The usual accompanying gallery of annoying photographs can be found here. Note the new format, good eh?

I know what you’re thinking; ”Why the hell has the daft bastard written a blog page about going home for his mother’s death?” I thought long and hard about that myself, before deciding that, seeing as it’s a pretty bloody major life event, it should be recognised and recorded. Also, it’s written to honour the living as well as the dead.

“Ok, so why have you decided to add in your normal feeble attempts at humour?” Well, again and after some thought, there was some lighter moments in that time, and they should be stated, and used to alleviate the sorrow.

Not only that, but what is death but the greatest joke which is played on us?

You can judge for yourself here This link is to

“Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?“

The trip home for mam’s last few days, and funeral.

---

 

“So, apart from your mother dying, what else has been going on Taff?”

You may have noticed that I’ve cleaned up the look of the blog, and am using a new skin on the gallery, neat eh? Please leave feedback via the comments box at the bottom.

(Sorry Janet, still no comments facility on the gallery, but you can link via facebook.)

---

 

L~A had a birthday, and she’s now a year older than last year. We decided to eat at the highest (Tripadvisor,) rated restaurant in Canberra “Pomegranate.” Ok, it wasn’t what I had been expecting, seeing as this was a top rated restaurant, I was expecting a fine dining evening But it was all the better for that. The setting is pretty standard “Canberra restaurant”, as, with the exception of Sage, most restaurant design, due to being in modern buildings, tends to a “modern urban” decor. But it was pleasantly lit, the chairs were comfy, service was first class, friendly, urbane, knowledgeable and prompt.

The menu options were good, and, being reasonably low in number, not overwhelming with choice. (No matched wines, heresy!?!?) But the food itself was glorious, being modern Australian/Mediterranean. The serves were very generous, and the flavours top notch. I had two fish dishes, (now that I’m a “piscatarian” I eat nothing but bloody fish,)  and both were full of flavour, with the baby kingfish being particularly novel and tasty.

  

One slight quibble, you must allow me one, was that I had, as I usually do, the cheese plate for desert. This was huge, it served four. Not that I’m complaining, I did manage most of it. But surely it could be slimmed down if only one person requests it.

All in all a great place for a family celebration, which there were many of going on, and a hearty eating experience. Probably not for those who are looking for the “art on a plate” style of fine dining, but more for the person looking for a fun and filling meal out.

One funny incident from the night was Bethy’s entrance. Accompanied by Brandon, she approached the table, and, when her coat was taken, she was revealed to be wearing the most glamorous red dress. This, with her amazing head of hair and good looks, (and new tits,) caused most of the male heads to swivel in her direction. Cutlery was dropped on more than one table. She looked utterly fantastic, but bear with me here.

After she sat, she leaned in conspiratorially and said; “Do you see the waiter who took my coat?” I looked over to him; “The one with his jaw on the floor, his eyes on stalks, and he looks like he’s about to burst into tears you mean?” She grinned; “That’s Amir, I asked him for a date when we were in High School together, and he knocked me back.” Poor bugger, it must have been like realising you chucked away a winning lottery ticket.

---

 

We’ve been doing our usual, ceaseless efforts to support the arts. Well ok, we’ve been to see a couple of shows.

First off, the mother-in-law, Mary, bought us tickets for, and insisted we attended with her a show; “The Wharf Review”. How could we refuse, and why didn’t we?

CELEBRATING 15 YEARS 
The Wharf Review
Over 15 years and 21 shows, they’ve mercilessly mocked all the usual suspects. We’ve watched Howard Tampa with refugees, Rudd give pennies from Kevin, Gillard refuse to be lectured by “that man”, “that man” scrap the carbon tax, stop the boats and – um – get the budget back into surplus… But no one has been able to outplay, outwit or outlast The Wharf Revue. So, we’re throwing a party and everyone’s invited.

We started the evening off in a new bar in Canberra “Social and Co”. It wasn’t too bad, just lacked anything, individual or a “USP” to make it stand out from any other Canberra watering hole. The food was ok, just ok, not special.

The “Warf Review”? Oh god, it was dreadful. I’m sure the performers found it funny when they were writing it, but I didn’t even crack a grin. What made it worse for me was that most of it was sung. Funny songs, especially sketch based funny songs are always hit and miss. But I have a particular aversion to them, don’t ask me why, I just cannot stand them.

To be fair to the old bird, even Mary said it was a bit of a curate’s egg.

---

 

Other gigs have been more successful.

