Oh well, it had to happen eventually , Bethy's got a "proper" boyfriend. Which I suppose is in some way better than an improper boyfriend, who knows? His name is Bryce, and he's six foot four tall So, as I said to Bethy; "That's dead handy, it puts his chin on a level with my forehead." But he's eighteen, which I consider is far too old for my delicate sixteen year old daughter, but her and her mother don’t see anything wrong with this, so I’m out voted. Fortunately he's also a very nice kid, dead polite and very friendly, he seems to be infatuated with Bethy and so far hasn't put a foot, (or any other part of his anatomy,) wrong. You can tell that he been a good boy, as he's still breathing, and has all his teeth. We've met him at basketball a couple of times, he hasn't missed a match since they've been courting, and he's been to our house the once. I'll let you know how things go…
.
Oh, talking of basketball, we watched the best match ever the other day. Only five of Bethy's team turned up, and so they had no substitutes available. Each of the girls who turned up had to play the whole match with no rests. In the final quarter, with three minutes to go, Bethy got "fouled out" (get five fouls and you're permanently excluded from the game,) so they were left with four players. In the very last 20 seconds our side scored a basket, and thus won by three points. Phenomenal. The next week nine players turned up, and they got hammered by 15 points.
.
I went to the "Foot and Thai" massage place the other day, I'd put in some overtime and deserved a treat. I got done by a new girl this time, she was even smaller, and more ferocious, than the others I'd been served by there. She was very pretty too, which doesn't help. So she was kneading me, stretching me, digging her elbows into me, slapping me and cracking me, and it was all very nice. Or at least it was all very nice when she finished hurting one bit, and then moved onto the next. But half way through the session, she turned me onto my back, and in a very polite voice asked; "Facial ok?" Luckily I realised before I embarrassed myself that she was asking me if I wanted my face massaged. She gave me the full hour of pain, and was the best I'd been done by there, I got her name "Cheryl", (yeah sure,) so I could ask for her again, and gave her a decent tip. I then had forty minutes in the sauna to finish up.
.
I got out to my car and was about to drive away, when I realised; "I'm off me fucking tits here!" I kid you not! It felt like, rather than having spent the best part of two hours being massaged, pampered and sauna'd, it was more like I'd spent the time taking diazepam, magic mushrooms and dope. Or at least that's how I imagine what taking diazepam, magic mushrooms and dope would feel like. You know me, I'm a good boy, a fitness fanatic who leads a clean and healthy life, etc. (Remember, drugs are bad for you kids, ok!) It was a really, really strange, but very pleasant feeling. It subsided after about ten minutes, and so I was able to drive home safely. Not bad that, a massage, a sauna and ten minutes stoned off me box, all for $60 all in.
While we're on the subject of fitness, our gym sent us an email the other day;
On 12/05/2011 1:56 PM, Club Lime Belconnen wrote:
SSSSHHHHHH! Here's a promo we don't want you telling anyone about…For May only we are doing a special for all our EX-MEMBERS!
$0 Joining Fee (Usually $99) + $27 Per Fortnight (Usually $39)
Or
$599 Up Front (Usually $1035)
We are calling this the ‘Hush Hush’ promo as it is exclusively for you! The ‘Hush Hush’ Promo is a 12 Month SIVER Membership, which entitles you to full access of Mawson Club Lime's weights and cardio equipment and all group fitness classes. We also offer complimentary fitness assessments and programs with a personal trainer updated every 6 weeks to keep you on track to help you achieve your fitness goals. Please note that we will try to do our best to beat any competitors rates, so if you are a current member at another club on a cheaper rate please feel free to contact us at Club Lime Belconnen 6123 0644 or info@belconnen.clubgroup.com.au to see what we can do for you. Also please contact us with any other questions you may have regarding this promo.
This ‘Hush Hush’ Promo is for ex-members of Club Lime, Alive and BodyWorks only! So come in quick and check us out but remember sshhhh… keep it ‘Hush Hush’!
They got a terse response.
"Gee thanks, I just renewed my annual membership last week, at the old rate of $750.
Nice of you to rub it in…"
Taff.
I was wondering what had caused them to offer membership so cheaply. Could it have anything to do with a new "mega-Gym" opening just down the road from them? I was hoping the sods would give me some of my cash back but they didn't, the tight buggers.
The bike had to go in for a service the other day, I booked it in at the place I usually use, wonderfully Australian named; “Bruce’s Motorcycles.” As is the norm for bookingthis, me and Bruce have a jolly banter;
“Hi Bruce, can I book the SV in for a service please?”
