Midlife - A Journey

Wilkie or won't he

2012-01-22T19:06:00.000+11:00

And he did...sort of. Andrew Wilkie withdrew his support for the Gillard Labor government because they failed to honour a written commitment given to him as they were scrambling to form government, that they would support mandatory precommitment in poker machine venues. Setting aside whether that would have worked or not what really happened here?

Julia Gillard reneged on an agreement she had given him supposedly because it didn't have the required Parliamentary support. She gave the commitment at a time when she needed his support to form government When Peter Slipper jumped ship from the Liberal Party to become Speaker in the House of Representatives therefore giving her an extra vote she no longer needed Wilkie's support. She couldn't continue to push ahead with what he was asking because members of her own party in New South Wales and Queensland who are in marginal seats were under a lot of pressure from their local clubs not to support the legislation. A bad look if a Prime Minister gets rolled by her own party on the floor of the House, so easier to break a promise.

And let's face it she doesn't have a problem breaking promises...."Kevin Rudd has my full support"..."there will be no carbon tax under any government I lead". Political expediency is everything for our Julia.

And what about Andrew Wilkie. Some will say a man of conviction, a man who stands by his principles. This is a bloke who stood up to the Federal government over whether or not Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or not. I would argue that point with him because I spent a fair bit of time with a lot of Melbourne Kurdish people a number of years ago who had first hand knowledge of entire villages wiped out by chemical weapons that Saddam used on them. So I''ve always been a bit skeptical about Andrew Wilkie's assessment of Iraqi capabilities at the time the second Gulf War began.

In this case though, Wilkie has decided that he can no longer support a government who broke a commitment they gave him. He had no trouble supporting that same government when it broke a pre-election commitment given to the Australian people about the fact that a carbon tax wouldn't be introduced. And that is the problem with moral high horses, you run the risk of being called a hypocrit if you don't consistently apply the same standards to all promises instead of just the ones that you want them to keep. You cannot vote to support legislation that breaks one promise and then yell and scream about the same people breaking another one.

The sooner the next election comes the better. Irrespective of who has the power let's hope that we don't have to put up with wacky independents with pet causes that hamstring proper decisive and honest governance.

I am judgemental

2011-12-11T17:26:00.000+11:00

I try not to be but sometimes it happens. For example I drive past a new build in Chantenay Parade every day and like most new builds there is a bin out on the nature strip so that the builder can get rid of the rubbish. Now some muppet or collection of muppets has been dumping their unwanted furniture around the bin. There are beds and mattresses, chairs, a table, an old treadmill and a couple of ancient TVs as well as boxes of general household garbage. These idiots are showing absolutely no respect for people who are going to be their new neighbours.

Woolen Trousers, Levis and Bum Cracks

2011-12-10T17:42:00.000+11:00

Must admit that my favourite jeans are Levi 101's. Pulling on a pair with button up fly is like meeting an old friend. Of course these days the waist has gotten somewhat bigger than that of my first pair circa 1974.

It was a long time before Mum agreed to let me wear denim. She'd send me to the snow in shorts in winter and off to school in grey woollen sorts all year round but there wasn't a pair of long legged trousers to be seen anywhere in my single wardrobe at Box Hill South. Until Form 1 that is.

That year, 1969, we had an excursion at the end of the year to the gold mining town of Maldon and I was the somewhat embarrassed wearer of the only pair of long pants I owned - brown checked woollen trousers. At least I was warm but when everyone else is wearing jeans it was a bit hard to take.

Mum eventually realised that maybe denim wasn't so bad after all and I got a pair of Stirling jeans - the ones with the checkered flag logo and a really cool pocket on the side of the leg where you could fit a comb. Not that I needed one because they were the years when Dad would take me up to the barbers on the corner of Middleborough and Eley Roads for a college cut. These days it would be called a number one.

After the Stirling jeans came my first really expensive pair - Amco Heavyweights with a suede patch on the back. Not quite Levis but I was getting there. Of course as I got older and graduated to Lee Jeans which were bought at a mens wear store in Flinders street in the City next to Lindrums Pool Hall. If you read this Andrew help me out here.

And as we got older the jeans were pulled down a little further exposing both the few pubic hairs we had at the front and the bum crack at the back - unless Mum was around of course.

Mid to late 70's the fashion changes again. The legs got wider and Juz Jeans and Staggers were the brand of choice. I bought a pair of Staggers that were so tight I could barely move. The sales girl told me they would stretch but after a couple of wears I gave them to my sister Karen because my voice kept getting higher.

Another thing I remember about the jeans of Burwood High days were that for a while there is was really cool to wear them as low down as possible, showing a few pubic hairs if you had them or exposing the bum crack if you didn't. Of course we had graduated from y fronts to jockettes in those days which were pretty brief and not big enough to show above the waist of the jeans anyway.

Jeans are still my trouser of choice these days and over the years I've gone through the plain navy denim, light blue denim, brown denim and white denim. The there were the acid wash and stone washed versions in black or navy mostly with legs that varied from stove pipe to wide flares. But through all that the 501's have remained the favourite.

Less than 33 days

2011-11-27T15:09:00.001+11:00

Not sure who you are but if you thought it might have been a good idea to tell my daughters about my 33 Days post, it wasn't. Apparently I shouldn't be guilt tripping them because they are very busy and I now live too far away for them to be able to find the time to visit once a month. So I stopped trying to ring them once a week to see how they are and I have no intention of guilt tripping them any more. So I appreciate that you may have thought you were doing the right thing by me but to be honest, please don't do it again. It's not worth my grief and as I was told this isn't about me anyway. They'll get around to contacting me sooner or later. Maybe.

Now onto things that are about me. I had a lump come up on the palm of my left hand a few weeks back. The doctor thought it was a ganglion cyst but sent me off for an ultrasound which pointed to it being a possible tumor. I saw a surgeon had it removed and it turned out to be a ganglion cyst which I am happy about.

My lady had a bad back, saw a doctor who told her that she should go home take some panadol and he would refer her to a counselor because she was depressed. She got a second opinion and that doctor sent her off for an MRI and on getting the results told her to get straight to hospital because she needed an emergency operation to remover the pressure on the nerves in her spinal cord or risk becoming a paraplegic. She was admitted that day, operated on the next and sent home the day after that. Now more than three weeks into an initial 6 week convalescence she is pain free if still unable to move totally freely and improving every day.

Which brings me to my next point and the fact that we have both started a Light and Easy diet. Which I'm finding Light and Difficult having cut my food intake by half. Still I have dropped from 92 kgs, last time I gave blood a month ago to 87.9 kg at the end of the first week of the diet and 84.6 kg when I weighed myself this morning at the end of the second week. That bit of a pot belly that men of a certain age get has already shrunk significantly and I can stand in a certain place now and see my naughty bits. That has to be good I think. The thought of a leg of lamb or a whole roast chicken is still pretty good though.

My first Sunday breakfast on the diet and I had one egg and even that had a sad face. And then I remember how many people in this world do actually go to bed genuinely hungry every day and I realise once again how lucky I really am.

It was 30 years ago today....

2011-11-16T20:24:00.001+11:00

..that I entered the Police Academy in Glen Waverley and commenced a journey that was to last 16 years. This Friday night I am attending a reunion of Squads 22 and 23 of 1981 and of the 50 who walked in that day, fourteen are left in the job. Of those 9 are attending the reunion together with myself and one other. I'm looking forward to it.

And here's a few memories

Perspective

2011-11-01T20:46:00.001+11:00

In 2001 I was the Executive Officer of the Victorian Basketball League and at the end of each season our Champion and Runner-up in both men and women came together with the winners of other Leagues to compete in the Australian Basketball Championships to determine who was the best team in the country. It was September and on the Tuesday prior to the weekend of the Championships the date was one that would go down as one of the most infamous in history, September 11. That same week Ansett Airlines here in Australia collapsed and that meant that the teams could not get to Bendigo in regional Victoria to compete.

The Championships were cancelled that year and there was a major hue and cry from many people about what a tragedy it was. I wrote an article for the VBL website that week and said in part that there were thousands of people who would go to bed that night never seeing their mother, father, son, daughter, husband and wife again. I told people to get a grip and understand what true tragedy was and it wasn't about the cancellation of basketball games.

In the past couple of days we've seen another airline, Qantas shut down for a few days and the ranting and raving of people stranded around the world and unable to get home. There was a photo of a bloke in the Sunday Herald Sun who refused to give his name but who was displaying such anger and hatred in his expression that it looked as if he could have gotten hold of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce that he would have ripped his throat out.

And at the same time that the Qantas Board made the decision to ground the airline on Saturday there were a company of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan who were being slaughtered by an Afghan soldier they had mentored. Three brave young Australians and an Afghan interpreter were killed and seven other Australians injured. This act had it's genesis on that same day more than ten years ago and it sickens me that I sit here now having to write the same thing that I did back then.

I don't give a stuff about an airline going bust or being grounded. It's an inconvenience for all those people delayed. The sun will come up tomorrow and other planes will fly. But again we have young wives who won't see their husbands, children without fathers, Mums and Dads who will wake to nightmare again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.

Get some perspective people. Understand what really matters. RIP guys may you never be forgotten.

Thirty Three Days

2011-10-19T17:30:00.000+11:00

One of themost commonly visited pages on this blog is one I called “The Loneliness of theLong Distance Father” which was at a time shortly after my separation where mykids didn’t really want to have a lot to do with me.

As withmany things, time alone can cure some of the angst and distress that comes tomost kids when their parents break up. But whilst the pain eases for the kids perhapsso too does the desire to keep contact with both parents, or maybe it’s justthe classic cats in the cradle stuff, the natural pulling away as you get olderand become more independent.

We built abig house because at the time we entered into the contract we had four of thesix kids we have between us that needed a place to live. Over the months of waiting for the title tosettle and the house to be built their needs changed and so we have a fourbedroom house occupied by the two of us and the two furkids and in an area nowfar away from where the kids mostly reside.

And that’sOK, the place is there if some time in the future they need it, but there aretimes when I miss knowing what is happening in their lives. It seems that unless I make a call then wedon’t talk and I am left to watching facebook for updates.

Last week Iasked my two daughters if they would like to set aside one Sunday evening permonth, visit us for dinner and watch a movie. I was actually hoping that maybe we would justsit around the dinner table and chat and just find out who they were loving orfeuding with, what books they were reading or movies they had seen, any one ofhundreds of mundane day to day things that they do. One daughter said she heard me but it wouldhave to wait awhile because she’s working a lot of overtime and very busy but Idid find out on Facebook that she enjoyed her day at the Races and her roastdinner at her mothers in the past few days. Daughter number two has been silent and thatusually means I am in the bad books with her.

It got methinking that if they spent 3 hours one day a month with me that would be atotal of 1 and a half days a year. If Ilive as long as my father (and I hope it is longer than that) then I have 22years left and that would mean that for the rest of my life I would spend amaximum of 33 days with my kids, half of which I would probably be sleeping.

So if theremainder of my life was equivalent to an hour on a clock for every month thatpasses without seeing them the clock advances another two minutes and we allknow that as you get older time speeds up and the 33 days will rapidly become30 and then 20 and 5, until those last few precious minutes come in a hugerush.

And knowingall that makes me regret the times I didn’t call my own Mum and Dad other thanon the special occasions. So maybe what goes around…

My Money Ralph

2011-09-19T21:49:00.002+10:00

Last week we settled on the old house and Raelene deposited a Commonwealth Bank Bank Cheque into our Commonwealth Bank account. That was Tuesday. On Friday I sent an email asking why a Bank Cheque which is supposed to be as good as cash from what I remember, still hadn't cleared. Today I get this back from the Bank -"Dear Laurence,

My name is xxxx your Online Specialist, I am pleased to assist you today with your recent email enquiry in regards to clearance fo bank cheque.

First of all I would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in my response as our team are currently receiving a high number of online enquiries.

Laurence, it is a Business Rule for cheques to get cleared in 3 business days and not calendar days.

What I can suggest for further clarifications, you can contact us on 13 2221, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week or visit any of the nearest branches.

It has been a pleasure assisting you Laurence, I hope this information has assisted with your enquiry today and I wish you all the best for the rest of your week.

Sincerely, xxxx"

So I of course had to reply "I understand that but that was not the question. Your own website states - "Cheque deposits attract a number of clearance days as the cheque itself is a paper based payment instrument. This requires the physical cheque to be forwarded to the drawing institution to determine the payment decision after inspecting the cheque for authorised signatures". However, in this case you were the drawing institution. Why does it take 3 days to forward a cheque to yourself to gain approval?"CBA if you monitor this sort of thing maybe you can reply.

I miss you Mum

2011-09-11T21:29:00.001+10:00

Dear Mum
Hard to believe that it was a year ago today that I last saw you. A lot has happened in that time. I left my job, went to another company that ended up in liquidation and found a new job as a contractor but am likely to be put onto a long term contract in the next few weeks.

The new house has been built and Raels and I have been here now for 6 weeks. Funny but it is home already unlike the last couple of places I've lived. Maybe that's because we've built this from scratch. I wish I could have shown you what it's like.

I imagine you riding off on that horse you told us about in the last few days. I don't know where that came from because I don't ever remember you talking much about wanting to ride horses despite loving to bet on them. Maybe that was the little girl speaking.

I think I told you that Dad visited me one night not long after I'd moved into the flat on Burwood Highway and I sometimes wonder if you'll ever do the same. But then again maybe you know that I'm happy now and that you don't need to set me straight.

Karen, Deb and I celebrated Christmas together last year like we always used to, but I think that may well have been the last time we'll do that. You were the glue that held that together and I'm guessing that we'll probably not find the time to do it too often in the future given the kids have grown and will be splitting time between the new families they'll make over the next few years. Karen is off to Queensland this year to spend Christmas with Jacob and Jenna, Luke may be back In Adelaide and your other grandkids are also starting to spread their wings. Spending time with old Aunties and Uncles doesn't seem as important as when they were little. But don't worry about that, it's just part of growing older.

Funny but I was really conscious of you and Dad being gone last Christmas, my first as an orphan, and my first Easter and Mother's Day this year followed by my first birthday. Weird being a 54 year old orphan. Sometimes I get a bit taken aback looking at the old bloke in the mirror because it's not how I see myself.

I know what you meant now when you said that there wasn't a day go by when you didn't think of Nana and Grandad because it's the same with me. I miss you both very much and wish I'd told you that more often.

You gave me a great start to life Mum and I will be forever grateful for that. Sure there were moments, but we had a great upbringing. I always knew you were proud of me even if I didn't know why.

Thanks Mum. I love you very much and miss you terribly

Love Laurie XXX

Happy Fathers Day

2011-09-04T19:47:00.000+10:00

For all those Fathers out there may I wish you well today. Not a day goes by when I don't miss my Dad and this year a week before the anniversary of Mum's passing it is a little more poignant. Son number 2 and girlfriend and both daughters came over for a BBQ lunch and we spent the afternoon watching the Return of the King in the home theatre.

And the new house is now home - we've spent much of the past couple of weekends cleaning up the old one and have in fact now walked out the door up there for the last time. Raels has posted some updated photos over at Destination 3977.

My contract at work finishes at the end of next month but it looks like I'll be offered a longer term one to stay on and finish off what I've started. The works interesting, I'm still learning, and the people are good. Doesn't need to be anything else really does there.

So just a short update this time - i've got a few other posts on the go but haven't managed to finish them yet. I reckon things might slow down a bit over the next few weeks and I'll get a bit more time to write.

Delayed

2011-07-19T18:00:00.000+10:00

For those who read my ladies blog over at Destination 3977 you'll know that the handover of our house has been delayed by a week due to the fact that the wall our heater is supposed to be put it needs to be made bigger at the top to fit the flue in. No big deal and after a trouble free build a very minor setback.

We are very lucky to be in a position to build this house and I still shake my head everytime I go down there. I have only lived in four places in my life that I can remember - I don't count the first 18 months. I spent all my early life in Box Hill South until I was 24 and then when I got married and moved to Tecoma. I lived there in the family home for a further 24 years and then after splitting with my then wife moved less than 1 kilometer away until Raels and I bought the current house in Ferntree Gully.

Now the move will be to Cranbourne North, way out of my comfort zone but into our dream home, everything single thing about it chosen by us. Raels says that in her mind she is already living there. Me? I wonder when it will actually turn from being the new house into home.

I deny I'm a denier

2011-07-17T19:53:00.003+10:00

So we're getting a carbon tax and our most unpopular Prime Minister at her school marmish best says it's for our own good. I watched her being interviewed by Laurie Oakes this morning and after she claimed that yes she did say there would be no carbon tax prior to the last election he asked her what had changed. And we got spin.

LO: But politics is also about leaders being able to win support and to persuade voters. What is the difference between your position now and that of Kevin Rudd when you tapped him on the shoulder, except that the Government is now less popular than it was then and the leader is now less popular than the then leader was? What’s the difference?
JG: Laurie I'm not going to go back in time and talk about those events. I have talked about them...
LO: But you haven’t you see, you have always refused to talk them.
JG: Well I explained why the Labor team made the leadership decision that they did last year. And what they had...
LO: And what is the difference now?
JG: What they have now is me as Prime Minister, pursuing with determination, a plan, that the Labor team believes in. We never thought it was going to be easy. We knew it was going to be tough. We knew we would have to go out and campaign and persuade and get people the facts. And we are determined to do that.
LO: But you see, what they had a year ago was a leader who had been told by you in February he shouldn't go to a double dissolution on pricing carbon, and he had been told by you in April that he should shelve that plan. And now you are out there saying, "I’ve always believed in pricing carbon."
JG: Laurie, you are making a lot of assumptions and I’m not going to share those assumptions with you. I've always believed...
LO: But don't you think you need to answer those questions if people are going to have any faith in you.