You may remember that a couple of years back, and  in the same week I attended gigs by PIL, and Tõnu Kaljuste conducting the Estonian Symphony orchestra and choir, doing an evening of Arvo Pärt.

Earlier this year, in the same week, I saw Stiff Little Fingers, in Sydney, and The  Choir of Trinity College Cambridge in Canberra.

This month’s “odd pairing” has been Bad Manners, and The Tallis Scholars, (under Peter Phillips.)

We got dressed up in our best “Rude boy and girl” outfits for Bad Manners. I can see you laughing from here, but why not? It’s great fun you old fuddy duddy!! We bumped into a pair of Scots couples who were dressed similarly, and had a great bit of chat with them. The bar “The Transit Bar” was rammed for the gig. I was, as usual, first to the bar. While there I spotted a familiar face and so asked; “Oy Dougie, fancy a pint?” He very kindly took a drink off me, but only after I made him promise to let us have a photo taken with him, which he duly reciprocated with.

Yes, that’s us with Mr Buster Bloodvessel himself.

Lovely chap, like Otway he still seems genuinely amazed, and ever so pleased, that he still has fans. We had a chat, and I bought him another low calorie beer. WTF? Buster Bloodvessel on low calorie beers, you may think. Well apparently at his heaviest, Buster weighed 31 stone, not really sustainable that. So he had a “pioneering treatment”, a tube was inserted into his stomach, and his stomach was stapled alongside the tube, cutting off the blood supply from the remaining stomach area. Without the blood supply, that area of stomach separates and Buster was left with a stomach dramatically reduced in size. He now weighs in at only 13 stone.

They played all their hits, and me and L~A  danced all night like very drunk old people reliving their glory days. One strange, but bloody lovely, cover version they did was Deep Purple’s “Black Night”, but done as a ska track.

The encore was, inevitably “Lip up Fatty.”

 

Four days later I saw the Tallis scholars.

I’ve been wanting to see them since I started collecting Early Music, back in 1990. I’ll tell you three things about the gig, but I won’t even begin, or even try, to tell you about their singing, as there aren’t words sufficient. So;

(1) I wore my “Bad Manners” T-shirt to see the Tallis Scholars, I’m a real rebel me.

(2) I had a seat in the centre of  the front row, which was lovely for a deaf old fart like me. I could see right up their noses..

(3) I shed a tear or two when they sang Thomas Tallis’ “Spem in alium” it was so perfect.

 

We’ve just bought tickets to see The Damned next March, I wonder which choir or orchestra will pop up on my ticket agency list…

---

 

We had an election. The day before I flew back to the UK, I had to go and do an “early vote” at a polling station, otherwise the buggers would fine me.

L~A was crapping it, as a change of minister could occur, or, even worse, a change of government could come. This would necessitate her breaking in a new minister, moulding him or her to L~A’s own will, and basically having to nursemaid some daft bastard to a point of relative competence. The paperwork needed for this is phenomenal, apparently.

People often ask me; “What exactly does L~A do?” Think of it like this, in Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory , like all other Aussie states, we have our own government,  the “Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly (ACTLA)”. Think of it like a Scottish Assembly, but for a state  rather than a country. Over this sits the Federal Parliament, which also happens to be in Canberra.

Within the ACT Legislative Assembly, well, do you remember “Yes Minister”, and “Yes Prime Minister”? L~A is a sort of “Bernard” character, or sometimes a “Sir Humphrey” if need be. It works like this; the minister for Justice, who is L~A’s pet, will come up with an idea; “I want to create a law which ..insert stupid idea here….” L~A’s job is to tell him why he cannot do that, and what he can have instead, (but only if he’s a good boy.)

Well “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr would have it! After an election, and waiting three fucking weeks for the results, the same bloody lot got back in again. Honestly, if the $$$ billions they are going to waste on a stupid bloody tram program doesn’t convince the electorate they are shite, then I don’t know what will convince the people of Canberra that the other lot deserve a go. This lot, (Labour,) have been in power since 2001, FFS.

So L~A did get a new minister, but one from the same litter, and so she didn’t have to do too much potty training.

Driving about Canberra when the election was on, I came across a remarkable sign advertising one Labour prospective candidate Mr Edward Cocks of Brindabella. His slogan, make of this what you will, was;

Cocks For All Canberrans!

I was very much hoping L~A didn’t get a cock, or grow one even.

Another candidate went by the well known name of Mr Gordon Ramsey. He used a spoon for his logo, oh how we did laugh.

