Taff Down Under 16
The 16th of June this year was the first anniversary of my arrival in Oz! Cor, doesn’t time fly?
Anyway.
Well we’ve had our first UK visitors over to stay, and very nice it was too.
A few weeks back we got an e-mail from our good friends Kelvin and Claire’s daughter Holly. She told us that her and a couple of friends were having a "gap year" between school and college and were on a world tour, currently in the Philippines and heading to OZ. She said she’d let us know when she got here.
A series of muddled mails followed by even more muddled phone calls ensued. At one point, while trying to leave a message on the answer-phone giving them instructions on how to best contact us, I actually managed to leave the bloody thing un-plugged, so then no bugger could contact us.
By the way, our new answer phone message now goes;
Me; "Is the bloody thing working."
LeeAnne; "Yes it is, say something."
Me; "Holly, we got your message, we’ll be…"
Bethy; "What you doing"?
Me: "Not now Bethy."
Bethy: "What?"
Me; "At the bus station to meet you."
Bethy: "Can I have a go?"
Anyway, on the day we were supposed to pick up Holly from the bus station, we got another message on there. "giggles….Hi…giggles, It’s Holly….giggles…Just to let you know.. Shush up! …giggles…..Abby’s changed her mind and is coming to…" giggles…Hope that’s ok?"
Abby?
Anyway we turned up at the bus depot quarter of an hour early to meet them, only to be told the bus was an hour late. So we went for a beer. They arrived, and after hugs, and my astonishment that two 19 year olds could come for a weekend stay and only bring a small shoulder bag each, we swept them off to our place.
We fed them; they looked like they needed a good meal.
That night Bethy was at her grandmothers, so we took the girls into the city centre to see the bright lights. After wandering around a few beer houses, and getting chucked out of my favourite as Holly forgot her age ID, we ended up in one of those hideous "mock-Irish" bars that seem to have sprung up everywhere. Bloody despicable place, but you could smoke indoors there, the beer was cheap, and they didn’t ask Holly for ID, so we stayed.
But then the band started. My god.
It seems that these "mock-Irish bars" are a dream come true for frustrated, bald, fat, men, with intentions of being the next "middle of the road" star. If I ever meet the man who invented the karaoke machine, I’ll insert a microphone in his eye. These two were particularly grim specimens. They played guitar and keyboard, only if you looked carefully did you see that not only was the bass and drums from a machine, but most of their "playing" carried on while they took their hands off their instruments to clap.
They gave us a whole repertoire of bad songs, even stooping so low as to throw in a few country and western "songs."
The worse bit was though, that people got up and danced to them.
Now some people should never dance. Ever. And I include myself in that category. There are many forms of bad dancing, the "pissed and overly dramatic," the "I go to line dancing classes me", the "introverts shuffle", the "I’m off my tit’s on ecstasy and don’t care who knows it," and the very worse "drunken lecherous old man out for a grope."
I’m a master of all of them.
But some of these people, mostly "straight out of the office and into the pub with my mates,"" types, made me look like that Flatley twat.
So we had a very entertaining evening.
The next day, after the girls had slowly risen from the pit, as it should be with young people, and Bethy had been collected from her grandmothers, we set off on a tour of Canberra. We took them to all the usual places, the "must sees", and they dutifully traipsed along four paces behind us.
We did;
Parliament House, and went up on the roof, great views from there.
Old Parliament House, now the national portrait gallery. Can you believe that two 19 year olds didn’t recognize the Nick Cave portrait?
http://www.australianexplorer.com/canberra_old_parliament_house.htm
The Aboriginal Tent embassy, which has since burned down. Nothing to do with us I assure you.
http://www.frogandtoad.com.au/aboriginies/embassy.html
The national Museum of Australia, a fantastic modernist building, that like most modernist buildings looks slightly dated.
And up the Telstra Tower, to catch the sunset.
http://www.australia.travelmall.com/travelmall/attraction/Canberra%20(ACT)/Telstra%20Tower
After this, I talked them into walking the mutt with me at a place where I always see Roos. They hadn’t seen a wild Roo yet, not unless you count road kills, so they were as enthusiastic as young people can be about going out to see some. (As in, not enthusiastic at all.) You can’t say you’ve been to Oz unless you’ve seen a wild Roo.
