Will the last Englishman out of the country turn the lights out please ? | |
Alarming …The teachers at Jack’s school were on strike for two hours this morning and we were instructed not to take the kids in before 11:00am. Liz had a doctor’s appointment and she left the house at nine leaving me to get Jack to school. Mornings are always a rush, but she when returned she was surprised to discover that things were much as she left them. She wondered how it was that Jack was able to go to school two hours later than normal today and I still managed to not have his lunch box ready, to not get him into socks or shoes, to not have his teeth cleaned, to not have this his hat on his heed and to not having packed his bag. Truth is we’d been working on his school project which, for reasons known only to Jack, involved constructing a cuboid from paper, wrapping this cuboid in Xmas paper, tying a ribbon to said wrapped cuboid and sticking a teeny tiny little gift card to it all. I forgot about lunch, hats and teeth in all the excitement. So we left the house, in time honoured fashion, exactly 10 minutes before school was supposed to start, despite having an extra two hours to do it all in. Blog entry continues here. In at the deep end …Couple of weeks ago I noticed that our pool was smelling a bit, ermm, different. Instead of the usual chloriney smell, it had taken on this rather more pungent odour - musty if you like. But we were swimming in it to no ill effect, so I just assumed it needed a bit more salt for the chlorinator. However a couple of days ago, Liz, Jack and myself were in having a splash about and we all commented on the fact that it really was not pleasant to open your eyes in that water. I suggested we all got out until I had the water tested. So I took a sample of water down to our friendly neighbourhood pool shop and had the bloke test it. Blog entry continues here. Back to life, back to reality …So, with the in-laws having safely re-entered their lives in blighty, we have been free to return to ours here in sleepy South Coast, NSW. Jack’s back at school, I’ve got my head buried in misbehaving PCs and Liz has got stuck into her graphic design work. The weather has been consistently improving over the last couple of weeks and the number of tourists passing through our little town of Barefoot Bay has been increasing steadily. The American election has been in the news here and for once, the time difference on this side of the planet was a useful thing. While the rest of the planet slept, over here in Oz we got realtime updates on all the counts coming in from the voting stations in the states, during our daytime. So, finally the yanks have voted in someone with an IQ greater than your average pot plant. Hurrah.
As always, blog entry continues at my site ... Happy families …The torture is at an end. After nearly 7 consecutive weeks of in-laws, we have waved the last of ‘em off at the airport. It started, as I’ve previously mentioned, with the PILs, but for the last two weeks, we’ve been entertaining the SIL and her sprog. I’m not saying my family’s perfect, or indeed that I am, but dear god they’re hard work. So. Last time I blogged, the SIL had not long arrived. Well, we have now dropped her and her sprog off at the airport on Saturday evening, putting an end to what has been a very painful two weeks. I thought that the PILs stay had been eventful, but the SIL out-did them in pretty much every way. Blog entry continues here. The difference between Aussie kids and British kids …Having the SIL and her daughter over from the UK has proved to be a real eye-opener for us - of that there is no doubt. Josh’s cousin Rachel is about a year older than Josh, but she’s always been a bit, ermmm, slow - so the usual ‘girls maturing faster’ thing doesn’t really count in this instance. They’ve always got on incredibly well together - maybe because they’re both only children and they share the same hobgoblin of a grandmother.Blog entry continues here. One in one out …So. Blimey. Not updated the old blog in nearly a month. Life here has been turned upside down somewhat with the month that the parents-in-law were here and then the arrival of Catherine’s sister and niece two days after the Little Englanders left. I see from my last post that things were ticking along somewhat predictably. I had hoped we might have a smoother course of events, but it wasn’t to be. It was always inevitable - or to paraphrase Shakespeare - the world’s grown honest and doomsday’s near. So. Where to begin. Let’s start with …This blog entry continues here - http://www.thatstheplan.com/ House bound ...The inlaws, as I may have mentioned, are over from England at the moment. Thus far everything has gone fairly predictably - we’re well used to their self-centred ways and have mechanisms in place to deal with them. For instance, my father-in-law is incredibly tight-fisted, but the missus laid out the ground rules prior to their arrival and thus far that side of things have been ticking along okay. They have even split the food bills and the cost of accomodation when they go sight-seeing. There is in fact a tally sheet from which sums (to the nearest 5c) are added and subtracted.This blog entry continues at www.thatstheplan.com Wrong side of the bed …So Josh is in assembly for the last day of term. The teacher says to them - if you made your own bed that morning - then you can go early and play under the COLA. Various kids stand up (who either did make their beds or are getting the hang off this plausible deniability business). Josh stays firmly seated. Teacher says to Josh, “Didn’t you make your bed this morning then Josh?”Blog continues here. Quite possibly the most exciting night out ever …So the in-laws are over at the moment and consequently we all went out for lunch yesterday. The chosen venue was the Gerroa Fisherman’s Club on account of the amazing views from the bistro and the quality (and quantity) of the food. We found a table next to the windows upstairs and settled down to peruse the menu. As we were deciding what to eat I heard this robotic voice, like Robbie the Robot and looked up. There was a bloke several tables down from us with one of those throat microphone things. Horrible freaky things at the best of times, but as I’m sat there, the bloke ‘coughs’ and all this yellow pleghm and goop comes out of the hole in his throat!!! He just nonchalantly gets his hanky and wipes off his neck - his dinner guests didn’t seem to bat an eye-lid. Now am I the only that finds that fucking repulsive? I’m just about to sit down to a meal and some bloke’s expectorating goop from a hole in his neck? Put me right off my creme caramel I tell you. This blog entry continues here ------> www.thatstheplan.com The English are coming …Well didn’t that come round quickly. Our household has entered the period of the celestial calendar in which various members of Catherine’s family descend on us, bringing discord, strife, bitterness and