Well there is actually, but I'll come to that in a bit…

 

But the first thing that everyone in the UK asks me when I ring them, inebriated, on a Sunday, is not "How are you?" or "Is Barney still alive?" or "Why do you always ring me on a Sunday morning when you know I'll have a hangover you daft Welsh twat?" but "What's the weather like with you?"

So let's get that important bit of news out of the way shall we?

This winter has been the coldest since 1997, a mark officially reached when yesterday's temperature dropped to minus 5.6 degrees – the 48th freezing morning this winter. According to Weatherzone senior meteorologist Brett Dutschke, that was five more than last year, but well short of the 61 achieved in 1997 and the all-time record of 65 sub-zero days, set in 1982. Counting yesterday's minimum of -2.5 degrees, in 2012 we’ve had 49 sub-zero winter mornings. The lowest recorded temperature this year was -7.2.

We had two days of snow in the city, but it was down and gone within the day

So what else to do, to cure the wintertime blues, but to take a beach holiday?

I’d managed to wangle a fortnight off work. It's been hard work hanging on in there since our last holiday, but somehow I got through. Luckily, due to my shift patterns and flex days/days off, to get this fortnight off, I only had to use six days of my leave allowance, which still left me with 8 1/2 weeks to use up this year. Lee-Anne, unfortunately, was only able to get a few days off, poor bugger. This was due to due to political matters, political matters which, without her calm hand on the rudder, would not be plain sailing.

I’ll let her tell you what sort of thing she has to deal with in her own words;

OK, so.  Here it goes:

This whole year has been gearing up for the final sitting fortnight of the Seventh Legislative Assembly for the ACT.  (Read, Local Government.) A sitting week comprises of three days, two of which are for Government business and the Wednesday, (middle day) is for Private Members business.  A sitting fortnight is the same joy, twice over.  So I had four days in two weeks to make sure everything relating to the Justice portfolio was able to be agreed by Cabinet, debated on the floor and passed into legislation.  It was going to be a hard ask as the tabled Budget also needed to be debated and it was estimated to take 15 hours (over two days worth of "sitting" time) in itself.

This would be difficult.  An Appropriation debate have been known to go til 5:00 am on occasion. So, what happened on the first Sitting Day, I hear you ask? (OK, you didn't.  Indulge me.)

Well, the Opposition raise a Motion Of No Confidence in the Chief Minister. So?  What does that mean? Politically, it means that they want to point out in a most public way that the Members of the Assembly have "no confidence" in the Chief and she is then withdrawn from the position. 

This was never going to happen as the Government has the numbers and the Minority Party, the Greens, have an agreement that they won't support such a Motion.  So basically it is grandstanding prior to the Election. They could have chosen to "censure" her.  That debate can take place on the same day. 

HOWEVER, when a motion of No Confidence is moved, the Assembly rises for seven calendar days and then resumes to debate the No Confidence Motion. My four days for Government Business has just been whittled down to two, and there is already a two day debate planned!!!!   FFFFUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Sigh.

So, for those precious three remaining sitting days, I needed to be on deck from 8:00 am to 1:00 am three days in a row.  I feel a bit crackered now, but … Job done.

On a bittersweet note to a hectic and ludicrous Sitting period, my favourite ol' boy from the House is retiring and gave his valedictory speech to the chamber on the last day. I was in attendance, along with his family and many others. I was touched that he mentioned me by name, (third in a group of six named from a field of twenty-five who held the position).  Later he came up and gave me a big cuddle and said "But you were always my favourite."  As a consummate politician, I am sure he said that to all of us.  

Vale, John Hargreaves, vale.

You had a colorful career and you accomplished many achievements.  Introducing the first human rights compliant prison in Australia was huge. However, You had some gob-smackingly horrible lows.  I was there for most of those, (heart attack, depression), though I did miss being with you when you were newly appointed Police Minister and got done for driving over the limit. You achieved the one thing you set out to change from the day you entered politics, you got a ban through on fireworks being sold and used in the ACT.  You vowed to ban fireworks when you rescued what became your granddaughter's cat from arseholes that had poured petrol on her as a kitten and were trying to light crackers up her bum.

