So what do we have for you this month?
The holiday plans continue apace.
I’ve calculated that, to get the full four weeks and five days which I have booked off from work for the UK trip, (32 days total) I will only be using the grand sum of 22 days of my holiday entitlement. (Factoring in weekends and flex days which have been rostered for me.)
I have 55 days left to use this year, and so will have another 33 days to play with until my next leave entitlement is added ermmm…. on the second of July, when I get another 4 weeks or so added in. I’ll retire then..
In fact we’ve just about got everything nailed now. Accommodation has been booked and paid for, or in some (most) cases , scrounged off good people. Can we thank you once again for your kindness, you know who you are.
Transport is booked in the form of a Vauxhall Corsa, and we’ve spent many days pouring over websites of places and things we want to visit. (Mainly when we should be working.) Oh, and joy of joy, the $Aus has been hovering just under the 50 p mark, and was over 50 p for a couple of days last week. (As I write this it’s standing at 49.962p).
A rough itinerary would now read;
Sydney – Hong Kong. (16 hour stay)
Hong Kong – Heathrow
Heathrow – Oxford (2 days jetlag recovery)
Oxford – North Wales (3 days hiking/sightseeing/sheepshagging)
North Wales – South Wales (7 days? In Llanelli????)
South Wales – Cornwall (3 days getting homesick/on the beach)
Cornwall – Devon (Period Yet to be confirmed/ at least 2 days visiting Godsons)
Devon – Wiltshire (Visiting Rellos)
Wiltshire – London (2 day sightseeing/buying gifts)
London – Sydney (Via Hong Kong, short stop)
Sydney – Canberra (3 days recovery.)
Couple of fun things. The two days in Oxford will be spent at a cheap hotel re-staging “I’m Alan Partridge” “Travel Tavern” scenes (Like this!)
In North Wales we’ll be staying in a pine cabin in a forest and hiking up many mountains.
In Llanelli we’ve got an apartment overlooking the beach, though you’d have to be a Llanelli person to appreciate what a deeply silly idea this is. Oh, and every bugger I know in Llanelli has asked to visit us there. Not to see us of course, but to check out the apartment. Typical.
Yet again some silly bugger has had the bright idea that driving from Llanelli to deepest Cornwall is a good thing to do for a day.
Cornwall will see us being guests of the lovely Janet, and the bonkers Howard, may the lord etc etc.,
Devon is an exciting and unknown quantity as I write this, (hint fucking hint!) Apart that is from going to Barnstaple for home made whiskey and the loan of a very big motorbike. (Not at the same time.)
In Wiltshire I’m hoping to meet up with my cousin, who, although a regular correspondent, I haven’t seen for what? 25 years?
The most exciting thing about this trip is the fact that Bethy is now a fit and active (and highly intelligent) teenager, so we can do so much more together. Also, this will be the first time that Bethy and Lee-Anne will have seen what laughably passes for a summer in the UK. At least the days will be longer so we’ll be able to pack more in.
This struck us as a bit worrying though;
Thirty people were injured in one of Hong Kong's busiest shopping districts when two bottles of acid were hurled down a street, police said on Sunday. The bottles were tossed into a crowd on Saturday in the city's Mongkok district in Sai Yeung Choi Street, where 46 people were injured in a similar attack in December. The injured - mostly young people who suffered burns to their faces, limbs and shoulders - were admitted to hospital. All had been released by Sunday except a 16-year-old girl, a government spokeswoman said.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/acid-attack-bottles-hurled-into-crowd-20090517-b764.html
But I’m sure we’ll be safe
Ok, feel free to drop us a line, with hints, suggestions, offers of accommodation/food/drugs/nubile women/or other stuff , even if it’s only to bribe us to stay away from you.
So on to matters other.
Here’s a sign I spotted on one of Canberra’s brothels, I couldn’t work out if it was directions to the way in, or a special offer for that week. Before the half-witticisms start, it’s next door to Canberra Motorcycle Centre, I was in there buying chain lube. (If you thought what I think you just thought, then no, it was for my motorbike chain. You pervert.)
