So what’s new for this month, not a great deal. But the UK trip is now all settled, and mostly paid for, and in six days time we fly. We really are looking forward to seeing all of you.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, our heartfelt thanks to all who have offered to put us up while we’re there.

Insurance fraud

We were looking out for a good travel insurance cover, not something we’d normally bother much with, but with the swine flu farrago ongoing it seemed apt.

We got a reasonable quote from AMMI and sent them the money. I downloaded the policy document, as a PDF off the net, and all was good and calm. Then one day, while at work, I got a phone call off Lee-Anne. Now luckily for me the Lee-Anne is a master (mistress?) of the devilish art of fine print. (She should be, she writes it into law.)

She had read through the AMMI print off, and found out it wouldn’t cover us for….swine flu… of all fucking things.

I didn’t believe her at first, as that was just too bizarre a thing to contemplate, so I rang them up…

“Oh no, we don’t cover you for swine flu”.
“Not much point in me having this policy then is there?”
“It covers you for lots of other things, like vehicle liability waiver exemptions..”
“Big fucking deal, cancel it as of yesterday please.”

So we found someone who will cover us, as long as we don’t; “Go against any well publicised Government or health body advice”, (as if I would? Me?)

I’m awaiting a cheque back off AMMI, luckily they have to give us 100% of it as we canceled within the legal “cooling off period.”

Congrats;

Congratulations to Robbie and Mike on the birth of their baby, Brighid. Mother and baby doing well. Father not doing so well, as Mike has only gone and got a genuine case of “Swine Flu”, about which I will make no sarky comment whatsoever.

Congrats also to Lee-Anne who has once again climbed to a new level on the greasy pole of local government. I’m hoping to be a kept man soon. Also on the plus side, she now has got a parking pass, which I use more than she does,  which saves me a mint.

Weather.

Cor it’s got bloody cold of late. The other night it went down to -6c  here. Yes that’s minus six degrees Celsius. We’ve even had days where the daytime temperature hasn’t gone over 4c.

I’ll admit that on four days in the last six weeks it’s been too cold/wet for me to take the bike into work, and I’ve had to use the car. (Yes that’s four winter days so far  UK bikers!)

Coupled with this we’ve had our first falls of snow on the mountains (Brindabellas) around the city. Not a great deal as of yet, as this photos shows, but enough to indicate that this coming skiing season may be a good one.

Which of course is stuff all good to us, as we’ll be in the UK at the time. Typical!

Mother’s birthdays

It was both our mother’s birthdays last month. Mary, Lee-Anne’s mother and Cynthia, who is mine, were born a mere two days apart. Of course being our mothers, nothing could be simple about buying them gifts.

Lee-Anne wondered long and hard about what to get Mary. After much researching and wondering, in the end she got her a couple of decent bottles of plonk, a gift voucher for the massage place I’ve been using, and something else which I’ve totally forgotten about. The day before her birthday I took her mutt for a walk with mine, as I do most days. I managed to fire off a decent shot of her dog, and printed it off. A trip to the cheap shop, and for $6 I got a half decent frame for it. I handed that over as a small after thought.

We didn’t hear the last of it, she was still thanking me four days later. Lee-Anne wasn’t miffed at all, honest.

For my mother, I’d had a hankering to get her one of those digital photo frames, so I did. I had to buy a chip to transfer the images into it, you’d think they would supply one? I got a 1 gig chip cheap and so was happy. I loaded all the images of us I had, and a few of the locality, mainly my best landscape shots of Canberra, and in the end it had 450 photos on it. I checked the capacity and found I had used less than ¼ of the chip!

So ok, I fired it all up, and set it to slideshow the photos. It all worked perfectly. Then I realised it had an Aussie plug on it. Never mind, I’ll whip- that off and put a Brit plug on it. Only then I realised that it wasn’t just an Aussie plug, but a transformer, without which her present would be …errmmm… a useless dead frame. Oh deep bloody joy.

Solution! Get an adapter plug and send that with it. Better solution, order one online to be delivered from a UK store, excellent.

It was only after ordering the adapter that I realised that the plug would get there long before the frame, and my poor dear mother would think I’d sent her a plug for her birthday. So I left it at that. I thought a bit of mystery would add some colour to her life.

As part of Mary’s birthday treats, her sister, Wilma, who was visiting from Melbourne, took us out for a meal at one of Canberra’s best eateries, Rock salt.

Not overly impressed with the vege grub we had there. But during the course of the evening Lee-Anne made the mistake of mentioning that we rarely ate out, preferring to cook ourselves as we are both good, nay great, cooks, and also that we were normally in bed by 9.30 each night in order to go to the gym the next morning. Wilma took this to mean that we didn’t like eating out, and as it was way past our bed time we should be leaving NOW! Once a person of Wilma’s age  gets an idea in her head, nothing will shake it. So we were out of there and home before the cutlery hit the plates…

Getting lost (yet again)

On my days off I’ve been taking a few trips out in the car , as the weather has been a bit inclement for long motorbike trips. (Yes I am a wimp.) Actually the weather has made for some fine (in my opinion) landscape shots, as nothing is more boring than endless clear blue skies in landscapes. (And yes I am just saying that to annoy the buggery out of my chums in the UK.)