 

I love you, Johno, and I always will.

 

 

So we took the chance to have a few days down at the coast, here. This was at the place I was telling you about last month, the one I’d accidentally bid for at the basketball auction.  The day before we left for the coast we went to see the “The Mousetrap”, again. This was on tour in Aus as part of the “60th anniversary of the play’s inception” celebrations.

But let me step back in time here a little.

The windows in our living room had been loose in the frame for some time, and were only held in by gaffa tape. I was going to fix them myself, but had a look, and seeing that they were only held in by prayer and good luck, decided that it was a job for a professional. It was almost half way through winter, and we were bloody freezing before we (I) actually got around to doing anything about it. I emailed our landlord, and he said that I should get some quotes and he’d pay for the repairs. It was only after a few weeks that anyone was prepared to give us a quote, as most people were only interested in replacing the windows, not just resealing them.

But by turning up at a glaziers shop front and refusing to leave until we got a quote, we eventually got some guys to agree to come and have a look. He reckoned it would cost about $280 for the job from our description of it.

 The boy from the glaziers turned up on my day off, and I showed them the job.

The first guy went up the ladder and was laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall off. He got his mate to go up and have a look, his quote; “I think we’re going to need to order in a whole big bunch of filler.” He explained to me that the sort of windows we had, when first installed, had wooden battens in. These rot over time leaving big gaps in the frames. With thunderstorm season almost on us, it was therefore pretty damn bloody important to get them filled a.s.a.p, so as to allow the filler, about 3 gallons of it, time to set before the heavy weather kicked in.

The came back a few days later, and duly filed the frames up. They only charged us $160 for the job, probably for the entertainment factor.

Ok, so back to the Mousetrap.

I’d booked tickets as soon as they went on sale, and got the best seats in the house for Saturday night. Then I had to change them as I realised that Saturday night was three days into our holiday. So I emailed the box office, explaining my dilemma, without explaining how terminally stupid I can be, and got a curt reply from their box office telling me to go fuck myself, as I’d been sold the tickets in good faith. I rang them, got put through to a harridan from hell, and got the same reply.

So I tried the personal approach. I went down to the box office, all ready to drag the salesperson over the counter and administer some assertive reasoning. With my boot. The kid behind the counter took one look at the tickets, and said; “You want to swap these Saturday night front of house tickets for any Thursday seats that are available?!?!?”

He nearly bit my arm off, and gave me the best seats he could for Thursday’s play.

When I got home I emailed the theatre manager and informed him that whoever ran the box office email service was a complete arse, and the kid who had dealt with me over the counter was a true saint.

Hi,

The other day I booked some tickets for the forthcoming Mousetrap presentation. Unfortunately due to problems beyond our control we found we are unable to attend the night we had booked. This was a shame as we had seen the play in London in January, and were looking forward to seeing it again.

So I mailed you via your online website contact page, requateing an exchange of nights. I got a very curt reply in the negative. I then rang the ticket office. The woman I spoke to told me, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be able to change my tickets, this despite there being over two months before the first performance. I was dismayed, $600's worth of tickets is not something I would gladly sacrifice.

So, rather dischuffed, I attended the box office. There I was attended to with by a very pleasant young man who understood my predicament, and who quickly and effortlessly changed our night's booking, and was a model of good service and courtesy. He is a credit to your box office, (I was so impressed that I shook his hand before leaving.)

From my experience your box office needs all the credit it can get.

Yours,

Mind you, it was only then I realised the kid at the counter could have probably made a few bob by scalping the ones I returned. Best of luck to him.

The night we were due to see the play was the night our landlord, Vinod,  had agreed to come around, inspect the job we'd had done on the windows, and refund our cash. He said he’d be there at; “around sixish after work.”

