Taff Down Under 27

Life is never simple is it. I’m sure I wouldn’t find it boring if it was. But hell, I wouldn’t be able to bore you lot with this crap if it was, so swings and roundabouts eh?

It was Canberra’s flower festival the other day, we went along for a look, it’s a lovely show. (I cannot believe I just typed that, I’m getting fucking soft in my old age.)

Anyway, there’s a fun fair there, and I was promised I could go on the Ferris Wheel with Bethy if I was a good boy (She holds my hand when I get scared). The displays were in good shape this year, unlike last year when some bright spark decided the theme for that year’s exhibits was to be "water". Deciding on the theme of "water", when the whole state has been in drought for nearly two years, is a stroke of fucking genius in my book.

So we had a wonderful day strolling amongst the exhibits, taking pictures, watching the entertainments and generally being soft old gits. I managed to get some great snaps, despite the day being slightly overcast. My favourite shot was taken in the display of scarecrows made by the local schools. Some dozy old twat kept striding between me and the scarecrows, and spoiling the shots. It wasn’t until we got home that I realised he fitted perfectly into the shots of the scarecrows. He looked like the "best in show" in fact.

As always at these shows they had stalls flogging local crafts and stuff. So we moseyed around. I found two stalls selling pickles and spiced goods, yummy. Each of them has a display of their products, and a bowl of crackers so you could try a sample of them. Being a macho nerk, I asked the first stall holder which was his hottest pickle, "Try the ‘Habanero Jam’ if you like it hot," he replied. So I did, and I nearly died. By fuck, it was made of chilli and tomato dosed in phosphorous and lava. I bought a jar for later, you can’t let stuff like that go by.

After spending a small fortune on cans of lemonade, I went back to the other stall. Unfortunately this stall was run by someone who had been one of his state’s rugby greats. Why was this unfortunate? Well the worlds most boring deaf old man, (no, not me), had decided to tell this geezer all about himself. "You scored a hundred and thirty eight first class tries, you did you know. You were the leading try scorer for the club. You didn’t get the international recognition you should have. I saw you at twenty matches; you were great. You played number eight you did. You were vice captain. You should have been captain you should. You played with that big black fella, whatisname. You were great you were."

Now imagine this being shouted at you from four feet away, over and over again, by a man with badly fitting dentures, and all at a volume that meant the brass band in the next enclosure were being drowned out, (no bad thing), and then you’ll have some idea of how irritating it was. But the guy, who obviously has more patience than I ever will, put up with it good naturedly. Then his wife, a short, well-rounded, Indian lady shoo’d the old man off. She proceeded to give her husband a right ear bashing in a lovely sing-song Indian accent. This great bear of a man, who even though he was in his late fifties still had an incredible physical presence, was obviously well in love and well under the thumb. He just stood there like a naughty schoolboy, blushed, and took it on the chin.

I asked what his hottest pickle was.

"The wife," he replied, giving me a shy grin.

He offered me a taste of his "Brinjal Pickle", telling me it was his hottest. I bought a jar but declined as taste, my tastebuds having been cauterised already (It proved to be even hotter than the Habanero pickle, so I was well pleased).

Animal tales….This is a long one with a happy ending for us all. Well us all, apart from Barnum that is….

Ok, we went to see an exhibition of Vivienne Westwood’s fashion designs at the National Gallery of Australia.

Vivienne Westwood is one of Britain's best-known and admired fashion designers. She has made a major contribution to international fashion for over three decades and was awarded British Designer of the year in 1990 and 1991. In 1992 she was honoured with the Order of the British Empire for her outstanding contribution to fashion. This exhibition brings together many clothes, accessories and images along with film and music to tell her remarkable and controversial fashion story. Drawn from Westwood's personal archive and the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection, it is the largest exhibition ever devoted to her work.

An odd thing for me to agree to go to you may think, but I had a couple of good reasons for going. I’d just finished reading "England’s Dreaming" by John Savage, on the history of punk rock, and Westwood played an important part in that, so that was one thing. Also, I wanted to see the "punk icons" that were accompanying the show. Also, there was a good chance that there would be top totty there to oggle.

