Hunter Daze

I spent my Sunday driving around the Hunter Valley with Hubby, Edna and her Mum.

Our day started with Hubby and me getting trapped in the garage of our building. Some bright sparky had started to install a new roller shutter the day before and had failed to reprogram the keys. So for the first time in forever we were late through no fault of our own. Follow that with a brief trip around the western suburbs due to poor sense of direction and we hit our first stop thirty minutes late.

Edna’s Mum got to hand feed an alpaca before we moved onto lunch at Peterson Champagne House (picture of Fern frong was taken there) in the heart of the valley.

Then the real fun started. Hubby handed me the car keys and started enjoying himself sniffing, swilling, tasting and spitting…ohh hang-on that last one didn’t happen at ALL! That would explain why I had a car load of port, Chardonnay and Semillon dessert wine and people singing ‘Lilly the Pink’ and ‘I’ve Got a Brand New Combined Harvester’ on the trip back to Sydney.

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Walking Tour

We went for a little walk today (14 kilometres) around Sydney and back again via Yum Cha, the Chinese Gardens, King Street Wharf, the long way to Millers point and the Botanical Gardens. I took a few pictures, some of them quite cute, some picture postcards and some observational art. I hope you enjoy, ‘cause my bum, hips and knees, now ache somewhat!

So, please let me talk you though the pictures I have chosen to share with you.

1. A classic tourist shot from the Chinese Gardens being over shadowed by the city behind.

2. A mother duck with one of her babies. There were 8 of them and they all looked extremely cute. They reminded me of the day I saw a mother and babies on my dam. They were quite happy swimming along until a kookaburra swooped down and gobbled up the one slacking behind. Two days later, there was just the mother left ;-(Luckily, there are no Kookaburras in Sydney!)

3. The sun was shining over King Street Wharf, next to Darling Harbour.

4. The sun shining over wharf three on Hickson Road. We had just walked around a rather confusing exhibition of ‘Installation’ art. Quite frankly, I never get that stuff; give me Kandinsky or Jackson Pollock any day over ‘Flags with fan and hair’.

5. A crevice in the rock wall along Hickson Road filled with a neat line of Tooheys Extra Dry bottles.

6. A pair of feet in wore leather shoes on the escalator in Darling Harbour. I just thought this would be a good idea at the time, we all have our moments.

(264 words) PS. Sorry about the formatting of this post, but I just can't seem to to get it right.

PPS. If you click on the pictures, you can see a bigger version. If you download them, please leave a message in Comments so I know, after all, that's the polite thing to do ;-)

Back to Learning

I enrolled in classes today. I’m a uni student again.

As of the 1st August I will be attending two classes a week for fourteen weeks. Non-fiction writing and Writing Poetry, I’m hoping to find out if I have the talent be a poet and know it.

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$13.99kg

I went shopping the other day and saw these lovely lush cherries for sale. I felt my cells screaming out for fruit and veggies, so I proceeded to purchase pears, mandarins and bananas. The Queensland bananas cost $13.99kg. Before Cyclone Larry, early this year you could pick them up for just $2.99. My hubby debated the value of bananas these days, I say Support the poor buggers up north.

Btw… they are yummy, both the cherries and the nanabanas ;-)

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Hairy Legs

I have a lovely lady (S) I go and see to rid my body of unwanted and unsightly hair, as most girlies do. I spoke with her yesterday to say that my eyebrows are starting to look like the Yetis and I would like an appointment.

She was quick to point out that she was getting busier and it must be due to sun poking it’s head out for 30 minutes last week. A date was set for my appointment before she went on to say that she was amazed how some women wait all winter before coming in with hair to their knees. ‘Don’t they have sex in winter?’ she asked.

Later in the day a girl in to office was showing me her leg and the cat scratch she had running from knee to ankle. (She has a pet cat who is her world and she lets get away with murder) She apologised from having hairy legs. Thinking back to my earlier conversation with S, I told her the story of hairy ladies and the beautician. Her response was ‘Ohh no, it’s far to cold to have sex in winter’.

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Fish Ice-cream Fruit

My friend Edna has her Mum visiting from Germany at the moment. She is staying for 3 weeks; so far one week has passed.

Last night, by chance we ended up going out to dinner together and fun was had by all I think, I say think, ‘cause Mum speaks not a word of English and Edna quite rightly got tired of translating. Not to mention, some things just don’t translate, ie. all the Father Ted references.

On the way to dinner, Mum had revealed that she had seen some strange looking fruits in the Chinese supermarkets and would like to go back and find out what they are. So we ended up in a supermarket, trying to understand what the lady behind the counter was saying to us about the fruit Mum was holding in her hand. This fruit was browny green, the size of my head, covered in spikes and smelled like a pair of used football socks. The little Chinese lady explained in broken English ‘it is good, nice than mango, cut like (here she demonstrated cut up like melon) scoop (another demonstration) and eat’. We also discovered it was called a Julian fruit. Only later, after a search on Google was it revealed to be called a Durian fruit.

Dinner was ‘all-you-can-eat-fajitas’ at a lovely little Mexican place in North Sydney. My hubby and I have been before and the owner seemed to recognize us so we asked after copious amount of meat, guacamole, salsa, cheese and tortilla if we could try our mystery fruit for pudding/dessert.

He was very obliging and whisked it away to the kitchen. It came back, cut into 4 on plates with little napkins and spoons. Edna was first to try and then exclaimed ‘It’s just like ice cream’. Mum followed and I don’t know what she said. I reserved judgement until about 6 or 7 spoonfuls in. ‘I think I’ve got it, it’s like ice cream, but it’s something else as well that I can’t quite put my finger on’. At this point, Edna pipes up ‘Fish!’