It’s a mark of my ingrained incompetence, that on the first of these day trips I actually went as to the extent of going to the visitor shop at Namadgi National Park, which is just on the Canberra border, and buying a map. Even then I  managed to end up some 40 kilometres away from my desired destination, in a valley instead of at the top of a mountain.

Christ only knows how I do it.

I was furious with myself for doing this, and about to head home for a day long sulk, when I came across the ruined Orroral Station. This was an old sheep herders place, and the ruins made for some interesting shots. So I was happy again, and wasted half a day there.

The next week I decided to go to Adaminaby, (which, for the life of me I cannot pronounce without adding a few extra vowels into.) They have a “Big Trout” there, which would bring my total of Aussie “Big things” seen to a grand total of five (Trout, Cheese, Ned Kelly, Merino, Murray Cod.)

Ok, the trip out of Canberra was uneventful, until I got within 30 k of that place, Adamaninanaby. Then a sign informed me that the rest of the way there was on dirt roads, and these could be washed out and impassable in wet weather. It was raining at the time. Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. After about 15 k , I discovered it is possible to make our “all wheel drive” station wagon go sideways around bends, sometimes even without trying. This added a great deal of spice to the journey.

Before getting to Adamaminanababy, I found some wonderful old shacks deserted and broken, so I stopped and took some pictures, and tried to stop from shaking.

The place itself, Adaminininababybabybaby, was a neat little hamlet with a pub, some closed shops, a general store, a garage and a big trout. The sort of place, due to it’s mountain location and closeness to a big town, (Cooma,) I could imagine us retiring to. It took a whole quarter of an hour to exhaust the delights of the place, including  getting a coffee, looking through a junk shop, and phoning Lee-Anne.

I drove back the long way, on the all tarmac federal highway, just for my sanity’s sake.

The joys of being a gym rat.

Seeing as we’ve been going to the gym five day a week, and seeing as I’ve not had any alcohol* for over two months, and seeing as I’ve been Mr Fitness Personified, I managed to put my back out the other day. How did I do this? Trying to break the Aussie dead-lift record? Climbing the sheer face of Booroma rocks? Saving a small child from a runaway train?

Nope, some thing even more dramatic.

Yawning.

That’s right, yawning. One bloody good yawn and I was doing my best Charles Laughton impression for three days. Lee-Anne had a great idea, “Why not go to “Foot and Thai” they’ll sort you out. So I did, and after my now regular wringing out at the hands of some Thai totty, and after my back being snapped, crackled and popped with a sound not unlike like dry timber being snapped, I walked upright for the first time that day. The free sauna you get there also helped relieve the pain of the injury, and the massage, and all was well again.

*Ok  there was one night when me and Lee-Anne had the house to ourselves, and  some Champaign, pepsi and raisins,  but the least said about that night the better.

Cultural ire..

We’ve been doing the cultural thing this month; we visited this exhibition at the National Gallery, which was a hoot. All sorts of idiotic “sculptures” which were ever so amusing. Ever so amusing until you realise that some of these “works’ had had thousands of bucks of public cash wasted on buying them for various galleries. Then I was furious.

We also went and saw this touring exhibition of original “Vanity Fair” portraits at the National Portrait gallery. It was excellent, and if there wasn’t a $10 charge I’d go back and see it again. Preferably on a day when it wasn’t raining, and therefore wasn’t packed to the rafters, as on the day we went. Not so bad for me, but Lee-Anne had to use her elbows to get the better views.

Oh, while I’m talking about things arty, do yourself a favour and see this movie; “Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock.” It’s a hoot, and will reinforce your prejudice that the art world is inhabited by effete wankers, (should you have such a prejudice, as I do.)

Can she Kanji?

The other night I came home from work to find Bethy doing one of those “word search” puzzles. You know the type where you have to find a number of words hidden in a grid? (Crossword puzzles for morons.) I was ever so impressed by how well she did these, she had done about four of them. They were in Japanese Kanji script. She’s ever so keen on her Japanese, and worships her “Sensei” Hikiro Fyffe.

Canberra has shitheads too

Whilst walking the dogs one morning I came across this pleasant sight. Think about this. Someone had to load this into a vehicle capable of carrying it, drive it to this spot which is part of a local beauty spot, (probably in the dark) dump it, and either smash it up there, or leave it for other mouth breathers to smash up. Would it have been any less bother to take it to the Salvos? Is it too much trouble to take it to the Mitchell recycling place?

What sort of rancid, dim witted, unthinking, low life, scumbucket would go to that amount of trouble to dump it in such a pleasant place? You cannot get to the place without having to drive, you couldn’t dump it without making an effort.

To smash the glass there, a place where I walk my dogs, would have earned them a lifetime of pain if I had caught them in the act.

Oh, not that I’m making accusations or intimating any association, but there was a substantial amount of paperwork lying around, which all seems to be associated with “Alterations Now,” a local tailoring firm, including several “announcement requests” for the place they are based, a “mega mall,” customer service announcements.

Road safety.

I’m all for road safety being improved, and am a cautious driver. But I think the new speed limits which have been imposed in Cook are a bit much. Have a look at the new signs!!

It’s not even a school zone for goodness sake.  I was driving in second virtually all the way home, to comply with this, and it didn’t half make the guy behind me swear a lot! At one point I was overtaken by a skateboarder.

What on earth were they thinking?