So what’s happened since the last time we met. Some fun things actually, well at least we found them fun, you’ll only be bored again. 🙂

I took Bethy to her course choice evening at Melba Copland College, which was a bit of f a farce. Beth had already decided on and agreed her choices at the interview. Still, there  we were  run through the course choices  by a very “Jolly Hockey Sticks” PE and sports teacher, whose main interest seemed to be getting Bethy signed up for their basketball squad. The course choices were a formality, and Bethy is going ahead with her original planned; World Literature, Japanese, Biology, Psychology, Chemistry, and Mathematics. I got to meet the principal, who was again very keen that Bethy got what she wanted. I  was quite impressed by the whole enthusiasm, if not the organisation, of the place.

But the BIG event for us  was Pete Gillings, who some of you may know, and Catherine, who most of you will not, visiting us.

Pete had emailed me some time back informing us of his intended trip, and his further intention of making it even more memorable by getting wed in Canberra while he was here.  Married? What, again? Yep, the man never learns. Worse than that though, he wanted me to do the “Best man” role again. (When am I not the “best man” in any given situation? Blowed if I know.)

Silly bugger, I couldn’t talk him out of it. Even though I had already been his best man once, and he knew damn well what a disaster I made of that one, he was insistent. (It is traditional  for the best man to screw the bridesmaids, isn’t? It’s not my fault that no one had told them that.)

Anyway, he insisted it was all going to be fine, and that even I couldn’t cock it up twice on the trot. Oh no?

Of course, in the months leading up to the event, this entailed a great deal of running around like a blue arsed fly, tearing my hair out, and generally varying between extreme alcohol poisoning and nervous breakdown. Par for the course then.

Not only that, but in the weeks leading up to their arrival we had to do some serious refurbishments to get our place fit for visitors. Just too add to the fun and games we kept getting e-mails off Pete, in fact increasingly frantic e-mails off Pete with “requests”.

With two months left to run, I did tell Pete, “You do realise it’s going to be the middle of winter when you are here?” Pete, being somewhat easy going stated; “Oh that’s fine, neither of us like it too hot.” Hang about? Too hot? Which part of “winter” did you not understand there Pete?  (To be fair it took me three years of living here to get used to the idea that Canberra winters are EXTREMELY cold.)

But I get ahead of myself here.

Lee-Anne of course wanted the whole house boiled, bleached, redecorated and moved two inches to the left before they arrived. I did my best. Catherine has a deep hatred of spiders so we had to scout all them out for a start. We contracted in a gardening team to look after the garden for us. We’d let it go bush, and it was like a fucking jungle out there, I’m sure we had our own mob of Roos lurking  in there somewhere. The team we hired was from the local schizophrenia fellowship. I’d referred clients to them in the past, and they do do a fine job of training mentally ill folk in gardening and horticulture, and I’d prefer to give them the cash for the job rather than professionals.

But more importantly than that, they are dead cheap, so, no worries.

They arrived, I peeked out the curtains to make sure none of the clients knew me, before meeting up with them. I didn’t want any of my ex-clients, who may hold a grudge, knowing where I lived. They did a fine job, and even left me a free leaf blower as a present. (Ok, they came back and collected it the next day, before I could get to the pawn shop.)

We had a few big plant troughs and pots out the front of the house, full of fag ends and weeds. Lee-Anne took great care in, and spent a fuckload of cash on, getting new flowers and herbs and pretty stuff in them, so the front of the house looked a treat. Unfortunately however, when we got up the next morning the front of the house looked like downtown Baghdad, as the cockies had taken exception to our planting, and had torn the bloody lot up. We re-did them , again at great expense, but this time put bird scarers in.

Lee-Anne had booked Catherine and Bethy into the hair dressers for the big day, full hair and make up job. The hairdressers rung us up; “What does the bride look like, how long is her hair, what coloration is she, how does she normally do her make up, what colour is the weeding dress?”

Fucked if we knew, never seen or met the girl before. So we got a photo sent over and all was well.

We decided, after the house was all tarted up, that we should have a wine rack for our wine, so we look suffuistikated, not like alcoholic  slobs. I really don’t know what made us think of this, as wine bottles in our house have the life expectancy of a cod in a volcano. Anyway, Lee-Anne found the ideal thing at the local trash and treasure sale, and so the week before they arrived I bought a shed load of wine, just to fill it up. And then another load to refill it the day before they arrived.