---

 

Oh, remember how last the last but one episode of this bollocks was all about expenses, and how I finished my tale of woe with; “Then I reversed into someone’s car. Our insurance company are dealing with that one, but we do have $850.00 excess, and I’ve lost my fucking no claims.”

Well, I got away with it!! The insurance companies involved settled it as a “no fault” crash, seeing as we both reversed into each other that’s fair. I keep my no claims bonus, and my excess. Result!!

---

If you know Alan and Jo, and/or came here to see the photos of our part of their trip, they’re here.

Loads of whale photos in this gallery!!

Highlight of the month was having my old mates Alan & Jo Harness to stay. I’ve known Alan since my first Uni year, back in 1982, and Jo joined us there a year later. I even introduced them to each other. I’ve  told them I can still take them  to the spot that they first met, should they wish. But I’m afraid to do so, as Jo would probably turn up with a gallon of petrol  and a box of matches.

We booked a hire car for the week, as our old Joan would not be up to the mileage we were due to cover. Another reason was I wanted a hire car which wasn’t top speed limited, one to thrash the arse off, after the disappointment of my recent UK car hire experience.  We met up in Sydney. Alan and Jo were staying in an “AirB&B” place, an interesting concept that, but not one I fancy, cheap as it may be. They’d stayed a week in an “AirB&B” place in Singapore, and had some “interesting” tales to relate about that one.

We, being soft shites, decided to  stay  at the Novotel Rockford Darling Harbour. Though I must say wasn’t impressed. Ok, it’s in a nice setting, with views over the Chinese gardens, but little else to recommend it.

The staff were fine, but the room maintenance under par. The last place we stayed in Sydney, the Ovolo at Woolomoloo, not only had  a fantastically stupid name, and a pie van outside, but also had free breakfasts, free happy hour, valet parking, free room swag. At the Novotel breakfast is $32, and they charged me $40 to park on the street outside overnight. The place needs to catch up with modern hotel nuances, stated the resident expert, (me.)  There is a not too bad bar downstairs, but no linkage or inducements from the hotel to use it, a “hotel residents discount voucher” or the like would have made it far more attractive.

We met Alan and Jo in the bar downstairs, “The Pumphouse”. The  last time I had drank here I gave it a right slagging off on Tripadvisor;

We planned eating here n a trip up to Sydney to see Ross Noble at the entertainment centre.  The restaurant was booked out, and the bar only serving bar meals, we wanted a full meal.
The worse aspect of it was, three drinks. a glass of cider, a pint of bitter and a glass of wine? $36.00
WE won’t go there again.

I was a bit more gentle this time;

Ok, it’s been a long while since I last visited, and so here’s a new one. This time we were staying in the hotel above, which offers no inducement to visit this place. No discounts, no room tab, no vouchers. However, as I’m a bit more used to Sydney prices now, and was not too shocked by the cost of the beers. Good range of choices, in the beers and food, and the bar food was generous and well cooked.

And in any case, we were back boozing with Alan and Jo, so the setting was irrelevant.

We discussed our plans for the coming week; and gave them a small surprise.

Yes a surprise, and, amazingly seeing as it came from us, it was a nice one for a change. Instead of shooting off to Canberra as they had been expecting, we whisked them off to the Blue Mountains for an overnight stay. L~A had booked us into a lovely place to stay, very near to the “Three sisters”.  This was in a villa, basically an old house which has been converted tastefully, and fitted out with nearly everything you could need. We did some walking, took loads of pictures, and rode on the cable car with a glass floor, the cable way,  and took a ride on the “world’s steepest railway.”

That night we had a pizza supper and an early night. (All my nights are early these days.) I must say that the Blue Mountains offer wonderful scope to a landscape photographer, like what I pretend to be.

The next day we drove on to Canberra, stopping only for coffee and cake at Berrima.

Alan asked “Do you know a decent dentist in Canberra, I’ve cracked a tooth?” Do we?

No matter how much I tried to bribe Bill and Bethy, they wouldn’t make it painful for him!

At home Alan and Jo presented us with the most wonderful presents:

Yes those are two marmite easter eggs, what more could you want for Xmas?

Now, a long time ago, in 2005 in fact, I wrote this in the blog;

Back at the house we got gloriously fed, played cards, put the kids to bed, and got stuck into Alan’s homemade whisky. His home made whisky was ever so drinkable, and went down a treat.Far too well in fact.

I was given a bottle of it to bring back to Oz with me. I’m letting it mature, and I’ll only open it when Alan and the family come for a holiday in Oz with us.

