Hi-di-ho.

I’ve had a cold, a real bloody stinker. Four days off work, (which is the only sick time I’ve had off since my bike crash in 2012,) and a fortnight later I’m still all bunged up. Don’t feel too sorry for me yet though, as Lee-Anne’s had a real health issue. Potentially it’s so going to be quite unpleasant. I’ve put it below, in the final section, so those who only read this to laugh at me, can avoid it.

I’ll cover the more pleasant bits first, then it’s up to you if you read on.

Frigging typical.

I’d booked four days off to take a trip to the coast. Lee-Anne was already on a month off, having been made to use up some of the flex time she’s built up. Yup, her bosses had demanded that she take a month’s leave, as she had nearly two months flex time built up, and they were looking at going bankrupt if she asked for it to be paid out in cash.

When I first moved to Aus, one of the things I really wanted to do was go whale watching.

My first whale watching trip, back in 2005, was a washout, didn’t see a whale all day, though we did visit penguin breeding grounds on it. My second whale watching attempt, which was in the same year as my first, sold me on it so much that I vowed to come back each year I lived here.

This was to be the third trip. So much for my dedication.

We stayed in Pambula, one of our favourite little seaside villages. We hired a “park home” for two, (the kids were staying home,) and treated our 2 boys to a holiday. BUT, as can only happen to me, this was the weather forecast for the day’s watching tour….

South Coast area; Cloudy. Medium (50%) chance of showers, most likely in the afternoon and early evening. The chance of a thunderstorm in the north in the afternoon and evening. Winds northerly 15 to 25 km/h tending southeast to southwesterly in the morning then increasing to 25 to 40 km/h in the early afternoon. Overnight temperatures falling to between 9 and 13 with daytime temperatures reaching between 19 and 26.

This turned out to be accurate, this was taken on that very day;

Luckily, when I rang them up two days in advance to check out the propects, they let me change the day.

So we had a few days of walking on the beach, this did my cold no end of good. Did me fuck all good, but did my cold the world of good. We also read a few books, (I finished off three Ian Rankin novels,) watched DVDs, and generally chilled out.

One day down at the beach we came across a couple of boys fishing. “Any luck?”, I asked expecting the answer; “Fuck off.”  But these guys were either good or lucky; they opened their esky to show three decent Aussie salmon, and a gorgeous looking flathead. “There’s enough protein there for the four of us for a fortnight ,” said Lee-Anne.

I did for a moment contemplate getting back into fishing. But then I remembered;

a) I was alway hopeless at it.
b)  I could catch a cold, but that was about the limit to my prowess.
c)  I now live 3 ½ hours drive from the sea.

So that’s a non-starter then.

The car developed an interesting fault while we were down there. One of the great things about a Subaru is that if you turn the ignition off, the lights go out. A simple idea, but one which has saved me countless flat batteries. Except now they didn’t. For some strange reason the rear lights stayed on, even with the light switch off, and the keys out. This necessitated me pulling the battery leads off each time we stopped anywhere for any length of time.

The whale watching trip went off without too many problems, though the whales were not as friendly as the last trip, staying a little way off the boat. I did however see a humpback breach twice, which was awe inspiring. If you’ve ever seen a 15 meter long – 30 metric ton fish jump up and splash back, you’ll know how big a bloody splash that is. It’s also one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, my snaps don’t really catch it.

Oh, no one knows why they do this leaping. Just because they can I suppose.

Funnily enough, I think the best shots from the whale watching trip are not of the whales.

The evening of our last day, we went out for a meal. We decided to eat at the quay where the whaling boats went out from. There were three cafes’ there, two were packed, one was empty. The waitress looking out from the empty one looked a bit sad, so we decided to eat there. Bad call. The food was not bad, just weird. Lee-Anne had a “fisherman’s basket”, which wasn’t, and I had a “fisherman’s pie”, which was scorching hot and undercooked at the same time. They served beer straight from cans. Not exactly fine dining then.

The sods aren’t even in Tripadvisor, so I cannot give them the slagging  off they richly deserve.

On our last  dog walk, before leaving for home,  I took my annual paddle. Thank fuck that’s over with, I get scared you know.