When we got there, true to form, there were none to be seen.
After a hard days slog, they were knackered, so we had a quiet night in, in front of the idiot tube, and spent the whole time taking the mick out of naff Ozzie adverts.
The next day we drove them out to Tidbinbilla, our favourite National Park. This had been heavily hit by the fires of January, and had lost 95% of the wild life there.
Driving there was awesome. We drove for 40 minutes through nothing but burned out landscape. Just to put that in perspective, think of a 40-minute drive you regularly do, and imagine nothing but burnt out trees for as far as you can see on either side. Scary huh?
The native trees are starting to regenerate now, they are equipped to cope with fire, and the leaves are coming back on the trunks and main braches. However, in the pine plantations everything is dead. The soil has been burned away, and nothing is living. It looks totally alien.
In the places where clearance is happening, vast swathes of land with no soil appears, and dust is whipped up by even the slightest wind.
Anyway, we got to Tidbinbilla,
The visitor centre is still standing, and went and saw the exhibition on the fires. It was heartbreaking. So we poured all the change, and a few notes, that we had on us into the regeneration fund, and went into the park.
The fires have left huge granite boulders exposed now; it’s a rock climber’s bouldering paradise.
At last we saw a mob of gray Roos sunning themselves by the side of the road, and at last the girls got to take piccies of them. J
We then wen’t to Canberra’s "Deep Space Tracking Station," again fortunately spared by the fires. They have a great exhibition there, and it’s more fun than you would imagine. If you’ve seen the film "The Dish", (and if you haven’t, why haven’t you?), you’l get an idea of the place.
We then went back into Canberra and visited the National Zoo, there despite seeing Lions, Bears, Monkeys, and Tigers the two girls were overjoyed to be able to walk in the Roo enclosure and pet the Roos.
That night, while LeeAnne cooked, I took the girls to a local pub, down by the lake, and they told me all about their adventures since leaving home, and where they were going next. I was very jelous.
The next day we dropped them off back to the bus station, and after doing the hugs they went off back to Sydney. Two days later they were due to fly on to New Zealand, and then the Cook Islands, and The States. Jammy cows.
Talking of the States, we used the tour we gave the girls for Bethy to collect bit’s and bobs to send out to her penpal in the States. My good friend Orrin Bedell, who uses the same discussion forum as us, www.cybersoapbox.com son, Sean, and Bethy are now pen pals, what a great way to learn about another country!
Oh, the unkindest cut of all!
Yup, I’ve had the snip. (Don’t worry, no pictures in the bit!)
LeeAnne was having so many problems on the pill. She had tried every one on the market, and was back to the hormone hell of "first generation" pills. Her blood pressure was through the roof, and I’d ordered a suit of armour for me to wear when she next had PMT.
Seeing as niether of us want more kids, we decided, (and yes it was a mutual decision,) for me to have the op.
I phoned up family planning. "Oh if you want a quick and caring service, Dr. Warren does vasectomies at her GP. surgery." Dr. Warren? Ah wrong spelling, LeeAnne is "Wahren". Phew.
Fine, contacted the surgery. "Dr. Warren will see you Friday morning."
Toddled along there the pair of us, and were met by Dr. Warren. She turned out to be a well preserved woman in her early 50’s. So after talking about why we wanted the op, and her telling us in frank, and far too full details for my taste, what it involved, she said. "Ok Taff, take your trousers and pants down and lie on the table."
I’d been dreading this bit, you know how the bloody thing has a mind of it’s own, and any woman putting their hands near it is a call to arms. LeeAnne had given me a precautionary BJ before we left, but I was still worried.
So I lay back and started counting backwards from a thousand in 13’s.
"987…..974….961…..949…"
Anyway, I got out of there without embarrassing myself too much.
The next week we went back. And as I lay on the couch and babbled on about anything that came into my head, and believe me there were no naughty thoughts in there at this point, Dr Warren hacked away at my goolies. It was all rather painless, apart from the second injection in my nuts, which burned like hell. "That wasn’t very pleasant," I said to the Doc. Well I couldn’t say "Christ that burned like buggery you old cow!" Not with her holding my "best friend" in one hand, and a scalpel in the other.
