Bethy’s cooking competition. Ah yes, the one issue I have raised here that every single bugger seemed interested in. The one that generated more responses than any other I have related. More replies even than the time I told you about when I was struck by lightening. I’ve a good mind not to tell you, just out of sheer spite, you bastards.
But seeing as she only went and bloody won it, I’m too proud not too.
Yep, her and “Team Tim Tam”, only went and beat the rest of the Canberra schools. Lee-Anne went along to watch, and, as you can imagine, was over the moon. Bethy is going to be very popular at school, as part of the prize was 50 tickets to see the latest “Vampires and Snogging” movie at the local cinema. They also won cooking equipment for the school, and a day at a top restaurant having a cooking tutorial off one of the region’s top chef’s!
While we’re on the subject of cooking, Bethy is doing a module of philosophy at school. Apparently it’s a small class, so each week the teacher lays on tea and biscuits for the group (Bless!).
Bethy thought she’d repay his kindness, and, totally off her own bat, baked a cake for the day’s lesson. We thought her design rather apt.
Oh and guess what? I’ve had my citizenship approved! But I’m not yet a proper Waussie as I have to attend a “swearing in ceremony,” and officially swear my allegiance to the country and people of Australia. I’m just waiting for the invite now.
The first part, the overture, my second symphony is now online. I made it up as a “Youtube” video, with images shot on our last couple of holidays there. Depending on the reception it gets, I may add more parts. (Though I’ll have to steal other people’s images next time.
Here we go;
[youtube 2vEcyzu7ME8]
We’ve booked a week’s holiday on the first week of July for a winter break. We’re going to be staying here, it looks lovely. We’re hoping for a big storm to come up the bay, the views from there should be magical.
At least we’re hoping for a mid week storm, and for fine dry and warm weather on the weekends, as I’m going down on the bike. You can guess now what the weather will be like, can’t you?
Walking our dogs at the Cork Forrest (Glenloch Cork Oak Plantation) one morning we were amazed to find the place choc full of Amanita Muscaria mushrooms. It looked like an illustration for a child’s book. One which should be labeled;
“Do NOT Eat These!”
We were lucky enough to see them before some ruffian took it into their head to kick them over. (Seeing as there’s hundreds of them, that may take some time.)
We were at Ron’s bookshop one day, when Bethy noticed a poster in the window for a comedy gig coming up. She called me over to see it, and informed me; “He’s great he is!” I’d never heard of “David O’Doherty”, so I checked with Lee-Anne who, curiously, sang me a little song: “It’s David O’Doherty time, it’s David O’Doherty time!” I took this to mean that either she’d finally slipped her cogs, or yes he was good. I risked deciding on the latter, so I phoned up the venue, Canberra Irish club, and made inquiries.
“Oh yes, he’s on next Saturday, but we’re not selling the tickets, Canberra ticketing is.” Ok, not a worry, I have an account with them. “Will it be ok for my daughter to come, she’s 15?” “Oh yes, as long as she’s with responsible adults.” I nearly said, “No just me and the wife, will we do?”, but decided against it. So I ordered three tickets from Canberra ticketing and on the night we set off.
We got to the door only to find out we had to join the club, fill in forms, and pay a membership fee before they’d even think of letting us in. So did 90% of the people attending the venue. Our tickets were also; “to be collected at the venue,” as were those of 90% of the people attending. So the fact that they had just one girl on the door, who was trying to manage everyone’s membership application forms, membership fees, and reserved tickets, let us know we were definitely at the Irish club.
After a century or two, having filled in all the forms and pushed my way back to the head of the queue, I presented her our membership forms, the fee, and our ticket docket. “How old is she?,” said the rather harassed girl pointing at Bethy. “15” I replied, “Oh well she’ll have to leave the club by 9.00 pm then.”