We had planned to go to our favourite Indian restaurant, The Taj, to eat before the play. So promptly, well, not exactly promptly, more like at ten to seven, Vinod turned up and took a quick glance at the frames, gave me the cash and hurried off for his tea. We belted it into town, grabbed seats at an empty Taj, and then received the slowest bloody service we have ever had there. We left half our grub and legged it over to see the show.

The show itself was fine. Not as good as the London version, but with some interesting variations on the characters.

Here’s a tip for you; If you go to see a play just after shovelling a vegetarian vindaloo and two bottles of Kingfisher lager down your neck in less than four minutes, then rushing on foot halfway across the city,  the people in the seats behind you aren’t going to enjoy themselves much.

So then, to the coast.

Bethany and her paramour volunteered to stay home and look after the hounds of hell for us. They couldn’t have come down the coast with us in any case,  as the rental specified we could only have it outside of school holidays. We left them a wad of cash, a larder full of food, (human and dog,) and a double bed. We were sure they’d be able to entertain themselves.

We drove down without incident and found “The Moorings”. It was a strange place, a bit of a “Costa Geriatric”, full of old biddies who had bought a little time share at the coast for their retirement present. In all the time we were there I didn’t spot anyone younger than us.

But that was fine for what we needed. The apartment was on the second floor, with fine views over the estuary. In the mornings we got glorious sunrises, what with us being still stuck in; “bed at 9.00 pm, up for the gym at 5.30 am” mode we were wide awake for evry fucking one of them. (And in bed by 9.30 pm each night.). Most days there were storks and kingfishers and other lovely birds out on the moorings themselves, which pleased me no end.

What did we do while there? Well really just a lot of sweet fuck all, apart from the usual high octane shagging. This could be the most boring write up for this blog; "We went to coast, dossed, drank wine, shagged, that's it." But why not, we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We visited the local beaches during the day, took some snaps. We spotted a pod of dolphins cruising the surf, lovely bloody sight.

We visited a local nature reserve, and took a trip into Mogo Village, a touristy trap place. In Mogo we found the best home gadget shop I have ever been in, Lee-Anne took my wallet off me. I would have bought that electric apple peeler if allowed to, or maybe the home defenestration kit.

We went out to a famous (in Aus) chippy for a couple of our evening meals, and looked up a couple of class eating places down there for our last night. On the last day we climbed “Pigeon House Mountain” to work off some of the chips and wine we’d been living on. Lovely, lovely walk, steep and rocky for 2/3 of it, with a couple of hundred foot of steel ladders on the last pitch to the summit. We’d forgotten to take a rucksack to the coast, so I carried up two bottles of water in Lee-Anne’s handbag. I got some bloody funny looks off the three other couples we passed.

 

On the last night we drove into Bateman’s bay, and had a meal at “The Little Bar and  Restaurant”. (Click on the link for my review.)

Probably the most relaxing time we've had in ages, no one to be responsible to or for but us two, bliss!! Oh,you'll be ever so pleased to know that it was T-shirt weather the whole time we were down there, as the photos will attest. We didn't go in the sea though.

How's that British "summer" going?

 

Dear old Barney. He was SOOOO happy to have us come back after being at the coast. He heard our voices and walked straight up to the wall and wagged his tail at it ferociously. It’s sometimes fun owning a blind dog. As most of you will know, our old dog went blind a few months back. Due to sterling work by our vet, his heart condition is under control, but the blindness cannot be treated. One thing he LOVES is walk to our local shops; I think it's all the other dog smells en route. He will not go on a lead, but walks, just behind me, at heel.

The other day I took him down there to grab a few bits and bobs for tea. As we were leaving the shops, I turned around just in time to see Barney walk smack bang into the biggest, ugliest, biker I have ever seen in my life, the guy must have been six foot five, and about 25 stone.

I thought to myself; "If he boots Barney, I'm going to have to smack him, and then I'm going to get pummelled."

He turned to me and yelled; "Oy, yer fuckin dog just walked into me!"

I replied; "Sorry old chum, but he's gone blind, he couldn't see you there."

He waved his hand in front of Barney's face, swung a feigned swipe at his head, and the dog responded not. He got down, sat on the floor, and hugged him and fussed him and played with him. I thought he was going to cry. It took me a good ten minutes to get the dog back off him.