The show was great, the clothes were funny, startling, sometimes very sexy, sometimes incredibly stupid. There was a very horny video of some of the supermodels showing off the kit, and two of them had the decency to do a lesbian snog. Lush! There was a load of stuff from the punk days, including clothes worn by Johny Rotten, Sid Vicious et al, and punk guitars, singles, posters, and stuff.

God it takes you back doesn’t it? It’s neatly thirty years since "Anarchy in the UK" hit the charts. Are we really that old?

Anyway, we also had a look around the permanent exhibits, some of which are mind blowing. A nine foot high, fibreglass, statue of a nakeded, pregnant woman, WTF?

The National Gallery of Australia announces the acquisition of a major new work Pregnant woman 2002, by Melbourne-born, London-based, leading international sculptor, Ron Mueck.

The startling, hyper-realistic, flawlessly detailed Pregnant Woman is larger than life, standing 2.5 metres, or nearly nine feet tall.

There are surprisingly few representations of a naked pregnant woman in the history of art, and Mueck has succeeded in creating a figure, at once poignant but also powerful and awe-inspiring.

Ron Mueck, who moved to England in the early 1980s, is best known for his small-scale, hyper-real sculpture Dead dad, which featured in the controversial exhibition Sensation, and for his huge 4.5 metre Boy which was the centrepiece of the Millennium Dome in London in 2000 and of the Venice Biennale in 2001.

She’s got a hell of a hairy mott on her, you’d think she’d have shaved before getting immortalised?

And so we had lunch in the cafe there. How very twee of us.

Then we decided to do our weekly shopping at a different location, just to make it slightly less tedious.

Bethy didn’t want to come in the shops with us, so we left her outside on the swings and slides to entertain herself. We’re lucky that she’s trustworthy enough for us to do this. She’s started three times a week, to catch busses into the city centre, unaccompanied. She walks from the bus stop the few blocks to her fathers office, and they then go swimming together when he finishes work.

Where was I, oh yes, we left her outside, and went into Woolies and did our shopping. After a half hour of friendly bickering, we struggle around the supermarket cramming goodies into two hand-held baskets. Why is it that when we have a nice, simple, one basket shopping list, we end up with enough stuff to fill a trolley? After one kicked shin (mine), we emerged into the sunlight blinking. To be fair, the LeeAnne can carry quite a load when required.

Outside we found Bethy looking very tearful, and playing with what looked like an overworked floor mop. "Oh ho, I don’t like the look of this." I thought.

I know, I give the impression of being a hard, callous, old bastard with a heart of flint, but really I’m a hard, callous, old bastard, with a heart of flint, except when it comes to animals, Bethy, the LeeAnne and any fucker with a sob story.

So what did Bethy do? She then proceeded to give us a sob story.

To be fair she was in tears, she told us a long drawn out tale of how her new friend had been scavenging in the bins, and was obviously lost and starving. She told us a tale that made "Little Orphan Annie" sound like an episode of "Fawlty Towers"; it was heartbreaking.

Not totally believable, but heart breaking. She told us how this starving dog had dragged its emaciated, fever ridden body across the car park and dropped at deaths door, at her feet, and how we were its only hope for salvation in this cruel world. Or some such shite.

So we told her no, that it probably lived in the houses across the road from the shopping centre, and that some poor little grey-haired old lady would be missing it, pinning away into the long hours, and in no way were we thinking about the possibility of us taking it home.

It then followed us back to the car. To be fair it did look rather pathetic, it had no collar and was very emaciated. It had dreadlocks, was filthy, and had such a stupid look on its face that, I could feel my will to resist being drained from me. So I said to the LeeAnne; "we can't leave it here, it's not in a fit state."

I did this in the sound knowledge that the LeeAnne is far more practical than me, she has the ability, born of long practice, to resist Bethy’s doe-eyed imploring, and was in no way ever, ever, going to let us have another dog.

"Ok, sling it in the back." she said.

Bollocks!

We got it home, and bathed it, cut off some of the matted and dreadlocked fur, and found the cutest dog in the world underneath. I mean severely cute, heartbreakingly cute, more cute than a big bag full of very cute things with added cuteness, cute. We also discovered that it was actually a girl, a girl who had had pups in the not distant past, and a girl who was back in heat.

It then proceeded to eat more dog food than Barnum eats in a week. The poor fucker must have been starving.

