Another day in paradise

A couple of kookaburras have taken to telling jokes to each other outside our house. 

At 4.3oam.

Every morning.

Believe me, their jokes must bloody hilarious as they keep killing themselves for about an hour then piss off somewhere.

If they weren’t so cute, and a protected speices that carries a $20 grand fine if you hurt one, I’d be out with my gutty!

To get a glimpse of what it’s like, wait till you’re really, really tired, turn up the volume really, really loud, and click on the link. Ideally have 3 or 4 computers synchronised for optimum effect.

And keep playing for an hour!

We live on a playing oval. (The Glade, Wahroonga, NSW -Have a look in Google Earth!)

Its a beautiful, peaceful little glade where everyone comes with their dogs and family to play when the sport is not on.

Everyone is really friendly and dog owners congregate to walk around and throw balls and sticks for their dogs while discussing the stock market, house prices and the schools which is their want on the Upper North Shore.

Now it’s illegal to have your dog of a leash and but for some reason the councils have turned a blind eye to The Glade oval for years because the residents are extremely responsible and the dogs friendly.

Unfortunately that all changed last week and I was spotted by a uniformed ranger with Haggis running free.

Now over here they come up to you and point a scanner at your dog and zap the chip in their neck, a compulsory for all dogs in NSW, and the next thing you get a fine in the post for $250!

This man was on a mission - chasing us from 400 metres from the other side of the oval -  the race was on!

So there we were, A 60 year old bloke looking like Blakey from On The Buses chasing a Scotsman who was not going to give $250 bucks to anyone, dragging a 34 kilo black labrador who’s just about passing out from running in 35 degree heat charging off into the distance.

Through bushes, cul-de-sacs, round the streets we ran until I eventually lost him by hiding in a neighbours garden.

But word is on the street that he’s going to get us - (He’s told the other dog owners in the park - who had their dogs on a leash he’s out to get the guy with the dog called Haggis)

And everyday he’s there watching and waiting.

Thankfully none of the other dog owners has grassed me up, Haggis doesn’t answer to his name anyway even if he asked and I’m sending Mollie to the park on walkies.

I haven’t run from the parky in 30 years but at least if he caught you he just kicked yur arse instead of hitting you for $250 bucks!

Our daughter Mollie, who has built a reputation at her school as being somewhat creative, challenging and lacking in focus, announced her career intentions at the weekend.

Given that she’s never shown an interest in anything from a career perspective and her lifetime ambition was to fill a Combi with dogs from the rescue centre and drive around Australia I was beginning to struggle with the rationale for spending a fortune on her schooling!

But at the weekend she came good. Infact bloody good!

She wants to be a winemaker!

Oh happy days.

She’s thought about it - it would allow her to travel the world, work in the countryside, work with food and wine industry, have lots of animals and apparently the university course is really easy to get into. (Not to say that we live 2 hours from the Hunter Valley which is a bonus.)

So not one to miss and opportunity - I’ve organised to visit Jane Wilson, a Scottish winemaker from Lowes Family Wines in the Mudgee Valley - http://lowewines.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=78 , a working holiday with friends who have a guest house and heaps of contacts in the Barossa wine region and today she’s stated that she planning a gap year in France to stay with her Auntie and work in the Bordeaux region! (I’m not bloody paying for that bit!)

Now thats not to say she’ll change her mind in 3 months - but it’s the first time ever our Molls has made any comment on a career path and more importantly if she doesn’t change her mind,  I could get a chance of recouping some of my investment in her education in liquid!

Oh happy days…

The first ever concert I went to see was in 1978 - The Police.

I was 16.

There were just 3 Blokes on a stage belting out the most fantastic sound at the Edinburgh Odeon in front of about 400 other people who had all heard Roxanne on Radio Luxembourg through their ear pieces while they hid under the covers hoping not to be found out that we were still awake.

The atmosphere then was electric, the sound amazing and the music out of this world - I remember leaving absolutley drained as I thrashed around in the mosh pit in my drainpies and zips for 2 hours.

Fast forward 30 years.

The Police reunion tour arrived in Sydney and I made sure I was bloody well there!

Obviously on a corporate ticket but hey…

So there we were, 20 feet from the front, drinking cold beer and sauvignon blanc, with Nicole Kidman, etc on our chairs while 50,ooo people poured into the arena.

And then the same 3 blokes came out belting out Message in a Bottle and I was instantly 16 again.

And they didn’t look any older either!

The place went mad, the music was painfully loud and three blokes, with no backing singers, synthisisers or fancy trickery played for 2 hours with outstanding passion.

It was just magical, open air, up close and personal, great memories and drink.

What more could you ask for?

Well actually, my missus has asked that I make sure I look as good as Sting when I’m 56!

If only I had the money, the chef, the trainer, the tantric sex…..

Well its yet another holiday and another opportunity to eat drink and get sunburn as we all enjoy another long weekend - I only went back to work last week!