As I was leaving he said; "I nearly stuck the boot in him, I'm so sorry."

I didn't tell him how relieved I was that he hadn't.

 

As I didn’t go back to work for another five days after Lee-Anne started back, I indulged my Le Carre obsession, by watching the whole of “Smiley’s People“, "The Spy Who Came in From The Cold" and  "A Perfect Spy" again.  Also while at home alone I watched the new version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,Spy", with Gary Oldman as Smiley. It's not a bad stab at it, with an amazing cast, but the original TV mini series is better due to it has more time to develop. It's not really a movie for my two, though It turns out though that the mother in law is a big fan of Le Carre’s stuff, or at least the on screen stuff.

 

A scene from our life together…

 At about three am one morning while in bed, Lee-Anne started using her i-pad. This obviously woke me up, which really snotted me off, as I was having a fine kip, and I got very irate. A short and frank exchange of views occurred, and so Lee-Anne gets up and takes herself and her i-pad to the spare room.

I try to get back to sleep, and fail. So I get up. It's only then I am informed forthrightly that was not 3.00 am, it was 5.30 am, and she wasn't; "playing with her fucking i-pad," but "getting you up to go to the fucking gym as you wanted to do, and made a fucking big issue of last night"

 I'll get me coat….

 

 

 Having heard nothing from my solicitor with regard to my crash compensation for a few months, I decided to email him. I got a prompt reply inviting me up to his office.  We sat in his office of a morning, and he went though the voluminous paperwork he has collected on the issue, and made the startling discovery; “That’s why it’s taking so long, they’ve not admitted responsibility.” Which was surprising, as the guy who knocked me off my bike was happy to admit to the cops that it was his fault. So ok, Ashley, the solicitors states; “If that’s the way they want to play it, we’ll screw them for all that we can.” Which is what I thought he was doing in the first place .

So he went through several options for claiming, including “loss of future earnings” and “cost of future medical treatments,” and then states; “We’ll get a Barrister onto them too.” I balked at this, and so Ashley took me through the pros and cons, and we decided, if nothing else, to have a session with the big gun, just to see what he could come up with. At two grand for an hour’s chat. Ashley sold me on this by saying; “For every dollar you pay him, you’ll get ten back.”

Which found me a few weeks later in “Blackburn Chambers” meeting a very nice, posh, well educated man, whose name totally eludes me at present. He chatted with Ashley, and asked me some very probing questions. I can see how these guys put the frighteners on crims, and in any case he was on my side, so no need to worry.. Interestingly my work needs me to have the same sort of interrogative prowess, only with space cadets. So we’ve agreed that I need to go for more medical tests, ($$$$) and that we will have a telephone conference with the taxi driver’s insurance in November. I live in vague hope of getting a payout before I retire.

 

 

As I said in the last missive, the famous author Patrick Gale was coming to Canberra. He has a new book out; “A Perfectly Good man”, and was on tour promoting it and doing books signings etc. 

  

The new novel from Patrick Gale, author of Richard & Judy-bestseller ‘Notes from an Exhibition’, returning readers to his beloved Cornish coastline.

‘Do you need me to pray for you now for a specific reason?’
‘I’m going to die.’
‘We’re all going to die. Does dying frighten you?’
‘I mean I’m going to kill myself.’

When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy's reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest – the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby's repellent nemesis – a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous.

As Patrick is the husband of my good mate Aidan, I was able to arrange to catch up with him. I’d mentioned to the woman who runs one of my favourite bookshops that he was coming on tour; “Oh, I’m a big fan of him, I must get to see him.” She was ever so envious when I told her I was hoping to take Patrick out for a beer after the talk.

