It was Lee-Anne’s birthday this month. I badgered her for weeks for a hint as to what she’d like as a present, but got the usual; “Oh I don’t need anything/can’t think of anything/get us some kitchen stuff” reply. Honestly! The thing is, she doesn’t just do it to wind me up, she genuinely isn’t interested in presents, (or getting older.)

So I whined and moaned and made a pain in the arse of myself, until she cracked; “OFFS! Get my ipad screen fixed, and I’ll be over the moon.” So I did  just that,  I found a place out on the industrial estate where I buy porn and dildos, and stuff, and got it fixed. My sister, Louise, later told me she could have done it for 1/10 of the cost, cheers Lou!

My sister Louise , while we have her in mind, got her traditional present from us. This is a gift, (normally an M&S gift card as she’s an awkward sod,)  sent to arrive six days early, as I can never remember that she was born three days after Lee-Anne, not before.

While mooching about at Fyshwick, waiting for the ipad to be fixed, and while debating whether to pop into a porn shop for a “surprise present” for Lee-Anne, (and me,) I chanced upon an antiques store. Thinking it a probably a better idea to have a mooch about in there rather than, “The Adult Superstore”, I came across a vase, this one:

Knowing Lee-Anne’s love of “Art Deco” stuff, especially the “oriental influenced” stuff, I had to buy it. Amazingly I got it and the ipad home in one piece, without dropping either.
I hid both presents. The ipad I put in my bedside drawer.

We’d planned a long lie in, and maybe a birthday treat, for the next morning, as it was not only Lee-Anne’s birthday, but a Saturday, and for a change, it was one which I was not working on.

However, very early the next morning I was rudely awoken by Lee-Anne, and not in the way I’d been anticipating. Ginger, to compound my confusion, was howling the place down, as he does at any unexplained noise;

“There’s a fucking alarm going off!” yelled Lee-Anne. I jumped out of bed and rushed around the house bollocks naked, (no picture sorry,) panicking and farting. I couldn’t find anything, and so rushed into the bedroom. “It’s in that drawer!!”, she shouted, while trying to belt Ginger. Oops!

The guys who had fixed the ipad, had tested it, and doing this had somehow managed to set the alarm to go off at the usual time, five fucking am, the time we get up for the gym.

Oh bollocks.

Seeing as I was already up and awake, I awaited the local Market opening at 7.00 am, and went down and bought flowers, and croissants and stuff for our “romantic” breakfast. I put the flowers in the new vase to present it, she loved the vase, fortunately, and it put me back in the “good books”. I had another trick up my sleeve too, Bethy had found, online, a huge snuggle/comfort blanket, and had ordered that for Lee-Anne.

In return for two tickets to see Stephen Fry play Canberra, (the bastard is here while I’m in the UK, the idiot,) she included me as a gift participant.

Lee-Anne, despite her advancing years, of course remains incorrigible;

Written by, guess who? (Hint; not me.)

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Bethy stayed over on the next weekend, funny how time with her has now become so precious!

    

 

The morning after she stayed over, as a treat, Bethy cooked us breakfast.

 

She even made her own hollandaise to go with it, we were much impressed. A chip off the old block eh?

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On the night of her birthday we dined out at “Sage”. Getting there was a nightmare, as Mary was driving. My god, we’re not sure how much longer she’ll be allowed to do that, she’s a danger to shipping!

Here’s my review, in my “posh reviewers voice” just for Charlie Kingman.

Our family dined here for my wife’s birthday.
We all had the degustation menu, (I had a “piscatarian” version of it as I’m an awkward sod.) I have to say from the outset that the food there was sublime. Beautifully presented, adequate sized, if not generous, serves, and with some originality being displayed. Some nice touches in the amuse-bouche and hors-d’oeuvre offered.
The ambiance was rather good, the decor suitably restrained, and the service friendly and reasonably prompt. There did seem to be an abundance of severs, and we had at least five different wait-people serve us. Great wine list, and very good choices for the paired wines with my wife’s meal. My daughter and her partner very much enjoyed the cocktails they tried. Great joy for me in there being a small, but very nice, selection of single malts on offer.
So, all good? Not quite.
The tables were awkward, for me ( 6’2″ tall for reference,) as there was just not enough leg room under them, and the “single centre pillar and stand” got right up my bloody nose, as I could not sit comfortably.
Also, my wife requested the “matched wines,” but due to a cock up, the wine for her first course didn’t come until after we’d reminded our wait person, and thus after she’d finished her plate. She was playing “wine catch up” for a course or two. (A dedicated waitress for our table would have eliminated this.)
Like almost all Canberra fine dining venues, (with the exception of “Water’s Edge”,) Sage suffers from a lack of “setting”. The old Gorman House building is good, and reasonably old for Canberra, and the way it has been adapted is very apt. But no views. At all.
Minor matters you may say, but for an evening of fine dining these things are to be considered, hence no five stars.
So, just go for the food, which is sublime.