Barnum however wasn't put out by this; quite the opposite. Barnum spent all his time trying to "hump it", as Bethy, so delicately put it, and getting bitten for his troubles.

The dog then proceeded to weld itself to Bethy, and slept on her bed that night, in the place normally reserved for Tiger. It’s obviously a brave little sod, as anyone usurping Tigers place in her bed is in for a world of pain. The next day Tiger put the dog in her place, and left no doubt as to who is top of the pecking order in this house; i.e.

Tiger

New dog

Chickens

Goldfish

Barnum

Taff

Ok, so I'm determined that we should get this dog notified with the RSPCA as a stray, and only keep it if no other owner is found. I get dirty looks off the two ladies in my life for even broaching the subject of getting shot of it. Such is life.

Such is my life actually.

LeeAnne of course is numbero uno on animal welfare in our state. She writes the laws that pet owners have to adhere to. So as she was now getting rather fond of this little mutt, she was planning on bringing the full force of the law down on its previous owner, if such a person could be found, in no uncertain way.

So I then had the onerous task of taking the dog, who had by now acquired the name "Millie", to the local vet to see if she’d been chipped. Most dogs here have an electronic tag inserted subcutaneously, which can identify them and their owner.

I was thinking; "If there's no chip, I guess we're stuck with her. If there is a chip, Bethy will never talk to me again."

There was no chip, much to my relief. But the vets, who to be fair gave her a good examination for free, did have a couple of dogs of roughly the same description reported to them as lost, so they took our phone details, phoned around the owners, and left messages. Oh dear….

The dog that most closely answered her description’s name was Alice, I tried calling her Alice, but no response. Barnum responded to it however, I think he thinks it suits him.

So that night we broke the good/bad news to Bethy. We promised her that if no-one contacted us in couple of days there was little chance that she was one of those strays, and so we’d keep her.

We had no contact for three days, so we booked her into a dog groomer’s to get a proper shaving. I drove her there, and boy did she lose some fur. The dog groomer pointed out a lot of things that she needed doing, and did them as part of the service. She had problems with the fur between her pads, her ears, and her toenails were cripplingly long. She got the VIP treatment, and came out looking even more cute, if that were possible. The grooming lady put a scarf on her, and also one on Barnum, who’d been observing the proceedings with contempt. This perked him up no end, so he pissed against her grooming table. The twat.

I took the pair of them off to one of the local nature reserves, and got some great shots of the two of them wearing their scarves.

I got home to get a call from the LeeAnne saying the dogs owners had contacted her, and she was sure it was their dog.

I was, and I don’t mind admitting this, heartbroken. Poor old LeeAnne then had the lovely task of telling Bethy she would have to give the dog up. I’m glad I was at work.

LeeAnne also got told that there were four-week old puppies at home that were missing their mum, and a "husband" who had been off his food since she went missing. Oh fucking great. (They had weaned the pups already. At four weeks?)

LeeAnne checked with the head of the RSPCA if we could bring prosecution against them for cruelty. It was a borderline case, and the dog would have been impounded for up to a year while the case was heard, so it wasn’t in the interest of the dog for us to go ahead.

So LeeAnne and Bethy took the dog back, and by all accounts it wasn’t too pleased to be back. We had agreed that we would ask for one of the puppies for Bethy, as she was totally devastated by losing her first proper "own" pet. One of the little puppies made Bethy’s acquaintance, it looked like a fat golden hamster at that point, and so she chose that one. She decided to call it Molly.

We agreed to collect it in a fortnight, so that any further weaning could take place in the interim.

Right, case closed.

Yeah, as if……

Brief interlude. The other day I cam back from walking the dog, to find we only had three chickens in the yard. "Oh bollocks, they are going to blame me for losing one now aren’t they," I thought to myself. I scanned the sky, we have an eagle pair nesting not far from here, I thought there was a good chance they'd taken one. There were no feathers to be found in the yard, but as there was no way they could have got out, then that was the most likely answer.

I was enjoying a cuppa and watching the world go by from the back porch, when a chicken emerged from a pile of scrap timber the landlord had left at the far end of the yard. "That’s where the bugger was!" I went to have a look, and found their hiding hole. There were eight eggs in there too!