So on the night, Mary, the mother-in-law, who I’d loaned one of Patrick’s books too, and me duly presented ourselves at the National Library of Australia, where the talk was being held. Bethy wanted to come to, but it was a week where she was residing  at her father’s house, which is an hour’s drive from Canberra, so she couldn’t go. We asked at reception where the talk was, the girl told us upstairs in the conference suit. We saw some stairs and went up them, we found a room marked “Conference Room”. We waited and waited, until I finally had the gumption to go look for another conference room, and, after going on an expedition which I should have enlisted a Sherpa for, there it was. We were only four floors out.

We had a great night. Patrick's talk on his works, and especially his new book, was riveting. Patrick is obviously a dab hand at this sort of thing. The first section was him being interviewed by one of the editors of the local rag. This was good, and most of her questions were pertinent, and allowed Patrick to extemporise on his work methods. She did tend to talk over him a bit too much for my tastes. Then came questions, most people asked sensible ones. I asked him for gossip from back in Trevilley, and how his tractor driving was coming on.

After this, Patrick did a book signing downstairs. Free wine and cheese too. Which would have been great. But it was only half way into it that I remembered that Mary was driving. Damn! This meant  I could have necked a great deal of wine, and, as Lee-Anne wasn’t about, I could hit the cheese without getting "reminded" about my cholesterol levels. So I did my damndest to make up for lost time.  Patrick wouldn’t get a chance to visit my friend's bookshop, which he had hoped to do, as he was being flown to Sydney for another talk first thing in the morning. However I did get to introduce the girl from the bookshop to him, and her, and her son, were enraptured. Even more enraptured was the mother in law, who bought all the books he was touting, got them signed, and had to be pulled off him with a crowbar. I got a copy of his latest one, and Patrick kindly signed it and inscribed it to Bethany.

While I was waiting for the books signing to wrap up, I was approached by an old boy. “What’s all this about a tractor then, I had a tractor once, got it stuck in the mud and had to get it towed out.” It took a while to dawn on me that this was supposed to be a funny tale, I laughed to humour him. (Just as readers of this blog do for me.) I told him that, when I last bumped into Patrick, back on the farm on which he lives, his husband, Aidan, had told me about his efforts in getting Patrick tractor driving. “What do you mean “His husband?!?!?””

I told the daft old fart that Patrick was married to my friend Aidan, and they prefer to refer to each other by the term “husband”. (Which I find not only logical, but very sweet and endearing. If Lee-Anne was a bloke I’d call her my husband.)

“What?!?! Two men?!?!? Married?!?!? Calling each other “Husband?!?!?”Disgusting!!!”

And off he stormed, leaving the building in a huff. (And if you can’t leave in a huff, leave in a minute and a huff!) I was in stitches! The old tit had just sat through a lecture by the world's premier gay author, a talk in which Patrick had  openly talked about his experiences growing up as a gay man, had mentioned his home life with Aidan, and it had completely 747’d this daft old bugger.

I was approached by a bore later on, who used the excuse of my, (so far brief,) acquaintance with Patrick  to talk about himself. (First one to reply; “that sounds familiar” gets a smacking.) So I related the tale of the old boy and his disgust, just for something to say. “Ah, I have to agree to an extent, “partner” I will allow them, but not “husband”, that devalues the term.” I suddenly developed a keen interest in whatever Mary was up to, and left him. It was either that, or invite him to come around the back of the bike sheds for an educational five minutes.

After the talk, the mother in law drove us into the city. Me, Patrick, and his minder from Harper Collins, Jane, spent the night at my favourite mircobrewery.  Not knowing Patrick that well, hardly at all in fact, and never having met Jane before I was a little nervous that I may do my usual stunt when with new people, get totally hammered and embarrass myself. But I had no need to worry, not only does Patrick has a wealth of tales and stories, (he is a bloody author after all!) but as he has never been to Canberra before, and being a "people person” he was easy company. Not only that  but  Jane was a brilliant compliment to him, and we had a great time and the evening just flew by.

Dear god, if I needed a demonstration of why Patrick is held in such high renown as a weaver of tales, I have, first hand, a great example. He managed to convince me that Camilla Parker Bowles, who he had recently met through his charity work, is, and I quote; “one very sexy lady.” No mean feat that. We parted later in the evening, knowing each other better, and I’m pleased to now be able to call Patrick, (and Jane,) friends rather than acquaintances.