Is it any wonder I get scared when there are Blue Bottles around, can you blame me? I damn near trod on this one!

The blue bottle feeds on small fish and other small ocean creatures. They envelope their prey with their tentacles, where a poison is released thus paralysing its prey before being consumed. The tentacles adhere extremely well to their prey. If a tentacle is put under the microscope you will see that it looks like a long string of barbed hooks, which explains the ability of the tentacle to attach.If a tentacle attaches itself to a human, it releases a poison (through the use of nematocysts), and if you continue to rub the skin after the tentacle has been removed more poison or venom will be released.

To my delight, I got this snap of the boys chasing a stick. It must be the best action shot I’ve ever taken. If you go to the full size image in the gallery, have a look at  the water droplets in the centre.

When we got back, Ginger was ill for two days, having drunk a gallon of sea water. He’s not the smartest of dogs. Bethy practiced her medical skills on him, squirting tap water down his throat from a syringe.  This seemed to work. This was fortunate as it avoided a trip to the vets, ($$$.) We really have gone all mush over “the chaps” as we call them.

 

I was kicking myself the other night, we were due a “blood moon,” and the best time to see it was when I would be leaving  from work to come home. On the night in question, I screamed home from work,  debated putting all my gear in the car and rushing off to the local nature reserve, to try to set up and get shots. Then I noticed the moon slowly creep above the horizon, opposite our house, straight over Pat’s house. I realised I had a great view of it from my porch. After whacking my tripod up, this is the result. (Again the full size image in the gallery may be worth a look.)

Not bad eh?

The very next day was a day off. I was walking the dogs in the “Cork Oak Forest” a regular dog walk venue. Just ambling along, I looked down just in time to stop myself treading on a brand new Nokia mobile phone. “Goody, I really fancy one of those,”  thought I. God it was a nice bit of kit, all the bells and whistles and apps, it made my iphone look like an analogue job.

But I had to play the honest Joe, didn’t I?

Fortunately it hadn’t been locked. I opened up the contacts, and rang the most frequently dialed number; “Do you know someone whose lost a phone”? “Oooh, yes, my mate Julie, she’s only had the bloody thing a week, and she’s lost it, she’ll be ever so grateful!” Well that sounded promising, (“just how grateful will she be?” I wondered.) I gave the girl my contact details and she agreed to pass them on.

That night I got a frantic phone call from Julie, who it turns out lives in the street behind ours. She’d been doing some off-road cycling and it had somehow fallen out of her bum bag. I walked the dogs around to her address, and she kindly gave me a jar of her own, (well her bees actually,) honey as a “thanks’.

Which was nice.

 

On the subject of phones, I got a text the other day; “I’m using mum’s phone as I dropped mine down the toilet!” Ouch! Hard lines Bethy. “Not only that but the toilet had other people’s wee in it!” A slightly green looking Bethy returned home soon after. We looked up on the net, and found that taking it apart as much as possible, and sitting it in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight was the best option. It worked, though for  the rest of the week we didn’t eat any rice dishes, just in case.

 

While I’m on the subject of the Cork Forest, which, as I say, is one of my more frequent Mutt walk. It’s also a great place for possum spotting, though Digby and Ginger are a little too fond of possums, and not in a nice way. So here’s two possums.

I usually walk the dogs in the morning there, but one day, which was rather hot, I decided to have an evening walk with them there, as it would be nicely shaded. I took a couple of snaps there. One of them turned out a bit tasty, so I stuck it up on Twitter. I’ve been doing this a fair bit, as Twitter is good at getting your photos out to a wider audience, and some of mine have been “retweeted” all over the place, which is rather flattering for a photographer.

So I stuck this one up.

I got a tweet in reply, asking me to contact Lynne at the National Arboretum, and giving me an email address. I replied, so did Lynne; “We were wondering if we could use your image on our promotional material for the National Arboretum?” Hmmm, let me think about that… The National Arboretum of Australia, wants to use my image, to have it  displayed and used on brochures and posters etc? Anyone care to guess what my reaction and reply was? Cor, I were dead chuffed.

