We're in!

Only four Kingston Beach sunrises left

House progress

We haven't got a key yet, so I took these while snooping around outside yesterday morning.

Big Week

I haven't blogged for a while, as there has been too much going on to actually stop and write about it. This is the central dilemma of blogging - people doing interesting things are too busy to write about them. It's when life slows down that you have time to write, and then you write about lawn bowls.

Last week was quite dramatic. Marcus was sent to the principal on Monday, and again on Tuesday, for failing to keep his anger under control at school. We responded by taking away every privilege he has for a week. He definitely improved his attitude each subsequent day at school. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and cannot resist giving advice even after being asked to be quiet and sit down. He is one of the youngest in his class, and sometimes his emotional development is clearly less than the older kids around him.

On Sunday Mum accompanied Dad to Melbourne for medical tests on some constricted arteries that were thought to need surgery in the next few months. When the results of the tests appeared it was decided to act immediately, and suddenly Mum was on the phone explaining that Dad would have heart surgery the next day. On Wednesday he had a double bypass, and a valve replaced. He has recovered very well and today was released from the ICU.

It's been hard for Mum, and quite lonely. Her relief when Dad came through the unexpected surgery must have been overwhelming. Sally is going over to spend a couple of days with Mum this week, our friend Vincent has taken Mum for lunch, and she is now generally feeling much more comfortable in Melbourne.

Vincent's wife Andy has been expecting twins to arrive any day, so we really appreciated him taking time to be with Mum. He has just called tonight to say that they were born today, a boy and girl, and they are all well. We are delighted for them - they have been wonderful friends to us, and they now children which they have wanted more than anything.

In house news, we are moving in on Friday 28th, that is five days away as I write. Elf has organised everything superbly. This weekend we went into top gear with packing up everything at the Beach House. We had our last walk to the beach today. The spare room is filled to shoulder height with boxes.

The new house is looking fantastic. The upstairs floor looks to be finished. The cupboards all have handles. There are steps to the back deck and balustrades everywhere. The new driveway has been poured - Greg has made it wider than we really wanted. It occured to me that in eleven or twelve years Marcus will need somewhere to park his Datsun 200B - it might squeeze in. By then the daggy old L plater car to have will probably be a Hyundai Getz.

In among all this my soccer team won the Grand Final 11-9. Now we have three weeks off and possibly go up a grade.

Roast chook & ballet

Last weekend we had an afternoon at Cam and Sarah's house, and stayed for roast dinner. Marcus and Jasmine get on very well, they were in the same room at daycare in their youth. At one stage I heard Marcus say to Jasmine "Hey - let's knock each other over!" I suggested Jasmine might instead teach Marcus some of her ballet moves. This was quite successful and they spent some time balancing, pointing their toes and generally bolshoi-ing about.

A few days later Elf took Marcus to a dance class, (she had been thinking of it for a while) and he really took to it. He often bursts into spontaneous tap-dance routines around the house, so perhaps channelling that tendency is a good thing.




Michael got to know Jasmine's little brother Tommy, and they shared their love of magnetic letters. Michael is obsessed with spelling out a few specific things at present: Sticky Heads (seen here), Monsters Inc, Dreamworks, and most recently Cats. He has been building letters out of Lego for some time, and lately has pestered us to help him build letters and assemble words out of Mega Bloks. M O N S T E R S I N C takes a long time and occupies most of the loungeroom floor.

A couple of days ago he made a quantum leap by assembling the letters himself and arranging them to spell C A T S. He announced what he had done, and while we all oohed and aahed and wowed, he did a neat little bow, like a conductor. We just don't know where this stuff comes from, but we love it.

Semi Final :: Knackered 10 d DOTWS 6

The DOTWS youngsters gave us a bit of a scare. We had a lot of trouble getting past them early on. When we did squeeze a couple of goals through they hit back quickly. It was 3-3 at half time.

Th second half started at a manic pace with goals at both ends. They kept catching us on quick breaks. We decided to slow it down, hold the ball and try to break up their momentum. It worked very well, and we caught our breath at the same time. We we felt by then that we had their measure, it just took us until about the last four minutes to translate that into a good lead. DOTWS ran out of time in the end.

Next week we will meet Guidos, one of the tougher teams, in the final.

House Update 29

Whither primary school footy?

Primary school football seems to be a thing of the past. Most ovals at the schools I am familiar with either have no goalposts or they are obviously not in use (one missing, for instance). Marcus was discussing this on the way to school this morning. I mentioned that I had seen a framed football jumper in the hallway at his school, perhaps the school guernsey from days of yore. He thought for a moment then said "I wonder what they were called - maybe the Hobart Hopelesses. If they weren't any good, I mean".

Brampton Panda Brampton

The British Bulldog Pedigree index. Worth a browse if you need cheering up. These are my top twenty from just the As and Bs. I was going to do the "spot the one I made up" game, but its pointless. They are just too silly. A special mention to Merriveen Son of Satan, who is Balfour Action Man of LaRoyal's great great great grandfather.

