Photos are linked to their relative galleries, go look, amuse me.

I had a miserable couple of weeks back after our UK trip, but at least I had Xmas to look forward to. No wait, I was working Xmas day and boxing day, so that’s bad for a start. Then things got worse.

On Xmas eve I took the dogs for a walk at the Cork Forest, a regular jaunt for us. We did the loop there, and got back to the car to find the drivers window had been smashed in. Whoever had done it had riffled through the odds and sods of CDs I keep in there, and had decided that my taste in music was not to their liking, and had left them all. They had then legged it.

On the good side, they hadn’t seen my camera tripod on the back seat floor.

On the bad side, if they’d have tried the fucking door handle before smashing the window they’d have found out that I never lock the fucking thing when I’m there. $300 in window repairs they could have saved me.

It was lucky I didn’t catch them at it, as Xmas in the police watch house is (marginally) worse than Xmas at work. That’s they way of things now isn’t it? You catch some sod smashing the car window, so you give them a leathering, then you end up being banged up. Madness.

So Xmas was ok really, well compared to that it was.

 

The thing is, having been back in Blighty up until the middle of December, I’d got a taste of Christmassnessiness, but then coming back here it all fell apart. I’ve said for a long time that going into winter without Xmas and New Years to look forward to is worse than having Xmas in the blazing sunshine of an Aussie summer, but it’s still not fun.

Mind you, the weather did its best to cheer me up, we’ve had some lovely storms, see video below,.

 

We did the family things for Xmas, ritual must be observed, and I got some great pressies. We had our Xmas dinner at Bethy and Brandon’s new apartment. Lovely for them to play host, and Bethy and Lee-Anne cooked up a storm.

But Xmas these days? I mean at least in the UK it’s a chance to pop down the boozer and have a few with your mates before Xmas lunch. Huge fuck off blow out for Xmas lunch, then you get a gang together for a few glasses of wine in the evening, followed by a lie in on boxing day. The pissing down with rain, freezing cold, blowing a gale, short days and long nights are all part of the fun, if your perverse like me.

Here for me? Xmas day I fucking work 9-5, home, big meal at Bethy’s with the family, early bed to sweat, but not sleep, as the temperature doesn’t get below 20, and the aircon makes a noise like a jet fighter passing. Up early on Boxing day for work.

ON boxing day, we played host to all, and so we all got fed up again.

NYE? Work till 9.00 pm, home, half a bottle of Scotch, bed for a few hours of sweating like a stuck pig, up at 7.00 am to get ready for work.

And yet people STILL ask me why I want to move back.

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My birthday was great, as for a change I was off work. I got some terrific presents, including this amazing lamp from Lee-Anne, which comes with a story.

 

Lee-Anne had first seen this lamp back when she was 18 and had begged her parents to buy it for her for her 18 th Birthday present. Them, being parents, had bought her something far more sensible. She hadn’t seen one again, until she came across this one, quite by chance, while surfing the net. Seeing as I am always whining about my birthday being so close to Xmas that everybody is skint, and my always getting naff presents, she decided to treat me. She bought it last May, and it’s been hiding in our spare room ever since. So for my 57 th Birthday present, I got what Lee-Anne wanted for her 18 th!

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Ok, one advantage of being back here is seeing International cricket at the local ground; Manuka Oval. We saw India Vs Aus there this year.

 

Not a great match, India for all their pretentions of being “World Number One” were lackluster and got soundly beaten, as they were in all the one-dayers. They hammered us in the T20 series though.

More cricket photos here.

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Mary, not our mad old bag Mary, but Brandon’s mother Mary,had her 50 th.  birthday party at their house the other day. The theme was “medieval,” and so gave me and Lee-Anne a chance to dress up.

To go with the Medieval theme, Lee-Anne cooked a dish my Cornish mates will recognise, “Stargazey Pie.”

Getting to the party, the first, the very first, person I bump into is a client of my team! “Oh Taff, I didn’t expect to see you here!” She wasn’t as surprised as me to be meeting up, according to her notes she was supposed to be in hospital in Sydney at that time.

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My mate from w-a–a-a-a-ay back in my college days, the lovely Ray, who I shared digs with for three years, put some images of us from then on facebook the other day.

I’ll spare you from any more.

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Photos from Bethy’s 21’st party here, go see.

Bethy’s 21 st party was organised by her and her mate Savvy, (Savanah) who was also turning 21 this month, as were Patrick and Brandon (ok, last month for him, but he was included.) So between the four of them they hatched a cunning plan. Instead of presents, and gifts, they decided they’d prefer a big bash to celebrate their combined birthdays. Most of the organising was down to Bethy.

They agreed on a venue, (Old Parliament House Members dining room, ) and that it would be formal dress.

Fuck me, I’m not really one for formal dress, being a notoriously scruffy sod. Over the weeks and month preceding Bethy lost loads of sleep, and bombarded everyone involved with emails, facebook and twitter messages, and threats of eternal nagging and / or violence, if people didn’t get their acts together, cough up $50 a head, and scrub up well for the do.

Then Bethy and Lee-Anne went dress shopping. Lee-Anne came home with one of her starry-eyed looks; “She’s got the perfect dress, and she looks stunning in it.” 

