Turanga Leela says, “If you wouldn’t take my help when you didn’t need it, why should I give it to you now, when you do need it?”
All women is one-eyed. Not just the mutants frum the sewers.
Who are you calling sewer mutants?
Nibbler, have at him!
I am the greetest! Now I am leaving Earth for no raisin!
What about Zoidberg?
Hooray! Now Zoidberg is the hero! Woo-woo-woo-woo-wooooo!
I’d comment, but I’ve got to get to Mars in time for the round-up.
Don’t bother. The natives have stolen all the bugalo.
Now I’m hungry for dark matter.
Doesn’t TGP consist mostly of Dark Matter?
LOL.
I can’t beat that, nobody can.
GB wins the internet for all of this month.
On a different note, Spanner seems to have disappeared from Twitter totally. I’ve sent an email but does anyone know if he’s OK? He was his normal cheery self when last seen.
Since i too, have disappeared from Twitter totally I can not tell you. Q’s our Twitterati rep.
Sorry, can’t help. I can’t even find my own Twitter account. I think Mayhem might have put it in a safe place for me.
Like down GB’s oubliette with her Mum?
Last I saw him, he was on bended knee giving Mrs. Spanner a sparkly ring for her left hand.
I twitter-taunted him on Friday with the feast that was spread out before us at Potager (restaurant in the hills of Carool) but to no avail as he was drinking beer & scoffing seafood at Harrington.
So my guess is that they are off celebrating the purchase of the sparkly ring.
Unless… marriage licence…sparkly ring…life insurance…I suppose it is possible he’s lying dead in the swamp somewhere & Mrs. S has cashed in her claim and is driving around Lake Macquarrie in a new Ferrari.
Heard from him and he says he’s just taking a break from Twitter. He’s either deleted his account or taken it offline temporarily so I assume it’s a long break.
Yes, thank you for noticing. I was just thinking of seeking him out & risking the wrath of a potentially honeymooning Mrs S when he messaged me.
He’ll want cheesecake and BBQ again at some point, so I had faith he couldn’t abandon me entirely, no matter how horrible I am.
And I’m sure that’s how we all feel…
Onto other news, I think Humpybong said something about scaling back the social media while he’s dealing with some family issues too. For those who don’t tweet, he’s moved to Warwick, I think, to help out his ex-wife & one of his sons. Bit sad to see him leave Redcliffestan & Maureen. They seemed so content out there.
Yes. He wan’t looking forward to the packing and moving (who does) but now he’s there, apparently they may be moving again shortly. Their son has some substance and mental health issues I believe and Al and his ex have put the band back together to help him out. A tough choice and I wish them all the best. Hope he doesn’t miss the coast too much.
OMG that is epic parenting commitment but bound to be fraught. Best wishes to all concerned.
Also MM: http://portshippingcontainers.com.au/blog/top-5-tips-for-building-your-next-container-home.html
Thanks, GB … but they don’t mention colour! Surely colour is the most important thing when you’re buying a shipping container to build with?
Hmm yes. I think I’d go for a mixture of dun and faded orange with rusty feature patches?
Royal (navy) blue!
I’d go with lego colours. Think how much that yellow would burn the eyes of Her Next Door when she wakes up with a hangover.
Good point. Do they come in bile?
The best way to piss off your neighbour is to get some motion activated spotlights. Angle them to shine directly at her bedroom windows, and make sure they’re sensitive enough to go off whenever there’s a breeze. The light should then snap on every 10 minutes or so and give her a really bad night’s sleep. I know this works, because the people across the street from us have a sensor light on their driveway, and a cat. Asking them to adjust it downwards a bit wasn’t an option as they don’t speak English, so I had to buy blockout curtains for our bedroom. ‘S all good tho, because we then installed a sensor light in our courtyard and that sucker goes off every time the wind picks up, but we already had the blockout curtains, so yay!
Oh god yes those things are the devil.
They had them in the flats up behind us at Toad Park, to deter *visitors* from less desirable parts of the neighbourhood.
I have no idea how their tenants got any sleep at all.
The cops say that if you want to deter prowlers, those things are pretty well useless, CCTV is the way to go as only an idiot will try anything sus when they are live on film.
And most career criminals are smarter than that.
Oh no, CCTV is utterly useless too.
Long Weds story: As IT Manager I was given the job of designing a CCTV system. Of course I knew absolutely nothing about this but anything vaguely techish was dumped on me. So I did a lot of reading and asked questions about angles and resolutions and stuff and issued a Request For Proposal (need I say that I knew what RFP stood for and that’s all?) So it came to pass that the system was installed and I looked upon it and it was good. There were overlapping fields of view that covered every entrance, the hidden areas, high value/high risk areas, fake cameras and the works. It caught a few stoopid small-time daylight thieves but the real ones came at night with their t-shirts and hoodies totally covering their faces. They smashed glass doors with bricks, grabbed what they wanted and were off. We’d have been better off putting the money into theft insurance, if there is such a thing.
The best deterrent is a huge dog who really likes you:
(1) never off duty
(2) can’t be bribed
(3) runs on biscuits, love and walks
(4) can’t be turned against you.
Oh, and because it’s really funny when your dog trees a crook.
I was reading that it was a Maori dude who smashed open the back door of the Springvale Commonwealth bank so that people could escape the fire. He also stopped the arsehole who set the fire from running away. There you go, Greybeard. You could have just hired a couple of Maori security guards.
If you do, just don’t talk about the recent Rugby results.
When it comes to discussing rugby results you’re safe to expect no comment from me, MM.
How’s the weather down in Victoria these days?
I heard BOM threatening us with heat today and indeed it does seem to be nasty muggy.
Remind me again why I live here and not in the south island of Unzud?
Currently 9:40 am and 13 deg. Quite cloudy. Our Brisbane guests left on Monday before it got to 38 (admittedly a brief, dry and tolerable 38) and the next day was 17. THERE ARE NO SUMMER CLOTHES AND WINTER CLOTHES HERE. WHEN WILL I LEARN. (Melbourne is funny)
What isn’t funny is this “thunderstorm asthma” which I’d never heard of. Four dead and seven in intensive care, including one critical. Scary stuff.
I know, that’s horrifying, and has me thinking I’ll never visit Melbourne in spring or summer again.
I don’t usually react to pollens – smoke is my poison, but my eyes got so irritated with the peppercorn trees when we visited the King Tut exhibit that I wouldn’t like to test it.
It’s because all of your grass has learnt to pollinate all at once, apparently. Ours knows it can just reproduce whenever. Like a coral spawning, only in air and deadly.
Sounds like the bloom of blubber jellyfish in Moreton Bay. Apparently there was a record early outbreak, because the weather was so warm that conditions were perfect for it. They’ve been floating round Currumbin creek for the last fortnight, ugh. I know they don’t sting you, but they’re like little islands of sea lice & my skin hates that shit.
They look gorgeous upside down on the beach. Like old fashioned jelly moulds. But I agree, sea lice are the pits. Especially IN the pits, or nethers.
And here I was dreaming of a nice little cottage by the sea…. ugh. Mountains it is.
I have my own opinion about this alleged ‘asthma thunderstorm’. But I’m not really up to defending my conspiracy theories today. I’m too busy fighting the Boss for the back scratcher that we both need now that the tap water is giving us hives. Bloody government and their bloody chemicals.
Well, you know my solution to the world’s ills – Moar CAEK!
I made barm brack this morning but I think I had it in for 2 minutes over as it’s dried out a little.
Oh well, with lashings of butter you’d never know it.
Now, who wants CAEK?