packets of bread sauce with them. In a weird conjunction of the planets, my kid brother is also be down this way because his girlfriend’s mum is leaving Denver, Colorado for the first time in her life to visit her daughter. Everyone’s arriving at Sydney airport, but a day apart.Blog entry continues at http://www.thatstheplan.com Pump it up …When we were buying this house, one of things that we were advised to get checked out (too late as it happened) was the pool pump. It is, apparently, a fairly notorious problem whereby vendors fail to mention the fact that their pump hasn’t been serviced in five years and has been running near-constantly for twenty. And it’s that exact trap that we fell headlong into.This blog entry continues at www.thatstheplan.com. Hutch’s magical mystery tour …And now a small tour of my village courtesy of Google Street view …Somewhat improbably, Australia is one of the first places outside the ewe-knighted staytes of uhmerrykah to get the Google Street View treatment. Basically Google drove up and down most of the streets in Australia and took photos as they went - these have been married to their excellent Google maps with the result that you can actually see what a place looks like whilst navigating your way around a street map. Blog entry continues at http://www.thatstheplan.com/. The geek shall inherit the earth ...So the other day I walked into the kitchen holding a knackered motherboard from a dead PC that I was about to put in the bin. Josh asks me if he can have a look at it and I tell him I can do one better than that - he can have it. He’s absolutely stoked by this and has me explain to him all the different bits and pieces on the board. I show him the CPU, the northbridge and southbridge chips, the RAM slots, the IDE sockets. I explain that PCBs are a bit like cities with a road network, but instead of people moving around, little bits of information do. He seems rather taken with this explaination.Blog entry continues here. Update: Link working again. Perfect example of why I took my blog off-site. Lord of the flies …It was as I watched young Billy launch himself across the garden, fist extended towards Charlie B’s face, that I realised that Josh’s mates had perhaps grown up a bit since last year’s party. And as the fist connected with Charlie’s face and he fell over, I also realised that inviting 15 of his mates over for his party was, perhaps, a bit overambitious. Yes, Josh’s birthday party has been and gone and I can categorically state that we’re not letting him throw another one in our house until he’s, ooooh, 35, at the very least.Blog entry continues here. Bruised plums …As you may recall - I recently started going to the gym again. It’s going well too - I have managed to stick to my three sessions of spin cycling a week, without copping out. However I have a question for any blokes that might be reading this, that regularly ride a bike. How the fuck do you stop your bollocks getting banged around like a couple of plums in a blender? Is there some equipment, like a cricketer’s box, that I can stick down my shorts to protect my family jewels? Because at the moment, when it’s time to do a downhill sprint, my balls are getting flipped from left to right like the numbers in a bingo-callers drum.Blog entry continues here. In the face. With a hoover.It’s the weekend and Catherine is ‘on’ one. She’s decrying the state of the house, the mess, the dirty carpets and the dust and as always I’m the punching bag that stands between her and nuclear fission. Admittedly the house is in a bit of a state, but it’s hardly in ‘How clean is my house’ territory. I don’t feel that we’re in danger of Aggy and the other one marching up the garden path in their starched white overalls, bog brush in hand, ready to check the downstairs bog for u-bend skids. But when my lovely wife is one of these particular moods, you’d have more luck arguing the toss with a strung-out crystal-meth hungry crack head.Blog entry continues here. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy ...So I’m sat there - minding my own business, checking my email, when this loud howl comes from downstairs, “Oh my god!” It says. Repeatedly. I run downstairs expecting to find the aftermath of a murder. Or at least a serious assault. Instead there’s my wife, staring at the shelves of our walk in ‘robe. “What’s up?” I cry, breathless from sprinting down the stairs to the aid of my obviously distressed wife. “Would. You. Look. At. The. State …. of these t-shirts.” “What?” I say. “What have you done? It looks like a wild animal ran amok in here.”Blog continues here. Warming up ...The weather’s definitely on the turn. We’ve had a couple of chilly nights this winter and one day a few weeks ago when the daytime temperature didn’t get above 10c but on the whole it hasn’t been too bad. The bureau of meteorology predicted that this would be a warmer winter than usual and either I’m used to it - or they’re right. Last year I can remember having the reverse cycle or the little portable oil fired heaters on most nights. This year I’d say we’ve only had to resort to their use every other day. Today it’s a very pleasant 18c here, the sun’s shining and the sky is blue. If you’re a bit of a weather obsessive, like most of us Brits - then here are some good websites to check out. The best weather site of them all, as far as I’m concerned, is Weatherzone. You can enter your post on the site and it’ll give you good local weather information. It’s particularly useful for researching particular parts of Australia since you can see full climate information for specific areas. If you want to plan ahead, then the long range rainfall forecast is very useful - this is the forecast for my area. Blog continues here. Sporting gods …So, the Olympics is in full swing and … I honestly couldn’t give a shit. In fact I couldn’t give much of a shit about any kind of sport these days - AFL, NFL or ARU, the socceroos, the hockeyroos or the scoobyroos - it’s all tedious bollocks that interests me about as much as variations in the base rate of pre-adjusted inflation. The Olympics, it seems to me, is nothing more than a parade of idiots that celebrates a series of utterly meaningless records. One man can run faster than another man - well fuck me backwards - well done mate.Blog continues here. Sports day ...Annual sports day at Josh’s school has come and gone. They hold the event at the large showground in the centre of Berry, which is a great venue because we parents can drive our cars up to the fence around the perimeter and watch proceedings from there if the weather’s shit. And since sports day takes pretty much all day most parents take a packed lunch which is eaten on the tailgate with the kids. It’s all very civilised. They even lay on a mobile coffee van to serve up decent lattes for the mums and dads.Blog continues here. { Last Page } { Page 3 of 4 } { Next Page } |
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