    

. 

 

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Bethy and Brandon went to the coast for a short holiday. While there they climbed Pigeon House mountain, and dined at Rick Stein’s restaurant “Bannisters“. Now then, what was that I was saying about her being “a chip off the old block”? Hiking and fine dining in one short trip? Get in!! We won’t mention any other of Lee-Anne and my proclivities they may share. I just don’t want to know.

  

 

  

 

Here’s Bethy’s considered review; “It was good. Seafood/10”

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Oh life is not simple for a deaf bastard. Not only did I recently lose one of my hearing aids, ($3,500.00 down the tubes,) but I then went and broke the other fucker. This is a bit  of a problems I need to be able to hear people to work. Ok, normally, I’m not actually listening hard, but I do have to pick up various clues, cues, and inferences. What to do?

I got by with my old pair for a little while, but, as they were old, they were far too quiet, more of a earplug than a hearing aid. So I went to fix an appointment with my audiologist. I rocked up at their office, to be greeted by the great gormless oaf who runs the desk for them. He told me; “Oh those ones are obsolete, we won’t be able to do anything with them.” I’ve faced this sort of thing with him before, and asked : “Can you just fit me in with an appointment to see the audiologist I normally see. I’ve forgotten her name,  short lass, rather plump.” He smiled at me; “Sarah that would be, I think.”

In the week running up to the appointment, I remembered Mary, had, at great expense, purchased some generic hearing aids, which she never uses. “I’ll buy them off you Mary,” I insisted. “You can have them as an early Xmas present,” she replied. “There’s another item in her ledger to be used when needed,” commented Lee-Anne. There are those of you pulling faces now; “The dirty bastard’s wearing someone else’s hearing aids, they’ve been in his mother in Law’s ears, euch!!” Not so, they have disposable ear plugs on them, and filters, so they are like new.

But I still met up with Sarah the next week, to get the old ones adjusted, to use as spares. Sarah is still short and plump, but she’s rather vivacious and hence we have a bit of a flirt. We both know that we both are happily married, which makes this sweet, fun, and safe. Not only did she make the old hearing aids as good as new, contrary to what the oaf on the desk claimed, but she also mended my bust one. I now have five hearing aids.

Passing the time while she was repairing my aid, we were talking about general shite “You know the lad on the desk,” she started, I was just about to rant on about what a hopeless twat he was, when she continued, “that’s my oldest son.” Whoops, nearly shot myself in the foot there.

Hang about! How had I described Sarah to him? Oh well, at least he recognised her.

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The last “blood moon” of this year was due to appear on a day that I was working a morning shift. I couldn’t miss that. I got everything set up, and after work, rushed home and grabbed my camera gear, and hit Testra Tower. My phone had a compass on it, so I was assured of getting the tripod set up at the right place on the viewing gallery. “That’d be right!,” thought I, as my compass pointed out the rising moon would be hidden by a thick cloud bank. I shuffled about and waited, the clouds didn’t budge.  I took some city shots instead.

Then a fat lad with a camera pointed out something interesting, which was the frigging moon. It was rising some 70 degrees away from when my phone compass had reliably informed me it would rise. Lucky I wasn’t using my phone compass to navigate myself safely out of the bush or the like then.

I think I got some reasonable shots, don’t you? (More in gallery.)

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Lee-Anne went for a general check-up at her GP’s the other day. We agreed to meet in our gym afterwards. I got there first and was punishing my puny frame, when she arrived, looking rather green; “You’ve got to take me to the hospital, now.”

Ok, panic!

Apparently one of the things the GP, (fortunately,) checked was Lee-Anne’s blood pressure. It was 213 / 128. Normal range for a woman of her age would be 129/85. Seeing as Lee-Anne is very fit and active, you’d expect hers to be even lower.

I took her to A&E with an “admit one” letter from her GP. I was hoping that when the A&E screening nurse took her BP, it would show that her GP’s machine was knackered, we could all have a good laugh, and go home. It read 210/124, we didn’t laugh. So she was told to await a bed becoming available. We waited and waited and waited. Bethy and Brandon showed up. We waited more. I had to go home to look after the dogs. I told Lee-Anne to ring as soon as she was allowed out.

I had trouble getting to sleep, the bed was empty, and the boys were missing her too. At 1.00 am she rang to say; “They’ve done tests, I’ve been given a pill and a script, and I can come home.” I went and fetched her. She’s been prescribed “Perindopril”, I keep wanting to ask her if she’s  falling and rising. (Get it?)