And when do these school holidays start? I get the bad feeling the private schools around here may be off as early as tomorrow.
* Shudders*
We haven’t done a long summer school holiday here yet, so I’m not sure what it’s going to be like.
The drongoes are out and about at the beach already, that’s for sure.
Thankfully I am usually out there before they even wake up.
SUP board, creek, nobody around except loony fit people that like silence & peace as much as I do.
Wheeee!
The Grade 10s finish this week. Others have two more weeks to go. Privates most likely end this week as well.
Shudder. Pass the CAEK!
Aaargh! The shops will be a no-go zone for weeks and we’ll be competing for playground and park space with primary school mums. The horror. Thank goodness I’ve finished most of the Xmas shopping already. Gladys! Break out the emergency Caek!
Um, the emergency CAEK you say? Ah, um, yeah, about that….
Again Catty?
It went the way of the emergency Bailey’s. Actually, it went WITH the emergency Bailey’s.
Yeah, it did, didn’t it? *happy sigh*
All I want for breakfast now is a cupcake and a tumbler of Bailey’s. But I have to go to work, and I don’t have either. When will I learn how to shop, and stop obsessing about things that don’t matter, like dog food and toilet paper and bread for school lunches?
This page needs buttons. Like. Love It. Aaargh! Nooo! ROFPMSL.
I wanted a danish for breakfast, but had to make do with MK’s self-saucing chocolate pudding from yesterday’s Home Ec class. And before you come back with any First World Problem comments, let me just say that the sauce is gelatinous from sitting in the fridge overnight. Gelatinous! Oh, the humanity!
I have a problem with that. TGP has been learning stupid healthy things. Like Bruschetta and vege bakes. Where’s my self-saucing pudding?
Take comfort that he’s mastering poisons, MM. The last time I ate bruschetta I spent the night yacking down the toilet bowl. I presume it was sulfites, and the carny folk that made it had decided it wasn’t important to note that their SD tomatoes were not toxin free.
I may never eat bruschetta again…which means if your youngest wants to do away with me, he’ll need to master brownies and veggie lasagne.
LK brought home French toast from his Home Ec class. Soaked in maple syrup, it was, and the fussy bugger wouldn’t eat it. Yay! Moar for me! Seriously, it was the best French toast I’ve ever eaten. MK came home with Parma and mash earlier this week. It was magnificent, but she was smarter than her brother and ploughed through most of it before I finally nagged/ cajoled/ threatened/ bribed her into sharing.
See!? Sensible recipes the whole family can enjoy. I do like syrup soaked French Toast. What did they put in their batter, Catty?
Q, duly noted but he’s more of a hands-on assassin. As you know (Gigantor’s hand injury) he’s practicing his blade skills at present.
Perhaps he could put them to good use on some cricketers for me.
The ABC seems to be streaming endless fecking cricket from local radio, and my car doesn’t have digital to tune it out.
How long do we have to put up with the cricket monopolising the radio?
And yes, put me down for double orders of every syruppy carb just mentioned.
I might make Mary Berry’s lemon-poppy seed traybake for the children tomorrow, but with limes. I’ve got lots of them, and surely a bunch of 18yro girls would rather eat CAEK than use them to make mojitos?
Hahahaha. No.
Just leave the bottle of run and go for a nice long paddle. You are making them stay in hammocks on the patio, for ease of hosing down, right?
What Morgana said.
I am bloody annoyed at LK’s Home Ec teacher today. They made gingerbread men, and LK deliberately left out the ginger so that I could eat them too. But the teacher caught him and made him put it in. *sob* A dozen beautiful, golden, inventively decorated gingerbread men, and I can’t eat them! You’d think teachers would be encouraging adjustments for allergies, given that so many people are allergic to things these days. But no. *sigh* I may have to pop in and join the girls in poppyseed mojitos.
Bad news on the cricket, Q. I think you’re stuck with it until March. Do you have a cassette deck or a CD player in your car? Because I can totally make you a mix tape to tide you over.
That sucks Catty. What does the ginger do to you, and is it all ginger across the board? root, powdered, crystalised?
And yes, I am thinking of putting the children out on the deck, but that’s because I realised that we haven’t yet bothered to assemble the bunk beds properly, they are just sitting on top of each other sans structural safety features, so we’ll have to FKknuckle around with that before they can sleep anywhere. That’ll be fun given that Uncle Blokesy has borked his back & shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting while it’s still inflamed.
I might just hand them a bottle of aeroguard & shoo them outside to sleep on the outdoor lounge. it’s covered in dust & spiders but this is meant to be a road trip that involves camping, so that just adds to the ambience, surely?
As for the stupid cricket – I’ve got the CD player and I can play my iPod so the music is covered – I just like listening to a couple of the local programs while I’m out in the traffic. There’s spots that I regularly listen to, like the tech news, cinema reviews, theatre etc & thanks to the bloody cricket that’s that.
I do have the ABC radio app on my iphone but it’s awkward to use that in the car. Especially if an irritating song or personaliy comes on and you’re thinking ‘Get off, off, off.
I’m sure it was only two or three weeks last Nov-December & then it was back to normal programs but with guest presenters – and some of them are a really refreshing change.
I think they’ve got the test cricket on…how long do they have to test us before they go away & play somewhere else?
oh that is a shame. I love gingerbread men. Are you OK with cinnamon, Catty? Cos cinnamon men would be yummy I reckon.
Not to mention nutmeg and cloves.
If you can’t bite the heads off the gingerbread men, you should at least be able to snap at the heels of the Spice Girls.
I normally put a hint of cinnamon in my basic bikkie dough for gingerdead men. Or Ninjabread men. Or Mankini men. Or whatever sick and twisted variation I’m in the mood to make. If I’m feeling festive I’ll even add a pinch of nutmeg. But not cloves. No allergy, I just don’t like them. Ginger, however, gives me internal hives from entry to exit. Not pleasant.
As for the girls, I have a couple of hammocks you can use. The Boss still hasn’t put them up for me. He hasn’t even taken them out of the car boot. *sulk* And no, I’m sure it has nothing to do with them being buried under three garbage bags full of op-shop donations that I planned to drop off back in August.
Hehehe. Spice Girls.
Wish us well, ladies, for today, verily – if the rain holds off – is Skip Day. Friends are coming over to help us turf and cleanse. If the rain sets in we’ll go and see Fantastic Beasts.
Hmm … now I don;t know what I’m hoping for.
The ads for that movie look confusing. Still, it will be a great opportunity to have a suspiciously good time with a choc top.
Skip day, woohoo!
My GF at Wellington Point seems to have claimed all of the rain so I think you’re safe, MM.
Happy purging to you.
Already rained twice so we’re off to the flicks. Huzzah! Happy weekend, all.
Give the choc top a kiss from me. Don’t forget to slip the tongue in. I loooooove choc tops.
I’ll probably have a Vietnamese salad instead. Don;t judge. We’ve got a bit of a thing for Roll’d.
That sounds fabulous, I’d be making room for both.
Enjoy, MM. I will want a review, I love JK’s world & I’m tempted to nip out to Nerang to see that before everyone is on school holidays & not just the well-heeled children of Jesus here on Nob Hill.
Quick weather update. 15 deg at 2 pm, “feels like 13” what with the chilly wind. 26th of November and I’m wearing a hoodie to go outside. I’m scared Nature will compensate by (a) January being 35 – 45 deg every day or (b) Brisbane will be melted into warm sludge. (I choose (b) please)
Agreed, GB. After that 38ºC day on Monday, I had a damp, stinky pile of towels and swimwear in the laundry, waiting for the cold rain to pause long enough to get them all out on the clothesline. 4 days I had to wait. It drove me out of my poor little OCD mind.
