Ok as I said on the front page, I’ve not much news for you, I’m sure you’re glad of that.

The month got off to a bad start when we had to let Bethy know we were going to New Zealand in January, and that she wasn’t coming with us. “Why not?” I hear you cry. Well the arrangement is that every Christmas and new year (and my birthday)  we alternate Bethy’s company with her dad. This year it’s his turn. So she’ll be going off to Tasmania with Glenn, and I’m sure she’ll have a wonderful time with her myriad of cousins and the family. Glenn is from a B-I-G family; one of seven kids!

I hit the big five – oh in January, Me? 50? That just doesn’t make sense at all? I’m only twenty five now, how can I be fifty in January?

To be fair to Bethy, she did accept that my fiftieth should be celebrated in a big way, though I thought she was going to suggest I tried naked skydiving without a parachute.  So we told her we would be going to back to NZ in the not too distant future, and that we’d all go together, and yes we will tour the locations for “Lord of the rings”.

But we’ve got a UK trip next year first, so maybe we’d hit NZ again in Jan 2010.

We’re looking at hiring a campervan (with GPS, we’ll need it) to tour NZ.  Mr Harness has clued us in on several worthwhile, and potentially life threatening, adventures we can have there.  One night we’ll be booked into a hotel though, as on the 12 Jan it’ll be our (somethingth?) wedding anniversary. We’ll celebrate it with a good meal, an expensive bottle or two of a good Kiwi wine, and  get a good night’s kip. Bollocks to the shagging, we’ll be far better off, and looking forward too, catching up on some good “ZZzzZzzZ’s” after a week in a campervan.

The planning for NZ is fun too. We spend hours looking up campervan hires, and planning where we’re going. Lee-Anne unfortunately, was right about Mt Cook (NZ’s highest mountain), you cannot knock it off in an afternoon, it actually takes  3 days and you have to have current mountaineering experience. Though I may still have a go. You’d not expect me not to wouldn’t you?

The planing is fun, I just wish we’d get our act together to apply for the time off for the holiday.

We did have a little something to soften the blow for Bethy of our going on the trip without her. We’d got tickets for us to see her favourite stand up comedian, Bill Bailey, who’s appearing in Canberra this month.  On being told about the tickets Bethy burst into tears. I don’t know if it was with joy at the prospect of going to see Bill, or the relief of not having to spend a fortnight in a campervan with me farting away at night.

Anyway we get to see Bill on the 13 th of Sept, so expect a review here next month.

Bethy news: A mind blowing mark of how her fitness is improving was when at school they did the annual mandatory “Beep Test”. These “Beep tests” involve running around like buggery and stopping and starting on the beeps. A good score is upwards of 3.7,  last year she scored 4.3. This year?

6.7! Amazing.

Also, just to prove she’s not just a “jock”, she was recently given certificates for “good behavior” and “academic excellence” (nothing under a “B” for her test results that term.) Beth and a few select others were also invited out to tea by the teachers in recognition of their achievements. She’s also on a run of 100% in maths tests, with three top scores on the trot.

Ok, I’m getting old, and it’s not just that I hit 50 in January.

This was brought home to me when  I was given permission by Lee-Anne to waste spend good money on a new camera. As you may have gathered from the innumerable bloody snaps I post in the galleries here, I’m a bit keen on the old photography. For ages I’ve been watching camera specs go up, while prices came down, (not on the same cameras though.)  Lee-Anne had had a gutsful of me looking into, and talking about, and mooning over the bloody things, and eventually cracked. “Go and buy one, it’s not like you won’t get the use out of it!” But, and here’s the odd thing, instead of doing my normal stunt; rushing into a camera shop waving fistfuls of notes shouting “rape me!!!” I found myself backing off, and being reluctant to buy one. Good god, it must mean old age, fuddy duddy, thinking about things before acting, is creeping in!!!

I had my heart set on a Nikon D80. I then found that by buying camera review magazines I could muddy the waters sufficienty to confuse myself into not buying one. I spent weeks wondering what the hell to buy. I eventually wore it down to three; the Nikon D 80, the Canon EOS 450D, and the Sony alpha 350. I settled on the Canon as it had more megapixels than the Nikon but less than the Sony. But it has more lenses available, and a better brand history behind it.  The day after I handed over the cash for it online I went and bought a magazine which told me that the Sony was a far better buy.  Ok, so now I know what I’m buying, do I buy the body only, and buy the lens I want separately, or do I buy a complete kit? The complete kit came with a crap lens, but was cheaper than buying separates. So I got that. (The next day I found a brilliant lens on sale on e-bay; value $1100, sale price $250.)

Ok so I buy the camera off e-bay, and wait. And wait. And wait.

For some bloody reason the bank wasn’t clearing my “Pay-Pal” payment. Lots of e-mails flew between me and Amanda Ho (I’m way ahead of you on that one) and we politely bickered. Then the bank cleared the money, but, just to frustrate me further, Ms Ho found she didn’t have  the camera bag she’d promised me. “Don’t worry you can send the bag on when it arrives!” Not having that was she?