This was at 8.20 pm, the gig wasn’t scheduled to start until 8.30 pm. “Ok, get me the manager.” The manager duly arrived, took one look at the queue, most of whom were out in the rain and spitting chips, and damn near shat himself. He called up two more ticket people to help out. The girl explained our dilemma;
“Ah you see, under 18’s must be out of the club before 8.30, it’s a club rule.”
“Then why did your receptionist say that it would be ok for her to come to see this gig, a gig the kid has been anticipating greatly for a whole month (I exaggerated) as long as she was with responsible adults?”
“Well she probably didn’t know how late the gig would be.”
I gave him a look, he blanched, “Look, fine, deal, as long as she’s not a nuisance, and no one tries buying her alcohol, that’s good she can stay, but only this time, next time check out first.”
I reminded him politely, but obviously visibly starting to boil over, that I had.
“Maybe it’s a case of you actually training your staff to give correct information in the first place?” He smiled weakly, “Sorry, yes. Ok, have a good night.”
Luckily we did, David was fucking hysterical.
[youtube e48RcKHMpz4]
I tore up our Irish Club membership cards straight after the gig. Oh, to add insult to insult, the beer there was utter piss too.
The mother in laws birthday came around again, and so for her present Lee-Anne bought her tickets to see “Spamalot” the musical, roughly based on Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” movie. She bought her tickets, and; “You’re coming too!” Who me? “Yes you!” Oh bollocks, I hate musicals.
But on the night, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the car, and off we went. Also with us was Lee-Anne’s cousin Jenna. She was staying at Mary’s for the week, as she was doing a course at Canberra Uni, some feminist bollocks of a course apparently. You know the sort of course? The sort specially written for middle-class girls experiencing left-wing guilt, the sort who would love to be a lesbian but enjoy cock too much? Actually she wasn’t a bad sort, a bit quiet, but no trouble. I’d been briefed by Lee-Anne, in eye watering detail, on what would happen to my knackers if I started taking the piss, or if I came over all “Sid The Sexist” while we were out with her, so stayed schtum.
We had planned to eat out before the show, at a Turkish restaurant that the mother in law had chosen, one she had described to me in great detail. It sounded good, so at least I was to get something out of the night. Unfortunately she hadn’t gone so far as to check whether it was open that night, which it wasn’t. So we ended up having a not unpleasant, but rather curious, meal at a local Indian place.
Which reminds me, I must make a point of never going back there again.
Much to my disgust “Spamalot” was a fucking hoot. Based, very loosely, on Python’s “The Holy Grail,” movie, it included many great funny Python series references, and some quite sly Python in jokes, and was all bloody well done. The lead bird had a fantastic singing voice, and one of the chorus girls gave me a right old hard on by appearing onstage in the briefest of “G-strings” knickers I’ve ever seen, (black ones, use your imagination,) high heels, stockings and a Basque. I damn near had to go to the loo.
The only down side of it is that Lee-Anne won’t let this count as the musical I owe her. Lee-Anne once did something selfless and indulgent for me, (I’m w-a-a-a-y ahead of you here, don’t bother,) and in exchange I offered to go to a musical with her. Which was damn stupid. I mean, apart from “Rocky Horror” and now “Spamalot,” are there any other musicals you need more than three functioning synapses to enjoy?
So then, Mother-in-laws, where to start?
“Taff, I want to buy a laptop and a printer.” Ok, no worries. “What do you want it for?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Oh for Skype so I can talk to my sister in Melbourne cheaply, and for….errm… e-mails…and… errr… the internet and….you know…computer… things.” Ok, nuff said, someone has mentioned Skype to you so you thought you’d buy all the rest of the necessaries. “Oh, and for my camera” That would be the camera we bought you two years ago, the one still in its box, I take it?