TGP and I – HP tragics – adored it, Q. It was a little episodic, but the creatures are adorable and I think Eddie Redmayne does a fabulous job. I think you’ll like it. Gigantor wasn’t as into it, but then he has chosen not to watch all the HPs eleventy or more times like the rest of us, so fantasy is not really his thing.
The melting is not coming quickly, Southerners. I put on shorts to walk the dog but I think I’ll have to change back to jeans. Cool and overcast and may well rain some more, today.
Excellent. I may disappear off to the cinemas tomorrow for a viewing. I had heard that it was a bit unfocussed, as JK has written the screenplay herself, and in the past that has been tasked to seasoned professionals.
All credit to her as a very talented author, but writing a book is a very different skill set to writing a screen play.
And I’m all for leaving such things to the experts…I thought George Lucas had taught us all that.
Same here. It’s 12º at the moment, but will get to 19º later. The Boss says we should take advantage of the warmth and get some yard work done. The Boss is always saying hilarious things like that. “Clean up the kitchen”, he says, followed by that classic joke, “Stop laughing, I’m serious!” Such a funny man!
Well I think it’s funny.
I made a series of horrible messes in the kitchen, used as many pots & pans & hard to clean utensils s as I could find, and the Bloke had no choice but to clean up after me – as I wasn’t going to help, and our guests were too intent on watching Sex & the City on Netflix to pay the culinary spectacle any mind.
I’ve had the satisfaction of feeding our guests Invisible Lentils in last night’s spag bog & knowing they’d be in the national park sans flushing toilet 18 hours later, come transit time.
Although that might arrive early…niece asked if she could have it for breakfast & then said yes please to the offer of a large carton of it to take to their next campsite.
Let’s hope the lime & poppy-seed syrup cake soothes the violence of the flow as those lentils blast their way out.
I’m sure they’ve not seen legumes since their last trip here three years ago, & as they’ve been eating dinner at the RSL every day of their road trip, those lentils will work like gunpowder on all that chicken parmigiarna that’s been compacted by the road trip.
It’s a good thing there’s all those thunderstorms in the national park, it’ll soften up the ground should the need arise for them to dig a bigger hole.
“Hey, remember when we visited Aunty Q?” “Oh yeah – fair gave me the sh!ts.”
They’ll etch it on my gravestone, lest they forget.
I have never understood the lure of the chicken parmi. Nice things, taken one by one, but why put them all in one dish?
Their father does all of the cooking & the Bloke has explained to me that every meal is fried in butter.
She boasted that she has multiple food allergies & outlined the terrible symptoms that they provoke in her, (eczema, swollen lips, mystery spots) and that the best way to cure them is to ingest even more of the salycillates/sulfites/Known Allergen X until her body gives up the fight & stops reacting to it.
She tossed a few more passive-aggressive naturopath-slanted barbs into the conversation and I smiled benignly, thinking of the lifetime of suffering her ulcerated GIT is going to inflict on her.
Oh, how could you say such a heinous thing? Chicken in pyjamas is magnificent! 9 times out of 10, I go the parma option at restaurants. It’s sooooooo good! And no lentils, which is always a bonus. I have learned the hard way to avoid anything that hastens the passage of food through my shortened plumbing.
That reminds me: Quokka, love, you didn’t have to resort to lentils. That awful Sex And The City program is enough to give anyone the shits.
I’ll need to flush the soundtrack out of my system by watching a good whodunnit or perhaps a movie where aliens arrive & impale cheerleaders on pogo sticks.
Just watch Hail Caesar! That’ll flush anything bad out of your system and replace it with happy giggles.
yeah I’ve seen the adds for that. I must investigate.
Oh, is it good GB? I read some mixed reviews, but if you say so I shall watch it forthwith.
Catty – ok, you can have mine.
Q, swollen lips aren’t too far from a swollen epiglottis. I hope she took an Epi-pen to the National Park.
We both liked it, unusual for a movie.
No, and it would have been an exercise in futility to suggest it. The Bloke’s family are quite convinced that food allergies, illness & physical injury are for the Weak-Minded & they are above such things.
As I was saying, she has the perfect personality to fit her for a nurse.
Yay! MOAR parma!
With great parma, comes great responsibility.
Groan!
And chips.
LOL.
Our local hotel … about 50m if that from the actual sea water … doesn’t serve prawns.
Why, oh why? Not even a dirty old Fisherman’s Basket.
Perhaps the owner has prawn allergy?
Well, possibly … but it’s reasonably big, whoever owns it is probably a dentist’s super fund or something, it’s not a Mum and Dad sort of establishment.
Enemies in the prawning fleet perhaps.
I don’t really care what I eat these days, as long as it’s CAEK.
We poked around Camberwell today – Red Cross, Salvo’s, bookshops and coffee. Lyn picked up a replacement for our wrecked Australian Home Cookery (http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/exploring-australian-home-cookery-a-vintage-cookbook-from-the-1930s-20141029-11dmcf)
I’m going to make some rock cakes first, then go browsing.
Nice!
So, do we tell him that rock cakes don’t actually have rocks in them? I only ask because of that incident with the shepherd’s pie.
At least it was only a German shepherd. And frankly no one liked Heinrich anyway.
I asked my German friend if there were any babies in her baby food. She replied, “nein”. And I said, “Wow, that’s a lot of babies!”
I’ll see myself out, shall I?
And the Boston buns.
Melbourne has the best op shops. When am I coming down again? Is the Comedy Festival programme out yet?
Anyone for Quiche Lorraine?
Yep. 29th March to 23rd April. Coincidentally, I’m expecting my colonoscopy to be 29th March, pending confirmation, so maybe if we’re doing the op shop tour we can wait a couple of days so I can walk around without people thinking the aliens left their probe in again. The school holidays will be from 1st April to 17th April. Easter is 16th April. Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly. Lavender’s green. Roses are red. Lemons are tart. I love you more than a unicorn fart. No, I haven’t had my coffee yet. How can you tell?
Mmm … coffee.
Excellent, thanks for the travelogue. I’ll make plans if we see whether I emerge alive from the festive season.
We may none of us make it that far, MM.
I was listening to BOM on 612 this morning & the senior forecaster is threatening us with a 5 day heatwave with temps around 40C, starting this Friday.
I foresee a spike in Guinea Pig sales as there’ll be a mass heat-stroke murder event in back yards all over SEQ if that comes about.
Madame Tussauds has gone away, I just hope the pigs have been removed to safety by her doting MIL.
Yeah, but don’t worry – those are inland temps. It’s always much cooler close to the Coast.
If you’re looking for somewhere to hide during the heatwave, I just found this:
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-healesville-120857873
Co-op living at its finest! I asked if we could go to the OFI, but the Boss laughed and laughed and laughed, so I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’.
There’s another house with an OFI this weekend that he has agreed to. If we’re going to sell, now is the time to do it. Houses in our area are starting to nudge the $1M mark, but that will drop by $200K after New Year’s. I’d rather sell now and be filthy rich instead of sell then and merely be filthy.
Oh I love it! I heard Healesville is delightful ,too.
They’d allow the guinea pig surely. i mean, she’s too busy eating salad bowls indoors to affect the local wildlife.
It looked lovely until I got to the spiral staircase and then it looked like surgery for hip replacement when we fall down it. I assume the hippy owner is selling because he/she is still in traction & needs urgent cash funds for new bionic hips?
Where’s the other one, Catty?