“G’day Taff, still going is it?”
“Surprisingly, yes it is Bruce. But it’s still got that odd intermittent rattle though, and the funny burning smell.”
“I’ll have a look at it, it is knocking on a bit though Taff.”
“Yep, but as long as it keeps getting me back and fore to work though, and the occasional spin in the countryside, I’m happy with it.”
A couple of days later.
“Bruce here Taff, she needs new rear brakes, want me to fit them?”
“Sure go ahead, I hardly ever use the rears though as they tend to make the back end skip around.”
“I’m not saying anything at this point Taff.”
“Ok, point taken.”
“Oh, your heated throttle grips”
“Not worked since I bought the bike Bruce, waste of space.”
“They’ll probably work ok if I connect them to the electrical supply, they’re not connected to anything at the mo.”
“That would explain a lot, please hook them up.”
"Oh, it also needs (add huge list of expensive parts here,) Taff"
"Thanks Bruce you can keep it in that case."
"Only kiding Taff, it'll be about $300."
"No worries."
So I get the bike back, and my wallet lightened considerably. True to form the rear end no longer skips about when I use the rear brakes, which is nice, and the heated throttle grips are great fun. In fact my hands are now the only warm parts of me on the ride home from work. The only down side is when I forget to switch them off after the ride home, as they drain the battery flat. I try not to do this too often.
It’s still got that odd intermittent rattle though, and the funny burning smell continues.
Before I get the usual quips about; “He needs heated handle grips on his bike in Aussie weather? He must be getting soft in his old age,” etc. Can I just let you know that the night time temperature when I ride home is below freezing, that most mornings when we go to the gym it’s down around -3, and we recently had the first falls of snow on the skiing areas just up the road from us.
How hard can it be to make a bowl of chips for the wife for tea? Very, if you follow my methods…
It was my day off and a chance for me to cook. I'd been having a hankering to have a crack at one of Heston Blumenthal's recipes from the "In search of Perfection" recipe book of his we have. I wasn't going to go mad, just try something easy that he's written the “perfect” recipe for. I was flicking through the book, when I saw; "Heston's perfect fish 'n' chips". Of course, what with me being a vego, the fish was a no go, and when the recipe starts; “Ideally, get 1 whole turbot weighing 2.5kg and either fillet it yourself, or get the fishmonger to do it”, then “Fuck that for a game of soldiers, Heston,” tends to leap to mind.
Heston’s perfect chips though, surely even I couldn’t cock that up?
Of late I’ve been trying to stick faithfully to new recipes on the first time I attempt them, and not get all “creative” with them as I have done in the past. I’ve stopped with the “creative” ideas, as this gives me far more chance of producing something at least semi-edible, and reduces the need to use a shovel to clean out the kitchen afterwards.
So of course the first thing I’ll need to get would be a chip pan, as we didn’t have one. Not an easy thing to find these days, not even a chip pan net on offer anywhere. I went to the “expensive cookware shop,” the one where looking in the window costs a fiver. They had a chip pan at a price which took my breath away; “I’m not paying that! I’m a tight bastard!” I was stuffed on buying a chip pan, so I decided to try doing them without a proper chip pan. (There goes one “sticking to the recipe” point.)
The next thing I needed was a cooking oil thermometer, as the chips are cooked three times, and the oil is heated to two different temperatures for the two frying sessions. It was while looking around “K-Mart” for a oil thermometer that I saw a deep fat fryer on sale, only two left, reduced to $30. This had a built in thermometer so solved all my needs. I was on a roll.
No, no I wasn’t.
The next thing I needed was peanut oil to cook it in, as this has “high smoke point” or some such bollocks. What it definitely has is a lack of availability in Canberra. I eventually found some at the hippy dippy deli place. At $10.00 for a half litre. I bought their remaining two bottles. It was then I remembered that the fryer I’d just bought needed at least 1 ¾ litres of oil in it in order to be safe to operate. I decided to top it up with cheap vegetable oil, and to loose another “sticking to the recipe” point. Now what else do I need? Oh yeah, spuds would be handy. Of course it goes without saying that the kind of spuds Heston specifies, Arran Victory or Maris Piper, were unavailable, nay, unheard of, in our local veg market. So I asked the guy working on our favourite veg stall for a recommendation; “You want these mate, best ever spuds for chips, don’t listen to all that Heston’s bollocks.” So I bought a couple of kilos, funny blue skinned buggers with yellow flesh, not very appetising looking, and $5.00 a kilo.