The next week, Lynne wrote back to say she’d also entered the image in a national photographic contest. I could get to like this woman. (Though I must say that I’ve not heard from her since, and am wondering if it was all a big piss take.)

 

Can you believe some people? Someone, we think it was our next door neighbour, “Mr Boring,”  reported Bethy’s car “Arthur” for having a smoky exhaust. This necessitated a safety check at the local testing station, thankfully free, and subsequent repairs. We’re waiting to see how much the repairs will cost, otherwise, it’s “Goodbye Arthur.” Well not quite, Ross, Brandon’s step-dad is a bit of a petrol-head, and wants it as a project car if we’re thinking of scrapping it.

Bethy and Brandon went to a fancy dress night recently, they went as two characters from “Fight Club”. Not having seen the movie I don’t know how accurate they are, but someone did spot that Bethy was supposed to be a Helena Bonham Carter lookalike, which is very flattering. (But as I’ve always had a thing for Ms HBC, is also rather unnerving.)

Mind you, could be worse, my mate Jim in the US said (jokingly one would hope,)  they looked like Mr. Humphries and a young Mrs. Slocum….

 

So, what did Lee-Anne do with the rest of the month she had off? She cleaned the house. I kid you not, this was entirely her own choice. To be fair the house was looking tired and old, and we do have guests, (Tom and Danny,) arriving in December. But Lee-Anne wanted to go back to work having achieved more than having had a holiday, and just sitting on her arse for the rest of the time. So a day’s cleaning was given to each room, including, believe it or not, washing down the walls and floors. Rubbish, old towels and clothes, ornaments etc were bagged up for taking to the dump. It was an adventure to come home from work, (or to emerge from my “man flu” stupor on the sofa,) to find another room had been transformed into “as new.”

But soon she ran out of rooms to refurbish, so, what now? “I’m going to give the garden a good going over.” Oh hell!

The gardens had been mainly my preserve, which means they only get a mowing when we lose a dog in them,  around every most June time  the roses and fruit trees got hacked to bits pruned, and I occasionally spray the drive with some lethal chemical killing everything in sight. So as you can imagine they were not exactly in a condition to  be entered at Chelsea Flower Show.

But off went Lee-Anne, and soon a very presentable garden emerged. Now having caught the bug though, there was no stopping her. “I want a compost bin, and new hedging plants for the front garden.”  I agreed to accompany her to Bunnings,  even though I was by now at death’s door from what was undoubtedly Ebola. Bunnings is our local hardware store, so I was keeping a tight hold on my wallet. We got to the garden centre part, and Lee-Anne bought several hundredweight of wood bark to use as mulch, and a few plants, (mainly lavender and geraniums.) Fitting all these in the car, and damn near breaking it in half, we drove home. In went the plants and mulch, back we went to Bunnings. A couple more hundredweight of mulch was bought. Then we looked for a compost bin. We found the right section, the compost bin we fancied looked like this;

Now what does that look like to you? Oh yes!!

As soon as Lee-Anne’s back was turned, I got inside it, and started doing the “Exterminate! Exterminate!! EXTERMINATE!!!“ routine. Lee-Anne was not best pleased to say the least. Loads of bored kids who were there though thought it was excellent. I imaging Bunnings is going to suffer a plague of Daleks for the next month or so.

 

Last episode I was telling you in great detail about my bum adventure, some of you were very kind about it all, and I’m surprised how many of you have undergone the same investigation, thanks for sharing. I am not alone. The story continues.

I went to see my GP the other day, to get a sick note for my double pleurisy and pneumonia. Well I didn’t see my GP as Dr Anu, who I introduced you to last time, has moved on. She’d been at the surgery for 3 years and I’d seen her once. The last GP I had there, Dr Val, had been there two years and I’d seen him once too. (Dr Anu and Dr Val are anglicised names, what with them both being Sri Lankan their proper names would fill a page of this blog.) Luckily I got to see Dr Goonerage an old stalwart of the surgery, (I’m sticking with him from now on.)