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-upwey-124238422
It’s not as quirky as the houses I usually drool over, (seriously, that spiral co-op staircase was adorable!) but it ticks all the boxes, especially the one where we would own the house outright. I’m looking forward to seeing if it’s as good in the flesh.
Great location. And you could soon render that exposed brick inside.
Outright would be very restful.
But, but, I love exposed brick!
Oh, really? It makes me think of 70s/80s Rumpus Rooms. Unless there are 15 ft Manhattan loft ceilings, of course.
Exposed brick has made a big comeback in recent times. Render is a shit of a thing to maintain on an internal wall, too – it attracts every bit of dust and fluff imaginable. I like render outside as you can just hit it with the gerni.
Catty, I like this house a lot – and it looks like it’s in a lovely spot.
What’s the Puffing Billy Railway that popped up on the maps nearby?
It’s a cute little heritage train that runs through some spectacular bushland in the Dandenong Ranges. Very popular with tourists – and locals, too. All the kidlets have been there on school excursions at one time or other. It’s very lovely.
The Puffing Billy is great. Open carriages, riding with your legs hanging out, old style trestle bridges (like in the movies). Definitely worth a ride or two. We’re just back from an all-day minder. Pooped! Not as young etc.
Even I’m not as young as you used to be GB.
Young Hamish is growing up so braw and bonny. Is he talking much yet? How does PB enjoy having competition?
Knowing PB, Hamish isn’t competition. He’s her minion.
About 3/4 minion and follower and 1/4 roaring force of destruction/stunt toddler.
Yep, what Catty said.
I like the sound of that heritage train, remind me of that when I eventually manage to straggle back down south.
The Tweed region keep muttering about restoring the train line between Murwillumbah & Byron, just for tourism purposes, and I’m all for it.
Catty, have you thought about arranging a private viewing before all the punters get there?
I really do like the look of this house & I think the agents take you seriously as a buyer if you make them do the work involved in a private inspection.
We’ve been to that many open houses now that I think I see a pattern in how the jonnies deal with people.
They get so many tourists going through on the weekends that what they tend to do is target those that look like they’ve got the most money to spend.
i.e. the flashiest car.
I’d make the sods work for their living and tell them you’re busy on weekends and the only possible time you can go through it is a weekday morning. And lie through the teeth about your work/income, too.
Melbourne real estate agents sound like a right bunch of tools & from what I’ve heard from you and Khan GB, there’s no point at all in being honest or direct with them.
How’s your bug collection, GB?
Tested & ready for smearing over airline seats & Xmas stockings the country over?
Speaking of germs, TGP has got a nasty viral URTI and Gigantor can’t stop coughing. Bring on the heatwave, I reckon. Might kill some bugs.
Catty, can you borrow a Toorak Tractor to go to viewings?
Poo! Poor guys (and MM caught in the diseased crossfire)
Hamish is starting to talk. Mostly ‘up’, ‘that?’, ‘there!’, ‘Ta’ and the usual hello, bye-bye and a vigorous NO. I expect a burst since he wants to know the name of EVERYTHING he sees and he’ll come back in a while and check to see if you’re consistent. He can follow quite reasonable requests – “go to Phoebe’s room and get blue bunny and give him to Grandma”. I find them fascinating at this age – and every other TBH. PB’s language can be hilarious. “I’ll bet you never expected to see that!” and “I don’t expect he thought about what would happen”, the latter when I’ve teased Lyn and been chased out with a broom.
Oh, poor boys! And poor you, Madam. Sick kids are a lot of work. Get some vapour rub on the soles of Gigantor’s feet each night, it really does help with the coughing. It works best if you wear socks. And for TGP, I highly recommend a level teaspoon of bicarb soda morning and night. It tastes like crap, but if you mix it in orange juice it’s a bit like Tang. Which also tastes like crap, but it’s supposed to. Like Hot Chicken Heroes from the servo, or kebabs from dodgy caravans on the nightclub strip. Mmmm…. Hot Chicken Heroes….
I’ve dealt with all the local agents, and they all refuse point blank to do pre-OFI viewings unless the buyer is Chinese or Indian, because those buyers are seriously cashed up and startlingly aggressive. It’s very popular around here, so the agents pretty much just sit back and letting the buyers do all the work while the commissions roll in. Lazy bastards.
Damn.
Another reason to look around Currumbin, Bonogin & Tally Valleys, though, Catty. They have to chase people with sticks to get them to viewings out there.
In my very limited experience, the RE agents down here are even worse than the Brisbane ones. Liars all and lazy with it. Hope we don’t have to sell and buy again.
I’ve got a strong urge to become a REA. I want to be a lazy liar!
GB – yes. All the slaving is worthwhile when they come out with something peculiar. Last night as I tried to sleep, TGP was singing the Harry Potter theme music, accompanying himself by – softly – using me as a percussive instrument. You had to be there, but it made me laugh until I was helpless.
Try politics, Morgana. You can be lazy and dishonest there, too, but you also get the added bonuses of a huge, tax-free super policy and a whole queue of people who would be happy to hit you any time you like.
Hehehe. I’m afraid my chequered … no, worse than chequered, tartaned? … past makes me unfit for public office. I’ll have to be indolent and mendacious in the private sector.
I kind of envy your tartaned past. And your way with words.
It’s never too late to go off the rails, GB! Just clear any misbehaviour with Fifi, beforehand.
When he tries it with Tumbarumba, get it on film so we can all be in on the giggles.
I love this D’arrietta! I’d play it for TGP, but I’m worried about what that bass line could do to my back in his hands.
Well, that sure put Slap ‘n’ Pop into a whole new context.
Isn’t it great?
It’s awesome. He’s Aussie, I assume, from the didge?
I don’t know anything about him.
I don’t even remember where I first heard the Tumbarumba.
Just that it is good.
Hey, I just met some potential nice new neighbours walking down the fire break having a stickybeak at the house that’s for sale behind us. (The Great Dane people left & there have been really good tenants in there all year – I think they got sick of Wendy’s yapper barking at their dog)
Poms, our age – one of those lovely country shire accents.
They seem ever so sweet, they stopped to talk as I was doing the laundry & wanted to know if it was quiet & if we get much traffic noise. And they sounded me out about ‘what if we build an extension & a pool?’
Me: ‘Great. my husband is an architect so we are big fans of renovations. Just watch out for the council drains if you want to put a pool in’ and I pointed out the location.
To my absolute delight they said ‘Yes, we know – you can’t dig within 2m of them & you can’t take heavy machinery over them. We’ve lived on an easement before.’
Wow, people who know the rules & intend to obey them.
If only I’d made gingernuts this morning I could have invited them in for a cuppa & begged them to get out the contract & sign on the dotted line.
Council rules! Don’t talk to me about bloody Council rules! Bloody Council and their Bloody tree blocked the sewer pipe in the easement behind our house, affecting us and everyone upstream of us, but they’re not going to cut the tree down. Their response to our request was “It’s the water board’s pipe. It’s their responsibility to lay pipes that tree roots can’t get into”. I shit you not! And apparently we stand little to no chance of getting our umpty-leven plumber’s bill reimbursed because they don’t accept negligence claims citing “their tree, their land, their responsibility”. Also, I didn’t attach photos of the damage to the claim. Stupid me, I should have gone down to Council, applied for a permit to dig up the easement, and applied to the water board for permission to excavate around and photograph their pipe, then hired an excavation company to do the digging, then hired a professional photographer for the pictures, then have the excavator refill the hole, then hired a landscaper to return the nature reserve back to its original state, just so that I could have photographs for a frickin’ insurance claim. Oh, well, I’ll know for next time.