Allithorne Rodney
Ambassadors Quite Amazing of Quintic
Ameswaite Starturn
Amurton Dirty Harry at Kingrock
Atomstone Scarlet Lord
Audstan Sigmund Snugglebutt at Aceeye
Axters Plum Pudding
Balfour Action Man of LaRoyal [pictured here]

Barranco Slack-Ma-Girdle
Baytor Greathill Bunty
Belushi De-La-Soul
Berrybrook Born To Boogie
Blockbuster Rawburn Fleance
Bowcrest Automatic Choice
Brampton Panda Brampton
Brenuth Bye Jings
Britishpride Cream Cake
Bronorn Cheeky Monkey
Bryneatons Bikini
Brumigum Stroller Boy of the Regions

Q:Where can I purchase snert?

A: Here.

A recipe for snert

We had the K family around to visit this morning. They were on their way to the Margate Train, a stationary but genuine old train, with the carriages converted into little shops. There is a cafe spread across about three carriages, which seems to specialise in Dutch food. Above the windows are white boards with the names of their specialities in caps. SERIOUS COFFEE. SPEK PANKOEKEN. COLD DRINKS. SNERT.

Littlest K is actually known by her parents as Snert, so this was very amusing. I have now found a recipe so for anyone who would like to whip up a batch of snert, here y' go. (From www.jewish-food.org/recipes/snert.htm)

DUTCH SPLIT PEA SOUP (SNERT)

500 gram split peas
Stock cubes
2 chicken breasts
500 gram meatloaf
Vegatables for soup
Some pepper
If you like it an onion

Put the peas in a pan, pour water on it and let it rest overnight. the peas will be swollen the next morning.

Use the water in the pan and add some more. You can use a big pan and fill it for 3/4 with (cold) water.

Put the pan on the stove, and let it heat up slowly on a low fire. Add the chicken breast, which are chopped.

I don't know how many stock cubes have to be used, that depends how much salt you like in soup.

Make little balls of the meatloaf and add that too. (we here in Holland have minced beef).

Let the soup boil for one hour on a low fire. Stir now and then. When the soup looks like a green smoothly porridge, add the vegetables and let it boil another 10 minutes. Don't forget to stir. It easily burns on the bottom.

You can add a chopped onion too, and if you like it some pepper.

Knackered 14 d Red Devils 3

We won again, finish top of the ladder and next week will meet Richo's Seven in a semi. Daniel played his last game for us and played very well. Ben flew in from Melbourne to keep goal, which was a luxury. We had 2 subs for the first time ever which felt weird. We have been cantering along pretty easily, but we are wary of unseen quality players who might suddenly bob up now that things are getting serious.

Noodle Snacks, Venom Ooze

Marcus brought home a copy of Just Kidding magazine from school. Somehow the publishers have managed to get one distributed to every kid at the school, or possibly every school in Tasmania. There is a bit of an issue there, as it is packed full of advertising for movies, toys and "JJ's Chicken Flavour Noodle Snacks".

However, I am only mentioning it here because the Spiderman 3 toy spiels are so funny. I haven't seen the movie, so my mirth is unsullied by any understanding of what the hell they are all about.

Battle Damage Spider-Man 
Features a swiveling torso for super-symbiote, double-punch action! Highly detailed and posable, this figure comes with a symbiote ooze figure and a Spider-Man peel-off sticker!

Spider-Man Vs. Venom Symbiote
Load the Symbiote with the included Venom Ooze and press the plunger to spew ooze from its mouth.

Punch Attack Sandman
This Sandman figure has interchangeable hands! Press the lever for smashing sand-punch action!

Michael explores

In his recent work Michael explores the grey area between typography and ikebana.

Its all going very 7004

Roar Film have moved to 2 Gore Street, South Hobart. We did the move on Friday. I have got a fairly nice corner of the old ballroom. It's very sunny compared to the old church in Hill St. We only had windows on the south side there, so the light didn't exactly flood in. At this time of year it was positively cavelike by 3pm.

We went for a walk up to Mondos for a pie for lunch, then across the bridge to Melinda's for a cup of tea. It's going to be terrific being so close. Tomorrow will be my first chance to drop off Marcus at school, then trot down the rivulet track 5 minutes to work (rather than over hill and dale for 35 minutes).

After collecting everyone I took them back to Gore Street to have a look. I don't do that family-socialising-with-work thing very often, so the boys haven't had many chances to talk to my workmates. My boss Steve quizzed Marcus about his football preferences. Turning to Michael he asked "And are you going to school yet Michael?" "Hmm, pretty much".

A nice touch - our new postcode is 7004, phone is 6223 7005, and fax 6223 7006. It's all going to look terribly tidy on the letterhead.

Knackered 10 d Richo's Seven 3

This game was very tight in the first half. Richo's is another team of guys younger, fitter and more numerous than us, who just can't score enough goals. They did pretty well to be 4-3 down at half time. My goalkeeping has improved, but they still scored two during my 5 minutes of custodianship. The ref was a) pedantic and b) frequently wrong. I am smart enough now to keep my mouth shut on the court, but I am happy to tell the whole www that he's a self-important little jerk who loves the sound of his own voice and if he had any friends would probably be otherwise occupied on a Friday night.

We closed the game out in the second half without too much trouble. I pinged three goals which were all very nice. I read something today that said the key to happiness was to forget about your weaknesses, and focus on what you're good at. So I am just patting myself on the back (publicly) for being able to score with both feet. It's not feeding the hungry or solving the water crisis, but as those are weaknesses of mine I'm ignoring them.