This was important for the nation, she was doing what is best for us, no one will be worse off except the big carbon polluters etc, waffle, bull shit. I also remember during the last election when after the first few weeks of campaigning she told us that we would now see the real Julia. Well the real Julia lied when she said there would be no carbon tax so my question is why should we believe anything she says now.

Another thing I am getting very sick of is that because there are people skeptical of the whole man made climate change argument we get told that none of them know what they are talking about, that they are denying climate change exists. Well let me say this. Climate changes. I actually wrote my honours thesis on climate change in the Victorian Alps. I know that 60,000 years ago we were in an Ice Age with gradual warming until a peak around 8,000 years ago when sea levels were actually higher than they are now. And since that time we've had times when the Earth was warmer than now when grapes were grown in Newfoundland in the 11th century, and a Little Ice Age said to have last from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

And we know that climate is also affected greatly by the fluctuations in the Suns outputs, in fact there have been arguments for decades over what causes the periodic Ice Ages but one thing is sure, those massive fluctuations in climate have been occurring independently of anything man has done.

Yeah, I know, some of you will argue, isn't it better that we do something, and I'd say if you guarantee that the rest of the world is gonna be doing the same thing as us then you might be right, but we are a small country of 22 million people and there are cities in India and China that produce as much greenhouse gas in a month as we do in a year and I don't see them rushing to introduce a carbon tax.

The Prime Minister will have us believe that China is cleaning up it's act when in fact it is building bigger coal fired power stations and burning coal they buy from us. So how is it that China buying or coal and burning it is great for the economy and ensures that we will have a strong coal mining industry in the future. And we're supposed to believe that it is better for the world for China to burn our coal than to burn it ourselves. What is the logic to that argument Prime Minister?

I heard our Climate Change Minster interviewed on 3AW a few days ago and she was asked who the Top 10 polluters in the country were. Her answer - "I'm sorry I don't know and I don't have that information with me."

Huh???? You don't know that and yet you can tell me the tax will only raise the price of a packet of Tim Tams by something less than a cent a packet? Doesn't make sense to me. And if you look a t bit more closely at what we do know then you'll see that the government doesn't actually know how many companies will be liable for the tax. See this article from the Annabel Crabb of the ABC. The government knows how much the tax cuts will cost in terms of lower collection of income tax, but they have very little idea about how much carbon tax is going to be collected. And if they don't know that, how is the modelling on the supposed $8/week increase for the average household supposed to hold up. This economic modelling sounds to me pretty much like the global warming modelling. All over the place.

And how is it that all this Treasury modelling and the wonderful tax cuts that 9 out of 10 families will get, are still valid when the day before the tax was announced we were told that the top 1000 polluters would be taxed and the very next day the announcement said it was the top 500. Given it took months of rigorous research and modelling by Treasury to come up with the package in the first instance how was it changed in 24 hours? And was it the real Julia who changed it or one of the other two we saw before the election?

I've heard a lot of Labour supporters try to say that this is the same as John Howard introducing the GST. But the difference is he had the guts to take the issue to an election. This is more like our State Labour Government telling the people of the eastern suburbs that there wouldn't be tolls on Eastlink, prior to the election, and then a week after he was re-elected stating that things had changed.

So that's my rant for the week. And what I've learnt this week is that politicians lie. I was previously very naive wasn't I.

Rock of Ages

2011-07-05T21:19:00.000+10:00

A week ago Raels and I took our four daughters to see Rock of Ages. It was our second time and their first and I have to say if you get the chance, do yourself a favour and go and have a good time. The music is great, the cast fantastic and obviously enjoying themselves and I haven't laughed so hard for a long time. It was actually better second time around because I knew what was coming.

Do you know who I am?????

2011-07-03T20:37:00.001+10:00

She screamed it at me on Thursday night but only after I'd absolutely had enough.

It started as a pretty ordinary train trip home. I was sitting back engrossed in my book "Written in Time" and listening in the background to Sports Today on 3AW (gotta love Tunein Radio as an iPhone Ap).

We got to Box Hill and a couple of disheveled looking young ladies, and I lose the term lightly, got on and wandered up the carriage past me. It wasn't long until the voices were raised loud enough to not only interfere with my radio listening but distracting of my reading as well.

Like "young ladies" seem to do more often these days there was a lot of effin c's and various other colourful phrases. I picked up that the older looking slag was 28 and one of the others who also boarded the train but from a different door was 18. The older one was yelling and screaming something about the younger one muttering about her under her breath. When a few other people started to vacate that end of the carriage and move down past where I was sitting I turned around to see what was going on and saw the younger one seated with the older one standing above her blocking her in and leaning down screaming in her face. They were both clearly, drunk, drug affected or both and as I watched it was suddenly on and a full blown cat fight started, the screaming and swearing continued and the hair pulling and scratching had started.

I had enough. I took the earphones out and tucked them into my pocket, I asked the young girl opposite me to look after my pack and I went and grabbed the 28 year old from behind and pulled them apart. Whilst I restrained her the other girl was ushered into another carriage by two other companions.

The two now separated physically I let the older one go and told her to sit down and shut up.

"You're not a fucking copper," she yelled in my face.

I turned walked away and sat back down.

"Do you know who I am?," she screamed at the top of her voice. "I'm a member of the P...gill family!" Spit flying from her mouth the stud on her tongue almost sticking up her nostril as she spat the vitriol at me.

"You're face is burned into my brain. You better watch your back! You're gonna end up fuckin dead!"

And for those who don't know. That statement about her family history alone says it all really and shows precisely why that "young lady" actually doesn't really have much of a future. There will be many more fights ahead for her, angry, bitter, full of a false pride in a family that has no respect at all in my world. I wish her luck but reckon she's more likely to end up in a gutter somewhere.

Incidentally, not one other person intervened. They were all happy to sit there and ignore what was happening whilst a young girl, who may or may not have caused it in the first place, got the crap beaten out of her. WTF is that all about.

I hate to say I told you so but...

2011-06-25T20:49:00.000+10:00

I told you so...Man Colds are worse than girl colds :) Queenslander researchers have found that the immune system in men is weaker than that in women but the differences disappear after menopause. They reckon it's natures way of looking after women of child bearing years to ensure the survival of the species.

That got me thinking about the origin of the word menopause. I thought it meant women put men on pause because of a loss of interest in sex. But not true. It actually comes from the Greek "men" meaning month and "pausis" meaning cessation - therefore cessation of the monthly visitor. Now I've gotta say that given a man cold probably only comes once a year thats gotta be better than the alternative.

Rabbitting, Fishing, Yabbying and Mushrooming

2011-06-22T19:04:00.000+10:00

Not all food was found in supermarkets when I was growing up in fact a few times a year we'd have family expeditions somewhere up the Hume Highway on hunts for food and I'm guessing this was a family legacy born out of the necessities of the Depression.

Mum used to tell me about how her uncles used to visit the Vic Market and bring home vegetables and fruit that were beginning to turn. We didn't need to do that but old habits die hard and we'd often meet at Nana and Grandad's in Brunswick and head off up the highway looking for suitable paddocks we could wander through looking for mushrooms or finding dams where we could through a piece of meat tied to a string and pull out yabbies.

Both Grandad and Uncle Phil kept ferrets so some of those trips involved finding rabbit warrens, putting nets over the outlets and waiting for the ferrets to chase the rabbits out of the holes. I still love to eat roast rabbit and usually after we got home and the rabbits were scunned I'd be given a rabbits foot for luck and I have to say it was much luckier for me than it was for the rabbit. I'd carry it around in my pocket for a few days until I suspect it got a bit woofy and Mum made me throw it out. My sisters would get a rabbits tail.

There were times when we'd spend school holidays away camping. I remember one time Uncle Phil took me with him, my cousin Phillip and a couple of others to the Barmah State Forest near Koondrook for a week. And that was real camping, fishing every day, a bush dunny consisting of a 9 gallon drum with a canvas screen pulled around three trees to give an illusion of privacy.

Those Christmases spent camping on the Murray River at Corowa, long hot days and early morning treks down to the riverbank before dawn are great memories for me. Later as I had kids of my own and tried to re-create those times I found that my sons never really got into fishing and I think that was because I wasn't all that good at it. When I took them out as kids and never caught anything they just got bored with it until there was actually no point asking if they wanted to go because I knew the answer would be no. Diffierent times, different places.

Who was Annie Laurie?

2011-06-20T17:10:00.001+10:00

Language changes and I've noticed a trend recently where the word "worry" which I have always pronounced with a "u" as in Surrey, now seems to come out of the mouths of a lot of people with the sound of lorry. I'm not sure how or when this happened but the first time I heard it was from an old neighbour of mine who whlst he was born here had parents from Austria. I find it all a bit wurrisum. :)

It got me thinking about some of the sayings that Dad used to have and what the origins of some of them were in an Australia that is now long gone.

When he thought that something was particularly unlikely to happen he would say "If that happens I'll walk backwards down Bourke Street whistling Annie Laurie."

For those who don't know Melbourne, Bourke Street is one of the main thoroughfares in the Central Business District, and before we had a plethora of suburban shopping malls the Bourke Street strip was the shopping mecca of Melbourne.

Now I knew what Dad meant when he said it but I have never known who Annie Laurie was and now thanks to the wonder of the internet I can find out.

That font of all knowledge Wikipedia states -
Annie Laurie is an old Scottish song based on poem by William Douglas (1672?-1748) of Dumfries and Galloway. The words were modified and the tune was added by Alicia Scott in 1834/5. The song is also known as Maxwelton Braes.

According to the story Douglas had a fling with Anna Laurie but her father disapproved possibly because he had a problem with Douglas's Jacobite views.

So for those like me who have never heard the song here it is.

The days go by

2011-06-18T23:11:00.000+10:00

Newhome is almost ready - plumbing is done, tiling is finished, garage doors are hung, the floor coverings go down this week and our Post Construction Inspection is booked for 12 July. We will probably be in by early August.

A few weeks back the last of my pets from the old life was run over by a car and killed. Connie, our Brittany spaniel was named after Constance daughter of the Duke of Brittany. She was about 15 years old and had been ailing since Gambit, her brother, died a few months back. But she was let out in the yard with the front gate open and wandered onto the road. She was the most beautiful natured dog and whilst I haven't lived with her for a few years now it still hurts to think she had to go in that way. RIP Connie.

I'm halfway through my tenure at work but the boss has asked if I'm interested in sticking around. I've said yes but will make up my mind when I find out what the offer is. I have a bottomline that will need to be met so that the new mortgage is covered.

Speaking of the mortgage, the CBA is stuffing us around again. It looks like they underpaid the first of the builders payments by about $2.5k which means we now have to find the extra. The problem is because of the way the loans were set up I have no visibility of any payments we made or fees we were charged pre March this year. I've asked for a full reconciliation and four days later still haven't heard a result yet. We'll definitely look at moving banks once the settlements are done.

We lay byed some limited edition prints for the home theatre today. An indulgence, certainly, but maybe an investment too. The prints are those below by an artist called Alex Ross.

Erin has left school and started work. Not something I agree with but no point in forcing her to stay on and waste the rest of the year either. She has the next couple of years planned out - save for a car, save for an overseas trip, work overseas for a couple of years and then come back and decide what she wants to do. I'm in fact less upset with that decision than I am with the fact that her mother did not communicate any of it to me. I found out a week after the fact. Still, can't be too critical can we, if I am my kids tend to get all angry with me.

Meat and Three Veg

2011-05-21T19:03:00.002+10:00

I'm writing this post on Sunday night with the smell of a beef casserole simmering on the stove in the background and remembering that as I was growing up the food we ate was very much a part of the daily and weekly ritual.

I wrote in the post Of Chow Food and Other Things about our regular Friday night feeds of Fish and Chips but there was a fairly standard menu served in hour house when I was growing up. One night would be chops, sausages, mashed potatoes and peas, another sausages eggs and chips, yet another spaghetti bolognese, and of course the Sunday lunch time roast when we weren't out visiting relatives or having barbecues.

Karen and I had to either set and clear the table each night or dry the dishes. For some reason we used to fight over the former, mainly because it meant we could sit down earlier in front of the TV and watch the Flintstones or Gilligans Island.

Most nights, Dad wasn't home. Most nights he wouldn't get home before we went to bed but would come in some time later, under the weather and smelling of the front bar and any of several pubs he frequented over those years. But this is a post about the food we ate, not the bad times, I'll leave that for another time.

Sunday nights we usually had something light, usually toasted sandwiches in front of the telly. A night without having to set the table was bliss. I know there are families who share meals around the table and Raels and I try to do that now. Maybe it was the fact that eating at the table reminded me too much that Dad was absent that it wasn't a tradition I had with my own kids as they were growing up, but is something I enjoy now when they do come around for meals with us. But I digress again.

Mum was a good cook, but not an adventurous one and that may have been because we had fairly spartan tastes and any time she did stray from the meat and three veg, like the time she tried to serve us sheep brains and I came very close to vomiting, or when she regularly tried to serve up Brussels sprouts. To this day I don't like them.

But the roast potatoes, ahhhhhh, I still haven't tasted better, even after all these years. And Dad's barbecues were as good as anyone could ever cook, charcoaled chops and snags, and best of all, flat round chips fried in dripping over a wood BBQ in the back yard.

Another memory from the kitchen table is of my sister Deb, sitting in her high chair breaking up bread crusts and stirring them into a bowl of ice cream. She still makes her cakes the same way even today. Just kidding.

Problem Management

2011-05-18T18:25:00.000+10:00

I'm a little over three months into a nine month contract at my new place of work and I do feel like I'm starting to achieve a few things. I've spent a lot of time in the past couple of weeks documenting and developing incident and problem management procedures, a task I could have avoided if I'd just googled "Problem Management" a little earlier and plagiarised the following process. Much simpler and better than what I wrote.

Dad Humour

2011-05-16T18:35:00.000+10:00

I wonder sometimes whether my kids will ever "get" my sense of humour. A couple of weeks ago daughter number one told me she had sort of broken up with her new boy friend, at his request. She then proceeded to tell me that for the next couple of nights after he'd done that he turned up to see her.

"I'm just going with the flow Dad," she told me. And so I told her to give me his phone number so I could call him and ask what his intentions were. She declined of course, but I think she actually believed I would have done it.

The night after I told my youngest daughter in my most earnest voice that it was time that she and I had a discussion about the Birds and the Bees, whereupon she got up and said that she'd be reading a book in her bedroom. Again I was kidding but sometimes they don't seem to get it.

A couple of weeks ago I told them that if William Shatner married Fifi Box, she'd be Fifi Shatner-Box. That one they got, both of them posting it on Facebook. Last night daughter number two asked me if I'd seen the movie Thirteen and I said "No, but I've seen the sequel Fourteen." I thought it was hilarious, she just raised her eyebrows.

Will they ever get me?

No Longer for Sale

2011-05-15T18:23:00.000+10:00

Our house went to Auction last Thursday night and we were number 18 of 21 properties up for auction on the night. Four of the five people who said they were interested in buying turned up and registered but as the properties went on the market and prices were below what was expected it became obvious to me that we may not get what we wanted.

We had the house valued pre-Christmas by the bank and had dropped the reserve price by $20k below that valuation in the hope that once we got to that stage in the auction and went on the market that the competition would drive it up towards the valuation.

The opening bid was $40k below the reserve and that was a bid by the auctioneer on our behalf. He then raised it by $10k and we got one bid only at $1k above that. Eventually we settled for a figure $2k below the reserve but well under what we were hoping for. It became very much a decision around whether the bird in the hand was worth more than any potential offer we might have gotten outside the auction. No contest really given the cooling in the market, the fact that we are facing an interest rate rise in the next three weeks and the absolute confusion over what this Federal Government is going to do with that monster lurking in the background, the Carbon Tax.

At least now we can move on and enjoy the new place.

Speaking of which the front is now rendered and the kitchen and bath room cabinets almost finished. Our site supervisor, despite earlier telling us it would be ready by the end of June, is now saying 75 to 90 days. I suspect he is just being ultra conservative because it seems to be moving pretty well at the moment with the painters due to start tomorrow.

When Comics were innocent

2011-05-10T18:56:00.001+10:00

Myra Phylis Joyce - 26 July 1930 to 11 September 2010

2011-05-08T18:50:00.002+10:00

I miss you Mum - Happy Mothers Day

"M" is for the million things she gave me,
"O" means that she's only growing old,
"T" is for the tears she shed to save me,
"H" is for her heart of purest gold;
"E" is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
"R" means right or wrong she'll always be,
Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER,"
A word that means the world to me.

Bill Smith - ANZAC - Rat of Tobruk

2011-04-24T19:45:00.001+10:00

I grew up in the shadows of World War 2 being born only 12 years after it's end in 1945. Now in 2011, 1999 seems far closer to me than World War 2 did as I was growing up. Having said that though, I was conscious of the impact it had upon both sides of my family.

Dad had a brother and several cousins who served and a sister who became a war bride when she married a US Serviceman. In my grandparents home a photo of my Uncle Keith in uniform took pride of place in the entrance hall and on another wall a velvet belt hung encrusted with brass unit badges my grandfather brought back from his time in the middle east and France during World War 1.