And there will be a next time. This is the third time we’ve asked them to cut that stupid thing down because it’s dangerous, but their response the other two times was also “Suck it up, princess”. I want to cut the tree down, or at least poison the bloody thing so that it’s dead and falls over by itself, but the Boss won’t let me. He’s convinced I’d get caught and then we’d have a $50,000 fine to pay. Bloody Council!
Oh dear Catty, how frustrating.
Maybe it is time to move, and let the tree repair costs become someone else’s problem.
When’s the open house on the lovely place? Crunch your numbers so you can make an offer on the spot.
Yes, what Morgana said. That looks like a very well built sturdy little house.
Although it does look like there’s a lot of trees around it, so you’d have to check they aren’t leafing for that very reason – and you’d have to fend off the leaves in the gutter.
The best thing about owning a house outright is that you’re not sucked dry by a mortgage. If we found that tree roots got into pipes occasionally, the Boss would merely go out and buy a K’a’rcher guerney and clear them out himself, and the offending tree would find itself in that darling little fireplace before it had a chance to repeat offend.
I’m quite looking forward to the viewing on Sunday. Especially as we have friends in the area, who coincidentally happened to drop in yesterday to invite us over for a Sunday barbecue. Yay!
It’s fate. You will be able to eat the Sausage of Victory!
It’s the same make as the Sausage of Defeat, but it’s been pulled off the barbie in the magic window between raw inside, and singed to a a carbon rod.
My father’s barbecued snags were very popular with the local art community. We fondly referred to him as the Barbecutioner. And then we ate salad.
Barbecutioner…hehehehehehe.
Fingers crossed that you like it & you snavel it, Catty.
The one thing that worries me is that we have to sell this place to buy another house. Which means I have to physically remove all my possessions and clean everything – burning the place down wouldn’t be an option.
Yes, moving is scary. But then, so is staying on Murder Street and not knowing if mortgage stress or a neighbour will kill you first!
Moving is a pain in the arse, Catty, but having done it and wound up somewhere so much nicer, I guarantee you it is worth it.
Miss Kitteh woke us up this morning to tell us that the Wobbly was outside the laundry door & she’d booted her little joey out of her pouch to eat some delicious rain-soaked grass out on the fire-break.
We were only metres away from them, watching them graze.
And have I told you that the pair of cockatoos that come in for breakfast at dawn screech at me if I haven’t refilled their bowl? They sit on the railings and make the most god-awful noise until I go out with a refill to placate them.
Did I tell you about Stumpy?
One of the pair has one foot that is so badly deformed that it’s almost upside down. It’s so lovely watching Stumpy’s mate watch his back while he eats.
Birds really are the most beautiful creatures.
Keep that bowl topped up, or they’ll strip your veranda rails!
Yes, do make the change, Catty. A whole new start might be lovely for everyone. And for comic relief, you can always drive in the visit the In-Laws.
We were at a paintball field yesterday (long story – no, we weren’t partaking) and a group of us were watching a bunny sunbathing on the grass. Then one of the gentlemen climbed into his car to leave and his little doggy jumped out and went hell-for-leather straight for the rabbit. It was hilarious, but only because I wasn’t the one who had to catch him. By the end of it, the owner was muttering rude things about wishing he’d bought a cat.
If he’d taken both of my cats he’d have had bunny stew for dinner. My pair go nuts at the picture window when they see a hare bounding up the street.
Hehehe. Tell me he ran through the paintballers and got splattered for his trouble.
Hey, do you think he likes making salads? you could have swapped him for your guinea pig.
NO MORE PETS! They all try to eat me. Even the fish.
Maybe I’m not very tasty, because none of ours have tried to eat me. The closest the dog has got is a fondness for chewing my few pairs of knickers.
Heh heh heh, a snowdropping doggie! Actually, there were a couple of snowdroppers in our area this week. Police warned residents to be on the lookout for a pair of nickers.
Groan.
All I can think of when you say ‘dog’ is ‘ticks’ – a friend of mine found two on her dog yesterday & has just had a very expensive time of it at the vet. They sound like they’re really bad this season. Spread the word, MM.
Do you get them down there Catty? I’d assume it’s just because this was cattle country. Horrible little blood-suckers.
We have some ticks, but the paralysis ones are extremely rare around our area. Most of them are on animals that have recently visited Gippsland beaches. Not to worry, we have no doggie, and the neighbour’s cat only comes over here to crap in our garden.
Any insect that can make an animal suffer like that is an abomination unto God & nature. Truly, they are the ATO of the animal kingdom.
I’ve picked a few grass ticks of Sari. nothing else. Actually, looks like we’re in a “free zone”:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=dc39d0aad4a64c30acc438f8c5dcd4e9&extent=133.3416,-29.6449,161.7303,-10.9572
Sigh. Apparently my sister had a colonoscopy and they found 2 polyps. We do have a family history, but let me point out that Poppa was in his nineties before it took him off. I think Father had a few polyps removed, but nothing further. OK, fair enough, I’ve been thinking I should probably have one at some point.
So she’s now barraging me with texts, the latest being that if I don’t book an appointment now – which I can’t afford, and can’t take time off to attend right now anyway – she’s going to “Tell TGP that it will kill me and then I’ll have to deal with that”.
For sake of all the fucks currently to be found in this Great Southern Land! So the question is, where will we go for Christmas? I’m not hanging around here on tenterhooks waiting for her to psychologically damage my bubba, that’s for sure.
Just tell her you’ve done it & everything was fine. And then book the appointment when you have time for it in the new year.
Another 6 weeks & a vicious assault by a glazed ham won’t make that much difference to the likely outcome, surely.
I meant by the ham to your intestines, not to be confused with the idea of using it to assault any of your family.
Although now that I think of it…
No! You can’t commit…hamicide!
That should be the name of your travelling stage show. Featuring the triple acts of you, Catty & Humpybong.
Hamicide… LOL!
Well, I’m all for getting you checked out, Madam. You all know how important early detection was for me. I’d suggest that you ask your GP for a referral to the public hospital colo-rectal clinic. Without symptoms but with a family history, they’ll probably put you down as category two, so there’ll be a bit of a wait, maybe 6 months? That way you can tell your sister that you’re on the waiting list, and hopefully she will be satisfied with that and shut the hell up. Unless her polyps are dodgy, in which case she will be at you like a rat up a drainpipe. For her sake, and yours, I hope they come back clear.
Hehehehe. Hamicide.
Yes, I’ve got nothing against being screened, and will certainly arrange it when possible. It’s the emotional hostage-taking of my bubba that really cauterises my colon. Oh, and the preceding “Don’t ask me to help when you’re having chemo”.
I’m not even taking issue with the fact that we’ve jumped from my failure to immediately – on Saturday – capitulate to her demands to chemotherapy … but if I really was that sick, she is one of the last people on Earth I would want anywhere near me.
Oh, hang on. Do you think maybe the thought of the Huge Family Christmas is freaking her out so she’s getting in a few pre-emptive strikes? I kind of sympathise with that I suppose – but still, threaten my kids and you toy with your own longevity.
Thanks for the timely reminder of why I avoid my sister, MM.
At such times I used to grit my teeth & tell myself that on some level she did care about what was happening & due to having the emotional maturity of a teaspoon, this was the only way that she could express that.
Try to focus on the fact that she is worried about you & the long-term well-being of your children & try not to focus too much on the fact that she sucks at her way of expressing it.
My sister would have said much the same thing. But if I’d ever said that to her, OMG the storm that would erupt.