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Politeness

I’m sure you all know by now, but I am a fan of politeness and manners. Every morning on the way to work I have to walk past the front door of a lower level lodging establishment that does not seem to allow smoking inside or in the rooms. They also seem to be a central hub for bus tours, for every morning there are at least two coaches waiting outside, with luggage strewn all over the pavement and smoking patrons waiting to board the conveyance.

Normally, the patrons are of Japanese or American decent (please bear in mind, these observations are a generalisation and not a rule). The Japanese tend to be quite happy to let the locals weave their way to work while they chain-smoke 7 cigarettes so the blood in the body doesn’t dilute the nicotine levels too much during the trip to wherever. The Americans tend to have the stereo-typical look and sound about them, white socks with sandals, money belts and ‘I heart New York’ t-shirts stretched over a beer belly that would put Father Christmas to shame. The volume of their conversations about how weird the food is in Ozztraalia could also be reduced to a dull roar.

You can image my surprise, when yesterday I was approaching said establishment and two such Americans when they stopped, moved to the side, waved a hand in the direction I was going and said ‘After you ma’am, and have a good day’.

Surprisingly enough, I had a very good day.

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Nastiness and Bad Behaviour

My weekend was OK, How was yours?

Mine started on Friday with a quite drink after work. At 1am I found myself taking twice as long to walk home ‘cause I was unable to walk in a straight line. Broken bum had nothing to do with it. A good night was had by all, plenty of drinking, hilarity and good clean fun (J) was had by all. The unplanned nights are always the best!

Saturday saw resting and grocery shopping. It has to be done, we don’t have to enjoy it.
Sunday was a day in the car and at an Alpaca AGM. Once again I am on the committee of the Aussie Alpacas. Hubby and I spent the weekend travelling the countryside so we could go to a farce of a meeting to be voted in as an ordinary committee member (so I can be editor again) and treasurer (hubby). The car trip was painful, but not as painful as the meeting. I won’t go into to too many boring details, but the ‘Carnation’ tried to take me on by criticising content and I did my best to shut her down while being polite. We were after all sitting in her backyard.

The meeting and subsequent battle with ‘Carnation’ made me think again about why people are like that? Nasty and malicious I mean. They don’t get anything out of it, surely? Does it make them feel good? Does it make them feel big or clever? If someone can explain this behaviour to me I would love to hear it, it may enable me to handle it better.

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Hooligans

In the midst of the last weeks drama, I have failed to tell you about a couple of things.

The first being ANTM. It finished last week with Jade, Danielle and Joanie in the top three. Jade got kicked out (much to my relief) leaving D and J to duke it out for the title. In the end, Danielle’s stoic nature (breaking her toe in platforms and walking away, posing on a elephant just after collapsing from exhaustion) saw her become America’s Next Top Model. Woo Hoo!

The second thing, I was accused of being a traitor on Friday night/Saturday morning by a complete stranger whilst watching yet another Germany (v Argentina) football match. It happened during extra time, after the bar had closed and Edna was in the loo.

So picture this, me having had a few drinks, in pain from perching all night, alone and being abused by a bunch of largered up lads. I wasn’t really as polite as I could have been. I pointed out that it was silly that they seemed to be supporting Argentina, just because it wasn’t Germany. They then said the ‘krauts’ were a war making nation. I then felt the need to tell them they were talking out of their backsides and had they forgotten about the whole Falkland Islands debacle, plus it’s only a game for Christ’s sake. Get a life! Once Edna got back, it settled a bit, but not a lot and it all resulted in us leaving with 10 minutes and the penalties to go. I have off course cleaned up the language used somewhat ;-) (In case you're wondering the match ended in a draw, but Germany won 4 - 2 on penalties).

I still find it amazing that people get so worked up about a game of football. After all the idea of the World Cup is to bring nations together and play a game or two of football. But the world over fans divide and abuse each other. Really, and I may have mentioned this before, but I just don’t get it!

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Comedy Injury

I’ve got a broken arse bone.

On the 27th of June I wrote about dropping a telly on my knee (long story, read the entry) I briefly mentioned landing on my bum too. Well, as it turns out my knee if fine, but I broke my bum.
I was kinda OK all last, it was sore, but I coped. Then on Friday I went out with Edna for a few beers and to watch the football and promptly spent the whole night perched on wooden stools. Saturday I woke up to pain. More pain than had been experience since the great rollerskating incident of ’98 (another story for another day).

Today, I went to the doctor. She asked me what I’d done, I explained. She asked when does it hurt, I explained when I walk, sit, stand, laugh, all the time really. Then she did one last test. She asked me to stand with my back to her, she placed her left hand on my tummy then gentle pushed with her right fingers flat on the top of my bum. After she peeled me off the ceiling she wrote a referral for the X-Ray place.

The radiologist didn’t like what he saw and told me it wasn’t good, but because he not a doctor he wasn’t allowed to tell me it was broken. The Doctor does that ‘officially’ tomorrow.

There is nothing they can do for this type of break, just rest and take it easy while it heals. When I look back over my injury record, all my breaks have been the same;Aged 13 – broke my left little toe on a door frame, treatment none.Aged 20 – broke my index and middle finger on right hand, treatment strapping and lolly stick.Aged 30 – broke the bone on the side of my right foot, treatment none.Aged 331/2 – broken arse bone – treatment none

Not a cast or sympathy gathering crutches in sight, just a bruised and broken arse!

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