I later learnt that another of Dad's cousins, Uncle Wal, had escaped from the Malayan Peninsula as the Japanese invaded. It was the subject of a book by Colin Frisch Heroes Denied. The Malayan Harrier Conspiracy "the amazing true story of 15 Australian soldiers who refused to surrender when the Japanese steamrolled down the Malayan Peninsula early in 1942. They fought their way back to Australia over several months to be met with disdain and disbelief. Unbelievably, they were treated like deserters and given the title 'Malayan Harriers'."

On Mum's side, my Grandmother had 13 immediate members of her family who served. There was Uncle Perc who got captured in Singapore and was a POW in Changi and later on the Burma Railway, Uncle Laurie who was part of the 2/22nd Battalion who was killed on the day the Japanese invaded Rabaul and of course my Grandfather Bill Smith who with the 26th Brigade Headquarters, 9th Division, was a Rat of Tobruk, and if memory serves my correctly this is the 70th anniversary of the commencement of the siege.

On 25th April 2007 I posted the transcript of my Grandfather Bill Joyce's War Diary. Today I'll post letters my other Grandfather Bill Smith's letters to his cousin Dot.

Prior to leaving his birthplace at Cassilis for Melbourne, Bill SMITH worked as a Dray driver hauling timber from the surrounding forests. He moved to Melbourne with his family around the time of the First World War. His son and daughters believe he may have served in the Navy during those times having put his age up, but if he did it was under an assumed name because neither the Army nor Navy have any record of this service.

On 6 August, 1940, he went to enlist in the army with his brother in law Laurence MAYHEW. He was aged 39 and gave his wife Lily as his next of kin and his address as 25 Davison St., Brunswick. His hair was dark, his eyes blue and both arms were tattooed.

The intention was for he and Laurie to join the same unit and serve together but for some inexplicable reason when the recruits were lined up and told to step forward if they could drive trucks, Bill stepped forward and Laurie didn't. So they separated, Bill to the Middle East and Tobruk, Laurie to Rabaul where he was killed in action.

On 03/09/1940 Bill was posted to the 26th Brigade Head Quarters in Albury. On 16/11/1940 he had returned to Melbourne and there embarked for the Middle East where he remained until 31/01/43. Whilst in the Middle East Bill wrote a number of letters, some of them written to his cousin Dot have survived and are transcribed here ‑

19/07/1941 "Dear Dot,

Just a few lines in answer to your ever welcome letter which I received a couple of days ago & I am pleased to hear from you & all at 19 Verdon St. You say that Mum & Dad are both well & also Ern and his wife & family well give them all my regards & Best Wishes to Mum and Dad & tell them that I am in the best of Health & spirits & every thing is fine & Dandy up to the present.

The only thing is the Jerry pays us a visit sometimes & gives me a bit of a run to the slit trench but I always manage to beat him to it & a lot of my mates too. I tell you he has got me as thin as a whippet pup so don't go telling me that you are long & lean if you could only see me now I think that you could just about give me a couple of stone & that is only through running to the trench so if I am over for a couple of more years I think that I will just about fade out.

Well Pal I suppose you want to know something about the place. Well to tell you the truth I could sum it up in about 1/2 Doz words but of course I will have to skip those words and do my best to explain it to you. The very first thing that greets you in the morning is sand, dust & flies of course. Flies are the first thing as they come in to the dugout just at day break & start crawling all over you until you have to get out of the flea bag, that is what I call the blankets as no matter what you do to them you cannot get rid of the fleas out of the blankets & when you start after them they just dodge around the other side.

Oh that is getting away from the subject now so I had better go back to the flies. Well when you get out it is as I have told you, sand, dust & flies & then the work starts. Attend to my truck & then have breakfast of bacon out of the tins * be around to the ordley room for to take the boys down to the beach for a swim in the old Medi.

In fact I am writing this letter on the beach waiting for the boys to come out of the water & return again to camp, have lunch out of more tins, you can guess what we all have, the good old stew & not bad either. Then another trip down to the beach with some more & back again for tea & some bully beef this time out of tins again.

So now you have the army menu & know what a good cook we have here with us in the form of tins. Now Pal you should almost be able to guess what I would like for the shape of a parcel hat. You ask me to tell you what I would like of course I am leaving it all to you Dot to do the packing of it & as regards to woollens well you can put in a pair of mittens as they are the only things & lng sox that we wear over here. At present there is no use for the mittens but during the winter it gets very cold. So just pack what you think I would like most. The only thing I have not received your parcel yet & I am counting the days when it will arrive so I can chamge my diet a little.

I am sorry that I was unable to get down to see you & Mum & Dad before I sailed as I suppose Dad told you all about firm claiming one & it was a busy week for me but when I can get leave I will have my photo taken and send you one of them that is if you would have it. Well if you should see Auntie Lizzie tell her I hope that she is alright again &give them all my regards & anyone else that cares to write to me & don't forget Bob & Ern if he is not working too hard.

Now I hope you can read this letter O.K. as paper is scarce & these are the only thing that I can get in Libya so the first chance I get I will write you a long & interesting letter about the places I have seen since I have been over here. There is a lot of places I have seen & I would like to tell you about but I am unable to cram in to this letter as the space is not big enough to tell you all so you had better be contented with this for the time being Pal & if you should happen to see Mum or Dad ask them what has happenned that I have not got any mail from them for over 3 months & I have wrote a lot to them in the past month.

Well Dot I think I have come to the end of my letter for news as well as to the end of my paper so I will close this short note hoping to hear from you again , I remain your loving cousin, Bill. P.S. Remember me to all in Williamstown & all at home I hope to see them all in the near future & don't froget Ern & Paula & Little Alex give him this for me XXXXXX."

On 21/10/1941 he wrote ‑

"Dear Dot,

Just a few lines in answer to your ever welcome letter that I received a few days ago but owing to the things that was coming my way in the form of work & other things I have no had much time to answer it before & I tell you Pal if I answer them all today I will finish with the writers cramp. I have just finished one to Mum & Dad & one to Lil so you can see that I am flat out like a lizard drinking & now before I forget it Pal I must thank you for that parcel you sent I thoroughly enjoyed everything that it contained in fact I have the sox on at the present & they are keeping the old feet real warm as it is pretty cold in Palestine at present, raining like the devil outside & what a picture it is after the dust, flies, fleas, etc. Not only that where I am now the hot showers are great. I was down this morning & I laid under them until the water soaked right through me & was it great (I'll say). So I think those knitted bands that you wa telling me about will not be wanted now not for the present anyhow they might come in handy later on you never can tell.

Well Dot, you say that you have only received one letter from me well you should have more by now as I have written straight back again as soon as I have received them all bar this one & the reason for the delay I am not at liberty to tell you but you can understand that I hope so you will have to except my excuse for this one & you say that you have been having a tussel with a jumper for Dad that someone knitted for him & made it big enough for three of us to get into well it must be a size as I have got a snap of both Mum & Dad in their last letter & he looks about 19 stone although you cannot judge a book by its cover he might be just as he always is in the winter chocked up with his old complaint & have Mum going with the mustard plasters as they are only things that seems to do him any good but anyway Dot I am glad that he is OK again & was able to hold that wool for you.

Now Dot you ask me the name of the chap that I met over here well to tell you the truth I forgot his name but he was a chap that used to serve you with green vegetables he said that he was a mate of Erns perhaps Ern would know him. He would be about Ern's build with fair hair incline to be ginger that is about all I can tell you about him for the time being but if I can see him again I will remember you to him & get his name & now Dot I have sent you along a few papers from over here the A.I.F. News is what it is called so let me know if you get them after you have finished with them you can give them to Dad to read.

Now Dot I think that I have run out of news for the present so I will draw to a close hoping this finds you & your Mum & Dad just like me right in the pink & in the best of spirits. So cheerio Old Pal hoping to hear from you again, I remain your cousin Bill XXXX P.S. Remember me to all in Williamstown & to Ern & Paula & wee Alex & all at home & tell them all that I am in the Pink as I have told you before with no cares or worries for the time at any rate may be a longer letter next time Pal. For wee Alex XXXXX."

From Egypt on 28/07/1942 he wrote ‑

"Dear Dot,

Well old Pal here is a few lines to let you know that I am still in the Land of the Living although it is quite a while since I have had any word from you I know that you all are wondering how & where I am.

Well Pal I know that by the time that you get this note you will or should at least know that I am back among the flies, fleas, dust & sand that is blowing all over my face as I am writing this to you so if their are some mistakes & blotches in it Please forgive me for them all.

Well Dot as I have said before I am still in the land of the living & in the best of health& spirits as it has always been said the latter is always hard to break in us Aussies & that goes for all our loved ones at home as well as I know that Lil has not let her dear old chin drop yet & my God never let her & every one else at home for I think that If ever the boys over here that are left were to think that they had, well god help them I don't know what they would do for I tell you Pal they are doing a wnoderful job & at present deeds I know they will never be told until we get home, if ever. I mean if god wills it. I suppose this sounds like a moan to you Pal well to tell you the truth it is when you sit & read in the papers & also your letters about this one & that one getting home, some only a few months away & all us boys being 2 years or more away & been through what we have in the desert. To come back to it I tell you Dot it hurts like H but still i suppose we have got to take it & do what others are doing, just carry on what do you say, well lets forget about it & get on to another subject.

I had a letter from Lil the other day & she tells me that she has got to work long hours & that every 3 weeks she has got to start at 3 O'Clock on Sunday & finish at 11 O'Vlock the following Saturday & by the time she finishes she is too tired to go out anywhere so I think that is the reason why she has not been down to see you so please excuse her won't you Pal & as regards Billie well she tells me that she has not heard from him for quite awhile since he has been drafted out to his unit somewhere in N.S.W. & I have only received one letter from him since he joined up but I know that he won't forget me or his mother & sisters no matter where they send him.

Well old dear how is Mum & Dad keeping as well as yourself. I hope that you are all enjoying all the best of health & also Ern & Paula & wee Alex remember me to them all & give Alex this from me XXXX & do the same to all in Williamstown & give Bob & Emily my regards & wish them all the best of health & happiness & tell them both I hope that all their troubles will be little ones.

Well Pal, there was a bonza one put over one of my mates the other day. he received a letter from his wife & in it she tells him that we are known only as the 9th Div at home as the Tobruk rats are all home. Now I ask you Pal, would that not be enough to break your heart without having to come into it for a second lick. The only thing I hope & pray for is that when they think fit to take us out of it again they take us right home & march us, what is left of us, through the streets of Melbourne & other citys & I think that their will be a lot of blank files to be filled & I hope that they will not be filled with those said same heros of Tobruk that is home there now, as there are a lot of things that I can say about them that I cannot put on paper as that man the censor has a very sharp knife & he likes to play around with our letters sometimes so I don't like to give him any chances with my letters if I can help it.

Well Dot, I am camped at present close to the old medi & I tell you I make use of it every chance I get the first thing in the morning & the last thing at night & it sort of cleans one up for a good nights sleep for there is no chance throught the day for the flies & of course the night well after you get going & catch a few of your bed mates you can get a bit of a sleep until their family comes along looking for the ones that you have already caught & then away you go & course them through your blankets & get rid of them & by that time it is time to get up as your mates the flies have started & so life goes on in the Desert, one damn thing after another & then along comes Mr. Wind & covers you & your blankets & everything he can find with dust & Dirt including your eating gear & by the time the meal time comes along & you go for dinner or tea as the case may be your temper is frayed to a frazzle & the old cook gets a bit of your mind & he starts after you with a knife or axe or anything he can put his hand onto as his temper is worked up a bit higher than yours & he starts chasing you around, you finish up with more sand in your Dixie than stew not that their was not enough got in when he was getting it ready without more blowing in when he was serving it out & so it goes on day in & day out

it makes one disatisfied with everything & everyone around about you. There is only one thing that you have not got & that is a lot of wogs about asking you for Buckshees & other things. Thank god for that much. I think that what stops them more than any thing is the Boom Booms as they call the shells. I tell you Dot, they have the wind up properly. I often sit & think what would happen to Egypt if it was left to them to defend & then they sit around & talk about you when you are not listening to them & they ask you if you speak Arabic & of course you say no until you hear them say something that they should not say & then it is the boot for them & pretty hard too & that is the only way of stopping their wagging tongues.

Well Pal, I think that I have come to the end of my tether as regards news so I will have to close this for the time being & try & get rid of some of this sand out of my dugout. Perhaps I had better be like a rabbit & go a bit deeper& see if that will stop it from getting in. In fact I only wish I was like a snail sometimes so that I could crawl in & pull a door in after me to close things up tight enough to stop it.

Well Pal I will have to say cheerio until next time, I remain your loving Cousin, Bill

P.S. Remember me to all at home & all in Williamstown as I have said before & another thing Pal I am still waiting for that photo of yourself & let me know if you know that chap by the name of E.J. RILEY that I was asking you about in my last letter to you Pal so you had better give these to Wee Alex XXXX & these are for yourself XXXXX, Bill"

12/09/1942 ‑

"Dear Dot,

Just a few lines to let you know that I am in the best of health & sparking on all six & I hope & pray that you & Mum & Dad are the same as well as Ern, Paula & wee Alex & all in WIlliamstown give them all my regards & tell them that I am still alive & kicking & hope to remain the same for a long time to come yet the only thing that I am wild about is that I am still over here in this godforsaken desert but it has its good faults as well as its bad ones the one good thing about it is it is the right place to fight a war in no women or children to suffer or make homeless like there is in other parts of the world & nothing to hurt as regards the growing of crops or anything that goes with farming only a great sandy waste no matter where one looks now & again in the distance you can see a hill or two & that is all

for the life of me I cannot see what they want to fight over it for of course when you get down on the other side of Cairo & get into the Nile Valley you can understand why & that great piece of work the Canal they are the things that the Jerry wants we all know & as far as the wogs are concerned they have it they don't seem to care just who wins they say they will be alright

of course they are not all alike there are some of them that would give us anything but most of them all they think about is to try & rob you if they can not get their hands into your pockets they rob you when you go in to the shops to buy anything so I have just been thinking of leaving all my buying until I get home ( of course that is if ever I do) not only that Pal the mail question is so uncertain of getting there now as I know that letters are not getting home & it is not right to try & send parcels now is it

I know that the postal people are not to blame or the boys that are doing their best on the boats but it is those slant eyed mugs with their tin fish that is causing the trouble but it won't be for long now that the boys that are doing such a good job over there are starting to get into their stride I think that there is a hot time coming to them what say you & it is coming to others as well & not far off either.

Well Pal while I am writing this to you their & a big flight of our planes going over to pay Jerry a visit & Oh Boy do they look nice I'll say. I tell you Dot they are a sight for sore eyes to see them eighteen & twenty‑one at a time I am thankful that that I am not on the receiving end. There are all sorts with fighter escorts they are like a lot of poodles around one big St Bernard but can they do their stuff I'll say. Yanks, tommys & Aussies all in together it is a great show after being up here before seeing nothing but Jerrys over you all the time I can hardly believe my eyes for the start the only thing is the sound of the engine the Hun plane seems to say when he is going over is (where you will have it) over & over again but ours is just a straight out purr with it that is the only way that I can tell which is which unless they are low of course you look for the markings then & if you see a big white cross on them then it is legs do thy duty & dive for a slit trench no matter who beats you to it in you go on top of them & if you are underneath you fell safer as you get the impression that he cannot see you but still it puts a nasty feeling in your mouth.

Say dear here is a bit of news for you while I am writing this it has started to rain the first I have seen since I was in Syria & the first in the Desert since last March 12 months ago not much but a little & that is something by the look of the sky I think that it has blown right over us & gone down south for I am camped on the beach but I hope that it lands in the right place & lays the dust a bit for these boys that is out in it what say you. There has just been two more flights gone over eighteen in each of them how's that good work I should say.

I think I spoke too soon about the rain as the sun has come out hotter than ever & brought more flys than ever with it I was wondering where they had got to the last couple of Days they have not been so thick about as they have been but they sure making up for it now they are getting like swarms of bees again so I am in for a bad time I suppose. Oh that reminds me Pal before I forget it I must thank you for that parcel that you sent me in June I enjoyed every thing that you snet in it received it in the right place in the Desert & I sent you a cable right away & have just received yours in answer so that is not bad is it I send Lil one every fortnight I think that is the best thing to do as it keeps her from worrying so much over me as I know that she does a good bit of that & over Bill as well but I hope by the time that you get this that he is out of it & if so that will take some of the worry off her. Don't you think. I suppose some people will have something to say about him but 16 is a bit young for him to be in the army but it shows that he was game to have a go at it & that is one thing in his favour Don't you & say Dot how is Bob getting along I suppose he is an old married man by this give him & family my kindest regards & also Uncle Bill & Auntie Lizzie & also the rest of the family.

Well Dot old Dear I think that I have run right out of news for the present other than Don't go & sell all the eats at the Dug‑out save a little for the 9th Divvie when it gets home. Of course I don't know just when that will be after it is all over I suppose as it looks that we are what I told you in the last letter the M.A.F. (Men Aust. forgot) what do you think or at least that is what we are called over here & we have changed our name from the Tobruk rats to Ali Barbers Morseheads Twenty Thousand Thieves as the other name was taken by someone else so I will draw to a close with tons of love & kisses XXXXX to you & Mum & Dad, I remain your Cousin Bill P.S. Remember me to all over there & give Wee Alex these for me XXXX Paula XXX tell Ern not to get jealous, Bill XXXX"

01/10/1942,

Egypt, "Dear Dot,

Just a few lines in answer to your ever welcome letter I received yesterday. You wrote it on the 26‑7‑42 & I am pleased to hear that you are all well over there & enjoying the best of health just as I am here. Of course that is in health I mean, as one can not enjoy being in this place too long after spending all the time that I did in it before, but I suppose I should not complain but thank the good lord for small mercies after the way things have turned out over your part of the globe but how we would all like to be over there for all that.