While out on my early evening perambulation with my dogs the other evening, I noticed that a number of the street lights had been changed from the usual dull orange, to a sharp and bright white light. Ok, no problem with that. A few evenings later I noticed that whole streets had been changed over to these.
Now my street has been converted to these “Auschwitz spotlights” not dissimilar to the ones in Llanelli. (It’s enough to make a Welshman paranoid.).
It’s not a case of replacing bulbs when they blow, but of replacing whole street sections. Which must be an expense. The new lights are bright and sharp, too bright for my tastes. They also cover a wide arc, which is fine for walking, but not so good if they come in through your bedroom window, and like me, you need pitch black to sleep.
I don’t know if they’ve been done as “an experiment”, “more green,” “less expensive in the long run,” “mandated”, “just done to annoy Taff”?
The lights shine clear through the sodium haze
The night draws near and the daylight fades
But there’s a voice in the distance quiet and clear
Saying something that I never ever wanted to hear
(Pint for the first person to mail me the name of the song title, and the band)
On a trip to Cook shops, I checked as always do, the “local notice board”. It’s a source of bargains, and not a few lunatic services/ courses /get rich quick schemes. (“Knit your own feng-shui garlic dream-catchers, make $$$$!”).
However one notice was rather astonishing. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me, so I couldn’t take a shot. The next day when I went down there with my camera, and a hang-over, the sign had gone. The plot thickens!!
It was printed on an inkjet printer, properly capitalised and punctuated, (the first things to look for when spotting the…less hinged…poster maker’s work). To the best of my memory ability, it read;
Do you own a cat in Cook?
Then you’d better learn how to keep it in your yard or your house, especially at night.
Otherwise you may not have it at the end of 2009!
Several things about it puzzled me;
a) Is it a threat or an alert?
b) Was it aimed at the whole cat owning community, or an individual?
c) Why the long time scale, why not; “by the end of May!”?
d) Why no phone number, or contact details, for further information?
e) Will there be a new notice at the end of 2009, advertising “genuine cat skin gloves cheap”?
I stuck the tale on a local news discussion forum on the net, to see if anyone had any clues. It caused such a kerfuffle that I was contacted by a local radio station for an interview. (Which goes to show how exciting things are in Canberra at the moment.)
I was interviewed for the afternoon radio show on 2CC Radio (I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d never heard of them before they called me.) . I cannot think why anyone would want to hear about my seeing a sign, one which I really hadn’t got a clue about.
It may go down in history as the interview which caused several Canberra road accidents, by sending drivers to sleep.
One morning I had to go into work, which is unusual for me as I normally work the afternoon shifts. Coincidentally, Lee-Anne needed the car this morning, for a trip to the dentist, so that left me with the bike as my transport. Nothing I like better than a spin into work on the bike, especially at rush hour when I can take advantage of the bike to nip in and out of the traffic.
However, that morning there was this strange meteorological phenomena we call “thick fog” in the UK, or “what’s this wet stuff?” in Aus, to add to the fun and games. Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
It’s not like I’m not used to riding in fog and rain, after all I am a pommy bastard, and therefore it is quite natural to me. But it did leave me wanting to make one slight suggestion though, to a particular group of drivers;
Mrs Middle Class.
I know you don’t like speeding, you find speed frightening, and that’s all well and good. So I accept that you prefer to drive at 10 – 15 k under the speed limit, and normally in the right hand lane. I know your mind is full of your daughter’s forthcoming wedding, and the food for the nice buffet meal that you have to plan for it, and that the recipe for your cupcakes doesn’t seem to be turning out all that well. Poor you, you’ve tried them 18 times now, and they still are a bit too flavoursome.
I know you are extraordinarily proud of your two year old Ford Average, which you bought brand new, as the nice man in the salesroom told you it got 0.02 k per litre more than the Holden Boring, and it didn’t have the slightly differently shaped wing mirrors that the Toyota Dull has (I know you don’t like to stand out too much from the pack, do you?)
