Taff Down Under 10

Not a lot to report this time my chums, life goes on in it's own pleasant way.

But by fuck we've been having some funny weather here. The latest meteorological phenomena have been dust storms.

We had a forecast the other day that said to expect thunderstorms; "goody" thinks I "I haven't seen a real ripper of a storm since my first visit." Mind you that was a traffic stopper, like driving through a mile long car wash. Anyway, during the evening there were flashes of lightening in the sky, but sod all rain. We went to bed that night hoping to hear the downpour promised, but got nothing except the sound of thunder from under the doona. (Good Aussie word that, doona!)

Got up the next morning to find the world had turned brown. A fine layer of dirt had covered everything. It was such a weird sight, brown plants on the brown lawn, by the brown tree next to the brown road, on which stood my brown car. Muggins here made the mistake of using his windscreen washers to get rid of it, and ended up with a brown slimed windscreen.

Anyway, we eventually got everything clean in time for it to happen again two days later.

Here's how the press reported it….

23 Oct 2002 07:25 Huge dust storm blankets eastern Australia

SYDNEY, Oct 23 (Reuters) – A huge dust storm, whipped up by winds blowing across drought-ravaged farmlands, blanketed Australia's biggest city Sydney and swept across four states on Wednesday.

More than 60 bushfires in New South Wales (NSW) state added to the storm, reducing visibility in places to a few hundreds metres and prompting health authorities to warn people with asthma and breathing difficulties to stay indoors. Sydney's southwest recorded a reading of 150 micrograms of dust per cubic metre of air, said the NSW Environment Protection Authority. A reading of 50 is considered high. "We have seen air pollution today at particularly high levels," said Dr Steve Corbett from the NSW Health Department. "It is at a level which we see during our worst air pollution episodes. It is a very high level of pollution, which is why we are issuing this advisory," Corbett said." Brown dust enveloped Sydney during the morning as the winds blew the topsoil from dry farmlands, now suffering the worst drought in up to 100 years, to the coast. The Bureau of Meteorology said the dust storm affected New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia across the east and south of the island continent.

 

 

I was in the local library the other day, situated handily next door to where I work. I was getting a few CD's to copy, and noticed the Librarians name tag read "Rhondda." Being a nice chatty sort of chap, I decided to comment on it. Gawd, how I wished I hadn't! It was one of the most inane conversations I have ever had, and boy have I had a few brain manglers. I'm not saying it was all her fault, but you'd think that a person would know something of the origins of her name?

Me; Good Welsh name that.

Her: What is?

Me; Rhondda.

Her: What do you mean?

Me; Your name, it's a Welsh name.

Her; No it's not, it's my mothers name.

Me; It's the name of a valley in Wales.

Her: What is?

Me; The Rhondda.

Her: What do you mean?

Me; It's the name of a valley in Wales.

Her: Is that in Europe?

Me; Great Britain.

Her: Wales, in Great Britain?

Me; Yes.

Her; so what were you saying?

Me; Your name is the same as a place in Wales.

Her: it is?

Me; Yes, used to be famous for it's coalmines. I used to live not far from there.

Her: And it's called, (here she produced the least likeliest pronunciation of the word Rhondda ever, something like) Rowonhanda

Me; Well no, it's pronounced Rhondda.

Her: I've never heard it pronounced that way are you sure you've not misheard it?

Me; Pretty sure yes.

Her: Your not pulling my leg are you?

Me; No!

By this time a queue of about ten people had built up behind me. So I smiled punched her, and left.

Amusing story. The place that I work has got one of Canberra's main bus stations close by to it, Belconnen bus depot. When they decided to build it, they had this huge plot of land, with a major shopping centre close by. Some bright spark came up with the idea, "Lets save a few bob, and buy the plans of another bus station, to save on architects fees." So they scouted about for a set of plans of a suitable sized bus station, and bought them from a city in the States. So they went off, re-jigged them a bit, and set about building it. Wouldn't you have loved to have been there when someone finally realized; "Oh shite, they drive on the right over there don't they?" Hehe…Now all the busses have to negotiate a maze of lights, it looks like a gay disco at night, just to get in and out of there.

 

This Sunday we had a lovely day. Got up early, and drove out to the local reservoir, at Cotter Dam. Lovely place, idyllic and peaceful. Saw loads of wildlife there, including lizards and stuff. There's a kiddies play park there, and river walks, some fine looking rock climbing too.

LeeAnne bumped into someone she hadn't seen for fifteen years, not since this girl ran off with the boss anyway. So we had a coffee and I fell in the river etc, and all was pleasant.

After this we drove into Canberra. We had lunch at a Turkish place in the city centre, and great grub it was too, falafel rolls. Yummy. We gave Bethy the choice of what film she wanted to see at the cinemas here, and she chose, not "Stuart Little 2" as we expected, but "A Day at the Races." Yep that's the one, the B&W Marx Brothers film. God that kid has good taste.

That night the clocks went back an hour, there's now 11 hours difference between the UK and here. So if you're going to ring us, don't ring at your 6.00pm, as it will be 5.00am here. In fact don't ring at all.

Oh talking about Turkish food, we have this lovely turkish place in our local mall, great grub, and a suprisingly large vege selection.

Remember I told you about Bethy doing a 4K sponsored walk, and how her dad had raised a bundle off sponsors, and how we were hoping she had raised the most sponsorship money as there was a bike for the highest total raised? She got it!

 

Today I was due to do my drama group, the one I run for a bunch of people with learning difficulties, or whatever the PC term for mongs is nowadays. I'm really enjoying it, great fun for me, and they get off on it too. But today we were involved with a community sculpture project.

I just wanted to give you that image. Taff with a bunch of people with learning difficulties, doing "community sculpture." Ok, just to turn the screw a bit tighter, it was being "facilitated" by a gay couple.

How low have I sunk?

Mind you, I wouldn't do my normal piss taking with these guys, Tony is one big man, about 6' 3' tall, got grip like a blacksmith, and all muscle. And the stuff these guys put together is well good. Anyway, it was 27 degrees in the shade, and we were getting ideas together for a massive ceramic sculpture for outside the library, and I was having a fag and a joke with one of the clients, and the trees were full of chirping parrots, and I thought "I'm getting paid for this!".

I'll let you know how it develops.

The other morning the leccy went off, as they were rejigging the powercables due to tree damage and stuff. I was having palpitations, as I don't function till my third pint of tea in the morning. So we fired up the barbie on the veranda, and made brews on there, great fun!