Yep, rough as rats, that’s how I’m feeling. I’ve got a cold again. And just to make it less pleasant I’ve put my back out too. So that’s why I’m at home writing this blather; in the hope that I will transfer some of the misery to you bastards who are now laughing at me.
So then, what’s our news? Well not a lot really, our news is mainly other people’s holiday tales.
Howard,and Janet, two people who were exceedingly kind to me when I lived in Sennen, had been planning a big trip down under, and we had been bugging them to come stay. In the end they relented and agreed to come, and, just to spread the pain, insisted on bringing young Debs with them as well. We were chuffed.
I had built up a stash of flex time and was therefore able to take the week off without biting into my holiday allowance, Lee-Anne did the same. Bethy was already on school break that week, so we were well happy. We awaited their arrival with bated breath, even more bated when it threw down with rain the day before they were due to arrive…
But let’s skip back a bit in time here first…
Anyone who knows me will know I’m a scruffy unkempt and untidy bastard at the best of times. Lee-Anne tries to keep on top of my mess (ooh errr missus!) but it’s a losing battle. Lee-Anne on the other hand has pretensions to being a gardener. These mainly consists of sitting on the back porch smoking fags. “It’s no good”, she said to me one morning, “with all these guests coming we’ll have to do something about this place.”
I couldn’t help but agree, and looked for a gallon of petrol and a box of matches to set fire to the bloody lot of it.
Ok, so I booked a skip, and left Lee-Anne to fill it while I went off to work, “I’ll finish it off when I get home,” I said, running away. When I got back the bloody thing was full to the top, and a fair bit over, and the garden didn’t look any less full of crap. So we got it taken away. The guys weren’t best pleased with how over full it was, but then we ordered another one in, which they were very pleased with. (At $250 a pop they had every right to be happy.)
I spent my next days off filling a second skip, and even then we had to hide a load of other crap.
So ok, the garden looks reasonable, and after I took the mower too it, it looked livable with. Not to Lee-Anne it didn’t though, unfortunately. “We’ll need a strimmer to tidy it up,” she says. Ok, so I hire a petrol driven strimmer (Robbie had very kindly lent us hers, but it wasn’t agricultural enough to do the foraging I needed.) After slashing the buggery out of the garden I went to put it in the car to take back to the hire place, and then I noticed…
…at some point I must have flicked up a stone with the bloody thing, a stone which had hit the windscreen of my car, causing a spiders web crack over most of the passengers side. Ho hum; so that’s $30 to hire the strimmer. And $230 for a new windscreen.
But the expense doesn’t stop there. We already had one guest bed, one which was single, clean, and serviceable. “Don’t worry, Howard and Janet can have Barnum’s bed,” says I. Barnum didn’t look too happy about this. Mind you that was nothing to how Lee-Anne looked; “You’re telling me that you’d let your friends sleep on that futon?” Well it’s an ok futon, the dog has slept on it for five years and he doesn’t complain. Much. So it’s covered in fur, and, as he dribbles a fair bit it’s got a patina of dog spit too. It’s got one or two areas where there’s little or no stuffing and a few small rips. Oh and it’s very stained and smells like dog piss and / or its got a dead rat or two in it’s folds.
But it’s serviceable.
So we were driving out to the recycling centre with, yet another, car load of crap and we pass a shop advertising a bed sale. I don’t think the car had stopped moving before Lee-Anne was in there buying a new double bed.
One of the worse things was we took a load of books, clothes, and toys to the local Salvo’s for them to flog. (It’s nearer than the recycling centre. ) Now every time I’m in there I have to be careful I don’t buy any of them back.
So after a few days of cleaning, polishing, boiling the dogs and fumigating the spiders out, we were ready.
Howard Janet and Debs arrived on the Sunday night, and after a couple of pizzas and a few bottles of plonk, we all got re-acquainted. I’m not going to tell you the tale of the week, after all we were only the hosts. I’ll leave Janet and Howard and Debs to do that, you can start below guys!
Ok, I’ll give you a brief idea of what we did with them.