Tell her you appreciate her concern & you’ve made an appointment with your GP to discuss it – that’ll take the steam out of her sails. You’d hope.
Mwah.
xxxx
Ugh. Families. According to mine, I’m the one who says the offensive things that upset the family. They could be right. They used to get so upset when I said offensive things like “It’s Christmas, guys. Please stop calling me a pathetic, useless sack of shit”, Or “I wasn’t in the room when that argument happened, how can it possibly be my fault?”. They’d get majorly enraged and I’d end up leaving in tears. I’m so glad I get to spend the day with the Boss’s family instead. Yeah, there are arguments and insults there too, but at least everyone else is so drunk that nobody remembers it the next day.
That reminds me. MIL’s cousin in Belgium is in her 80’s. Her husband had a stroke 10 years ago and was completely paralysed, so she had been nursing him at home the whole time (with a bit of help from the home nursing service). He died earlier this year, so MIL told Cousin that she was welcome to pop over here to Australia any time she liked. Apparently she likes Christmas, and has called to announce she will be coming over for a six week visit. MIL will enjoy that. Cousin drinks even more than she does. I think this might be a good year to take the video camera to MIL’s Christmas lunch. It’s going to be a corker!
Sounds good, Catty.
There’s a lot to be said for escaping toxic relationships & spending time with people who are loving & fun to be around.
I’m just so glad to be out of stinky Brisbane that I don’t care what we do. Relax, hire a SUP for the bloke to use for that two weeks he’s on holiday, & watch movies & read books in the AC.
Chilling out time, FTW.
I’d say he’ll take his olds to the RSL for lunch. They seem to enjoy that, and as it’s a venue that caters for the elderly & the disabled it’s a much better choice than the customary buffet crush.
I do wonder how long his mother will last in the nursing home.
Without a captive target to snipe at, her life will be rather empty.
From what I’ve seen of Gran’s nursing home, your MIL would probably be in her element, complaining and sniping about every little thing that every other resident does.
She’s been going into one regularly for respite care & she complains that they’re all trying to kill her.
Nobody has ever bothered to ask her why…
Yeah, it would be a bit of a rhetorical question.
For years we have asked in vain for the dentures in the septic tank footage. Please, promise us some Belgian Boozing Bust-ups. It might be the only thing that keeps me going.
MIL has refused point blank to hand over that footage. We’re going to have to wait until she dies. But you’re right, I will defs take my camera this Christmas. I’m sure to film something hilarious.
Huzzah!
Oh dear, we didn’t have skip day because of rain, and now I’m wondering when it will happen, with two parties to attend this weekend.
Maybe instead of Plumbing Thursday? Sob. But i like Plumbing Thursday!
I’d be making my skip-filling duties according to the weather forecast, MM.
I think Thursday is meant to be hot & the weekend considerably cooler.
And yes, Catty, definitely we want Belgian booze-floozy filibusters to amuse us over the silly season.
Excellent plan, Q.
FIL has a good video camera that he uses for birthdays and special events. I was thinking of asking him to get some footage too, but he has an annoying habit of switching off right before the good stuff happens. Another annoying thing he does is give a running commentary in a quiet, droning voice as he films.
“O.k, it’s LK’s birthday. Here we have the birthday cake that Catty made. That looks like a nice cake. LK is cutting the cake now. Yep, right, he’s putting the knife in the cake. If he touches the bottom he will have to kiss the nearest person. I’d better stand back. Heh heh, I don’t want to be kissed. He’s cut the cake now. Right, he’s handed the knife to Catty so she can finish cutting it up and give us all a slice of the cake. She’s taking the candles out now. She’s cutting some nice big slices. There’s one for LK. She’s giving a piece to the Teenie now. And there’s one for MK. Is the Boss having some? No? No, wait, he is having a piece. And one for me. I have this nice cup of tea here, I’ll enjoy a piece of cake with that…..”
*Screen goes blank because he’s switched off to eat his cake, & misses hilarity when Catty hands a plate of cake to MIL and MIL drops it straight into FIL’s cup of tea…..*
We have hours and hours of footage with FIL’s running commentary. Except at our wedding. There’s only about 10 minutes of that, and you can’t hear the vows over his running commentary.
“The Boss and Catty are making their wedding vows. The priest is talking. Now Catty is promising to love, honour and obey. Heh heh, we’ll see how long that lasts…..” Yeah, shut up FIL. And in case you’re wondering, it was about half an hour.
Hehehe. It reminds me of the many summers when, inspired by Richie Benaud, my brother would commentate everything.
“And she’s pouring the cornflakes in the bowl and she’s going for the milk … no, she’s having them plain. Bold move by this plucky young Australian”
Etc.
Chortling, here.
We still haven’t made any real Xmas plans. It’s better that way(?) At some point we’ll probably visit/be visited by various family but no one gets precious about The Day. Oldest great-niece is turning 18 (nooo!) just after Xmas so we’ll probably go there for a celebration. Or they might come here. Either way my niece the globe-trotting nun will be there which is good as we’ve only communicated via email for a couple of years. All the snide and nasty relatives have been left in Qld or died so no dramas or stress. I just hope we can get HGBS down at some point. I miss him. Between extra freezer, beer fridge and dishwasher, Xmas catering just isn’t the horror it was when we had about 30 in the little place at Chelmer.
Oh, dear old HGBS. How does he fare with the new household? Several stripper-poles-worth better, I trust?
He is doing better with the housemates but not the job. They keep hiring, then firing, deadbeats = more work for him. Also car totalled by a rogue garbage truck. Sigh.
Good lord! Well, surely Council – or the subbies – have to pay for the car totalling? I know that doesn’t lessen the inconvenience or inevitable loss of amenity over transition though.
Or are they claiming he parked in a skip?
Yep. There’s apparently no doubt the truck backed into him at speed but it’s a lease car and HP and the contractors are taking their sweet time.
Jeebus GB, he’s lucky he’s still alive if it was a rogue garbage truck.
One of those ran over a couple of tourarists last December here at Burleigh & I think she wound up with a brain injury.
I say count your blessings that it wasn’t worse.
How horrendous for HGBS. I’m glad he wasn’t hurt.
Oh that really sucks. We should make him a dumpster fire patch.
Maybe not. One time I made my mother a Beesting cake after she was attacked by wasps, and she seemed rather upset.
Snigger
*giggles & runs off.
That sounds like it might give you Kardashian lips.
Kimmy has lips? Dat Ass….
Since when are you all about the bass, Catty?
Never. But I like to put on a show for the kidlets. It embarrasses the crap out of them. heh heh heh heh.
It is a great joy to make your children squirm. It should have more prominence in the parenting manuals.
Seconded or thirded or something. “Get Them Before They Get You” was always my motto.
Until now of course. Just come back from the park where we went on the swings and slide, played chasey and shared some cherries. May also have been some decoration making involving glue and glitter and putting up of tree. She watched a ‘citing story last night (Robin Williams as the Frog Prince) and slept in our bed, banishing me to the spare room.
Hehehe. She needs to be a princess. Can we set up a playdate with some of Princess Mary’s sprogs?
I was never a princess. I am now, and have always been, a Queen. The lack of tiara is a mere bagatel.
My lack of cherries, however, is of serious concern. Hand them over, GB, forthwith.
Um, you’ll have to talk to the one with the cherry stained lips, dress, fingers etc. She, and I quote, “ate them ALL”.
Off With Her Head!
Sniff. I used to buy the best cherries Evah from the Greek fruit shop in the main drag of West End.
I went back to see them especially & they’d sold up. And their cherries looked the same, and came in the same box, but they tasted like Arse.