Well Pal I have had some bad news since I received your cable a couple of weeks ago of which you should know all about but I suppose we have all got to go that way some time or other but I only wish it had not occurred until I had got home & then I would have been able to have shared the trouble with Mum & perhaps taken a big load off of her shoulders but I suppose the Lord has laid it down that way & that is all there is to it so I will only have to grin & bear it just like others have done that are over here with me. But for all that I would have liked to have known just what the complaint was if it was the old one or not which I think it was judging by what you tell me the weather is like over there & it always played up with Dad you know & you say that it is playing up with your Dad as well. Lets hope that the shock of losing his brother does not hurt him any as I know that he will worry a lot knowing that there is only 3 brothers left now. You know that Dad & Uncle Jack were the only ones that used to stick together. The others, ah well I have no need to tell you anything about them as you know more about the happenings than I do as Dad was not one to tell me much about the happenings down home. He was what you call an oyster where they were concerned but I suppose it was better that it happenned while I am over here. But I will miss him when I get back again more than anyone will ever know.

Well Dot you ask me if I get the papers that you send over to me, well Dot to be truthful I have only received about 4 balls of them other than what you put in the parcels. I may say that perhaps they may go to the hospitals as a lot of them do if papers happens to go to the wrong unit they never readdress them like they do the letters but pass them around to the boys in the unit that they happen to go to. I think that the last lot of papers that I got from you was in Palestine & I wrote & thanked you for them but never mind Pal if I don't happen to get them someone else does just the same as us boys in my unit gets someelses & hands them around the camp. But as you ask me Dot about them I have got to tell you I know that it is hard for all you good people to got the the trouble that you do in sending them over & not to reach the ones that they are intended for but that is the way that they have in the army & that is the way we have got to abide by for if the postal people were to readdress them they say that they would be carting papers around all the time & while I am on the subject I must thank you for that last parcel that you sent. I thought that by sending the cable thanking you for it it would be quicker than by letter that is the reason for me doing so as I know that you always want to know that I get them O.K. & it is nice to know what pleasure that it gives me to get them & to tell you the truth Dot did I go to town on all those nice things that you sent. It reached me in the right spot in the desert & if all goes well I may be able to show you one of these days before I get some for by the look of things I think that it will be a long time yet before I see Aussie's sunny shores agian.

It is almost 2 years now since I left them & god knows when I will see them again but to tell you the truth it can not be quick enough for me as I am sick of it all & I miss Lil & the kiddies more & more each day I am away from them God bless & keep them safe from harm while I am over here & also your Dad & your Mum.

Well Dot, you say that Alex is beginning to get to that mischievous age now & getting stuck into all the trouble about the place well he wouldn't be a Smith if he didn't as they are always into all the mischief about the place. At least I was & by the way you speak I think that he must take after Ern as he used to do his share when he was young I'll bet yes & you as well and you say that he is having a go at the bread tin well what is wrong with that, a Smith failing, you must look after the inner man you know so why worry over that while he eats like that it is better than paying out a big Dr's Bill isn't it at least I think so & I'll bet his grandad thinks so too & you say that he has had a tumble that will do him good, make him hard for when he starts playing football for that mug football team Williamstown Ha ha, one to me.

But I am sorry to hear that he burnt his hand the way he did & I am glad to hear that he got over the gastric flu alright as that knocks the stuffing out of the kiddies when the weather is so cold like you say it is over there at present & I know just how cold it can be in Melbourne at this time of the year but over here it is perfect, a bit cold at night but during the day all I walk around with is a pair of shorts & my boots & sox on as it is too hot for anything else in fact Dot if some of those Beach Sheiks were to see any sun tan they would give me a thousand pound for it in fact some of my mates call me the wog. The only thing is I talk English too good to be one of them but I think that if us boys are over here much longer & get much blacker the heads of Aussie will be asking for our permits to land there for I think that we will be all taken for wogs & we'll have to apply for naturalisation papers as they won't know us.

Well Dot I done as you ask as regards A.J. REILLY but he did not know you by name but when I showed him you snap he remembered you & he sends his regards to you in return he said I did not know that you had a cousin working there I said now Jack you did not know that I existed until I joined this unit did you but I knew what he meant just the same for when one is with men for over 2 years they think that they know you all your life & you all become like brothers instead of mates & that is what the Army does to you when you are in it long enough & now Dot I will have to finish this letter tomorrow as I have just heard the bell ringing for tea did I say Bell I meant the cook going crook at me for not hurrying up, if I don't I will miss out.

Well Dot here I am again having another go at this. You will notice that I could not carry on until this morning owing to the black out & no electric light in my house over here but I expect to have it on any time now of course that is if Jerry will allow us for as soon as it gets dark he starts his taxi service & makes things very uncomfortable for us but not as bad as he was in Tobruk but almost it looks as if he has the wind up to come out in the daylight or when any of our planes are around as our boys have a Hoo‑Doo on him for our boys are just giving him H‑‑‑ over here now as regards his air force. Of course they pay us a visit through the day sometimes but they are that far up that you cannot see them with the naked eye & you take no notice of them until the eggs start whistling down & then it is legs do thy duty for the slit trench & (Oh boy do I go I'll say) but I think that I am getting too old for I am nearly always last so I think that I will have to go into training again what say you.

Well old pal I see by the papers that there is quite a number of cases over there of young girls & women being molested in the streets at present what is wrong with them why haven't they got a lot of men that is unfit for the services patroling the streets to try & protect you women from that sort of thing Dot. I think that it would help the police for they must be very busy at present with a lot of other things that is appearing in the papers & I think that it would not hurt to try it anyway do you if they were to give them permission to give them a real good hiding with a strap or something it might have a lot to help & clean up that sort of thing & then a respectable young girl or married women could walk about with safety don't you think as there is no mistake a woman when she has been working in a factory or business of any kind does want a little fresh air sometimes.

And now Dot as regards the papers that I spoke about in this letter I must say that the postal ordley has just handed me a page of them so I think that I spoke a bit too soon when I said that I never received them but never mind Pal, I am pleased that I received before I had finished this letter so now I think that I have just about run right out of news for this time so I will close hoping that this finds you & all at 19 Verdon St right in the Pink & in the best of spirits,

Your Cousin Bill

P.S. Remember me to all in Williamstown & tell them that I am still alive & kicking & remember me to Ern & Paula & give wee Alex these for me XXXXXXXXX Bill. Yourself XXXXXXXX."

Egypt

04/11/1942

"Dear Dot,

Just a few lines in answer to 2 of your welcome letters I received yesterday & also the card of the day out. They were dated 6‑9‑42 & the 13‑9‑42 so they were not too long in getting over to me although by the dates that you gave in your letter about mine well they have certainly taken there time in getting to you. There is a few in between April & July's letters but lord only knows just where they are perhaps the fish are trying to read them by now, if so God help them if they can understand my writing & spelling as you know that I am not too good at either but anyway Dot I do my best & that is the main thing.

Well Pal, I am glad to hear that Mum & Dad & yourself & all In Williamstown are enjoying the best of health & sparking on all six just the same as I am over here as well as can be expected but the spirits are at a low ebb after the blow of losing Dad. he was a great Pal & Father to us all & I tell you Dot I will miss his smiling face more than anyone will ever know. All the others will have got over it by the time I get back, all but Mum & I but I think that I can take it on the chin for her sake what do you think.

I must thank you for telling me all about his sickness but Lil (God bless her) sent me a cable telling me that he had passed away so all the letters that came after was not so hard to take but by the way that Lil spoke in her letter she was not going to tell me until I got home but I am glad that she did as it would have been worse then than it is now, what do you think. A funny thing I received her letter the same day as I did yours but as usual I had to open hers first & yours next so they both came together but as I said before I will miss him a lot. There will be no more games of crib & no more football matches with him like there used to be & no more tug of war contests with him but never mind I suppose we all have got to face it some time or other it is something that we all cannot miss & when it comes my turn I will know that he will be waiting for me there with all the Aunties & Uncles that have gone before him. The only thing is that I hope that Mum gets over it alright. I only wish that I had been along side of her when it happenned as I know that is what Dad would have liked more than anything in the world but god willed it that it must happen while I am away so I hope that Lil took my place with her like I know that she would as she knows that it would be my wish that she did.

How did your Dad take it? O.K. I hope, as they thought a lot of one another in fact they all did for that matter, but they seemed to be different to the others somehow what do you think & Uncle George & Aunt Polly & Lizzie. I hope they are all O.K. but tell Dad from me to take the greatest of care of himself & now with that part over I think that I had better get on to some news thanking you once again for all you have done although I know that you do not want thanking for it.

Now Dot what is this I see in your letter that you have been on the sick list. That is not right, look come over here in the desert with me & I bet you will not get sick again. All I can get here are a few wog sores I think had better explain that no matter when you knock a piece of skin off your hands they seem to fester & no matter how you look after them you cannot heal them I think that it must be caused through the snad & flies but the climate is wonderful it is supposed to be winter here now but through the day all I wear is a singlet & shorts sometimes no singlet but at night that is the time that you want the clothes on for it gets like an ice box towards morning & is it cold, I'll say. A cold day in Melbourne has nothing on the nights here & you say to take care of myself now I ask you did you ever see a Smith that did not take care of themselves if not here is one that will & I don't mean maybe so don't worry over that part but leave it to me. You know what Lord Haw Haw said about us in Tobruk He said that we were 20 ft under & still digging well I am still the same, can't get low enough in the ground when his planes come humming around which is not very often now thanks to the boys in the air. The only time we hear them now is at night. They are not game to come out in the daylight they have got the wind up properlky so don't worry over me not taking care of myself when I know that Lil & the kiddies & also all you down home are praying for my safety how can I do anything else.

And so you have met that big son of mine & you do not know just who he is like. Well Dot I can tell you & I have not seen him for 2 years. When I left home he was getting more like Dad every day but of course he can alter as he gets older & by the way you speak he must be but if he only follows in his footsteps I will be pleased & grow up the man his Grandad was, that is all I want & I think that he will as he promised me that he would look after his Mum & sisters until I got back & by the way that Lil writes I think that he is doing it now that he is out of the army.

Well Dear you say that dog & horse racing is being cut down well it is about time for by the A.I.F. News that we get over here with all the latest news from home there seems to be a lot that could be doing something to help win this war other than visiting those places & the same goes for the football as well. When one sits & reads about the players the same names that was playing before the war started & still going & younger men than me by far it makes one sit & think if they have any conscience at all or are they just sitting back & waiting or trying to get as much money as they can while others are protecting them. I do not mean those that are doing their bit in the munitions or any other work but those that arejust waiting for the call up instead of hopping in and doing it will not do any harm if they were to cut them out all together now would it & as regards the beer question well that has gone beyond me for their is not any Aussie beer to be had by us boys over here. All that we can buy if we want it is Yankee beer or local & the yankee costs 2/3 per bottle & the local costs 1/6 per bottle. So the only thing to do is to go without. If it was Aussie that you could get it would be O.K. then you would know that the money was going home again. But I think that the Canadians and the Yanks are getting enough now & the same goes for the wogs. So myself; well beer & I have had a falling out for some time past in fact for over 12 months now for that reason so it won't hurt those at home to go without now. Well Pal since starting this letter darkness overtook me so I had to leave it until today 5‑4‑42 so I had better get going if I want to try & catch the mail so here I go.

Just get an earful of this the time is 10:30 a.m. & one of my mates has just bought me over a big mugful of cocoa & is it any good (I'll say) some of mutual stores all the way from Melbourne & am I going to town on it. Well I will leave that to you to think what I would be doing with it, the only thing is that I have got to eat army biscuits with it & that is not too good but my mate has a good name for them, Desert Creams, all you have got to do is to close your eyes & you think that you are eating bricks they're that hard, but still why growl, they are better that having none at all, what do you think. The only thing that worries me is that I don't break my plate on them.

Now Dot you say that young Alex is in tp all the mischief about the place, tell you what, get him some Desert Creams & see if they will keep him quiet. I'll bet they will, but never mind he is better like that than being sick & regards that offer for that air raid shelter. I am afraid that you will have to contact my mate Stan as he has been lucky enough to be taken home with the Commanding Officer as Batman driver the reason is that he has been driving him for the past 18 months, not only that his wife has been very sick she has been operated on twice for her spine and the officer knows all about her so he got permission to take him with him. So as I was saying you had better get in touch with him & get him to do it for the war may be over by the time I get home & you won't want it so that will let me out in fact I think that you should try & get in touch with him. He is a great scout. He was just like a brother to me & I miss him a lot I can tell you although I still have Tom here with me but Stan was different somehow. If I wanted any advice would go to him & he would do the same to me that is how him & I got along over here together all through everything from the start & then home he goes, but good luck to him as he deserves it for if his poor wife has what I think she has he will be needed there. Here is his address Dot, his private one I mean, Mr S BIGGINS c/o Mr J BIGGINS (Northfield) 16 Elizabeth St., Malvern SE4, Melbourne. That is the address that he gave me so if you was to get in touch with his father he would be able to tell him all about him. I don't want you to think that you are a stranger to him because you are not as I have shown your snap to him, in fact I have read your letters out to him so do try & contact him for my sake & he will be able to tell you all about me over here he may take a walk into the dugout & ask for you as he knows that you spend a lot of time there. If he does just tell him to fix the shelter & save me doing it O.K.

Well old dear (that sounds like the lady with the shawl that used to follow Richmond HA HA) this Rats of Tobruk question. Let us forget all about it & the (MAF) as well. I did not mean that we would be forgotten by our loved ones but by the heads of the country as they don't worry as long as there hides are safe that is all they want & the rats part of it, well if you see Stan Ask him what he thinks about it & he will tell you as his views is the same as mine.

Oh By the By i have sent you a book that is being printed by the government called Soldiering On. it deals with the war at home & in the M.E. it is not much Dot but love the giver just the same. Well old Pal I think that I have come to the end of my tether as regards news so I will close thanking you for all those kind words & everything you have done for me in my sad loss. They cheered me up a lot & made it a bit easier for me to bear I can tell you so give my love to Mum & Dad & my regards to all in Williamstown & tell them that I will do as you say take care of myself never fear & wish them all a Merry Xmas & a Happy New Year for me, not forgetting Ern, Paula & wee Alex, so I will say Cheerio until next time,

I remain your Cousin Bill

P.S. Remember me to Uncle George & family & give them all the compliments of the season for me & give Alex a big hug for me & tell him that I hope to see him soon as this strife is over so Cheerio once again, Bill

Give these to Alex XXXXXX Mum & Dad XXXX thanks a lot for the photo of the dugout I think you you are the one up."

He arrived back in Melbourne on 25/02/1943 after the battle for El Alamein. On 16/07/1943 he was given a 'B' medical rating which classed him as fit for only restricted duty and so he was assigned to 2nd Aust Corps which at the time was in Ravenshoe or Ravenswood on the Atherton Tablelands. On 09/03/1944 he was discharged after a total of 1209 days service of which 832 days were spent on active service abroad.

His was awarded the 1939/45 Star, the Africa Star with 8th Army Clasp, the Defence Medal, the War Medal and the Australia Service Medal.

On returning to Melbourne he found his only son Billy had also joined up and so went in to Vic Barracks where he kicked up a "helluva stink" in an effort to get him out. By that time however Billy was somewhere in the Owen Stanley Ranges in Papua New Guinea. Bill was convinced to leave him in.

His first job after his discharge was as a truck driver with Yellow Express Carriers Ltd. He later worked as a wharfie.

Of course his time as a soldier wasn't the only thing that defined his life and like most men of his generation he didn't talk much of his time away. I do recall a story he told about when he finally did get told that he would be returning from the Middle East and how he went into a tent to tell the cook the good news only to find that he had committed suicide. In reading these letters again I wonder if this was the same bloke who had moaned and groaned and joked about the food with Grandad.

Of Chow Food and Other Things

2011-04-17T18:48:00.001+10:00

Shopping was very different when I was a kid. There were no large suburban shopping malls, no Friday night, all day Saturday nor Sunday Shopping. In fact it was even hard to find a petrol station open on a Sunday or a milk bar open after midday if they were open at all.

In the sixties much of the shopping was done at local strip shopping centres. For us that meant Bennettswood on the corner of Station Street and Burwood Road, well before it was divided and became Burwood Highway. Everything we needed was there, a Foodland grocery store, a green grocers, a butchers, a newsagent, a milk bar, a fish and chip shop and a Chinese food shop.

There were no supermarkets. Grocery stores were where you went to buy bottled, canned and packaged food and if Mum didn't go to Bennettswood we'd go to Box Hill and go to what I think was Permewans in Station Street. The groceries were brought home either in string bags that Mum had taken with her or in a box collected from a pile inside the store.

It was usually a bit of a rush because the shops closed at 6 O'Clock. Friday nights were also Fish and Chip night which were always bought at Bennettswood in a store run by a Greek Family just as the Green Grocers was down the road a bit. Always there was a visit to the newsagent and Mum would buy herself Best Bets and Truth for the form guides so she could study them and before putting her bets on at the TAB on Saturdays and we three kids would get a comic. I loved going home and scoffing the fish and chips while we watched Zig and Zag on TV then curling up in bed and being allowed to read my comics before Mum would come down and tell us to turn off the light.

Sometimes we would buy Chinese (Chow) food usually just dim sims and spring rolls for me because that was in the days before I liked fried rice and other Chinese cuisine. But in those days you took your own saucepans into the store for the cooks to fill up.