So I got in a huff, and as I knew the bloody camera wasn’t now going to arrive on this my day off, I grabbed my old camera and went for a spin. And so I also ended uphaving another of my misadventures. Which was fun.

For a change I chose a destination, rather than just head off at random and ending up at at Yass, which is what I usually do. I chose to head for a place called “Captain’s flat” because it was within my chosen distance,  but mainly because it has a stupid name.  The drive out there was inconsequential, I passed some nice scenery and an old church and was happy. There’s nothing much at Captain’s flat, a few houses, a small shop, a pub or two and an old disused copper mine. I spent a jolly half hour scrambling amongst the arsenic and asbestos heaps on the mine and shot off some happy snaps. The place was a blaze of reds and rusts, so much so that I had to tone down the colours in my images, rather than boost them up. Which was novel.

Ok, so I looked at my map. Ok to be honest I looked at the A4 sized map of New South Wales I had found in the back of an old  touring guide in the boot. I found I could either go back to Canberra the way I had come, which would be 46 k on tarmac, or take what looked like a logging track for 33 k through the Forrest, down to the main highway. Not really a choice then.

I set off. I soon found myself heading up hill, very steeply uphill. Very, very, steeply uphill. For many Kilometres. The logging track got more and more muddy, a rarity hereabouts. But  I persevered. I passed the lovely Tinderry nature reserve, which I must go back and explore sometime. It was then things got a bit daft, to say the least.

A sign by the side of the road said “Snow chains may be needed past this point.” You have to be kidding me, snow chains? I could see the top of the pass ahead, and ok there was some snow abouts at this altitude. Bollocks, I’ll press on.

I put some John Otway on the stereo, just to make myself feel sane. “It can’t get worse than this” I thought.

What I thought was the top of the pass turned out to be one of the tops of the pass, one of several in fact, and I soon found myself, how can I put it,  not fully in control of the car. This was due to a mix of deep mud and snow, and steep inclines and declines. It was all rather fun. Fun that is until the last steep descent started, which was when I realised that turning the steering wheel wasn’t really changing the car’s direction that much. Or at all really. In effect I was skiing the car. At one point I abandoned steering altogether and just watched the scenery slide by. Luckily the road was deeply rutted, and that none of the ruts ran over the edge of the cliff.

I reached tarmac eventually. I stopped by the side of the road to take some snaps, and to try to stop shaking. Two guys in a Toyota 4×4 Landcruiser were drinking coffee in the same lay-by. They started up the wagon and pulled up alongside me. The driver rolled down his window;“Oy you, did you just come down there? We’ve just tried  getting up it in this and had to turn back. You mad twat.”

Yeah well, coming down is easier isn’t it? Even in a twelve year old Ford saloon.

So the camera eventualy arrived and the first results are…disappointing… to say the least. But there was always going to be a steep learing curve with a new camera. There’s always a steep learning curve for me with anything more complex than a tin-opener .

Things I’ve learned so far.

1) Mr Auto-focus is not my friend.
2) Mr Auto anything isn’t really that good.
3) Moving up from 7 to 12 megapixels doesn’t make you a better photographer.
4) You still need to work at getting a good shot.
5) Not having your old “point and shoot” camera’s 10 x zoom is a handicap.
6) Having a rapid-fire setting is great fun.
7) Not everyone else is as interested in your new camera as you are.
8 ) Mr Photshop is not redundant.
9) As soon as you buy a new camera the sun takes a holiday for a fortnight.

Thinking on that last point, we’ve had some proper bloody winter weather of late. Here’s a clip of Millie our mutt enjoying the breeze.

Bethy was off school “crook” with a  cold last week, but come Friday she valiantly agreed to play for her Basketball side, as they were level pegging in the league with team they were playing that night. She didn’t play the whole match, but did play a blinder when she was on.

The final score? Bethy’s lot 48, the other lot 48. A draw, so they’re still level pegging!

Bethy’s been selected to play for “The Ramblers” next season. They are an “under 16’s side” (Bethy’s 13 yrs) and as they are a Division 2 side it should be a gentle introduction into that level of play. We hope.

I spoke to Chaz Kingman the other night (on my bill, natch) and I may have persuaded him to come over here again. Which would be nice as I’ve run out of marmite and Safeways Own Brand Assam tea (loose leaf of course.)

The other thing we have to look forward to is our next coast trip. It’s Lee-Anne’s birthday later this month, and she wants a whale watching trip as part of the celebration. Unfortunately we cannot go on her birthday due to school, work, etc, so we’re going for the first five days of October. As this is in the school holidays, getting accommodation down the coast hasn’t been easy. And as our fave place “Helen’s Beach House” has now been sold we were a bit stumped. There is also the small consideration that there will be me, Lee-Anne, Bethy, the mother-in-law, Bethys mate, and three dogs to house, makes for fun and games. We’ve found and booked; “Brighton Breezy”. Obviously I’ll bore the pants off you with the tale of the trip once it’s done and dusted.

That’s it. Keep in touch. (See I told you I didn’t have much news!)

Love

taff