And while I’m on things ornithological, I put a bird feeder up, just outside the kitchen window, the other day. We’ve had some great birds on it, and it’s hell of a fun taking photo’s of them through the kitchen windows.

Back to the dogs…

As Molly was a bitch, you’d guessed that hadn’t you, we decided that Barnum should be a gentleman, and have a vasectomy. If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for him. Not only that, but the person who wrote the legislation forcing all dog owners in the state to have their dogs neutered, for her to be owning an un-neutered dog, didn’t sit too comfortably. (We’ve only had him a year and a half, no rush eh?)

So seeing as the vet we use is on the committee that formulated the law, and it was him that stipulated vasectomies should be included in the legislation, we assumed he’d be able to do it for us. Nope, he didn’t know how. Neither did he know a vet who did do them. About par for the course that. So poor old Barnum got the full nut removal technique. Not nice.

Not nice for us either.

The stupid mutt, and let’s not forget that Barnum for all his good qualities is as stupid as a fence-post, had to wear one of those plastic see-through, "Elizabethan Collars". He couldn’t figure out why he kept bumping into things, why he got wedged into things that he had been able to walk through before, and why he couldn’t lick his nuts anymore. I must admit I’d miss it if I lost that ability. To lick my own nuts that is, not his. Not that I’ve ever been able to do that. To mine or his for that matter.

But the worse part of it was that, as Barnum follows me everywhere I go, everywhere I went I got the bloody collar jabbing me in the back of the leg. By the end of three days I was ready to kill him.

The only thing that stopped me killing him was that he looked so fucking stupid in the collar, I only had to look at him to laugh. He looked like something out of a 50’s space serial. So we took to calling him "Astro-Dog; here to save the world from the menace of chickens."

Hrmph.. I took him to the vet for a check up after a few days, the vet was pleased with the way his scars had healed and told me he could start having reasonable walks again.

I asked what was a reasonable walk;

"Well obviously not for hours up and down mountains." said the vet.

"That’s what he gets most days." I replied.

"Ah, ok, well not quite an hour then, ok?"

Suits me…

I got him home, and despite the vet telling me he should keep the collar on for another day or two, decided that we’d suffered enough, and took it off.

Then LeeAnne rang; "I’ve just had Millie’s owner on the phone, Millie’s been pining since we returned her, and would we consider adopting here rather than having a puppy?" Being the man of the house, and therefore its head and decision maker, I told LeeAnne we’d leave Bethy choose. Brave decision of mine that.

LeeAnne met Bethy after school, told her the score. Bethy went all Rita Hayworth on her, and, after coming out of her swoon, declared; "I want Millie back!"

Ok, so we agree to pick her up on the same days as arranged for collecting the puppy.

The next day I decided that Barnum needed a good walk. He’d been moping about not getting walked properly since the op, so I decided to be kind. At the Pinnacle Nature reserve a short drive from our house, is a lovely circular walk that takes about an hour. That’ll do nicely, break us both back in gently.

So before work, me and him drove off for his walk. It was a hot day, luckily I’d remembered my hat. We did the walk, and to be frank I was quite bushed at the end of it. When I went to open the car, I found I’d lost my car keys. Bollocks….

So we did the walk again, another hours walk, but didn’t find them. So we walked home. When we got home I realised that the house was locked up, and my house key was……

So I kicked the back door down (I really wasn’t in the mood for subtlety).

I had a shower, boy did I need that, and got changed into my work clothes. Left the dog moping he hadn’t had enough walking yet, and set off back to the car with the spare set of keys. All told two hours and forty minutes of walking in the hot sun. I didn’t do much work that day.

Just to add insult to injury, I’ll divert somewhat here.

The other day I was cruising e-bay, as one does in the calm moments at work. I came across a motor bike, a nice looking 250cc Honda, that was local, and only had a few low bids on it. Nice, I’ll bid for this.

LeeAnne sent the link to Bethy’s dad, for him to check. She takes his word on things mechanical, but not mine, I wonder why? He wrote back saying: "If you bid on this you’ll be bidding against me!"

Thanks Bethy’s dad.

He got the geezer who was flogging the bikes address, and went and had a look at it. "Not worth bidding on it, it’s crap." was his considered opinion. Then he gave me a list of things that it would need to get it back on the road that was as long as the road. Fair enough.