I bloody love this country, nothing but bloody holidays, bloody hard work and even more hilarious bloody people - but I should really watch my language as this is a family show….

Remember when you were young and you built a gang hut where you could hang out plotting your next big adventure and escaping your parents?

My twins at seven discovered our cellar that you enter through the garden behind some bushes yesterday.

They spent all day yesterday running in and out of the house hunting and gathering things to make their gang hut special.

(I was glad of the peace and quiet quite frankly as Tee is in Brisbane and I’m baysitting for the weekend)

They woke me up at 8.00am wanting to go outside and play in the rain and their gang hut, so off they went - 3 hours later I still hadn’t seen them so breaking the cardinal rule of parenting I went to the gang hut.

Upon opening the door only after I gave the password which they kindly gave me in case of emergencies I stumbled into the alladins cave of gang huts!

It had carpet, wall hangings that made separate rooms, sleeping bags, a table and chairs, a lamp, and get this - a telly - A 14″ video port on which they were watching Shrek!

A couple of things occured to me - how did they get this all past me, why were they sitting in sleeping bags in a damp cellar and why were they watching a small telly when they have a 42″ plasma in their den upstairs?

Who knows, but I was happy for the peace on a rainy Staurday, they weren’t playing computer games and they had spent 2 days using their imagination building a rather comfortable wee nest for the pair of themselves instead of pulling lumps out of each other.

A bit more sophisticated than my efforts at seven years old I can tell you!

Joshua returned to Brisbane today to start his Year 11, or 5th year in old country terms.

This is the beginning of his final two years where all his school results are added up and go towards his final marks which determine his choice of university and and course.

He wants to go to Queensland University, so in effect he’s left home.

He’s made a couple of friends in Sydney that he goes surfing with when he comes down but his heart is in BrisVegas.

It only seems like yesterday he was keeping us awake at nights now he’s talking about being a psychiatrist -should come in handy in our family, but where does the time go…

However his mum decided to go up with him to settle him in for the final straight leaving me looking after Mollie and the twins.

So it’s a curry and beer night then…..

Apart from being the last day off before I return to the office on Monday, today was a spectacular end to my holidays.

Its been raining for about a week in Sydney and I decided to go to the dump with garden refuse, so I loaded the wee Subaru with 8 bags of leaves and branches and headed off on the 14 kilometre jaunt to the dump.

Naturally with the additional weight, the bizarre driving angle caused by branches sticking in my ear, the stormy conditions, and the greasy roads caused by a drought breaking drench, you would expect to have a stacked the odds against a safe journey.

I should have bought a lottery ticket.

With the challenging conditions all it would have taken is was someone to have braked suddenly to cause an accident.

And he did. And I did. Straight into the back of an Astra, who subsequently shunted into the back of a Vectra.

Thankfully no-one was hurt and we all pulled over to inspect the damage.

My cars front end was totalled with the bonnet all warped like a snarling monster and the Astra in front with no rear bumper. The young guy was absolutely fine considering he took the force of my impact however, the Vectra, while escaping relatively unscathed, had a driver who was obviously auditoning for the part of a car accident victim and didn’t get out of his car for 10 minutes as he rubbed his neck and winced in pain. (Naturally milking the potential whiplash claim and planning on spending the money on a holiday)

He was Scottish - but strangely found the pain disappeared when I suggested he was wasting his time angling for an insurance iunjury. In polite scottish terms of course.

So after swapping details and me spewing radiator fluid and steam coming out like a circus car I pulled over to get a calming coffee in the village.

Only to come out 10 minutes later to find a policeman booking me for parking in a clearway and handing me a fine for $180 dollars.

Thank God it’s Friday. Aye right.
 

Went to fill up Haggis’s water bowl this morning and found a “dead” spider and went to pick it out. It was rather big so I hesitated and went and got a cup to scoop it out.

Just as well, becasue the wee bastard was very much alive and just waiting for a mug like me to pick it out! These things survive by creating a bubble of air to breathe as it would appear they tend to fall into water alot.

This was 2 feet from my back door - god help us if the kids had seen it first!

Anyway, quick family meeting around the computer and we’re all wearing wellys and full protection body suits around the hoose!

Australasian funnel-web spiders are very venomous spiders of the family Hexathelidae. These spiders are found in two genera of the family: Hadronyche (which is not associated with any known human fatalities) and Atrax (which probably have killed 13 people). They are notorious for the inclusion of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus), native to eastern Australia. 

Males, recognised by the modified terminal segment of the palp, are aggressive and tend to wander during the warmer months of the year looking for receptive females of their kind for mating.^[2] They are attracted to water and hence are often found in swimming pools where they have fallen while wandering. They also show up in garages and yards in suburban Sydney.

While some very venomous spiders may give dry bites, these spiders do so much less frequently. It appears that approximately 10% to 25% of bites will produce toxicity^[1] but the likelihood cannot be predicted and all should be treated as potentially life-threatening.

There have been 26 recorded deaths in Australia in the last 100 years from spider bites.” Wikipedia