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We both went to the local pathology lab for bloods tests the next day, Lee-Anne for obvious reasons, me because I was due a cholesterol and liver test. There I had one of my; “Why, oh why did I start this conversation?!?!?” episodes.

Me: (Noticing her name badge,) “I’ve never met a female “Dylan” before.”
Pathology Nurse: “No?”
Me: “No, it’s normally a male name. Were you named after “Bob” or “Thomas”?”
PN: “Who?”
Me: “Bob Dylan, or Dylan Thomas, they’re the famous ones with that name, the ones who people normally get named after.”
PN: “Oh, I don’t know, I think I’ve heard of them though.”
Me: “Well you’d be a bit young to know of them other then through your name.”
PN: “My mother named me, she likes being unconventional.”
Me: “Is she Welsh by any chance?“ (chuckling)
PN: “No, she’s Polish, why?”
Me: “Well it is a Welsh name.”
PN: “Ok,  I didn’t know that.”
Me: “It comes from the Mabinogion, a book of Welsh mythological tales; “Dylan the Second Wave” the golden boy child.”
PN: “You’re taking the Mickey out of me!”
Me: “No I’m serious, I’m from the same neck of the Woods as Dylan Thomas, and I’m a big fan, so I’ve looked into that sort of stuff.”
PN: “Oh, are you Welsh then?”

I gave up at this point, as she had a needle in my arm at the time, and so I didn’t want to antagonise her.

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Me and the mother in law went to see the PM’s XI play the “Black Caps”.

Not the best cricket match I’ve ever seen, for two reasons. The first being that the Kiwis hammered an unimpressive PM’s side, and the second being that it was bloody freezing.

         

We’d been warned that it was only going to hit 20 that day, so went wrapped up well. Ok, this was “wrapped up well” as in Aussie standards, which meant I wore a jacket and trousers to the match, rather than shorts and T-shirt, for a change. A mark of how cold it was was the beer. I enjoy a beer at a match, it’s all part of the fun. However, I normally rely on the weather to warm the super-cold Aussie piss up to a temperature at which it gets some semblance of ‘taste”. This time it stayed just very slightly above ice lolly temp.
I bought a bag of chips, or “hot chips” as the locals call them, too cheer me up. They were stone cold by the time I got back to me seat. Bollocks.

While I’m talking beer. Before I come back to the UK on holiday, each and every time we’ve been back, I’ve had 2 months of abstinence from alcohol, in the vain hope of giving my liver a fighting chance of surviving the holiday. It seemed to have worked, well at least I’m not on dialysis yet.

However, when I went to see my GP in June this years, she told me my liver was so fucking shot, that I’d better buck my ideas up, or look for someone with a matching one who wasn’t using it. Oh woe. So I decided to have four months off. Lee-Anne, just to be more virtuous than me, swore off chocolate as well as her (infrequent) imbibing.

This didn’t last too long, fortunately. We both decided that if we were going to be abstinent of alcohol for four months, then we were due a reward. So we decided to have a “non-alcohol-free night” , usually a Saturday. I know, I know, I know, that sort of defeats the object of the exercise, but it was either that or go back on the Class A’s.

So, what’s the result? Well, the most surprising result is that I’ve gone off alcohol. Strange eh? Take yesterday for example, I had four beers at the match, (I normally have one every 40 runs, usually about 14 for a match,) and I wasted half of them, I threw half of them away as they were flat, cold, piss poor, and undrinkable.

I know this is normal for Aussie beer, but still.  I had a small Scotch when I got home, and chucked half of that away too. As a consequence, my weight hasn’t changed (94 kilos 14 stone, if you must know,) one sodding bit. However, I’ve put on a small amount of muscle. This is annoying. I did want to put on muscle, but the sod of the thing is I don’t know if I’ve gained muscle/lost fat due to alcohol abstinence, my hugely increased diet, which consists mainly of fish of one sort or another, (if I’m not drinking, I want something to put in my mouth, Freud would have a field day,), the effects of the new gym, or my meds and supplements regime. If I knew, I could do more of it.

 

Edited to add: Well that was a waste of time, wasn’t it? Just back from my GP, who tells me that my liver, despite my being a good boy for four months, is still shot.  She’s changed my statins to ones which don’t metabolise in the liver, to see if that helps. (Why didn’t she put me on those from the off?) Also, my blood pressure is through the roof, so I’ve been put on the same BP meds as Lee-Anne. Both of us living together with high BP, why do the words “cause and effect” leap to mind?

