Harvest

Roma tomatoes this year. And many, many chillies. With a little bit of rosemary and an abundance of mint, sage and oregano. Some radishes, lettuce, rocket, vietnamese and italian basil. Passionfruit and corn didn't work out.

Sadly, our lemons are ripening quite late this year. Our gin and tonics have missed the home grown lemons.

As summer is coming to an end, I am not sure what we will do with all the lemons once they eventually ripen. A lemon glut.

Well Jack

He looks fine now, doesn't he? Was a bit different on Saturday.

Thanks to Murdoch Country Vet Cop Emergency Hospital Department ED

Australia Day II

Don't forget what's not great about Australia. They were my previous words.

Dugite snakes. There are very Australian and I don't much care for them. One of them bit my dog early this evening. Right in the middle of our Australia Day BBQ dinner.

How we avoided detection by the Booze Buses on our emergency drive to Murdoch Uni, I will never know.

So now Jack is living the life of Riley in a $900 a-night bed, feeding on a $500 vial of anti-venom. I am not sure what accounts for the remaining $600 of the overall bill. To think, earlier in the day, we were pleased to get a good deal on a $450 washing machine. How thrifty, we thought!

Bloody snakes. I hope our little friend makes it through the night. We will miss him terribly if he doesn't.

Australia Day

I used to like it. Then I went off it for a bit. And then one mate used to have great parties on Australia Day, so I developed a bit more affection for it. I once skied through a blizzard in France on Australia Day with two men and the flag. We had a great day, notwithstanding the Fosters.


But the relationship went sour when Hanson wrapped herself in the flag and then the country got wrapped up in it as well. And then young men wrapped themselve up in it and bashed some Australians with Lebanese-born Australian parents.
I am yet to recover from the shame. I cannot look at the Australian flag without those Cronulla riot images coming to mind. Eternal shame on us.

The motto this year is 'celebrate what's great'

http://www.australiaday.gov.au/

Go for it. But don't forget what's not great.

Water

The cost of supplying all the water to my house from 10 July 2007 to 11 Jan 2008 was $49.65

I am going out and buying a swimming pool and I am going to fill it with water. And then, day after day, I am going to do bombies in it and splash loads of water out and then fill it with more water. Then my water bill will go up and I'll be all incentivised to invest in a rain water tank to harvest the rain from the roof.

Its the only way out this ridiculous situation.

Legacy

I hope that John Howard's legacy to all Australians is swept away like he was.

Another

Geez, I nearly forgot this moment.





A spectacular day for some friends with the seals. The way they interact with us always blows me away.

To Live

There are times when I think I don't like where I live.

Apparently, some friends of mine cannot return because it is now cheaper to live in London than Perth. I don't believe this, but it is undoubtedly another good way to justify to family and friends why you can't stand the place. Sometime I don't like it simply because I can't go to France next weekend.

But then there are moments when I know why I came home, to live.

One moment: a balmy nights following a 40+ day, with our parents, at the flicks in Kings Park.

Other moments: at the beach.

The beach is an addiction. I've got an opportunity to move to Melbourne but when I reflect at length at why I am likely not to go, in all honestly it is because I love our beaches and cannot yet bear to be parted from them again .

Time of Year

Its that time of year where we drag tress inside and throw bright things on them to amuse and delight. This is the first 'real' Christmas tree we have been involved with since we lived in Jersey and would buy cut trees encased in nets.

Its not even at our house, but at my mum's. Only having dogs to amuse, the Christmas tree no longer delights me. It delights my mum though, so that is enough reason to lop a branch of one of the trees on the farm.

Newstopia with Shaun Micallef - LANGUAGE WARNING

I don't know how to post this to facebook, so it goes here instead.

Maxine McKew Wins Bennelong

I was stuck on 69 posts for a while there

Trash and Treasure

Recently we had a Sunday morning free. I suggested we go down to the local Rotary trash 'n treasure. Just to see what is out there. I was just hoping to pick up a couple of tomato plants or chilli plants for the vegetable garden.

That was not to be. Here is our bounty:














Husqvarna push along grass cutter
Flat leaf parsley
Bee hive smoker
Local garlic
Hammer
Vice
Tow ball
Chilli plant
Wire cutter
Very Large Spanner
Lovely Chinese Style Lazy Susan Dip Holder

I spotted the bee hive smoker and the lazy susan.

