Summer – it’s all over the shop. And thanks to Ricky Ponting and the boys, there’s not much by way of traditional joy (i.e. flogging the poms at Cricket – or more sportingly, seeing a close hard-fought contest played out next to Voice’s water cooler).
So by way of attempting a bit of spirits lifting, I dug these out …..
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
And the same goes for you all as well/
We have all the grandchildren and mums here. Our house is full as well as chaotic with intermittent bouts of bedlam and copious toilet flushing. The Christmas presents paper packaging is now in the yellow recycling bin ready to be collected next Wednesday. The ham is in the fridge still 3/4 uneaten but the pavlova has blissfully gone, making some room in the fridge for the cheese, butter and eggs. The giant pavlova we got almost for nothing because a trolley had driven over it at Woollies. It had a dent but we managed to jack it up almost to its former glory. We packed it with fruit, including mango, passion fruit, strawberries and blue berries. I found two blue- berries at the bottom of the fridge this morning. They must have rolled off during the last night of its short life. I finished vacuuming and even emptied the bag which was full of dog hair. Vacuuming is of course always a sign that life is getting back to normal. Thank Lord it is all over for another year. I think we will have a bin outside the front door next year for everyone to leave their mobiles and Apps, I-pods I-pads and all other electronic gadgetry in. Perhaps the bin should be filled with water when everyone has gone to bed as well.
Cheers to all,
(just hang in there for a couple more days and it will all be over). Thank goodness!
I think I’ll do a Lambada now with 80.000.000 hits I can’t do much harm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AfTl5Vg73A&feature=fvsr
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Gez, don’t you think that skate-park has been an absolute blessing; there are plenty of ‘cool’ teenagers over there, and anxious mums and grand parents have to be kept at some distance…I happily stay away …
Hot chocolates at the Hospital cafe are another great discovery, as is the Bradman tea-house cum lolly shop, (oh so Anglo)…
They also witnessed a helicopter landing at the Hospital grounds picking up or bringing in a patient…was it you Big M 🙂
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Skate parks are awesome. In NZ the first thing we noticed and the kids there of all ages using as well all the available public spaces to skate board, roller skate and … truly, I thought it was like a movie … kids rap dancing in the street when I had seen nothing like its scale in Oz! Nice reading the snippets you provide of your social and family experience in your home place, Helvi and Gez.
Yes, it’s troublesome ‘hanging on’ through the season and cool to be reminded not long to go. I have an aversion to those toys that rock and shake and intone even words…I recall a little one of mine was given a machine that ‘spoke’ a word, she spelled it out on a keypad, whereupon the machine drawled, ‘That is korrrrrect’ or ‘That is inkorrrrect’. Drove me spare. There was the dancing bear that clattered around beating a drum, banging cymbals, blew a whistle, and lurched and clattered to gyrate its head. ‘You won’t like this’ said the benevolent giver with a smile result I had previously asked please only musical instruments if anything gifted made noise. Now alas the keypads on so many things are set to “ping” … insidious. From just the view of physical activity, I can appreciate if I was enduring now the range of gifts for the young and teenagers, my every sentiment would incline to all the gadgetry left in a bin-outside and filled with water. That is a great image, Gez. You are such a cheer up. 🙂
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Our house is situated between the International Museum of World. Cricket and 2 hospitals ( both with absolute mouth watering displays of electric wheel chairs in all sorts of configurations, including removable bed pans modestly covered in doilies.). Certainly something to ponder about for the future!
Almost next door and behind one hospital ( the good one, the public hospital) is a large park with a youth centre and this includes a skate park with concrete ramps. This is fully occupied almost day and night with young kids on skate boards and ‘Razors’. The Razor is a world on its own and comes in many editions including the top $ 175.- one which Jak got for Christmas from his mum.
Jak together with his 2 cousins managed to break in the hardcore Razor gang skaters group and were even allowed to try skating down and up again that ramp. A big achievement considering they are between seven and ten and most of the other kids into early teens.
Sometimes a couple of somewhat prepubescent girls might be seen lingering around at some safe distance. No doubt the boys are honing their skills in ignoring them as much as their simmering hormones will allow that still.
Anyway, old fogeys are banned all together and I sometimes just sauntered around the edges of the park and well out of sight. My skating times are well and truly over but am happy for the grandsons to have broken into a new and exciting world of skate board riding.
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Sorry Emmjay, but you’ll have to work harder than that to beat the solution to coping with this catastrophic event on last night’s news. After 10 minutes reporting on the size and colourful nature of the crowd, they replayed footage from a Boxing Day match that Australia won – thirty years ago.
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