Mum turns 70

Our adorable mother turned 70 on Friday. She doesn't seem anything like my imagined picture of a seventy-year-old, so I am now updating my imagined picture to match. Try to keep up, you other 70 year olds! [to be fair this pic was taken in 2007]

I have to thank Mum's brother Peter for alerting me to the fact that this birthday was a biggie. In fact when he called my first reaction was "Er... do you mean sixty?" Peter was stuck in Hong Kong on a business trip and couldn't be at the party we had yesterday, but we are looking forward to seeing him down here very soon. The last time he was in Tasmania, a black and white photo was taken of him holding me - I'm wearing a very fetching size 0 romper suit.

It's amazing to think that Mum was born during World War 2, while her dad was away in New Guinea fighting the Japanese. The world has changed so much in that time.

Here in Tasmania in 2011, we had a big lunch in Mum's honour yesterday. There was much too much food, but that is standard. We started with a walk - out the back gate and then up, up, up to the very top of the hill. Before Mum and Dad moved down south, Mum went on quite demanding walks every Monday with a group of ladies. Yesterday's was just a trundle compared to that, but still too much for the boys, who turned back threequarters of the way up, taking Elf and Winston with them.

Shortly after we got back, Sally and Matt and Arthur arrived and the serious eating began. I bought some massive king prawns and made a curry coconut dip to go with. Dad and I were struggling with the whole de-veining thing, and I had to get Mum to come to the rescue. She grew up in Sydney where a bucket of prawns was about as common as fish fingers today. I also made a blue cheese dip which was just right - not too bland, but also not belting you around the head with bitey-ness.

Then we had lemon and dill salmon with roasted vegies. I bought the fish already marinated, and cooked up the violently green marinade to serve as a sort of olive-green gravy. The boys did not like the salmon, which is a shame because they love it when it's not gussied up this way. The fillets were all different sizes and I didn't quite match up the rare and well-done ones with the right people - but complaints were muted and it was generally well-received.

One of Dad's duties was to bring some of Mum's favourite music. We started with Andrea Boccelli, an Italian tenor who unfortunately hangs out with some bad 80s-style session rock guitarists. I put up with this as I ran around because I know he is dear to Mum's heart. When it finished, Dad put on the greatest hits of Roger Miller. During Chug-A-Lug I asked Mum - do you actually like Roger Miller? Mum was non-committal.

Sally made an amazing baked lemon cheesecake, and Mum blew out the candles in one go. I forgot to mention that I'd decided to make mocktails - as none of us are big drinkers and it would a) include the kids and b)make us less likely to doze off mid-afternoon. It was while I was mixing the second round of pineapple/apricot/cream frothies that I reflected it had been a bad day for my cholesterol-lowering campaign.

As is the way of these things, eventually the footy on the TV went on, people fell asleep (despite mocktails), and events noodled to a conclusion. I was dog-tired, went for a short lie down at the boys' bedtime, and crashed hard. Organising things is outside my comfort zone, and I think I had probably been over-revving my brain a little bit for the occasion.

A quiet Saturday at Bellerive

It's been a soggy two weeks or so. Soccer has been repeatedly cancelled, so Marcus has been going a little stir-crazy. We had an early warning that due to the state of grounds, last weekend's games would be off regardless of weather, so I decided to take advantage of a free Saturday and take Marcus to the football with my Dad. As it happened it was reasonably mild and sunny, a pleasant day for sitting out in the open and watching a fairly unimportant football game.

We went to Bellerive to see mighty Clarence play lowly Hobart. The football grounds are generally all mudbaths too at the moment, but thanks to the bazillions of dollars spent on it, Bellerive drains beautifully. It merits the money because it is actually an international Test cricket ground. The fact you can go along with about 300 other people and watch 36 blokes run all over it in studded boots seems pretty amazing, but the same happens at most Australian cricket grounds in winter.

You can even go out on the famous turf in the breaks between quarters and kick the footy around yourself - one of the things that local footy has over the AFL. (The others are affordable food, easy parking and ... well that's about it really). Local ABC TV were covering the game with two cameras, so while Marcus and I capered about on field I sucked in my gut and tried to look as sporty as possible.

Hobart are the Tigers and wear the Richmond guernsey, so of course Marcus and I were determined to support them, but they are a bit of a hapless outfit. (Even more so than Richmond). They started fairly brightly but by half time they were about five goals adrift of Clarence (who are the Roos but wear the white/red Sydney guernsey). The second half was worse - with about five minutes left Clarence had kicked another 10 goals to one. Hobart squeezed in one more before full time mercifully came. Final score 20.15 (135) to 7.8 (50).