Remember some time back I was telling you about the cock-up at the vineyard? We still had two bottles left from that event, believe it or not. They are now five years old and should be coming into peak condition within the next year or so. They’ve got pride of place in the rack, though the fact that they are now out, and not hidden away at the back of the wardrobe, may shorten their longevity somewhat.

The culmination of the panic happened three days, just three fucking days, before their departure from the UK. (They were also taking in Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Bangkok on this trip) It arrived in the form a of a short, succinct, and utterly terrifying e-mail from Pete, which I reproduce in it’s entirety below;

Hi Al,

We are in the shit here i didn’t know we needed visa’s so applied yesterday mine has been granted but catherine’s is being processed and this can take up to ten day’s if it doesn’t go through they won’t let her on the plane.

Pete

Fortunately, it was resolved with a day to spare. I went through many changes of underwear in those two days.

So the big day arrived, and I set off early to the airport to meet them. They arrived promptly, well actually an hour late, due to their plane having been delayed because of ice on the wings. Great to catch up with Pete, lovely to meet Catherine at last. On the drive into the city I took great delight in pointing out the snow on the hills to Pete. “Don’t worry, it won’t get too hot!”

We got back, got them settled in, showed them where to find things, then whisked them and the mutts up to the nearby nature reserve to get some snaps of Roos. Fortunately we found some.

That evening we went to watch Bethy play basketball. Pete and Catherine’s first, and possibly last, time of attending a basketball match. To be fair it was a good’n, with the game ending in a draw in the final minute. Back home a lot of wine was quaffed  in celebration. Well, more just because we had it really.

Over the weekend we took them to all the Canberra “must do’s.” Parliament, Mt Ainslie, Stromlo Observatory, The National Gallery, The National Museum, the Botanic gardens (I got us lost in there, we saw far more of it than we wanted to,) Tidbinbilla for the obligatory BBQ and the Tidbinbilla deep space station, mainly cos they do a good coffee there, but also for a look at the bit of moonrock they have on display, (it’s not that interesting I’ll admit.)  It was great to have Pete there, as he’s as addicted to taking photos as I am, so I couldn’t be bollocked by my two for stopping every five steps to take another shot.

One night Pete and Catherine treated us to a meal out at a local pub which was an experience for us all. It was raucous, and full of young people in full rut mode, had a dreadful C&W player wailing in the background, But the food was good, and the company excellent. and it was a hoot.

Funny isn’t it, it used to be the case that the pub was my second, some would say first, home when I lived in the UK. This was the first time I’d been in a pub in Aus since Howard and Janet were over in March 2008!

Then the big day arrived. The girls went off to the hairdressers, and I took Pete off for a walk  in the rain with the dogs. Or rather I walked the dogs in the rain, Pete waited in the car.We all met up back at home. The girls looked stunning! Bethy’s hair-do made her look like a Jane Austen heroine. Catherine looked every inch the glowing bride.

We had  originally hoped and planned for an outdoor wedding, with the ceremony being held at the National Carillion gardens. Unfortunately it was still pissing down. We had therefore, fortunately, in fact only previously that morning decided not to risk the weather, and to have the ceremony at the hotel which Pete had booked for the nuptials, “The  Marque”. We met the Celebrant, Jenny, there and the deed was done. The service was quite touching, Bethy did one of the readings, which was sweet. Pete and Catherine gave her a silver locket as a “thank you” for that. Bethy was ever so pleased, she immediately put two pictures of the loves of her life in it. Me and Lee-Anne? No. Her dad and her dog? No. The two geezers from “The Mighty Boosh”. Hrrmph!

I took a load of photos, none of which were as good as I would have wanted. This is due to my not really being a portrait photographer, I’m more a landscape man. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

After the ceremony we shot off to “The Hyatt”, Canberra’s oldest and poshest hotel, for afternoon tea. I always have a grave fear when going to this sort of place that the maitre d’ will take one look at me and say: “You’re a tatty scrote from Bryn road,  we don’t allow your sort in here, bugger off!” But they didn’t, and to be fair the afternoon tea there was superb, (so good that we’re thinking of making it are regular, if occasional, treat for ourselves.)