In the days before Dad went to work at Uncle Ivan's Stockade Hotel as a second job, Saturday mornings were haircut day. We'd drive down early park at the back of the shops near the Town Hall and then we'd have a footrace to the shops. Me and Dad, just the two of us, him striding out like the professional sprinter he had been and me scurrying along flat out keeping up but always managing to beat him. Thanks Dad for letting me win, but why did you insist I got the "college cut" haircut?

There was always a visit to the TAB in those early days too. Later on when one opened in East Burwood on the corner of Middleborough and Burwood Roads we would head up there late on Saturday mornings. Mum would usually also but Dad a dozen bottles of VB and herself a flagon of sherry in the bottle shop that opened near the TAB. And if we were very lucky we might end up with another comic for the weekend as well. As I got older and earnt some pocket money, or saved my lunch money from school [and that's another story] I'd buy a few more myself, keeping in mind that they were only 15 to 20 cents back then.

I remember Dad getting very excited when the first Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet opened in Station Street Box Hill and sometimes we'd head down there and buy a bucket - no fancy burgers or wraps in those days, in fact, if memory serves me well, I'm not even sure that you could get chips, so we'd also stop at the fish and chip shop and order a dollars worth there before coming home. Dad would always say it was finger looking good.

At some time in the 70's Dad decided to change fish and chip shops after finding a Chinese owned store in Canterbury Road near the Middleborough Road corner. For some reason it seemed fresher, certainly the batter was different, fluffy and crunchy. I think Dad may have supplied the store with paper when has was a commercial traveller (or a salesman for those unfamiliar with that term). Even there though, whilst the food was encased in clean white butchers paper the outer wrapping was always yesterdays newspapers.

Butchers, were different in those days too. They were the only place you could get meat, none of it was pre-wrapped and the floors were always covered in saw dust. The cool stores inside the shops held whole sides of lamb, beef and pork. If you wanted chops or a leg of lamb it would be cut straight of the carcass in front of you. No hiding out the back, sliced or sawn off, wrapped in paper and carried out in a string bag.

Home deliveries were done. You could get your groceries delivered at little or no charge, the Loys man delivered lemonade, Mr Peowrie delivered our briquettes. At some stage in the 60's, Mr Whippy appeared on our streets and we were often lucky enough to be given some money so we could rush out and get a choctop ice cream while the familiar tinny sound of Greensleeves was played over his loud speaker. The doctor even did home visits in those days and I can remember Mum being laid up with migraine headaches and needing Dr Hewitt to visit and give her an injection. On those days Aunty Hazel would sometimes look after us until Dad got home.

In October 1960 Chadstone Shopping Centre opened and it was at that time the first regional shopping centre in Melbourne and the largest in Australia. Myer was down one end and Coles New World Supermarket at the other end of an open aired double sided strip of shops. The thing I remember most about it was that it had escalators and they were the only ones outside the city. At the bottom of them, up the Coles end was Tim the Toyman's, imagine a whole store dedicated to toys. Karen and I collected little ceramic Disney characters. I also got cowboys and indians, match box cars and lego on occasions and Karen got clothes for her Barbie dolls. As I got older I graduated to Airfix models, firstly model aeroplanes and later on plastic model soldiers which I would spend hours painting in my bedroom.

Life somehow seemed less hectic then. We didn't need 24 hour shopping. We didn't need to have everything in one spot. You knew the local shopkeepers by name and could find what you needed when you needed it without having to rush, even though things weren't open for as long. Explain that one to me :)

Open for Inspection

2011-04-16T21:12:00.000+10:00

With the new build moving fairly quickly now and seemingly on track for an end of June finish our current house has been put on the market as of last Thursday. Today we had our first pen with three couples coming through which I didn't think was too bad given it only went up on the net on Thursday night. We'll have opens on Thursdays and Saturdays at least until we go to auction in mid-May, unless of course we get an offer in the meantime.

Here are the pics used in the marketing material. I think they've come up pretty well.

Two Bags Full

2011-04-12T19:00:00.002+10:00

Sunday at the house we were sweeping up the mess made by the sparkies and plumbers. I'm not complaining mind you, it was our choice to do so, but we wanted to make sure that the cavities were clean of the wood shavings. We filled to large garbage bags full and as I was shovelling stuff into them it got me thinking about the origins of the nursery rhyme Ba Ba Black Sheep.

There are any number of websites that quote the origin of it as being a protest song from around the 13th century against a tax imposed on farmers where one third of the wool was given to the King, one third to the church (the dame) and only one third to the farmer (the little boy who lived down the lane). Edward I imposed a tax on any wool exported from England at that time

The first written version of the nursery rhyme seems to be recorded in 1744 with the music set to the words in the early 19th century.

One question is this - why was the sheep black? Black sheep in the family means someone who is a bit of a maverick, who doesn't fit the family norm. Black wool is seen as something that is a contaminant because it can't be dyed like white wool. Can anyone offer any reasons as to why it's not Ba Ba white sheep?

All covered up

2011-04-10T20:41:00.000+10:00

We decided to head down to the house on Wednesday night after work and found this -

Yep - it was fully wrapped in sisalation and the roof was on. Yesterday we went back down to meet the sparky on site and found that the bricks had been delivered and all of the plumbing roughed in.

Of course we had to take the furkids down for their first look at their new home.

Tomorrow the brickies start and we're told that will be finished by the end of the week. Next week we get our first look at the garden design and decide then whether we give the go ahead for the landscaping to be locked in to start in July around the time we'll be moving in.

***********************************
Raels and I went to the footy on Friday night. She is a Collingwood fan and me Carlton. For people who aren't immersed in the AFL culture that's like being Protestant and Catholic, or Jewish and Muslim, Democrat and Republican, Capulet and Montague, Hatflields and McCoys - you get the picture. Unfortunately for me, my team lost, but it was pretty obvious we had improved from last year. Bring them on again I say. Not sure whether we'll do together again though. It's too hard to barrack when you might piss of the person sitting next to you.

First week I went with three of my kids. Why do girls pull funny faces with phone cameras?

Melbourne Garden Show

2011-04-07T18:00:00.001+10:00

Here's some photos from this years garden show which finished last Sunday. Amazing to think that these gardens are only meant to last for a couple of weeks.

Chores

2011-04-04T19:21:00.000+10:00

I think chores are one of my failures as a father.

When I was growing up I did a fair bit to help around the house. Karen and I took it in turns to set the table and dry the dishes when we were little tackers and during State School days I also had the job of cleaning and polishing everyones shoes before we left for school.

When I got old enough to use the lawn mower, I was pushing that around the yard once a fortnight and I can remember helping Mum paint the inside of the house or hang wall paper and one summer I painted the entire outside of the house perched up on a rickety home made ladder.

When Mum went back to work around the time I was finishing State School I also started to help with the interior house work, vacuuming and polishing the floors. I don't remember being over taxed with any of that at the time, it was simply part of life and it earnt me some pocket money which I could then spend on comics. It was a good deal.

But when I had my own kids I realise now that I probably made things a bit too easy for them. I can't actually remember them helping me out off their own bat. They helped sometimes when I asked but it always seemed a bit reluctantly. So I failed them I think, by being weak and not insisting they pay their own way a bit more.

What about the rest of you? If you have kids did they help out? Was it something forced upon them or was it done with good grace and with a genuine desire to help you out?

Full Framed

2011-04-03T20:07:00.000+10:00

This is one massive house - three times the size of what we currently live in and maybe way too big for the two of us given there is some possibility that none of the kids will actually move in with us. I'm not sure whether I ever actually wrote about why we came to build what we are building so I might as well do so now.

At the end of 2009, Raelene's two kids [young adults really] were living with us and my youngest daughter joined us every second weekend. My number two son was also looking for somewhere to live and so we decided that we would start visiting display homes to get some ideas on how we might extend our current three bedroom hills cottage so that all the kids could fit if they wanted to.

It turned out that to double the size of our current home would have cost roughly the same amount we are spending on something three times the size so we started looking at building a new 5 bedroom place and signed with the builder Porter Davis and bought our new block in Cranbourne North.

Then early in 2010, Raelene's two moved out and we decided that it was crazy building a 5 bedroom home so decided to downsize slightly to 4 and drop from 2 storey to one. Porter Davis didn't have a floor plan for a single storey that matched the rear living area and outside flow of the two storey we were going to build so we dumped them and signed with Carlisle to build a design called the Monaco. If you follow the link you can see some photos of the display home and the floor plan, or you can visit Raels blog here to see the whole journey over the past year and a bit.

We visited again today and I am glad to report that the frame is finished. The chippy was still on site [yes on Sunday] and told us that the tiles were due to be put on the roof tomorrow and should be finished bu Tuesday. The building will then be wrapped in sisalation, insulated and bricked. So in the next two weeks it may well be plastered and at lockup.

Erin and Glen have both claimed bedrooms but I don't know if they'll move in. It's a long way from their circle of friends and maybe they'll choose to be occasional visitors rather than full time boarders. Still we've told all six that if they need somewhere to live while they save a deposit for their own place that they can live with us. It will be up to them. In the meantime we consider ourselves very lucky to be able to build our dream home.

This week photos are being taken of our current home getting ready to put it on the market next week and for auctioning in early May.

Half Framed

2011-03-20T21:07:00.000+11:00

The slab was poured two weeks ago last Thursday and the frame started last Thursday. The whole house is supposed to be finished by the end of June which means we'll probably move in during July.

So by the end of this week the frame should be finished and the tiling done the week after.

*************************************
The former company is now officially in liquidation. The good thing about that is that we have now been able to lodge a claim through the Federal Governments GEERS process which has been established to protect the rights of workers whose companies fold. I should get at least part payment back of what my entitlements were.
*************************************
I want to also mention the disaster in Japan and hope that life can begin to get back to as normal as possible for all of those affected. Whilst I still worry about the unfolding crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant I think the more remarkable thing is that the plants withstood both the earthquake and the tsunami. The pity is that it is setting back the argument for nuclear power for all the wrong reasons.

I read this week about the use of Thorium as a fuel instead of uranium which has a lot of advantages - cleaner, less waste, shorter half life, etc. Why aren't we hearing more about that.
*************************************
I've so far refrained to comment on our Prime Minister's Carbon Tax but I need to say something. Firstly, I wrote to my local member here in Latrobe, Laura Smyth, asking if she was comfortable with the Prime Minister lying about not introducing a carbon tax and then lying about lying. Needless to say I got no response.

It's a pity that this is another issue that won't be discussed on it's merits. Firstly, it's about taxing carbon dioxide emissions, not carbon. Secondly, if no one is going to be any worse off when it's introduced as the government is now saying, why introduce it in the first place. Thirdly, if nuclear power is off the Agenda, then we will likely be exporting more coal, particularly to Japan in the short term. How does, taxing us in Australia, prevent global warming. If all of those things sound disjointed and poorly argued, you're absolutely right. But then so is the whole global warming, climate change crap.

Slippery

2011-03-14T19:40:00.000+11:00

Melbourne traffic is pretty bad these days but sometimes the drive to work feels like Moses parting the Red Sea as the lanes open up before me. Other times it's like being in a sewer with turds dropping into every free spot. Today though I saw a vehicle which I thought could slip in and out of traffic pretty easily.

Brief Update

2011-02-13T15:22:00.001+11:00

Two weeks into the new job and I'm getting a handle on things and how much actually needs to be done. It's an initial 9 month contract and I'll have to perform to keep it, but I can do that :)

The former company I worked for has an order coming up in the Supreme Court on the 9th of March to put it into liquidation which finally means that we can pursue our outstanding entitlements. It'll still take a few months but we should be able to recover some of it by then. I hope some action is taken to investigate the former CEO and an alleged missing $600k because he doesn't deserve to get away with that.

By the end of this week the pipes should be down on the block and the boxing done in preparation for the slab to go down on the 23rd of this month. Seems to have taken forever to get to this stage given it's more than a year since we bought the land.

Met some new neighbours yesterday - young couple called Jason and Sherry who seem really nice people. It's amazing that we already know around a dozen people on the estate but don't even know the next door neighbour here in a house we've lived in for nearly three years. I'm looking forward to putting down new roots away from a place that I thought would always be home.

Rain Rain

2011-02-05T12:06:00.000+11:00

Sorry to have been silent for the past week and thanks to all who sent their best wishes to me. I started the new job last Monday and it looks like being a challenging and interesting role.

Last night after leaving work Raels and I decided to drive down to the block, not because we've started building yet, but because there has been a fair bit of activity in the street and we're interested in watching how things progress. At the time we left the city the skies were dark and threatening but the roads were still dry. We had a good run along Dandenong Road.

We turned off onto the Franston Dandenong road and it started to rain. After getting to the South ZGippsland Highway and crawling along in bumper to bumper traffic and driving through a storm we later found out dumped 178 mm of rain, or around 7 inches in the old scale, in an hour on Lyndhurst, right where we were we came across this. The photos were taken on a very slow shutter speed in near darkness but you'll get the idea.

Eventually the police blocked the road behind us and we were able to drive out. Even so we still had a few detours past flooded roads and eventually made it home around four hours after leaving work. Needless to say we didn't get to the block.

We live on the side of the Dandenong Ranges in Ferntree Gully and this morning here was the situation at the bottom of our driveway.

And there is more rain to come later today. What amazes me is that there are idiots who still drive as if the roads are dry. 4wd and late model utes are all driven by bloody idiots. Raels has some more photos on her blog Destination 3977, and Kylie, a friend of ours on the estate where we are building has posted pictures of the estate this morning on her blog Ky's Big Adventure.

This afternoon we are supposed to be attending Raels brothers wedding in Mornington. Let's hope the rain eases and we can get through.

Gratitude

2011-01-26T18:53:00.000+11:00

I feel like I've been whingeing a bit lately so I'm going to remind myself of some of the things I am grateful for.

1. My partner, she has asked me not to call her "my lady" and one day I'll call her something else. But I just want to say here that there are times when we have taken each other for granted and that we should make an effort to remind ourselves of why we are together. Simple reason really, we love each other.

2. My kids - I'm lucky to have each of them and to have them now accept the situation that they weren't happy about when I first left their mother. I love it when they stay with us and love the fact that our new home will be big enough for them should they choose to live with us.

3. Our furkids - three of them now that we are babysitting my daughters dog. Unconditional love.

4. My new job - because without it we would have to cancel our new build. And yes, for those who have read the previous posts, I do have a new position and I commence next Monday.

5. This great country in which I live. Every day as I see the suffering around the world I give thanks that even the worst of things here is the best of things in other places.

So to all of you who visit and who I am also grateful for, please may I wish you all Happy Australia Day no matter where you are.

End of the Workline

2011-01-21T10:17:00.001+11:00

The background is that when I left my former stable employment at the end of October last year I was going to a start up company which was building a data centre and a cloud based computer business. It was going to use cutting edge technology and was well funded. At least that was what I was told.

Funding was coming from two sources, one in Singapore who had put in the money to that stage and another from Sydney who was due to put money in during November, which was subsequently pulled after I commenced work. The result was that December pays were delayed and for a while looked like they wouldn't come through. But they did and we went to the Christmas New Year break having been told that the January payroll was guaranteed.

We received a message from the CEO telling us when to be back at work and we were also told that the lease on the premises was being finalised and that the power supply agreement was also to be signed. Good, I thought, that means that there is a commitment from the owners and Directors to make this thing happen.

First week in January we were told to work from home and to report back to the office on the 10th of January where we were to meet the Sydney Director and investor. And he did come down, spent two days following the CEO around and eventually came to the conclusion that he was a liar of the highest order and that he was damaging the business. He had been told that previously by the General Manager, but saw the bloke as a visionary and was insisting that he still had a role to play in Business Development.

After spending time with him though, he sent a scathing email to his fellow Director and investor in Singapore stating that the only reason the bloke hadn't been strangled and shoved in a deep ditch was because he had other people around at the time.

He tried to have the entire company signed over to himself but Singapore refused to play ball because they wanted him to pay out the investment they had already made. So the company is insolvent and Mr Sydney man decided that it would be best to put it into liquidation, but told us all in an email that he wanted to keep the expertise of the team together for a few weeks whilst we re wrote business plans, customer acquisition and marketing and sales plans.

His exact words were -
I obviously do not know how Singapore are going to react to their news this week. I still believe that you have a core business that has 'legs' and we should make plans for an immediate future.
As a backup to next week, I would like you to buy a domain name that everyone agrees to (thereby creating a united front) and we will have a new company registered (next week) with ASIC. I will have to discuss which company type we would use, but we will (and should) give all our fellow workers continuity.
Everyone will have to work at home for 1-2 weeks until we can get a new premises sorted. I am not paying $74K a month for a premises that we do not need (at the moment).
Sales products are essential. Website is essential. Outreaching for rack space is essential. Registering with a Telco and selling space is essential. Outreaching to a sales network is essential. Printing, equipment and staff accommodation would take me a few days to organize.
New employment contracts will be done on a handshake until we get sorted. Salary budgets can be managed in the short term, but we cannot go forward under an xxxx model. We have to be structured and one step, two step into this marketplace with quality and sustainable products.
After discussions with xxx and xxx, and then discussions with everyone else in that you will need a united front to go forward after this week. I still think that we go after a çloud' business, realizing xxx's potential for a data storage site and other plans that you guys have had. I have additional thoughts, but, they are most likely rubbish until I get your feedback on sustainability.
Let me know what you think."

We have all been working hard over the past week or so on getting the required documents including the business plan together for presentation to him on the understanding that he was going to seed fund that work on a week by week basis for a finite time, whereupon he would make a decision on whether or not he would fund the business or not.