I stopped off at our local corner shop, “Nick’s”, on the way back home, to pick up some odds and sods I wanted. It was there that I spotted Nick had peanut oil for sale. At $6.50. For a litre. I bought some, just to get the right oil level and “sticking to the recipe” point. But I was so tempted to take the ten buck bottles of peanut oil back to the hippy deli, and pour it over the floor there. But not at that fucking price, so gritted my teeth and carried on.
I got home, and got started. I cut the chips perfectly to size, I even used Bethy’s school ruler to get the dimensions right (1.5 cm square) Next; “Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil (add 10g of salt per litre of water), add the chips, bring back to the boil and simmer until the chips have almost broken up,” Notice that “almost” there? Not easy to judge that, and so mine were a bit more broken up than would have been desirable (serves me right for playing on the computer while they were boiling.) Oh, and the purple skin and yellow flesh of the very expensive spuds had now turned traditional brown and white respectively, so what the fuck was all that about?
I let them cool, and then put them in the fridge as instructed. I went and played on the computer some more.
The first frying (130 degrees, till dry and starting to colour) went off without a hitch. I took them out and left them cool again. I got the rest of the meal ready. Quorn bangers for me, normal meaty snags for Lee-Anne, (Bethy was at her dads, lucky for her,) and spinach and mushroom …errmm… “stuff I made up” for us both. Lee-Anne came home and I recounted my tales of the culinary delights which awaited her; “Chips, basically, with sausages, and stuff.” She seemed impressed.
The second frying (190 degrees until crisp and brown,) was at the top end of the fryer’s heat range, so the kitchen filled with smoke. Not only did it fill with smoke, it filled with peanut oil smoke, which permeates everything, stays around for weeks, and makes the house smell like a monkey’s arse. It was only when we were settled down and eating our; "Heston's perfect Sausage, Chips and Monkey Arse Flavoured Stuff", that I realised the chips I was eating probably cost a quid each. They were ok, but not that great.
Talking of foody stuff, we took the mother in law out for her birthday treat the other night. Well ok, we took ourselves out for a treat the other night, using the mother in law’s birthday as an excuse. There is a restaurant, this place here, “The Ginger Room”, which is in the Old Parliament House. The new parliament building was built in 1988, and the old one was then given over to several uses, and is now the “Museum of Australian Democracy”, and very good it is too. But they have also built a very high class restaurant into it. We’ve been wanting to go there for a while, and this provided us with an excuse.
Bloody hell it was good! Very classy, and old, (by Aussies standards,) but beautifully furnished and laid out. We had a view up to the floodlit new Parliament building. The service was faultless, a young French lad, who trod the fine line between being efficient and being over intrusive very well. The amuse–bouche were brought out, but I declined as it was a meat dish. The words had hardly left my mouth when a vege replacement was created just for me, and put down in front of me. Brilliant!
The absolute highlight of the meal, which both me and Lee-Anne had, was the starter; “Wild mushroom landscape, king brown, pine, wood ear fungi, chestnut” which was, believe it or not, an actual edible landscape made of fungi. I wish I’d taken me camera! It was just the right side of twee looking, but tasted out of this world, earthy and savoury with loads of umami. The mains were great too, the cheese board, (good French, Italian and Swiss cheeses, none of your Aussie muck,) was divine. We offered Bethy a glass of wine with her meal, she declined; “I don’t drink, you know that!” That’s going to make her very popular when she gets her driving license. But I’m beginning to worry I’m either not being a bad enough influence on her, or that she’s rebelling against my lifelong refusal to grow up and be sensible, by being the adult one of us two.
For my main dish I had; “Twice baked Taleggio soufflé, watercress, candied walnut and honey,” which sounds more like a bloody desert, but which was savoury with hints of sweetness, and has given me an obsession with adding sodding walnuts to everything I cook.
I had two glasses of wine, matched to my starter and mains, and a glass of port with the cheese. Cor, living high on the hog or what, boy! I kept thinking of that bloody “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch…
Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
Michael Palin: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
(You can do the rest yourself.)
You can take the boy out of Bryn Road….
Remember I was telling you about Dusty, the lawn mower bloke to whom; “We gave him our old mowers, yes we had two, so he could canibalise them for parts.” We went back to “Trash and treasure” a fortnight later, he had one of them on sale for $125. I didn’t buy it back.