He examined me and said I had a bad cold, and I should have a week off work.  I told him I had leprosy, malaria and elephantitis of the penis, and a month to live, and could I have it all off. He declined. “Oh, your biopsy results are in, luckily none of the six polyps they excised, or any of the tissue samples you had taken, show any signs of cancer. You’ll need another colonoscopy in five years time”

Which was a relief.

He gave me a sick ticket and a script for Cialis, and sent me home. He also gave me a bill for $70.00

I got home to tell Lee-Anne the good news, only to find two envelopes waiting for me. One was the bill for my biopsy, for $335.00. The other was the consultant’s bill for services to my arse, for $775.00.

I don’t know if you remember, but I had already paid a $1000.00 up front for the hospital services. So, having a camera rammed up my arse ended up costing the best part of $2000.00. If I need another one in five years time, I’m moving back to the UK to have it done on the NHS.

 

My ticket buying rampage continues unabated, recently I got tickets for Billy Connolly and  Edie Izzard two top boys in my “stand up league”.

It’s going to be interesting seeing Billy again, (this will be my fourth BC gig, ) as he’s been through the wringer a bit of late, what with him being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease last year and receiving treatment for prostate cancer. Morbid though it may be to say,  it may be the last chance I have to see him live. Funnily enough I’ve not seen Eddie I before, not live anyway, but both the girls are big fans, (what is it with girls and gay guys? Beats the fuck out of me.)

Me, Mary, Lee-Anne will be going to see a stage production of “Mother and Son”.

The plot of the show addresses the problems of ageing and caring for somebody with Alzheimer’s disease with an often sharp-edged humour which carried with it a tinge of sadness. Despite its unlikely subject matter for a comedy, the show was a favourite with audiences. Maggie’s and Arthur’s relationship was presented with a fascinating complexity – Maggie’s cruel attacks on and emotional manipulation of Arthur disguised her deep dependence on and need of him, and Arthur’s dutiful love of Maggie was constantly in conflict with his guilty frustration at the huge limitations for his own life which looking after his mother entailed. 

This was a classic Aussie sit-com, but has now been revived for the stage. It’s staring Noeline Brown who is something of an Aussie icon.

My finest purchase though  came about one morning, with me almost sick with anticipation opening about 19 windows in my browser, and, by repeatedly hitting “buy tickets now,” several hundred times, between the minutes of 8.57 am and 9.01 am, I managed to get us all tickets for  the Big Bash final, which is being held here in Canberra. This is fast becoming one of the major cricket events in Australia, and I have great seats for all five of us (Mary is coming too.)

 

John Otway, who you may know I’m something of a fan of, (not to mention a friend of,) has a movie out on DVD. It’s his life story basically. I had to have a copy;

What’s most remarkable, however, is that, over 30 years down the line, Otway seems never to have lost his enthusiasm; he couldn’t be further from the shark-like self-promoter that this stunt-making might suggest. With his catchphrase “wouldn’t it be nice?”, his constant use of the word “prat”, and his general air of self-deprecating uselessness, Otway comes across – in this film at least – as the most endearing kind of English eccentric.
Guardian

Rock And Roll’s Greatest Failure – Otway: The Movie has touches of the Anvil documentary from a few years ago, which helped their career no end, so hopefully we will see the same here. A wonderful documentary full of broken promises, crazy ideas, rawkus live performances and the man at the centre of it all, John Otway, makes it difficult to tell if he is barking mad or a musical genius. Either way, this documentary shouldn’t be missed.
Screen

The film also revealed that his record company had so much faith in him that he was given a £250,000 advance – they only gave The Jam £50,000. The movie traces Otway’s life growing up in Aylesbury, where he was bullied at the Queens Park School and chronicles the moment a fortune teller told him that he would be famous. Otway’s parents also feature in the film, stating that he has no talent whatsoever and they cannot understand how he has achieved two hits.
Bucks Herald

Of course being me, (and with Lee-Anne being tolerant of my affection for John,) I had to buy the DVD box set;

• DVD 1: The Theatrical release of the Movie
• DVD 2: The Albert Hall bootleg
• DVD 3: 90 mins of Otway Live
• DVD 4: The Extras

John being a lovely bloke, put this signed card in the set for me.