On Wednesday when the GM contacted him the situation had changed. He said in an email -

I understand that you are meeting with everyone on Tuesday, to put together a go forward plan for XXXXCo2. I need to know a budget, details of how you want to go forward and who wants to stay OR go. We will start a new venture under our to-be agreed conditions and there will be no backwards and forwards, as was the case with XXXCo1.
Even to the point that we will be paying wages weekly, not monthly.
I then spoke to xxxx GM (today) regarding that meeting and he told me that a report will be ready on tuesday, and that was when he put it on me for wages for the team. it was the first that I heard of it and I thought that our agreement was to see/discuss that report before I put my hand up for anything. I do not know what you guys are thinking, but I am getting a bad feeling about the lines of communication.

Sorry Mr Investor - you did know about the week by week payments, you made the offer, we didn't ask for it. You kept spouting about honesty and integrity but it seems it is the old "do as I say not as I do."

That was when it got ugly. None of us have been paid since mid December. This bloke allowed us to go to the Christmas break believing that the January payroll would be honoured. He then gave us false hope that he was an honourable man and genuine in wanting to take the business forward. He has no honour. He is a liar not dissimilar to the previous CEO.

Here are some of the other comments he made via email to members of the team yesterday.

“AS I told xxxGM, go fuck yourself. You pompous, boring idiot.”

"All I have from you, xxx etc etc is angst that money is not being poured in. Where is the comfort that I am not backing another xxxCEO??????????????
I am going back to what i know, where annual returns are guaranteed, asset value grows and working with management teams that are happy to be accountable for their actions.
Quite candidly, you can go and fuck yourself."

So there you have it. I am still considering whether to name these blokes but I might wait and see how the legal issues unfold. We will all lodge complaints with the Fair Work Ombudsman. There is a prima facie case against the Directors for deceptive and misleading conduct but if it ends up only being the company we can sue, and it had no assets apart from the collective knowledge of the employees, then the chance of getting anything is slim.

We need the company to formally go into liquidation so the claims for unpaid entitlements can be pursued, but that will take months.

In the meantime if we can't get our entitlements perhaps we start by taking something else. A wise man once said to me that reputation is like virginity, once gone it is very hard to get back. Let's see what is on the horizon.

Usher Nazis and Choo Choo Bars

2011-01-16T10:58:00.002+11:00

Nana and Grandad Smith lived at 25 Davison Street, Brunswick when I was growing up. It was a single fronted brick terrace house with blue stone cobbled gutters on the street and in the lane that ran down the back of the house.

As with Dad's family many of Mum's relatives lived in the same general vicinity and so when we visited their were always other members of the family present. When I was a toddler my great-Grandmother Janet Woolley lived there and I still have memories of playing hide and seek where she would let me hide my head under her apron. It was out of sight out of mind, if I couldn't see anyone then obviously they couldn't see me either.

Nana's brother, Uncle Alf, who won the Military Medal in World War 1, had lung cancer and Nana nursed him until his death which seemed a long time coming at the time. I don't remember too much about him but I did inherit his 3/4 size bed [a bit smaller than a double] and thought I was a king when I got into it. It was the bed I slept in until I got married in 1982. It never occured to me at the time that it was the bed an old uncle had died in. Incidentally the citation for his medal states that it was awarded when he entered the trenches and captured thirty Turks alone. Must have been a pretty gutsy effort.

That bed had one other unfortunate accident. At my 21st Birthday, Dad had invited a young bloke he worked with. He was always bringing home people he'd met for meals and the obligatory sharing of the beer. Unfortunately this bloke got absolutely paralytic and was put to sleep in my bed which he promptly wet. Took days for the mattress to dry.

But as I sometimes do, I'll move from the digression back to the topic at hand, which I should have said early on is about what we did in Brunswick on Saturday afternoons. Often if we weren't at the footy watching our beloved blues play at Princes Park, we would be sent off to the pictures at the Padua Theatre in Sydney Road, Brunswick. It was a big deal for little kids to walk to those places by themselves in those days and generally there were at least four of us, Karen and I and our cousins Gavin, Kerry and Phillip at various times.

This was a typical art deco theatre of the time, the stalls down below and the expensive seats where the more well off could sit up top in the dress circle.

The Padua had been built by Hoyts in 1937 and was closed in 1968 much to our sorrow. It was then leased to a couple of Itialian blokes Tony and Franco Zeccola who re-opened it in August 1969 as the Metropolitan playing Italian language films which wasn't much help to us. This continued until December 1981 when the doors closed for the last time before it was demolished in January and February of 1982.

A full page article in The Argus Newspaper in Melbourne was published on 23rd July 1937 announcing the opening. It seated 2000 people, had such luxuries as foot warmers, air conditioning and a crying room for children. The first weeks entertainment included Charles Rainsford and his Swing Orchestra on stage with screening of the Errol Flynn and Olivia De Haviland movie The Charge of the Light Brigade. The paper also announced that there would be short screening of the Walt Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Circus in full colour.

In 1954 a cinemascope camera system was installed which allowed the display of wide screen movies and I can remember one in particular that stuck in my mind. How the West was Won was a mind blowing movie on the big screen at the time.

But I had other favourites that still stick in my mind to this day. Such classics as Snow White and the Three Stooges.

Ivanhoe.

The Black Knight

And what was a trip to the pictures without lollies. Favourites were White Knights and Choo Choo Bars which turned your entire mouth black and which would last almost the entire movie they were so chewy. And of course there were the boxes of jaffas. I wasn't one for rolling them down the aisle, much better to eat them but maybe the reason for rolling them was in the hope that an usher Nazi might step on some and fall over.

When the theatre opened in 1937 The Argus reported that the entire work force was male. Certainly by the time we were going in the mid sixties many of the usherettes were women. I am pretty sure that they were women, but some of them had mustaches that would have made Groucho Marx proud, and voices that reminded me of the bad guys in the World War 2 movies. "Feet off Seat" and "Quiet Down" were growled at the kids whilst London Blitz Spotlights were shone into our faces. I truly thought they may have been Nazis in disguise and I feared for the lives of the kids who were occasionally grabbed by the ear and escorted out never to be seen again. Woe betide anyone who was actually found to be in the wrong seat. I was pretty certain that such a heinous offence must have meant the gas chamber or hanging for them.

What movies stick in your mind from your childhood?

Work wanted? It's all a matter of perspective.

2011-01-13T18:07:00.001+11:00

There is a fair chance that work will finish in the next couple of days. Disappointing given I gave up a permanent stable job to go to a place where I was told there was guaranteed funding for at least the first 12 months by which time we would have built what we needed to build and be well and truly underway.

Pre-Christmas our December pay was more than a week late but we all went to our week break believing that guarantees had been made for at least the January payroll. Sitting here now, that seems unlikely. The owners and shareholders of the business are from Singapore and I may well name them depending on how the next few days turn out. I could go into some of the reasons for the failure but let me just say that a few of us today were talking about presenting a person with a soap on a rope gift on the off chance that he ends up as a prisoner of Her Majesty. But there is still a fair bit of water to go under the bridge yet.

And having written that I realise that is is a metaphor in poor taste as fellow countrymen continue to suffer in the floods in Queensland. That puts things into proper context for me and I realise I don't really have too much to complain about.

And consider the tale of young Jordan Rice who when in the arms of a rescuer told that rescuer to take his younger brother first. He and his mother were then swept to their deaths.

Then there was the courage shown by Ray Cole, the roo man, who waded into the floods to save a young joey that was struggling to stay afloat.

Ray Cole - Roo Man - Picture: Villiers Nick De Source: HWT Image Library

And then there were these blokes who waded into the waters to save a horse.

So do I really have anything to worry about. The answer of course is an emphatic no!

A Sunburnt Country, drought and flooding rains

2011-01-12T19:50:00.003+11:00

We are watching the devastation caused by the Queensland floods as rain continues to fall here in Melbourne. This is no time for debate on whether or not this is climate change or whether more could have been done to mitigate the risks. Like the Black Saturday fires here in Victoria two years ago it is a reminder of the harshness and fickleness of this country. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their lives and to those whose lives have been devastated. As Aussies do, we will pull together and bounce back, ready to face the next natural disaster when it inevitably comes and in coming days we will hear the tales of heartbreak and of heroism that will unfold.

For those overseas visitors who may not have seen some of the footage that we have please take the time to view what is happening here. It is proof that no one is immune. The first video is of the flash flood or inland tsunami, as it is being called, that hit Toowomba which is a town perched on the top of the Great Dividing Range.

This next one is of the current situation in Brisbane, our third largest city, with the flood peak still some 9 hours away as I post this.

And for one of the more remarkable images check this out.

(Photo: Armin Gerlach/ninemsn.com.au)

If anyone would like to donate you can do so here at the Queensland Government Flood Appeal

Cankles

2011-01-10T21:33:00.000+11:00

I went out for a business lunch today hosted by a bloke from Missouri and we got talking about American politics. Somehow we got onto Bill Clinton and how he seems to believe that he ought to still be President. I asked him if he thought Hilary would resign as Secretary of State this year and run in the Primaries against Obama. He thought it unlikely because it would be considered bad form to run against an incumbent.

From there he got onto the fact that Hilary always wears pant suits to hide her cankles.

Now cankles isn't something I am familiar with so I sort of laughed and pretended I knew what he was talking about and first thing I did tonight when I switched this thing on was google it. So for those as ill informed as I am let me say that the Urban Dictionary defines cankles as -

"The area in affected female legs where the calf meets the foot in an abrupt, nontapering terminus; medical cause: adipose tissue surrounding the soleus tendon, probably congenital, worsened by weight gain and improved in appearance only by boots. From the English "calf" meaning wide portion of the lower leg, and "ankle" meaning slender joint of leg with foot."

So now I find myself wondering if this is a common affliction. There is a cankle haters group on Facebook and dozens of people called Cankle which I reckon I might consider changing if it was me. It would be like having a name like Cameltoe or Halitosis, OK for a laugh but you wouldn't want to live with it. There are youtube videos on how to get rid of cankles and people have even written books on them. And apparently the fact that Hilary has them is well known to most septics [for non-Aussie readers septic is short for septic tanks which is rhyming slang for yanks).

So is this a major medical issue of the 21st century or is it so 20th century. That's the problem when you get older like me you miss out on popular culture.

Respect

2011-01-04T15:07:00.000+11:00

I've been pondering respect lately. Coming from a police background I tend to grant respect according to rank and experience almost without thinking because that is what we were taught to do. However, like most coppers, the automatic granting of respect does not mean that it will continue forever without question, because for me longevity of respect is based upon the actions of the person. It must be earnt if it is to last.

I'm sure most of you will have come across people at various times of your life who have lost your respect and like virginity, once lost it is very hard to get back.

So what exactly does respect mean? In looking for the answer to that question I came across the following quotes which encompass aspects of respect that I embrace.

Mark Clement:
Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Men are respectable only as they respect.

John Wooden:
Respect a man, and he will do all the more.

Each of these have common elements. Firstly for respect to last it must be mutual. You cannot demand respect if you do not give it. Secondly, respect is earnt by example, put in more than is expected and most of the time you will earn the respect of people you associate with. The caveat to that is that will only happen if you don't winge about the fact that you do more than others.

Demanding respect does not work for me.

The fact that you may be better looking, have more possessions, a red sports car or an hereditary title, or indeed bigger muscles, does not automatically mean that I must or will respect you. Show respect to others and you will have taken a step in the right direction towards earning my respect. But remember you need to work at it. It cannot be something you turn on and off. Your behaviour must be consistent. Showing deference and respect to some whilst disrespecting others will negate any good will you have built with me.

What about you? What makes you respect a person?

No More Cloudy Days

2011-01-02T12:03:00.001+11:00

We had the great pleasure of seeing the Eagles a couple of weeks ago at their first Melbourne concert since 2004. Given this is the New Year I thought I'd post one of my favourites here.

EAGLES - No more cloudy days Vidéo natlilou sélectionnée dans Musique

2010 - The Year my Mum died.

2010-12-31T19:57:00.001+11:00

It might be a bit of a cliche to write a New Years Eve post reviewing the year but if I don't do my own year who will.

2010 began at Narooma like it had so many years in the past but may never happen again. Raels didn't have a good time, not only was it a reminder of my past life for her but she had to spend a fair bit of time working and with work comes stress and she couldn't relax properly.

At the end of 2009 her two kids, young adults really, were living with us, my second son after being asked to leave the family home needed somewhere to live and my youngest daughter was with us every second weekend. We have a small three bedroom house and had decided around Christmas time 2009 that we needed something bigger so on returning from holidays we spent every weekend looking for land and in late January put a deposit on a block of land in an estate called "The Avenue at Casey".

At that stage we had decided we needed a 5 bedroom house and had signed with Porter Davis.   By March though Meg and Damian had moved out so we started to prevaricate over whether or not we would continue with the build or not and come mid year we had decided to down size a little and build a 4 bedroom house with Carlisle homes. Our land eventually settled at the end of November and our slab is due to go down on 20th January.

Work continued and responsibilities increased throughout the first part of the year but started to sour a little around July when a number of people were made redundant and there was a distinct lack of consultation with me about my role and that of the people who were in my team at the time. So I came to the decision in October that it was time to move on.   And so found myself in a new position with a new slightly rocky role that is still yet to be played out. The next few weeks will be interesting as decisions are made and I may well find it could be time to make an early move onto something else. More of that elsewhere.

In around March Mum was put into hospital after bleeding from the bowel but after tests showed no sign of anything other than a possible infection she came home.

Hospitals were a regular visiting place with Erin having her fifth operation on her diaphragmatic hernia which I will never stop worrying about.

Mum returned to hospital in late August and after a short illness passed away on 11th September and that will be the defining point of this year for me.

So it was a year of hard work, of excitement about the new house and in particular the new neighbours who will become part of our life, a year of sadness and reflection. And most of all a year of surprises, some welcome and some not. But that is what life is about isn't it!

I wish all of you a Happy and Safe New Year. I look forward to hearing from you throughout 2011 and in following your progress whether on your own blog or on Facebook.   Thanks to everyone who gave me support during the year when I needed it most, particularly my lady and my family :)

The Boy of Summer

2010-12-29T16:16:00.000+11:00

The exceitement began with Christmas Day but continued into Boxing Day when I was a kid. That was the day that the holiday started. For many years when we were kids the holiday destination was the Ball Caravan Park on the Murray River at Corowa. For around 10 years I made that trek with Mum and Dad, my sisters and various other family and friends and we'd camp there for around four weeks every year. That means that I spent around a year of my life in that town.

Dad would pack up his old Ford Thames van with all of the gear and he and I would take off early Boxing Day morning. Many times there'd be a deck chair set up inside the side door and my cousin Gavin or one of my mates, David Palmer for a couple of years, would sit in that chair in the back. It wasn't illegal in those days, there were no requirments to wear seat belts and besides the van struggled to do 35 miles per hour meaning what is now a three hour trip took us around 7 or 8 in those days.

We went with all the comforts of home, carpet for the floor, an ice chest, chairs, gas stove, umbrellas and a foam mattress for me to sleep on in the back of the van.

It was a dry heat in Corowa, the plane trees shaded the camping ground and helped keep it relatively cool in the shade. It didn't really matter because we spent most days at the pool which was adjacent to the camping ground, spending hours perfecting our bombing and horsie technique. For those who don't know the terms that was a way of leaping into the water and causing the biggest possible splash without doing a belly whacker. And when we weren't at the pool we were generally down at the river swimming or fishing.

In the years when our friends the Browns came as well, Uncle Arthur would grab me by the two at some ungodly hour of the morning around dawn so that his sone Garaham and I could go fishing. In the early years we would generally come back with a feed of redfin that we'd cook up fresh for breakfast.

As I got a little bit older I'd play golf. I could be a student member with reciprocal rights to a lot of Melbourne Golf Courses for $5 per year which was a bargain even if I only played occasionally during the year.    I never played often enough to become any good at the game and I'm just as happy walking around a course these days and taking photos rather than trying to bash one of those little white balls.

My sister Karen and Shirley Brown were far more sociable than I was and they made plenty of friends up there over the years, much to Mum's chagrin because she didn't like them mixing with boys. In fact every night she'd lace up their side of the tent so that they couldn't get out. In those days though, tents didn't have floors so they simply waited a while then lifted the side and snuck out.   I remember one night Mum came and got me from the Van because she'd found them missing and I had to march around the park with here whilst she called out to them. We eventually found them across the other side sitting down laughing with a group of young blokes. Yes, Mum was over protective.

One year it absolutely poured with rain the whole time we were there.   Dad must have had to return to work early because I remember Mum had to dismantle the camp, pack up the van and drive us home.    The van boiled every 50 mile and we'd have to stop and refill the radiator. It took us around 12 hours to get home that year.

I've written before about how Karen and I used to have a race to see who could get brownest the quickest.   Sunburn wasn't the horror story in those days that it is now. We didn't cover up, in fact we wore as little as possible and lay out in the sun for hours at a time. In Dad's words by the end of the holidays we were all as brown as berries.

As I tend to do on holidays, a lot of time was spent reading.   I remember that I bought the Robert E Howard Conan books one year at a book store up there which were my first introduction into the Sword and Scorcery genre. I re-read the Lord of the Rings and the Dune trilogy one holiday and became a fan of Michael Moorcock in yet another year. And I shouldn't forget the E E Doc Smith Lensman series.

