Saturday
8th January 2005Thomas is almost walking now. He will take a few steps when we are holding only one of his hands. He has been walking around for quite a while now with someone holding both his hands, but as soon as we try to let go, he sits down or refuses to walk until we hold both his hands. He's quite vocal in his complaints when we used to let go of one of his hands, but now he will take a few steps. It won't take long now.
I went in to the Village to get the weekly shop, and decided to get my hair cut. It ended up being a real disaster as the guy who was cutting it was someone I had not seen there before, and he seemed really pissed off to be there. I asked him for a trim, and he cut the sides of my head too short, and this makes my hair stand out horizontally. As I looked a little strange, I decided that the only way out of this disaster was to get him to take all my hair off to be the same length as the but that he did wrong. So now, I have an all over crew-cut. When the barber was finished for the second time, I pointed out some tufts of hair on the top that were longer than the rest - his reaction was to dampen my hair down and comb it flat. It was not until I grabbed the chunks of long hair and convinced him that they were longer than all the rest that he actually did as I had asked. Then the bill still came to $31.
We have had a terrible problem with our patch of 'garden'
in front of our main door to the house (it's actually the back door, but the
'front' door opens into a dead-end). The bit of garden has a couple of conifers
and a large patch of bark mulch that the neighbourhood cats and dogs seem to
use as a handy toilet. The smell is really quite bad on some days, and I have
tried everything. I tried powdered pepper, then I tried commercial cat and dog
repellent, and at each application I had to comb through the bark to remove
and dispose of 'evidence of previous visits' and hose down the area. I then
tried putting down cardboard boxes to get in their way - which worked for a
bit, but recently the cats/dogs have just been pushing the boxes aside.
So, today I decided to get some plants that would cover this area, so that the
cats could not dig their little pits in the bark. I transplanted some ground
cover plants into the area, and I will have to see what the effect is.
This evening we got a last minute invitation to Linda's house to have dinner. Two of the children were out, and they were roasting some lamb and some pork in their barbeque. Ann, Thomas and I went over to be fed and watered, and played with Marie for a bit, then came home. It was a very enjoyable evening because it was relaxed and unfussy. It also saved me from doing the cooking.
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Liam and Shirley came over for a barbeque this afternoon,
which is the first time that we have invited them to dinner at our place. They
brought a cheesecake and a large bottle of wine, and we had Australian steaks
and beef sausages. I have just got the hang of the temperature of the barbie,
so the steaks were perfectly cooked - even if I do say so myself...
We had a tomato salad, with tomatoes from our vine sliced with red onion and
vinagrette and shredded basil from our patio garden, and it went down well.
I am really impressed that a pot that was far too small to grow anything has
resulted in 4ft high tomatoes that give a great crop and taste great.
More on the patio area - the hydrangeas that Shirley gave us are growing really well, but I unfortunately decided to feed them and so now we have got lots of leaf growth and not much flowers. The herbs that we are growing on the windowsill are slowly growing, but they are not in the direct harsh sun, so are growing slower. The weeds that I transplanted into the cat toilet are starting to survive - I am having to water them to ensure that they do not die.
Terry and Eleanor called us to say that they had gone past Melbourne and were in Mount Dendenong in a small chalet without power. They are both enjoying themselves and have not killed each other yet, so it's good news. Even better for Ann and me, they are not coming back here for another day.
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Terry and Eleanor returned from Melbourne today, and they told us about their trip. We watched home videos all night, and saw photos of the places that they visited.
They started by turning off at Tailem
Bend, and headed towards Kingston.
They expected that as the maps showed the sea from the road, that they would
be able to see the sea on the way down, but until they got as far as Robe,
they had not seen the sea. Mount
Benson and the area
around Robe was lovely,
with lots of vineyards
and great scenery. Robe
was like an American rural seaside town, with beach houses and diners with a
view of the sea. They travelled through Beachport
and Millicent,
but neither appeared to be interesting enough to stop in. They got as far as
Mt Gambier,
where the spent the night in a pub on the corner of the main
street, where the room was very large with beautiful white bedlinen and
antique-style furniture.
The next day started by skipping the unappetising looking breakfast in the pub,
and instead stopped at the town of Dartmoor
(which is an area that is close to Eleanor in Devon).
Dartmoor
was very small, with the main industry being sawmills. All the way down to Portland
was forest, around 120km of trees and scenery. The road from Narrawong
to Tyrendarra
was very steep and winding, with tree ferns and very beautiful views. They stopped
at a cafe at the top of the hill, where Terry and Eleanor were amazed to find
that they had their fire burning when it was a relatively warm day outside (by
English standards).