They even gave us a complementary glass of champers seeing as we were a wedding party. Neato! We took the advantage of the sun coming out to get a few more wedding snaps there.

We dropped Pete and Catherine back at the Marque hotel so they could freshen up. I’d done a great deal of dealings with the Hope, the sales manager for the place. To be fair she’d done us proud. We took their things up to the room, and found that it had been done out with candles everywhere and complimentary champers in an ice bucket.

That evening we’d booked a table at one of Canberra’s best restaurants. We picked P&C up in a taxi I and took them to the Telstra Tower. To be fair to them they didn’t seem that boggled by the idea of eating in a telecommunications tower. We took the lift up. We’d been told that since we were last there (Lee-Anne’s 40 th) they had done the place up, and got a hotshot new French chef in, and so it proved.

But still, the best thing about the “Alto Restaurant” as it is now known, is that the bloody thing slowly revolves, with 360 degree panoramic views over Canberra at your feet.  Not only that but they’ve opened windows into the kitchen, so you can watch the chef’s at work, as your table glides past. They were washing up when we went past. Fucking fascinating.

The grub was great, the wine excellent, the service was friendly without being obsequious, and they threw in free champers too. (I could have got arseholed on free champers if I’d played my cards right.) As the meal and the afternoon tea were all part of our wedding present to P&C, we were well pleased, it was everything we hoped it would be. P&C looked suitably impressed.

Seeing as P&C insisted on paying for the booze, I had a single malt to wrap up my meal, (only as a digestif, honest.) This was served in the most curious of glasses, like a brandy bowl, but without a stem. But the whoosh I got up my nose off the 18 yr old Ardberg from that glass was out off this world. I must buy one.

We separated in two taxis.

The rest of the week we did more Canberra things, but all too soon it was time for them to be off. And so, after watching a fly past at the War Memorial,  I dropped them at the airport where they were flying on to Bangkok. Lucky buggers, but a shame to see them go.

So what else then? Oh yes, I did my democratic duty as a proud Aussie and voted the other day. Not so much a duty as a threat; “We’ll fine you if you don’t turn up to vote.” Yep, though voting is not compulsory here,  turning up at the voting booth and having your name crossed of the register is. But who is going to turn up, wait hours in the bloody long queues, and then just not bother? Well lots of people actually.

It’s called “informal voting” for some strange reason, people turn up, queue, and when they get their voting card take it to a booth, either do not mark it at all, or draw a big cock on it, or write something rude about politicians on it, and drop it in the ballot box.

Aussies eh?

Also here they have “preferential voting”. So instead of holding your nose and putting a tick against the least obnoxious pillock on the paper, you get to rank the candidates from one to nine, one being the highest, nine being the lowest. I had a lot of fun with that.

There is a big carnival atmosphere at the voting places. As most of them are at schools, and they take the opportunity to fund raise off a captive audience. There were sausages being bbq’d and cakes, stalls with kids work on, charities touting their wares, and all sorts of stuff on sale there. Another thing I found odd is that there is no exclusion zone around the entrance, so the parties all have their touts handing out leaflets virtually until you have the pencil in your hand. I damn near had to karate chop some old biddy from the greens who was hounding me like I was a lost fox.

Who did I vote for in my first chance to play a part in the country’s elections as a new Aussie? I can’t remember to be honest.

On the day Lee-Anne said to me; “It’ll all be over by 7.30 tonight we’ll watch the results coming in on TV”. That was over a fortnight ago, we still don’t know who’s bloody won.

Oh, me and Bethy went to see this exhibition at the NGA the other day.

Life, death and magic: 2000 years of Southeast Asian ancestral art introduces the lively, often frightening, sometimes fantastic supernatural world of ancestors and nature spirits. The serene stone monuments, large gold ornaments, architectural decorations, huge ancient bronzes and images of mythical beasts, created to entice the divine and repel the demonic, date from prehistoric to modern times.

Very interesting, but it seemed to be full of  statues and pictures of men with “erect penises’” as a celebration of life and death. I didn’t know where to look.

We’ve had some bloody wet weather of late, been the wettest winter I can remember here. On at least seven occasions I haven’t been able to use the bike to get into work. Seven days! The dams are now up to 70% capacity, a far cry from their normal 40%.