Fo the most part they were good times. I'm sure Mum and Dad chose Corowa because it was in New South Wales and therefore had poker machines in the local clubs.   But Dad continued to drink while we were away and the rows would also go on. Often Mum would march over to the bowling club after Dad had disappeared for too many hours. She wasn't averse to yelling and telling him what she thought in front of everyone figuring that embarassing him was the only way to get him to leave. And she was right.

I think that was where I grew to hate New Years Eve because inevitably everyone would get pissed and so I'd hide in the van reading my books, venturing out when the clock struck midnight and quickly retiring after a fast Happy New Year to everyone.

What I liked best was that we were away from home, for a while the world was on hold. No school work, no need to mow the lawns or polish the shoes.   I could do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. read, fish, play golf, swim, all the things that made summers fun and school seem a long way off.    The year I went to univeristy was the year I stopped going to Corowa. Holidays with mates were more important than holidays with Mum and Dad, and anyway, I had to work over the school holidays to earn enough money to see me through the next year.

Thus ended 10 years of summer school holidays with good memories far outweighing the bad.

This year for only the second time in the past 18 I am not at Narooma where that summer holiday tradition continued with my own kids. And now, as with Christmas, I ave to begin to forge some new traditions, not better, not worse, just new. Bring them on :)

The Ghosts of Christmases Passed

2010-12-25T09:00:00.001+11:00

I loved Christmas as a kid. The whole day was one big present. The weeks of excitement and anticipation were fantastic and the memories are powerful and sunk deep into my psyche. When my own kids were born we tried to make it the same for them and only they can answer whether it was or not and this post is about my reflections of my childhood Christmases. The good times that lurk in the shadows and seem probably much better looking backwards than they did then, although they were pretty special.

Decembers were the time when the days warmed up and the north winds sometimes blew so hard they could suck the moisture from you as soon as you stepped outside the door. This was the herald of Christmas in our part of the world.

The tree would go up in the early days of the month and it was a family affair - those very same decorations that lived on that tree year after year for more than half a century were lovingly wrapped in tissue paper each year by Mum and packed away, and this year when we were cleaning out her place after her passing we again unwrapped them and shared them amongst the three of us. On my tree this year is a bird, one of three, that were the favourites of my two sisters and I, that we used to argue about who would put them where.

And with the winds and heat would come the Christmas cards. Each of us kids received them from aunties and uncles and cousins, and how exciting it was to rush to the letter box after hearing the postmans whistle to see what he would bring. They would then be hung across the windows on bits of wool and it seemed like there were always 100 or more each year which we would also reply to. That appears to be one of the lost arts of Christmas, I guess social media, texting and emails have bumped that tradition aside.

Each year we would visit Father Christmas at Myer. In those days the only store was in the city because it was well before any of the shopping malls were built in the suburbs.    Mum would dress us in our Sunday best and we'd trek into the city in her old Vauxhall, line up to see the magic in the Myer Christmas windows and then make our way to the toy department to see Father Christmas. I was sometimes confused that he looked a little bit different each time I saw him but I knew that he would be visiting me on Christmas Eve.

We would then go and do most of our Christmas shopping in Coles and walk up and down the aisles picking out stuff we thought our cousins would like, because we would buy something for every one of them. Guns for the boys, dolls for the girls, Enid Blyton and Biggles books, California poppy hair oil or brylcreem for those who were a bit older and for the oldest ones the old chestnuts socks or hankies.

And when the night came we'd leave out biscuits and cheese and Dad would insist on leaving him a bottle of beer, not sure whether it was for Father Christmas or the reindeer, but each Christmas morning it was standing on the hearth of the fireplace bone dry.   I remember the year we had the briquette heater put into the fireplace cavity I was really worried that he wouldn't be able to get down the chimney so I insisted that Mum leave the front door open.

The sacks would be placed side by side on the hearth and we also found them at Mum's place recently, faded and somewhat tattered but lovingly folded and kept as the echoes of our childhood continued to resonate with us.

Oh the excitement of Christmas Eve was unbearable.   I'd toss and turn for hours thinking I would never get to sleep and then suddenly it would be time to wake up. I'd creep into Karen's room and later Debra's wake them both and rush up to the loungeroom. Before we touched anything though we'd rush back down to Mum and Dad's room yelling at the tops of our voices "He's been! He's been!"

So what did we get?   Well it's a little too long ago to remember these things in chronological order but some of the things I remember are a triang train set, a fort with cowboys and indians, a scalextrix car racing set.    Each year their would be a book and I still have two Tarzan and two Eagle Annuals that turned up in my sack on various occasions.   Always there would be some clothes, usually some sort of short sleeved shirt and shorts that I wore on Christmas Day and most years new bathers because on Boxing Day we'd be off on a camping holiday.

When the sacks were emptied we'd exchange our own gifts and then rush outside to see if the rest of the neighbourhood was awake. There would always be kids out and about on brand new bikes or scooters. Then we'd do the rounds of the neighbourhood with gifts for the other kids and collecting more presents ourselves.

Some time late morning after a few drinks with neighbours we'd be in the car and off to Merlynston for Christmas with the Joyce's and then onto the Smith's for dinner in Brunswick.   By the time we'd get back home on Christmas night we's be lugging home a boot full of presents and be exhausted. Usually Mum would be driving because Dad would inevitably be under the weather.

As Grandparents aged, and the days became to hard for them to host, we would have the lunch and dinner at our place in Box Hill, but as the cousins got older and partnered up the numbers coming gradually dwindled until the cycle began again with our own children. And now I wait with some anticipation for the time when I too will be graced with Grandkids and have the wonder of Christmas rekindled.

Funny how little snapshots are appearing in my brain as I write this - the year I told Mum that I knew who Father Christmas really was and how I cried when I told her and she held me and said that it was OK there would always be a sack on the hearth for me as long as I wanted one, and there was until my little sister Deb finally fessed up to knowing the truth when I was around 17 years old.   I remember dropping my dacks and showing off my leopard skin jockettes, the first adult undies I had after years of white Y fronts and arguing that it didn't matter who I showed because they were just like bathers anyway.    I remember the year Nana and Grandad Smith gave us Mark 10 guns, complete with spring loaded rocket launchers and grenades and how we ran around the back laneways of Brunswick.    One really hot day when a bottle of loys softdrink sitting in the sun outside exploded and a shard of glass cut my chin.   I remember waking to the news of Cyclone Tracy wiping out Darwin in 1974.

Mostly I remember how lucky I was to have been in a time and place when we lacked for nothing, when even the hardest times still saw plenty of food on the table and gifts under the tree.   I lived a privileged life.

I wish all of you who read this a very Merry Christmas and hope that we don't lose sight of the fact that we also celebrate the birth of a special person who changed the world for the better more than 2000 years ago, and irrespective of what beliefs you hold you should remember that.

This Melancholy Christmas

2010-12-24T19:49:00.003+11:00

I tend to get a little bit maudlin at Christmas, maybe it's because the kids are beyond kids now and the new traditions with a new partner are still yet to be defined. It's always been a balancing act but is even more so now in a blended family when not everyone gets along. So we try and make the best of things despite some tension at times. If I had a Christmas wish it would be that all six of the kids got along and things didn't feel so uncomfortable when they are together.   Not sure whether that will ever happen.

This year though I have come to Christmas Eve with the knoweldge that my job may not continue in the New Year. Directors and owners are arguing over the spoils and the company direction seemingly oblivious to the fact that they have fucked up a lot of peoples Christmases this year. Worse yet is that they have not given us the courtesy of an explanation. I think that even if it does go forward it is not likely that many of my colleagues will stick things out.   And nor should anyone when they get treated this poorly.

So the melancholy simmers and the presents, such as they are, go unwrapped, because some of the family have missed out this year.    With no guarantee that I will be getting paid in January we have had to curtail spending so that we have enough aside to cover the mortgage.

And I have to admit this first year without Mum has things looking different as well.

I know there are people in way worse places than we are and I can only imagine their despair if these lousy feelings are anything to go by. But this too shall pass.   The New Year will bring new opportunities and I have already started applying for other roles.   Something will come up.

More than a dream

2010-12-16T18:00:00.001+11:00

The night I wrote the last post about scattering Mum's ashes Raels woke up during the night with the bed shaking and thought it was Ramsey, our Spoodle, scratching himself. When she looked, Mum was sitting on the end of the bed shaking my leg and she said “Laurie, why do those girls have to make such a fuss of everything. They should have just thrown me in the river so we could get on with things.” That was when she woke me up and told me :)

Funny that I'd written to Mum in the post that I had a visit from Dad after he died but that was at a time when I was living alone, not with someone who is attuned to these things. Oddly enough when I told my sisters one of them had a dream about Mum that very night. She said -

"Mum finally came to me in a dream as vivid as the one I had when Dad visited me and I woke up straight away wishing she had stayed longer. I was in my car with Shez driving and there was Mum's old little white car driving in front - I said to Shez "That looks like Nanna" and with that she turned around, and it was her with the most amazing smile that lit up her entire face - I yelled out "Mum" and then I woke up. I now really do know that she is so happy, she has free movement ,is driving and obviously pain free."

I am a natural sceptic and there was a time when I would have scoffed at these things, but now they seem to me to be more than dreams. Has anyone else shared similar experiences?

The Scattering Again

2010-12-12T21:57:00.004+11:00

Dear Mum

You probably already know this but I thought I'd let you know anyway.   We scattered your ashes today,as close to the place where we did the same to Dad's back in 2004.    The river was a bit higher and running quicker than it was back then so your journey, wherever that may be will be quicker than Dad's was.    Remember how amidst the tears we laughed back then when you said that there was some irony in the fact we were scattering Dad's ashes in the river when he couldn't swim.   He would have laughed at that too and we did chuckle about it again today.

Unlike back then there were no ducks around. Remember they came in and scooped up some of Dad's ashes as they floated on the water, eventually scattering them a bit further than we intended I guess.

You would have been proud of Deb, she read a couple of poems for you and said a small service around how we eventually return to the elements from which we sprang - from fire, earth, water and air. I was glad that the air didn't spring up and blow part of you up my nose because I'm still suffering a bit from hay fever and it wasn't something I needed today.

Andrew and Gerry were there as well as Chase, Shez and Cal, Raels was home ill in bed and sends her apologies and the other Grandkids found it a bit hard to face, like they did with Dad. Maybe they don't fully understand how this ancient ceremony is yet another step along the way of recovery for grief. But I know you'll understand.   I know you will prefer them to remember your laugh and your raised eyebrow when you disapproved of something than a container of mortal remains.

Speaking of which, I carried them down from Karen's house and I have to say that you weighed a fair bit more than Dad. But you'll know that too, becuase he did have a touch of the Mahatma Ghandi's about him in the last few years, "Fine as a sunny day" I remember him saying on more than one occasion.

We did have to keep watch because like the day we did Dad's there were a few people around and whilst Deb was speaking Andrew, Gerry and I were keeping a lookout for anyone who may have happened along. I remembered the time you told us about you and Uncle Phil and Aunty Nancy taking your cousin Lila's ashes out to the cemetery and shoving them down a crack in the grave of her Mum Aunty Phyllis and Dad Uncle Perc. You told us you were worried that someone would see and think you might be defacing the grave, but we all had a great laugh everytime you told the story.

Deb brought some yellow roses from her garden and each of us placed one on the river to follow you down. As the last one was placed on and the rain started to fall the sun came out giving that sense of renewal that comes with a new day. A different day maybe, but a new one, and despite the sorrow, a reminder that there will still be many good things to come.

I hope you finished the book that we sent with you. You were adamant that it had to go on the journey because you always finished any books you started even if you didn't like them. And I hope you managed to magic that toy horse into one that carried you across the fields of heaven like you said it would.

I have so much to thank you for, we all do and I'll leave that to some future posts, but I do want to say a couple of things here. Firstly, I remember how proud you were of Luke when he was presented as your first Grandchild. You were actually the same age then as I am now and that's a bit of a scarey thought because I thought you and Dad were kinda old back then. Now I know differently of course.   And then you were given another 10 grandkids within the next ten years and everyone knew how much you loved them.

I also want you to know that Raels really appreciated the last things you said to her - that you loved her and that you told her to look after me. She will and I think you know that. Thanks for finally accepting her, I know it wasn't an easy thing for you to do. But we both are really grateful for that and Raels for being able to come to know you over the past couple of years.

Did I tell you that a few months after Dad died he visited me one night. I felt him sit on the end of my bed just like he did so many times when I was a boy and he'd come home from work and come down and say goodnight.   We couldn't talk but just let him know that I'm OK and I love him deeply.

I still feel you around Mum.   I know that wherever and whatever Heaven is, that you'll watch over all of us no matter how long you have to.   I can hear you telling Dad and Nana and Grandad and the others there with you now how I "turned around and said".   And I know that when you disapprove of something I do, and there probably will be things you don't like before we meet again, that your eyebrow will rise and the cheeks will puff out and you'll let me know exactly what you think. Just like you always have.

So Farewell for now Mum. I will always love you.

Your son
Laurie

Cemeteries, Dairies and Nut Trees - Merlynston Part 1

2010-12-11T19:13:00.000+11:00

So my earliest memories of space are of the immediate neighbourhood in Box Hill South. If I may digress before I even get into this post, I found out this week that one of the blokes I now work with lived around the corner from me and in fact knew some of the kids I went to school with. It is a small world.

And back then it was even smaller. Childhood memories sometimes play like incomplete scenes in a movie and different days run into one another so we end up with an amalgam of images rather than distinct chapters and such are my memories of Merlynston.

Most people in Melbourne have never heard of this tiny suburb north of Coburg and on the edge of the Fawkner Cemetery. For a time my Grandfather was a grave digger there and a Chapel is named after my Uncle who for a long time was on the Board of the cemetery trust.

I was born not far from there and Mum moved back into a bungalow at the back of my Grandparents place at 55 Orvieto Street after I was born whilst they were saving for their own home. They had been living in a flat at Mordialloc for a few years.

But my memories of Merlynston don’t stretch back quite that far, they in fact begin on any one of dozens of weekends when we visited Nana and Pa which seemed to be at least fortnightly, usually on a Sunday. Now here my cousins may in fact say that my memories of Orvieto Street may well differ from theirs but for me they are very vivid.

Pa would generally meet us on the front porch and usually he’d have a 2 shilling piece to give us. Pa had his voice box removed after getting cancer of the larynx the year I was born and it was a source of grim fascination that he had a hole in his throat covered with a gauze square. He sort of talked with a wheezing croak that was really hard for me to understand. I wonder what his voice was like – did ne sing, did he have a baritone or tenor?

On the wall in the foyer was a crushed velvet belt containing badges that Pa had collected during his time with the New Zealand army in the First World War. On a cabinet at the end was a photo of my Uncle Keith in uniform and I have this vague recollection of a photograph of the Queen. On the side wall was a portrait of Nana’s Mum and Dad.

But it is the smell that stays with me mostly. Nana would inevitably be baking and the smells of fresh scones and roasting meat would greet us as we walked inside the front door. I loved the scones piping hot from the oven covered in melted butter and smothered in vegemite.

The lounge room to the left had a piano and Nana would sometimes sit down and play it for us and my favourite part were the big club chairs which I would perch myself in and read from the set of encyclopedia from a bookcase against one wall. In later years Nana had a huge 26 inch black and white TV with a hard wired remote control. I remember being fascinated by being able to actually sit in a chair and change a channel or turn the volume up and down. It was to be years before we had one at home.

The back yard had a lemon tree which legend had it was well watered by the men of the family. At the back of the yard was a wood shed and a chook house and if we were lucky, Pa would allow us to go down and collect the eggs. There was a massive nut tree – walnuts I think – that dominated one corner of the yard and my cousins Paul and I spent a fair bit of time climbing it.

But the magic place was Pa’s garage which we used to sneak into and poke around. It was full of tools and the cut down wagon that Pa used to push around the streets of Coburg whilst he collected beer bottles for return to the brewery. I still marvel at him as an octogenarian with one leg shorter than the other because he got blown up in France in the First World War, and no voice box because he had it removed as a 72 year old, pushing a cart laden with hessian sacks full of beer bottles for miles oblivious to the traffic he was holding up. In 1974 Pa was the first of my Grandparents to pass away and I have always counted myself lucky that I had all of them with me for so long.

There is much more to write about Merlynston and that will come shortly. I have asked my sisters and cousins to make a contribution as well and will post them as they come.

Summer Daze

2010-12-07T21:20:00.001+11:00

Sitting here with the wind rising and facing another day of record rainfall across the state tomorrow after two decades of drought, got,me thinking about summers past.   I'm facing my first Christmas as an orphan, if a 53 year old man can be an orphan and the excitement of Christmas approaching is tempered with the knowledge that both Mum and Dad are gone now and this is my first summer without them.

I remember the long summer days at Richardson Street, the smell of cut grass, of apples fermenting on the ground beneath the two trees in the front yard, of the wonderful scent of petrichor as the summer thunder storms rolled in.   There was no daylight saving in those days, but we stayed outside late anyway. No air conditioning, in the house, or at school, and in the cars we rolled the windows down, didn't press a button to keep them up and turn on the refrigeration.

Summer meant a crate of Loys softdrinks home delivered once a week, the weekend visits of Mr Whippy and chocolate coated ice cream cones.   It meant some beach visits where we'd tie meat to a string to catch crabs in rock pools at Ricketts Point.

It was hours spent in the Clark above ground pool, dragging ourselves in circles to create a whirlpool. Dad shifted that pool to half a dozen different places in the yard. We had no filter so he'd spend hours out there himself scooping leaves out and dosing it with chlorine that stung our eyes.