I don’t know where I’ll ever find cherries like that again.
I wonder if they grow them in WA, where they grow the best mandarins Evah & which is a big drawcard to relocate there.
Oh & speaking of Queens, I just had xmas lunch at the Tallai golf club with the CWA ladies, who seem a good bunch, and one of them roared off in a black sedan with personalized number plates that said ‘Byonce’.
I think it was one of the ladies with a walking stick.
They rock.
Did you snaffle any good recipes, or do you have to earn their trust first?
I expect you have to do the blood oath and bring them the head of someone who bakes out of packets first.
Q, look for markets. The bloke on the stall next to us had fantastic cherries last year. Huge and still firm but sweet and juicy. Mmm … cherries. I did hear on the news that heavy rains have substantially affected the harvest so it just might not be our year, sadly.
LOL.
That sucks about the rains, it was definitely a texture & taste isshew.
Um, I think they’ve head-hunted me because most of them don’t like cooking and they need people that do.
Did I tell you I’ve been roped into making Anzacs for the Australian Day citizenship ceremony?
And there was an intake of breath & a sudden hush at the table when I admitted that I add powdered ginger to mine.
I think I said that somewhere but it’s early & I’ve been enjoying all this lovely rain. We’re still sitting in a lovely moist cloud of drizzle, here. I can barely see the ridge up the hill for the clouds.
And I can’t see any of Wendy’s tradies, and as it’s past 6.30am if anyone was going to turn up today they’d be here by now.
You can’t exactly use power tools in the rain, much less in the 30-40ml of rain that I think we had last night, so I think they’ve done buggered off for a while.
Peace for the day, huzzah!
We’re in for another cool and sunny day. While I would normally rejoice at that, I’m worried that FIL will take advantage of the weather and come over to hack some more trunk off our tree. Yesterday he managed to drop a massive log on our driveway, which is now cracked. I mentioned the crack, and he vehemently denied it was him. “That crack’s been there for a year or more!” It hasn’t. *sigh* Part of me wants to be grateful that the tree is (gradually) disappearing, but another part of me wishes that FIL would go away and sit on his porch to complain about Yoof Today like other old men. It’s stressful worrying about what he’s going to break next. The fence, the neighbour’s car, his neck….
Q – you do?! Saucy minx.
I am very anti 30 plus temps, but completely in favour of all the lovely rain we’ve been having. You know, cos time not spent watering the garden is more time with my Kindle and without pants.
Catty, I’m focusing on remaining grateful that driveways are still all he’s cracked.
It isn’t, unfortunately. When he got home yesterday, he started doing a little household maintenance. There was a loose curtain bracket that needed tightening. He couldn’t be arsed digging out his stepladder for what was essentially a 30 second job, so he climbed up onto a cheap plywood chest of drawers. Crack! Straight through the top. MIL wanted to skin him alive when she saw it, but he was already bleeding profusely. I’d make some snide comment about idiot men doing idiot things, but unfortunately I do the same idiot things myself. Constantly.
Oh dear. With his alcomohol consumption he might bleed for days.
Plus side, one less thing to pack and move!
Is that the chest of drawers or FIL? Because I don’t think Catty was going to take him anyway.
If MIL follows through with her threats to divorce him if he keeps hacking at our tree, we may just have to take him.
Good. With all his unused energy, has can turn it to housebreaking the Wildebeest.
He’s more likely to teach it how to make kumquat brandy. Hey, that reminds me, what ever happened to Bangarr?
Good question. I haven’t noticed him around for ages. Trapped in a bunker somewhere?
Mr B still pops up on Twitter but he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s a while back. He has some pretty bad days and I don’t think he makes “improved water” any more. I should go out and see him but there’s always something going on.
I pop in to twitter occasionally to see Mr. B. It’s rough going but it sounds like he has good support from his family.
He was devastated to lose all of his chickens to a fox, a few weeks back.
He has new chickens but I’m yet to see proof in the form of twitter pix.
Meanwhile, we just had a fabulous little 10 minute thunderstorm that began with tiny little hail stones.
So exciting. All these storms used to miss us in our 20 years at Toad Park, they’d split and go around either side of our hill. Well, apart from the one in November 2 years ago that cut through every colourbond roof & exposed car from Archerfield to Northlakes.
No pool builders today, it looks like they’ve got the armature in & are probably waiting on the plumber & the form workers before they can send in the concrete pump. And they might have to pump out some water first – I think Wendy is about to discover that when you dig a hole for a pool at the bottom of a very large hill, when it rains, the hills tend to ooze.
I had a quick stickybeak when I was up the back at the hills hoist today…it should look rather nice.
Apart from when it’s finished there’ll be the ongoing issue of the waterfall-hill-slush trajectory.
hehehehehehehehe.
Oh, poor Bangarr! That is horrible news. Maybe MIL will run into him at the hospital when she finally gets in to see someone about her suspected Parkinsons. They’ve put her on the waiting list, so goodness knows when that will be.
We’ve awoken to some lovely rain today. I hope you northerners get some too.
Chances are good: so much cloud the sun has yet to rise; garden doesn’t need it; I’ve just put all my queen-sized bedding in the wash. I’d make it a sure thing and wash the car, but … you know.
That does completely and utterly suck. Poor Bangarr. Poor everyone involved. Hopefully Michael J Fox’s Institute will find a fix ASAP.
It is dreadful to see them suffer so.
MM…I just heard BOM on the radio & they said we are in for another 36 hours of showers, storms, and actual rain – you know, those long periods when it’s just velly velly wet all over.
I’d make the most of the sun this morning before it works itself up into a lather.
Sun, what sun? It’s so overcast we have yet to have sunrise.
But what splendid news! Except for poor dear Wendy, of course.
Did that seem sincere? I’m trying to be less sarcastic next year.
Well in that case you may not appreciate what I’m giving her for Xmas.
Wow, you’re generous. She doesn’t deserve a single one of your f***s. Not a one.
* giving of gift book to Wendy may be a salacious lie.
I think you SHOULD give her a book. Here’s a few volumes of Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Deliver them by flinging them at her head.
Mmm. Boooks. http://bookgrocer.libro.com.au/books/home.do;jsessionid=499F4321E327243386FB47396FD6829A
That’s a lot of books, Khan GB. Was there one in particular you wanted to show us or just the glut that is popping up on the link?
“Glut”? What is this glut you speak of? Nothing particular – just a cheap supplier. We went to Canterbury today and had ricotta gnocchi with basil, chorizo, parmesan and books. Delicious.
I want JB’s new book, but I want the hardcopy, not all this electromahonic nonsense. eBooks make my head hurt.
It does look good. I’m glad he’s moved away from wars. A bit.
Oh, has he? I’ve only read his funny books & I’d quite like to read Leviathan. The Bloke reads the Boy’s Own Adventure stuff, he came home chortling that Prof. X Boylan has just walked onto the pages.
Speaking of which, for those of you who FB, how is the prof?
I wandered over to his blog to comment but it seems he’s so depressed by the Trump takeover that he’s switched off the internet lest worse news overcome him.
I’m not normally interested in the ‘splodey, but I’m glad I read all of the AA series. It tickled me no end when Havsy showed up as a fighter pilot.
I’ll get to them one day.
I haven’t seen him around for ages, either.
I got thoroughly sick of the Lizard Man puppeting Hav’s account that I just started ignoring it all. I think that was about Orin being jealous of the affection everyone had for Hav & just deciding to sabotage that by using the fake Havock account to be really stupid and mean.
Actually since JB quit the piss (he took a year off as an experiment) he seems to have become much more discerning with his choice of friends. Let’s hope the realises that before he starts boozing again.