Guess what? Despite  all my bad habits with the booze I had stuck to that pledge, and, as Alan will attest, there was a fine, very mature, unopened bottle of “Gropers Bush” from 2005 for us to share. So we did.

The next couple of days we spent walking our mutts with them, and showing them all the usual sights of Canberra.

Then another trip away.

I was crapping myself actually as, ever since a year ago, when they had first mooted coming over, I had promised Jo we’d take them whale watching. We drove down to Eden under grey clouds and drizzle. The weather was not looking good, at all, in any way. We stayed in a neat little place, with a veranda, from which you could watch the rain pissing down over the sea. We ate out in a local bar, a real Aussie bar it was, and damn good it was too.

The next morning, the day of the sea trip, the weather wasn’t any better. But we went on board the Cat Balou, and readied ourselves for a day of seagull feeding. (Alan once was seasick while in a dry suit,  diving, so he was well primed for a chuck.)

Amazingly the weather, eventually, eased, and while we were out on deck, the whales appeared! They are mainly humpback whales around here. Not only did they appear, but a few of them put on “breaching” displays, and so I fired off a million shots.

This sequence of a Breach will long stay in my memory, (better images in the gallery.)

This was the fifth time we’ve been out with Cat Balou, but the best time we’ve had. The crew, as ever, were kind, knowledgeable, and helped make the whole trip fantastic. I cannot recommend then highly enough

We visited the “Killer Whale Museum” after the trip, and that made a nice end to the Eden break. Killer whales worked with human whalers to beach and kill humpback whales, an amazing tale this;

The Eden Killer Whale Museum offers visitors the chance to discover the intriguing story of the unique working relationship between the whalers and killer whales of Twofold Bay. In the early years of Eden whaling in the 1840s there were reportedly around 50 killer whales spread through 3 main pods. All three pods cooperated together. One pod stationed far out to sea would drive whales in towards the coast, another pod would attack the whale and another pod would be stationed ahead of the whale in case it broke loose. Then the whalers would drag the carcase ashore.

The next day, we had so much to fit in, but we managed it, (Alan fell in love with the Australian War Memorial, most of our visitors do.) But we also did Tidbinbilla, and think we saw some platypus. We visited the Deep Space Tracking Station too, just in time for the cafe to close on us.

That night Alan cooked us Fish en Papillote, bloody well done that man. Sadly the next day, I drove them back to Sydney, from where they were taking the “Indian Pacific“  train  to Perth. I was envious, I fancy one of those multi-day train trips.

---

 

L~A came back from the hairdressers recently, looking gorgeous, but embarrassed . “I have a confession to make. I was so impressed with the cut the new guy gave me last time, and this one this time, that I gave him a $50 tip. He had a little cry over that. But I had to do it! As I told him; “You cut my hair so nicely, even my husband has noticed!!””

I could take offence you know.

---

 

Down at the lake yesterday, and I had stopped to take a photo of a possum. I didn’t get it as the light was to contrasty, so I looked around to call the dogs.  I noticed one of them in the lake, and automatically thought Ginger had gone in for a dip, as is his wont. Then Ginger and Digby ran up with a stick for me to throw; “that’s funny?” I thought.

I wandered down to the lake to find Millie, not so much swimming as going round and round on the spot, and going under occasionally, or “drowning” as it’s better known.  She’d obviously gone in for a paddle, not realising that part of the lake was w-a-a-a-a-y out of her normal depth for paddling. So I had to wade in up to my hips to get her out, the daft cow!

---

Well done our Bethany, who is now working at 3 jobs! (Takes after her mother, obvs.) She’s on summer break from Uni.  Not only does she run “Dr Bill the dentist’s” surgery, acting as both his office manager and dental nurse, on top of doing an Admin job at Canberra Uni, she’s now a telephone receptionist at Canberra Uni.  (Canberra Uni is a different Uni to the Australian National University, where Bethy studies.)

One day she was walking to get a coffee, while doing her admin post at Canberra Uni, and a friend hailed her from an office. They had a chat and a coffee together, then her friend said; “I’m leaving, do you want my job?” So she took it.

Much respect our kid.

---

L~A’s threatening of the plants in the garden, which she does every day, seems to be working well. We’re hoping that all the veges and fruit for Xmas lunch will be from our little plot. 🙂

---

My music making with my new software, is coming on a treat! Charlie stated;  “You’ve excelled even yourself,” even going so far as to compare my stuff to the famous Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music György Sándor Ligeti!

---

 

Hope you all have a great Xmas my friends, if you’ve “forgotten” to send us a card, you can alway leave a message in the comments box below.

 

Taff