Port Fairy
is a very picturesque
place, with a marina
and over 50 historical
buildings classified by the National
Trust. When they got to Warrnambool,
they hit the Great
Ocean Road, which was the aim of the journey, where they appreciated the
rocky coastline
and the Twelve
Appostles. They managed to pass Apollo
Bay and reach Lorne by
sunset.
They were very lucky to get a very good room, overlooking the bay, which it
then ended up was the last available room in the whole town, as there was an
event going on that day. In Lorne once a year, they swim
across the bay, and so the whole area was completely packed with people.
They wandered around the bay appreciating the views of the wooded hills, and
managed to get the last available meal in the town, which they both enjoyed.
The next morning they went to Erskine
Falls, and then Aireys
Inlet, where they visited the Split
Point Lighthouse and had some breakfast there. Then they travelled on to
Torquay,
which is renowned for surfing.
Eleanor was particularly interested in visiting Torquay
as it is a town which is close to where she lives in Devon. Eleanor appreciated
the golden beach, and they watched the dragon boats in the surf.
They were aiming for Melbourne
by lunch, so they did not stop at Geelong.
Once in the centre of Melbourne,
they listened to a free pop concert and had a meal, but Eleanor did not manage
to do the shopping that she wanted to as she considered the streets to be too
crowded. So they set of to the Dandenongs, but Terry got a little confused by
the place names, as there is a town called Dandenong which is over an hour south
of Mount
Dandenong, which is where they were aiming for. Once they found the National
Park, they headed for the Observatory at the top of the mountain. They found
some cottages
where they were able to get a very relaxing and tranquil stay - improved by
the fact that there was a power cut at the time. There was a large whirlpool
bath a few feet from the four poster bed, which overlooked a view down to Melbourne.
Terry enjoyed feeding the parrots with the supplied jar of birdfood, and they
had a great meal in a French restaurant.
Eleanor did not want to leave the next day, but instead Terry drove all the
way back to Adelaide - a 9 hour journey.
At work today I was pleased to be told that parking permits in the University were being issued. Obviously with 30,000 students, parking is at a premium and so staff have to purchase a $100 park, which is numbered. I was assigned my park today, but can't pay until February.
As Terry had been away from email for a while, as soon as he got back he wanted me to print out all of the emails that his office had sent him, and so sat outside on his mobile phone to his office. Terry got lots of insect bites - even though we warned him about it, I even took out some Aeroguard insect repellent.
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It was predicted to reach 40°C today, but because of the
hot winds and bright sun it felt more like 45°C. It was so hot and dry that
bushfires
started across the bay from Adelaide, and 8 people have been killed
in fires. There have even been fires in the hills just above Adelaide, in the
affluent Belair and Mount Osmond regions, which closed
the main Freeway from Adelaide to Melbourne and Sydney this evening.
I have been in air-conditioned comfort at work, but still wore shorts and sandals
in to the office. I regretted the cool clothes when I had to spend an hour in
the computer room, which is not only cooled to 17°C, but also has the cold
draughts coming up out of floor vents, straight up my shorts. I ended up having
to move the keyboard and screen that I was using so that it was away from a
large vent...
Everyone went to a garden centre today, and Terry bought some more plants for us. Unfortunately for him, we want to put everything in pots so that we can take them with us when we move into a home that we own (we rent at the moment), so this meant that he had to buy us some soil for the pots. Due to Terry's enthusiastic purchasing, he pointed to a bag to purchase it, and it ended up being a huge sack. Even worse, it was not soil but manure - chicken manure. We have left it outside, but I don't want to open it in case it falls over and I have to try and clean it up.
I did 'car pooling' with the receptionist today. When my contract was being sorted out, the HR manager asked the receptionist, Anne, to arrange for my contracts to be couriered to my home address - to which Anne responded that she only lived across the street. So, as Anne and I live so close, she is going to drive us to work for one week, then I am going to drive us the next week. I cuts down on petrol and damage to the environment, but I still have to pay the $100 parking permit for a year at the University.
Whilst I was on my way home with Anne, Terry had 'popped out' to do food shopping and ended up coming back 2 hours later with half the supermarket. We had barbequed prawns (in their shells) and chicken kebabs and drumsticks and burgers. Then we had a big salad and melon. It was fun to cook, but Eleanor and Ann spent what seemed like 2 hours doing the tidying and cleaning afterwards.
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It was another hot day, and of course Terry decided that he would open the big sack of manure, and spread it around every patch of soil we have - including on weeds and bare patches of ground. The stench was overwhelming, and for some reason Terry did not find the smell a problem. Jokes about 'used to it' bounced around for a bit, but when I came home from work we all decided that we should go out for dinner.