Your car’s a lovely silver grey colour too, isn’t it? Have you noticed how well it blends in with the fog? Matches in quite perfectly Well here’s a tip; if you want it to last further than the 3 year warranty you paid extra for when you bought it, why not be daring and SWITCH YOUR BLOODY LIGHTS ON?
It may save you wondering why all the other drivers are flashing their lights at you and making those exceedingly rude gestures.
Just a thought.
(Having said that I saw one of these type of women getting beautifully rear-ended on near work that morning.)
On my last day off, I decided to take a run out on my motorbike (Cochyn as I call her), and as is my wont, to take some photographs. I particularly wanted a good photo of my bike, one with a vista of long sweeping empty road behind her in it. I wanted this shot for two reasons.
a) She’s just had the riders seat recovered, and it’s bright red. It looks rather fetching, I may have the passenger seat recovered in the same colour. (Lee-Anne thinks it looks dreadful.)
b) I wanted to show all my UK based biker mates one of these magnificent “bikers roads” we have here. They aren’t used to such long sweeping roads. Not empty ones in any case. And definitely not empty, dry ones, with the sun on them. So it would annoy the hell out of them. Neat.
I remembered there being such a road out to Captains Flat* from Queanbeyan. I also remembered there being a pretty, and pretty old by Aussie standards, church which would be a suitable subject for some HDR shots, on the route. Oh, and the old copper mine at Captains Flat would be a good subject for HDR to. Sorted then.
So I set off. I only got lost once, in the new rats maze at the airport, and soon found myself on suitable stretch of road, one which spanned to the horizon, with a perfect vanishing perspective. I parked the bike blocking the left hand lane as traffic was infrequent. After shooting some snaps I noticed cars heading my way, and stopped taking shots, as I didn’t want other traffic in them.
I soon had enough of this view, and did the same thing at another couple of points on the road. But now, here’s the point of this whole long boring screed.
Without fail, any and all passing cars stopped to ensure I was ok, and not broken down, (or just a mad bastard Pommy affected by the heat who’d stooped and was taking pictures of a bike on an empty road. Oh, hang on…)
I was highly impressed, and not a little touched by this. In the UK people would have only stopped to shout; “Haaa Haaaa!!”, or to mug you.
Very nice Captains Flat people. Thank you, you made a slightly batty pommy a very happy man.
(Yes I did get some cracking shots of the bike, the church, and the mine.)
*”Captains Flat, what?” I keep wanting to ask..
In my all to frequent jaunts around that place of beauty which is the Pinnacle nature reserve the other day, I noticed that the kind people of Environment ACT (I presume it to be them in any case,) have signposted the tracks there. I wonder if the names were made up to enable the sign posting? Anybody know?
At least now we can be assured, that when we embark on an expedition to the deepest depths of the wilderness of the Pinnacle, should we have to shout ourselves a rescue helicopter or the like to pull us out of the ice bound tundra there, we can give them directions along the lines of; “I’m on the Tully Track, just next to the big barn, overlooking the main road “.
But, and here’s where it gets strange. Just today, when I was out with the dogs, and at great personal risk to myself, I decided to get off the marked tracks and follow a roo trail. (Is there anything more inspiring to get you off a well marked path than the sight of way-marked track?) After a while, I came across, what I can only describe as a shallow grave! It comes complete with it’s own pickaxe, and is ready for residence.
It’s a year this month that we started going to the gym at 5.30 am. (It’s three years this month that I packed in smoking too) A whole year of it! And yes we still go there, three mornings a week at least, five at best. Any changes? Nothing you’d notice, although we do go to sleep a lot earlier, (I always hope I get home from work, and off the bike, before sleep hits.) \
I have lost some 6 kilos, but still have a gut. Before you say anything, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in five weeks. If I give it another five years I may lose the gut, but the UK trip should put paid to any ideas of further abstinence.
Our latest “Pump class” teacher must be pushing 60, but has a body that most 30 year olds would be proud of. She obviously knows this, as she loves showing us the correct way to do exercises, which enables her to show off her arse. And who can blame her?
That’s enough of my rot, I may knock another one of these out before we leave. (Probably pleading for some sort of succour on that one too.)
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