Day one; (Overview (literally) of Canberra)
Day Two; (Culture time)
National Gallery. (Very good exhibition on luckily; “Landscape from Monet to Turner”
Day Three; (Into the wilds)
Day Four: (Other bits of Canberra)
Mount Ainslie (not an instruction.)
Lake Ginninderra (beers)
Day Five;
War Memorial (Debs and Howard)
Canberra Aviary (Me and Janet)
Evening, out for a Thai and a few beers.
So then, a pretty full week, eh?
It was a hell of a shame to see them go, we’d all had a hoot. I only hope we didn’t give them sensory overload before they left us. I’m sure they’ll give honest and open impressions of Canberra (and us!) if I can talk them into posting here.
The following week we had two strangers staying with us. Alex and Kieran are twins, sons of my not aunt and not uncle Noreen and Terry. They are 27 years old, and I last saw them when they were, babies I think. Maybe not even then. Anyway they were doing the Aus tour thing, and had been suckered into coming to Canberra for a couple of days. They, kindly, sent me a picture of the two of them in Sydney, so I’d know who to look out for. (Thinking on this later, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been another two 27 year old male Brit twins on the coach they were arriving on.)
They arrived, bringing the rain with them, which was very kind of them. I took them home, and we offered up the traditional pizza and beers. Lee-Anne kindly (after more than her usual two glasses of red) was demonstrating how I was once blown off the roof of my car while trying to get a picture of the Hay Plain. She demonstrated it so well that she actually fell off the table, and smacked her head on it, managing to give herself a right shiner in the process. Meet the wife boys.
Of course, all week then she was getting concerned inquiries about whether I had been hitting her. To which she positively agreed I had. The cow.
Anyway, as I only had two days with Alex and Kieran, i decided it would be foolish to try and pack in all I had shown Howard, Janet and Debs, so I didn’t . I packed more in fact, but just for a shorter time at each. Oh, if Howard and Janet and Debs are reading this, remember the walk I tried and failed, to find in TIdbinbilla? I found it with Alex and Kieran. And it was shut.
Anyway, again I extend the offer to the boys to give their impression of Canberra below, and again I’m sure they’ll be honest and forthright about it. (Just don’t mention the black eye boys, ok?)
I must also at this point thank all our guests for the lovely gifts they brought us. They were and are fantastic and will be put to good misuse. Thanks again Howard, Janet, Debs, Alex and Kieran for your gifts, your presence and your perseverance.
Photographs of these adventures are up in the gallery. I bet you’ll all go and see them now, just because they are not my usual bloody snaps of roos and shite.
Oh, Bethy and her father took a bus down to Adelaide, and rescued his campervan, which had been there since the Xmas misadventure. Fortunately it got them back without breaking down, blowing up, or falling apart. Unfortunately it got them back at a rate of 60 kph. They got to see a whole bunch of scenery.
Went to put the bins out one morning, and a fifty foot high Kookaburra was being chased by an equally huge Clover leaf across the sky above my house…
Caused some worrying thoughts that did, I nearly swore to give up hard drugs. Then I remembered, the Olympic torch relay was on here that day, and also Canberra ballooning festival was in full swing….
Then a stroke of luck. I went back out and noticed the kookaburra and shamrock (not clover) were low over the next street. The shamrock landed in the playing fields at the end of our road. I got lots of piccies. I tried talking flying with the guy piloting the shamrock balloon, but he was American for some strange reason, and couldn’t understand a bloody word I was saying.
If I’d have had a gun when the Kookaburra went overhead, the local cockatoo colony would have been greatly reduced. Bloody noisy bastards went spammy when it passed over. I wish I still had my old Baikal “over-and under”.
Talking of cockatoos, we’ve got one with a really bad case of “psittacine beak and feather” disease in our garden most mornings. His bottom beak is hugely overgrown, making it damn near impossible for him to eat. He’s able to eat bread however, and is now virtually hand tame with us.
Oh, never sign up to VirginBoradband as it is the worse service I’ve ever had the misfortune to use.
For my Welsh mates (and anyone who enjoys a good laugh, check this;
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Wales
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