We went out to the Red
Ochre, well really it was Cafe Lago which is the ground floor to the Red
Ochre. The building is set in amongst the parkland at the north of the River
Torrens, overlooking the city of Adelaide. It has uninterrupted views of the
gardens, river, golf course and the CBD across the river. The views were both
impressive and relaxing, and the service was really personal and good. Some
of the food confused us (Terry could not work out if his salmon was meant to
be hot or cold), but all of us (Thomas included!) had a great time.
Terry tried to tell a joke, but got it completely wrong, which confused us all,
and so it ended up funnier that he got it wrong - when the real punchline was
explained, the original joke was not funny. Anyway, Terry's joke was "How
does a Mexican know when he is hungry - when his bottom itches", and the
real joke was "How does a Mexican know when he is hungry - when his arse
stops burning".
Eleanor drove us home, as both Ann and I had had a glass of wine, and when we got home Thomas fell asleep before his head touched the bed. Once Thomas was relaxed, I was able to brave the smell and go outside to see what Terry had planted. There were some interesting plants that we will have fun trying to avoid letting die, but it really lifts the area and adds some colour and life to an otherwise bare part of the house.
Terry spent the evening alternating between scratching his insect bites and rubbing in cream. I had to print off yet more of the emails that Terry had been getting (his office is back at work and so need to keep in touch with the boss), and so Terry spent the evening on the phone to England.
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My father left for England today. He had a flight from Adelaide
in the early afternoon, so it pretty much occupied the entire day for the whole
family. Terry had a business class seat, so he decided to call from the phone
in his seat, and tell us that he was flying over Uluru (formerly known as Ayers
Rock). Terry also tried to use his mobile phone when the plane was waiting to
take off, for which he got told off... Just like Terry...
There have been numerous times when Terry has been in trouble for using a mobile
phone, including one time when he had a car crash at a roundabout, when he hit
a Police car whilst on the phone. There was another incident when he decided
to call Eleanor from a Ferrari in Italy, whilst driving at 150mph with my brother
behind the wheel. Terry was on a Ferrari driving holiday around Italy, and had
taken my brother as company - Nicholas was laughing manically, and Terry was
screaming with fear, all with my mother at the other end of the phone.
This evening was a little more relaxed, we had another barbeque and salad, and Thomas demonstrated how well he is doing with using his two walkers. His big plastic walker is more stable, but once Thomas has walked down the length of the house, he can't turn it around and come back because it is too big and heavy. The smaller wooden walker is lighter, but Thomas is only just learning how to move it around - let's hope he does not learn how to use it as a weapon, swinging it around...
At work today, a colleague expressed interest in how and why I do my blog. It was good to have someone new showing enthusiasm and interest, and even more he was impressed that I wrote the website all by hand, just using Notepad and HTML. I use more tools and software now of course...
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It was a successful day at work today - I finished some projects, and submitted a proposal for some system-wide modifications. A group of us went out to lunch at a hotel in Pooraka (because it was a friday), and I resolved a few problems with some servers.
When I was leaving work, Kylie, one of the receptionists,
offered me some Black Forrest Gateau as it was her birthday. As I chomped into
the chocolate and cherry sponge, I remembered a funny event that happened when
I was very young.
My parents had arranged a garden party for the Ambassador to South America for
some reason. My mother had in advance made a Black Forrest Gateau, and my mother
had left it to defrost on the arched ledge between the kitchen and the conservatory.
At the same time, my father had let the horse, Baboo, loose to wander around
the garden.
Baboo (named after my response when seeing the horse for the first time when
I was 14 months old), was frequently let to walk around the 2½ acres
of garden. When my mother had finished cleaning and tidying, she had gone upstairs
to change for the event, and then she heard a commotion downstairs, so rushed
down to see what was happening. It turned out that my father had left the double
sliding windows open from the swimming pool and patio area to the conservatory,
and the horse had walked in.
The horse had walked in to the house, and had seen the cake on the ledge - and
had decided to have a nibble. Unfortunately Baboo had decided not to bite at
the side, but to dive straight in to the middle of the cake. The horse had liked
the chocolate and the cream, but not been too keen on the cherries. Somehow,
Baboo had managed to spit out the cherries, but with such force that they were
stuck on the windows of the conservatory and spread around the room. When my
mother had come down to find this mess, my father was in the process of trying
to hide the horse behind him - he obviously thought it was most funny, but my
mother was not too happy.
As the horse was pushed out into the garden (Terry had not bothered to put Baboo
back into the paddock and close the gate), and my mother then struggled to clean
off the cherries and mop up the cream and chocolate crumbs. The horse then came
back for a second try, at which time Eleanor had started to make some replacement
scones for the Ambassador's visit. Eventually, all was cleaned up and the horse
was contained, and the Ambassador turned up to what appeared to be a carefully
arranged cream tea.
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