 

Bethy was in a play the other day, and it had to be a bloody musical didn't. To be fair, just like the last time I saw he r in a musical, it wasn't too excruciating. Bethy had two parts, both singing roles, and a dancing part in the chorus. She had seven costume changes, and was knackered at the end of each of the four nights it was on.  This all counts towards her course, and makes up the "creative" component on top of all the academic stuff she has to do. In the car on the way home after the final performance, Bethy had a bit of a weep; "This is the last time I'll do one of those plays, it's been the best two years of my life, I'm going to miss everyone". She's really blossomed and come out of herself since starting this course, and it's nice that she's had so much fun and made so many friends during it.

Here's a bad clip, filmed on my mobile, of Bethy seducing the main male in the play. (Typecasting?)

 
We got a letter of the leccy company the other day, informing us that one of the trees in our garden was encroaching on the power lines, and that we should have it removed. The letter included the addresses of several tree surgeons, and  a little diagram showing the tree in question. I laughed at this, as we have no trees in the garden, and showed it to Lee-Anne when she got home. Lee-Anne pointed out that while we do not have trees in the garden, we do have a few very tall saplings, and in any case, I was holding the diagram sideways. Shit.

We took it out into the garden, and lo and behold one of our “not trees” was brushing the powerlines. I refused point blank to even consider using a tree surgeon for a shrub; “I’ll do it myself!” Lee-Anne gave me  a look.  So on my next day off I set about it, with strict instructions from Lee-Anne to phone her in the event of my taking all the street power out, and frying myself to a crisp in the process.

But ha!! I did it no problems. (“He’s a lumberjack, and he’s ok..”)

The next day Mary asked me if I could come around and take down a tree in her garden which was similarly endangering the power lines. I went and had a look. Except this was a tree tree, a fully grown eucalypt, about forty foot high. I declined.
 
Now here’s a tale on how to really cock up a tree felling! (Guess who from?)

The willow trees died so being a Dad I set about it with the chainsaw! Ladder out, me up it, limb tried to the front of car so I can give it a tug from a safe distance, boys standing by in quiet hushed respect for how a man should be!

Started sawing through offending limb watching it gently start to lower under gravity when….. all of a sudden I found myself floating in entirely the same way a brick doesn't! The bloody thing broke prematurely, swung round crushed the ladder and gave me a flying lesson.

Fortunately I used my ribs as an air bag on the chicken house breaking some slates and a couple of ribs too. Landing safely on the grass I decided walking was vastly over rated anyway and medially hyper flexed my lateral maliolis tearing my tibial/tantalus ligament (sprained my ankle!)

By the time I could breath again jack had rung for an ambulance…. When I could talk again I told the nice lady in Control to fuck off I'd rather crawl up the hill on broken and bloodied stumps before goin to hospital in an NHS ambulance…. thank you!

I've been off work now nearly a week and still can't cough without crying like a girl.

Fuck I hate getting old!

 

 

The other day I went camera shopping with Mary, and I didn't kill her. She’d asked me to go with her a few weeks previously, and having been put through this mill a few times, I knew I needed time  to psyche myself up for it.

I'd done my research, Mary had  done hers. Mine consisted of looking through online camera review websites for the best compact camera for seniors. Hers consisted of looking through the local rag’s advert section for the most expensive. We tried a few shops. In the end, we didn't buy the camera I had seen as best rated, a Canon, as the controls were too fiddly for her arthritic fingers, so we got her a nice little Fuji compact instead. She even beat the sales lad into giving her a "little old lady" discount

She won't let me glue the controls, so they stick solely on "auto" though.

She wants a camera as, in November, she's going to China for a three weeks tour. Not bad for an old bird of 78. And she's going alone!

Oh we saw Bill Bailey again the other night, he's here on his "Qualmpeddler" tour.