The crowd was so tiny that the fella with the winning raffle ticket numbers just carried them around on a little board and showed it to the spectators one by one. The sprinkling of Tiger diehards would have probably added up to about 80 if clumped together. For the Clarence faithful it was about as exciting as watching a training run. As we filed out of the ground, past the statue of Boonie, there was a distinct lack of buzz. Even the bloke who won the raffle didn't look too thrilled at having to carry home his new, cheap, vacuum cleaner. But the three of us enjoyed our day out.

We went back over to Mum and Dad's new place for a cup of tea and some post-game analysis. Mum gave Marcus half a bottle of fizzy drink, and sent the rest home with us for Michael, along with a little choccie each. Ensuring kids get a regular top-up of sugar is such a classic Grandma thing isn't it?

Acting like a mug

Last Sunday our old pals Simon and Mary and daughter Miranda came over for lunch, and an afternoon of board games. They love a board game, whereas we do have some board games but only get them out in desperate situations. Anyway, we all had fun (although Michael refused to participate), and one of the games we played was a charades card game, suitable for all ages. You pick up a card, with four different words on it, and then throw a dice to tell you which one you have to try to silently convey.

Elf was so impressed that she bought us a copy of the game. We had Mum and Dad staying with us again this week, so one evening we got it out and played a game with them, plus Marcus - Michael again refused to participate.

The funniest part of it was my Dad, deciding that no matter what the word was, the best way to get it across was to try to personify the thing. To begin with, he crouched down, crossed his arms over his head, and stayed still for about 20 seconds, while we all shouted squat! lump! crouch! dwarf! rock! shrub! etc. Then he stood up and tried plan B - which looked a little like what the late James Brown called "mashing potatoes". Time ran out. It was bin.

Next word - Dad crouched down, crossed his arms over his head, and stayed still for about 15 seconds, while we all shouted Squat! Squeeze! Crouch! Bin! Hide! To help, Dad started indicating with some sort of curving motion that he had a tail, or possibly an electrical cord. Mouse! Squirrel! Toaster! This one was mug.

My best effort was when I conveyed, simply through two wafts of my hands and a very vacant expression, the concept of jellyfish.

Parents find a house in The Bay

Mum and Dad have finally found a house after months of searching. They have been driving down from the north west coast each Thursday, and back up each Monday, spending just about every waking moment down south house-hunting, and up north packing.

At last a place has come up that fits their price-range, has a flat walk to the shops, and is reasonably near the water. The only problem is that it's in Geilston Bay and none of us can agree on how to pronounce it.

I favour Jeels-tun. Elf prefers the hard G of Geels-tun. Then there is the (never heard but equally likely) Gails-tun, as in the J. Geils Band (you may remember their 80s hit Centrefold [My baby is a]). It would be exaggerating to say that its tearing the family apart, but it is certainly an issue we never needed to worry about before.

The old house at Turners Beach is now empty, and Mum and Dad are staying with friends nearby for a couple of days, then they will come and stay with us for probably the last time. Then they will drive over the river to their new home in The Bay, as we had best call it.

Saturday night situation report

It is half time. I am wrapped in a rug watching the Richmond v Essendon night footy game. I am drinking a long neck bottle of Dad's home brew. A ten kilo puppy sleeps by my feet. My wife cycles 12 kilometres silently beside me, reading a murder mystery as she goes. On the table in front of me, all my 1970s footy cards have been sorted into teams by the boys, working together civilly. But best of all, we have not had to mop up any puppy urine since about 8 o'clock this morning. Hallelujah.

Birthday part 1

I had my 42nd birthday last week. Ideally I like birthdays to just slide by without much fuss. I think it's because I don't like fuss generally, rather than any dislike of growing old. I actually find growing old quite interesting. Anyway, a small amount of fuss was made, and that was OK. My mum and dad drove down to spend a few days with us, and Elf cooked a nice curry dinner. On my actual birthday she had to organise a work event, so I cooked a nice salmon dinner for myself, Mum and Dad and the kids, and Sally and Matt came over too. I scored a couple of nice books as gifts, one on the history of Penguin book covers was particularly beaut [but I chose it so that is perhaps cheating].

Elf knew I wouldn't stand for a party, but she had a great idea instead. She sent stamped addressed envelopes and cheap 'n' cheerful blank birthday cards to all my friends she could find addresses for, and reminded them it was my birthday. The cards arrived en masse over a few days. It took me a while to twig that there was something afoot. The writing on the envelopes was suspiciously familiar, and the messages on some of the 30 cards betrayed bemusement and/or slight reluctance. They cracked me up.

Despite all this I was a bit of a sad sack for a lot of the week. Minor things kept going wrong (after the major thing, losing my glasses) and I had a continual feeling that if everything would just STOP ... ah, it would be so nice. But it didn't. Since New Years Day I have lost my wallet and glasses and my watch has stopped for good (ironically) - so in general I am not quite feeling myself.