She did warn me about expecting bruising, burning on urination, swelling, and pain in the scrotum for the next few days. But I got none of that, so not all bad.
Hah…The next day LeeAnne’s period was due. I was wearing a cricketers box, just in case the PMT kicked in at this vulnerable point.
And it didn’t happen. Oh the fucking IRONY!
Discussions ensued.
Fortunately it started two days later. Phewwwwww!
Oh the job scene.
My projects funding runs out on the 30th, so I’m out of work as of that date. As you can imagine I’ve been looking about. I did have an interview with, and a job offer from the probation service, but just as I got that something odd happened.
I’d noticed a few OT posts coming up in mental health, something I am qualified to do. You may not believe this if you have actually worked in mental health with me. J
So I arranged to see one of the OT’s to discuss things. I met up with her, a young lady by the name of Melissa. She chatted to me, told me how desperately understaffed they were there and how they were crying out for OT’s. She then arranged for me to meet the head of Mental Health Services for an "informal chat". I turned up for this in my usual scruffy work clothes.
After introductions I was asked to go through my CV with her. So I spun out the usual lies, how I actually did some work, and how I do have a clue about what I’m supposed to be doing, how I do what an OT is supposed to do, occasionally.
So she nodded politely and said "We’d like to offer you a post here, when can you start?"
Excuse me?
So on the 2nd of July I start at The "Brian Hennessy Rehab Clinic."
Residential Services
- Brian Hennessy Rehabilitation Centre provides supported accommodation for up to 20 people with varying mental health needs as well as rehabilitation, extended care, respite care and subacute facilities for residents.
The Secure Extended Care unit on the grounds of Brian Hennessy Rehabilitation Centre will provide an appropriate secure indoor and outdoor facility with 10 beds so that consumers can be catered for in small groups according to their particular needs. Consumers will be able to circulate freely within the area with unobtrusive environmental boundaries but with appropriate safety provisions
They did explain to me that as OT’s were in such short supply, they were shortcutting the usual channels to get me on board. Fair enough. J
Funnily enough my boss caught up with me on the Monday following, and told me about a meeting she had attended on the same Friday.
This was with the Principals of all the local schools. She was explaining to them how we had won the contract to run the local youth centre, and how this would mean significant changes. One Principal had asked "you will be still offering the Bungee program services ? My boss had hemmed and hawwed and talked about "restructuring" and new possibilities. This obviously wasn’t good enough for the Principal. "You will be keeping Taff, and his group and one to one services going?" She made more blustering noises. Uproar.
It seems like the anger management and other groups I’ve been touting round the schools has been quite a hit. And I quote a local school counsellor;
Taff
I would be more than happy to meet with you at BCC and discuss the huge success of both programs that you have run at our school.
LOL!! So now my boss is telling me that we she can offer me a stack of work, and that I should go private and run my own business doing the shite I do. A good idea, except for the fact I couldn’t run my own nose. Funny how things happen?
We had another "chalk art" event just down the road from us, to mark the public unveiling of a new sculpture by my mate Tim.
http://timspellmanart.dk3.com/
I was in sole charge this time, and Bethy entered again. This time the judges voted her art the best in her age group, and she won a $20.00 book voucher. Result!
I visited my second favourite pub in Canberra, the "Wig and Pen," last night.
http://www.goasdoue.com/agbd/agbdwp.htm
It has a microbrewery on the premises, so me and my mate Dave ran the rack of the beers. Very nice they were too, but boy am I suffering this morning!
Oh, I have a new tune available online.
http://www.dance-industries.com/track.asp?track_id=753
You’ll have to register there to download it, but registration is free. This is a rough edit of a tune that my mate in Canada is helping me mix, the "finished" version should be online next month.
The weather here is definitely parky at the mo, lot’s of frost, and misty mornings. Nice! Makes me feel at home. Of course by 11.00 am its T-shirt weather again. J
Nature notes. While out walking the dog in the bushland the other day, I saw four black cockatoo’s. Apparently since the fires more and more of them have headed into the city.
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