''I have got a little more angry recently and there's an element of that in the show,'' he concedes. ''Part of it is what's filtered into the title. It's about … you know, world leaders and, through history, this policy of just terrifying their own populations and traumatising them into some kind of … hysteria almost … putting fear into people's minds. That way, you can put through any kind of legislation you want. You can say, 'Well, if we don't do this, then all this is going to happen' – and you know, people have so much going on in their lives, they're like, 'Oh, OK then','' he says.

''It engenders a state of qualms. When you've got qualms, you don't behave in a normal way.''

He really is a phenomena is he not? He had us in bloody stitches the whole way through. And I was so pleased that he did his Metallica" tribute, (along with other covers including "Livin on a Prayer".)

 

Though somewhat surprisingly, the funniest event of the night happened before we saw him. Lee-Anne, Bethy, Reece, (Bethy's man,) and me decided to eat in town before the show, we decided to try the "London Beer and Burgers". Not the sort of place we would normally go to through choice, none of us are burger fans. However, Bethy fancied a burger, (a rare thing to eat for her,) and Lee-Anne had heard this place was good.

We were "lucky" to get seated, as most tables were booked. We were shown to a high table for three, with high seating to perch on,with the instructions we had to be finished by 7.45 as another party had booked, and been allocated the table. The seating and table were damn uncomfortable. I had a jug of cider to start, Lee-Anne  had a wine, and Bethy a cranberry juice. The cider was cheap, the wine reasonable.

The burgers took a long time coming. I had a fish burger. It was ok, but no more than average, the servings were generous.

The major problem with the place for me was it had crammed far too many seats into the service area. It was not comfortable, and definitely not discrete. Opposite us sat a huge family of huge Bogans, who were on a kid's party evening. The women were all enormously fat, with huge beachball sized tits on display, and all had trouble fitting between the seats and table. The men were all scrawny and dim looking. The kids were cute enough, bloody noisy though. But the granny/matriarch of the ensemble was stunning, she was about thirty stone and spherical, and unfortunately sat opposite me, in my direct line of sight, not conducive to enjoying a meal. She had just three teeth in her mouth, which, seeing as her gob was constantly open, were on display for inspection. She was the spitting image of Nanny Ogg!

Lee-Anne leaned across to me; "God knows how she's going to eat a burger!" I creased up! It was a "cider down the nose" moment! Luckily we finished our food and fucked off, before having to witness her attempts at it.
 

On the subject of food; Lee-Anne's boss was moving on. I thought he was  a Chinese American chap, I was wrong, he's Mexican. David is actually 3/8ths Mexican 1/8th Japanese and 1/2 American. I'd only met David once, It was 14 months ago for two minutes outside in the dark as he was arriving for a farewell and we were leaving. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.)  "Mexican Piggie cookies" are his favourite treat. Lee-Anne being queen of the baking was to knock some out for him.

 

I got an e-mail from her the next day; "You should have seen the spread we put on for David. He was/is very touched.He loved his Little Piggies and said that were identical to his mother’s." That's my girl!

 

In work (on Wednesday's) someone recently started a trend where we take it in turns to make, and bring in, a huge tureen full of soup to share. It was my turn the other day, so I pushed the boat out. I made a French onion and mushroom consomme,but not only that, I made three types of bread rolls, "olive tapanade", "Spinach and parmesan" and "Sun dried tomato with  Dijon mustard."  By the end of the day you could swear I had a chocolate cock the way I was being treated.

Matt, our little Goth accountant, did his wonders for us the other day, he earned himself $265 and got us a $3300 tax rebate. Fair exchange I think? Oh and just to brag her up a little; Lee-Anne recently got her superannuation statement. If she works another nine years, I can look forward to being a kept man in my dotage.

 

Bad news from Cornwall, our septic tank system needs redoing, and that's two grand down the shitter. Literally. Not only that but Nickie and Frank, the lovely tenants we had in, have given their notice to quit in due to family reasons.

Anyone want to rent a cottage in Cornwall? I'll do you mates rates!

Here's a new tune from me. The "Dartmoor Ambient" CD will be out soon. Like it or not you may be getting a copy. 🙂