Jazz, man, jazz.

On Thursday night I went to the Clarence Jazz Festival with Mum and Dad, at the old Rosny Schoolhouse site. They've always been big jazz fans, and have been meaning to get to this annual groove-fest for years. They made sure of it this year because my sister Sally was featured as an artist-in-residence. She is a video artist, and had made two different pieces on show around the site.

When I arrived Mum and Dad were watching a fairly trad combo on the main stage. There is a unique crowd dynamic with trad jazz - the "clapping after the solo" phenomenon. When the trumpeter finishes his fancy bit, and the sax player starts his, there is a little time lag and then people give him a hand. A really good solo gets a big round that drowns out the first half of the next solo. "Trad" is probably not accurate - there was no banjo, straw boaters or suspenders. Perhaps "classic jazz" is a better description. The vocalist/alto sax was very Vince Jones-y.

When the trad guys finished we went to see the next act, inside an old stone barn, built in 1815. One of Sal's works was looping on a screen on the back wall. She filmed ten jazz standards, as "sung" by three different sign language practitioners. It worked very well - there was no sound, but Sal said she knew many of the audience would know the words very well anyway.

While it looped silently behind us we watched a tight jazz-rock-blues combo called King Cake - Randall Muir and Pete Cornelius on keys and guitars, and a drummer from Melbourne. They reminded me a lot of Directions In Groove who were a Triple-J radio staple in the nineties, although King Cake were purely instrumental.

At one point they did a very modified version of Cocaine by JJ Cale. At the end Randall called out "Can you pick it?" Sally was briefly thrilled to the core as she thought he had asked "Can you dig it?", and and of course everyone lives for the moment when a jazz man actually says that.

During a break between sets it was time to go out and see Sal's second piece, which was consisted of three films projected one after the other in different locations around the yard. Sal had filmed her mouth in extreme close up, miming along to three more standards - I forget the first, but the next were Ella Fitzgerald doing A Tisket A Tasket, and Fats Waller doing Seafood Dinner - I hope that's right. All you could see were the red lips, projected up into a tree, onto a pile of boulders, and on a screen behind some kind of historic 9-pane window. It was entertaining and very well done.

Spending a day at square leg

Today my dad and I took Marcus, Malachy and Brin to the Test cricket, Australia v Pakistan. I had never seen a Test live, so I was quite excited really. This was day 2 of a (possible) 5 days. At the end of day 1 Australia was cruising so we were hoping to see more of the same, and we did. The chaps who made centuries yesterday went on with it, with Ricky Ponting actually getting to 209.

I was quite pleased with my packing; I put in loads of food and we ate nearly all of it, we ended up briefly wearing the just-in-case jumpers, and all the technology I squeezed in (binoculars, little radio, Marcus's iPod for the not-so-lively bits) came in handy.

At one of the drinks breaks Malachy and Marcus and I had gone around the back of the grandstand to look at the various kiddie attractions they have, such as Wii-style game booths and so on. Since they have banned bringing actual balls and actual bats into the ground, they obviously feel obliged to provide something else to help the whippersnappers pass the time.

While we were gawping a smart looking young official with dynamic hair and a laminate swinging came up and asked if the boys would like to play Milo cricket on the ground in the lunch break. And... meet the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. They both said yes, although I don't think Kev was a big factor.

There was of course a huge amount of indoor faffing to do beforehand, which meant missing about an hour of real grown-up cricket. Kev came in, flanked by Daves; Premier of Tasmania, David Bartlett, and legend of cricket David Boon. He clowned a little in front of a backdrop of kids that looked great this evening on the news. He did a little of that "laughing" thing his people have taught him where he closes his eyes, tilts his head back a little then opens and closes his mouth and nods. While he and the Daves laughed, his slim, tanned people infiltrated the parents, and also smiled, with their mouths only.

The boys then ran out onto the ground and had about 20 minutes in the sunshine, playing a modified kind of backyard everyone-gets-a-turn type cricket. Marcus was a little annoyed that he was not allowed to bowl fast. He also regretted that when he was batting he was stuck at the non-strike end while the smallest bowler came and went. The kid at the other end tonked the little fella for six, three times in a row.

After the resumption we stayed and watched until Australia declared at not many for heaps; then watched our bowlers tear in at the Pakistan openers for half an hour or so. That was enough - tired but happy we wandered out in search of our car.

My Dad's Irons

Which he has just given to me. Since I was little I have loved the elongated numerals. I haven't had a chance to get out and play with them yet.

Christmas roundup

The boys didn't get up until after 6am on Christmas Day - a record for recent years. They got into their stockings, upended them and dealt with the contents pretty quickly. By 8am they had already reverted to building pyramids from mah jongg tiles.