“Will you come with me?” Sure no problem, I’ll scout around, get you a deal, and set it all up. “Oh no, I’ve seen the one I want.” Ah huh. So I went to the one shop she wanted to got to, despite me pleading with her that I could save hundreds of dollars by shopping around and playing one place off against another. “Why do you want this one?” “I saw it in the paper, it’s a Toshiba, I know that name.” (Bites tongue)
Anyway, we get to the shop and there’s another model, last in the shop, $400 cheaper, and a Toshiba. “Get that one” I implored. “But I wanted this one, it’s got a faster chip according to this”. “Mary, it’s got a 2.3 gig chip, this one has a 2.2 gig chip, you will not notice the difference for the use you want out of it, it’ll save you $400.” Ok, so she agreed to buy the cheaper one, but would not compromise on the printer and insisted on buying an “all bells and whistles” laser fucking printer. I studiously stood over her while she was paying so as to ensure she wouldn’t fork out for any of the shit which the nice sales man was trying to push. As it was, for some strange reason, she somehow also ended up with a 500 gig external hard-drive. One which which I duly took into safe keeping, as in “attached to my computer”. She also bought a headset and microphone for Skype; “for cheap conversations with my sister in Melbourne, “ as I was reminded. (The fact that the $1200 shelled out for computer kit could have bought a large number of conversations doesn’t seem to have figured in this “money saving” idea.)
Mary had found a deal for the net connection, with Optus. It included a 7 gig download and all Aussie calls free, which would save her big bucks. Mary put in for that to be connected. She waited in all day, as they had advised her to, just to get a phone call in the late afternoon saying; “Done!” So I went around to set it all up.
First thing I found was that they hadn’t given her a wireless router, which meant her lap top was now a “sit at a desk in the spare room top”. The laptop itself was a dream to set up , Windows 7 is good, I may get it for our boxes. I got it all hooked up, did a test print. Ok all working.
So I said, “I’ll download Skype and get it set up,” to which she replied, “I don’t need it now, this deal comes with all Aussie calls free, so I prefer to use my phone to talk to her.” (Bites tongue deeper.)
Ok, one of the mother-in-laws bad habits is riding the clutch on her car. Everybody has told her off for doing it, all the way back to the dark and distant days when she was learning to drive. So the other day she finally burned the clutch out. It went off with quite a bang apparently.
Lee-Anne had for some time, knowing this would eventually happen, desperately pleaded with her that her next car must be an auto, luckily she agreed.
My take to Lee-Anne;
“Whatever you do, don’t let her go out and buy a new car.
I’ll go to all the dealers with her, I’ll find her a one to two year old car, one which has had all the teething problems sorted out, and save her a few thousand.
She must be told not to buy a new car, and definitely to not go to the sales room unaccompanied by a big ugly male, or she may as well run around naked waving a cheque book shouting “Rape me please!”
Ok, now I’ve got a few weekends off coming up, so I’ll happily dedicate them to finding her the right car.”
So guess what happened?
On the second day of driving her brand new, dealer bought, straight out of the show room “rape me please” Mazda 3, purchased without the help of a big ugly man, she reversed it into another car. This wasn’t covered by the $1200 “paint insurance” she was talked into buying.
So far her only regret in this purchasing extravaganza, is that they didn’t have the car she wanted; “A yellow one.”
Talking of vehicular things, I took the bike into the menders the other day to get a new chain and sprockets fitted. “Yeah $450 tops Taff, no worries, see you this arvo.” I turned up to get it, only to get presented with a bill for $520. I was about to get huffy, when Scott the mender said; “Sorry Taff, I couldn’t let it be taken out without a new rear tyre on it, so I fitted one. Did you know yours was down to the canvas, and would have blown if you’d ridden it over anything sharper than say, a baby’s arse?”
No, I didn’t actually, and please don’t tell Lee-Anne about it.
Cultural stuff…
We went along to see this exhibition the other day, some fine landscapes there, almost as good as mine in fact.
Sir Hans Heysen, OBE (8 October 1877 – 2 July 1968) was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.
Don’t bother writing back, I don’t need to know what’s happening in your life….
Ok, I’m lying, wassup?
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