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The world cup was a nailbiter wasn’t it? The day after the Wallabies beat Wales, I got into work to find this:

I don’t know why our secretary though that was funny, seeing as I have dual nationality. 🙂

But, unfortunately Wales went out, this was entirely due to the ref for their match against the Saffers being an arse. Much respect to Charlie Kingman, who went to his local pub in Llansawel to watch the England v Wales match wearing an England jersey. (This despite him being Cornish, and therefore not English!) He got out alive, but only due to the result.

 

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Down at the local library, they had a bit of fun on “Speak like a Pirate day.” This is what came up when you checked your books out.

 

(More, and bigger, images in the gallery.)

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Lee-Anne’s gardening efforts are paying dividends, and we’ve even had our first crop.

   

Though as we are leaving these to Bethy’s tender mercies while we are in the UK, we’re not banking on the crops seeing us through next winter.

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Ginger’s fascination with wombat holes continues unabated, despite the beatings.

  

The other day the pair of them went missing, I hunted for them, and eventually they returned to me. They had obviously had a kill. Not only that, but Ginger had changed colour. He was now deep red all over, blood red. It looked like, not only had he killed something, but he’d eviscerated it and then got inside for a roll a round. I  scuttled them away, before the Rangers caught us. I hope to fuck it was a rabbit, and not something endangered.

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Mates, who’d have them?

You know, seeing as I’m going over from the other side of the planet, you’d think my mates would be making every effort to ensure my path was strewn with rose petals, and my every concern was wafted away on a cloud of incense, and hot and cold running nubile virgins were available at every turn for me.

Are they fuck as like.

Nicol has set the gold standard for this. First off, remember this?

I spoke to him on the phone one night, on one of my “I’m pissed, let’s phone the UK,”nights. Discussing the forthcoming UK trip, (we were in the process of booking accommodation at the time,) he informed me; “Oh, well when you’re in Devon, we’ll be in Portugal, we’re spending the winter in Spain, France and Portugal, in our campervan.” This is all part of his madcap retirement scheme. It’s ok to hate him. Most people do. As I was pissed at the time I found missing him unacceptable, so we changed our whole itinerary, just to fit him in.

Ok, “so we changed our whole itinerary to fit him in”, that should be enough, shouldn’t it? But oh no, he has to go and top that. A couple of weeks back I get an email off him; “You know we were trying to let our place out as a winter let, while we are in Portugal for four months? We’ve been lucky, and we’ve got some takers for it. The trouble is they want to move in on October the 16th, so we won’t be able to put you up, sorry!”

OFFS! So I spent a week looking online for suitable accommodation in the South Hams area for three nights for us. Bugger me what a task, I know that the area is expensive, but still, the best deal came in at £280 for the three nights. You’re kidding, right?

Luckily Nicol had a word with a mate, one who owns another of those glorified garden sheds (Park Homes,) in the holiday camp that Mr & Mrs Nicol infest, and he’s agreed to let us that for £90 for the stay.

My oldest, (as in “longest standing”, not age,) mate, Jamesy then decided to play funny buggers. For the past few years, whenever we have gone down to Sennen for a stay, Jamesy and Rachel have taken the opportunity to visit the area at the same time. They can’t go on their own, they’re scared of falling under the spell of the area and never leaving. Seeing as I’ve never been out with Jamesy for a proper meal, (not since our “youth club” days,) I thought it may be a nice idea to invite him and Rachel along when we go to “Restaurant Nahan Outlaw”, which is to be our only “fine dining” this trip. Restaurant Nathan Outlaw requested a month’s notice in booking, so I stared the ball rolling with ten week to go.

Do you think I can get a straight “yay” or “nay” out of the fucker? First it was; “I’ll have to ask Rachel.” (That goes without saying.) Then it was; “Oh I forgot, we’re not sure, we’ll have a think about it.” Then it was; “Oh we can’t commit to which week we’ll be down to Sennen, as we’re off to Cadiz for a fortnight this weekend. I’ll let you know when we get back.”  Christ on a pogo-stick Jamesy, I’m asking if you fancy a meal out, not to solve a theorem from Euclid.

So as of the writing of this, I still don’t know if the soft git is even coming to Sennen, leave alone if he’s treating us to a meal out!

Edited to add: I got so desperate, I phoned him up, to try and get a definite answer. Result? “We may or may not be able to, I’ve got a new post making sure bats aren’t affected by housing developments, and I’m going to a seminar when you are in Sennen. But I may be able to come. Perhaps. We’ll think about it.”

Then the people we are letting the cottage in Devon off, got all arsey as we hadn’t informed them we’d be having people stay over for a night. (To be fair they did give us a very substantial discount for there just being the two of us.) This was precipitated by Clarkie agreeing to come over from Luxembourg for a weekend. They must have heard about him.

Then Matt Abbot decided he’s coming down to Sennen to stay with us. Ok, technically this isn’t him creating problem in any way shape or form. But those of you who know him……