This worried me lots;

“OK, how much?”
“Mumble mumble mumble, but she looks STUNNING in it”
“Beg pardon?”
“Mumble mumble mumble, but she looks ABSOLUTLY RAVISHING in it”
“Didn’t catch that…”
“Mumble mumble$750.00 mumble, but she looks LIKE A GODDESS in it”

After I’d come out of my coma, and drunk a bottle of neat Scotch, I agreed that we’d buy it as a 21st gift for her. Oh, and to give her the offered “$500.00, moving into our own apartment” money that she hadn’t yet taken us up on, as a backup fund to cover her venue hire fees etc.

As revenge on the dress saga I decided to take  my own novel approach to “formal dress”. I bought a DJ from a charity shop ($15,) and I already had a wing collar shirt and dickie bow, which I’d brought over from Blighty (£5.00 Oxfam Plymouth.)  I matched these with my best Italian hand-made calfskin leather shoes, (£10.00 in Oxfam Llanelli.) I rounded the outfit off with my kilt. I think I look fucking dapper.

The do was this weekend. Mary drove us, which made me over-ready for my first wine. On arrival it was obvious they’d chosen a great venue for the do. Walking in and the first person we saw was Bethy, as predicted, looking like an absolute goddess. Christ she’s a beautiful young woman now.

Savvy’s grandfather has laid on a free bar and wines for the table. At our table I was the only one drinking red wine, so the evening passed without drama as I gradually slipped into wine induced happiness.

The girls all looked lovely, the boys all looked like spotty geeks. Someone said: “We’re going on to a night club after.” I tried to wrangle an invite for me and Lee-Anne, and asked if anyone could get their hands on some decent pills. They found this most amusing. The twats.

There was a official photographer, who took loads of shots. Bethy got him for free as she used to be his photography assistant  when he did baskentball team shoots. I was dead envious of his kit, he was using a Canon EOS-1D X DSLR, need I say more?

The party carried on until the early hours. Well I presume it did, we were in bed by 11.00 pm, what with us being old and fucked and that.

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Oh god, another of my  balls’ up. John Cleese and Eric Idle are on tour here, seeing a chance to get “priority tickets I was online waiting for the sale to open. I got us great seats in the State Theatre, Sydney.

The next day they announced shows in Canberra. Getting seats there would have halved our expenses, and not needed me to take a day off work, fuck. Still, a weekend trip up to Sydney with Bethy and Brandon is always fun.

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We’ve attracted a new mad woman. You know I’ve been telling you about the mother in law and her desperate need to feed every fucking bird in Australia, this one is worse. She leaves her house the same time as we do, when we go to the gym in the morning, normally around 5.45 am. She carries a bag of dried cat food with her to feed the magpies she encounters on the street. OOOoopsy, mad as. Magpies are one of the most prolific birds species hereabouts, veritably vermin status, so they do not need feeding.

We made the mistake of saying “good morning” to her one day. She then tried to induce us into her madness; “OOh now, you see this one, he’s a bully, he’ll not allow the others to eat until he’s full. And this one here is a greedy bugger, he’ll eat as much as I care to give him…”  We’ve taken to trying to leave early, or late, or even resorted to going by different routes just to avoid her. We never quite manage it, she hides and waits for us I’m sure. If it carries on I’m going to report her to the council as for encouraging and enabling a rat infestation.

The problem is, if she’s not been by the time we get down the road, the magpies start gathering….

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My bloody computer went and blew up. We had some lightnings strikes one day. I was working on a new piece of my music, when the house was plunged into darkness, and the computer went off, thus losing me the undoubted masterpiece I was producing.

I got it all up and running again, and it happened a second time. Fuck my luck. After this things started going awry. The computer stopped recognising my headphones, then it was taking ages to boot, then it lost all the USB 2 ports, (but not the USB 3, fucking weird.) This was very annoying as I run 3 separate hard drives drives off USB, as well as my midi keyboard, external sound card, guitar rig, skype headphones, music amp, etc. One morning it just wouldn’t boot at all.

I took it to the repair shop, I use them to diagnose it for me. “Have you had any power surges recently?“asked Eva. “A few lightning strikes.” “Ah, that would explain why your power source and motherboard are completely fried.”

More fucking expense. Mind you it gave me the chance to up grade a few bits. 🙂 In the end all it took was a new motherboard, (actually second hand, $70.00,) and it’s right as rain. The new motherboard has 4 RAM slots, I’m already running 16 gig of RAM in 2 slots, but I may pimp it up to 32 gig. That’s the advantage of running a windows machine, you can pimp them to your own spec, not like being lumbered with a sealed unit Mac, which gets more and more obsolete and behind the times from the day you pay (too much,) for it!

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One thing I’ve been struggling with since I got back, is getting back into my photography. Despite having some cracking weather, including storms, I’ve not been inspired.

Not even this scantily clad young lady on a bike

or this spider eating a bee,

 

or these grass parrots

really got me whooping with joy. Nothing inspires me like Devon & Cornwall do. I’ll keep plugging away though, just to fucking annoy you.

Love

Taff