Marcus was given a couple of different electronic sets. One of them required someone to wrap about a quarter mile of copper wire around a cardboard toilet roll in a very precise way, to ultimately produce a "radio". The toilet roll needs to be grounded on a metal pipe or wire fence, and the electronics buff then has to squat beside the pipe/fence as the supplied earphone, attached to the toilet roll, has a very short wire. While the kids played elsewhere and their tinkling laughter drifted on the breeze, a succession of adults wrestled with coils of wire and sweated, angrily.

Pictured below is the other electronics set. The boys can just click the various components together in different configurations for instant circuit-based gratification.

The other main Christmas action: Marcus received a pair of tennis rackets, and Michael a scooter. We have been down to the local tennis court to try out both - my phenomenal footspeed seems to have deserted me since last time I played. Michael's scooter is one of those tiny fold-up Razor types with very thin solid wheels. We hoped he'd have hours of fun out on the deck with it, but it turns out the wheels stick between the planks.

Mum and Dad are here for Christmas, and seem to be enjoying drifiting about with us with no particular plans. They gave me a fantastic book, The Great War by Les Carlyon. It is roughly the size of a loaf of bread. I have just started it and will possibly reach the Armistice in time for Armistice Day in November.

Little family reunion

My big sister Jacki and Mum and Dad stayed with us this weekend. Jacki lives in northern NSW, and gave herself the week off from work and kids to visit Mum and Dad, then drive down with them to visit us.

We hadn't seen Jacki for over two years - she paid us a flying visit while this house was being built, when we were down at Kingston Beach. We are planning to return the visit later this year, and see for ourselves the semi-tropical wonderland where they live. Jacki, Tim, Malachy and Brinley live in Smiths Lake, but the town up the road where Jacki's little boy Malachy goes to school is called Pacific Palms - which for me has "concrete flamingo" written all over it. But I have now seen the home movie DVD - Pacific Palms Public School is so crowded with palms there is hardly room for the kids.

All three visitors and Marcus came along to the indoor soccer semi final on Friday night, rugged up to the maximum. The indoor centre is basically a draughty shed. For a while it looked like we might oblige them with a win, but we went down 4-3.

Yesterday we continued the theme, with Mum and Dad coming along to Marcus's soccer match, while Jacki explored South Hobart on foot (rugged up to the maximum). South Hobart under 7 also had a titanic struggle, coming back from three goals down for a 4-4 draw. Marcus was magnificent and a true sportsman - it warmed the cockles. Robert the coach spent a solid five to ten minutes just with Marcus after the game, going over all the good things he did. He took the praise graciously.

Last night my little sister Sally and husband Matt came over for dinner, and Mum and Dad and all their children were in the same spot for the first time since Michael was tiny. Of course it turned into a photofest. I think everyone had a good time - it was hard to stop laughing long enough for the photos. They were all taken by the others, so I will have to wait until I am sent some to post them here.

The boys don't see much of Sal and Matt and virtually nothing of Jacki, so it was terrific to see them going around giving everyone warm hugs at bedtime.

Today Mum, Dad and Jacki headed back north - Mum to spend the day looking at galleries and Dad and Jacki to go to the Hawthorn v North Melbourne game at York Park (rugged up to the maximum).

Just back from the Vegetable Coast

We have just arrived home after three days at my Mum and Dad's at Turners Beach. Until this morning it had rained with very little pause for about six days. I spent a lot of the time at Turners Beach with my nose in a book of jazz biographies - I now know a lot more about Bix Beiderbecke than I really need to. Also - Thelonious Monk's middle name is Sphere. Let me know if you need to know anything else.

Thanks to the rain all of Tasmania that we saw is looking like Ireland - even the bits that usually look like Nebraska in the Depression. Its emerald green as far as the eye can see. The North West coast around Mum and Dad's is a very fertile area, and even in winter it is obviously just pumping out produce like crazy.

We went to a craft show at the Forth Hall yesterday. Afterwards there was a break in the weather so we took a constitutional a few times around the Forth Football Ground, which is the Home of the Harvest Moon Magpies. (HM is a bulk produce company). Just through a chain link fence the Forth River slid past very quick, very black and completely silent. Quite eerie.

Mum and Dad are both very well. Dad arrived home from lawn bowls just after we arrived looking like an admiral in the Siberian Navy. White pants, white waterproof parka thing and a jaunty fleece version of the fur hat.

On the way home today we went past (as usual) Smith and Others Road. At Campbell town two of the kids playing in the park were called away by their parents: "Come on Phoenix! Come on Saxon!" Then we bumped into Marcus's friend Liam and his dad Tree. Honest.