Oh, and having watched the main movie with me, Lee-Anne is now a definite fan, and wants to come to an Otway gig next time we are over.

 

As I have said, my godson, Tom Harness, is coming over to stay a week with us in December. Him and his girlfriend, Danny, are spending a month is Aus, mainly to celebrate her Aussie grandad’s 100th. birthday, but also with a bit of holidaying, shagging and sightseeing thrown  in. I sent Tom 140 quid the other day with the instruction to get me the best buys on Scotch he could, and to bring it over as duty free.  Scotch in Aus, much to my dismay, costs 3 to 4 times the price in the UK. They are allowed to bring over 2.25 litres each. My only criteria are that they buy the best and biggest  bargains, and the oldest, and the more obscure the whisky the better. I’m already salivating in anticipation

 

Ok, you do not need to read beyond this bit, it gets gruesome. Seriously.
It all started off with a bit of the usual “could only happen to us” events. First of all I’d booked us a cheap car to go to Sydney in. I turned up at the car hire place to find I’d been given, due to them being out of small run-arounds and therefore upgrading us, a Nissan Pathfinder. I was dead chuffed. Or I was until Lee-Anne pointed out; “That’s going to cost us a fortune in gas to drive to Sydney and back!” Bugger.

The next thing that happened, we got to Sydney and eventually located our hotel only to be told that the “Romantic Break” suite and all the trimmings we’d booked, (they had an offer on,) was not available. This was a bit of a bugger as it had had a “romantic meal” thrown in, and their restaurant was by now shut. The girl on reception offered to makes us fish and chips.

We decided to go out to a boozer instead, (we got a free breakfast out of them as compo.) We took ourselves into West Ryde city centre and found the West Ryde hotel; this was very odd. Just like a pub, but odd. The “bar” area was dominated by bright lights, online gambling machines, and TVs, all of which were showing sport, mainly horse racing.

We left this and went into the eating area, only to find it is dominated by a large BBQ in the centre of the room. You buy your steak, burger, prawns or whatever from the counter, (chips and salad are also thrown in,) then you cook the food yourself, communally, on the massive BBQ. Saves hiring more chefs I suppose.

The food was not bad, but not great, the beers over chilled, and the atmosphere vacuous.

The next morning we had our free brekky and headed off to meet Professor Chisholm.

Lovely geezer, he’d been recommended by Lee-Anne’s audiologist. For some time now, after suffering a bout of “sudden onset hearing loss,” Lee-Anne has had problems hearing. As you can imagine with me being as deaf as a post, this makes for “interesting” conversations.

Normally screamed.

But while she was having a MRI scan on her bad ear, they noticed, in her good ear (fuck our luck,)  a tumour, or to give it it’s proper name an; “acoustic neuroma“. Hence the visit to Prof Chisholm. He gave her some tests, looked at her scans, made her do a funny dance to test her balance (I asked him to get her to repeat it, he chickened out.) He then gave her three options for treatment;

a) Do nothing, and hope you don’t end up deaf.
b) Radiotherapy with a “lazer knife”. This may work, or you may end up deaf.
c) An operation, this has the best chance of a good outcome

“If you were my wife, I’d be recommending the operation.”He said.

Ok, what does this operation involve? Well as he put it; “We open a little window just above the ear, and go into the auditory canal that way, cutting the tumor out manually.” “By “open a window” you mean?” “Well we cut a hole in the skull, big enough for us to move the brain out of the way, and go in that way, then we cut the tumour out with a scalpel. Oh, that will be $200.00 for this advice, thank you.”

To be fair, Lee-Anne didn’t burst into tears until she was in the car outside, (neither did I.) She’s been referred to a specialist surgeon who does this operation, he’s based in Melbourne. She’s waiting to see him before making her decision. To be honest, faced with this choice, it would be radiotherapy for me all the way, and fuck the chance of going deaf, (I’m nearly there in any  case.) Lee-Anne isn’t as big a coward as I am though.

For those of you with a stronger disposition than mine, more information here.

Keep reading the blog for updates.
(If my arse reaming cost two grand, how much will a hole in the head cost?!?!?)