And on weekends were Dad's BBQ's, burnt sausages and the best hot chips you've ever tasted smothered in salt.

Summer meant a race with my sister Karen to see who could get the best tan. There was no slip, slop, slap campaign in those days. Instead we'd coat oursleves in coconut oil and lie on our towels on the footpath slowly basting in the heat. I generally won, and have had a couple of skin cancers cut out since to prove it.

The days were long and hot, the nights cool with the chirping of crickets. The days were simpler then before the times that meant there were too many summers to remember.

A Bleary Road Revisited - Weekend Rewind

2010-12-04T20:06:00.002+11:00

Over at Life in a Pink Fibro there is a Saturday tradition building of weekend called Weekend Rewind where old blog posts are dusted off and re-read.

This week I have dusted off one I called A Bleary Road.    It was written at a time when I was reflecting much on my childhood and the things that impacted upon the person I grew to be.   One of the interesting things about re-visiting the old posts for me is the comments and in particular the number of people who commeted at the time who now no longer seem to be blogging. Makes me realise that for many, blogging is something that happens for a reason and once that no longer exists we can move onto other things.

********************************
Now for an update on the week.   Check out Destination 3977 and you'll see that our block now has taps installed. But we still don't have finance confirmed although we do have provisional approval, and we now have to get a Town Planning permit because of an old scoop drain that used to run through the block.   We should have the loan sorted out in the next few days and the permit sometime in the next few weeks. That means that the chance of started the buiild pre-Christmas is diminshing rapidly.

Work continues to be busy, not a bad thing, with lots of documents to be written and certifiaction audits to be planned.   We should have the lease on our building finalised soon and then construction of the data centre can continue. Looks like I have a bit of an evolving sales role occuring as well which will be a relatively new experience for me.

We may have a buyer for our current house, at least there is someone interested in having a look. I spent the day today cleaning spouting, karchering paving and staining the front deck.   If the rain holds off again tomorrow I'll get a second coat on.

And we put up the Christmas tree on Thursday night with the help of the 3 daughters and one of the sons. Feels good to have it up this year after having Christmas come on us with way too much of a rush last year.

And that folks is a quick update of the week that was. Visit Life in a Pink Fibro and check out some of the other rewind articles.

One of those Days

2010-12-01T19:17:00.001+11:00

I should have stayed home yesterday. I'd been on and off the throne for around 12 hours and given things had slowed down a bit overnight I decided that I'd attempt to get to work because I'd set up a few meetings that I didn't want to postpone.   Let me just say that sharting isn't fun and I thought that it would be safer to drive in than catch the train so that in the event that the urge to purge hit me mid way I'd have the chance to make a quick stop and dash for the dunny [yes that word again].

Not only had I been on the crapper more than I care to, but my lady was also crook and expelling stuff from the opposite end to me.

After an hour and a half of battling traffic, proving that I generally make the right decision catching a train and tram and reading a book, I arrived at work. Now we are currently still negotiating our lease of these premises so we are at the mercy of the people who share the building with us because they are the ones with the keys. Normally someone is there at around 8:15 am but yesterday they didn't arrive until 9.   I walked...taking my mind off the churning of the gut and wishing to hell that they would hurry up before it became very embarrasing.

We got inside and on hooking up our laptops found our network down and we were without access to the internet and emails, which these days is a big deal.    Then as we sat down to work one of my colleagues received a phone call telling him that a mate had dropped dead. But the day got better after that, as did my gut, thankfully.

So some days are better than others and I've learnt that it is all about context, an upset tummy isn't as bad as carking, and a delay in connecting on line isn't the end of the world. And here's a clip from Louis C K that does talk about context.

Peacock

2010-11-30T18:00:00.000+11:00

Here's another Dad joke sent to me by a mate of mine - don't read if you're offended by political incorrectness :)

I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes (he is 84).
We decided to grab a bite at the food court.

I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him.

The teenager had spiked hair in all different colours: green, red, orange, and blue.

My dad kept staring at him.

The teenager would look and find him staring every time.

When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically asked:
'What's the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?'

Knowing my Dad, I quickly swallowed my food so that I would not choke on his response; knowing he would have a good one.

And in classic style he did not bat an eye in his response:

'Got stoned once and fucked a peacock. I was just wondering if you were my son.'

Young Monks

2010-11-29T19:44:00.002+11:00

I should say that our Thailand trip was with Intrepid Travel and that we would gladly go with them again. We had a terrific time spent travelling with locals and enjoying the local hospitality. This set of photos are of some young Burmese Monks who were staying in a temple in a village near Chiang Mai where we enjoyed a homestay.

What was he thinking????

2010-11-28T23:23:00.000+11:00

Most people would know that men's toilets aren't the most hygenic of places. Today whilst doing some shopping for the new house and printing off some of the photos you folks have chosen over the past couple of weeks, I decided that I needed a leak.

The gents is down at the end of a long corridor, past the parents room and the ladies, outside of which is a couch, on which a bloke was perched obviously waiting for his missus. On the floor immediately outside the entrance to the mens was a kid about three years old.

"I'm gonna roll down to you Dad." he said, and proceeded to roll down the floor to the bloke sitting on the chair.

Now inside the dunny on the floor beneath the urinals were puddles of piss. There was no way anyone, who'd been in the toilet could miss getting his shoes wet, and in getting them wet, trailing wet footprints out and into the corridor where this kid was rolling towards his old man. And what did the Dad say -
"Are you going to roll all the way down to me?"

Now even if he hadn't been in there and seen the state of the floor, what type of bloke would let his kid roll around on a floor anywhere near a water closet????

Land is settled

2010-11-27T09:30:00.000+11:00

Well we are now the owners of a new plot of land in Cranbourne North.   Actually we fully own a bit and the bank through a mortgage owns the rest but not forever.

We are still waiting on the construction loan to be approved and whilst our builder has scheduled us to start on Tuesday that will now have to be postponed. The bank valuer is still refusing to budge on the grounds that houses the value of ours haven't been sold in the area and therefore he won't put the right value on either the land or on the construction.    Our broker has been busily tracking down sales in the area and has now gone back to the valuer with evidence of similar sized houses in the area having been sold for between $50k and $100k more than what he has valued ours at.

The other option we are pursuing is discharging the mortgage on our current house and taking that to the CBA as well, thus including the equity we have in this one in the overall formula. Even if this one is valued at the lower end of the range we will still save $10k in mortgage insurance. The only problem is this will all take time which will mean delays in building and possibly in our place in the queue.   In any event I am hoping it will be sorted out in the next fortnight.

It's not 80-30

2010-11-26T18:00:00.000+11:00

And in visiting yet another on my blogroll Pearl over at "Pearl, Why you little..." wrote a post about carrying a notebook everwhere and writing down things that become fodder for her posts and I remembered I overheard something on the train the other day that I was going to mention but had forgotten about.

A young girl talking loudly on her iPhone said "It's a 50-50 proposition you know, it's not like it's 80-30..."

Now there's a budding economist.

Doi Sutep Magic

2010-11-25T19:38:00.001+11:00

This was a magical night and I would urge anyone visiting Chiang Mai to make the treck up the mountain to the temple at Doi Sutep for the evening prayers. As the sun goes down the gold leaf of the temple comes to life. Again please indulge me with your opinions of which photos I should print off and hang on the wall.

Will Congress Repeal Health Care Reform?

2010-11-23T20:20:00.001+11:00

Today I am putting up a guest post from Barbara O'Brien whose main blog is The Mahablog. A little while back Barbara contacted me and asked if I would allow her to guest post on this blog and after bit of toing and froing, mainly because I didn't really see what benefit there was to her in publishing an American Health story on an Aussie Blog, she sent through the article below for me.

Here is what she wrote to me -

My name is Barbara O’ Brien and my blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere on the progressive political and health blogophere has earned me the notoriety of being a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.
I’m contacting you because I found your blog in a health care site search and wanted to reach out to you to tell you about my newest blogging platform —the public concern of healthcare and its relationto the baby boomer and those over the age of 40.
My main goal is to increase awareness on these important issues, and Iwas hoping you could help me. I am interested in providing you a guest post to be placed, but I realize this may not be a viable option. I am also willing to inquire about link opportunities. I hope to hear back from you soon.

Namaste,

Barbara O’ Brien
Barbaraobrien (at) maacenter.org

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Interlude:
Now in my lifetime I have voted for all main political parties in this country, except the Greens [and don't get me started on that bunch of fairies at the bottom of the garden], but as I've gotten older I've probably tended more towards the slight right of centre, mainly because I believe that they are better economic managers. However, there are two areas where I am probably a bit more of a socialist and that is in the areas of Education and Health Care. People, in our society have fundamentals rights to a good education, good health care and I'll throw in the right to feel safe and secure as well.

I believe that we in Australia are generally in pretty good shape from a health care viewpoint when compared to others. Sure we have problems with waiting lists, and ambulance delays and shortages of beds, but most times, people who get sick and need help can get it. And that is why I've agreed to put up this post by Barbara - from what I know of the American system, it sucks, and whilst we have political interference in health care reform in my country, it pales into insignificance, compared to what appears to be happening in the States. I make no judgement on whether Barbara is right or wrong here and would be really interested in any comments, you as readers care to make.

So here is Barbara's post.

Will Congress Repeal Health Care Reform?

As soon as Republicans knew they had won a majority of House seats in the midterm elections, GOP leaders vowed to repeal health care reform. Can they do this? And should they?

Frankly, chances that the health care reform bill could be repealed completely are remote, especially since such repeal would have to override President Obama's veto, and the Senate still has a Democratic majority.

House Republicans say they have some tricks up their sleeves, such as refusing to provide funds in the budget to implement health care reform. However, provisions of the law that will expand Medicaid and help subsidize private insurance won't kick in until 2014. Until then, there's not much the House can do to the budget to stop health care reform from going forward, short of defunding the entire Health and Human Services department.

Another "trick" might be to dismantle the bill piece by piece. One provision that many people want to remove is the individual mandate, which will require most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a tax penalty. This provision also kicks in in 2014, and it's one that Baby Boomers in particular will want to fight to keep.

Here's why: Beginning in 2014, private insurance companies will no longer be able to refuse to insure someone because of a pre-existing condition. But without an individual mandate, there will be no incentive for younger and healthier people to purchase health insurance until the time comes when they need it. This means those left in the insurance "risk pool" will be older, and that drives up the cost of insurance.

By the time we reach 50, nearly all of us have "pre-existing conditions." Some of our conditions are common, and some are not -- mesothelioma, for example, is rarely diagnosed in patients younger than 50. And without Medicare or other good insurance, mesothelioma treatment would be financially devastating.

But without the individual mandate requiring that healthier people share in the cost of insuring all of us, the health insurance premium bills for people aged 50 to 65 will be ruinous. We can scrap health care reform entirely, of course, but keep in mind that if you lose your insurance before you reach Medicare age you may not be able to purchase insurance at all, at any price, if you have a pre-existing condition.

Kites

2010-11-22T18:00:00.005+11:00

Funny how sometimes memories are triggered by unexpected things. I was browsing some of the blogs I follow the other night when I came across a post on Gaelikaa's diary about kites and how her son loves them and it brought me back to a time when my Dad made me a kite.

Dad was a commercial taveller - a salesman these days - for a paper merchant company and we were never short of stuff for school, pens, pencils, paper, lunch bags. You name it and Dad would bring it home.

I must have been around five or six and Dad decided that he would build me a kite. He got two bits of one inch square timber, somehow fastened them together with string and no matter how tight he tied them they still moved around.

He then got some heavy thick brown paper which he drew a face on with the Derwent pencils he'd appropriated and glued it to the timber cricifix.   After punching a hole through the nose on the face he then tied on heavy twine and finally a tail made out of ripped up material.   I don't remember what it was he ripped up but knowing Dad, it was probably a dozen pair of old y-front undies.

I swear when it was finished it must have weighed about 10 kilos.   Still, we ran up and down the street for hours and every time we launched it into the air, it crashed straight back down to the ground.     The paper tore, the frame loosened and splintered and the only time it got more than 6 inches off the ground was when we threw it as high as we could.     It was completely devoid of any aero dynamic properties and proved that a kite didn't have to fly to be fun because it didn't matter, he made it for me.

Settlement is coming

2010-11-21T20:05:00.002+11:00

After buying our block of land in January we will finally own it on Friday. We've been talking over the last week about whether or not we should delay the build until after we sell our curent house because we have to borrow more than 80% of the cost and the bank wants to charge us around $19,000 in mortgage insurance.

The bank will only value our land at what we paid for it back in January despite the fact that you try and buy a block of similar size to ours on the estate now, you'd be paying at least $50k more. And to add insult to injury they are only valuing our build at $30k less than what it is costing us. The problem is they don't look at the plans they base the entire assessment on the price per square meter for a built house in the same suburb have been going for recently. That's despite the fact that there are many houses bigger and more expensive than ours being built in the same estate now. No wonder these pricks made $5 billion profit this year.

So the bank wants me to pay insurance for them in the event that I renege on the loan and the house is worth less than what is owed on it they can claim on that insurance. Not me - I can't claim, even though I'm paying for it. How does that work? Never mind that since I bought my first home in 1982 I have never been late on a payment, not once.

What a rort. I understand why the bank needs to protect themselves but why do I have to pay a premium for insurance when in three months time I'd be under the limit anyway? Any bankers out there please explain.

Anyway - delaying the build would mean we'll have to rent somewhere, which means moving twice and probably also having to put stuff in storage. We'd have to find a place that would let us bring our dogs and it's just too much of a friggin pain in the arse to go that way. So we'll pay the bloody insurance and get the place built so we can move in and enjoy it.

On a much more pleasant note, thanks to the wonders of the internet, we have met a number of our new neighbours already and we're both really looking forward to moving into the area and putting down new roots.

My lady is keeping the entire house building saga up to date on her blog Destination 3977 so please feel free to pop in and say hello.

Doi Sutep

2010-11-19T19:32:00.001+11:00

Post three of my Thailand photos - this time of a little Hill Tribe girl we saw at Doi Sutep overlooking Chiang Mai. Let's have your votes folks.

Fantastic 4

2010-11-17T21:24:00.003+11:00

It's been a long time since I started or took part in a meme, and on returning to blogging over the past few months after a period of time when I wrote little it would seem that maybe they aren't as popular as they once were. So I'm gonna try another one and invite each of you to take part.

We all write our blogs for different reasons, for me, it began as a place to explore my feelings and has changed a fair bit over time depending on what is happening in my life. So just like ourselves our readers also come and go so there's a good chance that most of you who visit this blog now have not dipped much, if at all, into my past posts.

I'm calling this meme the Fantastic 4 and the challenge is to choose 4 old posts that will tell us something about each other that we may not know if we are new readers. So here are my 4 -

Blink of an eye revisited from 18 October 2008

The Heart of the Onion from 3 November 2007

Musical Memories from 21 June 2007

Remember when Mum said if you ate an apple core from 16 April 2009

This one is a Blog Hop so write your own Fantastic 4 post and leave the link below where it says "Click here to enter". And remember to leave some comments as you move around the blogs.

Buddha

2010-11-15T19:31:00.003+11:00

The second in my series of posts asking you which ones I should print off frame and hang on the wall. These are of the Buddha statues found in the ancient ruins of Sukothai.

With great age comes...

2010-11-14T20:49:00.000+11:00

I am about to start the third week of my new job. This is a new start up company and we are building a new data centre in an inner city suburb, so at this stage we have a total of 17 people on board, mainly project managers and network architects. My role, at least initially, is to commence the process towards achieving certification in a number of ISO standards - ISO 9001 Quality Management, ISO27001 Information Security Management, ISO 14001 Enviroment Mangement, ISO 20001 ICT Service Mangement, and ISO 30001 Risk Mangement, to name a few. There are a few of those I have a fair bit of experience with and others I'll be learning but that's part of the fun and not really the purpose of this post.

I have just realised that for the first time in my life I am actually the oldest person in my work place and that scares me a bit. Not sure I'm ready to don the mantle of the wise old sage no matter how white my beard is. To paraphrase Spiderman I am aware that with great age comes great responsibility and being a bit of a tosser I feel the weight of responsibility. At least the Dad jokes are still getting laughs.

Vicroads - WTF????

2010-11-13T09:46:00.000+11:00

Thursday was Remembrance Day marked to remember the end of World War 1. It is traditional in my country to wear a Red Poppy and as a mark of respect to observe a minutes silence at 11 am. I have attended the funerals of many relatives of mine who have served our country and have placed red poppies on their coffins or in their graves. It was great to see the number of young people this week wearing poppies, pinned on suits and t-shirts, dresses and blouses. That for me is a wonderful sign for our future.

In my home town of Melbourne the Shrine of Remembrance was designed so that at precisely the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month a sunbeam would shine through the roof of the cenotaph and illuminate a memorial in the base of the building. When daylight saving was introduced a mirror was set up to intercept the beam and ensure that it still passed at the correct time.

This week we got the news that Vicroads, our vehicle registration, licensing and road construction and maintenance authority had decided that they would no longer observe the minutes silence. In fact what they said was -
"VicRoads have not observed a minute's silence for a number of years as they are conscious of possible different cultural issues and don't wish to cause offence."

And in saying that, they have offended my culture and those of any person who believes that we should remember the sacrifices made and the fact that the end of wars is far more important to remember than the start of them. This is Political Correctness gone mad once again. The idiot that thought this was a good idea ought to be sacked. The goose who wrote the press release ought to go back to school and learn a bit more about the difference between being culturally sensitive and understanding the reason for marking a day like this goes way beyond any cultural differences any of us may have.