Bondi

I went to Bondi today. I saw this sign.

No

No

No

No

No

No

Fun

September

Another September, another hockey grand final...

A different result for the first time in three years. Although we didn't win, I got another bit of bling to hang on the nail in the wall.

It shows what happens when hustlers get turned into saints.

New Technology

I have been resisting buying any new kind of television recording equipment like a VCR or a DVD recorder. I do enjoy watching the tube in the evening, but generally there is nothing on it I feel I cannot miss. Generally. The Tour starts again this weekend, and there is a certain something about the struggle of fit men to get up mountains on a bicycle that appeals to me. The thought of riding quite quickly for 3 hours nearly every day for 3 weeks makes me want to weep.

So we're off to spend some cash on a DVD recorder to record the Tour. I suspect this new machine may only be used for 3 to 4 weeks in a year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/07/03/sobren103.xml

Pasha Bulker

I admire activists. I admire the ingenuity of their protests. Like this one at Nobby's Beach in Newcastle, NSW, where the 77,000 tonne coal carrier, Pasha Bulker, ran aground earlier this month.

I have a friend who is an activist. She engineered a particlury amusing protest in regard to the conditions of child care workers. It involved psuedo soiled nappies and an MP's electoral office. I bet the MP didn't see that coming.

La Grande Boucle

I meant to post this many months ago.

On a Sunday, in last November, we went for a ride around the Swan River. 4000 other people did the same thing. The start was quite a spectacle.

I am not much of a cyclist. For one, I am far too fat (see chubby knees below). But, against my expectations, I have found that it is a pleasant way to get around, even if it requires far much more ‘gear’ than was required when I was a kid on my Indi 500. Cycling is turning out to be like skiing. Expensive. Also fun. Not quite addicted yet though. Also not willing to take the bike all the way to Europe.

The Burber King; he is a cyclist. A real cyclist. He didn’t really want to wear the maillot à pois rouges on this little blat around the Swan. After all, there are no mountains here (and to his despair, I could not face the idea of hauling up the big hill at Mosman Park, so we cheated at that point. Shhhh.).

But he has climbed mountains on his bicycle. He rode this very bike up Mont Ventoux.
Mont Ventoux is on the periphary of the French Alps, and is 1909 metres high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Ventoux

It took him several hours and he never got off his bike once. And the bike was laden with paniers carrying all the supplies you need to tour France. I drove past this mountain once, and I have seen it on the Tour de France year after year. Our campervan would barely make the climb. It is difficult to contemplate it on a bicycle.

Anyway, as I said, he was hesitant to wear the Polka Dot Jersey around the Swan. I asked the question - of the 4000 people riding around the Swan today, how many have rode their bicycle up Mont Ventoux? Perhaps a few. But it would only be a few. So wear the polka dot jersey, because you have really and truly, ridden up mountains.

The Great Perth Bike Ride was a hoot. Freaken hot though. And our sprint finish was hilarious. But 53km circuit was completed in 2hour 9 mins. I think the people doing it as a race did 2 circuits – 106 k’s - in less time. Clearly, there are drugs in cycling.

Look at this freak. More evidence of drugs in cycling

Dirty Old Town

Poor coal ridden Newcastle

Foundation Day Derby

Captain James Stirling officially proclaimed the Swan River Colony in Western Australia on 11 June, 1829. Although Captain Fremantle on the HMS Challenger had already claimed, for Britain, this western part of Australia some seven weeks earlier on April 25. Stirling took off up the river thinking he might find a better place to live. Instead, he just found Bayswater and Mt Lawley. What an extraordinary dissapointment for Stirling! And for countless residents since.

Captain Freo, on the other hand, knew he was on to a good thing, and set up camp on Bathers Beach. Stirling agreed he had lost the race to find the best place in the west to live and acknoweldged Fremantle's excellent judgement by naming the place after him. The People of the City of Fremantle have celebrated their Captain's victory ever since by playing a terrific game of Australian Rules Football between the teams of East Fremantle and South Fremantle.

Here you can see South Fremantle warm up in the background while the locals pay minimal respect for their athletic need to warm up those active muscles.

I love WAFL games. Kids everywhere kicking everywhere. Many adults too.

Souths won.

Jeffrey Farmer - the clown - gave away two 50m penalties and got taken out of the game on a stretcher. Ridiculous. Bloody Dockers