The very next day, Bethy’s dad pulls up in our drive on a bike. A Yamaha XT 250 trail bike, a very nice looking piece of kit.

Within ten minutes he’d sold me it. To be fair LeeAnne didn’t object too much either. She reasoned that, seeing as how it was from Bethy’s dad, it would be well looked after, well maintained, and a reasonable buy. Also he did throw a leather jacket, leather gloves in, as well as lending me a helmet until I got my own. And as he’s a registered bike instructor he would give me a few lessons into the bargain.

"So ok," I thought, "tomorrow I’ll ride it into work, I may even be decent and put some L* plates on it, be legal and all that."

"Best check your license covers you first." said LeeAnne. Well why wouldn’t it?

If only life was that simple.

Here you have to pay a small fortune, do a days training, and pass a test, before you can even think about going on the roads as a learner motorcyclist I found out. Why the fuck didn’t I try my test in the ten years I was a keen biker back in the UK? I should have done it you know, the police don’t like people with learner licences riding 750 cc, speed-freak, machines all over the country, at obscene speeds, often with pillion passengers, over there. But I was never caught, so I got away with it, and lived to tell the tale, which is astounding really.

So this coming Wednesday I’ll be spending a day with a group of mad, spotty, adolescents trying not to get myself killed. Sounds like my job, that’s what most days are like here at the fun factory.

Oh, talking about work, do you remember I told you about the kid we’re treating, the one who’s Mum is rather obsessive? Obsessive to the extent of keeping detailed files on him?

The other day she phones my colleague and tells her;

"When he’s at work he’s got into the habit of making these strange, robotic movements with his arms." (He works in a local burger bar place).

"How do you know this?" asks my colleague.

"Oh I go and watch him."

"Doesn’t he mind?"

"Oh, He can’t see me, I hide in the card shop across the way."

"Do you do this often?"

"Most days."

And she wonders why the poor little fuckers paranoid?

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, the only key in existence for the bike was on the key ring I lost too. Arse.

Just to add more insult to injury; on the day I was planning on driving the bike to work for the first time, and couldn’t as I’m now respectable, and obey laws, and besides LeeAnne won’t let me ride it till I’ve done the training, the fucking car blew up on me. Of course this had to happen after work, so I ended up at 9.30 at night getting towed to a garage by the NMRA. (Oz’s AA people.)

Big fucking fun, and a $300.00 bill.

So anyway, yesterday LeeAnne and Bethy picked up Millie, and she’s home with us and happy….

The weather here’s been hot, very hot. Last week it hit a high here, higher than the hottest day ever recorded in the UK. So what else could I do? I caught a cold.

It was one of those awful snotty buggers made worse by the heat. I did get three days off work with it though. So I managed to get three tracks done for my next CD of fucking annoying music. One track uses samples from an old Welsh heavy metal band "Budgie", I’ve emailed their fan club asking what the band think of people taking samples from their music. I’m hoping they’ll be very annoyed.

Talking of CD’s isn’t one of the advantages of being an old fart that you can now buy CD’s of your old favourite band’s albums at bargain prices? Recently, I’ve bought "In for the kill" by Budgie, "Stormbringer" by Deep Purple and "Split" by the Groundhogs, all for less than ten bucks. (Roughly a fiver UK)

I’m getting great samples from them, and hope to annoy a fuck of a lot of people, all at bargain prices. Neat.

The other day, my cousin Dewi, a very nice chap who I haven’t seen in ten or so years but recently got in touch with via the internet, sent me a parcel. Dewi isn’t the only rello I’ve got back in touch with this way, amazing isn’t it how we can reestablish old friendships easier now with me in Oz and them in the UK due to the net?

In this parcel were lovely presents for the three of us, some photo’s of me as a hideous child, some press cuttings his mother had saved of my dads football career, and other nice things. But there was also a BBC video of the glory days of the Scarlets (Llanelli RFC) which includes highlights of them beating Oz at Stradey Park. I look forward to watching that with LeeAnne then.

That’s enough of my ramblings for now, all our love to nearly all of you…

Taff, LeeAnne & Bethy.

 

(Barnum, Millie, Tiger, Aretha, Roxy, Bob, Ginger, and the fish who’s names I can never fucking remember.)