I find it hard to imagine anyone was fooled. Havsy is awesome (even the Boss thinks so), while Lizard Man… well yeah, nah.
Speaking of sock puppets, Mayhem’s Mum has been awfully quiet since the Beards moved down to Ringworm. You should drag her out of the Oubliette, GB, and give us something to laugh at now that we don’t have Tales of Toad Park to entertain us.
Paul has been a bit quiet since his Mum died, but from Lori’s posts they’ve had a few recent short trips that everyone seemed to enjoy.
Oh, and Evan is rocking a huge and righteous ‘fro.
For some reason, that ‘fro had me singing “Welcome back! We always could spot a friend”.
They endlessly repeat MASH but why don’t we ever see Kotter? I’d welcome him back.
They probably lost the tapes. Maybe if they dig around in one of those ‘fro’s they’ll find them.
That Italian kid probably sold them on a street corner.
LOL. Good to hear the Boylans are surviving the electoral horror of it all. Have you tried youtube for Kotter? that has a lot of old shows that never seem to make it back to telly.
If you knew the hours I’ve wasted watching Mr Ed…
I heard they made him talk by putting peanut butter on his gums.
Hmm, maybe that would work on men, too?
Why on earth would you want to do that?
Oh, not for conversational purposes, I hasten to assure you. Just for the answer to useful questions like, “Where the hell did you put the monkey wrench?” and “Why, oh why do you keep hanging around work, when I have to, you know, work?”
A guaranteed way to make the Boss talk to me is to start having a telephone conversation. He just made a complete arse out of me by yelling nasty things about a real estate agent – while I was talking to her on the phone. *sigh*. Suddenly the potential buyer is offering $100K less than they were at the start of the phone call. But that’s probably for the best. I just double-checked the website for that Upwey house in case they’ve changed the OFI again, and they’ve cancelled the OFI because it’s sold. Did I say *sigh*? *sigh*.
Rats and damn. The good ones do go quickly, Catty.
And you might be better off doing a clutter clear out before you sell, anyway.
I shudder every time I walk past the Box Room. I keep telling myself I should dispatch it to the landfill or the goodwill, one box at a time, but it’s just so bloody hard to motivate myself to do that.
There’s always another book to read, a cup of tea to enjoy, and a recipe to cook up.
Did I tell you that I made Mary Berry’s Yorkshire gingernuts yesterday?
They were fun. I’ve sent the entire batch bar two into the Bloke’s work this morning. Pity you can’t eat ginger, Catty.
Oh well.
Baking, so very satisfying.
I wonder if they’re anything like Bardon Scout’s gingernuts … very crunchy, and sugary and buttery and more-ish?
I’m trying my hardest not to eat anything at all at the moment. That seems the easiest way to prevent IBS flareups. By dinner time last night I was about ready to gnaw off my own arm, so I had a small serving that has been gurgling unpleasantly ever since. Ugh. This is not going to end well.
Catty you’ll waste away to nothing. How about a bananaanana smoothie?
Those things are so gut-soothing that 3 a day works as well as medication in ulcer treatment. Scientifically verified.
Although I always wondered who on earth could eat anything else if they were having 3 banana smoothies per day.
That’s the strange thing about it. I dropped 2 kilos after Monday night’s event, but I’ve put it all back on and then some. I’m convinced this means further events…. which is not welcome news, seeing as we are off this evening to that exclusive, invitation-only awards night for the kidlets. I’d better suss out the location of the facilities as soon as we arrive…. and cross my fingers that I can get to them in time.
How did it go? And what was the mystery award you weren’t sure of?
I have to say our work Christmas party was epic. The 12 course degustation menu was superb. Luckily each course was only a bite and a half or we would have turned into wafer-thin mint man … but OMG the food!
Someone was saying it was voted the 7th best restaurant in Australia and I’m only surprised it was so low down.
That sounds fab, Morgana! I’ve only once been to one of those degustation places, and I was glad each item was only bite-sized because all but one of the items was horrible. Whoever came up with the idea of a goats cheese croquette in fig sauce deserves a well hard kick in the quoit. Bleargh!
The awards night was suitably impressive. If I can figure out how to post a video, I’ll put MK’s musical group up for you all to admire. Maybe later when the kidlets get out of bed and are on-hand to help me.
Really? Wow, that is awesome MM. And that they’ve managed to find a Xmas party venue that’s so close to home. Win.
If I ever make it up the north coast again I will have to investigate.
So what were the tastiest morsels?
hard to pick …
scallop in the shell, sitting in a little splash of soy and sesame oil, topped with hollandaise and caviare
numbing chicken wings which were deep-fried to crispy perfection in chili and Szechuan pepper
a beef carpaccio with wasabi and horseradish
the brownie, toffee macadamia and Davidson plum syrup dessert?
I want to eat it all again!
Oh yum! I want the brownie thing for breakfast, all of that sounds awesome.
Wow MM, that sounds amazing. Well-earned treat.
That was a singular brownie? I can’t imagine anything worse than just one brownie.
It depends how much you’ve stuffed down your gullet before it, Khan GB.
Hey MM, how went the skip filling?
I considered opening a box of junk yesterday to dispatch the contents to the goodwill, but then all of my goodwill burst into flames so I shut the door & walked away.
I really must junk the hoard, one of these days.
Thank goodness I could still breathe and therefore taste on Friday, but I woke on Saturday with a nasty dose of TGP’s cold.
Luckily I went with the skip bag … same size, takes the same stuff but you buy it from the hardware, fill it at your leisure and then call to collect. So I think I’ll have to sacrifice Plumbing Thursday, because I won’t want to do it next weekend.
Also luckily, Gigantor is on holidays and therefore deployable whenever he doesn’t have to work.
I didn’t know Gigantor was working. Good on him. I have yet to convince the older kidlets to find paid employment. When I got MK’s course list for next year, one of her subjects requires her to find a work experience position for 6 hours a week. I thought that sucked hugely, and asked the teachers if she could just get a paid job and count the hours towards the work experience, but they said no. It doesn’t make sense, but there you have it.
Sux to have a cold, MM. You poor love. Here, have a mug of eSoup. And a hug. U> (0)
Well, it completely fell in his lap. One of his mate’s Dads imports teak furniture, so because he’s good at manual arts he was asked to help with the refinishing, which he is also good at. So when they need help he gets summoned. He got offered work baby-sitting but never followed up and got his Blue Card, and there was talk of putting a CV into the local restaurants but that never happened either.
But he always says yes and I’m told works hard and gives no cheek so there’s that, too.
That is ridiculous, Catty! I mean, if they can get paid, why not? Has she got any idea who she will approach?
Thx I’ll go and drink it on the couch.
I don’t think she has any idea where to go, as she hasn’t settled on a career path yet.
I’m glad Gigantor’s doing well there. Maybe he can restore a nice coffee table for you, so you have somewhere to put your soup cup.
What a lovely skill to have, MM. Much saner than babysitting, too. You never know when they’ll try to kill each other…wait…he’d be perfect for wrangling that.
🙂
What kind of work experience is it, Catty?
I think the general idea of those things is that if they do x amount of hours per week then it gets them used to the idea that you have to keep going back there, day after day, week after week, and it stops those with wealthy families from sending their children to sleep all weekend in the stationery office out the back of Uncle Clem’s law office.
Or a day bed. Something in gilt, that I can lounge on guilt free.
From what I heard about Telstra, not all companies provide comfy beds. Some employees have to sleep off their hangovers on racking in storerooms, poor dears.