Oh while I’m on the subject of things I manage to bollocks…
As we have two loads of guests staying with us soon, Lee-Anne decided it was time for some DIY. Why I don’t know, as DIY in our house inevitably ends up with bloodshed, arguments, vast expense, having to get people in to repair the DIY, and me sleeping in the spare room for a week. So Lee-Anne wanted the flyscreen on the back door repaired, and a new handle put on it, and a new back garden gate. No worries, I’ll get the quilt and pillows in the spare room ready.
One of the tasks was to replace the mesh flyscreens on our rear screen door, as the dogs have scratched them to bits. As Lee-Anne has actually replaced flyscreens in the past herself, doing that was not a problem, I'd leave her to it. However as she needed the door taken off the hinges to do it, that was a problem, as it invovled me and a screwdriver. Technical stuff. A trip to the local DIY emporium yielded all that we wanted. We also needed to replace the rear garden gate to keep the dogs in. The one I'd built had actually lasted for a few years now, but was, as is inevitable, now falling to bits. I was ever so pleased to be able to buy a readymade garden gate there, one which was exactly the right size for our garden entry. So we took it all home, had a cuppa, shook hands like gentlemen about to indulge in about of fisticuffs, and started. The flyscreen door came off the doorframe easily, though the screw holes looked like I’d need oversize screws to re-hang it. Lee-Anne had the new screen on in seconds flat, and it looked great. Ok, so far, scarily, so good.
The next task was the new handle for the door. This meant removing the old lock. That should have been easy. The way to remove the barrel of the lock was to disassemble it all, then unlock it, and only then could you slide out the barrel. But we didn’t have a key for it. After smashing it with a large hammer for a while, (my usual technique when confronted with a problem,) and getting nowhere, (the usual result,) I had an idea; “I’ll drill it out! I’ve seen it done in films, works a treat.” So I did, and after burning out a couple of drills, burning my hands on the red hot barrel and setting fire to the dog (I exaggerate, a bit,) I actually got it out. So I re-hung the door, it fitted back in place with a few solid thumps from a lump hammer, and left Lee-Anne to fit the new lock while I put the new garden gate up.
This proved a problem, as it was a left hander gate which we had bought, and I needed a right handed one. No worries, hang it the other way round. I couldn’t do this as the right hand gatepost had subsided at an angle not unlike the one of the famous Tower of Pizza. Bugger, only one thing to do then, hang it inside out. That worked, though due to the angle of the gatepost we can't lock it and have to tie it up with a strap.
Lee-Anne by this time had discovered that the handle and lock we had bought didn’t work. It fitted the door ok, but wouldn’t lock, as it didn't align with the old mortise. "No worries, I’ll cut a new mortise in the door frame, we’ll put the lock in, and it’ll be apples.” So I went back to the DIY store and bought a cheap set of chisels, (oh god, Harness will read this,) and cut a new mortise. We fitted the lock, and it worked, but with the lock on the outside, not the inside. "A fat lot of fucking good that is", quoth him. Eventually I refitted it all, re cut the mortise, and it now works a treat. Except to get it all the right way round we had to put the handles on upside down. We’re not changing them.
“’Oh, look at what the daft bastard’s done now, that won’t work.”
“He’s going to break it. “
“What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“ $20 for a set of chisels, the cheap twat.”
“That’s torn it, that’ll cost him!”
etc etc…
Oh those guests, well we’ve got Mel, Sean and their son Alex (aka “Pudd”) coming down from the depths of Queensland for a winter break in Canberra. We don’t actually know Sean and Mel that well, though we did attend their wedding, (I got pissed there and embarrassed myself. For a change.) But we’ve known them online for yonks, and they are both Brit ex-pats like me, and so we’re really looking forward to seeing them again and entertaining them.
We’ve also got the two Japanese students, Saya Kikimoto and Yuriko Minami arriving the month after. They will be with us for a week. That could prove “interesting” to say the least, they will get a unique take on Aussie life and culture.
We saw the Melbourne Comedy Roadshow the other night. The Melbourne Comedy Festival is the biggest comedy event in Aus, and they’d taken some of the local acts from it around the country. We scored some great seats, three rows back from the front, which is handy if you’re a deaf bugger. (What?) Hell of a laugh, five great acts, and the compair was as funny as any of them. But the best act of the evening was this guy.
A bit like the “Muppets” but with a great deal of swearing and abuse.
We’ve also got some nifty tickets, again a few rows from the front, for Dylan Moran’s gig when he returns to Canberra in September.
That's it from me for another month my friends. Keep in touch, keep up the abuse!
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